Starting Over...

I feel like my experiences this past year have been little more than a desperate attempt to hang onto to who I was, who I have always been. And yet, little by little I felt it all slipping away, everything that I was so sure about before only made me confused and angry.

This past Sunday was the first time in as long as I can remember (at least the 4 years of college) that I intentionally didn't go to church.

I don't know if the 180 of my current lifestyle caused the degradation of my values or if somewhere along I just became too exhausted to keep up the fight. It was like I was begging for some kind of guidance, some kind of relief from my confusion and anger about my dad's strokes and what they did to my mom. My heart was broken and I needed something the quell the bitterness that consumed me. I was a virgin lost in a hook-up culture completely confused as to how to reconcile the two. I followed all the advice I was given by priests, parents. and friends to be happy and yet I was so sad.

It's interesting how quickly we become hypocrites. How fast and easily we can justify participating in something and believing things that we used to condemn.

Now, here I am just as lost as ever, about to move 1,000 miles away to pursue a job that I was sure was part of God's plan for me. Except, I am embarking on this journey with no faith left to give.

I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't chosen to defer TFA for a year.

Friendly Commentary

Seemingly, my friends would rather discuss my blogs on gchat then leave me comments and make me feel special. :o( But yesterday, I felt like there was some adequate and pertinent discussion that should make it onto this forum. So I am knowingly taking the risk of publishing private chats... I was never very good at secrets anyway.

Sarah: I agree with you (as you know) that society really does ask nothing of men. It asks, "what happened to our precious flowers?" as if we just one day decided to all be sluts. At the same time as it laments, it tells us that if we don't like the way the new paradigm is, we have to change ourselves as if it was our fault that it resulted in the way it did.

Me: EXACTLY

Sarah: and essentially, "changing" means either reverting back to being the second sex, or accepting our whoredom and shutting up about how romance is dead. some choice. which is how people like you and me who don't want to be the second sex, but can't sustain ourselves emotionally in this system of uncaring hook-ups, end up falling through the cracks and feeling utterly misunderstood

me: sigh. this is why i love you

Sarah: indeed, and this is why our greatest love affairs have been with each other. I don't know if that's pathetic, but at least it's dignified.

me: hahahaha. so true

And another...
Carrie: i read your article too. it depressed me.

me: it pissed me off

Carrie: i refuse to believe that i can't have it all. and i'm like who are these women? i have no friends like that. at least who think they can't have both. they might not want both now, but they all want both eventually.

Carrie: what an annoying article for valentine's day...

So there it is...

To Hell With Love?

I know that it has been exactly a month since I updated this thing, and I do apologize. I suppose I was waiting for something to particularly incense me, and that something happened today.

I was skimming Dawn Eden's blog (because we all know I am borderline obsessed with her) and saw a small reference to a recent Washington Post Article (aptly published on February 14th) called "Love's Labor's Lost."

This article details the hesitancy of women to "fall in love" or "pursue romance" in favor of what Lloyd Kolbe, a health education professor at Indiana University-Bloomington, says is the "purposely uncaring" nature of hooking up.

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Yes Mr. Kolbe, women WANT to shrug off the intimacy and caring nature of a relationship for one night stands. We LIKE feeling like we have to be pawns in a huge game with horrible odds of winning.

Instead, I would challenge you to think about the hypocrisy of today's 20 something culture. Of course the women interviewed in this article are afraid to fall in love.

Let's look at both sides of the spectrum. First, we have the Dawn Eden supporters. The women who truly want to be chaste. Believe me, that conversation with Mr. "Sex is one of the key factors in determining relationship compatibility" is incredibly awkward and almost always assures that you won't be getting a phone call for a second date. *News flash* today's culture requires the hookup before the THOUGHT of a relationship. Personal example: I recently asked my friends their opinion on when the appropriate time is to ask where a dating relationship is going. What is consensus of the world? "A hook-up, quasi relationship status must last a MONTH before the topic can be broached. Anything less would be smothering... just have fun hooking up and if it progresses further, great." And you wonder why women are afraid of love. They have to give all of themselves before they can even be considered a candidate for the program.

Ok, so you're not subscribing to the chastity mantra. Perhaps you are fine with the idea of casual sex. That doesn't mean that you cannot see a time and place for a romantic relationship as well. The "sexual freedom" mantra of radical 70's feminism has made it nearly impossible for women to be sexual creatures and still want more. It's an all or nothing world. You are either going to have sex like a man with no ties, deriving power and confidence from your exploits or you are being used and abused. There is no happy medium.

I just cannot believe this article would imply that it is solely women's hesitancy to fall in love that is causing us to not know how to have relationships, to not know how to develop the fundamental pillars of caring for other people. No, it is the virgin/slut dichotomy that we are faced with everyday. It is the death of chivalry and the degradation of EXPECTED masculine respect for women.

It's not LOVE that confuses us. It's everything else surrounding love that tortures us. It is like love is at the center of a labrynth and we are all stuck at different dead ends with no map in sight.

Pro-Life, or something like it.

Wow. It seems like the abortion issue, usually kept at bay as being "a bit too taboo for discussion at dinner parties" came crawling out of the woodwork this weekend and today just in time for the 34th anniversary of Roe v Wade (not planned at all by activist groups or the like... I am sure...)

First, my roommate tells me over breakfast how she had finally found an article that perfectly articulated her feelings on abortion. (See the Washington Post citation below). As there is probably not enough blogging time or space to comment on the article content right now, lets just say that my roommate and I have 2 "issues that we have agreed we cannot civilly discuss:" Abortion/Emergency Contraception and Hillary Clinton... but that will have to be saved for another blog.

Anyway, then, as I was sitting at my desk drinking my mint tea, I realized that the mug I grabbed in my half-awake state this morning had a child's drawing and "Choose Life!" splayed in Comic Sans font. How appropriate considering the March for Life was occuring as I sat at my desk printing out form letters (no vacation time...sad face).

How fitting also, that on this sad anniversary of the legalization of abortion in the US, should the press choose to consider newly-announced presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's record on the issue. For once, I took the time to read one of the incessant "JW in the News" emails that my boss sends me. And for once, I actually agree with my place of employment on something (see the shout out to Judicial Watch in the Lucas article... we've done a lot of work in the Clinton Presidential Library). How ironic would it be if abortion were a breaking issue in the 2008 campaigns?

Then, to end my day, the ad that so beautifull adorns this entry was displayed in my metro car. I was so excited I took a picture on my camera phone. I really did. Lets wake up America. We're running out of excuses to default on our morality.

Lucas, Fred. "Sen. Clinton's Abortion Record May Haunt '08 Campaign." Cybercast News Service. 22 Jan. 2007. Available WWW: cnsnews.com.

Murry, Shailagh. "Democrats Seek to Avert Abortion Clashes." The Washington Post. 21 Jan. 2007, Pp. A05. Available WWW: washingtonpost.com.

Loose Ends

I must apologize for the lapse in posts. Anyway, my roommate and I were watching Sliding Doors the other night and I found this quote particularly amusing:

Gerry, I'm a woman! We don't say what we WANT! But we reserve the right to get
pissed off if we don't get it. That's what makes us so fascinating! And not a
little bit scary. (Lydia)

We have a new blogger (yay!) whom we will hopefully be hearing from soon. Check Kelly out on her personal blog On My Home Planet under "The Unlikely Feminist Recommends."

The Less Apparent Effects of Conflict

"It's a campaign to drain the country," said Aviad Najeed, a surgeon at al-Jarrah. "A very, very well-organized one. We don't know who's behind it."

Iraq's Woes Are Adding Major Risks to Childbirth

Doctors being kidnapped and killed, women afraid to go to the hospital in the middle of the night because of curfews, fetal monitors and ultrasound machinery and technology suddenly replaced with "a trumpetlike device held over the womb..."

While the world hears statistics of those slain in the Iraqi strife, it is necessary to realize there is a silent war against the voiceless and the women struggling to give them life.

The Birth and Revival

Recent happenings have awakened my desires to send my sentiments into the world. Perhaps it was the Forbes article that came out a few months ago warning men not to marry career women. Maybe it was a revisit to my senior thesis on women and competition in the workplace (the unexpected result of Netflixing the Devil Wears Prada). Perhaps it was the yearning for a daily blog while knowing that the angsty voice of my once cherished livejournal has become so passe. But the most direct catalyst for the birth of this blog and the revival of my creative voice is directly related to my new found obsession with Dawn Eden whom I met a few weeks ago when she presented her book The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On to my young adult group at St. Stephens.

In Eden's book, she frequently sites the "Sex and the City" mentality and it's destructive tendencies on our bodies and emotions (not to mention our souls).

Suddenly, I was reminded of those old diametric forces in my belief system that had screamed "hypocrite" at me in my women's studies classes. There it was. That "all or nothing" mentality. It's Bell Hooks' writing jumping off the page insisting that anyone who is against abortion is against women. It's the shame in feeling uncomfortable towards topics such as pornography and erotica, after all, to not embrace them is to not embrace the liberation of women! It's the assumption that conservatism (especially social) and feminism are enemies.

In my reading of the book Eden bravely confronts these conflicts. Granted, it's not the purpose of her book to explore the dangers of the pigeonholed feminism, but by confronting one aspect of it (that being sexuality) she actually, in my mind, makes a stand for the unlikely feminist.

Ok, perhaps its a spurious correlation, and I would NEVER want to put words into this wonderful author's mouth. But in MY head, Eden is a warrior for the idea that certain aspects of modern feminism and its militant "all or nothing attitude" actually hurt women.

So anyway, welcome to this new project. Hopefully, it will turn into something great. Because being pro-women isn't just politics and theory. It's part of every decision we make everyday.