Monkeys harassing women in Kenya

This is an interesting story. There is no mention of the sex of the monkeys involved. The fact that the monkeys are not afraid of women is probably good proof of the old hunter/gatherer theory that human males hunted other animals while human females tended camp and farmed. Such was the arrangement in many Native American cultures when they met Europeans.

Europeans actually thought that Native American men were "lazy" because in Europe, hunting was a leisure activity and not a means to provide meat protein. But New World cultures did not domesticate many animals, probably because there weren't many to domesticate. Dogs, of course - all cultures, actually, have domesticated dogs - and llamas in South America. The theory goes that humans inhabited the New World for only about 10,000 years, only 10% of the existence of our specific species. So Old World inhabitants had 90,000 extra years to domesticate cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and birds for their meat protein. And the majority of our culture was probably like that of our ancestors, so other animals have adapted. Human males are to be feared because they were the ones actively seeking animals to kill.

I don't think these monkeys are "sexually harassing" the women, but they're doing
something. They may just be communicating that they know it is a female human or something. It is amazing how intelligent the monkeys are. I wonder what would happen if a woman in this village/town/area just shot at a monkey. Maybe then the monkeys would know that the human females mean business too. I mean they're smart enough to communicate about poisoned food, and other things, so they seem to have
some kind of cognitive ability. Cognitive might be the wrong word. I hope there is more primate research going on. Maybe someday, we'll break the species barrier and manage to communicate with monkeys such as these. Lets teach the monkeys how to grow their own crops - or at least help out - so they won't be such a menace.

Feminist Politics, Digg

My colleague said his friend got to the first page of Digg with a brand new website. A website where a "woman moaned your IP address." I remember reading Digg at my ex's house and seeing an awful lot of articles on the latest gadget or internet method. Digg is apparently mostly male.

What re-awakened me to feminism back in March was the appropriating of Jill Filipovic's photos by people completely able to mask their identity on the web. I have other interests in life, so I don't have the patience to learn all I need to know to be completely anonymous. Not to mention that the marketing practices of GoDaddy.com offended me, so I switched at least one of my domains to a host that didn't conceal my identity. But really, I'd much rather reveal my information than pay any money to an organization that just ASSUMES I'll be enticed by a scantily clad woman touted as a "girl." I like to put my money where my mouth is.

It seems to me that men have been more likely to want to learn the ins and outs of the internet, whereas women want to network and share. It also seems that people that know the ins and outs of the internet and even just computers in general think that anyone that doesn't know what they have spent years studying must be a complete moron. Furthermore, they must want attention, any kind of attention. A couple of years ago, one of these men made the decision that since we were even the slightest bit identifiable in our Live Journals and personal blogs that we must want our school's website to link to them directly. When we objected, we were told, essentially, "too bad, I found you in this obscure directory, why didn't you mask it??" Well, in the end, when this person consulted with the advisor for this project, we got our way, because we were right. Not to mention that a friend of mine said that as an alumni, the issue was making him seriously reconsider making any future donations. And since Jill put her photos on a publicly accessable website, she MUST have wanted people to oggle her body and defame her character.

My ex reads Digg, I signed up, but remembered that it was a pretty biased community. Wisdom of the masses often isn't.

Here are some Alternet pieces I liked tonight

Dogs > Women
I responded to one anti-feminist as SalB.
Feminists got Barbie some jobs, maybe we can do the same for these girls?
What happened to make-believe toys? When I was 5, the thing was My Little Pony. I never wanted to be a horse. I doubt little boys want to be cars that turn into robots.

One Study on Modern people != Evolution

Leave it to ABC to assert that studying the reactions of some people equates to truth in evolution.

Though the HuffPost title is even more disgusting, at least it doesn't include some scantily clad model from the chest down

I wonder if these researchers have heard of HISTORY!

Back in the 19th century, pink was considered a masculine color, as a watered down version of red - the color of passion, war, etc, whereas blue was "dainty."

Evolution MY ASS. [note that you need to "log in" to see the pictures, but they're not important, feel free to help me find better sources of this information].

YesYesYesYes!!!

Holy shit, no way!

Back when I learned about how life may have formed on earth - probably from Bill Nye, that wonderful and funny science guy - I wondered when we'd be able to prove it. It was something about a sea right in amino acids and lightning strikes causing eletrification. One of these days, we'd be able to prove this theory to be true by doing it ourselves. Now, I wasn't going to do it myself - I hated labs. I mean, I love science, but I can't stand lab work. It is too damn specific for me. The microscopes never worked and my results were always just slightly off from what they should have been.

But here you have it. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years. Kiss my ass, creationists. Kiss my entire ass, then stfu.

Losers

There is a woman at my job that never got married or had kids. She is in her 50's and has a condition that requires her to walk with a cane. It seems she might live out the rest of her days alone, though I don't know anything about her social life. But she has a job, a house, and is involved in her field.

My ex had an uncle that lived with his mother and died in his 40's. Until I began dating him, my ex assumed that was his fate too. Now that I've dumped him, I wouldn't be surprised if that was his fate. For a while in there, though, he had a future. I mean, he still does, depending on the attitude he decides to have. But, the reason I dumped him was because he didn't seem to want to have that attitude.

To me, marriage is important, for both men and women. It is a partnership, a relationship, someone to be there for you. But anyone could tell you that my co-worker's life is infinitely better than my ex's uncle's life. Well, he is dead now, so he really doesn't have a life.

It seems that the basement dwelling, living at home loser is more likely to be a man than not. Sure, women do marry men that provide for them, and can be as lazy as any loser, maybe that explains the difference. But what about all the women that never marry? Like three of my aunts and my co-worker. They're all home-owning career women. One owns a lot of houses - 3 or 4. They're not losers.

Maybe it has to do with that whole chest-beating, shoulder-hunching mentality we all learn. Chest Beaters don't face animosity, or people telling them they're not good enough because of something they can't change. Shoulder Hunchers do, and for a lot of us, it gives us a desire to prove them wrong. But it also gives us a critical eye. Maybe "they" are right, we think. Maybe I am not good enough for an A. Maybe I should study harder. Maybe I should prove this jackass wrong and force him to give me an A even though I'm an unattractive girl and not one of his precious football players or wrestlers. That was my decision in the 9th grade with my joke of an Earth Sciences teacher. He was a creationist and a sexist. If I had it to do all over again, I would have gone right to the school board. I don't care if he was up for retirement. In my world, people don't get away with being an asshole when I walk in the room.

Does anyone know if there are statistics that compare the age and gender of people living with their parents? I have a feeling that more old unmarried men still live at home than old unmarried women. In other words, there are more male losers than female losers.

Women TWICE as likely to regret their choice of mate

TWICE - well, almost - 22% of women vs 12% of men regret their choice of spouse. My knee-jerk reaction is to say that these women (who do not get divorced - or at least haven't yet) are unhappy because men are assholes more often than not - sexists. For some reason, I can't seem to type what I mean.....

They came to find that the guy who "swept them off their feet" for their beauty or something trivial turns out to be a jerk once the woman gains some weight or ages naturally. Women seem to be more forgiving of aging and weight gain in men.

Anyway, let me know what your ideas are. There were also some other survey results, like how a third of people wished they'd saved more money or taken a different career path. HALF of all people wished they had traveled more before settling down [and having kids, may I add - the main thing that hampers travel]. Then, the article posted the most rediculous, arrogant quote I've seen in a while (btw, I tend not to read things from conservatives, even when quoted in liberal blogs)

Paul Whitlock, head of savings at Bradford & Bingley bank, which commissioned the survey of 1,250 men and women, said: "There's no reason why people can't set up their own business, travel more or be prepared for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that may arise."
-Source

Right, anyone can set up their own business. There is NO REASON we can't. NO REASONS, there is NO COMPETITION for these people, NONE, no GIANT CORPORATIONS that have already cornered the market. No, and having your own business is the EASIEST JOB IN THE WORLD. This idiot needs a reality check, big time. What a fucking retard. Ugh.

Ugh, Fuck you too

So I was reading some HuffPost Feed articles and saw the disgusting practice even otherwise progressive men [people, since gender is not always apparent from the posts] seem to still think is a-ok. That is giving men they don't like female names. I saw "Rude E Julie Annie" and "Karla Rove."

Would it be appropriate for me to respond to that comment asking why the person did that? What else could I say that would bet my point across without it sounding like whining but also not start a fight. I want it to be short and sweet. "Thanks for letting me know that you think being a woman is an insult"?

I'm sick of this shit.

Because it deserves its own post

Once again, it is in the news

Well, maybe if we didn't actively make girls ashamed of their outside interests, they would talk about those instead.

Maybe, if we didn't belittle girl's toys, they would feel more comfortable about them and talk about those things instead.

Maybe if we stopped berating movies that girls tend to like, aka "chick flicks", girls would talk about that instead of obsessing over relationships.

As long as Hello Kitty is used to shame adults, and silmultaneously marketed to girls, girls are going to stop talking about their outside interests.

So think about it, any time you shame something typical little girls enjoy, like Barbies, Care Bears, My Little Pony, even Bratz, you aid in the psychological destruction of women, ever so slightly. So stop it. Let them be proud of their toys, even when they grow out of them, like when they become adults.

There is an excellent Cat and Girl comic that mentions this, regarding Transformers. Adult men have grown out of Transformers, but they get to relish their memories. Where is the Rainbow Bright movie? I couldn't care less about transformers.

National Women's Day

Today, or rather, tomorrow (August 9) is National Women's Day in South Africa, a Public Holiday.

Today would be a good day for African women, if they have not already done so (my source was a BBC article over a year old) to ask to reform rape laws in South Africa. Despite the changes of the last two decades, rape laws still put the onus on the woman not just to prove she was raped by the defendant, but to prove that she didn't encourage the rape.

News flash: No rape victim can encourage rape, that is why it is called rape. Duh, period, end of story.

This just sounds like a very. bad. idea.

Maybe I've seen too many X-Files

We're Stressed Out

I've recently realized that the reason I was an overweight kid was from lack of activity, and that was from depression. I knew from an early age that something wasn't right in my head, and by the time I knew I was overweight, it was too late. Then again, maybe if I had joined a sport, maybe if I had stuck with all the good diet plans I started, maybe if I learned earlier that skipping breakfast was a bad idea, maybe if I learned to enjoy exercise earlier, maybe if gym teachers encouraged me instead of ignoring me. But I was a sad little girl, and I turned into a sad fat little girl, who fantasized about eating anything I wanted to eat. When I turned 16, I got my wish, and the summer that happened, I had actually lost weight, and I looked good starting my Junior year. But I slowly gained weight that year with everything that I ate, even as I attempted exercise.]

But what, exactly caused my mental illness? My mom said that she read a study that indicated that stress during pregnancy can lead to mental illness in the child. My mother, apparently, was very stressed out at work while she was pregnant with me. I've also read that children with low seratonin levels become depressed if they spend a large chunk of time around their peers as opposed to their mother [yes, mother, they didn't mention father]. Thats why I support generous maternity leave.

In America's struggle with obesity, few seem to be mentioning stress and mental illness. I'd argue that the generation growing up right now is the most stressed out, overworked, underinspired, overmedicated generation to date. And when most families need two incomes to survive, in an economy that doesn't allow for natural processes, is it a wonder that kids are fat? Is it any wonder that kids can't sleep?

UPDATE: Mom's anxiety or depression can affect brain development, study suggests

Nerd Boys are the Worst

In our society, boys learn that they are "better" than girls, and learn to beat their chests and be dominant while women learn that they are not as good as boys and hunch their shoulders*. Whites learn that they are "normal" people, and we are all expected to be attracted to the other sex. The media tells us which holidays normal people celebrate and what clothes normal people can wear. I'm female, white, raised Catholic, straight, and have been overweight all my life. I know the other side of the story. I don't know what it is like to be in the minority race, homosexual, or differently gendered, but I know what it is like to be oppressed and told that I am wrong. I know what it is like to be judged on things I can't control.

So what does this have to do with nerd boys? Nerd boys, by and large white, by my definition, whether attractive or overweight, were on the low end of the boy totem pole in childhood. Unlike the popular boys, they did not reap the rewards of the patriarchy, but instead of realizing the flaws, they bought in to it because they were men, and that made them better than women, even the women that rejected them and made fun of them. They wondered why they couldn't get a date as they pined after the cheerleaders, ignoring the just-as-imperfect nerd girls around them.

Nerd boys know oppression, and have the potential to be great allies to women, racial "minorities", homosexuals, and other non-priviledged groups. They also have the ability to become the most brutal sexist, racist, homophobic assholes society can create. Isolated from women during puberty, whether due to looks or obscure interests, they associate together, severely othering women and hypothesizing reprehensible thought patterns. For example:

I was rejected from the top Alliance guild on my server, Templar Knights, because I'm a woman. People liked my application, it was suggested that there was a spot for me - until the guildmaster came in and was like "No women, sorry". When I asked them not to judge me on things I can't control (and I was civil...I was very professional about it) they posted pictures of porn. The top guild of all time, Nihilium, also does not recruit women. Apparently we're a distraction. Well distract this, fuckers. I'm sick and fucking tired of women having to take responsibility for the actions of feckless men. What, are all men idiot children that can't control themselves? I don't believe it. It's not MY problem that hearing a woman's voice on vent makes you cream your pants. I'm perfectly capable of acting like an adult and interacting with other adults, it's not MY problem that some men supposedly lack these skills. If I'm wearing a short skirt, that doesn't turn men into rapists. Likewise, my presence doesn't turn men into gibbering idiots unable to push a button on their keyboard. They're retards all on their own.

I've reported them to Blizzard, hopefully there is some kind of mechanism for dealing with this.

-Entomologista

Furthermore, if men cannot play a game or perform adequately with women present, they cannot play or perform adequately at all.

*I was going somewhere with this analogy, I just never got back to it.

Little Girl's Toys are Embarassing

Thai police officers charged with certain offences are punished by being forced to wear a icon of little girls.

Effing Brilliant

To admit that poverty -- real poverty, not the kind born of laziness (I suspect this is kind of poor is a rare breed) -- exists in this country is to admit that this "great" country can fail...and a lot of people don't want to accept that, because gosh darn it, we're America!

-Sig

This is such an important concept, and one I've danced around, but Sig hits the nail on the head, and it is all so obvious now. We, as Americans, are in so much denial over our reality. It was only recently that I realized that I grew up in the lower class, and that those rich people in town were not upper class, but just middle class, maybe upper-middle. The one bathroom house and two-pairs-of-jeans-per-year childhood of mine surely wasn't as bad as it could have been, but those big screen TVs and spacious kitchens I helped my mom clean when she was subbing for my aunt L's cleaning service weren't necessarily luxuries of the very rich.

Frivolity

Two wrongs don't make a right, the war cry of the privileged. Where are my reparations for the millenia of exploited women? How much geneaology would I need to do to choose a last name that represented the women in my family? Is it enough that I won't change my name and will pass it on to at least one potential child? What about my mother's name? And what about her mother's name? And I could go on...

But no, two wrongs don't make a right. Killing Palestinians won't make up for the Holocaust, but maybe scrutiny of men in the same way they've scrutinized women might teach us a lesson. Or maybe it is just fivolous fun. Maybe it will give men the same appearance related complexes that we train girls to have.

So maybe that isn't right. No one should have appearance complexes, but I know that I do have fun with make-up. I have about 20 different colors of eye shadow that I could potentially use as lipstick or even mascara. And I use the colors - yellow on some days, brown, green, pink, or black on others. I did learn that blue and red don't work on me. On the mornings when I have extra time or patience, I can leave my apartment lookin' good. But, unlike many women, I was not socialized in a way that makes me feel compelled to paint up my face just to go out in public.

This weekend, on Alternet, this picture will represent the lead story. It is about a muckraking "journalist." I don't know much about the issue, and it isn't something that ignites my passion, maybe I'm just desensitized to BS in the media these days. Maybe I'm feeling stifled at work. Whatever, thats not the point. The point is why do I have to spend my weekend staring at this when I check Alternet?


- Source, at least for the weekend of 8/4/07

When I go to work, I might not do my eye makeup, but I work in a corporation, and the dress code is "business casual," so I always do foundation - one liquid as a base and the other powder, for finishing. Then there is this asshat, who gets to waltz around, in a suit and tie, no less, with a face like that. Jesus christ, has he ever heard of foundation at all? And what is up with that head? Gross. Have some self respect, spend a little time making yourself look better, jeez.

Hell yeah, it is mean-spirited. Maybe this guy writes about John Edwards's stylist because he is just jealous. Maybe I'm feeling petty today. Apparently, this guy gets to be petty for a living, though.

Thank Goodness, People are Saying It

After swallowing 30 years of small-government rhetoric, our infrastructure, once the pride of the developed world, is falling apart around us. We're reaping what we've sown.

Strib Editorial: Public Anger Will Follow

Howie Klein: With Republicans in charge, you get the inability for a society to act effectively and efficiently in the case of unforseen tragedies like Katrina or you get bridges with structural problems not being attended to.

On Wednesday, when I went to work out, I saw a news report about a part of America that most people barely know exists. There was a shot of a damagaed roadway - part of a broken bridge in Minneapolis. I thought, "thats not so bad," then the camera backed up, and I saw an entire bridge - a large bridge - on the ground, in the river, broken, with cars and trucks scattered about, overturned, and on top of each other. My eyes widened and I needed to know what bridge it was. Was it that bridge I used to cross from Hudson to Minnesota on I94 all the time? They mentioned Minneapolis and the Mississippi River. It wasn't until I actually saw the map and "35W" on the screen before I was sure. I keep forgetting that the river at the border at that point is the St. Croix, not the Mississippi.

So it wasn't a bridge that I crossed a lot, or one that my mom and sister might cross, but I knew people in the cities and Minnesota that could have been there, and I got nervous. When I got home, I send out a few messages and made a few posts to blogs, LJ, MySpace, and FaceBook to make sure that the people I with whom I am still in touch, along with their relatives and friends, were ok.

I didn't turn on the TV. I didn't want the innane commentary and commercials for getting it up or behemouth vehicles in my head. I just looked at the Google News results, picking my sources critically. Minnesota sources, the BBC, and, of course, Alternet. At one point during the evening, I noticed that the number one and two most read stories on the BBC News site were both about the bridge collapse. I checked Alternet to see if anyone was making appropriate political commentary, because it certainly is warrented at this point.

Bridges should not just collapse like that, not in the industrialized world. That they do is a sign of serious transportation department neglect, and who controls transportation departments? We do, through our elected officials who decide the funding for such departments. Proper funding allows proper payment and resources for departments. Higher paying jobs attract better applicants and we should have the best engineers working on our ever important highway system.

This isn't brain surgery or rocket science.

The multiple inspections missed something, and while we're all busy destroying and then fucking up the rebuilding of Iraq, our own infrastructure crumbles.

Anyway, I saw a Huffington Post feed article about the event and went to check out the commentary. The long and short of the little I saw were people arguing with Republican "Concern Trolls" reacting to people making knee jerk political commentary with bullshit responses like "wait until they fish the bodies out of the water."

Ugh, give me a fucking break. I'm 2,000 miles away, I can't do a damn thing to help anyone at this point. And what happens when they do fish the bodies out? "People died, blah blah blah, I don't want to admit that my ideologies support policies that have failed in every test and implementation because they actually do work to line my pockets and I don't give a shit about anyone but my own family." One of the trolls had the screen name of country club republican, but with a different spelling and combined as one word. What idiot is actually proud of that kind of detachment from the way of life for ordinary Americans?

Needless to say, I wasn't happy with what I read. By Thursday evening, I hadn't seen a major article or blog post on Alternet yet about the elephant in the room. But on Friday evening, people started to say it. Even evidence started to appear that contradicted the popular line. The bridge was just barely over the line in the last inspections. And the fabulous Republican government that suburban Minnesotans elected in 2002 erred on the side of saving money instead of saving lives. Of course, there weren't that many lives lost. Conservatives are probably going to get needlessly religious on us too.

But on Friday came what this city's fire chief called a miraculous turn of events: the prospect that relatively few lives were lost.
- Source

If you read the article, you'll see that it wasn't a damn miracle. The fact that so many people experienced the collapse without injury was due to many factors, mainly the bridge design and the status of the river on that particular day. Minneapolis and most of the drivers were lucky, just as I was lucky that my brain injury wasn't serious enough to permanently disable me.

But there is no guarantee that next time, and if we keep on the status quo [and I have no faith that our do-nothing-but-spend-money-on-war-and-iPhone society will do a damn thing] there will be a next time, we will be so lucky. We care more about Iraq's infrastructure than our own. How many more bridges need to collapse or aging pipes need to explode in America before we start to see some major capitol projects from the government in our own damn country? Maybe all the people that lose their jobs when we abolish the biggest and most bloated, un-healthy Health Insurance companies can get jobs in the improvement of our infrastructure.

Remember how The Jungle, one book, incited our nation, even our president to improve the quality of our national food supply? Now even flooded cities and kids dying from toothaches can't inspire change. How many more disasters and tragedies before we elect and pay taxes to a government that works?