I like thumping the snowman at work and seeing my colleague's faces.
I don't expect my pleasure to last long. We had some glittery letters spelling NOEL a couple of years ago, but they got taken away because I kept hiding the E and the L.
I never once tried to demonstrate that my daughter's father was an unfit father.
I tried to demonstrate that he had issues that he needed to address which were impacting on her.
I tried to demonstrate that if he didn't wish to address his issues, then contact needed to take place in a controlled environment to ensure her well being.
Demonstrating that he was an unfit father, well, he did that all on his own.
I wanted the exact opposite for her and for me.
It wasn't a bundle of laughs working by night and parenting a crushed child by day for years.
Maybe equal legal rights isn't the whole issue, Molly.
Regardless of legal rights, judges often favour mothers as primary care givers. There's a gender bias within the law, just as there are racial and class biases.
There are other psychological issues. If a mother is awarded the primary care role and then inhibits access, it's a bit tricky slapping a penal order on her because of the disruption and distress that it would cause the child(ren).
It less that the law needs to be changed, as the application of the law and the practicalities of enforcing the law.
I wonder if cause and correlation are getting muddled up here.
Is feminism the cause of the family unit breaking down?
Perhaps inequality is the cause of the family unit breaking down if women started to challenge traditional family roles, dynamics and behaviour.
Maybe feminism correlates with the movement to challenge the inequalities of the family unit, given its a movement to challenge inequalities.
If one of those inequalities is that women are still viewed in law as being the natural primary carers of children, then feminism, the movement for equal rights for women, is surely the obvious solution to redressing the balance when it comes to gender discrimination within parental rights.
I've said it already, one of the problems is people viewing feminism as a threat and that they might lose out.
I'm sorry, but I think men are being a bit dull if they can't think up an effective way of arguing from a feminist perspective to achieve equal rights for themselves.
Treating people equally is not the same as treating everyone the same.
If I make everyone a size 12 frock, very few people will have a suitable item of clothing. I've treated everyone the same, but to treat everyone equally I would have to make everyone an item of clothing which suits their individual needs.
One issue with treating everyone equally is that it takes more time and effort. Another is that some people think they might lose out and can't see the advantages for themselves.
The same/equal argument works similarly with cat calling - it doesn't suit some people. It tends to not to suit a lot of women for a number of reasons and the social ramifications are broad.
If it tends to suit some men, it doesn't mean it's socially acceptable to treat everyone the same.
The trouble is, when you're yelling at randomers, there's not much scope for ascertaining the recipient's individual needs, in which case it's perhaps best to keep your gob shut.
A couple from the NCT classes my daughter and I attended made a pate from the placenta.
I think they were hoping for foie gras, but ended up with Tesco Value Range pate.
The best placenta story I heard was from our NCT teacher who is a personal friend. Apparently, one woman kept the placentas of all three of her children in the freezer, for some reason, not wanting to part with them.
Her property was broken into one night and the thieves got away with the entire contents of her chest freezer...
How can women be saying they are victims if they need feminism, if men (and all people) have the right to equality, too?
If feminism is the political movement for equal rights for women and you can't have equal rights for women without having equal rights for everybody else, then feminism is the political movement for equal rights for everybody.
If needing feminism is saying that women are victims, then it's saying that everybody is a victim, otherwise it would be unequal.
One could argue that everybody is a victim of inequality, and that maybe true in different ways for different people, but maybe suppressive techniques such as name calling isn't really the best way forward to reduce oppression, eh?
Well, I should have read more of the thread before posting, but I took a few days to think it over, too.
And then I had my post all written and waiting and no signal.
I did kinda wonder at the strangeness of a security guard in a restroom, but I also wonder at the strangeness of American culture and thought the two things might be linked in some way.
As a small child I was a watcher and a thinker. I would see things I thought were hypocritical, contradictory, illogical, non-sensical (but, hey, I went to a Catholic school.) Despite a child's tendency to internalise, I would sometimes, or perhaps often think that adults were basically unhinged. For the most part I was too shy to say anything, or challenge the stuff I saw going on around me.
I'm still fundamentally shy, but I have personally developed since then. I'm still an observer and thinker. I still see contradictory, illogical and non-sensical things.
The difference is, I now open my gob and let it all fall out.
The result is I've become a bit militant in an area of my life. I've surprised myself. I've grown and changed a lot.
But the potential has always been there. The seeds were sown a long time ago.
We do change. I'm a great advocate of change. But we also stay the same. These things aren't mutually exclusive.
Sensible rules I would stick to like glue, say, thou shallt not swap the blood type labels aroundeth.
Stupid rules are there to be broken, say, thou shallt not have access to the numerical records thouest needs for thy legal documents because I am the Almighty; thou shallt have a feel and recordeth a guess.
And then there's the contradictory rules, say, thou shallt not carry thy mobile phone on thy person in case thy dropeth a text, followed by thou must carryeth thy mobile phone at all times for security of thine own person.
Y'know, I think I might be able to work out for myself how to behave as long as God provides the information I need to maketh sensible choices.
jac_the_gripper Forum Posts (5,363)
WHICHOO!
RE: R.I.P. Jim Stobie
Welcome to the forums, Joe.I had to Google Jim and now I have, I'm regretting my current grandma-like lack of technology and that I can't watch Jim's films.
I'll stow that away for another day, thankyou.