#which was more about public order than feminism in the end he just decided to be a pos about it

[lanterne]

also not to be mean to olympe de gouges but the convention making divorce legal was more of a gain for women than putting rich women in power as she wanted

[arcticdementor]

I’ll be transcribing select podcasts from now on. The one I recently did with Misha Saul had a lot of great insights, so I thought it was a good place to start.

It’s been lightly edited to make it more clear and legible, and sometimes for grammar, while maintaining the general ideas.

…

Richard has hit the spotlight in a big way over the last year – he’s been on Tucker Carlson and is increasingly known for his iconoclastic style. His podcast is excellent, and his essay drawing out the mechanism for how Wokeism grew out of the Civil Rights Act in the US has made waves.

This conversation picks up on a strand that I’ve been thinking a lot about. Diana Fleischman in my conversation with her said: Institutions are increasingly reflecting the values of middle-aged women. Tyler Cowen often writes about the feminization of society at Marginal Revolution. No one, as far as I’m aware, has really buttoned down what that means and what it looks like.

I don’t think that’s quite what we do here.

It’s a pretty free-flowing exploratory conversation about what we might call the feminization of society. What do we mean when we talk about it? Where can we see it? What are its benefits and derangements? We have a crack at the subject, anyway. Think of this as an experiment in chatting through some observations, live.

…

Richard: Sure. This is going to be a very American-centric analysis because it goes back to American history and American law but a lot of Americans don’t actually know this story. A lot of liberals have this idea of the Civil Rights Act… there used to be racism, they still think there is racism, but there used to be official state-sanctioned racism, Jim Crow, private businesses would discriminate against blacks and women to a lesser extent, or the same extent in some people’s minds. Then you pass the law of the Civil Rights Act and things got better. And a lot of Republican politicians, those doing the most superficial kind of analysis, don’t have much of a different story than that. They just think that “whatever, now the wokeness has come and now maybe it’s something a different and that’s a problem.” And they’ll throw in “oh and by the way, those who opposed the civil rights were Democrats." They try and claim the mantle for the civil rights movement for the Republicans, which is nonsense because a lot of those people left and became Republicans specifically over that issue, and a lot of their voters left the party. So it’s really a nonsense narrative they try and throw back at them.

It says you can’t discriminate in government and you can’t discriminate in private business. And most people at the time thought that basically meant you couldn’t put up a sign that says no black people. Even the gender thing they say was added as a joke actually. Somebody was trying to kill the bill, they didn’t want the racial equality parts. They said, “it would be so absurd to have a society where you didn’t discriminate based on sex” so they put sex in there hoping to kill the bill. And it ended up passing. I’m not 100% sure, I was told this by a law professor at the University of Chicago, so it’s not like I read it on Twitter somewhere. It’s credible though I haven’t looked into it.

Misha: American politics is basically a rerun of the producers, like hilarious accidents that keep escalating forever.

Richard: Right. So what does not discriminating mean? It wasn’t long after that that the phrase affirmative action comes along. It comes along in a series of executive orders. Government contractors first under Kennedy and then LBJ in the 1960s. Under Nixon for the entire federal government. Basically it said that the government would have to keep racial and gender statistics and make sure there weren’t any disparities between groups. You also had development of these other legal doctrines developed from the Civil Rights Act which includes a hostile work environment, sexual harassment law, stuff like that.

And lots of people have raised questions about free speech: If I think men and women are different and I’m in a private business and I want to say that, that’s of questionable legality… mainstream conservative views on things. They went after a lot of companies for this. There were some major corporations, I think Mitsubishi was one, they ended up paying a lot of money to the government, that made examples out of certain places.

Another doctrine, which was invented by a combination of the courts and executive agencies, is disparate impact. So if you give standardized tests, Grigg vs. Duke Power Company, this was a case early after the Civil Rights Act. It said if you give an IQ test and it has a disparate impact between groups… you can still use it but it’s a little complicated, it has to be related to the work, but it becomes harder. Everything you do that has a racial disparate impact, and by the way everything in the world has a racial disparate impact, if you find something that doesn’t I’ll be surprised, they can come after you for it either through the government directly coming after you or through people suing you.

So what happened? What happened starting in the 1960s is you see the growth of this human resources industry. You can just look at the chart of the number of human resource workers in the US going through the roof. Now if you had just said quotas, hire this many blacks, this many women, that would have been simple. You wouldn’t need a full-time bureaucracy to do that. The fact that it was vague and there were potentially substantial penalties sort of put business on edge. You needed a full-time bureaucratic class to interpret the laws and what was going on.

So the DEI industry is derived off of the rise of human resources. So you know, the way people see woke institutions today, “well they’re just deciding to be woke, there’s just a class of people deciding to take the leftwing issue on anything related to race and gender,” and some of that is obviously right. But you’re ignoring that basically legally you’re only allowed to be on one side of the culture wars. You’re not really allowed to say… if you’re a government contractor you can’t say “I don’t want to count my employees by race or gender. I don’t want to collect that data. I don’t want to take affirmative action to help black people or women out, I believe in a colorblind policy.” Mainstream conservative views, conservatives believe this stuff, it’s not legal. Conservatism is illegal for a lot of institutions. Not everything is covered but huge portions: the federal government, government contractors, subcontractors, it covers a huge portion of the private and public sectors.

And then it filters down, you have these big corporations and other people sort of follow them. And then you have these norms that apply to everyone. Courts will look at best practices, saying “Oh, discrimination is wrong, what are the best practices in the industry? What are people doing to fight discrimination?” And if that’s Robin DiAngelo at one point in time, you start to worry if you don’t have Robin DiAngelo coming to give speeches you might get in trouble. Not specifically Robin DiAngelo, but you get the idea. You have these intellectual fads that come and go and everyone’s jumping on the same train because it’s necessary.

…

But anyway, let’s get back to the feminization issue. I think this is a discussion that can easily devolve into two cranks kind of sounding conspiratorial and bitter. The one place outside this conversation that’s been steadily beating the drum of this thing has been Tyler Cowen on his blog Marginal Revolution. I think we can generally be quite normatively neutral around this trend, it’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but if you go to Marginal Revolution and search “feminization,” you notice that it does pop up quite periodically.

For example, one thing that Tyler Cowen recently said, and I’ll quote: “one thing the contemporary world definitely has not come to terms with is how much a highly feminized culture will be rather strongly enforcing new forms of discrimination, albeit cloaked under different and rhetorically emancipatory principles.” I think last year or the year before Tyler Cowen said “the feminization of our culture is for me, trend #1,” noting that basically all the top ten selling books had female protagonists and seven were authored by women. And I think you can go through different professions, education and other institutions, over the past 50 years, and I guess it’s not surprising since the kind of increased participation of women in the workforce and democratic process, you’d kind of expect our cultural and institutions to change. But I guess this is what I wanted to spend today talking about, when you kind of took the piss out of DiAngelo and just said “this is just estrogen and mental illness.” Let’s talk about what has happened in our culture, what does feminization mean?

Richard: Well, I think it means a lot. It’s a broad topic. I think what Cowen is referring to is, you have men and women, and men and women deal with conflict and challenges in different ways. We as a society are leaning more towards doing things in the feminized way rather than a more masculine way. Robin DiAngelo is just a great example of this. I mentioned the human resources industry. I also have a chart in my Substack that shows the changing demographics over time, shows something like 60-70% female. So this idea that you have problems with people and then you talk to them about it and you talk to them not for say, an instrumental purpose, “we’re going to work something out,” but talking is a reward in and of itself. You need something, you need to re-establish the relationship, you need to feel heard, feel validated. This is a very feminine thing.

So you have these protestors at universities, and it’s funny because you look at identity politics in the past, anti-colonization or something. It’s just “we want to get the occupiers out of our country, we want to fight them, we want to have our own society” it’s a kind of masculine idea. And you now have these sort of identity politics where it’s like “hire more diversity counselors and have them talk to the people who are mean to us forever.” It’s a very strange thing compared to what identity politics was 30, 40, 50 years ago. It’s a sort of nationalism, a tribalism, an us vs. them that’s there in every society. But it’s morphed into something different.

So DiAngelo, the rise of human resources, even things like how we understand cost-benefit analysis. I think Safetysim is a more female way of looking at things. Bryan Caplan in his book The Myth of the Rational Voters has a few predictors of thinking more like an economist, and one of them is being male rather than female.

…

Richard: Well, if you go to the places where it’s most purely about consumer preferences, just walk though the girls section in the toy store… now they announce there’s no girls section or boys section, but they’ll have one isle that’s all cars and one isle that's all dolls. I was at Target not long ago just looking at the dolls and the Barbies, now they’re in different colors, black, brown, and they have careers, doctor Barbie, astronaut Barbie. I didn’t see a fat Barbie, I didn’t see a trans Barbie, I didn’t see a bald-headed Barbie, I didn’t see a tattooed Barbie…

Misha: Not now, but every joke becomes a reality.

…

Richard: I think things like anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, these things are higher in women. Neuroticism, I think these things are clearly… everyone sort of understands that. Especially the way we talk about things like mental health. Simone Biles… the idea that she quit right before a match, a meeting? A game? Whatever they call it?

Misha: An Olympics thing? A sports thing? We’re the wrong guys here. And she says she doesn’t want to do it anymore?

Richard: Anyway, there’s some kind of competition which she quit. And it’s not about her specifically, it’s about the media reaction which is that this is more heroic than if she would have won.

Misha: The quote in The New Yorker, I think it is, “her radical courage.” It’s deranged! To your point, even the best have blowups and absolutely no judgment, whatever. It’s the cultural reaction to it that is totally hilarious and idiotic.

Richard: Even stuff like therapy, the rise of mental health discourse. If you watch some normal TV shows, it’s amazing how everyone has a therapist. It’s seen as everyone has these problems they gotta work through, and the idea of it is that everyone is walking around damaged. I’m not going to say that’s normal for males or females. But we are tilting towards… it’s closer to the female norm than the male norm. There’s a minority of women who are very anxious and go through life feeling a lot of pain, and even for all our so-called gender equality, there’s still an idea that it’s much more socially acceptable for women to complain about things; for women to cry about things is much more socially acceptable than men.

So women tend to have these negative emotions at higher rates and it’s more acceptable for them to express negative emotions, so what happens is female concerns are overrepresented in the things we talk about. Not even all female concerns, I mean it’s very specific. Elizabeth Bruenig, this is a Washington Post writer for those who don’t pay attention, I think she just wrote some article that said “I became a mom at a young age and this made me happy,” that was the whole article. And every person on Twitter lost their mind and said it’s white supremacy or something. So it’s not the women like Elizabeth Bruenig, though she is a columnist and has a voice, she’s not representative of her class. It tends to be single, urbanized, less connected to family or marriage or a committed relationship. Those people talk the most and they tend to go into journalism and academia. They tend to have a disproportionate influence. This isn’t just women who have influence, but is true of human beings in general and who ends up mattering and having influence. The prominence we give to mental health and the way we talk about it are both signs of feminization.

…

Richard: To go back to what you said about whether it’s an American thing, I don't have much experience traveling overseas. I did a semester abroad in Russia when I was an undergrad, that was about 10 years ago, around 2008-2009.

Misha: That’s awesome, where did you go in Russia?

Richard: St. Petersburg.

Misha: Cool! How’s your Russian?

Richard: Not very good. I have a minor in it but it’s been 12 years so I barely know anything.

So I was there, and I saw Tyler Cowen say this: the gender dimorphism is very high there. I didn’t see any women with short hair. I didn't see any women with sweatpants or anything like that. I traveled a bit in Europe and I think it’s the same way. ‘Letting yourself go’ as a woman is more of an American thing. I don’t know if it’s an Anglo thing, you can tell me about Australia, but it’s sort of like… some women have gotten in their heads the idea that to appeal to a man is somehow sexist or wrong. But it’s human nature, men want to appeal to women and women want to appeal to men.

Misha: Yeah, but you can have an argument that’s regressive and that’s reflective of traditionalist values, that’s basically behind rather than an alternative. I know they look at the anglosphere and see everyone as totally deranged. I can’t even say it on here but the things they say about this whole dynamic is pretty funny. How do you think about that? Maybe it’s just a function of liberation, that you don’t need to be on parade all the time.

Richard: Why is that liberation? You could say someone being obese is liberation, why do they feel like they have to watch their weight? Not caring about how you look, this is a form of liberation.

Misha: You joke, but the US is way heavier than it was 50 years ago. You are seeing all these big is beautiful schtick kind of everywhere, you know what I mean? I kind of get the everyday person rolls their eye at this, but it seems to be a meaningful…

Richard: Do an experiment. Find a woke woman, tell her “you’ve put on a few pounds recently.” Say it in the nicest way possible, and see if she takes it as an insult. The things we say, “big is beautiful,” but try it sometime. Tell someone “I’m a liberal, I don’t have any judgement on these things.” It doesn’t work. There’s what we’re supposed to say and the reality.

…

Richard: Yeah, that’s some of it, and to go back to civil rights law, some of these things have been forcibly integrated. Some big golf course, something related to the PGA… they had men’s only golf and some big lawsuit. I think that’s right… Harvard within the last few years got rid of single gender fraternities and sororities, I don’t know if they went after the sororities too but they at least went after the fraternities. You think about why you’d need a male only space, or an all female space, and the justification would be “men and women are different, I can speak and talk in a way with other men that I can’t in a room with all women,” and that idea of fundamental differences is verboten, it’s something you’re not allowed to say or think.

You do get some all female spaces. It’s sort of like you could have an all black club but not all white club; because that’s the preference of the protected group, people will justify it somehow. They’ll say “blacks or women face unique challenges” not because they’re biologically different but because they’re facing unique challenges due to sexism or whatever. Sometimes they won’t deny the biological, but basically you don’t have to think too much about it, because they’re the “good people,” women and minorities.

And if you’re a man, now you’re talking about differences. And you’re implying those differences in some way favor the men. It’s funny, Daily Caller is a conservative website and they went to some member of the Congressional Black Caucus, a Democrat, and asked him “why do you think that men are arrested for crimes more than women?” Now the joke is that the Congressional Black Caucus says that it’s racism if blacks are arrested more for crimes than white people. And the Congressional Black Caucus, one of the guys was like “oh of course, because men are more violent.” It was nothing. So they sort of got him. There’s not a consistency. Sometimes you can believe in differences, sometimes you can’t. It’s not about if you believe in differences or not, it’s about if you’re flattering the group that needs to be flattered or insulting the group that needs to be insulted.

…

Misha: Just leave the crusty old dudes alone! There’s like 50 female gyms down the road from that same club and no one cares. But this is literally front-page news. No one can get enough of these crusty old dudes getting together for lunch.

Richard: The thing is men don’t want to do identity politics against women. You do have these guys online, men’s rights activists…

Misha: They’re losers! Who wants to be those guys?

Richard: Right. So there’s got to be a way to pushback, while not falling into the “we’re just like women, we’re going to have a fight on equal terms.” I mean if you do do that, you end up with the Taliban. Men will win, if you fight on equal terms with women… Trust me, it’s not going to be much of a fight. You don’t want to go in that direction.

…

Misha: I meant more, does being an immigrant allow you to speak truth to power? People can’t accuse you of being some rich, boat-shoe wearing fancy-boy who is speaking from a place of power in the US. Do you know what I mean?

Richard: Maybe. Let’s say there was a blond-haired blue eye guy who was just like me.

Misha: And you’re light haired and light eyed by the way!

Richard: I’m light eyed and dark haired. But yeah, I think it would be more difficult. I do think that’s certainly the case. There’s a guy named Madison Cawthorn, a young Republican, he looks like an SS officer. But he’s in a wheelchair, he had an accident, so it’s sort of strange that way. But he’s a typical dumb Republican who says dumb things. The media freaks out at him, it’s the way he looks. The wheelchair thing makes it a little strange. From what I can tell he’s not different from any Republican in Congress, just different in the way he looks.

Misha: So this is one of my favorite things about you. And whoever’s outraged at this point would have switched off or stopped listening already, but you’ll kind of point to the demographics or insane institutions in the US and you have this whole wokeness piece, you’re a pretty loud critic of that. But then you look at the Republicans and go “these idiots are totally worse. These idiots couldn’t organize a root in a brothel.” What’s going on there? To go in a different direction, what is with the state of conservatism in the US?

Richard: This is something I actually want to write about. There’s a narrow problem which is that they have never done the things I recommend they do, which is look at civil rights law and honestly face what’s happening. But then there’s a broader question as to why they think about this stuff and why they never intend to do anything about it. So that’s sort of a broader question.

The liberals are ideologically motivated. You look at which sources of news and information liberals trust more, and it’s usually the written word. The New York Times, Washington Post, it’s these other publications. The base driving the Democratic party and the left in the US is journalism and academia. For the right it’s talk radio and TV. Talk radio and TV is not ideological, it has a short attention span. It likes to fight, it likes the reality TV side of things. Sometimes it can win, it can win over the majority of the public because it’s good at showmanship and fighting.

And you have these groups that are issue focused, the gun people and anti-abortion people. These people do well, they’re organized and get the bills passed that they want. But in general, I think conservatism is more of a reaction to an ideological movement and liberalism is the ideological movement.

[things2mustdo]

Patriarchy has been extremely successful, despite its recent vilification. Most cultures worldwide are patriarchal – to find examples of successful matriarchal societies you either have to turn to ancient history, remote outskirts of the world or feminist fiction. However, this hasn’t stopped the feminist collective from queefing out books and even a hashtag hailing the end of patriarchy in a textbook example of incestuous amplification.

What patriarchy, after its apparent downfall, will be replaced with remains to be seen. Hamsterizations aside, there is surprisingly little data available about what life would be like in a society made up of only men or only women. An enterprising social scientist might want to perform an experiment where groups of men and groups of women are left to their own devices, having to work together to survive against the elements and build a civilization from scratch. However, this scientist would have a very hard time convincing ethical review boards that the inevitable suffering of his participants would weight up against the value of the data.

Luckily, reality television is not bound by ethical constraints and once in a while, in its never ending quest for viewer ratings, reality TV accidentally performs a very interesting experiment that social scientists would never be allowed to do.

Quite a few years ago, I had the pleasure of watching the Dutch version of Survivor (Expeditie Robinson) with my feminist roommate. That particular season would have two islands, one populated by men and one populated by women. My roommate had been promoting that particular series to me and the other students in the house for weeks because it would show us, according to her, what a society run by women – free from the evils of patriarchy – would be like.

And it did. Oh it did.

Here is what happened: initially both groups were dropped on their respective islands, given some supplies to get started and left to fend for themselves. In both groups there was some initial squabbling as people tried to figure out a local hierarchy. The men pretty much did whatever they felt was necessary – there was no leader giving orders. Men who felt like hunting, foraging or fishing did so. Another guy decided he was fed up with sitting on sand and started making benches. Others built a hut that gradually grew and evolved. Another guy cooked every night. Within days a neat little civilization was thriving, each day being slightly more prosperous than the previous one.

The women settled into a routine as well. The hung up a clothesline to dry their towels, then proceeded to sunbathe and squabble. Because unlike men, women were unable to do anything without consensus of the whole group. And because it was a group of at least a dozen women, consensus was never reached. During the next few episodes, the women ate all their initial supplies, got drenched by tropical storms several times, were eaten alive by sand fleas and were generally miserable. The men on the other hand, were quite content. There were disagreements of course, but they were generally resolved.

Eventually, the people running the program decided something had to change. In order to help the women out, three men would be selected to go to their island. In return, three women would take their place at the men’s island. The look on my feminist roommates face during this episode was priceless.

Initially, the three men selected for the women’s island were ecstatic, for obvious reason. But then they arrived at the island and were greeted by the women.

‘Where is your hut?’, they asked.

‘We have no hut’

‘Where are your supplies?’ they asked, dismayed

‘We ate all the rice’

And so on. The three men ended up working like dogs, using all the skills developed by trial and error in their first few weeks – building a hut, fish, trying to get the women to forage. The women continued to bitch and sunbathe. The three women who were sent to the men’s island were delighted – food, shelter and plenty of male attention was freely available. They too continued to sunbathe.

And that my friends, is what patriarchy is. My former roommate, unsurprisingly, is no longer a feminist.

Now this might all be a fluke, a white raven, an exceptional case not representative of society as whole. But that particular season of Dutch Survivor is not unique. CBS broadcast several Survivor seasons in the US, where men and women started off in separate groups. In most cases (the Amazon and One World), the result was the same. The men quickly got their act together, getting access to food, fire and shelter while the women spent a lot of time and energy on petty little squabbles, eating their meager supplies, getting drenched in storms and generally being pathetic. The opposite situation, where men didn’t get their act together while women quickly built a functional micro society, has not yet been observed outside of feminist fiction, and it probably never will.

https://www.returnofkings.com/27852/why-patriarchy-is-the-greatest-social-system-ever-created“

One of feminism’s irritating reflexes is its fashionable disdain for “patriarchal society,” to which nothing good is ever attributed. But it is patriarchal society that has freed me as a woman. It is capitalism that has given me the leisure to sit at this desk writing this book. Let us stop being small-minded about men… If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” – Camille Paglia, lesbian feminist, in Sexual Personae

In the feminist creation myth, patriarchy is original sin. It is the Lucifer from which all evils flow. Without patriarchy, we would all live in a genderless role-less feminist garden of Eden.However, just as the name Lucifer actually means light-bringer, patriarchy is actually an enlightening influence which has brought humanity out of the mud into civilization. Feminism only exists in the shadow of the massive abundance produced by patriarchy. Patriarchy is not the enemy. Patriarchy is the greatest social system ever created.

The Myth of Patriarchy

Feminists ascribe all social ills to patriarchy. Like a medieval inquisitor looking for evidence of the devil, patriarchy’s influence is supposedly all around us – our media, our schools, and even our most intimate relationships. Patriarchy is responsible for domestic violence, lost promotions, mean comments on twitter – even women’s own feeling about themselves.

Anyone who doesn’t subscribe to feminist dogma is believed to be possessed by the influence of patriarchy and in need of exorcism by an ordained Priest of the Cathedral of gender studies theory. They are forced to renounce their views, or face excommunication from the public sphere. In more honest times, the dominant religion simply called freethinkers “heretics” and burned them at the stake.

Origins Of Patriarchy

In reality, there is nothing so mysterious about patriarchy. Patriarchy is a division of social roles based in natural biological gender differences.

Males and females have very obvious self-evident biological differences. Women can have babies. Men cannot. Women’s bodies are designed for nurturing, with wombs, breasts, and hormonal cycles. During pregnancy, women are unable to physically exert themselves. Men’s bodies are designed for physical exertion, and as a whole, physically stronger.

Imagine you are part of a small tribe in a survival situation. Conquest, war, famine, death – any of the four horsemen could strike at any moment. How would you divide social roles?

As Jack Donovan states in The Way of Men:

Because your group is struggling to survive, every choice matters. If you give the wrong person the wrong job, that person could die, you could die, another person could die, or you could all die. Because of the differences between the sexes, the best person for jobs that involve exploring, hunting, fighting, building, or defending is usually going to be male. This is not some arbitrary cultural prejudice; it is the kind of vital strategic determination you need to keep your group alive.

In other words, traditional roles are the basis of our survival as a species.

The Sacrifice Of Men

In patriarchy, men sacrifice their energy, their time, and sometimes even their lives for the betterment of women and children, and women give themselves to nurturing children and families.

Feminists define patriarchy as a system of dominance, in which men oppress women. This redefines men’s sacrifice as an act of control, rather than love. Many men are perfectly happy to have sex with women without offering any protection or value to the woman or her resulting children. It is an act of love that men willingly give up their freedom in order to provide for women, and their young.

Patriarchy is about love. It is about the love of human beings in families, tribes, and small communities working interdependently for the benefit of one another.

Feminism Was Created By Capitalism

Feminism in it’s modern form began in the last hundred years, when industrialization moved our economic survival from requiring hard labor to requiring skilled labor. Work used to require hours of physical lifting, now it requires sitting at a desk. This transition made it possible for even the weakest women to work.

Employees are much easier to manage as interchangeable cogs than as gendered individuals with unique needs. In fact, convincing women to work doubles the size of the work force, allowing employers to half everyone’s wages. It’s simple supply and demand. As the book Revolution From Above chronicles, early feminist movements – even Marxist feminists – were bankrolled by major capitalists in order to increase the workforce and lower wages.

Feminism is a product of capitalism. The “you can have it all” message is an attempt by corporations to swindle women out of their biological needs. If you’re a feminist, you’re a capitalist, because you’ve make work a greater priority than community, children, or love.

In families, each member is irreplaceable, but in a company everyone is replaceable. In patriarchy, women toiled for one man who loved her and the children he gave her. In capitalism, women work for many men completely indifferent to her and willing to disposes of her the moment cheaper labor appears.

Feminism Commodifies Relationships

In patriarchy, selfish relationship impulses were restrained. In capitalism, they are encouraged. Each member of a tribe of community works for the benefit of those around him, but in capitalism men and women are independent agents, with no loyalty or duty to anyone else.

Roles that were traditionally played by family are now outsourced. Group homes for the elderly, day care for the children. Even mentors and friends can be bought in the form of therapists and life coaches.

This system destroys intimate relationships. It selfishly benefits a woman to bear the children of strong lone alpha’s rather than the man providing for her. It selfishly benefits a man to impregnate every available fertile woman with no intention of further contact. Alpha fucks, beta bucks.

Feminism has created a war between the sexes with each side trying to maximize their profits in the sexual marketplace while spending as little as possible. We’re all little atomized corporations united only by the laws of bio-mechanics.

Men Have Lost Reason To Work

This new dynamic has freed men from work. In his new book Bachelor Pad Economics, Aaron Clarey advocates a minimalist approach to money – buy only what your need and using your time for your benefit rather than a corporation’s. This approach is already being taken as men drop out of the system, earn less than women, and avoid higher eduction.

The reason men worked hard was to provide for their families. Men didn’t work long hours out of self-interest. They did so out of love. Most men can subsist on very little. It’s been said that civilization was created to impress the opposite gender. Without reward, there is no reason to work. No carrot, no jump.

As a society, we’ve reached a point where technology has eliminated the need for everyone to work. Just as capitalism freed women from their natural role, it’s freed men from theirs. Masculinity has been reduced to a fashion statement.

Return To The Natural Order

While we understand that animals exists in natural groups – a herd, a flock, a pack – we forget that man is an animal too. Man’s natural group is the tribe. Humans are mammals. We learn through relationships, rather than instinct.

Children require love, attachment, and stability that can only be found in emotional bonds with present adults. They are not interchangeable cogs. You can’t buy a mother’s love or a father’s wisdom. Love cannot be outsourced. Authentic love is only possible within patriarchal community.

To a company, non-working children are a nuisance. The epidemic of single motherhood, plummeting birthrates, and mental illness is due to the rejection of traditional roles. If society wants healthy happy children and loving stable communities, it must embrace the lost values of patriarchy.

In the early tribes, humans were entirely dependent on one another. Now they are independent and unsatisfied. Returning to traditional roles means living interdependently, and align with the natural order not because we have to, but because we choose to. We could exist alone, but we are fulfilled together.

Of course, feminists will call this oppressive. They want you to be free – free from community, free from belonging, free from love. A mass of apes fighting over the highest value mate behind a gilded cage.

[averagestudent7]

Activism &Protests via Social Media

Social Media activism is a broad form of activism that uses media and communication technology for social and political movements.   It is also a medium for grassroots activists and anarchists to distribute content that is not accessible through mass media or to post censored news stories (PewResearch 2018). Basically this is where all the juicy content resides, so lets dive in. 

#hashtag Activism 

Hashtag activism is a term invented by media sources that refers to the usage of Twitter hashtags for Int

ernet activism.  Hashtag advocacy is a strategy to broaden the use of communication and make it democratic in such a way that everyone has a way to share their views and opinions (GlobalCitizen n.d).

Here are a few #hashtags that have been used in the past by Social Activits;

1.   #HeForShe

We all know that gender equity affects everyone, don't we? And feminism for women?  Well, we have a significant part of the He For She movement to thank for that. This UN Women movement, endorsed by Emma Watson and Justin Trudeau, aims to consciously engage men and boys in a fight that was traditionally thought of as "a woman's matter” (pwc n.d). 

The United States of America, Mexico and the United Kingdom are among the leading countries in the world in terms of contributions and contributions to join the cause.

2.  #ASLIceBucketChallenge

Who doesn't remember the happy summer of 2014, when Facebook's news streams were all over the place, overflowing with people with ice and water flowing over their heads?

In the UK, one in six people engaged in the ice bucket challenge, which allowed people to nominate their mates to grab the baton to keep the momentum rolling (ALS Association 2019).

Turns out those much-mocked Ice Bucket Challenge videos helped do a lot of good. Two summers ago, the challenge, designed to raise money for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, took the internet by storm. Supporters ended up raising over $115 million for the A.L.S (Rogers 2016).   

3. #BlackLivesMatter

Black Lives Matter is a decentralized political and social movement promoting non-violent civil resistance in protest of police brutality and other race based abuse towards African-Americans (Anderson 2016).

With its roots in an emotional Facebook post, after the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012, this hashtag has sparked a civil rights campaign that would transform the face of the United States. There are currently more than 26 chapters of Black Lives Matter across the United States (Calderwood and Hales 2019).

The campaign is fueled by sorrow at the nearly infinite flood of wrongful deaths; anger at institutionalized racism; indignation at the consistent lack of fair treatment for all African-Americans.

How Protests Become Successful Social Movements

While hashtags used for activism are capable of educating and gaining people's interest and mobilizing as many people as possible, they should understand the implications of posting such content and what is acceptable for posting. Activists are urged to devote their time developing and revealing less divisive knowledge and to help people understand about the root causes of the crisis.

Still, protests such as the huge Black lives matter march that took place earlier this year, while vital to the development of transformational reform, is only the first step. There are obvious reasons that some campaigns languish and die away while others flourish, and protesters need to take the lessons of history to heart (PND 2018). In order to make a meaningful difference, the campaign needs to follow these five golden steps:

Step 1: Define the change you want to see

Defining change obviously is a recurring trend for popular campaigns. Gandhi decided to be independent of the British. The Civil Rights Movement required concrete laws to be enacted. The color revolutions required a change in government. This were both concrete targets that could construct a plan around them (Gribbin 2017).

Step 2: Shift the spectrum of allies

When you have specifically identified the improvement that you want to make, you need to start looking at the spectrum of allies. Find out that you should expect active or passive support from and provide neutrality at best — or, at worst, active or passive resistance. As Sun Tzu wrote, "Know yourself, know your opponent, and know the landscape." The terrain is a continuum of allies (abc news 2018).

Step 3: Identify the pillars of power

While it is vital to attract supporters from up and down the continuum of funding, it is also important to recognize the organizations that have the ability to bring about the reform you want. These "pillars of influence" can include the police, the media, the school system, government departments, or other organisations. As vital as public support is to the cause, nothing is going to improve without structural support (Popovic and Satell 2017) .

Step 4: Seek to attract, not to overpower

Every campaign is trying to fix any inequality, so it's easy to slip into the pit of demonizing the other side. And this is when a lot of movements fall off the rails. Anger is an effective mobilizing force, but anger without hope is a crippling force. You ought to have an affirmative argument for affirmative tactics ( Mongiello 2016 ).

Step 5: Build a plan to survive victory

Ironically, one of the most dangerous phases of the revolt is just after victory has been won. In Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, the incoming team was unable to establish a single, efficient administration, and soon the nation reverted to anarchy. Secular demonstrators succeeded in Egypt in 2011, but the subsequent elections were won by the Muslim Brotherhood (Popovic et al 2017)

In conclusion, it is crucial not to associate the call for reform with the ideals that the campaign aims to embody. Only because you win an election or have a policy approved and financed doesn't mean it's time to claim victory. In fact, it is at this stage that you need to reinforce relationships and renew the commitment of each stakeholder to what has generated progress in the first place.

References

abc, 2018. 'No-One Is Listening': Tens Of Thousands Mark Invasion Day With Protests. Abc.net.au. viewed 22nd October<https://www.abc.net.au/new s/2018-01-26/invasion-day-protests-in-melbourne-and-sydney/9364940>

ALS Association, 2019. Ice Bucket Challenge Dramatically Accelerated The Fight Against ALS.  The ALS Association. viewed 22nd October <https://www.als.org/stories-news/ice-bucket-challenge-dramatically-accelerated-fight-against-als> 

Anderson, 2016. History Of The Hashtag #Blacklivesmatter: Social Activism On Twitter. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. viewed 22nd October <https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/08/15/the-hashtag-blacklivesmatter-emerges-social-activism-on-twitter/>

Gribbin, 2017. Hanson Insists She Can Hold One Nation Together. viewed 22nd October <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-30/pauline-hanson-vows-to-prevent-one-nation-fragmenting/8220196>

Mongiello, 2016. Repository.upenn. viewed 22nd October du<https://reposito ry.up enn.edu/cgi /viewcontent.cgi?article=4267&context=edissertations>

Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. 2018. Activism In The Social Media Age. viewed 22nd October <https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/ 2018/07/11/public-attitudes-toward-political-engagement-on-social-media/> 

pnd, 2018. How Change Happens: Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don't, Philanthropy News Digest (PND). viewed 22nd October <https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/off-the-shelf/how-change-happens-why-some-social-movements-succeed-while-others-don-t> 

Popovic and Satell, 2017. 8 Massive Moments Hashtag Activism Really, Really Worked. Global Citizen. viewed 22nd October <https://www.globalcitizen. org /en/content/hashtag-activism-hashtag10-twitter-trends-dresslik/>

pws, n.d. Pwc Proudly Backs Heforshe. PwC. viewed 22nd October <https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/about/diversity/he-for-she.html>+

Rogers, K., 2016. The ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ Helped Scientists Discover A New Gene Tied To A.L.S. (Published 2016). Nytimes.com. viewed 22nd October <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/health/the-ice-bucket-challenge-helped-scientists-discover-a-new-gene-tied-to-als.html#:~:text=It %20turns%20out%20t hose%20much,%24115%20million%20for%20the%20A.L.S.>

[belizedeservesbetter]

Hercules is Bursting At the Seams With Potential

or, It’s Roger Bart’s World and We’re Just Living In It

Short Version: Right now it’s good but not great HOWEVER with some work this could be really spectacular

Long Version:

The production of Hercules presented by Public Works did exactly what it was meant to do. It brought in crowds, put the entirety of the Public Works community (all 200 of them) onstage and showed producers this is a viable project worth pursuing, be it on Broadway, a Disney park/cruise ship or simply available for licensing. 

In all, I liked it. But I didn’t love it, which was a little disappointing to be honest, especially because Hercules is my all time favorite Disney movie. But it is easily (easily!) fixable and could be amazing if they put the work into it.

I’m gonna divide this review/commentary/whatever into three parts:

1. The Good

2. The Bad

3. What I Think They Should Do Moving Forward 

So here we go. And I guess I should say there’s going to be a bunch of spoilers here, but if you’re reading this I’m assuming you’ve seen/loved the movie so you already know the plot. 

1. The Good

Every moment of this show is filled with an extraordinary amount of heart. You can tell everyone involved with this production loves the source material and wants it to soar. You can tell the entire cast is having a blast and loves being there. The material itself is full of heart because that’s exactly how it was written. The leader of Public Works made a speech at the beginning saying how Hercules is about what it means to be a hero and she’s exactly right. That message is the beating heart of the show.

The length of the show was also pretty nice. My problem with a lot of these film adaptations, Disney ones especially, is that they take a relatively short film and fill it with filler songs/moments in order to fill a 2.5 hour show. Frozen suffered from this. It didn’t need to be that long. However, Hercules was only 90 minutes with no intermission! There was little to no filler! The story, while at times a bit clunky in the beginning, doesn’t take any scenic routes to fill time. This kept the plot moving at a mostly good pace and I was never bored or looking at the song list to see how much longer we had left. I could focus completely on the cast and show without feeling like it was dragging on forever.

And the cast was so good too. Krysta Rodriguez has always been a fav of mine and I was thrilled to see her playing this role. She was fun and spunky and was in great voice. If anything, she didn’t have too much to work with. 

Jelani Alladin was FANTASTIC. He was the perfect Hercules. If producers decide to move forward with this show and take it to Broadway, Alladin better stay. He was charming and fun and funny and sang the hell out of “Go the Distance.” But what really impressed me about him was the dramatic moments and how personal and impactful they felt. There’s this great moment when Hercules talks to Zeus and Hera after becoming the hero of Thebes where he breaks down and has his wonderful moment with Phil and that whole scene was so good. He really lets you see Hercules’ insecurities at that moment and the way he was able to be subtle but still project to an outdoor audience of over a thousand was remarkable.

James Monroe Iglehart was great as Phil, as was Jeff Hiller and Nelson Chimilio as Panic and Pain respectively. 

The costumes were really cool (with one glaring exception but we’ll get to that later). I especially enjoyed Hades/the gods costumes, because they looked enough like their movie counterparts while still being unique to the show. The way they did Hades’ makeup was super cool, like they pulled him right into the real world. Likewise, the Muses had some really cool costume changes throughout and they all looked amazing. 

One of the more impressive aspects of the show was the puppetry and special effects, which felt grounded in a more Greek theatre kind of style and I thought it worked very well. The puppetry of the monsters specifically was super cool. The Hydra looked fantastic, as well as the three Titans. This production of course wasn’t given a lot of money, but much like The Lightning Thief, they worked with it. They were in these cool pieces that different actors held and when they came together they looked great. They were bright and bold and drew on older theatre techniques which I liked a lot. The special effects, especially in the latter half, were also good. How they did the Underworld was simple but effective and made a wonderful stage picture, especially the moment when Hercules saves Meg from Hades. How they made his life string turn gold looked really cool as well. 

In terms of musical numbers, what worked best was the songs we all know and love. “Go the Distance” was simply staged, which made the emotion of the song far more effective. “Zero to Hero” was a blast and took all the best parts from the movie and put them on stage. “I Won’t Say (I’m In Love)” was divine, just as I expected it to be. “A Star Is Born” was genuinely uplifting and joyous, since they brought out all 200 members of the cast and everyone was so happy to be there and it was the perfect way to end the show. 

There were 5 new songs, and while I wasn’t a fan of most of them, I really really liked “Bolts of Thunder” and thought it was a fun way to musicalize the big fight scenes with the Titans towards the end. The Muses also wore these incredible 90s girl group inspired jumpsuits that were spectacular. 

Speaking of 90s girl group Muses, there were two moments when they heavily channeled this vibe and I wish they did more of it. “Bolts of Thunder” with the jump suits and the reprise of “Gospel Truth” after “One Last Hope” where they wore these late 80s/early 90s workout video outfits. Those moments were artistically bold and really emphasized what worked in the original movie, but I’m gonna talk more about that later in part 3. 

Of course my favorite part of this production was Roger Bart. He stole the entire show. Whenever Hades is on stage he has the best lines and the funniest moments and he just has a way of making every line feel both biting and passive aggressive. He was absolutely incredible and the perfect choice for Hades. This production gave us more Hades than the original movie, but I wanted even more Hades. Bart has always been an actor near and dear to my heart (Young Frankenstein was my jam) and I was so glad to see him onstage again. 

2. The Bad

Unfortunately, a good portion of the show feels clunky, both stylistically and in content. The book was perfectly serviceable, taking a good portion of its lines from the films. But it felt too slow in the first half and too fast in the second, which was also when things got more interesting. For example, there’s a whole song about Hercules not feeling accepted at the Agora and there’s a long scene after that song but later on when Hercules defeats Hades, that takes literally 2 seconds. Likewise, the show over explains certain exposition points (and is not subtle in any way, shape or form) and doesn’t explain other things. Though really there isn’t much exposition at all, as this show assumes you’ve watched the movie dozens of times. 

That doesn’t always work well.

I went with a friend who hadn’t seen it in a while and afterwards he asked about what happened to Meg that made her sign her soul over to Hades. I knew because I’ve seen the movie so many times, but the show kind of brushes right over it. If you’ve never seen the movie before, which will definitely be the case with some people, it might be a little difficult to keep up with. 

Stylistically, this show was all over the place. 

In my opinion, Public Works presented three versions of Hercules:

1. The gospel version

2. The 90s nostalgia version

3. The Greek inspired version

I’m going to go more into this later, but these three versions would have worked if they could have seamlessly blended into each other. As of now, it’s incredibly jarring and distracting and would sometimes take me right out of the show.

For example! Hercules wore a traditional toga. Meg wore this

Yes this is Mal from Disney’s Descendants and yes Meg wore basically this but she had shorter hair and purple heel boots instead of gray. Hercules’ toga and this together looked almost absurd to be honest. 

And side note: Disney has been on a kick recently where they think pants equals feminism? Someone needs to tell Disney that women can wear dresses and still be feminist

Anyways

The choreography was pretty basic, but it’s hard to fault them this when the choreography is meant to be for a crowd of 200 people with ages varying from 5 - 80. There were a lot of step touch and wave moments. There was one really cool dance break in “Zero to Hero” that made me think about how cool some of these big production numbers could be if they got some good dancers in there. 

I wish the Muses were better. They were so low energy during “Gospel Truth,” which made the evening start off on a lower note than it should have. 

The pop culture references were really weird and out of place, mostly because of their specificity. The pop culture references in the movie are purposely vague and more “modern” references than pop culture, which makes the movie timeless. The pop culture references here might date the show in the future. There’s two that stood out specifically, one being when Hercules says “I know the Wobble!” before doing it, the other when Panic starts doing the Hercules Mulligan rap (you know the one) from Hamilton when Hades asks him if he knows Hercules. 

The rest of the new songs weren’t great either, and I’m gonna talk about each of them separately

“To Be Human” - This one definitely felt like a first draft of “Go the Distance.” Interestingly enough, I feel that an edited version of “Proud of Your Boy” from the Alladin musical (also written by Alan Menken) would have worked a lot better. 

“Uniquely Greek Town Square” - bad

“Forget About It” - I’m all for giving Meg more songs, but this was decent at best

“A Cool Day In Hell” - I desperately want Hades to have a solo, but not this. It was cheesy and felt out of place. Roger Bart sold the hell out of it, but of course he did cause he’s Roger Bart and incredible and amazing

“Uniquely Greek Tough Town” - not to be confused with “Uniquely Greek Town Square,” this song didn’t feel uniquely Greek at all and was, well, bad

“To Be Human (Reprise” - fine, I guess. Jelani Alladin made it good but the lyrics weren’t great. They rhymed “fail” with “frail.” 

3. What I Think They Should Do Moving Forward

Like I said before, this show has so much potential! I think it could be so good! This is my favorite Disney movie so I really want it to go to Broadway! If they do, there’s a couple things I think they could benefit from.

The best Disney Theatricals productions draw heavily from the culture/country the story takes place in. The Lion King, which draw heavily from Kenyan culture and reinvents the source material is the best example of this. I think drawing on Greek theatre conventions/styles would work well here, especially if Disney threw some of that good Disney money at it. I’d also like to see them lean into the Greek myth aspect of it a bit more. 

However, what also made the original Hercules movie so fun was its modern flair that felt both timeless and very 90s, which was fun. In this way I think the Muses and all the supernatural characters should draw more on this 90s flair while the mortals draw more on the Greek theatre conventions. I think with incorporating some Greek into the 90s and some 90s into the Greek, this could work really well. During “One Last Hope,” all the ensemble members wore those fun workout video outfits. I think it would have been fun if they wore togas still, but with sweatbands and leg warmers. Something like that to blend them together more. A theatrical beauty blender, if you will. 

In all honesty, I just want something bold and inspired. Give me something interesting! 

The show would also benefit from heavy edits to the newer songs and a good troupe of dancers, but that would of course happen in a possible commercial transfer. 

Lastly, as with just about anything, throw some Disney money at it! Make it shine! 

Normally I’d end this with a “Go see it!” or a “Don’t waste your time on it!” but this run is already sold out and lottery winners have been predetermined. So if you’ve won the lottery and are going, you’re in for a treat! The show is so fun and so enjoyable. I only critique it so heavily because I love the movie so much and have been wanting a musical adaptation for a while now. But I also know it’s Public Works and it’s free and it’s in the park and it’s fun and you can eat ice cream while watching it. If you didn’t win but live in NYC, give the lottery a go! I saw the lottery crowd waiting for winners to be drawn and it was incredibly crowded, so be aware of that. 

Or, if you didn’t win the lottery/don’t win standby lottery, go over to the Belvedere Castle and you can listen in on the show. You’re only seeing their backs, but I saw a bunch of people there watching/listening the whole time! 

[justfinishedreading]

Last month I watched the film A United Kingdom (2016) and realized how little I knew about the history of Botswana. In fact, I realized how little I knew about the history of almost all countries. We’re always so immersed in our own culture that we’re oblivious to the intricate and epic history of others. After the film I thought about a book from my adolescence, a bestseller at the time but one which I’d never got around to reading: The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. I ordered a copy that night.

Now Alexander McCall Smith is a white dude, so I’m already failing my newly created goal of trying to read more fiction by authors of colour, however on the plus he does have experience and knowledge of a part of Africa: he was born in Zimbabwe, raised there until the age of 17, and co-founded and taught at the University of Botswana. It is very clear when reading The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency that McCall Smith has a love for Botswana, for its people, their mindset and way of living.

The other reason why I wanted to read this book was because I’m a fan of the detective mystery genre, I will forever love Agatha Christie and I’ve recently discovered the solid brilliance of P.D. James, and the cool cleverness of Scandinavian writers. But Africa isn’t very commonly associated with detective fiction which made The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency all the more intriguing when it was first published. It isn’t an Agatha Christie novel; there isn’t a big mystery that is solved at the end of the book, instead it follows maybe a dozen small cases, each usually resolved within a few chapters. But like Miss Marple, Philip Marlowe, Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, there is a strong yet vulnerable detective: Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Ramotswe is a black Botswanan woman in her early 30s, she is intelligent and capable. When her father dies and leaves her an inheritance she decides to invest in setting up her own detective agency, with her as its only detective. She is physically described as a large woman; her weight is commented on occasionally throughout the book but always in a positive light. This comes partly from the fact that many African countries are more socially/culturally accepting of the larger female figure. Historically in our own western world there was a time when society viewed thinness in a negative light, that’s not to say they were pro-obesity but a skinny woman was viewed as someone who lived in poverty and starvation, a woman with a fuller figure was seen as someone of wealth and leisure. Certainly, that is not the case now, but it’s interesting to see how society’s concept of beauty changes with the passing of time, and we as individuals should try to reject the idea of one universal standard of beauty, be it thin, fat or the many, many forms inbetween.

Speaking as a larger woman myself, it is such a relief to read a book in which the protagonist is large, clever and proactive, her weight is not something to be used against her. In the western world obesity is the latest “bad habit” to crusade against, once we covered smoking, (and heaven-forbid we tackle alcoholism!) we moved onto obesity. Health problems related to obesity are a real issue and there should be support and ways of prevention set up for those who want it. However there is a culture of body shaming which is not helpful or effective in a positive way. Body shaming only does two things: it makes the shamed feel more unhappy and it’s likely to worsen the problem, and it allows the shamer to feel confident and smug.

There’s controversy over whether plus-size models should be featured in magazines and shown as role models. One side believes this is promoting obesity, it is sending out the message to children, teenagers and adults that it’s okay to be fat, specifically unhealthily fat. That is a dangerous message. I understand what these people are trying to say, but in response I’d say that people who are obese, and others who are fat, and others who are just a little overweight, EXIST in the world, and therefore have a right to be represented in culture and media. The same goes for people with disabilities, and shockingly we’re still not including enough people of colour as well.

Time has already shown that a culture that only represents one idea of the “perfect” body type does NOT help the mental or physical health of that society as a whole. For decades the images of beautiful white woman have bombarded our world and instead of obesity going down, it has gone up. Now there’s various reasons for the rise of obesity; lifestyle, change in leisure activities, work, transport, food etc so I’m not suggesting it’s all down to the “evil” media, but my point is that hiding overweight women from us hasn’t helped prevent obesity and therefore there is no reason to exclude those body types -or any body types- from public view.

Which leads me to my final point on the subject: one way of thinking is that if there’s something about yourself you hate, then you should change it. I think that loving yourself is much more important, and beneficial, in the long run, than focusing on hatred and change. That seems like a very general statement but what it comes down to is that we take care and look after that which we love. If society wants to promote health then we have to promote self-love first. Nobody has ever willingly invested time and effort in looking after something they hate.

But back to The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Regarding the mysteries Mma Ramotswe has to investigate they aren’t murder mysteries, they are the mysteries of everyday life, e.g. a woman thinks her husband is cheating on her, a father thinks his daughter is dating a boy without his consent, a head doctor at a hospital believes one of his doctors may be a drug addict, another woman thinks her husband has stolen a car. What struck me the most about The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency wasn’t the things that Mma Ramotswe had to investigate but the way she investigated them, she’s resourceful and bold, she takes matters into her own hands. It shocked me how little involvement the police had, in a few occasions I thought this would be the time to contact the police! And then I realized how we in the western world are so dependent on our police force for everything, while in some countries like Botswana people might be more inclined to take care of things themselves.

This independence is one of Mma Ramotswe’s most inspiring features, she’s in her 30s but has no intention of marrying (WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD), she married early on and that ended very badly. Part of me wishes she didn’t have to have such a sad backstory; we don’t need to give a character a tragic past in order to be emotionally invest in them. But now I realise that it’s important to show how people overcome past hardships and live past that. Similarly, I disliked how a new potential love-interest was introduced, why can’t Mma Ramotswe stay single? Why MUST she marry? Society is so obsessed with romantic relationships. But then it hit me; that instead of having a strong, clever, independent woman stay single – she is so head-strong of course she will remain unmarried! Thinks the public - it is much more important to see that it’s possible for a man to stand by her side and accept her strength, intelligence and independence, to see him not feel emasculated by it.

(Side note: Unfortunately Homosexuality is still illegal in Botswana so this novel focuses very much on heterosexual relationships). TEXT CORRECTION - I’m happy to amend this, on 11th June 2019 same-sex sexual acts were finally decriminalized in Botswana! 

Overall this novel is very good from a feminist point of view, my only criticism, and this may come as a surprise, is that it is very consistently hard on men. It felt like the number of dislikeable men greatly outnumbered those that were respectable. Feminism isn’t about man-hating, it’s about equality, so if I were to read more books from this series I’d like a touch less man-hating and a sprinkle more of women-causing-trouble.

Review by Book Hamster

[believerindaydreams]

the one that happens after the Baker one

"We're going to be okay," Tuco promises Angel Eyes, as he shuts and locks the broom cupboard. Wishes he had a name to call the man, that wouldn't sound so stupid to say aloud in public.

(trigger warnings: in which various racist comments are made, and Tuco is bratty and unwoke on the subject of feminism.)

He ought to have known better than taking Angel to such a questionable joint- but a part of him had already been itching to get back to a place like this, sizzling neon lights and watered beer, girls who'll spit in your eye once they notice who you're with and why. Living at the hacienda's so safe. And Angel had been the one to suggest it.

"Blondie told me stories. But countrified, prettied up for my benefit-" this with a sardonic look in his eye, the one Tuco used to think was bitter but has since decided is Angel's idea of humour. "I wouldn't mind getting a notion of what the scene looks like to you."

"You promise not to talk too much?" Anybody else, he'd be on pins and needles, ready to cringe at an overplayed hand (it's different for him, that's the whole shtick). But by now they've gotten to know each other; Tuco has a rather definite idea that if he told Angel to shut up, he'd actually shut up. At least in this particular context.

"Easily done. Lay out any ground rules that make sense to you."

Simple as that, eh? "If I say we leave, we go and no argument. Let me take the lead unless some damn cowboy decides that beating me to a pulp sounds like a fun Friday night out, then you do whatever makes sense. Even if that's just leaving, I don't want to look after somebody in a fight when they don't want to be there. And since it's your idea," Tuco had said, drawing just enough irony into his voice- "I'll let you stake us out for it."

"Fine," Angel had said. Before adding, "Anything you win, keep for yourself."

Now that's where the trouble had come in.

Being so broke they'd started dipping into the stake for tequila money, that had not been a good state of affairs. Not that the best room and board he's had since leaving Brooklyn is anything to sneeze at- who's he kidding, the hacienda's way better than that rusty tenement. But there hasn't been a word about the green stuff since meeting Angel, and while that's strangely reassuring, it also worries him what'll happen if the bubble bursts. (How the hell is Blondie managing alone, with only half their cash? Maybe his partner will come back when he gets hungry enough).

Tuco knows better than to stare and lick his lips, watching Angel count out enough money to keep him and his partner for months- but the notion crosses his mind, to just grab the cash and run. Not gonna happen. It's a bank, and there's such a thing as cops, and he could confidently set his life expectancy at three days pus or minus a couple, after a play like that. Doesn't stop him thinking about it. It's a free country.

"We're not doing the hustle, obviously," he explains once they're on the street. "I only do it with Blondie, and anyway we'd have to split up for that. And I'm not dressed for it."

In lieu of his usual eye-catching gear, he's plumped for the skirt-chasing outfit: khaki pants and matching drip-dry jacket and a shirt with just two colours in it, something Angel's been giving him weird looks for ever since they left the house. It's slightly uncomfortable, wearing it for a night like this. Somebody who looks too crazy to fuck doesn't have to worry about anybody trying. Not like Blondie, fending off the offers with a stick whenever people notice he's pretty.

(In a way he's always been jealous of that. But also, it'd just be another problem, make him more vulnerable than he is already, and he'd just as soon give that a miss.)

"Then what did you dress for?" Angel asks.

"A few drinks, a few hands of poker, nothing too messy- I guess you're not looking for a girl at the end of the night, huh? So we won't do this by the book."

"Certain companionship wouldn't necessarily go amiss," Angel Eyes says, taking him by the hand. Thin white gloves for a change, suitable for cardplay, and he's guessed that someone must be getting fairly horny in his partner's absence, but this is almost comical. By Angel's usual standards, they’re practically fucking in the street. He should have gone with that blue-toned Hawaiian shirt after all.

Then again, Baker finally getting the hint and going yesterday means that he's fresh out of options again. And deprivation always gives him an appetite.

"...see how the night goes," Tuco mutters, in a deniable fashion; and then takes his hand away because there are about fifteen good reasons for them not to be seen like this. "And we'll have a few drinks, like I said."

"I don't often drink in public," Angel Eyes says. There's a vibe of transgression there, that he would expect, but maybe not with that much wryness to it. As though it's a private joke instead of a statement of fact.

"Why, you want people to think you're on the wagon?" Plenty of good reasons for that. He's done it himself with girls a couple times, if he hasn't ordered yet and it looks like that'll impress them. "I know you're not a teetotaler, with all the red wine that goes into your soups."

"Believe it or not, the way I cook them burns the alcohol content off. There's no risk of intoxication from my venison stew, I can assure you."

"Oh. That's a little disappointing, I thought it made it more fun...well, if you don't want to, you don't want to. I can fix you up, there's a couple tricks so nobody will know the difference."

"Just the one...shouldn't hurt. No."

Cue a sudden warmth washing through his gut. The tense, attractive quality of that rueful craving- somebody who knows better, not even trying to resist temptation- that doesn't sound like buttoned-up Angel Eyes one little bit, that sounds like him. Or somebody who's been listening to him an awful lot, the last couple months.

Skirt-chasing gear, yes. The clothes he wants other people to see him in, when he wants to fuck them. Damn his instincts.

And damn you too, Blondie. I hope you get back soon...

Which had been the last thought he'd spared for his partner that whole evening, two bars and three nightclubs and a few hands of poker. That he thinks had gone a little better than usual, without having to juggle the hustle and betting and trying not to drool over Blondie looking zesty, although Angel Eyes proves more of a distraction there than he'd like to think. Angel’s certainly never going to cut it as a cardsharp; he’d easily been the weakest player during that Carson foursome, and calling his playing tonight desultory might be kind. Too busy staring at the room, like a wet-behind-the-ears tourist. 

Him ordering the expensive mixed drinks, the ones he'd never had the money to risk trying before. Angel had held off for a while, until they'd accidentally landed up somewhere halfway clean, with a bartender willing to open a new bottle of whisky on request, and had downed the shot in one.

That had been a good two hours ago, but if Angel's not drunk enough to be desperate now, Tuco's at a loss for what's wrong with the man. The moment there’d been a crash on the door downstairs,  Angel had grabbed him and made for an exit as though he’d be rehearsing. 

"Look, these police raids happen all the time. They round you up, you're in the slammer for a night, all a man like you has to do is pay bail and get out." He glances at the door again. Sooner or later somebody's going to look in here and then they're going to be in for it.

"I am not going to let anyone take me anywhere," Angel says, flipping a gun out from somewhere under his coat. No doubt it's loaded. Tuco's positive he knows how to use it.

"You said you'd listen to me, huh? You gonna break a promise? Right now it's just a raid. The cops shove some people around a bit, somebody gets beaten up, they'll survive that. You start shooting, they start shooting, people end up dead. And I'm the kind of guy who's ready made for a target."

"If I have to, I'll use it," Angel says stubbornly; but he shoves the gun in his pocket, and actions always matter more with him. "I can't afford a run-in like that."

"Okay. I said to trust me, I'll get you out of this."

His mind's been working on it, while his mouth's been busy; there's shelves of cleaning products, buckets, a mop cart. Too bad he didn't bring his Duluth- damn it, this is exactly what's wrong with wearing something too stylish to pair with a canoe pack. "You see any rubbing alcohol?"

Wordlessly, Angel takes a bottle down from a high shelf, wraps his fingers around it when they won't cooperate. It occurs to Tuco he might be drunker than he realised.

But the basic idea's solid, he just has to make it work. "Now- um. We take everything off the cart, put it back on the shelf, you hide inside under the tablecloths. Pour some alcohol on me, I'm going to be drunk."

"You are drunk."

"I know, I want to look it. Make me messy."

There's something much too sexy and familiar at once, about the way Angel Eyes almost chokes in disbelief- Blondie ought to know better but still does the same thing, when he's caught off guard. There's something even worse about how fast Angel intuits what he wants, mussing up his hair but good and trickling alcohol down his shirt and adding an artistic scruff of dust to his collar. Fuck it, he's getting a hard-on like nobody's business. Tight pants too, that's not going to help.

"If I were a janitor," Tuco says, with what he's aware is a slightly exaggerated dignity. 

Glances around, paws hopefully at the ventilation duct. Out comes- yes! a beat-up but serviceable edition of Playboy, two of them in fact, and it's not quite what he had in mind but maybe the detail will sell it even better. "Now Angel, you hide yourself in the cart, and for the love of- of somebody or other, don't sneeze."

"You're sure you know what you're doing."

"I better be sure, or with a trigger-happy idiot like you I'm dead. Get movin'," and the last sentence sort of slurs into a yawn, but Angel must get the idea because he disappears from sight.

Now all he has left to do is dab on alcohol like a 'specally good cologne, arrange the magazines in a convincing position and fall asleep on top of the cart, his legs dangling down. Easy.

So easy, in fact, that the next thing he knows is a click of a door unlocking. He snuffles noisily, inches his position slightly so his face lies against the cart's hard plastic; it's easier to fake sleep that way. His breathing's nice and loud when the door opens.

"Hey, you. You work here?"

He keeps snuffling away, happily enough. Two cops, maybe? Not more than that but there must be more around within earshot.

"I guess this idiot's been snoring his way through the whole raid. Stole a magazine to look at the dirty pictures- well, he probably can't read."

"Lusting after them white women," somebody else says, in a mock high-pitched tone. "All right, get him cuffed and bring him down to the station, we're done here."

"Fine. Wake up, you-" at least he's not being handled too harshly, the cop doesn't seem to want to touch him. He sits up after a bare minimum of shoving.

"What's your name, bud?"

"Janitor! Janitor- comprehende? Americano," Tuco says with considerable eagerness, and offers up his stupidest smile. It's one he's practiced in mirrors. "No speaka English."

"Oh christ, you're one of those...."

They take him out to a squad car, him blathering cheerful Spanish for every step; shove him inside. Could be worse, Tuco figures; he's done Angel Eyes enough of a favour that he can probably count on a bailout. He listens to the engine start up with no small satisfaction.

He's just settling against the seat to recommence that nap, when a familiar voice pipes up.

"All right. If you're here, where's Angel?"

"Baker?"

"One and the same. Now think about that question very carefully, because if you don't have an answer by the time I round this corner, you won't live long enough to worry about getting arrested."

"Back inside," Tuco says immediately. "I left him in a broom cupboard."

"Right. We're going back to get him."

"...so, you were a cop all along?"

"Good lord, no," Baker says. "I'm only borrowing this squad car. We'll use mine for the real escape."

The fact that they get away with the operation scot-free says more about the damn improbability of anyone stealing a police car and then giving it back inside of two minutes than Baker's street smarts, Tuco figures.

************

"You were following me," Angel says, once they're back at the house. He looks dead on his feet and Tuco doesn't blame him. "Baker, if you ever do anything like that again, I will-"

"You'll what?" Baker asks, in a jaunty, top-of-the-world fashion. His enthusiasm fades at Angel's frozen glare; Tuco finds himself watching the interplay with genuine curiosity.

Angel turns his head, glances at him. "I will never go on a hunting trip with you again. Ever. Understood?"

"Angel, you wouldn't- would he?"

Now they're both staring at him. "Yes. I think he would," Tuco says.

"Okay, okay! I promise. But you have to admit, I came in handy."

"You were not, and I don't owe you a damned thing. You're needlessly theatrical, it's going to get you killed one of these days, and as for Tuco, my partner and I had it under control."

(He doesn't like the notion, that he might be claimed as anyone else's partner; but he does enjoy the way the words make Baker droop in his tracks.)

"...understood."

"Good," Angel says, casually wiping his knife clean on the cuff of his shirt. "Now go away. Don’t call me, I’ll call you."

"I still say you need a better bodyguard."

"I'll take your opinion under advisement."

"You really are awfully happy together, eh?" Baker asks. "Well. I guess I'd better just go and tell that sweet Blondie he ought to take up with me, since it looks like you two won't be needing him any time soon..."

Tuco eyes Angel; Angel eyes him back.

Baker's bluffing.

He doesn't know what brought Angel to that conclusion, but to him it's obvious enough- Blondie's pushing up their value a little, reminding Angel the two of them have other options. They know each other well enough to trust the other's play, even at a remove.

It's a smart thing his partner's doing, a good move. Maybe he wouldn't have thought so this morning, but that'd been before realising he was still this desperate, that the mere chance to grab a little hard cash had made him stupid enough to stick around in a place long after his instincts had told him to leave. If they'd been smart and kept moving, they never would have been at risk in that raid in the first place.

Then again, he wouldn't have found out that Angel is a gun-happy maniac, and that's worth knowing. And Blondie's coming back. He's bound to.

"Give him my best regards," Angel Eyes says, languidly. "He's welcome to a bowl of soup here whenever he likes."

Tuco opens his mouth. Shuts it again. Years of habit are strong; they don't tell people they're partners, or the whole hustle doesn't work...so he'd better not say anything. Blondie's the one who's always the most worried about secrecy, anyway.

"I'll let him know," Baker says.

He looks rather hurt when he goes.

***************

"Here, you'd better take this back," Tuco says at dinner, pulling the remains of Angel's stake from his pocket. So much for turning a profit; he'd blown through it rather freely, what with drinks and tips and prairie oysters.

"You might keep it for next time," Angel says, in a distinctly abstracted way. Twice already, he's dipped the spoon into his coffee cup instead of his soup bowl, sipped it without apparently noticing the change in flavour. 

"No, no." If this is the way Blondie wants to play it, this is the way they'll play it.

Though it proves an awfully hard thing, to sleep alone that night.

[hina-akatsuki]

PINK for girls BLUE for boys

During our childhood, I am sure most of us had heard this statement," pink is for girls and blue is for boys". Obviously, it did not make sense in our young minds then, so most of us complied without giving it much thought. I was no exception. It was much later that I came to realize that this idea is one of the many stereotypes that segregates the sexes.

It is curious how something as impartial as color became a distinguishing factor between the sexes. But why only pink and blue from the vast color spectrum? Is there some biological theory behind it or is it a norm structured by culture and society?

Digging into history, this color-gender norm came into being only during the 20th century, probably becoming more prominent after World War 2. In fact, girls and boys were dressed in white and that too dresses till the previous century. With the emergence of pastels(pink and blue were widely used), children were adorned in colors other than white. The earliest reference to this color scheme appeared in a June 1918 edition of the Trade publication Earnshaw's Infant's Department:

" The generally accepted rule is pink for boys and blue for girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy while blue which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

The idea stuck around for a couple of years, with some contemporary publications also emphasizing that colors should not be decided based on the baby's gender, but based on eye and hair color.

Pretty smart!

However, over time the clothing manufacturers sought to reject this statement and promoted the idea "pink for girls, blue for boys". The practice escalated after World war 2, as corporate marketers promoted color-based distinction between boys' and girls' clothing. The motivation? It prevents parents from handing down clothes between siblings of different sexes, hence increasing the profits for designers and manufacturers. As an explanation of this divide, manufacturers simply stated that girls liked pink while boys liked blue.

A turning point in the history of gender-color norms came during the Women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s which emphasized gender neutral clothing. In an upsurge of feminism, the fashion industry went through dramatic changes- from bloomers to bobbed hair to unisex wear to gender-neutral color.

But as we rolled into the 1980s, making money ruled over all existing perspectives at the time and marketing teams managed to flip the paradigm yet again.

Moving into the 21st Century, color preferences take an interesting turn. The youth of the present day provides us with a mixed opinion when asked about their favorite color. A recent study indicates vast majority prefer blue to pink and that pink is actually one of adult world's least favorite color.

So how did this shift in the spectrum occur? As it turns out, defining gender-specific colors has been a tug of war over the years with the end result being more or less a tie. Both colors( pink and blue) along with their hues are equally favored, regardless of gender.

However, we still tend to associate the color pink with femininity and blue with masculinity in some aspect or the other. Especially, while deciding clothing and types of toys for little ones.

The pink-blue color divide may seem like a trivial distinction between the sexes, but in reality, it paves way for other gender biases and forms the root of gender discrimination. Deciding on what a child should wear or what he or she should play with in order to conform to the so-called societal norms restricts it from exploring and having a mind of its own. Surveys show that children are not born into choosing a gender-specific color or toy, rather they are groomed into making such specific choices.

Be it wearing corsets in the Victorian era or being at home, women are groomed to look the part of what is considered as “feminine”. And it starts from a young, impressionable age when a child is getting to know its surroundings. The quote holds true," One is not born a woman. One becomes a woman".

But we shall not exclude the male party from this issue of gender discrimination for they are affected equally. The need to "be a man" as defined by our society puts pressure on the individual. Boys are told to be aggressive, that they cannot shed tears, that they need to indulge themselves into sports that involve physical strength. Basically don't do anything that is considered to be "girly"( for example- play with dolls, learn dance, etc). Any male indulging themselves in activities that are "girly" are often looked down upon or labeled as "gay".

Boys placing themselves on the pink side of the spectrum are assumed to be hinting at their homosexuality with the well-known logic of " boys who like boys are basically girls." Nazi concentration camp badges included a pink triangle for gay men, while lesbians were lumped into an ‘asocial elements’ group with a black triangle.

However, in the late 60s, with the rise of the LGBT movement, the balance shifted from the color of shame to that of pride. This brought in a new mindset-" Pink and Blue make purple". Purple covers everything between red (pink) and blue, and challenges fixed and extreme gender roles. Instead of just two labels-male and female, we have many, as portrayed by the LGBT rainbow flag.

In the end, we shouldn't associate our sexuality or behavior with the colors we choose. We are free to choose between pink and blue, unguided by society. And this openness comes from a young age, with good parenting. It is crucial for a parent to understand that a child can be whatever it chooses to be. We live in a time where traditional roles are questioned more often than before. A girl can like shades of blue and can love playing with cars and a boy can indulge in cooking and like hues of red or pink. Who knows, that girl grows up to be an F1 racer and that boy becomes a Michelin star chef in the future.

So, choose any color you like, irrespective of gender, society or culture. For, choice of color doesn’t define who we are, it’s our thoughts and actions that do.

Links for reference:

https://www.thelist.com/32342/real-reasons-behind-blue-boys-pink-girls/

https://munsell.com/color-blog/why-that-color-gender/

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/pink-used-common-color-boys-blue-girls/

NOTE- I wanted to write on this topic for a very long time and I realized that there is a lot to talk about.. so I decided to provide some links which I referred to for this piece. Opinions would be appreciated on this discussion! Thanks!

[mosaicandme93-blog]

Introduction

Helpful Terms (DID/OSDD Systems):

Alter/Group Member/Identity/Part/Head mate/Insider- A person within a dissociated system. (The term "person" cannot be stressed enough. Alternate identities are people too!)

Blending - When two or more identities/members are able to perform or utilize each other's behaviors, skills, and abilities.

Co-Fronting or Co-Hosting - More than one identity/member out at the same time

Co-Consciousness (Co-Con) - More than one part is aware of what is happening to the identity/member that is fronting.

(Being Emily living plural, n.d.)

First, we would like to state that we are not an expert on Dissociative Identity Disorder or other dissociative disorders. We are currently in the process of understanding our system and how it functions. Initially we were reserved and unwilling to post on any social platform about our experiences, however, we have come to the conclusion that we would like to join the movement to end the stigma about mental illness, and more specifically, dissociative disorders. We have seen many people on YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook, and other places speaking up about their systems and we find this incredibly heartwarming and brave. We applaud all of the systems that have reached out to increase awareness, educate others, and help to decrease the stigma which is visibly portrayed to the public eye in social media, media, movies, and other overly dramatic expressions.

What we experience is similar to the criteria of Dissociation Identity Disorder. We have had some major switches and some missing time earlier in our 20′s, however more recently we do not knowingly have full in and out switches, meaning that we are somewhat aware of co-conscious states and do not wake up the next day in another location not knowing how we got there. I would like to note that we have had some recent occurrences of missing time, although it seems we have amnesia about missing time because we do not find out about what we do until later! We do have times where we have changed our life or relationships quickly and drastically and others (in the outside world) have stated that we seem to become another person in one day. So perhaps, we are showing signs of Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.), however, we do not have a clinical diagnosis. The reason we do not have a diagnosis at this time is that we have not found a therapist that specializes in this disorder in the local small community area in which we live. 

We are currently working on a graduate degree and will be working on obtaining a license in which we will be able to diagnose others  based upon the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder’s (DSM) criteria, symptoms, behaviors, etc. This will be working in the field of mental health. Although we will have the ability to do this for others, we do not fully support the DSM and encourage the client to maintain a focus of having a “disorder”. We do not believe in relying solely on the DSM Manual to assist a client.  It should be made aware to many that the revision of the DSM is funded by pharmaceutical companies and influenced by stakeholders that would like disorders to appear a certain way for financial revenue (Cosgrove, Krimsky, Vijayaraghavan & Schneider, 2006). It is interesting to think about how quickly and readily available prescriptions can be given to clients in order to quickly alleviate the symptoms of a mental health problem. There have been articles and research devoted to this topic if you would like to read about it for yourself. I have also written a paper on this which I may include in a future post. The idea of “Gender Dysphoria Disorder” existing in the current DSM V (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) irks me in the same way that Homosexuality was originally included in this manual as a disorder in pre-1973 (APA, 1968). Additionally, does the idea that DID is a “disorder” bother anyone else? It seems to me that this “disorder” actually helped us to survive, which doesn’t seem to be the definition of a disorder at all.

Image retrieved from: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/mental-health-feminism-transgender-3301766/

It is difficult to classify anyone with this disorder and understand them from looking at a page in the DSM. It can be just as difficult for a person with DID or OSDD to understand themselves in a clear light. Symptoms may portray themselves in a variety of ways from person to person. Frequency, intensity, onset, and duration of symptoms may be difficult to recognize with someone that suffers from severe memory problems and blocks of amnesia. These systems that have been developed on the basis of survival are unique to the individual and their life experiences. It may be helpful to think of DID/OSDD systems as being on a spectrum of low functioning to high functioning to everything in between. No two systems are alike just like no two people are exactly alike. I am my own person (people) and another system may be entirely different. If you have come here looking for similarities that is understandable, however trying to categorize or label yourself based upon one person’s system may prove fatal to reaching a clear understanding of what you are experiencing.  Know your own truth!

Currently, this system resides more in a “blended” state of consciousness or a co-conscious type of awareness. For those reading this that do not understand, I will touch more deeply on this in future posts. Our body is currently in our late 30′s physically and we have just now come to an awareness of our dissociation states in the last couple of years. We do not recognize our face or body much of the time and it is surreal to look at ourselves in the mirror. We have had many diagnoses in the past of Bipolar, Bipolar II, Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety, Social Anxiety, and Major Depression. It seemed that many of the times we went into therapy, we would receive a different diagnosis. We found this confusing and grew to distrust the process of diagnosing itself. 

There were significant times of confusion in which we switched and did not remember what had happened. We have had occurrences where people said we did things that we did not remember and were blamed in such a way that it was shocking to us. One particular instance was when we found out we went to court, which is on record, but we do not have any conscious recollection of this. This particular court hearing was not a basic traffic ticket but was for a more serious offense and this is something we would have remembered. However, we have absolutely no memory of going there, being there, or coming back from there. Another example is an angry letter that we composed and sent to our father’s old college buddy for no apparent reason. We did not know that we did this until we received an angry phone call from him out of the blue and it became apparent that this man we had not spoken to in years was extremely upset with us. We became completely confused at the entire scenario and decided he had lost his mind. These times were very strange and we decided it was just some random occurrences and did not think about them more until recently (more than a decade later). There have been a few recent events that were strange and probably more we have not yet discovered!  Our awareness of our dissociation states has been brought to acknowledgment by our significant other. We did not believe our partner(s) idea about us at first, however, now, as we analyze our past and current behaviors, we have come to realize that we are very strange indeed (even more strange than we thought, which it was initially established that we were very strange). We have suffered significant emotional and neglect type abuse in middle childhood, but we feel that there is more abuse that we do not remember at a very early age (prior to age 4). We are obviously not yet ready to know about this particular abuse or we would be aware. We are thankful that our system protects us. 

If someone were to ask me what it is like to experience this, I would explain that it is like Alice in Wonderland going down that hole and into various places over and over again. I would say that changing these states of mind so frequently can make you feel like you do not know which way is up or down, left or right. Reality can become very distorted and it can often be scary. I can also say that this type of weirdness comes with a side dish of self-denial that likes to show up over and over again. I literally will go a whole day trying to convince myself this is not real and I am making all of this up. It seems that more often than not when I try to do this I will have increased “deja vu” states, dissociation, and de-realization. It is difficult to come to the acceptance that this is happening when we are living in and out of awareness, yet we have been doing this for such a long time without even consciously realizing this! I am currently learning to adapt to these changes as I seem to be more conscious of the changes or “switches” than ever before. This makes it wonderful to know what’s going on, but also it makes it feel like I am in a surreal movie and watching events happening from a dreamy distance. I wish I could say that I am happier now that I am aware of these changes, but in reality I feel like I have moved into an alternate reality!  

Image retrieved from: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland

Currently, there are 7 members of our system that we are consciously aware of. We do feel that there are more, but it feels like they are hiding. You may wonder how we know such a thing. It would be similar to intuitively knowing that there were other people in another room of your house, but you didn’t know who they were just yet. It’s that strange feeling of someone else being in a place with you before you see them. We do not hear voices on a regular basis, but we have on a few occasions. We tend to “feel” the communication more than actually hearing it. It’s almost like a form of telepathy and is not audible to us. I can feel how different members feel when they decide to let me. When members communicate with me I feel what they are saying to me and understand. For example, today, I received a thought of a certain song that we liked a long time ago. Then I received a “feeling” message to play that song because a member hasn’t heard it in so long. That member remained co-conscious while I played the song. We have decided to refrain from pushing the members that are in hiding to show themselves as they will do this when they are ready. I can sense that they are very afraid and do not wish to come out.

I  am the host, however, I am not the original host. I do not have much memory of our childhood, teen years, young adulthood, or early 30′s. My name is Heather. I do not feel a very strong connection to this name. I also do not feel a very strong connection to any other name, which I find unusual, but it would make sense if I were to be a day to day task host. I feel I was created to perform the necessary daily experiences and go through the motions. We are not certain who the previous host or the original host was or if these members are still part of this system.

Blake was the first member to come out of the woodwork and try to communicate with me. He did not have a name first and stated that he didn't care if either way if he had a name. I explained that we needed something to call him so it is easier to communicate. He basically left it up to me, which I found strange but I gave him the first name I could think of. He has actually been co-conscious with me, the previous host, and others for many years. We assumed that we were just highly in touch with our masculine side many times during our day to day experiences. We recently noticed that Blake comes to the front during times of distress or times when no one seems to be in charge and we have to take control of situations around us and take care of the family. Due to the fact that we have had many experiences with being a single mom and dealing with past abuse by others, we have learned to take care of ourselves. Blake has been able to do this and we have been able to play “mommy” as well as “daddy” when necessary. Even though Blake has taken on a lot at times, this can prove to be overwhelming even for him. Blake is 18″ish” years old, he is heterosexual, but has clearly (and bluntly) stated that he is not interested in a relationship at this time, because of the number of emotional women he is dealing with in this system. He is basically burned out by the drama and does not prefer to partake in a relationship.  He tends to find the others in the system overly emotional and becomes irritated with the way these thoughts lead to confusion within the system. Blake is a protector and protects one of our little ones. He is also a protector of the children on the outside of our system in our outside family. Thinking back, I noticed how Blake will cause me to walk differently, speak differently, work out more, and do more “masculine” type things which included stepping on the toes of previous male partners to “get things done”. His taste in music is harsher and he prefers the no BS approach to everything. He gets upset when plans are not laid out and has an interest in the military and survival tactics. He is a drastic difference between myself, however, I find him enjoyable to speak with. He has a good sense of humor and he can be pretty laid back unless he is in a situation that requires him to be in “protection mode”. When he is not co-conscious or fronting he tends to remain quiet unless I reach out to communicate with him. Sometimes he will communicate, sometimes he prefers to be left alone. 

Image retrieved from: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/family-community-patchwork-76781/

Next, we have R, who actually does not want to use her full name online and I respect that. She does not wish to say what age she is. She would like to state that she is not all that bad, but has been pretty self-destructive in the past. From my (the host) perspective, we have had significant problems with relationships due to the behavior of R. More recently we have come to understand that she has been in a lot of pain all of these years and we have been working on self-love to help her. R identifies as bisexual. She is impulsive and quick to try any substance or anything risky. She actually has not been allowed to partake in these experiences for quite some time, which is frustrating for her, however, it seems like she has been open to healing. My opinion (although I am still getting to know everyone) is that she is much like an angry teenager. I have seen a recent change in her behavior and she does not push herself on the host like she used to. Her behavior does not come out with quick force in recent months like it did in the past. She seems to be less triggered by people being “too nice”. 

Next, there is C, whom we would like to keep from expressing her full name due to the fact that she is a little and she is protected by Blake. She is sweet and has been on the inside more often than not. She has fronted some times but it was very short and sweet. We do not wish to disclose any more information on her at this time. 

And then there is “Mo” which is short for Monica and she is a female who is about 12 years old. Mo is actually quite mature for her age and seems to be the most stable (besides Blake) out of the entire system. Mo has expressed that she knows of others in the system but she cannot say much more at this time. Mo has fronted in the past and she tends to isolate and work on projects for lengthy periods. She likes cartoons and funny shows.There was a time when we thought we were anti-social hermits that loved to learn, but realized recently that this was Mo taking over for several years. She actually took over for 3 years after our outside mother passed away and we were involved in an abusive relationship. During this time Mo fronted during the day and R was there mostly up at night doing self-destructive things. These two were like night and day (no pun intended :/ ). 

There are 3 more members that we have identified but we are unable to express more information about them at this time. Perhaps, over time these members will create their own posts. We would like to come up with a system to create posts so readers can understand who is speaking. This will happen over time. 

We are excited to be able to post in a way that will help others understand DID/OSDD “systems” or at bare minimum assist other systems by helping others relate. We know that this living experience can be a very lonely experience for many and we would like to reach out to help others not feel so alone. There are many people who are exposing themselves to the public eye in order to breakdown the stigma of DID/OSDD. We wanted to initially begin a YouTube channel, but we feel that this is not what we would be able to do just yet. Becoming vulnerable on camera does not suit our interest at this time. However, we find the process of writing this information enlightening and beautiful for the sake of bringing clarity to what may seem foreign to those who do not live with systems. It is very important for people to educate themselves about “disorders” and what they are before making a quick judgment or creating stereotypes about people. Everyone that has a mental illness is still a person! 

We feel that this is not a “disorder” but actually, a superpower that we have created in order to survive trauma. We find it fascinating that the brain could be so powerful and miraculous just to keep us protected! We hope to become part of the community of plurals in order to engage ourselves, decrease the stigma, implement our profound truths, and bring awareness to others. 

image retrieved from: https://www.discussingdissociation.com/2018/03/dissociative-identity-disorder-awareness-day-march-5/

References:

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2013.

APA (1968) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (2nd Edition) (DSM-II). American Psychiatric Association Washington DC. 

Being Emily living plural; Glossary of did terminology. (n.d.). Retrieved April 24, 2019, from https://emilyandothers.wordpress.com/glossary-of-did-terminology/

Cosgrove, L., Krimsky, S., Vijayaraghavan, M., & Schneider, L. (2006). Financial Ties between DSM-IV Panel Members and the Pharmaceutical Industry. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics,75(3), 154-160. doi:10.1159/000091772

[phroyd]

MONTREAL — Canada on Wednesday became the first major world economy to legalize recreational marijuana, beginning a national experiment that will alter the country’s social, cultural and economic fabric, and present the nation with its biggest public policy challenge in decades.

Across the country, as government pot retailers opened from Newfoundland to British Columbia, jubilant Canadians waited for hours in line to buy the first state-approved joints. For many, it was a seminal moment, akin to the ending of Prohibition in the United States in the 1930s.

It was also an unlikely unifier, coming at a time when Canada has been buffeted by bruising trade talks with the United States and has seen its prime minister, Justin Trudeau, repeatedly ridiculed by President Trump. Canada is the second country in the world, after Uruguay, to legalize marijuana.

“I have never felt so proud to be Canadian,” said Marco Beaulieu, 29, a janitor, as he waited with friends outside a government cannabis retailer in the east end of Montreal. “Canada is once again a progressive global leader. We have gay rights, feminism, abortion rights, and now we can smoke pot without worrying police are going to arrest us.”

Canadians broadly support marijuana legalization, but amid the euphoria, there was also caution.

“Legalization of cannabis is the largest public policy shift this country has experienced in the past five decades,” said Mike Farnworth, British Columbia’s minister of public safety.

“It’s an octopus with many tentacles, and there are many unknowns,” he added. “I don’t think that when the federal government decided to legalize marijuana it thought through all of the implications.”

In a stinging editorial published on Monday, for example, the Canadian Medical Association Journal called the government’s legalization plan an “uncontrolled experiment in which the profits of cannabis producers and tax revenues are squarely pitched against the health of Canadians.”

It called on the government to promise to change the law if it leads to increased marijuana use.

Under Canada’s new federal cannabis act, adults will be allowed to possess, carry and share with other adults up to 30 grams of dried cannabis, enough to roll roughly 60 regular-size joints. They will also be permitted a maximum of four homegrown marijuana plants per household in most provinces.

[Yes, Canadians can grow their own, but not in every province. No, it won’t be legal for kids to smoke. Here’s what you need to know as Canada legalizes marijuana.]

Marijuana for medical purposes has been legal in Canada since 2001, and about 330,000 Canadians, including cancer patients, are registered to receive it from licensed producers.

Pre-rolled joints, fresh or dried marijuana flowers, and cannabis oil are all permitted under the law. Cannabis edibles — like pot-infused jelly beans, peanut butter and coffee — won’t be legal for another year.

According to Canada’s national statistics office, 4.9 million Canadians used cannabis last year and consumed more than 20 grams of marijuana per person.

On Wednesday morning, the government announced that it would introduce legislation to make it easier for Canadians who had been convicted of possessing small amounts of marijuana to obtain a pardon.

While the government is not offering a blanket amnesty, Ralph Goodale, the public safety minister, said at a news conference in Ottawa that as “a matter of basic fairness,” the government would seek to end the minimum waiting period of five years to apply for a pardon as well as waiving the fee of 631 Canadian dollars.

The federal government has left the country’s 13 provinces and territories to carry out the new legislation and set their own rules, creating a patchwork of regulations. Among many open questions are how the police will test drivers who may be high and how employers deal with employees who smoke before coming to work.

Bernard Le Foll, a specialist in addiction at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, a leading teaching hospital and research organization, said that although the center supported legalization, he was concerned that the public dissemination of information about risks had been insufficient.

“Cannabis is not a benign substance,” Dr. Le Foll said. “There is a clear risk of addiction, and it can produce significant mental health issues if used by the wrong kind of people.”

He added, “It took decades for the public to understand the risks of cigarettes, and the legalization of cannabis has taken place only over a few years.”

Jean-Sébastien Fallu, an associate professor of applied psychology and a specialist in addiction at Université de Montréal, said he particularly worried about the effects on young people.

“We don’t want young people to feel stigmatized, for example, if they don’t use cannabis,” Professor Fallu said.

The legalization of cannabis has led to a so-called “green rush,” with licensed cannabis growers pressing to get a foothold in what is expected to be a $5 billion industry (6.5 billion Canadian dollars) by 2020, buttressed by the expected arrival of thousands of pot tourists from the United States.

[Companies are clamoring to join in the next get-rich-quick hope — the Canadian marijuana industry.]

After months of soaring share prices, though, the first day of legal marijuana sales initially saw steep drops in the value of marijuana stocks. That reversed somewhat in the afternoon, leaving the largest companies’ shares down just slightly by the end of trading. Many analysts say the value of legalization was long ago priced to the shares’ value.

At the government cannabis store in Montreal — one of 12 in Quebec — a line stretched across a long city block on Wednesday morning. Some of the hundreds of people had waited since 3:30 a.m., anticipating the store’s 10 a.m. opening.

Kate Guihan, 29, a beautician, said she planned to celebrate the “historic moment” on Wednesday night with several puffs on a joint. The low cost of government pot, she added, was a big draw for her, along with the fact that legal marijuana was screened and devoid of contaminants.

In Halifax, the mood was similarly buoyant.

“We are witnessing history,” said Shawn King, the host of a countdown to legalization on a local radio station. “Marijuana prohibition is ending after 96 years. There’s going to be a generation of people that never knew it was ever banned.”

Inside a government retailer in Halifax that looked like an Apple store, shoppers browsed for products including “Ghost Train” and “Lemon Skunk.” Bongs were on display. Some shoppers bought weed, and others accessorized.

Others across Canada were ordering pot online from government stores.

As online demand soared, stocks quickly ran out, creating fears of marijuana shortages.

In New Brunswick, the government cannabis agency provided a step-by-step guide on its website on how to roll a joint.

[Want more Canadian coverage in your inbox? Subscribe to our weekly Canada Letter newsletter.]

The stated rationale for legalizing cannabis was to tame an illegal multibillion-dollar trade. But from Toronto to Winnipeg to Vancouver, hundreds of illegal shops have indicated that they have no intention of shutting down, and the black market supply chain remains deeply entrenched.

In Toronto on Wednesday, revelers — some wearing T-shirts that said “Weed Won” — packed a cannabis lounge in the city’s bohemian Kensington Market, where some were smoking black market pot to the sound of reggae music.

Toronto had 92 illegal dispensaries the day before legalization, though 56 were shut down Wednesday afternoon. One had a “For Rent” sign inside its window. Others were shuttered.

In Vancouver, dozens of illegal marijuana dispensaries defied the new law by selling, among other things, outlawed edible cannabis and marijuana-infused face creams.

Some illegal shops in both cities are hoping to get licensed.

Chief Constable Adam Palmer of the Vancouver Police Department, who is also the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said this week that at a time of limited resources, policing marijuana would not suddenly become law enforcement’s primary concern.

“Fentanyl kills 11 Canadians a day,” he said, referring to the powerful synthetic opioid that is a public health scourge in some cities like Vancouver. “Marijuana does not.”

He added, “I don’t expect a big crackdown on day one.”

Phroyd

[parismiki]

“How is Paris?”

Hello readers! Welcome to my blog. I’ve been meaning to write a blog for some time now, really since my days in Chicago, but I never felt this urge until now. Currently I feel like I am being tested to my limits and I have so many thoughts about so many different things. Writing has always been an outlet of mine (have kept journals since I learned how to hold a pen basically) and so here it is - a window of insight into my thoughts about a variety of different things. 

I don’t really have a theme for this blog, but I know it will touch on issues that are important to me: race, activism, Japanese American and Asian American identity, feminism, mental health, radical politics, etc. Given that I’m currently also in France with the generous help of a Fulbright scholarship (a lot will be discussed soon about this), my posts may be more focused on my current experience in France and how I have been navigating this foreign country. 

So, to start, many people have been asking me how Paris has been. There is some sort of illusory expectation that people have of my time here in Paris - that I’m happily eating baguettes every day (I am not -- I eat only rice and noodles), that I’m picnicking by the Seine, and I’m going to all these cool art galleries and museums on the daily. 

This could be farther from the truth. 

I am struggling. 

This is not the same experience that I had studying abroad through UChicago three years ago, where I took classes in English taught by UChicago professors at the UChicago Center in Paris with UChicago classmates. I had a huge safety net while I was here, which enabled me to go out and explore the city and meet new locals while still feeling rooted to a community of American students. I didn’t need to get a visa because I was here for less than 90 days, the housing situation was largely taken care of by the study abroad coordinator, and I was used to the UChicago pedagogy. The huge difference here is that I am going to grad school in Paris, working towards a professional degree, which entails a large degree of responsibility, self-reliance and resilience. 

However, this past month has been incredibly difficult for me. The workload is intense, unlike anything I saw in my quarters with the heaviest workloads at UChicago. I am taking eight classes that meet once a week. For one of my core classes, I must read four books for the midterm, which is less than a month away. Work is always on the back of my mind and I fear that I may miss an assignment.  There is rarely any time to be resting or relaxing, because I tell myself, well you could be using this time to study. 

As someone prone to anxiety, the workload and the added stress of being in a new country has taken quite a toll on me. There have been days where it has been hard to get out of bed and days where I feel like I’m just dragging throughout the day. Sometimes I wonder, “is this program worth it? Should I drop out?” but am quickly reminded that if I do, I lose my Fulbright scholarship. Additionally, Sciences Po is not the friendliest when it comes to their students’ mental health - their psychological services are minimal, and they fail you if you miss more than 2 classes (yes, attendance is taken in even the biggest of lecture classes.) I could go on and on about Sciences Po as an institution, but I can save that for another post. I have had to resume sessions with my therapist in Chicago because the French national healthcare system does not cover therapy services! 

Despite all this, I’ve managed to find small pockets of joy during my time here and have really forced myself to practice self-care. One could say that my most recent FB status asking for self-practice tips was a cry for help - surely I couldn’t be the only one who has gone through this. So here’s what has been working for me so far - and you don’t have to be in grad school either to abide by them!

1. Rely on your family and friend networks back home

Thank god for technology - I remember my dad telling me that when he was in college he had to wait in line in his dorm to use the landline to call his parents. I can’t even imagine how my mother kept in touch with her family back in Japan when she immigrated to the US (will write another post on my newfound appreciation for my mom as I transition to life here.) 

That being said, I text regularly with my friends and keep them updated about what’s going on in my life. Some others are also living abroad and it’s nice to know that we have each other’s backs -- one of my dear friends is doing her JET program in rural Kumamoto. She is 7 hours ahead of me, and always texts me a nice meme or a cute gif that I have the honor of waking up to. Last night I felt especially horrible and called one of my friends (who is going to start her master’s in philosophy at Oxford and we’ll be reunited soon!) who helped me calm down. As people starting new lives in new countries we often forget that we have a support system back home, but don’t forget - they helped to get you where you are. 

2. Read books that nurture your soul

I have always loved to read in order to learn new perspectives, but reading now serves a different purpose: it touches and nurtures my soul. When I first got here, I devoured Ruth Ozeki’s novel A Tale for the Time Being - it was a charming and quirky story that whisked me away to British Columbia/Tokyo. I didn’t know how much I needed it at the time. Currently I’m reading a sociology book called Redefining Japaneseness: Japanese Americans and the Ancestral Homeland, which is so comforting and keeps me super rooted to my own identity. 

I was pretty strategic when packing books and spent a good hour deciding which books to bring with me. I knew that I would be reading a lot of dry public policy and urban theory (I even discussed with my roommate, also an American woman of color, which books we would both bring should we want to borrow from each other’s shelves.) So I brought with me Matthew Desmond’s Evicted (which, luckily enough for me, I ended up having to write a paper on), Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor’s From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, and Louise Erdrich’s The Round House (Erdrich is a Native American fiction writer who writes heavily on Native American issues.) I’ve found that conversations surrounding racial justice are quite lacking in French academic discourse, so these books help to fill that gap in my life. In addition, I brought with me some Japanese language books, including ”コンビニ人間” and “君たちはどう生きるか” to practice my Japanese, because I don’t have access to Japanese TV anymore. 

3. Keep yourself intellectually accountable

One of the best pieces of advice I received from the director of the Humanity in Action fellowship I did this past summer was to keep yourself accountable by writing down your own thoughts and critiques of grad school readings in the margins when taking notes. I’ve found that a lot of the readings we are assigned take on a very neoliberal approach to cities and urbanism, and I am incredibly cynical. Sometimes, I just downright disagree. And instead of feeling exasperated by the content, I write down my critiques and will try to bring them up in class, sometimes daring to bring them up with the professor during lectures. This is how I try to stay engaged. 

4. Travel! 

Paris is pretty accessible to many other European countries by plane and train. In fact, just last weekend I was in Madrid visiting a few friends. I was not feeling my best and and even now I still feel awful for my low energy and that I was not as cheery as I hoped to be - but being around people you already know is comforting. In fact, I had a chance to reconnect with a friend from college who is a current Fulbright ETA in Madrid, who told me that he was feeling the same way as me during the same time last year. Knowing that other people have gone through the same motions while transitioning to life abroad makes you feel less alone. 

All in all, to those of you reading, I’m sorry if I have disappointed you with this blog post. However, I do think I need to be honest about my experience here and share with other folks who may be thinking about studying abroad. If anything, I am giving myself all the time I need to breathe, go through the motions, and eventually settle in. This will be a long process, but I am trying to be patient with myself. 

I cannot end this post without acknowledging the people who have been there for me. I’d like to extend a thank you to Keilyn, Sarah, Elisabeth, Gino, Crystal, Brenna, Shirley, Joe, and Amanda. And to my new friends at Sciences Po, I am looking forward to getting to know you and let’s finish this semester strong :) 

Okay and now some photos!

                   This is me in front of the Museo del Prado in Madrid

                    Hard to see but I was really feelin’ my outfit this one day

                                                   Really cute doggo 

              Colorful olives sold at the Marché Saint-Denis, a banlieue of Paris

[farkenshnoffingottom]

Ace Discourse, Here We Go

So. *rubs hands together* I decided it’s time for me to break into the discourse. Largely inspired by recent happenings on @highkingfen​‘s blog. I’m going to bring some theory into this so we can understand why people are so invested in this.

But first, since the first line of attack always seems to be aimed at people’s identities, I’m gonna go ahead and state mine right now: I’m transmasc nonbinary, gray aroace, and sensually, aesthetically, and platonically attracted to all genders. I’m also not able bodied, so I want you to understand the physical toll getting involved in this debate means for me, so that you know I am invested in this discussion. I apologize in advance for any errors, although I think I caught them all. (Long post, so I put it under the cut)

I will use queer in this post because I am queer.* Let’s start with some basic politics of sex, then work our way into queer politics, and then bring it back around to aceness.

In 1984, anthropologist Gayle Rubin wrote an essay called “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in which she argued that feminism could not take on sexuality theoretically or politically (she was writing in the midst of the feminist porn wars), but that we needed a distinct politics of sexuality. The part that strikes me as most relevant here is when she describes her theory of the sexual hierarchy. 

(While this does not include asexuality, it is fair to say that asexuality can fall behind some of these walls too, because it is not accepted. Underlying the category of “good” sex is the assumption that people will be having sex, so asexual people are a threat to this social order that requires that people have “good” sex to reproduce itself.) I highly recommend you read this article, but I am mainly using it here for the visual. Walls are high, and I would say most people cannot just scale a wall all by themselves. So the way we get around this is to throw each other under the bus, to mix my metaphors. In order to cross the line into “good” and acceptable behavior, people have to step on others, push them further down, to advance themselves (instead of, say, just destroying the walls). It looks a little like “we’re exactly like you, we just love each other, we want to get married, we want to be normal. They’re the ones having public sex, turning tricks on the streets, flaunting their sexuality, etc.”** Anything that buys into the normative narrative gets you a little closer to the “good” side of the wall. 

Now, I’m sort of rambling, but I promise I have a point. That point is that while asexuality may seem diametrically opposed from Rubin’s list of “bad” sex, it actually is theoretically and politically very similar. Society needs people to have sex to keep itself alive, but it just wants people to have the “right” sex. In a biopolitical way (see part five of the book linked), queer sex is just as threatening as no sex at all. The state is highly invested in controlling their population and regulating its function. This is why "Hyposexual Desire Disorder” appears in the DSM IV (It now appears split into separate disorders for males and females, which I won’t even get to, and now contains the caveat that it isn’t a disorder if someone identifies as asexual). So, improvement, right? Not quite. It still fits into the long history of queer identities and people being pathologized by medical and psychiatric authorities. Our cultural institutions acknowledge the danger asexuality poses to the social order alongside its other queer counterparts.

So, I’m counting that as my theoretical evidence that ace people belong in the queer community and moving on a little bit. One of the critiques I see of including ace people in the community is that asexuals aren’t discriminated against enough to be counted. First, see my very brief discussion of pathologization above. Second, the “cishet asexuals pass as heterosexual, so they don’t experience oppression” argument misses the point. I assume most people in this community understand why heteronormativity hurts. The assumption that you are straight when you’re not hurts. And that’s exactly what this is. The assumption that you’re straight, and that you are sexually attracted to people. And it hurts, except now it’s our supposed community that’s telling us we’re straight even after we say over and over that we’re not. Asexual is by definition not heterosexual. Three, the microagressions: lol you’re asexual, does that mean you reproduce like a plant? Don’t worry, you’ll find the right person some day (remind anyone of “but wait how do lesbians even have sex?” or “don’t worry, you’ll find the right (‘opposite’ gender) one day”?). We can acknowledge that microagressions are bad in other areas, so why can’t we admit that it’s true for ace-spec people too? Four, “corrective” therapy and/or sexual assault happen to us because of our orientations too. Even though I could go on and on, I’ll stop there. Just check my “ace discourse” tag for more. Or don’t. It’s exhausting stuff.

Another critique I see is that this somehow plays into the desexualization of gay people. People who are attracted to their own gender will be hypersexualized or desexualized by straight society as their politics call for.*** It is not asexuals’ fault that people cannot conceptualize the difference between asexuality and desexualization. Asexuality is an identity. Desexualizing someone is an act of perception and political understanding.

Additionally, asexuality is newer (not in concept, but in public visibility) than other queer orientations, and yet no one seems to want to remember that each of those past orientations had to go through the same thing, fighting to be seen as real and not pathological or unhealthy. Sure, we don’t have a legal fight in the same way that homosexual and trans people do, but that is mostly because a lot of people have no idea we exist. I’m going to point you to AVEN for an asexual history, because they’ll do a much better job than me.

Finally, simply this: it is not your job to decide who counts as queer “enough” to be in the community. Another thing we tend to forget when having this argument is that identities shift all the time. It’s politically important when dealing with the straight world to be able to say “it’s not a phase!” But sometimes, your identities shift, and that’s okay. I thought all sorts of things about who I was before I figured myself out, and I’ll probably end up somewhere a little different from where I am now. It is not so cut and dry. People can come out while they’re still questioning, and then realize that they were wrong and are really something else. Some people can be solid in an identity for years, and then start to think maybe there’s something more to it. And that is okay. What’s the point of saying we’re queer if we are just recreating the exact same structures and hierarchies and expectations that we faced in straight society? There is no need for gatekeeping here. I realized I was ace only two years ago, and started to question whether I was aromantic only a year ago. And guess what. I’m still not entirely sure who I am. But that’s fine. It’s okay to explore yourself. You don’t have to be locked into one category forever. Asexuals are not straight, and they are and should be welcome in queer spaces.

*While this should probably be covered in another post, I want to point out how intentional my use of the word is. Queer and LGBT are different concepts, in my mind. See my “queer discourse” tag for some history and theory that others have contributed. Also, read Queers Read This! to get a sense of the approach I take. For now, I will just say that queer has a historical and political meaning that grew as it diverged from the lesbian and gay movement (which was half-heartedly tacking the B and the T to the end of their name) in the ‘90s. Queer as a concept has a much higher capacity to be inclusive of ace-spec identities, because it defines itself and prides itself in its difference from the norm rather than its attempts at being normal. **For a much better discussion of this concept than I can provide here, Michael Warner’s book The Trouble With Normal is excellent, and I highly recommend it.

***Besides, the mainstream movement intentionally desexualized themselves to be acceptable to the straights. The more mainstream turn in our politics was essentially to de-sex gayness. That’s where things such as “love is love” and the gay marriage court cases came from. These were very effective political attempts to play into the normative “good” sex narrative, and distance themselves from all those bad queers doing the things on the other side of Rubin’s walls. Again, I’m going to point you to The Trouble With Normal, even though it’s almost twenty years old, because it just so brilliantly addresses all of this.

ETA: Michael Warner does talk about sex as being essential to queerness, specifically because he is writing his book in response to the desexualization of gay politics. I do not read this as an argument that asexual people aren’t queer, because I don’t think he is trying to account for our existence in this book, and it seems likely that he wasn’t thinking about us at all (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it’s not what he set out to do with his book, and I’m fine with that. You’ve gotta narrow down your scope to something manageable, and he already has a huge topic to address).

[sciencespies]

The True History Behind 'Six,' the Tudor Musical About Henry VIII's Wives

https://sciencespies.com/history/the-true-history-behind-six-the-tudor-musical-about-henry-viiis-wives/

The True History Behind 'Six,' the Tudor Musical About Henry VIII's Wives

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

Inspiration struck Toby Marlow during a comparative poetry class at Cambridge University in fall 2016. Participating in a discussion on William Blake, he found his mind wandering and began scribbling a series of unrelated notes: “Henry VIII’s wives → like a girl group … Need Lucy!!” 

Then an undergraduate student tasked with writing an original show for the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Marlow brought his idea to classmate Lucy Moss, who agreed to help bring his vision of a Tudor-themed pop musical to life. The product of the pair’s collaboration—Six, a modern reimagining of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives—premiered on London’s West End in 2019 to much acclaim. (A cast soundtrack released in September 2018 similarly became an unqualified success.) Now, after an extended delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the musical is finally making its Broadway debut.

L to R: Abby Mueller (Jane Seymour), Samantha Pauly (Katherine Howard), Adrianna Hicks (Catherine of Aragon), Andrea Macasaet (Anne Boleyn), BrittneyMack (Anna of Cleves) and Anna Uzele (Catherine Parr)

Liz Lauren

Six “didn’t come out of a love of the Tudor period particularly,” says Marlow, 26. “It came from us having an interest in the representation of women in musical theater, having women on stage doing funny and hilarious things.” Moss, 27, adds, “What we were interested in doing was reframing the way that women have been perceived in history and telling their side of the story.”

The Tudor period, with its “soap opera”-esque political machinations and rich cast of female characters, offered the duo the opportunity to explore contemporary issues like feminism through a historical lens. Though Six prominently features the rhyme historically used to describe the fates of the Tudor king’s queens—“divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”—the musical moves beyond these reductive one-word summaries to present its subjects as fully realized individuals. “With all of them,” says Moss, “there was so much of interest beyond the moment they got married or divorced.”

Marlow and Moss drew on a range of sources when writing Six, including Antonia Fraser’s The Wives of Henry VIII and documentaries hosted by historianLucy Worsley. The musical’s layered repartee deftly balances references to Tudor culture with nods to modern music, like the line “Stick around and you’ll suddenly see more” (a play on “Suddenly, Seymour” from Little Shop of Horrors). Still, Marlow explains, the show’s goal isn’t to convey history with 100 percent accuracy. Instead, “It’s [asking], ‘What if Anne Boleyn was like this?’ And how does that change the way you think about this very famous historical figure?”

Six frames its story as a makeshift talent competition in which the wife whose life was most tragic “wins.” The rules are simple: “The queen who was dealt the worst hand … shall be the one to lead the band.” Each wife sings a solo summarizing her experiences, engaging in acerbic banter in between verses. (During these numbers, the other wives act as both backup singers and dancers; beyond the six solos, the 80-minute show features three group numbers.) Ultimately, the women decide to form a girl band instead, leaving the king out of the narrative and imagining an alternate future featuring far happier ends for all of them.

Historian Jessica Storoschuk, who has written about Six extensively on her blog, has found that in school and popular culture, the queens are usually only talked about in terms of their fate. “[Six] is this kind of ridiculous satire of [that],” she says. “It’s a really intelligent way to explore their experiences, or, I should say, one part of their experiences, because their downfalls are not all of their lives.”

Below, find a song-by-song (or wife-by-wife) breakdown of the true history behind Six. Click through the interactive tools to learn more about specific lyrics from the show.

The song: “No Way,” a Beyoncé- and JLo-inspired “girl boss feminism” anthem, says Moss

Though Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to Henry lasted 24 years—collectively, his five other marriages spanned just 14 years—she has long been overshadowed by her successors. The daughter of Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, Catherine came to England as the bride of Henry’s older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. But Arthur died shortly after the pair’s wedding, leading the Spanish princess to (eventually) marry his heir, Henry. 

By all accounts, the couple enjoyed a loving relationship that only deteriorated due to a lack of a male heir and the king’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn. In the late 1520s, Henry sought a divorce from his first wife, arguing that her previous relationship with Arthur was the reason for the couple’s lack of a surviving son. Determined to protect her daughter Mary’s rights, Catherine refused to concede.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

Six’s account of these events, “No Way,” takes its cue from a June 21, 1529, meeting at Blackfriars in London. After years of debate over the validity of the royal couple’s marriage, a papal court was conceived to address the king’s so-called Great Matter. Appealing directly to her husband, Catherine fell to her knees and delivered an impassioned monologue:

Intending (as I perceive) to put me from you, I take God and all the world to witness, that I have been to you a true and humble wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure. … If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart, to my great shame and dishonor; and if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate, and receive justice at your princely hand.

A 1544 portrait of the future Mary I, Henry and Catherine’s daughter

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Portrait believed to depict a young Catherine of Aragon

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

After uttering these words, Catherine left Blackfriars, ignoring the clerk’s calls for her to return. Without turning around, she declared, “On, on, it makes no matter, for it is no impartial court for me, therefore I will not tarry.” The queen was correct in her assessment: Henry had no intention of remaining in the marriage. Determined to wed Anne, he broke from the Catholic Church in order to make her his wife.

Catherine’s Six solo could’ve been a “super emotional [sad] ballad,” says Moss. Instead, she and Marlow chose to emphasize the queen’s defiance, emulating Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” and setting the tone for the rest of the musical.

The real Catherine followed through on her fictionalized counterpart’s pledge to remain “queen till the end of my life,” refusing to acknowledge her marriage’s annulment even on her deathbed in 1536. Catherine’s legacy, historian Julia Fox told Smithsonian magazine last year, “is that of a wronged woman … who did not accept defeat, who fought for what she believed to be right until the breath left her body.”

The song: “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” a “cheeky” number modeled on Lily Allen and Kate Nash, according to Moss

Arguably the most (in)famous of the six wives, Anne is alternatively portrayed as a scheming, power-hungry seductress; a victim of her callous father’s vaulting ambition; or a worldly, charismatic woman who rose to the kingdom’s highest office only to be targeted by jealous men.

A near-contemporary painting of Anne Boleyn

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The truth of the matter depends on which scholar one asks. Most of Anne’s letters and papers were destroyed following her May 1536 execution on contrived charges of adultery, incest, witchcraft and conspiring to kill her husband, so much of what is known about her comes from outside observers, some of whom had reason to paint her in an unforgiving light. Even the queen’s date of birth, writes historian Antonia Fraser, is a fact “that can never be known with absolute certainty (like so much about Anne Boleyn).”

Anne’s song in Six, “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” draws its name from her method of execution: beheading by sword. Moss says she and Marlow view the number as a playful response to historians’ continued vilification of the queen as “calculating and manipulative”: “We were like, wouldn’t it be fun to mock [that trope] and make it that she was like ‘Well, I’m just living. I did this thing randomly, and now everything’s gone crazy.’”

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive tool.

Though the tone of “Don’t Lose Ur Head” is intentionally more irreverent than the real queen, who Storoschuk says “was incredibly shrewd, very well educated, well read and well spoken,” the broad strokes of the song are historically accurate. Anne spent her teenage years in the courts of Margaret of Austria and Francis I of France, gaining a cosmopolitan worldview that helped her stand out in England. When she caught Henry’s eyes, she was a maid of honor in service of his first wife; rather than becoming Henry’s mistress, as her sister Mary had, Anne refused to sleep with the king until they were married. To wed Anne, Henry broke with the Catholic Church and established himself as head of the Church of England. Finally, the once-besotted king fell out of love in dramatic—and, for Anne, fatal—fashion just three years after their long-awaited marriage.

The song: “Heart of Stone,” a slow, Adele-like ballad

Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, has gone down in history as the “boring” one. According to Fraser, she was intelligent and “naturally sweet-natured,” with the “salient characteristics [of] virtue and common good sense.” Historian Alison Weir similarly describes Jane as “endowed with all the qualities then thought becoming in a wife: meekness, docility and quiet dignity.” 

Moss and Marlow tried to flesh out these descriptions by highlighting Jane’s political savvy. During her comparatively brief courtship with Henry, Jane drew on many of the same tactics used by Anne Boleyn, most notably by refusing to sleep with him until they were married. Presenting a submissive front may have been a tactic, says Moss. It’s also worth noting that Jane used her position to advance causes she cared about, including restoring her stepdaughters, Mary and Elizabeth, to their father’s favor and speaking out against the closure of England’s religious houses.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

On one occasion, Henry reportedly dismissed his new wife by advising her to “attend to other things, [for] the last queen had died in consequence of meddling too much in state affairs.” “Heart of Stone” acknowledges this risk, but Six’s version of Jane chooses to remain steadfast in her love of Henry and their son, the future Edward VI.

Following Jane’s death in childbirth in 1537, Henry memorialized her as “the fairest, the most discreet and the most meritorious of all his wives”—a distinction no doubt motivated by the fact that she’d given the king his only surviving male heir, writes Weir. (Edward took the throne “Six” reflects this enviable status by identifying Jane as “the only one he truly loved.” As she herself acknowledges in “Heart of Stone,” however, Henry’s affection is conditional on her ability to provide him with a son.

Henry chose to include Jane, rather than his then-wife, Catherine Parr, in this dynastic portrait. Painted around 1545, the work depicts Edward, Henry and Jane at its center and Mary and Elizabeth in the wings.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking with Vulture last year, Moss said, “The idea was about the strength of choosing to love someone and committing to someone, and that being an equally valid feminist experience.” She added, “I love that [Jane] gets to say, ‘I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t naïve.’”

The song: “Get Down,” a 16th-century take on the rap and hip-hop “trope of being popular and bragging about your Ferrari and your Grey Goose,” says Moss

Anne (or, as the musical calls her, Anna) of Cleves was, in some historians’ view, the most successful of Henry’s six queens. After just six months of marriage, she earned the king’s enduring affection by agreeing to an annulment. Then, she proceeded to outlive her former husband, not to mention the rest of his wives, by a decade. “[Anne] did get pushed to the side in a rather unceremonious way, but she had a pretty good life,” says Storoschuk. “She was given several properties. She gambled a lot. She got to go hunting, she had the best clothes and the best food. She was loved at court.”

A 1540s portrait of Anne of Cleves by Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Elder

St. John’s College, University of Oxford, via Art U.K. under CC BY-NC-ND

“Get Down” focuses on this victorious period in Anne’s life, celebrating her independence as a wealthy, unmarried woman at Tudor court. In line with the musical’s goal of reclaiming the narrative, the number also reframes the incident that led to Anne’s annulment. Henry, enchanted by a flattering Hans Holbein portrait of his bride-to-be, was reportedly repulsed by the “tall, big-boned and strong-featured” woman who arrived in England at the beginning of 1540. Declaring “I like her not! I like her not!” after their first meeting, the king only went through with the wedding to maintain diplomatic ties with Anne’s home, the German Duchy of Cleves, and other Protestant allies across the European continent.

After just six months of marriage, Henry, eager to replace his short-reigning queen with the young, vivacious Katherine Howard, had the union annulled on the grounds of non-consummation and Anne’s pre-contract with Francis, Duke of Lorraine. Anne, from then on known as the “king’s beloved sister,” spent the rest of her days in luxury.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

Moss studied history at Cambridge and says much of her schoolwork centered around early modern German visual culture. Six actually includes a standalone song, “Haus of Holbein,” that satirizes 16th-century beauty culture and Henry’s portrait-driven search for a fourth wife: “Hans Holbein goes around the world / Painting all of the beautiful girls / From Spain / To France / And Germany / The king chooses one / But which one will it be?”

Given Holbein’s reputation for accuracy and Henry’s own declining looks (at the time of the couple’s wedding, the king was 48 years old), Marlow and Moss chose to turn the tables, having Anne proclaim herself a fan of the much-vilified portrait. Further cementing Anne’s mastery of the situation, “Get Down”’s refrain finds the supposedly unattractive queen hanging up her likeness “for everyone to see.”

The song: “All You Wanna Do,” a catchy number modeled on the work of “young pop stars sexualized early on in their careers,” like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Ariana Grande, as Marlow told Vulture

For much of history, Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, has been dismissed as a wanton woman of little import. Writing in 1991, Weir described her as a “frivolous, empty-headed young girl who cared for little else but dancing and pretty clothes.” Fraser, meanwhile, wrote that “[h]ere was no intelligent adult woman, wise in the ways of the world—and of course courts.” More recent scholarship has taken a sympathetic view of the queen, with Gareth Russell’s 2017 book, Young and Damned and Fair, leading the conversation. As Russell argues, “[Katherine] was toppled by a combination of bad luck, poor decisions, and the Henrician state’s determination to punish those who failed its king.” 

Katherine’s Six solo, titled “All You Wanna Do,” echoes Russell’s characterization of its subject as a victim of circumstance and predatory older men. Though her exact birthdate is unknown, Katherine may have been as young as 17 when she was beheaded on charges of treasonous adultery in February 1542. Henry, comparatively, was 50 at the time of his disgraced wife’s execution.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

The king was far from the first man to sexualize Katherine. “All You Wanna Do” details the queen’s relationships in heart-wrenching detail, from a liaison with her music teacher, Henry Manox (the song suggests that he was 23 to Katherine’s 13, but as Storoschuk points out, he may have been closer to 33), to an affair with Francis Dereham, secretary to the dowager duchess, Katherine’s step-grandmother. When each new romance begins, the teenager declares herself hopeful that this time will be different. By the end of the song, however, she realizes that all of her suitors have the same goal in mind.

According to Moss, she and Marlow wanted Katherine’s song to start out with a “sexy, seductive” tone before transforming into a “narrative of abuse” with echoes of today’s #MeToo movement. Marlow adds, “It was kind of like us talking about what happened to one of the queens and finding a way of relating it to something that we would recognize as a modern female experience.”

Katherine’s “life was so tragic,” says Storoschuk. “She was so young, and she really had very little agency over her own life. ‘All You Wanna Do’ really encompasses that.”

The song: “I Don’t Need Your Love,” a soulful, Alicia Keys–inspired love song

Often reduced to the one-word summary of “survived” or the role of nursemaid to a succession of ailing husbands, Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, was actually a renowned scholar, religious reformer and perhaps even protofeminist. In Six, she takes ownership of these attributes, refusing to be defined by her romantic relationships and instead listing her manifold accomplishments: “Remember that I was a writer / I wrote books and psalms and meditations / Fought for female education / So all my women can independently study scripture / I even got a woman to paint my picture.”

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

As the last of the six to take the stage, the fictionalized Catherine has dual obligations: namely, sharing her story and setting up a satisfying musical finale. “We needed one of the queens to be like ‘Wait, we shouldn’t be competing with each other. We should support each other,’” says Moss. “Fortunately, [Catherine’s role] as a writer, educator and advocate for women helped with that.” Encouraging the wives to take back the microphone, Catherine calls for them to assert themselves outside of their marriages to Henry. “It’s not what went down in history,” the six admit, “[b]ut tonight, I’m singing this for me.”

Catherine Parr’s fourth husband, Thomas Seymour

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The real Catherine led a rich life beyond what’s captured in “I Don’t Need Your Love.” As alluded to by the song’s first verses, which find Catherine telling a lover that she has “no choice” but to marry the king, the twice-married young widow initially had another suitor in mind: Thomas Seymour, the dashing younger brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane. (The would-be couple wed soon after Henry’s death in 1547, but their marriage was tainted by Thomas’ improper conduct toward his new stepdaughter, the future Elizabeth I.)

Despite being forced into a relationship with Henry, Catherine made the most of her position, pushing her husband to embrace Protestantism and encouraging him to restore his daughters to the line of succession. She narrowly escaped an attempt by the court’s conservative faction to have her executed on charges of heresy, winning back Henry’s favor even after he’d signed a warrant for her arrest. Catherine died just a year after the king, succumbing to complications from childbirth in 1548.

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[psychichideoutpeace]

My take on this foreign family’s  intercultural and interpersonal problems

It was 31st August, Well I clearly remember the date because that's my girlfriend's birthday. I was chatting with her in messenger and planning about our upcoming date night and It was a pretty intense situation. The TV was turned on as background noise, i wasn't watching it. Suddenly Tv has all my attention because I heard someone is saying “amra bideshider shathe aageo bhasha niye lorai korechi abong joyi hoyechi, amader itihash ache bideshi der shathe bhashar jonno llorai korbar, uni amar meye ke bangla shikhte dey na” 2 young daughter of his holding his arm from both side while he was briefing the press. Few moments later that news made it to online news platforms and I have seen people going crazy in support of a man named Imran Sharif, no wonder why ?

                                                Photo source : Google

Language itself in its raw form is not interesting, at least to me because I took it for granted. I have been using it since I started talking and no one stopped me from doing so. When I got to know at my early age that in 1952 people lost their lives in order to achieve the rights of speaking in our mother tongue, it straight away gave goosebumps and as I am writing this blog it's still the same feeling. So that's the strength and power of the “idea of our Bengali language” which can create larger spikes in all Bengalis' heart rate. So we are emotionally attached to this idea of our Bengali language and how this idea affects the behavior of people demonstrates real power. Now the question is why I am mentioning this ? because power yields people !  We have just seen cultural hegemony in action in the comment section of this news of Imran Sharif’s case. Let's look at what this case is all about and deconstruct it with the lens of cultural studies. 

                                                Photo source : Google 

Eriko Nakano US-Japan holding citizenship and Imran Sharif holding US-BD Citizenship tied the knot on July 11, 2008, according to the law of Japan. Eriko is a physician and Imran Sharif is an It engineer, and has his own It firm. So they both belong to superstructure. They used to live in Tokyo and the couple has been blessed with three daughters aged 11, 10, and seven. The kids were studying at a school in Tokyo. On January 18, Imran appealed for divorce but it was held in processing because he didn't attend the hearing and left Japan later. Upon asking why did he file divorce, Imran replied to the press that Eriko and her father booked an apartment which costs around 2.7 million USD and Imran had to pay the major part of installment of US$ 3,800 monthly, Eriko was paying 2000$. Imran was facing a hard time in his business and proposed Eriko to move to the USA so that he can do better with his skill there and earn more money. But Eriko was not willing to move to the USA. Eriko said, pay the installment fees as rent because he was staying in that apartment but Imran was not generating enough cash to pay out the taxing 3,800 $ US monthly and he was not willing to pay this much amount from his savings for the property in which he was not even a stakeholder. Eriko then asked her husband Imran Sharif to leave that apartment. She even sent three legal notices to leave the home because Imran stopped paying the installment. This sounds more like straight out oppression and unequal treatment but I have seen many people who actually wear the feminist's badge on social media, blaming Imran as he is not paying the installment and why would he ask Eriko to move to the USA if his IT career and business is not doing good in Japan. We know feminism, which became the buzz word of the internet in the 21st century, is actually about the oppression of women by men and feminist's stand for equal rights and treatment. There are feminists and then pseudo-feminists come along.

                                               Photo source : Google

Pseudo-feminism suggests that women deserve more respect, or people of other sexes do not deserve respect. Living in a culture where women face many challenges every day is the worst thing is that some people hurt the term feminism. On social media, hardly anyone knows about feminism and they end up being pseudo-feminist. Do pseudo-feminists really want equal treatment? No, they want to create a world governed only by women. Will a woman be getting away with any wrongdoing? Women on social media who identify themselves as feminists want equality and recognition for women they think to deserve it. They’re going to bash a woman if he’s their lesser wife or sister like a politician but they’re going to support a woman bashing that same political leader. Hypocrisy and pseudo-feminism get a melting pot here. 

Feminism is simply about freedom and is not about judgment. People who recognize feminism don’t wear the feminist badge. These are the people who want a good education for their daughter, and support their companion if she wants to be working in the field. Some women want to give their husbands food; some women want to take more care of their house and children than work. That is not making them slaves; it is up to them to decide what to do.

After analyzing the available information, It feels more like there are pseudo feminism or women supremacy present in Eriko’s actions which build up to some degree and lead to the current situation. I am not entirely blaming her for anything and I am not here to judge anyone. I am just writing my take on this. Do humans only value other humans when they have jobs, money, status and are capable of paying for mortgages ? What about someone suddenly losing their job ? Let's break it down even further. What if  men, husbands loses their job while wife is still working or earning more, will this make the man or husband lesser than who they are as human beings ? No right. Then why do the relationship and power dynamics takes a paradigm shift all of a sudden in these situations, I wonder why ? 

As Marks describes, capitalist society will inevitably experience conflict between its social classes. The owners and the workers will have different ideas about the division of the wealth generated, and the owners will ultimately make the decision. This constant conflict, or dialectical materialism, is what instigates change. Marks also describes that the only real social division is class. Divisions of race, ethnicity, gender, and religion are artificial, devised by the bourgeoisie to distract the proletariat from realizing their unity and rebelling against their oppressors. Here in this case we see race, gender, religion, ethnicity and also social class differences between the proletariat Eriko and Imran. 

In this case of Eriko and Imran, when Imran refused to pay for the mortgage of Eriko’s apartment, the relationship dynamic changed and Eriko wanted to evict Imran from the house.  

On January 21, Imran filed an appeal to the school authorities to take one of his daughters but they refused following the objection of Eriko. Later, Imran picked up the other two daughters from the school bus to a rented building on February 21 and returned to Bangladesh with them.

On May 31, a court in Tokyo handed over the custody of the two daughters to Eriko. On July 18, Eriko came to Bangladesh in search of the custody of her daughters leaving behind their six years old daughter in Japan. Despite her report being negative, Imran did not believe the report and refused to meet her children. On July 26, Eriko’s mobile connection was cut and he was given the opportunity to meet the girls blindfolded. On 19 August, Nakano Eriko,  filed a petition with the HC seeking its directives to return her two daughters Jasmine Malika,11, and Laila Lina, 10 from their Bangladeshi father Sharif Imran. The court then asked the authorities to present the two children before the court on August 31. It also asked Imran not to leave the country with his daughters for the next one month. At the directives of the court, Imran and Eriko, accompanied by their daughters, are living in a rented house in Gulshan 1 of Dhaka. The court will issue further directives over their dispute on 16 September. High court ordered them to stay under the same roof and suggested they figure out a mutual solution as these kids were staying in a victim support centre before. Lawyers were also suggesting the same. 

                                                  Photo : Google 

Now comes the interesting part, Why did Imran come to Bangladesh with his two daughters ? Eriko and Imran were married legally in Japan and there is a case going on about the legal custody in Japan’s court. Their daughters have Japanese citizenship. He was living in Japan and has US citizenship, so why Bangladesh ? Imran was saying in his press conferences that he won't get custody of the child in Japan’s court. Maybe to battle the ethnocentric advantage that Eriko had in Japan. But as these daughters are minors, In most cases the custody goes to mothers side. Maybe Imran made a calculated move that he will get the empathy of Bengali people as we have seen him saying to the press that Eriko takes these kids out whenever Imran tries to teach their daughters Bengali language. Bengali has a long history of fighting against foreigners for language. I found these statements of his, a bit over the top, dramatic and only to shape the public's point of view against Eriko. 

If we analyze the situation carefully, we can see, Imran is using tools like cultural hegemony to get advantage as he is communicating and reaching out to the mass people through press conferences, YouTube channels and interviews. Imran is exercising the power of language and culture more efficiently. He is forging his words carefully and deliberately to get the empathy of the mass people and Bangladesh is the only place where he can have leverage over Eriko in this case because he is now identifying himself as Bengali and wearing it as a vanguard to defend anything that coming against him. In a interview he said to a journalist that “ I am a Bengali like you are and I have the rights of a citizen in my country, only my passport is American that doesn't mean I am not Bengali” Imran is using identity politics to create positive public opinion about him. He is trying to portray Eriko as “other” and not as the mother of their daughter. Also he is trying to create a us versus them situation with these statements so that public sentiment remains on his side. People have already made lots of propaganda videos against Eriko on their own Imran Sharif didn't tell them to do so, Its cultural hegemony in action.    

On the other hand he has already sought Tk 50 million as compensation for revealing defamatory information about him from Eriko. Otherwise, he threatened to lodge a case against her over the matter. But we hardly have any detail explanation from Eriko’s side.

The future of three minor kids are now dependent on the dialogue and intent of their parents. The High Court on 16th September directed concerned lawyers to settle the custodial dispute between Bangladeshi father Imran Sharif and Japanese mother Nakano Eriko over their two daughters within 12 days and fixed September 28 for further hearing and delivering a final verdict on the matter but as of today there is no latest news available.

References :

High court sends 2 children of Japanese mother to support centre. (2021, August 23). Dhaka Tribune. https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2021/08/23/hc-sends-two-children-to-a-support-centre-as-parents-fight-over-their-custody

Https://www.risingbd.com. (2147). CID rescues two daughters of that Japanese woman. Risingbd Online Bangla News Portal. https://www.risingbd.com/english/national/news/81810

Japanese mother files petition with HC to remove CCTV cameras from residence. (2021, September 6). The Business Standard. https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/court/japanese-mother-files-petition-hc-remove-cctv-cameras-residence-298648

Japanese woman in HC for kids’ guardianship. (192021, August). New Age | The Most Popular Outspoken English Daily in Bangladesh. https://www.newagebd.net/article/146772/japanese-woman-in-hc-for-kids-guardianship

Japanese woman’s petition for daughters’ custody: HC asks father to present the children. (2021, August 19). The Daily Star. https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/crime-justice/news/japanese-woman-comes-bangladesh-starts-legal-battle-custody-daughters-2155956

জাপানি দুই শিশুর বিষয়ে যে আদেশ দিলেন হাইকোর্ট | বাংলাদেশ. (1970, January 1). Somoy News. https://www.somoynews.tv/news/2021-08-31/

[statetalks]

What Name Did The Democrats Give Southerners Who Became Republicans

Adams And The Revolution Of 1800

Shortly after Adams took office, he dispatched a group of envoys to seek peaceful relations with France, which had begun attacking American shipping after the ratification of the Jay Treaty. The failure of talks, and the French demand for bribes in what became known as the XYZ Affair, outraged the American public and led to the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war between France and the United States. The Federalist-controlled Congress passed measures to expand the army and navy and also pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien and Sedition Acts restricted speech that was critical of the government, while also implementing stricter naturalization requirements. Numerous journalists and other individuals aligned with the Democratic-Republicans were prosecuted under the Sedition Act, sparking a backlash against the Federalists. Meanwhile, Jefferson and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which held that state legislatures could determine the constitutionality of federal laws.

Radio Coverage Of Presidents Johnsons Remarks Upon Signing The Civil Rights Act Of 1964: The Complete Speech

President Johnsonâs speech was delivered just two days before the 188th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In it the president cited the phrase âall men are created equalâ and pointed out that historically many Americans were denied equal treatment. The Civil Rights Act, he said, provides that âthose who are equal before God shall now all be equalâ in all aspects of American life. As President Johnson said, this was a long journey to freedom.

Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

Listen to the audio

Busiest Time Weve Had In Years

Imaging a florist busily responding with gratitude towards Congress, President Johnson, and Civil Rights leaders, Herblock captures sudden good will as the Senate voted for cloture to end fifty-four days of filibuster on the Civil Rights Act on June 10, 1954. The Senate finally passed the legislation on June 19, 1964. The Civil Rights Act was not the only item on President Johnsonâs legislative agendawhich led one reporter to call him âa âTexas Santa Clausâ in a ten-gallon hat.â

Herblock. âBusiest time weâve had in years,â 1964. Graphite and India ink drawing. Published in the Washington Post, June 12, 1964. Herbert L. Block Collection, , Library of Congress

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Senator Everett Dirksens Amendments To Title Vii

Senator Everett Dirksen , Republican from Illinois and Senate minority leader, comments on his amendments to Title VII, the employment section of the civil rights bill. The interview for The Great Divide: Civil Rights and the Bill, broadcast on ABC, May 22, 1964, was recorded earlier that week. After a compromise with Democratic Party leaders in the Senate, Dirksen was instrumental in persuading fellow Republicans to support the bill, and the filibuster that had held up passage ended.

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Dixie’s Long Journey From Democratic Stronghold To Republican Redoubt

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Ronald Reagan speaks to a reporter at the Republican National Convention in Florida in 1968. In 1984, Reagan carried in the biggest group of Southern Republicans in Congress since Reconstruction.

The tragic events in Charleston this month have released years of racial and political tension in the South, and the pressure is being felt by Republican officeholders across the region.

Why the Republicans? Because it is increasingly difficult to find officeholders in the region who are not Republicans.

The South was once home to the “yellow dog Democrat” who would vote for a mutt over someone from the party of Abraham Lincoln. Now, the party of the Great Emancipator has made Dixie its bedrock, the base of its Electoral College vote and its majorities in Congress. Many a great-granddaddy buried in rebel gray has been rolling over in his grave for some years now.

The South’s rejection of its Democratic DNA began more than 60 years ago with a Supreme Court decision, and significant historic milestones have followed like clockwork in almost every decade since.

The late Nelson Polsby, an influential and at times contrarian political scientist, wrote a book arguing that it was air conditioning that made the South competitive. It brought Republicans from other parts of the country into the South as retirees and as employers in growing numbers after World War II.

Here are a few of the major milestones in the migration of these Southern voters.

Clarence Mitchell Jr Calls For A Real Showdown On Civil Rights

As the 88th Congress began its second session early in January 1964, hearings on proposed civil rights legislation were about to commence in the House Rules Committee. Clarence Mitchell, Jr., , Washington Bureau director for the NAACP, explains the reason that the legislation has taken so long to reach this stage and calls for âa real showdown on civil rightsâ in this interview for At Issue: Countdown on Civil Rights, broadcast January 15, 1964, on National Educational Television.

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Formal Debate Begins On The Civil Rights Bill

On March 30, the Senate began formal debate on H.R. 7152. Senator Richard Russell divided the senators opposing the bill, known as the Southern bloc, into three six-member platoons to prolong the filibuster. When one platoon had the floor, the other two rested and prepared to speak. Each member was responsible for talking four hours per day. Russell hoped the filibuster would erode public support for civil rights and compel the pro-civil rights senators to dilute H.R. 7152 in order to secure passage. He did not expect to defeat the bill.

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, April 3, 1964 . Typed letter. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Courtesy of the NAACP

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What Name Did The Democrats Give Southerners Who Became Republicans

Scalawags

Explanation: The term scalawag was given by Southern Democrats to fellow white Southerners who had become Republican and supported Reconstruction after the Civil War. They were considered traitors by many Southerners who remained loyal to the Confederate cause.

C. Scalawags

Explanation:

White southern Republicans, referred to their adversaries as “scalawags,” made up the greatest gathering of agents to the Radical Reconstruction-era legislatures. A few scalawags were established planters who felt that whites ought to perceive blacks’ considerate and political rights while as yet holding control of political and economic life.

Many were previous Whigs who saw the Republicans as the successors to their old party. Most of the scalawags were non-slaveholding small farmers as well as merchants, artisans and other experts who had stayed faithful to the Union amid the Civil War.

according to the report, the government has imposed restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. the official media remained tightly controlled by government censorship and obstruction. restrictions on the freedom to assemble remain a problem in vietnam.

explanation:

Treatment Of Contempt Cases

On April 21, Senator Herman Talmadge called up his amendment requiring jury trials for all criminal contempt cases in the federal courts. It was withdrawn in favor of one by Senator Thruston Morton requiring a jury trial for any criminal contempt case arising from H.R. 7152. Civil rights advocates opposed the amendments because they doubted that Southern juries would convict white violators. Senator Everett Dirksen worked with Senator Mike Mansfield to offer a substitute amendment. It granted a judge the right to authorize a jury trial in all criminal contempt cases arising from the bill. If the accused was tried without a jury, the judge would be limited in the penalties he could impose to fines of up to $300 or sentences of up to thirty days.

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, April 24, 1964 . Typed letter. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Courtesy of the NAACP

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President Johnson Seeks Support Of Civil Rights Leaders

Immediately after signing the act, President Johnson held a meeting with civil rights leaders in the cabinet room at the White House. He wanted to ensure their collaboration, when the act would inevitably be tested, to not call for demonstrations and to carefully select test cases in the courts. In turn the president promised the full support of the Justice Department in protecting the act. He received assurances from those present that they understood and would cooperate.

Lee C. White. White House Memorandum, July 6, 1964. Courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Austin, Texas

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It Took Much Longer And Went Much Further Than We Think

Most Americans have heard the story of the Southern strategy: The Republican Party, in the wake of the civil rights movement, decided to court Southern white voters by capitalizing on their racial fears. Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater first wielded this strategy in 1964 and Richard Nixon perfected it in 1968 and 1972, turning the solidly Democratic South into a bastion of Republicanism.

But this oversimplified version of the Southern strategy has a number of problems. It overstates how quickly party change occurred, limits the strategy solely to racial appeals, ignores how it evolved and distorts our understanding of politics today.

In reality, the South swung back and forth in presidential elections for four decades following 1964. Moreover, Republicans didnt win the South solely by capitalizing on white racial angst. That decision was but one in a series of decisions the party made not just on race but on feminism and religion as well. The GOP successfully fused ideas about the role of government in the economy, womens place in society, white evangelical Christianity and white racial grievance, in what became a long Southern strategy that extended well past the days of Goldwater and Nixon.

Over the course of 40 years, Republicans fine-tuned their pitch and won the allegiance of Southern whites by remaking their party in the Southern white image.

The End Of Radical Reconstruction

The end of Reconstruction was a staggered process, and the period of Republican control ended at different times in different states. With the Compromise of 1877, army intervention in the South ceased and Republican control collapsed in the last three state governments in the South. This was followed by a period that white Southerners labeled Redemption, during which white-dominated state legislatures enacted Jim Crow laws and, beginning in 1890, disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites through a combination of constitutional amendments and electoral laws. The white Democrat Southerners memory of Reconstruction played a major role in imposing the system of white supremacy and second-class citizenship for blacks, known as The Age of Jim Crow.

Many of the ambitions of the Radical Republicans were, in the end, undermined and unfulfilled. Early Supreme Court rulings around the turn of the century upheld many of these new Southern constitutions and laws, and most blacks were prevented from voting in the South until the 1960s. Full federal enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not occur until passage of legislation in the mid-1960s as a result of the African-American Civil Rights Movement .

Republican Rule In The South

In the two years following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the end of the Civil War in April 1865, Lincolns successor Andrew Johnson angered many northerners and Republican members of Congress with his conciliatory policies towards the defeated South. Freed African Americans had no role in politics, and the new southern legislatures even passed black codes restricting their freedom and forcing them into repressive labor situations, a development they strongly resisted. In the congressional elections of 1866, northern voters rejected Johnsons view of Reconstruction and handed a major victory to the so-called Radical Republicans, who now took control of Reconstruction.

Did you know? African Americans made up the overwhelming majority of southern Republican voters during Reconstruction. Beginning in 1867, they formed a coalition with carpetbaggers and scalawags to gain control of southern state legislatures for the Republican Party.

John Lindsay And Emanuel Celler On The Compromise Bill

On October 29, 1963, the House Judiciary Committee voted to report out a compromise civil rights bill to the full House. Representatives John Lindsay , Republican of New York, who helped craft the compromise bill after a stronger bill had been attacked by the Kennedy Administration and others as having no chance of passing, and Emanuel Celler , Democrat of New York and chairman of the committee, discuss the two bills in this excerpt from At Issue: Countdown on Civil Rights, broadcast January 15, 1964, on National Educational Television.

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Georgia Democrats Typically Did Not Like Fellow Southerners Who Became Republicans After The Civil War And Supported Reconstruction Of The South

What name did the Democrats give Southerners who became Republicans?Abolitionists Carpetbaggers Scalawags Freedmen

Answer

answer is carpetbaggers remember it like a carpet goes up and the south came up in reconstruct with the north some of them

Virtual Teaching Assistant: Colleen R.

Question Level: Basic

Letter From Jane Horn

In 1964, Jane Horn worked for the Protestant Council of the City of New York. She organized 1,000 church and labor union members on a trip to Washington, D.C., to march in support of the Civil Rights Act. Horn also participated in the silent vigil in support of the act. Beginning in April of 1964, Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant seminary students served in shifts at the Lincoln Memorial, silently praying night and day until the act was passed by the Senate on June 19.

Jane Horn to the Voices of Civil Rights Project, June 5, 2004. Letter. Voices of Civil Rights Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress Courtesy of Jane Horn

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How Did This Switch Happen

Eric Rauchway, professor of American history at the University of California, Davis, pins the transition to the turn of the 20th century, when a highly influential Democrat named William Jennings Bryan blurred party lines by emphasizing the government’s role in ensuring social justice through expansions of federal power traditionally, a Republican stance. 

But Republicans didn’t immediately adopt the opposite position of favoring limited government. 

Related: 7 great congressional dramas

“Instead, for a couple of decades, both parties are promising an augmented federal government devoted in various ways to the cause of social justice,” Rauchway wrote in an archived 2010 blog post for the Chronicles of Higher Education. Only gradually did Republican rhetoric drift to the counterarguments. The party’s small-government platform cemented in the 1930s with its heated opposition to the New Deal.

But why did Bryan and other turn-of-the-century Democrats start advocating for big government? 

According to Rauchway, they, like Republicans, were trying to win the West. The admission of new western states to the union in the post-Civil War era created a new voting bloc, and both parties were vying for its attention.

Related: Busted: 6 Civil War myths

Additional resources:

Passage Of Civil Rights Bill Final Vote

Artist Howard Brodie captures the hustle and bustle of the Senate floor, the sense of people in the packed gallery pressing to see everything below, and the pages rushing to the edge of the dais on June 19, 1964, when the Senate voted to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the bill into law. Brodie, a courtroom artist, covered the debates for CBS News.

1 of 2

Howard Brodie. Senate before final Civil Rights vote, final day. Crayon drawing, 1964.Howard Brodie Collection, , Library of Congress © Estate of Howard Brodie

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âIn a jammed chamber of the U.S. Senate there came the solemn moment on Friday, June 19, when the eleven title Civil Rights Bill was approved by a vote of 73 to 27.â

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, June 20, 1964

Barry Bonds Hits 715th Home Run To Pass Babe Ruth On Mlb List

Congress passage of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 marked the beginning of the Radical Reconstruction period, which would last for the next decade. That legislation divided the South into five military districts and outlined how new state governments based on universal suffragefor both whites and blackswere to be organized. The new state legislatures formed in 1867-69 reflected the revolutionary changes brought about by the Civil War and emancipation: For the first time, blacks and whites stood together in political life. In general, the southern state governments formed during this period of Reconstruction represented a coalition of African Americans, recently arrived northern whites and southern white Republicans .

Civil Rights Legislation On The Fast Track

Senator Wayne Morse sails into the air after his motion to send the proposed Civil Rights legislation to the Judiciary Committee was defeated on March 26, 1964. Conservative cartoonist Gib Crockett, chief cartoonist at the Washington Star, appropriately uses a high-speed train as the metaphor for the Civil Rights legislation. After Morseâs motion was defeated, the Senate moved forward to debate it, driven by Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, because President Lyndon Baines Johnson had put it on the fast track.

Gib Crockett. The switchman knew when he felt the bump, that the man at the throttle was Hubert Hump! 1964. Ink brush, crayon, and opaque white drawing. Published in the Washington Star, March 30, 1964. Art Wood Collection of Cartoon and Caricature, , Library of Congress

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Democrats V Republicans On Jim Crow

Segregation and Jim Crow lasted for 100 years after the end of the Civil War.

During this time, African Americans were largely disenfranchised. There was no African-American voting bloc. Neither party pursued civil rights policies it wasnt worth their while.

Democrats dominated Southern politics throughout the Jim Crow Era. Its fair to say that Democratic governors and legislatures are responsible for creating and upholding white supremacist policies.

Southern Democrats were truly awful.

Iv Reconstruction And Women

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton maintained a strong and productive relationship for nearly half a century as they sought to secure political rights for women. While the fight for womens rights stalled during the war, it sprung back to life as Anthony, Stanton, and others formed the American Equal Rights Association. , between 1880 and 1902. Library of Congress.

for all

The AERA was split over whether Black male suffrage should take precedence over universal suffrage, given the political climate of the South. Some worried that political support for freedmen would be undermined by the pursuit of womens suffrage. For example, AERA member Frederick Douglass insisted that the ballot was literally a question of life and death for southern Black men, but not for women. Some African American women challenged white suffragists in other ways. Frances Harper, for example, a freeborn Black woman living in Ohio, urged them to consider their own privilege as white and middle class. Universal suffrage, she argued, would not so clearly address the complex difficulties posed by racial, economic, and gender inequality.

  Senate Civil Rights Debate

Working for CBS as a courtroom illustrator, Howard Brodie captured not only the action on the Senate floor, but the sensibility of the crowd in the gallery above. Blacks, whites, the elderly, the young, men and women gathered together, united in their desire to see the creation of the historic legislation.

Howard Brodie. Senate Civil Rights debate, Gallery. Crayon drawing, 1964. Howard Brodie Collection, , Library of Congress © Estate of Howard Brodie

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âIt is expected that the Mansfield-Dirksen amendment will be approved by a substantial vote.â

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, May 8, 1964

Lawyer Clifford Alexander Interviewed By Camille O Cosby In 2006

Lawyer Clifford Alexander, Jr., , chairman of the U.S. Equal Emplyment Opportunity Commission , explains the meaning of the Civil Rights Act and how both blacks and whites in government pushed for change in an interview conducted by Camille O. Cosby for the National Visionary Leadership Project in 2006.

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Civil Rights Activist Gwendolyn Simmons Interviewed By Joseph Mosnier In 2011

Civil rights activist Gwendolyn Simmons discusses Freedom Summer and her shock that Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner were murdered in an interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier for the Civil Rights History Project in 2011.

Civil Rights History Project Collection , American Folklife Center

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Republicans And Democrats After The Civil War

Its true that many of the first Ku Klux Klan members were Democrats. Its also true that the early Democratic Party opposed civil rights. But theres more to it.

The Civil War-era GOP wasnt that into civil rights. They were more interested in punishing the South for seceding, and monopolizing the new black vote.

In any event, by the 1890s, Republicans had begun to distance themselves from civil rights.

The Myth Of The Republican

When faced with the sobering reality that Democrats supported slavery, started the Civil War when the abolitionist Republican Party won the Presidency, established the Ku Klux Klan to brutalize newly freed slaves and keep them from voting, opposed the Civil Rights Movement, modern-day liberals reflexively perpetuate rather pernicious myth–that the racist southern Democrats of the 1950s and 1960s became Republicans, leading to the so-called “switch” of the parties.

This is as ridiculous as it is easily debunked.   

The Republican Party, of course, was founded in 1848 with the abolition of slavery as its core mission. Almost immediately after its second presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, won the 1860 election, Democrat-controlled southern states seceded on the assumption that Lincoln would destroy their slave-based economies.

Once the Civil War ended, the newly freed slaves as expected flocked to the Republican Party, but Democrat control of the South from Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Era was near total.  In 1960, Democrats held every Senate seat south of the Mason-Dixon line.  In the 13 states that made up the Confederacy a century earlier, Democrats held a staggering 117-8 advantage in the House of Representatives.  The Democratic Party was so strong in the south that those 117 House members made up a full 41% of Democrats’ 283-153 advantage in the Chamber.

So how did this myth of a sudden “switch” get started?

It would not be the last time they used it.

The Importance Of Quorums

In this memorandum Arnold Aronson explains the importance of quorums. Under Senate rules each senator could deliver only two speeches on the same subject in a legislative day. Two senators could sustain a filibuster for eight hours by demanding frequent quorum calls that required fifty-one opposing senators to answer a roll call. If the opponents failed to produce a quorum, the Senate had to adjourn. The next day the filibustering senators could begin a new round of speeches. Senator Humphrey and Senator Thomas Kuchel addressed the quorum problem by dividing their troops into platoons and setting up a duty roster. Humphrey was committed to producing a daily quota of thirty-six Democratic senators for quorums; Kuchel pledged fifteen Republicans.

Arnold Aronson, secretary, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to Cooperating Organizations regarding senators who support the civil rights bill, , March 16, 1964. Memorandum. Page 2 – Page 3 – Page 4 – Page 5 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

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âWe have a great team of senators led by Senators Hubert Humphrey . . . and Thomas Kuchel . . . .â

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, March 27, 1964

âThe Civil Rights Bill is now the pending business in the Senate. The fight is on. We will need every vote that we can get.â

Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, March 27, 1964

Charles Sumner And Thaddeus Stevens

Charles Sumner: Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. During Reconstruction, he fought to minimize the power of the ex-Confederates and to guarantee equal rights to the freedmen.

Concerned that President Johnson was attempting to subvert congressional authority, Republicans in Congress took control of Reconstruction policies after the election of 1866. Radical Republicans, led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, opened the way to suffrage for male freedmen. As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that consent of the governed was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains made from the Unions victory in the Civil War.

Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson s Reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical program on the South. The Radical Republicans were generally in control of policy, although they had to compromise with the moderate Republicans. The Democrats in Congress had almost no power. Historians generally refer to this period as Radical Reconstruction.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-name-did-the-democrats-give-southerners-who-became-republicans/

[exit-is-everywhere]

The danger is that if we invest too much in developing AI and too little in developing human consciousness, the very sophisticated artificial intelligence of computers might only serve to empower the natural stupidity of humans.

While science fiction thrillers are drawn to dramatic apocalypses of fire and smoke, in reality we might be facing a banal apocalypse by clicking.

The economic system pressures me to expand and diversify my investment portfolio, but it gives me zero incentive to expand and diversify my compassion. So I strive to understand the mysteries of the stock exchange while making far less effort to understand the deep causes of suffering.

So we had better call upon our lawyers, politicians, philosophers and even poets to turn their attention to this conundrum: how do you regulate the ownership of data? This may well be the most important political question of our era.

Each of these three problems – nuclear war, ecological collapse, and technological disruption – is enough to threaten the future of human civilization. But taken together, they add up to an unprecedented existential crisis, especially because they are likely to reinforce and compound one another.

Yet it is precisely their genius for interpretation that puts religious leaders at a disadvantage when they compete against scientists. Scientists too know how to cut corners and twist the evidence, but in the end, the mark of science is the willingness to admit failure and try a different tack. That’s why scientists gradually learn how to grow better crops and make better medicines, whereas priests and gurus learned only how to make better excuses.

Human power depends on mass cooperation, and mass cooperation depends on manufacturing mass identities—and all mass identities are based on fictional stories, not on scientific facts or even on economic necessities.

Religions, rites, and rituals will remain important as long as the power of humankind rests on mass cooperation and as long as mass cooperation rests on belief in shared fictions.

As long as we don’t know whether absorption is a duty or a favour; what level of assimilation is required from immigrants; and how quickly host countries should treat them as equal citizens –we cannot judge whether the two sides are fulfilling their obligations.

If a million immigrants are law-abiding citizens, but one hundred join terrorist groups and attack the host country, does it mean that on the whole the immigrants are complying withthe terms of the deal, or violating it? If a third-generation immigrant walks down the street a thousand times without being molested, but once in a while some racist shouts abuse at her, does it mean that the native population is accepting or rejecting immigrants?

The less political violence in a particular state, the greater the public shock at an act of terrorism.

Morality doesn’t mean ‘following divine commands’. It means ‘reducing suffering’. Hence in order to act morally, you don’t need to believe in any myth or story. You just need to develop a deep appreciation of suffering. If you really understand how an action causes unnecessary suffering to yourself or to others, you will naturally abstain from it.

Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.

The world is becoming ever more complex, and people fail to realise just how ignorant they are of what’s going on. Consequently some who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless propose policies regarding climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or Ukraine without being able to locate these countries on a map.

How is it possible to avoid stealing when the global economic system is ceaselessly stealing on my behalf and without my knowledge?

In a world in which everything is interconnected, the supreme moral imperative becomes the imperative to know. The greatest crimes in modern history resulted not just from hatred and greed, but even more so from ignorance and indifference.

Most of the injustices in the contemporary world result from large-scale structural biases rather than from individual prejudices, and our hunter-gatherer brains did not evolve to detect structural biases.

Even if you personally belong to a disadvantaged group, and therefore have a deep first-hand understanding of its viewpoint, that does not mean you understand the viewpoint of all other such groups. For each group and subgroup faces a different maze of glass ceilings, double standards, coded insults and institutional discrimination.

Should we adopt the liberal dogma and trust the aggregate of individual voters and customers? Or perhaps we should reject the individualist approach, and like many previous cultures in history empower communities to make sense of the world together? Such a solution, however, only takes us from the frying pan of individual ignorance into the fire of biased groupthink. Hunter-gatherer bands, village communes and even city neighbourhoods could think together about the common problems they faced. But we now suffer from global problems, without having a global community. Neither Facebook, nor nationalism nor religion is anywhere near creating such a community.

In fact, humans have always lived in the age of post-truth. Homo sapiens is a post-truth species, whose power depends on creating and believing fictions. Ever since the stone age, self-reinforcing myths have served to unite human collectives.

In practice, the power of human cooperation depends on a delicate balance between truth and fiction.

Humans have this remarkable ability to know and not to know at the same time. Or more correctly, they can know something when they really think about it, but most of the time they don’t think about it, so they don’t know it. If you really focus, you realise that money is fiction. But usually you don’t focus.

Truth and power can travel together only so far. Sooner or later they go their separate ways. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions. If you want to know the truth about the world, at some point you will have to renounce power. You will have to admit things – for example about the sources of your own power – that will anger allies, dishearten followers or undermine social harmony. Scholars throughout history faced this dilemma: do they serve power or truth? Should they aim to unite people by making sure everyone believes in the same story, or should they let people know the truth even at the price of disunity? The most powerful scholarly establishments – whether of Christian priests, Confucian mandarins or communist ideologues – placed unity above truth. That’s why they were so powerful.

One of the greatest fictions of all is to deny the complexity of the world, and think in absolute terms of pristine purity versus satanic evil.

Whenever you see a movie about an AI in which the AI is female and the scientist is male, it's probably a movie about feminism rather than cybernetics.

Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching “the four Cs” – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

Due to the growing pace of change you can never be certain whether what the adults are telling you is timeless wisdom or outdated bias.

You might have heard that we are living in the era of hacking computers, but that's hardly half the truth. In fact, we are living in the era of hacking humans.

The god Krishna then explains to Arjuna that within the great cosmic cycle each being possesses a unique ‘dharma’, the path you must follow and the duties you must fulfil. If you realise your dharma, no matter how hard the path may be, you enjoy peace of mind and liberation from all doubts.

Most successful stories remain open-ended.

A crucial law of storytelling is that once a story manages to extend beyond the audience's horizon, its ultimate scope matters little.

A wise old man was asked what he learned about the meaning of life. "Well", he answered, "I have learned that I am here on earth in order to help other people. What I still haven't figured out is why the other people are here.

Most people who go on identity quests are like children going treasure hunting. They find only what their parents have hidden for them in advance.

Almost anything can be turned into a ritual, by giving mundane gestures like lighting candles, ringing bells or counting beads a deep religious meaning.

Of all rituals, sacrifice is the most potent, because of all the things in the world, suffering is the most real. You can never ignore it or doubt it.

Just as in ancient times, so also in the twenty-first century, the human quest for meaning all too often ends with a succession of sacrifices.

Similarly, you can find plenty of Bernie Sanders supporters who have a vague belief in some future revolution, while also believing in the importance of investing your money wisely. They can easily switch from discussing the unjust distribution of wealth in the world to discussing the performance of their Wall Street investments.

If by 'free will' you mean the freedom to do what you desire – then yes, humans have free will. But if by 'free will' you mean the freedom to choose what to desire – then no, humans have no free will.

The process of self-exploration begins with simple things, and becomes progressively harder. At first, we realise that we do not control the world outside us. I don’t decide when it rains. Then we realise that we do not control what’s happening inside our own body. I don’t control my blood pressure. Next, we understand that we don’t even govern our brain. I don’t tell the neurons when to fire. Ultimately we should realise that we do not control our desires, or even our reactions to these desires.

Many people, including many scientists, tend to confuse the mind with the brain, but they are really very different things. The brain is a material network of neurons, synapses, and biochemicals. The mind is a flow of subjective experiences, such as pain, pleasure, anger, and love.

- Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century