Is she bright? so well? read are there novels by her bed?

What I got for Christmas

(yes, late post)

1. Kindle


2. Kindle Case


3. Scarf, gloves, hat, boots


4. Snickers


5. Two books about dogs from my little cousin

Walden (bike) related gifts:

1. 25oz Camelbak Water Bottle


2. Boeshield T9 Bicycle Lubrication

meets minimum standards of decent human

(source)

Sometimes I wonder if I read too much feminists blogs because I now see almost everything through a feminists lens, and things that might not have bother me before, greatly bother me now. For example, I get the newspaper everyday and I enjoy reading about what is going on in my town and surrounding locations. My newspaper has a section call 'person of distinction' where they interview someone that is doing something positive for the town. Today, a woman was interview who is in charged of assistance agencies. She gave an interview and here was one of the questions:

How has someone else's kindness made a difference to you?

When my husband shows great kindness by doing more than this share of chores in the home, taking care of the kids tirelessly, and letting me know that he is here for me.

For some strange reason I felt rather bothered by her response. Is the husband really doing anything special? He is doing chores in his house, taking care of his kids, and supporting her. I think that is his job and if a woman was doing those things, the husband (some) nor society would see it as anything special. That would be her obvious job as a caretaker. This goes back to one of my biggest pet peeves when men say they are 'babysitting' their kids... no, you are not babysitting your kids, you are being a parent. It is what we call in the feminists jargon, "meets minimum standards of decent human", and no, you don't get cookies* for that.

*Feminist cookies: The idea that sometimes people expect to be rewarded for doing the things that, really, when examined, come down to meeting the minimum standards of decent behavior anyway.

how none of us heard a word

(Source: [A] Funny Feminist)

As a person who is pro-choice, I often come across bizarre campaigns by the anti-choice folks. Here we have this one from Toronto's Niagara Region Right To life. That is right folks, safe and legal abortion must be eradicated because innate objects like toys will be SAD! As one blogger wrote, "Don’t make more toys than are in demand, or donate your surplus to needy kids." Was that that difficult to understand? But, God forbid those toys become SAD.

I had never seen a person so finished with god

We wear our traumas

the way the guillotine

wears gravity.

Out lovers' necks

are so soft.

-- Andrea Gibson 'Gravity'

I asked my local library to buy 'The Madness Vase' by Andrea Gibson, and they did. I didn't have the money to buy it when I saw Andrea at Wellesley College. This is a good thing, not only will I have the chance to read her powerful new poems, but others in my area will have the chance to get to know her poetry, too.

I may know the word but not say it

Distance: 6.34 miles
Time: 39 mins 35 sec
Average: 9.6 mph
Maximum: 20 mph
Calories: 428
Miles in 2011: 353.35
Total Miles: 1,202.39

Today was a beautiful day this morning. The weather must have been mid 60s (but windy!). I decided to go to the library to pick two DVDs. I haven't biked in more than a month, and I feel slightly guilty for that. I guess life got in the way and things started to become chaotic. So, even though I was planning on going to the gym, it would have been impossible to miss this opportunity. The ride to the library is great as usual. I have made this trip to many times, that I know where each road inclination is located. I know where every pot hole and bump is located. The ride home got a little bit more complicated because the weather drooped around 10 degrees and the wind pick up. I don't like biking with high winds. But, in all, I am glad I got to bike today. I missed it.

Coexist!

While enjoying the view of Fiske Pond I saw used needles on the ground. I was disgusted by it. They are a danger to public health. On that note, Natick is thinking of allowing a clinic where people can go there and do drugs in a save environment. (I might not be phrasing that correctly). One of the reasons the doctor is pushing for the clinic is so there can be clean and healthy use of needles. What do you guys think?

To my dearest family,

And for some strange reason I knew this wouldn't be the last late night drive from Boston

Another fun map... I live between the 'pretentious people' and 'hillbillies'. Now, I am not sure how much I agree with this map, but it is fun. The folks in western Mass always gets it worst.

The most violent element in society is ignorance

Essay Review:

Marriage and Love (1911)

by

Emma Goldman

I first heard of Emma Goldman in my political theory class sophomore year of college. Now that I think about it, I think I would not have read her work (or that of Mary Wollstonecraft) if I didn't attended an all women's college. When I first read Goldman, I was shock that a woman would be bold enough to write about those topics in her time period. Goldman was an anarchist and an advocated of free love. Even though she didn't labeled herself a feminists, and distanced herself from the suffrage movement, she did believed and championed gender equality. She is definably one of the most interesting characters in American history.

The short essay 'Marriage and Love' which, I downloaded for a quick read, goes straight to the point: Goldman is vehemently against marriage. Goldman explains that love and marriage are not synonymous, in fact, if a couple love continues in married life, 'it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it.' She states that 'marriage is primarily an economic arrangement.' Goldman writes: "If, however, woman's premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, "until death doth part." Moreover, the marriage insurance condemns her to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual as well as social. Man, too, pays his toll, but as his sphere is wider, marriage does not limit him as much as woman. He feels his chains more in an economic sense." In terms of economic strain on the men, Goldman writes that men have to carry the burden of economically providing for his family.

Goldman also draws on the statistic of high divorce rates, one in twelve marriage ends in divorce when she wrote this piece in 1911.* Goldman states that the marriage institution has remained intact for so long because women are seen as having 'no soul', in other words, just an appendix or a rib of a man. Another interesting factor against marriage is the education and training women have towards marriage. She states that women are trained from infancy to get married and have children, yet, they are not taught about sex. Goldman writes, "It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of the marital relation. [...] The prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive field—sex. Thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all an exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up because of this deplorable fact." This is something I always wonder about women and marriage from those times. Just imagine how awkward and frightening it must be for her to be completely ignorant about sex, and expected to perform with little or no knowledge.

Goldman writes that if a women does know the 'mystery of sex without the sanction of State or Church', she will be deemed unfit to become the wife of a 'good' man. She ends by saying that marriage only guarantees woman a home 'only by the grace of her husband.' She could not leave if she wanted to, and the husband would leave if she was a 'nag, petty quarrelsome, gossipy, unbearable, thus driving the man from the house.' She also criticised the idea that marriage protects children, since asylums, reformatories, and the streets are full with unwanted children. Furthermore, marriage does not protect women, since is makes them 'absolute dependent' on her husband. She also writes against those who want to stop 'free motherhood' (women who get pregnant willingly). She writes, " Who would fight wars? Who would create wealth? Who would make the policeman, the jailer, if woman were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children? The race, the race! shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the priest. The race must be preserved, though woman be degraded to a mere machine,—and the marriage institution is our only safety valve against the pernicious sex awakening of woman." In other words, women are more than walking incubators and they should decide if, and when, they want to have children.

Goldman concludes that love, without the need of marriage, is enough to bond two people together. "If the world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness, not marriage, but love will be the parent." This essay reminded me a lot to the Mary Wollstonecraft's biography that I read, and her views on marriage. Hers were similar to that of Goldman, in that love and respect between two people was enough to make their relationship valid.

* I searched online but couldn't find a reliable statistic for current divorce rates. It ranges from 1 out of 2, to 1 out of 8 marriages will end in divorce.