A repost from 2008
This Thanksgiving, as my family sits down to their traditional dead animals, I’ll be munching on Tofurky and vegan stuffing. Whatever, I’ve been a vegetarian for eight years, I’m used to being the odd girl out every fourth Thursday of November. And, just like every Thanksgiving since I stopped eating meat, I know I’m going to get the comments and the jokes, even though it’s hardly a novelty after all this time.
What is it about Thanksgiving that brings out the super-traditional? Even in my fairly feminist household--my parents are proud of their egalitarian marriage, split the chores and childcare responsibilities pretty evenly, Dad had no problem moving for Mom's career, etc.--my dad and uncles and brothers will still watch the football game and chug (non-alcoholic) beers after the big dinner while all the womenfolk clean up the kitchen. No one even pretends that there’s an equal distribution of responsibilities. Sure, every year Dad ceremoniously asks if there’s anything he can do, but much like the ceremonious cutting of the turkey at the beginning of the meal, it’s all for show. The men have nothing to do with the preparation of the meal, and they certainly have nothing to do with the cleanup. Their role is to eat and digest, and compliment the gals on a job well done. I don’t know what would happen if this year Mom answered, “Sure, we’ve got dishes for thirty people to clean and about fifty pots and pans that need scrubbing…there’s the sink!” It’s as unfathomable as my meat-and-potatoes family deciding to share some Tofurky and forgo the bird carcass.
And here’s the strangest thing: I know that come Thanksgiving, even with my feminist heart heaving with the unfairness of it all, I’ll be in the kitchen with my mom and aunts and girl cousins, cleaning up while the guys burp contentedly in the other room.
A couple years ago, deciding to make a statement, I informed my mother that I was watching football with the boys. I expected a little anger, maybe even a flat refusal, but my mom, perhaps knowing what was to come, had no problem with it. So for the first time since hitting my teen years, I sat out in the living room and watched the big game while the big clean-up went on without me. And here’s the thing: even though I’m a huge football fan, even though watching a game with Dad is one of my favorite ways to spend an evening, it wasn’t very long at all before I was back in the kitchen.
I try and justify my own lapse back into traditional gender roles. The cleaning isn’t hard at all, I reason, not with a dozen people pitching in. It’s a safe, female-only space, our own little once-a-year, consciousness-raising event. But the truth is, that I know it’s bogus. I know everyone should pitch in after dinner, and I know that it reinforces all the stereotypes I fight against the other 364 days of the year for the menfolk to all watch the game and the womenfolk to clean and gab.
But I also know that I’d much rather be in the kitchen chatting with my aunties, hanging with cousins I see once a year at best, and, yeah, pitching in on the cleanup, then hanging with the dudes in the living room.
Go figure.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
What I Did On My Summer Vacation
(Or: Why I've been MIA)
Apologies for going so long without posting. I thought I’d let everyone know what I’ve been up to.
At the end of September, I was feeling really sick: heart palpitations, my muscles were clenching, my face felt tingly and numb, I was slurring my words. From past experience, I was pretty sure that I had a potassium deficiency; unsurprising, as I had been throwing up pretty much everything for about a month. I went to the ER expecting to get the usual treatment: some IV fluids and medicine to stop the pain and vomiting, and a bag or two of potassium. Like I said, I’d done this a few times before.
Instead, my potassium was so low that I was immediately admitted to the hospital. I had been trying to fix it myself by drinking a lot of banana smoothies and Ensure, because I hate hospitals and I can pretty much do the same thing for a intestinal blockage at hone that they do in the hospital (basically, a liquid diet and rest, giving time for the intestine to decompress and go back to normal). However, I let my hatred of hospitals and my fear of going alone (my parents were out of town that week and I waited until they came back to go in) keep me from seeking treatment for too long, and I had put myself at a serious risk for a heart attack, among other dangers.
At the hospital, they put my on a liquid diet, as I expected. They tried to get potassium in through the IV, bur I was so dehydrated and my veins were so bad after years of medical treatments that after the second day they couldn’t get an IV--even the best nurses, the trauma specialists, the nurses from ICU who used an ultrasound machine to try and find one. They also couldn’t get me to keep any food down, even with the strongest anti-nausea medications. The doctor decided, after a week, to send me to UCSF where they had better specialists and tests that could be done. Also, I had two hernias that were causing a lot of pain and trouble, and there was talk of getting them repaired on that trip.
At UCSF, they gave me the complete workup. They also tried to get an IV in, and even their best people couldn’t get one started, so they inserted a PIC line. They started me on IV food (TPN). There, they discovered that the problem really wasn’t a hernia or an intestinal blockage, but that some of the tissue that had been used to reconstruct my digestive system after my intestinal rupture last year had become necrotic (died). It was why I couldn’t keep food down, why I wasn’t absorbing the nutrients of the food I could keep down, and probably some of the pain.
The head surgeon--a smart, capable guy with a decent bedside manner, but who unfortunately was the most arrogant person I’d ever met, and that’s saying something when you look at the number of surgeons I’ve had over the years--decided he wanted to do a pretty intense operation. He needed time to prepare and reserve an OR, though, so he sent me back to the original hospital to basically hang out and get the IV medication and bulk up on the IV food so I would be in the best shape for surgery. A week later, I would come back for the operation. That week, I was pretty nervous. This was going to be surgery number 15, so you’d think it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but this surgery was going to be more complex and take longer, with all the assorted risks that comes with, than most of my other surgeries. Also, most of my previous surgeries were done on an emergency basis...they happened immediately after discovering a problem, and I never really had time to sit and think about the risks. There was another new risk, as well: I had 125 cm of small intestine (the average person has about 22 feet). You need 75cm to be able function normally (well, for a given value of “normal”); if they had to remove more than 50cm of intestine, I would have to be hooked up to IV food for the rest of my life (or until they developed the technology to do a transplant). Along with it just being an enormous life suck to have to be hooked up to an IV for 16 hours a day (I did that for 6 months, thank you very much, and I feel like I lost those months of my life), the long-term projections are not so good. It would significantly lower my lifespan, and even when I wasn’t hooked up to the IV machine, I would still be too tired and sick to get out of bed and go do stuff. So this was a pretty terrifying possibility, and the doctor was not giving me good odds. The surgery had to be done, though; if they didn’t take out the necrotic tissue--even if doing so would shorten my small intestine too much--not only would I not be able to eat or absorb food, I would die from the infections. So I sat in my hospital bed silently freaking for a week.
(I’m putting description of the surgery below the fold, so skip if that grosses you out.)
Apologies for going so long without posting. I thought I’d let everyone know what I’ve been up to.
At the end of September, I was feeling really sick: heart palpitations, my muscles were clenching, my face felt tingly and numb, I was slurring my words. From past experience, I was pretty sure that I had a potassium deficiency; unsurprising, as I had been throwing up pretty much everything for about a month. I went to the ER expecting to get the usual treatment: some IV fluids and medicine to stop the pain and vomiting, and a bag or two of potassium. Like I said, I’d done this a few times before.
Instead, my potassium was so low that I was immediately admitted to the hospital. I had been trying to fix it myself by drinking a lot of banana smoothies and Ensure, because I hate hospitals and I can pretty much do the same thing for a intestinal blockage at hone that they do in the hospital (basically, a liquid diet and rest, giving time for the intestine to decompress and go back to normal). However, I let my hatred of hospitals and my fear of going alone (my parents were out of town that week and I waited until they came back to go in) keep me from seeking treatment for too long, and I had put myself at a serious risk for a heart attack, among other dangers.
At the hospital, they put my on a liquid diet, as I expected. They tried to get potassium in through the IV, bur I was so dehydrated and my veins were so bad after years of medical treatments that after the second day they couldn’t get an IV--even the best nurses, the trauma specialists, the nurses from ICU who used an ultrasound machine to try and find one. They also couldn’t get me to keep any food down, even with the strongest anti-nausea medications. The doctor decided, after a week, to send me to UCSF where they had better specialists and tests that could be done. Also, I had two hernias that were causing a lot of pain and trouble, and there was talk of getting them repaired on that trip.
At UCSF, they gave me the complete workup. They also tried to get an IV in, and even their best people couldn’t get one started, so they inserted a PIC line. They started me on IV food (TPN). There, they discovered that the problem really wasn’t a hernia or an intestinal blockage, but that some of the tissue that had been used to reconstruct my digestive system after my intestinal rupture last year had become necrotic (died). It was why I couldn’t keep food down, why I wasn’t absorbing the nutrients of the food I could keep down, and probably some of the pain.
The head surgeon--a smart, capable guy with a decent bedside manner, but who unfortunately was the most arrogant person I’d ever met, and that’s saying something when you look at the number of surgeons I’ve had over the years--decided he wanted to do a pretty intense operation. He needed time to prepare and reserve an OR, though, so he sent me back to the original hospital to basically hang out and get the IV medication and bulk up on the IV food so I would be in the best shape for surgery. A week later, I would come back for the operation. That week, I was pretty nervous. This was going to be surgery number 15, so you’d think it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but this surgery was going to be more complex and take longer, with all the assorted risks that comes with, than most of my other surgeries. Also, most of my previous surgeries were done on an emergency basis...they happened immediately after discovering a problem, and I never really had time to sit and think about the risks. There was another new risk, as well: I had 125 cm of small intestine (the average person has about 22 feet). You need 75cm to be able function normally (well, for a given value of “normal”); if they had to remove more than 50cm of intestine, I would have to be hooked up to IV food for the rest of my life (or until they developed the technology to do a transplant). Along with it just being an enormous life suck to have to be hooked up to an IV for 16 hours a day (I did that for 6 months, thank you very much, and I feel like I lost those months of my life), the long-term projections are not so good. It would significantly lower my lifespan, and even when I wasn’t hooked up to the IV machine, I would still be too tired and sick to get out of bed and go do stuff. So this was a pretty terrifying possibility, and the doctor was not giving me good odds. The surgery had to be done, though; if they didn’t take out the necrotic tissue--even if doing so would shorten my small intestine too much--not only would I not be able to eat or absorb food, I would die from the infections. So I sat in my hospital bed silently freaking for a week.
(I’m putting description of the surgery below the fold, so skip if that grosses you out.)
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Is the Republican Party Pro-Life? A look at the new GOP party platform
I have tried to back up every statement of fact that I make. For the most part, I have linked to respected unbiased organizations and news sites and resisted posting to blogs and advocacy groups, and when I couldn't find an original source, I tried to state that. That doesn't mean I always did; sometimes an advocacy group has a much better presentation of facts in a format that is easy to read and understand. You can judge for yourself the legitimacy of the information, but remember: you are always entitled to your own opinion, but you are never entitled to your own facts.
Republicans are usually considered the "Pro-Life" party. They certainly are anti-choice, though of course there are a few pro-choice Republicans and more than a few anti-choice Democrats (remember Bart Stupak?) But as a national party, the GOP takes a strong stand against abortion, and accomplished many legislative victories across the country, while for the most part, Democrats aren't nearly as committed. Oh, they say they're for reproductive freedom, and there are Democrats in both state and federal legislatures that fight for choice, but they don't have near the amount of victories (just an impressive string of failures) or passion as their Republican opponents.
But are Republicans really Pro-Life? I decided to take a look at the newly approved party platform. You can read the entire platform here. I will be quoting the relevant bits.
Republicans are usually considered the "Pro-Life" party. They certainly are anti-choice, though of course there are a few pro-choice Republicans and more than a few anti-choice Democrats (remember Bart Stupak?) But as a national party, the GOP takes a strong stand against abortion, and accomplished many legislative victories across the country, while for the most part, Democrats aren't nearly as committed. Oh, they say they're for reproductive freedom, and there are Democrats in both state and federal legislatures that fight for choice, but they don't have near the amount of victories (just an impressive string of failures) or passion as their Republican opponents.
But are Republicans really Pro-Life? I decided to take a look at the newly approved party platform. You can read the entire platform here. I will be quoting the relevant bits.
Fuckability
On Zinnia Jones Vlog, Heather had something to say about radical feminism and transphobia.
I think it's a great post for so many reasons, and I'll probably be back to discuss it more later. There was one thing, though, that jumped out and bit me. Probably because I'm too self-absorbed, it was the only part that was at all connected to me. I feel kind of guilty about this, because as wonderfully important Heather's video was, I'm not really going to be talking about radical feminism or transphobia right now. Later, definitely; there are so many good things in this video, and I do think it's a good for both the transphobic radfems and the feminists who hate radfems because they think they're all transphobic to watch.
Right now, however, I'm just going to limit this to what I have personal experience with: fuckability.
(Starting at 2:23) The sex classing of women and requisite caste system of the class (more commonly known as varying degrees of fuckability, or even more commonly as a scale from 1 to 10) has inhumanely relegated trans women with a certain remaining organ to the undesirables. They are expected to be content with either fetishization or pity fucking, along with cis women of the overweight and differently abled varieties. This particular problem has recently been the birth of a massive online “cotton ceiling” debate. We’ll get back to that.
Yes, we will definitely be getting back to the "cotton ceiling" debate, but it will have to be in another post. I have some very strong opinions, again, as a cis lesbian radfem (gah, labels), but I hope it doesn't surprise people that the majority of the time I come down firmly on the side of trans women in this debate. Actually, it was reading some back and forth between trans women and radfem activists on the whole cotton ceiling debate that first made me want to give up the label "radical feminist" in the first place. I do not want to be associated with those people...but I also don't want to give up on the feminist philosophy and theory of activism that most meshes with what I see, how I feel, and what I believe will actually transform the world. But that is a discussion for another time.
Today, in what will probably be a self-indulgent, perhaps self-pitying post (you've been warned), we're going to talk about fuckability.
I think it's a great post for so many reasons, and I'll probably be back to discuss it more later. There was one thing, though, that jumped out and bit me. Probably because I'm too self-absorbed, it was the only part that was at all connected to me. I feel kind of guilty about this, because as wonderfully important Heather's video was, I'm not really going to be talking about radical feminism or transphobia right now. Later, definitely; there are so many good things in this video, and I do think it's a good for both the transphobic radfems and the feminists who hate radfems because they think they're all transphobic to watch.
Right now, however, I'm just going to limit this to what I have personal experience with: fuckability.
(Starting at 2:23) The sex classing of women and requisite caste system of the class (more commonly known as varying degrees of fuckability, or even more commonly as a scale from 1 to 10) has inhumanely relegated trans women with a certain remaining organ to the undesirables. They are expected to be content with either fetishization or pity fucking, along with cis women of the overweight and differently abled varieties. This particular problem has recently been the birth of a massive online “cotton ceiling” debate. We’ll get back to that.
Yes, we will definitely be getting back to the "cotton ceiling" debate, but it will have to be in another post. I have some very strong opinions, again, as a cis lesbian radfem (gah, labels), but I hope it doesn't surprise people that the majority of the time I come down firmly on the side of trans women in this debate. Actually, it was reading some back and forth between trans women and radfem activists on the whole cotton ceiling debate that first made me want to give up the label "radical feminist" in the first place. I do not want to be associated with those people...but I also don't want to give up on the feminist philosophy and theory of activism that most meshes with what I see, how I feel, and what I believe will actually transform the world. But that is a discussion for another time.
Today, in what will probably be a self-indulgent, perhaps self-pitying post (you've been warned), we're going to talk about fuckability.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Thoughts on Prostitution and Pornography
Trigger Warning: Graphic description of child abuse and rape.
This is going to be bit rambly. I can't help that. I have a lot of thoughts, conflicting thoughts, and I'm going to try and get them out as best I can.
I have no personal experience with prostitution, or with what most people think of when they talk about pornography.I have been molested and raped: both times, pictures were taken. When I was nine, I was molested over the course of a year by a seventeen year old boy who was living in our house as he finished up High School. I was easy prey; I was homeschooled, extremely sheltered (I didn’t even know what sex was), a chubby, socially isolated outcast with few friends, and though my parents loved me, they both worked all the time On several occasions, he took pictures of me, partially undressed, in what I now realize were sexual poses. At the time, I didn't fully understand what was going on. I knew enough to be ashamed, I knew that I couldn't tell anyone. But J. told me I was beautiful and had me pose like the pictures on the magazine covers and movie posters, like a real woman.
Years later, when I was an adult, I was brutally raped just a couple blocks from my home, when I took a stupid shortcut through the park. The pictures were almost an afterthought; after he had bruised me, burned me, raped me, he pulled out a camera phone and snapped a couple pictures. The most I ever saw of him was through the glow of that phone, his bulbous nose and crooked teeth, not enough for a good description for the cops. Oh, the wondrous progression of technology.
I have lived in fear for years that those photos of me are on the internet, graphic snapshots of my humiliation and pain. I have no reason to think that they aren't. Sometimes I can't help thinking about the men who have, over the years, masturbated to those images of a scared, humiliated little girl trying so hard to be pretty, to be loved, to be a woman. I wonder if that rapist was able to get my face in the shot, or if I exist only as a headless battered vagina, if he could even get the pictures to come out when they were taken on a pitch-black night. I try not to think about it, which is really all that I can do about it.
People would be quick to point out that what happened to me wasn't really pornography, it was rape, and they would be mostly right. I didn't chose what happened, and I certainly wasn't paid for it. But I have heard too many stories from girls and boys and women who were forced to take pictures, like I was, so that men could continue to rape them in their minds over and over and over again. I can't entirely dismiss the comparison. I also can’t dismiss the similarities between what I went through and common images in movies and magazines. Would I still have been raped and molested without the multi-billion dollar porn industry, much of it saturated with images of raped and abused women? Maybe. But the boy who molested me wasn't an adult, wasn't any older than my baby brother is now (who seems impossibly young to me). Would he have known what to do without porn? Would he have even thought to take pictures? Again, maybe. There's no way to know something like that. Thinking of a society without porn seems even more fantastical than thinking of a society without religion.
This is going to be bit rambly. I can't help that. I have a lot of thoughts, conflicting thoughts, and I'm going to try and get them out as best I can.
I have no personal experience with prostitution, or with what most people think of when they talk about pornography.I have been molested and raped: both times, pictures were taken. When I was nine, I was molested over the course of a year by a seventeen year old boy who was living in our house as he finished up High School. I was easy prey; I was homeschooled, extremely sheltered (I didn’t even know what sex was), a chubby, socially isolated outcast with few friends, and though my parents loved me, they both worked all the time On several occasions, he took pictures of me, partially undressed, in what I now realize were sexual poses. At the time, I didn't fully understand what was going on. I knew enough to be ashamed, I knew that I couldn't tell anyone. But J. told me I was beautiful and had me pose like the pictures on the magazine covers and movie posters, like a real woman.
Years later, when I was an adult, I was brutally raped just a couple blocks from my home, when I took a stupid shortcut through the park. The pictures were almost an afterthought; after he had bruised me, burned me, raped me, he pulled out a camera phone and snapped a couple pictures. The most I ever saw of him was through the glow of that phone, his bulbous nose and crooked teeth, not enough for a good description for the cops. Oh, the wondrous progression of technology.
I have lived in fear for years that those photos of me are on the internet, graphic snapshots of my humiliation and pain. I have no reason to think that they aren't. Sometimes I can't help thinking about the men who have, over the years, masturbated to those images of a scared, humiliated little girl trying so hard to be pretty, to be loved, to be a woman. I wonder if that rapist was able to get my face in the shot, or if I exist only as a headless battered vagina, if he could even get the pictures to come out when they were taken on a pitch-black night. I try not to think about it, which is really all that I can do about it.
People would be quick to point out that what happened to me wasn't really pornography, it was rape, and they would be mostly right. I didn't chose what happened, and I certainly wasn't paid for it. But I have heard too many stories from girls and boys and women who were forced to take pictures, like I was, so that men could continue to rape them in their minds over and over and over again. I can't entirely dismiss the comparison. I also can’t dismiss the similarities between what I went through and common images in movies and magazines. Would I still have been raped and molested without the multi-billion dollar porn industry, much of it saturated with images of raped and abused women? Maybe. But the boy who molested me wasn't an adult, wasn't any older than my baby brother is now (who seems impossibly young to me). Would he have known what to do without porn? Would he have even thought to take pictures? Again, maybe. There's no way to know something like that. Thinking of a society without porn seems even more fantastical than thinking of a society without religion.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Religiously Motivated Child Absue
This is an OLD post (about 5 years, now) that I pulled from the blog I kept back then.* It's still, unfortunately, quite relevent.
[Trigger Warning: Descriptions of Child Abuse--ESPECIALLY in the linked articles.]
I strongly recommend giving at least a quick glance at the series dogemperor has put together over on DailyKos about religiously motivated child abuse (Part One, Part Two, Part Three). As someone who is a survivor** of this type of environment, I'm always amazed when people don't know about the culture of violence that many, many children are brought up in. Like all survivors of child abuse, people who grow up in households with religious child abuse believe (for the most part) that what they went through is normal...and, worse than that, they believe the abuse is justified by being a Christian, that they deserved it. If they are unable to get help and healing, they may start their own family believing that such abuse is the only way to truly raise good Christian children, and the cycle continues.
I think it is especially important for people to be aware of how isolated children in conservative Christian families can become. Because parents are justifiably afraid that teachers and doctors will report child abuse (or, as these folks call it, "discipline"), kids are pulled out of public and even private schools, and sent to pediatricians who are dominionist Christians. While my parents weren't so extreme, many children I went to church with never encountered a non-Christian in a meaningful way. They were homeschooled, played sports with Christian groups, went to church (and were pulled out of the youth group when non-Christian kids began to attend), were not allowed to participate in outreach activities, only saw Christian doctors, and were always under the watchful eye of their parents or a trusted, like-minded adult.
So, folks, when you see your neighbor abusing his or her child, don't assume that a trusted adult will catch it. For many kids, that may be the case: they'll see teachers, doctors, and coaches, all of whom are mandatory reporters (though there are news reports every day about how these stop-gap messures fail). Children raised in these very conservative, quiverfull-type homes, may never see an adult they can trust. Call in suspected abuse. You can do it anonymously. Better safe than sorry, and while a visit from a social worker can suck, annoying an innocent parent is a hell of a lot better than allowing a guilty parent to continue to torture their child in the name of God.
And that's today's PSA.
* I changed this a bit in the repost. I wrote it back in 2007, when I was still a very committed Christian. At the time, I took great pains to say that this type of abuse is against Christian values, and no true Christian would abuse their child like that. I've since changed my opinion on this, and while their brand of Christianity still seems like a perversion of the faith I was brought up in, I realize that they have just as much biblical justification for thier position as I ever did, such behavior is perfectly in line with a certain type of Christianity.
** My parents (my father especially) were quite abusive during my early years. I don't think they were abusive out of malice, but out of ignorance. They followed books like "Dare to Discipline" and the advice of older Christians who insisted that beating us would make us obedient kids. (Honestly, if anything I would say that it made us a lot angrier.) We were hit with metal spoons, slapped, pinched, forced to stand straight up (not leaning against a wall) for over an hour (and spanked if we leaned or sat down), left in dark rooms, and humiliated in public (that was and remains a favorite tool for dominionist Christians in like-minded settings...public humiliation and spanking of children in church is not uncommon).
My mother, around the time I was eight or nine, realized that what she was doing was wrong, and stopped. She said that it was because she heard God telling her that their behavior was wrong. It was a brave step: she ignored the advice of everyone around her (including the pastor) to do what she felt was right. (Of course, I think that "still small voice" was her innate empathy and consience rather than the voice of God, but that's not an argument I can win.) She's since apologized to me, and that relationship has been more than healed. I recognize that I'm lucky in that respect. My father, likewise, stopped his abuse. He had an anger management problem (like a lot of cops) and was also raised in a very physically abusive environment (his mother used to hold his head under the bath water if he mis-behaved, among other things). So he took a step back from being the disciplinarian until he got that under control. My parents got a lot of flack because my dad didn't take the active roll in discipline, which other church members considered to be his job as the spiritual leader of the family. But he couldn't trust himself to discipline without it becoming abuse, so he did the right thing by stopping. By the time my youngest brother came along, my parents no longer used physical discipline at all, having discovered that other ways of parenting worked much better, and didn't violate their ethics. (Or, my mom would say, they started following God's direction in discipline. BLECH.)
I've forgiven both my parents, and I have a good relationship with them, but some scars can never be erased, and that's why I'm so passionate about this issue.
[Trigger Warning: Descriptions of Child Abuse--ESPECIALLY in the linked articles.]
I strongly recommend giving at least a quick glance at the series dogemperor has put together over on DailyKos about religiously motivated child abuse (Part One, Part Two, Part Three). As someone who is a survivor** of this type of environment, I'm always amazed when people don't know about the culture of violence that many, many children are brought up in. Like all survivors of child abuse, people who grow up in households with religious child abuse believe (for the most part) that what they went through is normal...and, worse than that, they believe the abuse is justified by being a Christian, that they deserved it. If they are unable to get help and healing, they may start their own family believing that such abuse is the only way to truly raise good Christian children, and the cycle continues.
I think it is especially important for people to be aware of how isolated children in conservative Christian families can become. Because parents are justifiably afraid that teachers and doctors will report child abuse (or, as these folks call it, "discipline"), kids are pulled out of public and even private schools, and sent to pediatricians who are dominionist Christians. While my parents weren't so extreme, many children I went to church with never encountered a non-Christian in a meaningful way. They were homeschooled, played sports with Christian groups, went to church (and were pulled out of the youth group when non-Christian kids began to attend), were not allowed to participate in outreach activities, only saw Christian doctors, and were always under the watchful eye of their parents or a trusted, like-minded adult.
So, folks, when you see your neighbor abusing his or her child, don't assume that a trusted adult will catch it. For many kids, that may be the case: they'll see teachers, doctors, and coaches, all of whom are mandatory reporters (though there are news reports every day about how these stop-gap messures fail). Children raised in these very conservative, quiverfull-type homes, may never see an adult they can trust. Call in suspected abuse. You can do it anonymously. Better safe than sorry, and while a visit from a social worker can suck, annoying an innocent parent is a hell of a lot better than allowing a guilty parent to continue to torture their child in the name of God.
And that's today's PSA.
* I changed this a bit in the repost. I wrote it back in 2007, when I was still a very committed Christian. At the time, I took great pains to say that this type of abuse is against Christian values, and no true Christian would abuse their child like that. I've since changed my opinion on this, and while their brand of Christianity still seems like a perversion of the faith I was brought up in, I realize that they have just as much biblical justification for thier position as I ever did, such behavior is perfectly in line with a certain type of Christianity.
** My parents (my father especially) were quite abusive during my early years. I don't think they were abusive out of malice, but out of ignorance. They followed books like "Dare to Discipline" and the advice of older Christians who insisted that beating us would make us obedient kids. (Honestly, if anything I would say that it made us a lot angrier.) We were hit with metal spoons, slapped, pinched, forced to stand straight up (not leaning against a wall) for over an hour (and spanked if we leaned or sat down), left in dark rooms, and humiliated in public (that was and remains a favorite tool for dominionist Christians in like-minded settings...public humiliation and spanking of children in church is not uncommon).
My mother, around the time I was eight or nine, realized that what she was doing was wrong, and stopped. She said that it was because she heard God telling her that their behavior was wrong. It was a brave step: she ignored the advice of everyone around her (including the pastor) to do what she felt was right. (Of course, I think that "still small voice" was her innate empathy and consience rather than the voice of God, but that's not an argument I can win.) She's since apologized to me, and that relationship has been more than healed. I recognize that I'm lucky in that respect. My father, likewise, stopped his abuse. He had an anger management problem (like a lot of cops) and was also raised in a very physically abusive environment (his mother used to hold his head under the bath water if he mis-behaved, among other things). So he took a step back from being the disciplinarian until he got that under control. My parents got a lot of flack because my dad didn't take the active roll in discipline, which other church members considered to be his job as the spiritual leader of the family. But he couldn't trust himself to discipline without it becoming abuse, so he did the right thing by stopping. By the time my youngest brother came along, my parents no longer used physical discipline at all, having discovered that other ways of parenting worked much better, and didn't violate their ethics. (Or, my mom would say, they started following God's direction in discipline. BLECH.)
I've forgiven both my parents, and I have a good relationship with them, but some scars can never be erased, and that's why I'm so passionate about this issue.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Hating God
Since being out as an atheist, I have been accused many times of hating God.
No matter how many times I explain that it’s rather impossible to hate someone
that I believe doesn’t exist, the same allegation still comes up, many times by
the same person. Maybe there are people who honestly can’t comprehend that
some people just truly don’t believe in a god, and view my stated disbelief as a
sort of rebellion, a childish way of lashing back at God out of anger. They cannot conceive of never believing, because in their mind God is as real to them as the air they breathe, so it's impossible to accept actual disbelief from others.
(Unfortunately, they don’t take this far enough to examine why I might be angry with God if that were the case…usually I’m told some variation of “you want to sin without feeling bad about it” or “you’re angry that God doesn’t give you everything you wanted.” These are both wildly inaccurate, and make me look like a petulant teenager, which might be why some believers I've encountered are so dismissive and condescending towards me. I want to explore both of these in more detail later, so stick a pin in them. Right now, all I can say is that this characterization is just plain wrong. For more insight, you can read a little about why I no longer believe in God.)
I also think that there are some believers who confuse my hatred of the atrocities of religion, and my hatred of how some believers treat other people, as a hatred for God. And while it would be too strong to say I hate religion, because I do think that good things have come out of religions (maybe in spite of the religion itself), I do hate irrationality, intolerance, cruelty, evil, and the many, many other negative effects that religions have had on our world. (I don’t have the time for a total overview; that would take a book, many books. The best book I know on the subject and one I recommend everyone read, religious, atheist, or indifferent, is: Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless
.)
Yesterday, however, I came the closest I've ever come to truly hating God.
(Unfortunately, they don’t take this far enough to examine why I might be angry with God if that were the case…usually I’m told some variation of “you want to sin without feeling bad about it” or “you’re angry that God doesn’t give you everything you wanted.” These are both wildly inaccurate, and make me look like a petulant teenager, which might be why some believers I've encountered are so dismissive and condescending towards me. I want to explore both of these in more detail later, so stick a pin in them. Right now, all I can say is that this characterization is just plain wrong. For more insight, you can read a little about why I no longer believe in God.)
I also think that there are some believers who confuse my hatred of the atrocities of religion, and my hatred of how some believers treat other people, as a hatred for God. And while it would be too strong to say I hate religion, because I do think that good things have come out of religions (maybe in spite of the religion itself), I do hate irrationality, intolerance, cruelty, evil, and the many, many other negative effects that religions have had on our world. (I don’t have the time for a total overview; that would take a book, many books. The best book I know on the subject and one I recommend everyone read, religious, atheist, or indifferent, is: Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless
.)
Yesterday, however, I came the closest I've ever come to truly hating God.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Back in Black
Sorry I've been gone for so long. My health has been not-so-good (understatement); sometime I may talk about that more. Scratch that: I know I'll talk about it in detail at some point, as going through health problems through the last year and a half as dramatically altered my outlook on life in several significant ways. But for right now, suffice to say that I've been in the hospital off and on for the last couple weeks while being in bed and rather drugged even when home. So, not a lot of chance to write.
I have caught up on some reading, however, and, again, will be talking more about some of what I've been reading over the next few days/weeks/whatever. One book that I just finished is "Sybil Exposed" by Debbie Nathan, an absolutely amazing book book about the Sybil case and the larger MPD phenomenon. Ms. Nathan doesn't pull any punches and documents the multitude of problems with how the situation was handled and the mass hysteria it caused, but she does it with deep empathy. There are no bad guys or good guys, just flawed people and even more flawed system that failed everyone involved. Brilliant book; I also want to talk more about some of the issues it raised, later.
One thing, though: the more I read about the history of psychiatry and even current practices, the more I feel that as a skeptic and a person with mental illness, I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place. I know that I need help, but I also feel that when it comes to the understanding and treatment of mental illness, there is a lot of bullshit and comparatively little hard evidence. Personally, I've been screwed by professionals who used unscientific treatment methods (the ex-gay therapist comes to mind, and the therapist who tried to convince me that I had repressed memories and needed to be hypnotized). I've been drugged to the gills by one doctor and told I was fine and didn't need anything at all by another doctor (both times leading to serious issues, including a suicide attempt). Right now I'm coasting on a bare minimum of medication--just one anti-depressant, given by my primary care doctor--and the support of friends and family when I become seriously depressed or anxious.
But that's not enough. This is not a lasting solution. It's not fair to rely so totally on my family to take care of me when I'm too depressed to get out of bed or shower, or too scared to leave my house. And it's not doing me any good, either. But I'm honestly terrified to find help. I don't want to go back to being so drugged I can't think, drooling and stumbling through life. I don't want to be mind-fucked by another well-meaning therapist. The two attempts I've made in the past couple months have been dead ends: a frankly weird-ass therapist who was overly invasive and straight-up lied to me on one occasion that I know for sure, and a doctor who diagnosed me as bipolar and obviously in need of hardcore mood stabilizers within five minutes of meeting me, without knowing my (very) complicated psychiatric and medical history. So, I do know I need to work to find someone. I'm just scared.
And reading books like "Sybil Exposed" doesn't do much to boost my confidence, you know?
I have caught up on some reading, however, and, again, will be talking more about some of what I've been reading over the next few days/weeks/whatever. One book that I just finished is "Sybil Exposed" by Debbie Nathan, an absolutely amazing book book about the Sybil case and the larger MPD phenomenon. Ms. Nathan doesn't pull any punches and documents the multitude of problems with how the situation was handled and the mass hysteria it caused, but she does it with deep empathy. There are no bad guys or good guys, just flawed people and even more flawed system that failed everyone involved. Brilliant book; I also want to talk more about some of the issues it raised, later.
One thing, though: the more I read about the history of psychiatry and even current practices, the more I feel that as a skeptic and a person with mental illness, I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place. I know that I need help, but I also feel that when it comes to the understanding and treatment of mental illness, there is a lot of bullshit and comparatively little hard evidence. Personally, I've been screwed by professionals who used unscientific treatment methods (the ex-gay therapist comes to mind, and the therapist who tried to convince me that I had repressed memories and needed to be hypnotized). I've been drugged to the gills by one doctor and told I was fine and didn't need anything at all by another doctor (both times leading to serious issues, including a suicide attempt). Right now I'm coasting on a bare minimum of medication--just one anti-depressant, given by my primary care doctor--and the support of friends and family when I become seriously depressed or anxious.
But that's not enough. This is not a lasting solution. It's not fair to rely so totally on my family to take care of me when I'm too depressed to get out of bed or shower, or too scared to leave my house. And it's not doing me any good, either. But I'm honestly terrified to find help. I don't want to go back to being so drugged I can't think, drooling and stumbling through life. I don't want to be mind-fucked by another well-meaning therapist. The two attempts I've made in the past couple months have been dead ends: a frankly weird-ass therapist who was overly invasive and straight-up lied to me on one occasion that I know for sure, and a doctor who diagnosed me as bipolar and obviously in need of hardcore mood stabilizers within five minutes of meeting me, without knowing my (very) complicated psychiatric and medical history. So, I do know I need to work to find someone. I'm just scared.
And reading books like "Sybil Exposed" doesn't do much to boost my confidence, you know?
Friday, May 11, 2012
Stupid-ass Questions with Easy Answers
So on one of the message boards I frequent, this gem popped up. Knowing this poor, poor woman was crying out to the group for a little help, I decided it was up to me (especially after I read the comments). I'm not much of an advice columnist, but we'll see. If this works, maybe I can branch out.
I've noticed lately, pretty much since I've been on my weightloss kick, that when I see tremendously overweight people out in public, eating gross things ect. I get very judgemental. I really don't want to be this way, and I feel bad for thinking the way I do, but I can't help but think "It's not hard to lose weight, and you shouldn't be eating that"
Is it wrong for me to feel this way?
Dear IIW:
Yes.
With love,
Erin
I've noticed lately, pretty much since I've been on my weightloss kick, that when I see tremendously overweight people out in public, eating gross things ect. I get very judgemental. I really don't want to be this way, and I feel bad for thinking the way I do, but I can't help but think "It's not hard to lose weight, and you shouldn't be eating that"
Is it wrong for me to feel this way?
Dear IIW:
Yes.
With love,
Erin
Sunday, May 6, 2012
We've come a long way?
Repost of something I wrote years ago.
(Trigger Warning for Domestic Abuse)
Several years ago, I was watching a history channel special on JFK. The show asserted that the reason JFK had won the election was because of two things: women and TV. Women voted for JFK because they saw him on TV, and he was cute.
At the time, I was living with my grandmother, who was in her eighties, and I remember asking her, "Grandma, did you vote for President Kennedy because he was handsome?"
"No, I did not," my grandma snapped back, startling me with the vehemence of her response. "I voted for him because he said that he would raise the minimum wage, and I had five babies to feed.”
“Oh, okay,” I answered, but Grandma was just getting started. I’d obviously touched a nerve.
(Trigger Warning for Domestic Abuse)
Several years ago, I was watching a history channel special on JFK. The show asserted that the reason JFK had won the election was because of two things: women and TV. Women voted for JFK because they saw him on TV, and he was cute.
At the time, I was living with my grandmother, who was in her eighties, and I remember asking her, "Grandma, did you vote for President Kennedy because he was handsome?"
"No, I did not," my grandma snapped back, startling me with the vehemence of her response. "I voted for him because he said that he would raise the minimum wage, and I had five babies to feed.”
“Oh, okay,” I answered, but Grandma was just getting started. I’d obviously touched a nerve.
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