tinpra

This post below the cut (b/c my post is turning out to be fairly long), apparently, speaks to a bone of contention I've been having with my feminist sisters lately (not all the sisters, but you know what I mean): The feeling that violence and degradation isn't often the baseline position that women find themselves in when society goes to pot. If when, not too long ago, this country and others in the Western world were doing well and still not giving women equal pay and recognition, what do you think happens to women when society goes down the toilet? I'm not saying it's right, because God knows it's not. I'm not saying it should be better, because God knows that it should be. But when it's all sliding downhill, it's often women and children who are pushed down the hill first. Why? Because at our hearts, people as a whole are wicked. I'm not talking disasters on a small scale (one town, one state, one nation) but what we saw with the global meltdown.

You're probably wondering what my trigger for this was. I was reading a glowing review of Looper (which really is good), whose author felt that the movie's only misstep was its misrepresentation of women. Not one woman, it points out, is in a real position of power. We have women in service (waitresses, cooks, doorkeepers, etc.), whores, moms, and other not-so-great traditional roles. But there are no female Loopers, no female bodyguards, no women with any obvious power. And none of them seem to be trying to get power either.

What the author failed to take into consideration, is that (a) the movie takes place in a city that makes Detroit at its worst look like Paris' Golden age, and (b) our main character's a criminal. In other words, society's gone to pot and the people that we're focusing on in that society are at the charred bottom of that pot. In which case it makes sense that all the women our main character interacts with are waitresses, whores and the occasional mom. Actually, the mom's kind of a surprise!

Should society at any state be like this? No, heck no. Is it? Yes. We (you, me, my feminist sisters with whom I am annoyed) need to take that into account and go forward from there. Pretending that it's not doesn't help anyone. You can't cover an issue this big--that women at the low end of society get the worst of it--with disbelief and expect to fix it.

Okay, now I'm rambling/ranting a bit pointlessly.

In counterpoint to all this, because she has a very good point:
jaguarx13: eh, I'm not sure I agree. The writers could have chosen to make women's roles stronger. We were only seeing one possibility
jaguarx13: if no one branches out beyond the status quo, things will never change

( Please see below. And watch out for those trigger warnings. )

I don't know who, if anyone else, regularly checks LJ on their smartphone, but have you seen the new mobile site? You'll never guess what they snuck onto the homepage. Why it's ONTD! Um, if I didn't want it on my regular LJ homepage why the heck would I want it on my phone? Now all I have to do is figure out where I can complain.

Grr. Argh.

Since when had we given up on the Space bar?

This from the description of a Tin Man fic (my newest obsession, such that if I ever get around to listing what I've been reading these last mths, they'll all be Tin Man) on FF.net: "i'm really not good at these summary things.but,obviously,it's slash,WCxG.don't like,dont read.simple as that."

I'm not great at summaries either (I've been told so) but I know enough to use proper capitalization, grammar, and spaces!!!

I'm sure other ppl who have been following this more closely than I have already griped about this, but this is my first time running across it. So instead of calling the first movie in The Dark is Rising series...The Dark is Rising, it's being called "The Seeker"! *dies* What is wrong with these people? As if there wasn't enough wrong. There have been things that have come up...like making Will an American and older than he is in the books...that I was willing to overlook. I realize that TDR is much older than Harry Potter, but I'm thinking that much of the audience they're trying to push this movie to don't know that. As such I can see them wanting to distance the TDR from HP. BUT PEOPLE THIS IS RIDICULOUS! Why in God's good name did they change the title? Can anyone think of good reason? I can't.

And that's my fannish rant.

Today I got outfitted for a Holter Monitor (which I had been calling a halter monitor for days but no one corrected me b/c of the extreme similarity). Anywho for those of you who don't know it's a mobile heart monitor. No I'm not on my deathbed or anything, I'd just been having weird chest pains a few weeks ago and was [completely] freaking out so I went to the doctor about 2 weeks ago. After listening to my nervous rambling she decided that between my lack of heart-related family history and my age it's unlikely my pains were due to heart trouble. She took my pulse which was a little fast (b/c i was freaking out) then decided to do an EKG just in case. Apparently the EKG showed an extra "kick" - apparently something like an extra beat - in my normal rhythm. That combined with my symptoms prompted her to order that I have this device attached to me.

And boy is it attached. There are three trodes on my upper chest, one under each boob and one on my left side. And they all sorta itch.

Of course you know the day I have some electro-whosamawhatsit is the day that it pours and i get soaked down to my socks. My socks I tell you. My socks still weren't dry when I left work (which reminds me i have to rescue them from my bag so they can go in the wash) and neither were my sneakers. They were...damp so I wore them home anyway. Didn't have much choice. I actually have emergency Chinese Grandma slippers (b/c those things are slippers people, not outerwear!) that I wore to the hospital and back - only to find that one of them had come completely loose! So what was the point in that I ask you? Of course my boss is fanatical about everyone being shod at all times. Luckily he didn't notice. Anyway, yeah, sopping wet when I got in the office this morning. I literally stripped off my shoes at the door. I also happen to have a change of clothes - which does not include spare socks cuz apparently I forgot to replace those from the last downpour.

And I could go on forever about how weird and random my day was (working at two desks, the kookie lady trying to sell me office supplies, someone dropping off random house supplies (it's an office)) but really I just wanted to share about the itchy trodes. I keep feeling like I should just be able to pick it up, take it off, scratch and put it on. I think my nurse will have ten fits if I do that. It's supposed to be on for 24 hours. I'll let you know how it goes.

So Saturday was mine and my friend's joint b'day party. As usual it felt more like her b'day party, or two b'day parties but...that's neither here nor there. I'm not actually on to rant about that aspect of things. Oh no. I'd like to rant about the fact that I had to go to a party in the middle of Nano! I completely lost Saturday in so many ways. I had a month's worth of laundry to do (okay so that one's my fault) plus some last minute shopping (okay so I got an unexpected pair of cute boots out of that) and then when I was finally ready to leave they wouldn't let me. What happened to the birthday girl getting her way? So while I could have gone to bed around, say, 11:30/midnight I went to bed more like 1/1:30. When I say I have to get up early on Sunday, I mean it people! And then our neighbors upstairs were having a party until 3 - or so Mom told me. At that point I was so tired we could have had a quake and I wouldn't have noticed. And I got up okay but...I had had a long day before and it's been a long sleepless November and there's still Thanksgiving to contend with. Sigh. Can you hear the whine yet?

Anywho, so, no writing done on Saturday despite hopes to the contrary. Aaaaand, I forgot to mention, I got totally distracted by Mom on Friday so I only made half my quota. So here comes Sunday night and not only do I have to do my regular 2k but Saturday's 2k and 1k from Friday. 5000 words people! *faints* Supposedly I'm trying to make up the 2k I lost that time we had work done in the apartment but I'm just so freakin' tired! I'm happy to have made up the words I missed Fri and Sat. But now I'm completely beat.

Does this mean I wish I had been home writing instead of out w/my friends? Not exactly. Do I wish they would have friggin let me go home? You bet your bottom dollar!

Oh, and my back hurts.