Traditional Values

I've been watching a lot of The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie lately.  Then I saw something about someone (Netflix?) rebooting Little House and, of course, there they were... the pearl-clutching army in the comments worried about THE WOKE AGENDA is gonna ruin it.  

I got news for y'all.  If this happens, and you don't like it, nobody says you have to watch.  I stopped watching the original TV show when they decided to divert from the "facts" of the books.  Mary never married and Albert didn't exist.  That's how you deal with offensive TV shows.  

Anyway, that got me to thinking about the question of how these wholesome shows might have handled certain topics. 

 I realized Little House did handle a lot of the topics.  Mary's blindness gave them the vehicle to show that the disabled are not so different from the abled.  They brought in nonwhites from time to time and, again, focused on the similarities more than the differences. Nellie married a nice Jewish boy.  I have come to the conclusion that, given the limitations of television in the 70s and 80s, that Little House is yet another example of something that was WOKE all along.  

I don't recall a lot of the specific storylines on The Waltons.  But in recent viewings, I saw Elizabeth deal with possibly being paralyzed and an attempt to heal her by a "gypsy".  The Waltons are friendly with a "colored" family.  Well damn, that's some DEI stuff right there!  

All of this led me to wonder how these shows would handle certain other topics.  

Homosexuality:  The Waltons made it a point to be historically accurate, but I guess they could have a couple of "confirmed bachelors" or "old maids" sharing a home.  Maybe they did and I just don't remember. Maybe the Baldwin sisters weren't really sisters!  Little House would probably take a similar route, but given the pattern of that show, it'd be some stranger who wanders into town just long enough to confess the deep dark secret to an Ingalls.  

Interracial Marriage: Maybe one of the Walton boys could bring home a Japanese bride after WW2.  Maybe some local natives want to court the citizens of Walnut Grove.  But I can't see how a black/white pairing would work without destroying any semblance of historical accuracy.  One takes place not long after the Civil War.  One takes place in the American South.  Both predate the Civil Rights Movement. 

Transgenderism: This would be handled much like homosexuality.  (The girl-disguised-as-boy-for-protection trope does not count here!)  Little House's setting could set up an Albert Cashier type scenario. Albert Cashier Hell, maybe Grandpa Walton served with an Albert Cashier... when did the military actually start examining recruits? 

Which leads me to why I gave this blog post the title I did.  Often when we hear about traditional values, it's people raving against the sort of things I just mentioned, but considering how these topics could have worked in the shows... some of our traditional values aren't bad.  

These fictions reflect the world as it once was.  Did Olivia Walton or Caroline Ingalls bother much about what the neighbors did in the bedroom?  Did Charles Ingalls and John Walton assume the the new guy in town was female because he had no beard?  I don't think so... not unless they were hurting people.  These are traditional values - if a person is harmless, what they do is none of my business. 

But maybe I'm just pushing that woke agenda. 

 

Fifty Ways To Be A Woman

Okay, that number is way off.  Which direction depends on your definition of woman.  The hullabaloo at the recent Olympics got me thinking about this more deeply than I usually do.    I'm not sure of the details, but from what I gather, an athlete's hormone levels indicated male even though her body (genitals)  indicated female.  Myself, I think the Olympic committee knows their own standards and can make the call.  End of that discussion on my end. 

Typically, females have different hormone levels than males. We have different genes.  We also have different brain functions when under a brain scan.  And, of course, the private parts are not the same.  These are all sex (biological).  And there's the whole gender (social construct) question - what do we identify as?  

But it got me to thinking.  Intersex happens.  It is a rare event, but as we learn more and find new ways of defining sex, it could become simply unusual or possibly even commonplace.  Ignoring gender and focusing only on sex, even now we have cases of genetics not matching genitals and/or hormones and/or brain scans.  

Intersex people are traditionally those whose genes do not match the genitals, or those who have indeterminate genitals.  Suppose there is an as yet unknown biological aspect to transgenderism... the brain chemistry.  This would give us four biological ways to define the sex.  Maybe transgenders, to go back to an archaic and possibly insensitive term, are transsexual.  (Remember, we're defining sex and gender differently.)  

Most people go through life perfectly okay with the sex diagnosed at birth or before.  Finding out your hormones or genes don't match up can cause problems, privately and publicly.  Add to that the brain scan possibility.  Now... Imagine a person with female genes and female anatomy, but male hormones and male brain chemistry.  What is this person?  

I see news articles almost every day reporting a presumed male skeleton having female DNA, blowing notions about ancient societies out of the water, and this could bear on the future.  I'm not trying to push any sort of agenda, except possibly my usual DEATH TO GENDER ROLES.  

Not Even Most

Saw a meme today that said "Men who say NOT ALL MEN should be locked in a room full of snakes.  Not all of them are venomous."  I'm not sure it I'm supposed to laugh or admit the truth.  I did neither because it's based on a fallacy.   A few fallacies, actually.    

Fallacy 1: Women have to be careful walking alone because a man might attack her.  True statement.  Yet it is also true that a woman might attack her.  Or an animal might attack her.  It's more accurate to say any person walking alone should be careful because they might be attacked.  No one gets vilified, and certainly no entire groups.  (It's my personal experience that an animal attack is far more likely, but I digress.)  

Fallacy 2: Let's talk about those snakes.  Say there are a hundred snakes locked in that room.  Only 10 to 15 are going to be venomous and even fewer prey on anything the size of a human.  Even the deadliest snake does not bite for fun.  The snake that bites for no reason is a rare creature indeed.  

I'm fully aware that people are not snakes.  Some would even argue that we are not animals.  Yet the basic principle applies - how many men  are willing or able to randomly attack a fellow human being?  

Fallacy 3: It kind of leans into blaming the victim.  I understand the man who objects "Not all men".  Nobody likes to be stereotyped, and certainly not negatively stereotyped.  

I suggest "not even most" as the phraseology.  Or a sarcastic "thanks" if you're feeling less intellectual.  The latter usually gets a response of  "Oh, not you.  Other (men, in this case)."  Ask for names if they say that.  

This advice doesn't just apply to the given scenario.  It works with almost any blanket statement. Try it when you find yourself being lumped in with evil-doers  because you share a sex, religion, or political leaning. 

Touchers

When I talk to people, I am prone to touching their arms or hands.  I've been known to ambush hug people. (Not anymore, as I've realized that's crossing a boundary.)  There is no sexual intent.  I have a very real psychological need for nonsexual touch.  I think all humans do, but some of us more than others. 

There was a teacher in my middle school who was a toucher.  He never did anything overtly sexual, but people talked because he was always touching the students.  A hand on the shoulder, things like that.  Today he'd probably be reprimanded and maybe even fired.  That makes me sad.  We all could do with more benefit of the doubt.

I've never been one to bully children into hugging me. If I ask for a hug and the child declines, I'm okay with that.  If another adult takes offense, I defend the kid.  I can't do much if the kid gets scolded later, but I do what I can.  

Why not simply forgo asking?  Because I remember being a kid and no one wanted to hug me.  I treasured visits from my great-aunts because they hugged me.  My parents had a friend who let me sit on his lap and I did that well into my teens, until someone raised the question of appropriateness.  I've allowed "bad touch" because at least it was touch.  If the child in question is like I was, my request for a hug is a boon to them.  So I ask. 

Which leads me to my point, if I even have one.  There are kind ways to request boundaries from us touchers.  We will sometimes forget, particularly if we're emotional.  Please don't scream at us.  Please don't recoil as if a snake bit you.   We are harmless.  

Sex, Gender, and Shut Up

 Had two different conversations recently that bear on the sex/gender issue.  Now, to review - when I say sex I mean biology or the reproductive act.  When I say gender, I refer to society's notions of how we should look or behave because of our biology.  I'm also going to touch on sexuality, but just a bit. 

The first conversation was with a male teenager.  He's slender and has shoulder-length hair.  Someone tried to shame him by telling him he looks "like a girl from the back".  I say tried to, because the young man really doesn't care!  The incident actually bothers me more than it did him.  Why does it matter to anyone if he looks "like a girl from the back"?  Why would anyone be ashamed of this, as he was expected to be?   The only explanation I can come up with is Toxic Masculinity - one of the media's current hobbyhorses. Long hair on a boy threatened this person's personal image of himself.  Something the media likes to ignore, though, is that Toxic Femininity is also a thing.  So is Toxic Maturity, but I digress.  

Humans of both sexes are from birth (and even before that with ultrasounds) to conform to Gender Roles.  If we don't, we are generally mocked if not outright shunned.  Especially males.  A female child can be a tomboy, after all.  But for purposes of this particular rant, I'm going to be discussing adults or those approaching adulthood.  

My mother used to tell stories beginning with "When I was a little boy..."  not because she was actually male, but because she was commiserating with a male child.  She wanted to get that pesky division out of the way, because the story related to children of both sexes.  She was a female - but never a GIRL.  I have childhood photos of her, and she's wearing a dress (it was the 1940s) but that's where it ended. I probably have peers who thought she was a lesbian.  Yo momma wears combat boots wasn't playing the dozens for me, it was just the truth.  I have no memory of her ever wearing a dress.  A child walked up to her in a store and said "Excuse me, sir..."  She thought that was funny. 

Imagine catcalling a hot chick in an amusement park and my brother, with a full beard and mustache, answers you.  Again, it was funny.  If he reads this, he will laugh heartily at the memory.  The only gender roles we were expected to follow applied to chores, and I strongly suspect that was a holdover from when my parents were married.  

I tell these two stories to show that I've always had a very clear division in my head between Sex and Gender.  And you thought I was digressing again, didn't you?  

The second conversation was with a gay male couple.  These men have two children.  The children have lots of female role models despite the fact that they don't have a mommy.  Even if they didn't, I think they'll grow up just fine.  What is a woman going to teach them that a man or a book can't?

Anyone out there who thinks a parent's genitalia keeps them from parenting, shut up.  My momma wore combat boots and that was not one of the things she got wrong, so shut up.  If you cat-called some hippie dude and are now having an existential crisis, that's your problem, so shut up.  Unless people are hurting somebody, just shut up.  

As always, I invite civil debate of these points.  If you just wanna call names and insult people, shut up. 

Gender Reveals

Another wild fire started by another gender reveal party has opened up the whole can of gender worms.  Not that it was ever really closed.  And no one seems to be focusing on the real issue.  So I'm dusting off the ole soap box. 

1. Any celebration can lead to injury or even disaster if the celebrants are careless. I'm sure people have been injured and even killed at birthday parties or holiday celebrations, but try telling people to ban those and see how far it gets you. Letting unqualified people handle (or build) pyrotechnics for any reason is downright foolish, and that's what causes things like wild fires and homemade pipe bombs.  

2. Social Media is no more to blame for people showing off than a skateboard or a sports car.  The people who are impressed by whatever the stunt might be are not to blame.  The person showing off chose to do it, and are therefore responsible for any damage done.   It's no different than "Billy dared me." 

3. Yes, people do care what sex someone's baby is.  Family and friends do, and for celebrities of all stripes, the fans do.  For one thing, knowing that fact makes gift shopping much easier.  If you want to complain about people being gendered before birth, refer to my next point.

4. "Gender" has also become the polite term for the biological fact, which is why Sex Reveal Parties aren't causing wild fires, and that does confuse the issue.  If I announce the child in my womb has a penis and testicles, all that means is that his biological sex is male.  Stating a biological fact is not gendering.  Dividing toy departments by the sex of the child is gendering.  Telling a male child he can't wear pink is gendering. 

5. Often the decor is quite gendered at these parties. (Imagine what these parties would look like if decor stuck to biology!)   Cakes say things like "Tiaras or trucks" and "Glitter or guns".  Pink and blue everything is everywhere.  Parents who take those stereotypes to heart are going to have more impact on the child than a party that happens before birth. Parents who are having fun with it, just for the day?  Not so much. 

6.  No one is hurting you by having, or not having, a party to announce the sex of their child.  At least not if they do it responsibly. If you feel these parties are morally wrong, don't attend.  I don't go to drunken orgies for just that reason. 

Back to the original point. People are losing their homes and lives while we bicker over sex and gendering.  If you must be negative, blame the careless, not the thing they were celebrating.

Abortion

Yep, I'm going there.  The narrative on this subject is driving me even crazier than I already am. 

My personal feeling about the subject?  Those days are behind me now, but the only way I would have even considered abortion would be if the Grim Reaper is involved with or without the procedure.  For any other circumstance, I much prefer the other options. 

"What about a girl that's been raped or in the case of incest?"  Personally, I'd see the former as a blessing in disguise, but I understand that many women would not, could not.  Generally speaking, a child of incest will be healthy, unless it's multi-generational.  (See pretty much any royal family in history for examples.)  In either of those cases, if the mother can't or won't keep the child, I'd recommend adoption. 

"The Bible says..."  First things first, what any holy book says has no bearing on the law in the USA.  But I will refer you to Leviticus 27:3-7 and Exodus 21:22-25 (a child's life has little or no value) and to Genesis 2:7, Job 33:4, and Ezekiel 37:5-6 (life begins at the first breath).  If it's a sin, that's between her and God. 

"Science has proven life begins at conception."  No, it has not.  It's proven that your DNA sequence is human at conception.  Everyone in the graveyard has a human DNA sequence, but we're under no delusion that they are alive.  No one can definitely say when abortion becomes murder. 

"What if it was you, or your daughter?"  I've had pregnancy scares.  I've seen some of my friends and minions (admittedly not daughters) through pregnancy scares.  Only once did I accept abortion as a option, since her life was endangered.  But ultimately it isn't my call.  It's the pregnant person's call, and federal law has already supported her right to an abortion (Roe vs Wade). 

"Women don't want babies, they should keep their legs together".  That's just laughable.  Rape aside, I'm willing to bet very few abortions are performed on women who never used contraception. 

"She should put it up for adoption if she don't want it." I agree.  But I'm not the law.  If I was the law, and was arrogant enough to outlaw everything I disapprove of, you wouldn't be happy. Trust me on this.

And on a final note:  To the best of my knowledge, none of these "bans" are actual bans.  A 12 year old who got gang raped at a family reunion probably can get an abortion.  Since they are state laws, none of them affect the entire nation.  Know what you're talking about before getting all up in my face. 

The Single Life

People act like being single is the worst fate imaginable.  I see them plunging into relationship after relationship, pining desperately in between.  I see them staying with partners who mistreat them, even to the point of actual abuse. And I try not to judge.  I used to be one of them.

As a single person, I have no one telling me my partner is cheating on me because he hugged some lady at Red Lobster. I don't get accused of cheating.  I don't get accused of being stupid enough to be tricked into cheating.  Nobody gets upset if I'm not "in the mood".  Best part - nobody cheats on me.

As a single person, I can pursue my own interests.  I no longer feel the need to pretend to be someone I'm not.  I see a lot of men and women losing themselves for the sake of a relationship. 

As a single person, I don't live in fear of being beaten.  I did always draw the line at physical abuse, but a lot of people seem to prefer it to being single. 

A healthy relationship is a fantastic thing.  One with mutual respect and good communication and lots of sex if you're so inclined.  But far too many of us are not holding out for that.  There are worse things than being single. 


And no, I do not want you to set me up with your cousin Bob.

Writers' Agendas

"I'm sick of this show pushing its liberal agenda on us."  "Why can't they just tell a story without cramming their conservative politics up our noses?"  "That book series is a lot of propaganda."

Anyone who has been in a High School or College literature class can tell you about having to psychoanalyze writers.  What is the significance of Harry Potter's glasses?  Why do they run through a series of rooms in The Mask of The Red Death?  How does Dracula illustrate the sexual repression of the Victorian era?   That analysis of the author's psyche is not a lot different from seeking out the agenda.

Everyone has an agenda.  Speaking for myself, as a fiction writer, I don't deliberately plant mine into my stories.  But it leaks in there.  My stories tend to focus on large, loving families.  I put together couples who fit, not really caring about their race or sex.  I don't set my stories in large cities.  I never thought much about those things - I was just enjoying my chosen role as story teller.

I've been guilty of diversity for diversity's sake - which led to the happy accident of Olivia Ross.  My white heterosexual male Owen became an Amerasian* lesbian and for some reason (buried deep in my psyche) this new incarnation blossomed into the rich character Owen never was.  Olivia also taught me not to force these things.  A diverse cast of characters is good, but only if they can bloom as Olivia did.  She isn't "the lesbian" or "the Asian".  She's Olivia.

But I digress.  My point is this - what so many today are calling the writer's agenda is nothing more than their subconscious mind leaking into the tale.  If two characters fit as a couple, it doesn't matter to me what color they are or what genitalia they're packing, so I write them together.  Is that pushing my liberal agenda on my readers?  If my characters go hunting, am I screaming in reader's faces about the Second Amendment?

There are writers out there actively pushing agendas.  It would be foolish to claim otherwise.  I've found that, in that case, the story telling suffers.  All the characters are stereotypes.  Couples that make no sense hook up.  Those writers lose viewers/readers.  I often think that George Orwell didn't sit down to make a comment on Big Government.  If he had, I doubt 1984 would be the classic it is.

A final bit of advice - if you don't like the way the story is going?  Put down the book or change the channel.



*Not sure what the current "correct" term would be.  Olivia has a white American father and a Korean-born mother.  I intend no offense to anyone by my use of this term.  This is the term I imagine Olivia herself using.

Baby It's Cold Outside

People are calling for a ban of a classic song based on their own personal interpretation of the lyrics. 

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is basically a conversation between a man and a woman, one in which she thinks she should go home and he wants her to stay.  While some of the lines can be problematic ("what's in this drink") it really does boil down to our own interpretation. 

Can it be seen as him sexually harassing her and possibly setting her up for date rape?  Yes.  Can it be seen as both of them wanting more time together and her being concerned about gossip?  Yes.  It's all a matter of interpretation, and if we see something problematic in it, why not use it as a teaching moment? 

My sister loathes "Santa Baby" because of the singer's obvious greed.  Others say it sexualizes Santa because the singer is using her feminine wiles on him.  (Santa's not allowed to be sexual?  Poor Mrs. Claus)  These people have, for decades, simply turned the station.

I hate "Blue Christmas" because, to me, it's a guilt trip.  You go on and have fun - I'll sit in the corner and eat wet cigarette butts. If you hear nothing more than "I miss you", that's fine.  That's probably the actual intent of the song.  But what I hear is what I hear. So I just turn the station.

Does "Rudolph The Red-Nose Reindeer" imply bullying is okay?  Does "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" support the Patriot Act?  "12 Days of Christmas" has human beings as gifts - slavery, anyone?  Should anything be banned because of what you or I read into it? 

It's not like any of these songs are coming right out and saying these things.  We're reading into them, as human beings do, and even if they did...  this is called a teaching moment. 

Observations, Unconnected

It's that time of year.  Prom Season.  What do you associate with Prom?  Romance? Expense? Dancing?  How about sex and guns?  From the look of social media (and even one politician's campaign ad) it's become the norm to meet your daughter's Prom date with a gun.  Far too many people seem to see this as acceptable.  I've even seen this nonsense applied to everyday dating.

Mind you, I'm not talking about the jokers.  Let's get that out of the way.  We all fear our children being hurt and most of us joke about what scares us.  But the joke is lost on a certain demographic.  Some of us still believe a virgin daughter is still a valuable commodity and not a person.  Some of us never teach our daughters about these things and then wonder why they aren't safe.  Some of us even think sex on Prom Night is some kind of obligation.

I would say "And they vote" but they probably don't. They do, obviously, breed.

****

If you were born before 1967, you're a senior?  I'm pretty sure 50 qualifies as middle-aged.  Or did the definition of that change, too, like "entitlement" and "white"?  An entitlement is something you're entitled to, that you've earned, or at least it used to be.  I can remember a time when the only white people were those with ancestry in the parts of Europe that didn't touch the Mediterranean.  Italians, Spaniards, and Greeks were a category in and of themselves.  There used to be a distinction between biological sex and "gender".

I understand, and have even argued in defense of, the evolution of language and Common Usage.  Maybe I'm just showing my age (apparently I'm a senior) but those things are supposed to happen slowly.  Day-to-day conversations between people speaking the same language shouldn't require a translator.

Mind you, I really don't care how you label me.  White, old, female, whatever.  I shrug at you.  But stop confusing me!

****

And my last unconnected observation for the day: Stop assuming the worst about total strangers and mere acquaintances.  If I see one more person fumbling to explain they meant no offense to someone who won't listen...  Jeez.  Seriously.

The Brains of The Young

Got into a discussion the other day, if you can imagine such a thing happening to me.  The topic at hand was the apparent homosexuality of a Disney character, but it rapidly became about something very different.  The other party insisted repeatedly that children are not capable of understanding homosexuality.

I've been a very hands-on aunt for most of my life.  My minions count in the dozens.  I've never come across a subject that children could not comprehend on some level.  You "dumb it down" for them, but they are capable of understanding.

Recently, I explained the transgender thing to a child.  I "dumbed it down" to having a girl brain in a boy body.  His head did not explode and he now understands the basic issue. We do have to be careful with our terminology - lesbians don't just love women, it's the getting-married kind of love.  We don't want little Suzie to decide she's clinically depressed because sometimes she feels sad.

Something else I've noticed about children is that they are more receptive to difference.  Race or religion are good touchstones here.  At a park, the kids all run and play together and it's no big deal if this one's a different color or that one won't eat a ham sandwich.  In fact, a conversation about those differences might start - thus they learn something about each other.  Adults could take a lesson.

It infuriates me that people so readily dismiss the brains of the young.  I have to laugh at some of the things I read in parenting magazines because otherwise I'd cry.  So much of that advice is stuff I've always done, without effort.  "When in the park, talk to the child about the various animals and plants you see."  WHO NEEDS TO BE TOLD THAT!?

Note I did not mention my position on having a girl brain in a boy body, or of wanting to marry a member of the same sex.  That all is really beside the point of this post.  The point here is simple.  Children are not stupid.  Simple, yes, but not stupid.

Thoughts on Public Bathrooms

 Apparently some laws have been passed that state you have to use the restroom designated for the sex on your birth certificate.  A major chain store also announced it was making all restrooms unisex. Heated debate rages all over social media and the news.

"Perverts will pretend to be transgender to get to our daughters."  Do you think only male perverts exist, and that they only go after girls?  Even if a pervert were to do this - as has happened - all he can do legally is "accidentally" expose himself.  Anything else is covered under other laws.  During a trial, the revelation of his birth certificate would make him in violation of this one.   It is your job as a parent (or parent proxy) to protect the child from threats.  If you are too busy to escort the kid to the restroom, that's on you.

Are we going to station guards at every restroom and require matching the physical evidence with the birth certificate?  What if the two don't match?  We send a person with a penis into the women's room anyway - refer back to the perv argument.  What do you do when the "man" you've stopped proves to have both a vagina and a female birth certificate?

We have probably all, at some point in our adult lives, shared a public restroom with another adult bearing different genitals than ours.  We never knew because they had the exterior appearance of our sex.  They went into the stall and shut the door, just like we did.  Or maybe you ignored the Restroom Closed For Cleaning signs and the janitor was using one of the toilets - that happened a lot when I was a janitor.

Why are they wasting time and money (taxpayer's money) on laws that make no sense and can't be enforced?  I've not done the math, but I'm sure the salaries of these lawmakers earned while passing this nonsense is a lot more than 15 bucks an hour - you know, the amount useful people are greedy for wanting.

Star Wars, Racism, and Sexism.

The Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion, and Rebellion in the Star Wars Films  by Kevin J. Wetmore Junior. 

Let me begin by saying this: I am not a huge fan of George Lucas.  Largely because of the almost incestuous Luke and Leia story line and because he wanted Marion Ravenwood to be too young to drive when Indiana Jones seduced her, I suspect he may be a pervert.  Even so, I feel the need to defend him from baseless accusations.  

The author starts out by saying he isn't calling George Lucas a racist, and then proceeds to list all the reasons the Star Wars Universe (created by George Lucas, remember) is as racist as a Klan rally.  His logic is not consistent, he relies on revisionist history, and worst of all - he criticizes another author for doing the same thing he is.  The other author "ignores evidence that contradicts his interpretation".  

The author claims filming in Tunisia for the backwards world of Tatooine means  Lucas believes Tunisia to be backwards.  Yet it doesn't occur to him that the primitives of Endor were filmed in California, which would mean Lucas thinks of Californians (including himself) as primitive. 

Aspects inspired by Asian culture are "appropriation" if used on a good guy and "stereotyping" if used on a bad guy.  Lucas has never made a secret that he was heavily influenced by Japanese movies.  The Jedi are analogous to Samurais.  What this guy is calling Appropriation is actually Imitation - the highest form of flattery.    

He claims that there is no sex in the Star Wars Universe and then tells us Vader sexually threatened Leia on the Death Star (Interrogation Scene), that Lando was a horny stereotype, and even compares Luke to Oedipus.  

At one point, he says the characters never go to "a performance", yet we see Palpatine at what seems to be an opera.  There are "no aliens" in the capital city - except for those interacting with the White Males the author keeps ranting about.  He even goes so far to take literally Luke's petulant comment to C-3PO about being farthest from the bright spot in the center of the universe!

Now that I've poked all kinds of holes in his logic, shall we move on to his claim of racism?  First is the lack of color - everyone is white.  Mace Windu and Lando?  Tokens.  Even Padme's right-hand-man, a black man named Panaka, is dismissed as tokenism.  My favorite one, though, is the claim that Vader is black.  Never mind he has white skin under the armor, and white offspring, Darth Vader is clearly an Evil Black Man.  One who sexually threatens the virginal white Princess.  

Jar Jar Binks is a "Gungun" according to this book.  "Gunguns" are black stereotypes who were not allowed a voice in the Senate.  In truth, Gungans (note the spelling) were isolationists.  They  didn't want to be in the Senate.  They were also Quasi-Jamaican, and not all Jamaicans are black.  

The Neimoidians were inscrutable and had almond-shaped eyes, so they must be Asian, thus making Asians evil.  Watto was greedy and had a big nose, so he must be Jewish.  The Jawa, by merit of the words sounding similar, were Jews - even though their behavior more fits the stereotype of a Gypsy. And the Tusken Raiders are Arabs, Bedouins to be precise, because they are nomadic and dress for protection from the desert in which they live.  

Ewoks and Wookies are American Indians, which makes Chewbacca Tonto.   Or maybe Friday, since he was a South American "savage" tamed by the White Man.  Any tribal society, in harmony with nature, MUST be American Indians.  

Then there's the mean way Lucas portrays women.  All they can do is have babies (Shmi and Padme) or get saved!  Did you know Leia was rescued from Jabba The Hut?  Never mind it looked like she was participating in a plan to rescue a White Male...  All those bad guys either of the leading ladies shot?  They don't count.  The female Jedis we saw? Tokenism.  

I will grant that the Star Wars universe could use more color and that females are under-represented. What this book does goes beyond that.  Star Wars is a tale meant for children.  As such, things are simplified and a resemblance to established stereotypes is going to happen.  And of course George Lucas tells a story from a Eurocentric viewpoint - he is descended from Europeans and raised in Western society.  

Public Unisex Restrooms

I remember being a small child and asking why my brothers had to go into a different public restroom.  All the toilets were in little stalls, after all, and no one could see each other.  The reason given was that the urinals are not in stalls, and that some people will "peek" at the opposite sex.    

Forty years or so later, I still don't get it.  Urinals can be done away with, or put into stalls, or hidden in secluded corners.  I've been peeked at - by adult females and by children of both sexes.  So it's clearly not simply an "opposite sex" thing.

I also speak from the parental (more or less) point of view.  A female parent (or parental facsimile) can't go into the men's room, but may not feel safe letting the boy child go by himself.  Even if said boy child is "old enough".  Even parents who might take a boy into the women's room are reluctant to take a girl into the men's.  Those open urinals, I suppose.   Never mind that only Ron Jeremy might be able to use a urinal from a distance that would allow a sighting.

Which leads me to nudity.  There is nothing evil about any body part in and of itself.  No one's eyeballs have ever boiled from glancing at an unexcited reproductive organ, unless I missed that X-men comic.   Most people tend to shield those parts from view, anyway, even at the urinals.

The people who would hurt your child are not always of the opposite sex, nor are they always sexually motivated.  Sex-segregated restrooms do little or nothing to protect them.  In fact, if these predators target a woman's male child in a unisex restroom, she will be there to protect him.

I can't tell you how many times I've used a men's room because I was about to burst and the wait for the women's was forever.  Having a unisex restroom, smaller than the two combined would have been but larger than either alone, would make the wait shorter.  Builders could save at least the cost of that dividing wall.  A unisex restroom wouldn't need to be closed for cleaning - there's no issue of what sex the janitor is.

Unisex bathrooms simply make more sense, especially in a world where those lines are becoming more blurred every day.  Save money, time, and space.  Build unisex bathrooms.

Trans-WHAT

I've already weighed in on my opinion about transgenders.  Gender is a social construct and with few exceptions, caused by the roles society expects of us because of our genitalia.  I am no expert.  What I am is a reasonably intelligent person capable of research and deductive reasoning.

Steve Martin did a movie years ago in which a white boy is raised in a black family.  The boy is shocked to discover he's white.  It was a hilarious fictional concept.  Transracial was a joke.

I know a woman who dresses, behaves, and speaks like a black woman.  She is married to a black man and has given birth to five children society labels "African-American".  I've told her she's a black girl in a white skin.  I have joked with a Sioux friend that I'm a Indian in a white body.  Never did it occur to me that someone would seriously make such a claim.

Well, someone did.  The same people who are lauding the courage of a "woman" with a penis are having conniptions over a "black" who has no proven African genealogy.  My question is - really, at the root of it, what is the difference?  How is transracial so different from transgender?

Holidays and Holy Days

It happens every year.  Twice a year, to be exact.  The first time is in and around December and the second is during Spring.  The Christians allow the media to get them all fired up about The War On Christmas and then, to a lesser degree, The War On Easter.  Godless Heathens everywhere are out to get these holiest of days.

What the Christians don't realize and the media isn't telling them is simple.  These Holiest of Days belonged to the Heathens first, but not Godless ones.  These Heathens had their own Gods and the early Christian Church, in an effort to usurp those Gods, adopted the ceremonial occasions.  Long before it was the birthday of Jesus, December 25 was Saturnalia.  Most of the trappings of Christmas come from various traditions connected to pagan worship.

The same goes for Easter - the name of which is actually derived from the name of a Heathen Goddess.  The bunny, the eggs... guess what Gods they honored originally?

I take no issue with any faith's Holy Days.  I even celebrate a Secular Christmas and I embrace Easter as a celebration of Spring.  The Holy Days of another faith do us no harm.  The Media's upsetting people just to get ratings, however, harms all of us because it creates problems.

Then we have the Holy Days that have been completely usurped by society in general.  Any Catholic will tell you any saint's day is holy.  Not as holy as Jesus's days, but holy nonetheless.  Yet two of the saint's days have come quite... well, unholy is too strong a word, but hear me out.

St Valentine and St Patrick were great men of amazing faith.  Yet most people don't even call February 14 St Valentine's Day.  It's Valentine's Day.  As in be my.  (Actually, many folks think it is Valentimes Day.  I even knew someone named Valentine who did that.)  No one pauses to think about the martyr to his cause because they are too busy doing things that, quite frankly, he would probably have disapproved of.

And poor ole St Patrick.  If people know anything about him, it's simply that he is the patron saint of Ireland.  Maybe they know he ran all the snakes out of Ireland, and that he used the shamrock to teach Trinity Doctrine.  What does this martyr get?  Everyone celebrates the Irish heritage they may or may not have by indulging in, again, behavior the day's namesake frowned upon. Even today, in the society that rails against stereotyping and in which the names of sports teams create heated arguments, the Irish are drunken brawling leprechauns.

The same folks who think I'm out to get Jesus because I say "Season's Greetings" are dressing up like lawn ornaments and getting drunk on green beer.  Most of them aren't even still fornicating with this years "Valentime".  The same media that's got folks screaming down the street about the War On My Religion is not telling them they are doing the same thing, possibly even to themselves.  But I don't blame the media - they're just doing their job.  I blame the ones screaming down the street.

Blaming The Symptoms

I've blogged about this before, specifically about Barbie and body image, but another case has come to my attention.  50 Shades of Gray is causing unhealthy relationships.

Mixed heavily with rants about 50 Shades of Gray are those mourning Lesley Gore.  You know Lesley - she sang "Judy's Turn To Cry" and "Maybe I Know".  Roughly fifty years ago, these songs were huge hits.  For those among my hordes of readers who don't know, let me summarize.  "It's My Party" tells us about how, at Lesley's party, Johnny dumps her for Judy and she has to explain why she's crying.  "Judy's Turn To Cry" tells us about how Lesley gets Johnny back - she kisses another guy and Johnny hits him.  The entire song "Maybe I know" can be summed up with the lines "Maybe I know that he's been a-cheatin' but what can I do".

"I Love Lucy" was a hilarious show about a woman's misadventures, largely caused by her stark terror of her husband.  "The Honeymooners" featured a man threatening his verbally abusive wife with violence.  "Xena: Warrior Princess" has Xena keeping her magically conceived child (her partner Gabrielle blithely assumes that Hercules was the father) just a couple years after ordering Gabrielle to kill HER magically conceived child. "The Walking Dead" featured Lori, who only had a backbone when defending her husband/marriage. I've heard that the "Twilight" relationship is less than healthy, but having not read/seen more than the first book/movie, I really can't say.

A popular meme about 50 Shades is "Women don't watch porn, but they read the hell out of it".  This isn't news - women have always read porn in the form of The Bodice Ripper.   Historical romance, thus the woman is wearing a bodice, which the man rips off of her.  Rips.  Usually to her protests. But that's okay, because she eventually becomes overwhelmed with desire.  She gets grabbed against her will, has her clothes ripped off, and then gets turned on.  "Gone With The Wind" features marital rape in the same vein.  

So don't tell me 50 Shades of Gray is gonna cause unhealthy relationships.  If anything, the opposite is true.

Confused About Gender

I have always objected to gender roles.  I was delighted to hear that McDonald's will no longer refer to their Happy Meal toy selections as "boy toys" and "girl toys".  The first time a McDonald's asked if my Happy Meal was for a boy or a girl, I went ballistic.  Even though I understand that a "boy toy" is called this because most people who want to play with it are little penis-bearers, I still don't like the implication that a female child might burst into flames (or worse, grow up gay) because she plays with one.

Sadly, however, I find the reasoning is not because they want to avoid limiting a kid's options due to gender.  It is because they don't want to be insensitive to "gender confused" children.  Seriously, I have to wonder just how much gender confusion is caused by the very idea of gender roles.

I did a little research and found that most symptoms of Gender Confusion have to do with a child not fitting gender roles.  There are a few genetic anomalies, but otherwise the only symptom I read about that wasn't directly tied into gender roles was this: Some children actually express the desire to be the other sex.  And that might be an indirect thing.  I may have expressed the same wish as a child, not so much because I wanted a wiener, but because I had to lick the soap for saying "up your nose" when my brothers said a lot worse.  Because I was a girl and saying "up your nose" was not lady-like.  Had I been a boy, I might have wished to be a girl because girls didn't have to mow the lawn.

The problem lies in the attitude we, as a society, have about these things.  We believe there is something wrong with a boy who likes Barbie and with a girl who likes Hot Wheels.  Even if your little man wants to wear a pink ruffly dress, this doesn't mean he's Gender Confused.  Maybe weird, but he's probably pretty sure he's a dude - unless he's been told otherwise.  I will admit that none of my male minions have expressed the desire to dress like a Disney Princess, but they've all played with "girl toys" and the gals played with "boy toys".  I'm pretty sure they all know what sex they are.

Little boys get the worst of it.  We have a socially acceptable word for the "tomboy".  But the nicest word I can think of for a girly boy is "sissy".  Hardly the same level of acceptance there.  Might that be the cause of Gender Confusion?  If a child is told something - anything - often enough by the adults in his/her life, they are going to believe it.  A boy raised to think only a girl likes pink?  He might come to think he's a girl, since he likes pink, and thus exhibit the signs of Gender Confusion.

McDonald's contributed to the problem by enforcing, even subtly, gender roles.  Any person or business who refers to toys by gender preference did.  My question is this:  Why is it even a problem?  There will always be people who don't fit the norm, either by design or by choice.  Why not just accept them, as long as they are harmless?  Why do we have to vilify anyone until we are forced to be "sensitive" and then bend over backwards for them?

Female Role Models

I was the seventh of eight children, but my closest-in-age sister was five years older.  So, for all playing-pretend purposes, I was the only girl.  I remember playing Star Wars with my brothers - who were 7, 13, and 15 to my 11.  They had a wealth of characters to choose from.  I got one choice, Princess Leia.  The only other female in that movie was Aunt Beru and she died!  Leia was cool, but wanted some options.  The later movies didn't help, either, as the new characters were all male.  I was a girl, I had to be a female character.  If we played Superheroes, I had to be Wonder Woman. Star Trek, I got to be either Uhura or Nurse Chapel.  I did get to play at "Charlie's Angels" but only when the neighbor girls came over.  Some of my earliest writing was, for all intents and purposes, Fan Fiction.  With lots of girl characters.  So I'd have options when playing with my brothers.

Granted, my world was small.  My mother had very strange idea about what TV shows and movies were okay for her kids... I remember seeing "Porky's" with her, but not being allowed to watch any show with a laugh track.  I thought Ken was Barbie's brother.

Now, little girls have lots of options.  Star Wars and Star Trek have huge expanded universes.  There are even girl-focused things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But now, I've noticed, little girls have a different problem.  Apparently, their options can't just be female - they have to be Feminist. Any female character who is married, has children, or cares about their appearance is considered bad for girls.  This leaves out Princess Leia - since she eventually marries and breeds, she is a terrible role model.  Tolkien's Eowyn and Arwen are also guilty of marriage and breeding.  They are bad role models.

I've recently become a fan of "Firefly".  There are at least two strong female role models on this show, but the one I hear called a Role Model is River Tam.  Somehow she is considered better than the veteran soldier or the genius mechanic.  Zoe and Kaylee own themselves, but apparently the fact that they like men makes them bad role models.  They own themselves, they choose to be with a man and possibly breed. Neither of them is defining herself through their men.  They are way more feminist than River, if only because they are women and she is a girl.  River doesn't know who she is.  Zoe and Kaylee do.

My world is still pretty small, so I'm sure there are lots of strong female characters I don't know about.  Of the ones I know, many of them fall short of the Feminist Ideal.  Robotech has lots of strong women, but since most of them hook up with men, they must not be good role models.  In the new Star Trek, is Uhura any less admirable because she's got a man?  In Harry Potter, we have Molly Weasley.  Is she any less of a role model because she's chosen to be a wife and mom?

If she's strong, capable, and happy with her choices, I consider any character to be a good role model for my female minions.   A healthy sex drive, a romantic interest, and a maternal instinct do not a weakling make.  In fact, the scariest enemy I can imagine is a mother defending her young.  Let these characters be complete women.  Stop limiting their choices. Isn't Feminism about women having choices?  If being a Feminist means a woman can't desire marriage and children, it's just another form of misogyny.