Women's Issues

[Steph]

Women's Issues If Art imitates Life, what does Literature show about the place of women in our society? From the Red Tent to the new movie Anna Karenina,  to Malala Yousafzai in the news, has the state of women changed? What IS the state of women today, in your opinion? Let's talk about how women are portrayed in the press, and in literature, and how accurate it is.   How does advertising reflect, if it does, how women are portrayed?  (Remember heels and pearls to sell refrigerators?) How does it seem to you that women are portrayed today? Let's talk! National Women's History Project

Jeanne,, I do agree,the number of small children carrying a bottle or a binkie in diapers when they walk and talk is amazing. I lived across the street from a woman still nursing a  year old..Oh well, life changes.

[Steph]

oops lost  the four for how old the child was.

[JeanneP]

Many are now nursing way over a year. One I knew did it until she got pregnant again.  Remember the use to say you couldn't get pregnant when nursing.  Not true. Does happen.  Also . Can't  at time of period, safe until 10 days after. Also false. My doctor UK always told me.  There are 27 days in a month you can. I believed him. Right or wrong. A friend who was strong catholic was strong believer in going by the calendar. Got 11children.  ( not by choice).
 

[Steph]

Ah, the good old rhythm method. doesnt work, but oh how many people believed it.

[MaryPage]

DON'T, whatever you do, Don't miss the documentary INEQUALITY FOR ALL.  I have not seen it yet myself, as I intend to buy the DVD as soon as it is available (it is no longer comfortable for me to go to the movies), but friends tell me it is superb.  Robert Reich did it.

[nlhome]

I nursed two of my children for at least a year, the middle one had to cut short because I was pregnant. Going by what the doctor said, which was that my child and I would know when it was time to move to a cup only, the transition was easy. My mother had never nursed, so she had no opinion, and she would never have judged me on that anyway. I learned early on, from those around me, that too early toilet training meant "mom" was trained, rather than the child, and the doctor again said we'd know when it was time, and it worked.   When my children were babies, I was told it was dangerous for them to be on their backs, and I was encouraged to put them on their stomachs to sleep - now it's the opposite - so I try to keep my opinions to myself. Things change.

[BarbStAubrey]

As I understand the value of nursing longer has something to do with anti-bodies that passes to the child from the mother that not only keep the baby healthy but has something to do with future health.

I too did not and could not nurse - tried with my first and with no support plus confusing information I ended up with impacted breasts that all the milk ducts had to be stripped from two months after I gave birth - thank goodness I was young because within that year - exactly 9 months and 6 weeks later, I had my second baby - I had such morning sickness that just back on my feet after the milk duct surgery I was back in the hospital for the morning sickness.

[Steph]

 I nursed my first child for six months. and like others waited on the toilet training until I felt that my child and I could handle it, but my neighbor.. Her son at 4 would walk into a room full of people, walk up to Mom, and whip out the breast and takea swig..Definitely a power issue. He was a most unpleasant small child.. Very prone to tantrums. slept in their bed until
Dad put hisfoot down.. then slept in the corner of the bedroom on the floor since he refused to sleep in his bed.  We started out letting our granddaughter play with him, when she visited, but after she came home in tears because he grabbed a bar of soap and shoved it into her mouth, I never let her over there again. Then he started stealing things when he came to our house, so I had to call a halt to the whole thing. She was grateful and announced thathe was a very mean boy..I actually thought he was a disturbed boy, but not in my house.

[MaryPage]

In the October 2013 issue of National Geographic there is a photograph of a 40 year old Afghan man sitting next to his bride.
I would title the picture:  THIS CHILD IS ABOUT TO BE RAPED!
Because, you see, she is eleven.  11.  Years old.
I think it is on Page 76 if you want to run and have a look. 
The world should scream!
 
 

[Steph]

Thought I answered this somewhere. Yes, in Yemen, they had a picture of teeny little girls and old fat horrible men. They have no shame.. no humanity. They have to have daughters so much older tha the babies. What is wrong with this culture.

[MaryPage]

Thinking MEN are the only humans who matter, having been made in the image of the MALE god, and females just represent an inferior servant class with wombs to carry their SONS while cooking their meals and cleaning their man caves and being sexually available to satisfy their urges.
That is what is wrong with this culture.
But hey, we are still trying to clean up our own! 

[JeanneP]

I really owe the early training of2nd daughter to my first. She was a little over2years older and was well trained when 2nd. Came . So when she went to bathroom and baby was beginning to crawl she followed behind her. Watched what she did and wanted lifted up.  Many a time I had to go and lift baby up out of toilet as she was a chunky one,little heavy. Caught on fast.

[Steph]

The culture that permits old men to carry off the young girls has something inherently wrong with it. Then the boys must wait way too long to find a wife..The polygamous cultures in Utah, etc are like that aswell.

[MaryPage]

If it were only allowed that the little girls be educated, then their daddys would no longer be able to sell them.  For that is what happens:  they get  BOUGHT for a bridesprice.  Sick.  But going on forever.

[Steph]

Hmm, somehow we need to turn the tables. Sell the old lechers, not that anyone would want to buy them.

[MaryPage]

How 'bout castrating the old lechers?
And the young ones.
Seriously, I do believe we should make it a part of the sentence of every single rapist that they must be castrated.  No appeal.

[BarbStAubrey]

MaryPage sounds like appropriate anger however, not everyone today that is convicted of rape is what we would call a rapist - young people have a way of creating drama and many a seventeen year old or nineteen year old is convicted of rapping the girl who under the age of sixteen was their girl friend - something goes wrong and they break up or the father finds out and whoosh it is called rape and he is prosecuted and convicted of rape that ends up on his record.

Then there is a normal everyday rape by guys who should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law but the girls cannot tell and he knows it because if they do tell and they did not come to the US as very young children then back to Mexico they are shipped which does not stop him. Also, if the word gets out and he gets laughed at or the girls stand up for themselves then he reports a member of their family, a mother or a father who is then shipped back to Mexico which tears a family apart so the girls have no protective rights.

[Steph]

There are a lot of rapes that dont fit either category.. I agree that boyfriends of just over 18 should not be prosecuted, but on the other hand, these 25-30 year olds who take on a 14-15 year old girl should be prosecuted big time.

[MaryPage]

Women, children, and the very old are the ones most suffering from the shutdown of government.
Desperately poor are not getting Meals On Wheels and related services, food stamps, shots for babies, special formulas prescribed, and so on.  Lots of desperate stories on television news.
What puzzles me is how come it is WE, the people, who elect the men and women to office to perform the service of forming a government and naming agencies to perform services and appointing people to head those agencies and giving them very explicit orders as to what their duties are and making up all the hiring, firing and retiring rules and regulations to govern the masses of employees who do the work required of these agencies, and THEN!  Then these same elected officials declare the government is no damn good and we can all be better off without said services and they lay off all the workers!  Lay them off!  Without pay!  When this country and the world are in deep financial difficulties already, they SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!
And a few of the most anti-government loudmouths have the moxie to parade out to the vets who cannot get into their shutdown memorial which is run by the Park Service, whose OFF THE PAYROLL employees showed up to man the barricades while all the time they are sick with worry about how they are going to pay their bills, and these strutting congresspeople berate the very employees they themselves have laid off for not being on the job!!!!!  They accused them of all manner of things for not letting the vets in to the memorial which was closed because THEY themselves had closed it!
This is a mad, mad, mad world!

[jane]

Seeing that Rep. in his fancy suit berate that female Park Ranger and telling her she should "be ashamed" sent my blood pressure into the stratsophere.  How could we, the American people, have elected so many idiots to gov't?  

If you missed this arrogant Representative:   http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2013/oct/04/rep-neugebauer-drawing-ire-formal-complaint-for/#axzz2gr1FZIZb

[MaryPage]

And she was working without pay!  No paycheck coming forth!  No way to pay her bills and feed her family!  She was there, working for her agency, just to keep chaos from reigning!
And HE WAS ONE OF THOSE who shut down that agency and caused the closing of the Mall in Washington, D.C. and all of the Memorials and Parks there and all over the country.
Then he shows up and berates HER for not allowing the vets in to see their Memorial!  HE shuts it down and HE blames HER!
Strutting his red, white & blue patriotism and making her look the Scrooge!

[BarbStAubrey]

I see the Koch brothers running the country making Congressmen crazy - Koch money finances to the hilt a Tea Party candidate so that with money alone the candidate wins - all you have to do is read Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say http://tinyurl.com/pulkjdo and you quickly learn that the best of us and the brightest of us are not immune and end up voting for these candidates. Those of us who think we are too smart to be coerced, that smartness is used as the weapon. A good campaign knows how to use these tactics.

The Koch brothers have the Republicans - if they do not fall in line than they find and finance a Tea Party candidate that will run against them. As much money as a candidate can put in a war chest they are always topped by the Koch brothers who want their form of politics to rule. On top of which there is no holds bared on any big money financing what ever they want since the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that now, after a history of even being taught in school that a corporation was not an individual it appears to me big money is influencing the courts.

We are comparing the current state of Washington with what we knew - think about it - Chris Matthews wrote a book, that I want to read that explains how Tip O'Neil was a good friend and worked with Reagan even though they fought each other and said, during the work day some terrible things about each other. This is the Washington we expect and is no more.

Now the knee jerk instinct is no longer finding any common ground but to challenge and make it into all out war. They are no better than the police who no longer use any sense but their first instinct is to shoot - not just after seeing it was a lone women with a child in back and then letting go a barrage of bullets, that shoot first behavior is happening over and over in our cities. Here we have had several unarmed men killed because the fled in fear of the police and the police killed them. The authority of this nation are all on another level of using their power then we have ever seen. It is no different than living in a home with a raving drunk. Regardless what we do we cannot out-think the next chaotic event.

Have you noticed the ones who act like they will not take any hostages but, bull doze, regardless who is hurt, their agenda are all under the age of 60 - I know this sounds crazy even for me however, this is the 50th year since it was made illegal to pray in schools. All these guys were in school, in grade school when that became law.

It is not a particular prayer that I think made a difference as much as taking a minute out each day to give honor to a system of moral values that like saying the pledge each day (which they no longer do either) grounded a kid to realize there is more than how well they do on a test or how well they come across bullying a classmate. The lose of school prayer was also the beginning of the 'me' generation. God is out of the way and so "me" and my ego are it! That means I must be powerful and anyone or group who can help lift me into a position of power is my mentor, regardless government or private sector.

If officials now, regardless in Washington or even security at the airport can rattle their sabers of power like out of control kids bringing a reign of behavior that is all about them, then like a raving drunk they need a treatment center - the least expensive is to attend 12 step meetings and one of the first things you learn is to accept and turn to a higher power that most of us are comfortable believing that is a God.

The only God we have now is the battle over abortion and gays - the God of love and compassion disappeared with school prayer which I am realistic enough to know it never coming back. But why did that mean we no longer start the school day standing in place and saying aloud the pledge - not a pledge no one listens to that is said over the loud speaker but each student participating and why do we no longer teach civics in school so that we know what our  representatives are hired to do and how this nation is supposed to work.

I am angry but more i want it fixed and knowing how we can no longer fix Washington we need to see that kids today are not educated to follow in the footsteps of these floundering, "me" centered elected representatives with no sense of "liberty and Justice for all".  

[BarbStAubrey]

OK my rant - and yes, I see many in power falling into the same ego trap so that Congress is only part of the "me" system. Get the book and you will see what we are up against.

[MaryPage]

I have never seen an iota of evidence that praying in public schools or not praying in public schools eliminated or caused any bad behavior on the part of children or grown up children.
I have noticed that most of the sex crime offenders seem to be priests, pastors, devout practicing Christians, Jews or Muslims.  It is as though the strict rules about sexual behavior somehow excite some primal urge within and cause them to live their lives on the edge, enjoying the adrenaline of possibly getting caught.
I was in grade school years before the "under God" was inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance, and out of college before it was.  Can't tell that that has made a whiff of difference, either;  other than satisfying the faction who fought to put it in.  I do remember that the classrooms I was in, many of them on Army bases, raced through the morning recitations at the speed of light, just dying to get them over with!
Inspired?  I don't think so!

[BarbStAubrey]

Maybe that is it we all have a different experience - I am remembering not so much the particular prayer as it was a time we were quiet showing and feeling a sense of reverence and it was immediately followed by the recitation of the pledge so that like at home saying a prayer before dinner prompted behavior that was different than when we just sat down for lunch or scooted out the door eating other meals. Prayer in school and before a game was like that - not talking about a particular religion or a minister, priest or what have you, leading a prayer that is followed in order to obey some adult attitude of duty - but the ones we said in class most often each taking turns leading the prayer. Again, that attitude of shared reverence with prayer followed by the pledge is gone and will never return and my concern is how and with what do we replace it.

[MaryPage]

Well, I never noticed or felt any particular reverence, but we all have different perceptions and experiences, and I would no more negate yours than I would have you do so regarding my own.
I do feel strongly that children are not being taught polite behavior any more, as it was demanded of us back then.  But I do not attribute this to religious observance at all, as many of these rude children of today are big time church goers, and what is more, they let you know it, which we were taught never to do.  I think the culture itself has degraded polite behavior as the decades have rolled on.  Parents do not teach it to their children or demand it of them, and teachers have to be ever so careful not to offend the children by correcting them and having the parents lodge a complaint against them.  In my day, teachers RULED, and parents expected them to and we were punished if there was a complaint about our "deportment" from a teacher.  Remember deportment?  The word does not exist anymore!

[BarbStAubrey]

Yep, something else that is gone - respect for teachers much less anyone other than the police in the schools being authority figures. That is what it is to me MaryPage - this lack of respect for each other and for many youngsters even for themselves. That was what I saw come from kids being prayerful together but as you say it is not even the way of church going kids today - it is that lack of respect for each other that I see featured in all the news reports so that the issues are secondary to some outrageous behavior or attitude of disrespect. That is where I would love to see some ideas shared as to what could be done to bring an element of respect for each other back into the thinking and treatment of each other - it is like even the media is a b rated movie since they seem to thrive on featuring all this disrespect.

[jane]

I was in public elementary school in the late 40s and graduated from high school in 1959. I don't recall that there was ever a prayer in any class.  We did the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, but never a prayer.  

To me, it's more important how a child is taught at home to respect others, to believe in whatever religious views his parents have, to be taught integrity and honesty and moral values.  That's what parents are for!

[BarbStAubrey]

Sounds good but then all those in Congress that are examples of disrespect are parents and for the most part kids are in school with after school sports and music more time than they are home plus at home there is all the disrespect on the TV, Twitter is filled with it, and some kids make facebook an extension of their disrespect to each other. Maybe we are really talking about the bullies both adults and kids.

Interesting my kids were in school during all that and many of them had prayer meetings under the stadium each morning as their right - a little later in high school they were also into pot but  they said their prayers before school and before each game. 

[MaryPage]

My personal view is that what you pray privately, all by yourself alone to God, is what counts and what indicates who you are and what spirituality you possess.
Public prayer, public oaths, hymns sung in unison and all of that is just mechanical repetition.  It rarely has any meaning for most of those participating beyond the comfort of group unity.  There is a very strong physical effusion of mutuality that courses through the veins briefly, and then is gone.  Yearning for that, folks gather together for many rituals.  But do many of the individuals within these groups have an ongoing sense of God being ever present?  Do any?
Or do they just want the consolation of acceptance by the particular group?

[BarbStAubrey]

That is what I see Marypage the group unity - there are few ways that we can experience that in a respectful way - pledging to a nation is one but most group yells and cheers or other expressions of group unity are often one group against another group -

Few play an instrument to join a group all playing together which is another way to solidify a group. School bands are great unifying groups. By solidifying groups there is respect in that group that can expand to an attitude of respect in their lives - I am sure part of it is having a connection with a group however we have so many group experiences now that pit one against the other and even some have seen prayer as a way to pit one church against the other where as there was a sense of group when kids regardless Jewish, Armenian, Mexican, a few Blacks since busing also started at this time, Chinese and Anglos that were the typical makeup of classes my kids attended that used to have their prayer circles -

Again, this was in this area and it was a unifying force where as from what you are saying it was not the unifying experience of other areas - it was not started by or attended by the adults where as when the older of these kids were in their early grades it was a normal start for the school day. My oldest two were in Jr High when prayer was stopped in the schools. And we only live 4 streets away where Madalyn Murray O'Hair lived.

I still think banning public prayer was emblematic of a lack of tolerance for differences  - I miss Christmas that is now celebrated only as a non-christian festival - to have added events on the capital grounds by other religious groups for their special holidays I still think would teach more respect and tolerance than banning everything. I think this just added to the feeling of many Christian and Jewish groups to become more politically involved that feels less like a unifying assertion and more like a self protective and therefore intolerant political war.  

[MaryPage]

Now Barbara, this is just plain amazing!
I see it in exactly the opposite way.  The way I see it, prayer was banned in public schools because they are just that:  PUBLIC schools.  Not Catholic schools or Protestant schools or Buddhist schools or Jewish schools or Islamic schools or Confucian schools or Hindi schools or any other sect or creed, but PUBLIC schools where all of these religions are represented by the student body and the faculty.
Many, many schools, especially in the South, insisted upon prayers that ended with the words:  "In Jesus name we pray."  Or words to that effect.  This is very destructive of the confidence children of other faiths need to have built up during their educational experience.  Jewish children, Muslim children, atheistic or agnostic or Buddhist children.  Shinto children.  On and on.
We are a nation dedicated to separation of church and state.  To insert a period of prayer into a PUBLIC school education shows only that the majority group is intolerant of every other group.
Prayer belongs at home, in a house of worship, and in the privacy of each individual.  We can choose religious schools for ourselves or our children, or let church and/or Sunday School suffice.  Whatever, the rule of law that has precedence here is that we each may CHOOSE.  If our school forces prayer upon us, that is not following the law as written into our Constitution.

[BarbStAubrey]

I guess like most things it can be inclusive or exclusive - we just had a bunch of kids that were inclusive. But I see your point - I still see it as sad - like throwing the baby out with the tubwater - but then yes, if one religion is going to take dibs over the prayer that is a problem and so I can see where you are coming from - however my big concern that we still need ideas - so prayer is banned but what is a good replacement that encourages group bonding and respect for each other at least within the group that can extend outward. Political groups but like rival schools it is pitting folks against each other and that is all I see the kids are exposed to today - the pitting of one set of habits, ideas and rituals against the other so there is less tolerance and little respect. What could become a binding force that is what I want to know...

[MaryPage]

WOMEN ruling the world instead of warlike men.

That's what!

[mabel1015j]

I agree MaryPage from both a student and teacher perspective. When i was in public school and we were still saying the Lord's Prayer", there were only two Jewish families in town. The dgt of one was in my class and every morning Marcia left our homeroom when we got ready to say the prayer. I never thought about where she went, did she just stand in the hall? But it obviously singled her out as being "different." I can't imagine how she felt. And saying the prayer was just rote for most of us, like saying a multiplication table.

I saw the same roteness (my ipad says that's not a word, but you see my point ) when i was teaching. I doubt very much if saying that prayer every morning ever made any student behave better that day.

Jean

[maryz]

Here's a link about a speech given by the head of the Mormon Church.  Some things haven't changed much.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mormon-leader-Essential-to-have-women-at-home-4871824.php

[MaryPage]

Same old, same old.
But the same primal scream comes up through my whole being:
"WHY do women buy into this?"

[maryz]

Damned if I know, MaryPage.  My sweetie says it's like blacks being in favor of slavery.

[JeanneP]

The TV needs to stop talking about children and poor starving in U.S not true. My area they are eating better than have for years. Getting free breakfast and lunch at schools even in summer. Free medical .dental clinics open weekends .subsidized housing? About 8 places in town collecting food and clothing open every day.  Only ones are the people living on the streets and most of them want that life . My daughter was director big women's shelter 30 years SIL. State investigate 34years . Say people getting more on the welfare programs than what people who worked 40 hours a week were living on 20 years ago.  People should be helped but made more responsible for their lives and the children they seem to like bringing into the world.
 Let theTV show more of the people In the   world that are really hurting.  Show on TV what hardship and going to bed hungry is really like. It is not standing in a Line for free stuff, smoking a cig. And talking on a mobile phone.  All the country needs . Leaders who know what they are doing and how to use funds right. They built a14 mil. Sport/ swimming park this year right in what is/supposed to be the poor section of my town.  Only opens in summer.  They closed down a perfectly good school and built a new on because the old wasn't air conditioned .this is only needed for a few weeks when school starts in late August.  Now it is compulsory to send children to nursery school age 3 half days in order to go into kindergarten.  Buses picking them uo and dropping them off home. Mothers now can sit home free of them 4 hours a day.  When my girls  4 it cost us to send to both a nursery and kindergarten until age 5.
Picking them up and taking ourselves.

[MaryPage]

I don't share your view, Jeanne.  There are millions of people going hungry all over this country every day, most of them children and the elderly.