in light of kathryn bigelow's win last night: i present rant #1.

i don't usually do this. and by this i mean type right into this thing. i use microsoft word. i edit. i past pictures into the document. i crop. i rotate. i make it perfect. and then, i upload.

not right now! i'm so enraged right now i walked right to a sinc site to find a computer. i have thirty minutes until my next class and want to read before hand but this can't wait. i just took my rings off to allow my typing to go faster. cracked my knuckles. now i'm ready.

i just left my italian class where we talked about women's day." for those of you that don't know, thats today. march 8th. it's a day to celebrate women. my teacher's argument was "why do we need one day to celebrate women? we shoudl be doing this every day." someone enxt to me said "i hate feminists. all they want to do is burn bras. and thats disgusting." that was a woman who said that. someone else piped in "feminists are crazy." someone else said "if we celebrate women today then men should be celebrated every other day." i can't even recall all the comments because i'm so enraged. for lack of vocab in italian, and my shyness (lame, i know) i didn't speak up. i wanted to scream scream screamsdfgjkdfghsdfjighsdfg in english but ...italian class. can only speak italian.

so here is my response.

1. to my teacher: "should" is the operative word in your sentence. sure, we should celebrate our moms and dads every day, but do we? we should celebrate our countries independance from england and our american freedom every day, but do we? we should recognize martin luther king jr.'s contribution to our society every day, but do we? we should, for that matter, drink 32 ounces of water and eat ample amounts of fruits and vegetables every day but, do we? the answer to all of the above questions is, a resounding, no. the point of a "holiday" or a "day" is to recognize the historical importance of the day. recognize women as an important part of our society. can you recall copious amount of women talked about in your history classes? tha snwer to that question is also no. sure, you hear about elizabeth cady stantion (have you?) or susan b. anthony but, i think , thats because they are connected to the women's movement. the women's movement is has huge historical importance and so those women fit that mold. what about tz'u hsi, rosalyn yalow, or marie severin? their contributions to science, politics, and art are just as important as george washington's birthday or veterans day or kwanza. women made contributions that we, as a society, rarely recognize and today is the day to pay tribute to that.

2. to address the "i hate feminists" comment and the "feminists are crazy" comment would be an essay in and of itself. i'll try to focus my thoughts here. for one thing, anyone who says they hate feminism doesn't understand it. sure, there are radical feminists. some burn their bras, some bomb abortion clinics, some, literally, hate men. doesn't mean all feminists are this way. there are radical white supremists. doesn't mean that we say all whites are racist, do we? a feminist is a man OR a woman who supports the idea of social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. look at that! equality of the sexes. men AND women. what we hear about is that feminists want to abolish men, they want to reject traditional ideals about women, and they see "feminity" as a negative thing. actually, thanks to regan that's what we all think about feminism. him and his backlash, i tell you. what feminists actually do it promote equality. they want men's stereotypes to be abolished just as much as women's. they want the traditional ideals associated with women (homemaker, caregiver, food cooker...etc. etc. etc) to be valued as work and compensated for properly. they want men to be able to step into those roles IF they so wish to. no one is saying you can't be a stay at home mom or dad. but you get the choice to do that. and, that feminists reject traditional ideals about women. in feminism you get the choice to do whatever it is your heart desire. feminists embrace feminity. wear those heels, that lipstick, that short skirt, or that long knee lenght one if you want to. the point is, women's feminity is not about pleasing a man. but making yourself feel, and look, beautiful in whatever way you want. what you wear should not constitute you as a "slut" or a "prude" but rather a woman expressing her individuality. if that line of thought is crazy, then call me stark raving mad.

3. i can sorta see where the "well then men should be celebrated every other day" comment comes from. and, if we re-phrase that statment, i might agree a little bit more. men should be celebrated. i'm not advocating for leaving them out of history, politics, and society. but, we do celebrate men. see above reponse #1. and by "we celebrate men" i'm really only talking about white men. what about those men making strides in other classes and races that we over look? i'm not that well versed in this topic and so i'll end that thought here. just wanted to put it out there: there is more to our history than upper class white men.

in conclusion, the battle for equality is not against men or women. it's against our negative societal norms and how they are perpetuated by the media, our politics, and our society. we should (if i can use my teachers words) celebrate equality among all races, classes, and genders. unfortunately, this is not always how life goes. and having a women's day is like a checks and balances. maybe in the future we won't need this day. maybe we'll need a man's day (being as were in a "man-pression" and all. subject for another rant.) and i'm looking forward to that day when women are properly represented in our history books, on our tvs, in our society, and in our minds. until then, we should embrace women's contrabutions to our beautiful world.