Sly Likes: Feminist Poetry from H. Hennenburg

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

The statue depicts Dame Millicent Fawcett (11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929), an iconic British feminist.

Today I encountered a thought-provoking poem entitled The Shape of Water. It was written by H. Hennenburg in 1998.

"But do you know that a woman's voice will change the world slowly? Light will creep in where she unburdens her heart."

This poem inspired a train of thought for me.

It makes me think of a line from the song by Ten Years After.

"I'd love to change the world but  I don't know what to do. So I leave it up to you."

Then there's another song that comes to mind, this one by Ani DiFranco.

"I am not a pretty girl, that is not what I do."

Here I am, a woman who sees the ways in which we could be kinder to one another and make the world a better place. But since I am a strange old bird and not pretty at all, I have a hard time making myself heard. The world doesn't tend to listen to women who look like me.

Then again, they don't tend to listen to the women that men fall all over themselves to get next to either.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Royalty-free image copyright Julia Henze. Purchased from 123rf.com

Notes

Sly Fawkes is your ornery old Aunt Cie's snarky political alter-ego.

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese, if You Please (Or Don't Please)

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OctPoWriMo 2019: Day 3: Aunt Cie's Soapbox: Leave My Old Womb Alone (Choka)

Image by Solarus from Pixabay

lay off my old womb

I am not a candidate

for new motherhood

I can no longer achieve

reproduction, no

but it would not bring me joy

to endure the pain

of removing my old womb

it is my life choice

to keep my organs intact

despite a slightly

elevated chance that I

develop cancer

somewhere well on down the line

any womb is not

only worth saving when it

is available

to serve as incubator

~Cie~

Note:

The poem references the incidents of 2018 when my life continued revolving around my uterus despite the fact that the painful periods I had endured for 40 years had come to an end. In April of 2017, and again in April of 2018, I experienced post-menopausal bleeding, and in June of 2018, I underwent a D&C to determine the nature of the endometrial cells.

Had the cells been abnormal or the endometrial hyperplasia complex, this would have elevated my risk of future endometrial cancer by 36%, in which case I would have opted for a hysterectomy.

My cells were normal and it was simple hyperplasia. This only increases the risk of endometrial cancer by 1.6%. In the end, I felt that the risks posed by undergoing a hysterectomy, which is a major surgery no matter how casual a spin doctors try to put on it, were greater than opting for a wait and see approach. 

Post-menopausal endometrial hyperplasia can occur for a variety of reasons. It is more common in Caucasian women, in women over fifty, in women with a larger body type, and in diabetic women. I am a large Caucasian woman over fifty with a large body type who has diabetes. As it turned out, I also had a number of small fibroids in my uterus which were probably irritating the endometrium and causing it to overgrow.

My primary care physician wanted me to have a hysterectomy.

My OB/GYN wanted me to have a hysterectomy.

The gynecologic oncologist whom I consulted wanted me to have a hysterectomy.

This despite the fact that all of them quoted a very low increased likelihood of the type of hyperplasia I was experiencing ever developing into cancer.

I had one of those obnoxious trans-vaginal ultrasounds in February of this year which showed that the endometrial lining was still slightly thicker than normal but had greatly reduced in size and was within the perimeters of acceptable. I did not experience bleeding in April of this year. My OB/GYN wanted to do another D&C, but I said no. There was no presenting reason to undergo a procedure that leaves me feeling like someone has been up in my business with a cheese grater.

I consulted with a radiologist who specializes in a procedure called uterine artery embolization, which utilizes tiny radioactive grains to block the uterine arteries and cut off the blood supply to the fibroids so they shrink and cease to cause trouble. As opposed to a hysterectomy, which is a major surgery, this is a minimally invasive approach. The doctor told me I was not a candidate for the procedure because fibroids will shrink on their own after menopause, but she agreed with me that since I had not experienced post-menopausal bleeding this year, the endometrial thickness is within acceptable boundaries, and my hyperplasia is the low-risk variety for future development of cancer, a wait and see approach makes sense in my case. She discussed this with my OB/GYN and the gynecologic oncologist, and they agreed with her.

During The Year Of Focusing Way Too Much On My Uterus, I learned just how quick doctors are to recommend a hysterectomy to post-menopausal women. If a woman can no longer serve as a baby factory, let's just yank the old plumbing out, risks be damned. The fact is, major surgery is always risky although sometimes the risks of surgery are necessary. It is also a fact that the female reproductive system provides benefits to its owner even after menopause and unless it is malfunctioning in a way that makes life unacceptably uncomfortable or poses risks to a woman's health, it's best to leave it alone.

Uterus: it's not just for incubating infants. 

That's been Aunt Cie's Soapbox, Ladies! Hysterectomy is sometimes necessary, but it tends to be overprescribed, particularly in post-menopausal women.

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Beach Party for Every Body

Image by David Shaw from Pixabay

What I have been wondering for a long time is this.

Why is it that when you have a bunch of stupid guys on a beach and a person with the “wrong” kind of body walks by, and they yell terrible and mean-spirited things at this person who is minding their own business,

Why is everyone’s response to ignore and even justify their behavior rather than shouting them down?

Why shouldn’t everyone be allowed to relax and have fun at the beach or the pool?

Why is it only fun for those whose bodies have been deemed attractive enough?

Why shouldn’t fat people and skinny people and people with scars and stretch marks and ladies with saggy boobs and men with round pot bellies and hairy folks and scrawny scarecrow guys and gals with arms and legs like Betty Spaghetti have a nice time too?

I think it’s rather boring when the only people who can go for a swim without feeling self-conscious and like they must keep covered up are young people with the “right” kind of body.

Shouldn’t we have gotten past the idea that the only people whose bodies should be seen are sleek, unblemished, photoshopped visions of pornographic “perfection?”

Shouldn’t the beach be a place where everyone can cool off, not yet another spot where only the hottest hotties are allowed?

Beach parties are fun

For those with the right body

Not so much for those

Whose bodies have been deemed wrong

Ignoring not an option

~Cie~

30 Days of De-Objectification: Teen Idols

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Photoshop creation by The Real Cie

30 Days of De-Objectification:

Teen Idols

It’s hard to think of instances where being a teen idol helped a performer without harming them in some way. I can think of far more instances where “teen idol” status was destructive and, in some cases, deadly for those upon whom it was bestowed.

It is the nature of young people to be hopeful and eager to please. These qualities render them easily victimized by unscrupulous individuals who, in fact, care nothing about their well-being.

People who were child stars and/or teen idols either depart show business entirely once their heyday is over, or they spiral down. It is unfortunate that the public tends to laugh at the misfortune of these fallen stars rather than to feel sympathy for them. Schadenfraude is ugly.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple people who came away from child or teen stardom unscathed. The first is Shirley Temple. She left show business.

The second is Shaun Cassidy. Shaun saw what the star-maker machine did to his older brother David, and he didn’t take his own teen idol status terribly seriously. In one interview, he revealed that he always preferred being behind the camera to being in front of it. Shaun’s sensible approach as well as support and guidance from David and his mother, Shirley Jones, helped ensure that he came through the teen idol experience unscathed.

Unlike Shaun, David’s life was troubled. He never enjoyed the pretty boy pop star persona created by his management team. Backstage, he would often play songs like “Voodoo Child.” He was interested in performing harder rock music, but, thanks to his teen idol status, he was never taken seriously as a musician. Throughout his life, David struggled with addiction and had trouble maintaining relationships.

“The Two Coreys” are another example of the destructive nature of the way child and teen stars are treated. Corey Feldman is alive, but he is hardly unscathed. He realizes that he is the butt of jokes. He has stated that he doesn’t consider the assaults he endured (groping and lewd suggestions) to be as severe as those endured by his late friend, Corey Haim, who was raped.

Corey Feldman is a sweet if somewhat eccentric personality. It would be shameful to ridicule him in any case, but, considering the abuses and losses he’s endured, it is doubly so.

Brittney Spears is thriving at this point in her life, but that wasn’t always the case. Exploited at a young age, the pressure to maintain a “sexy” persona and flawless physique eventually caused her to have a psychological breakdown. Fortunately, Brittney received positive support and is doing well. I applaud her for publishing the unretouched photos from the Candies shoe campaign she modeled for. I’m glad she’s still here.

When I see someone like Justin Bieber acting out, I may feel on one hand that he’s making himself look foolish, but, on the other hand, I understand why he is behaving as he is. A lot of pressure is put on people like Justin to be the image that was created for them. People want Justin Bieber to continue to be the cute, mop-topped teenager that he was when he was discovered, even though he is now in his mid-twenties.

It is one thing to expect people to behave civilly. It is another to ridicule people, set them up for failure, and then expect them to behave normally. Someone like Justin Bieber hasn’t had a normal existence in a long time.

As the late Carrie Fisher said, youth and beauty are not accomplishments, they are accidents of time and DNA. It is high time that society ceased behaving as if youth and beauty are the highest of accomplishments. Beauty is subjective, and youth always fades, unless a life ends prematurely.

We need to be kinder to one another as a whole, and we need to stop perpetuating the attitude of exploiting and burning out teen and child performers.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: My Resolution to Minimize Body-Shaming Psychic Attacks

Per my resolution to minimize the amount of toxic, ignorant, psychic attacks negatively impacting my life, I kicked the radio station which had been my primary choice to the curb following an onslaught of weight loss surgery ads and the afternoon DJ making the inane remark that "exercising makes you feel thinner. This is especially true for women." 

I now have the radio in the Forester permanently tuned to the publicly funded jazz station. I have satellite radio in the Fusion, which tends to be on one of the 70's or 80's stations or the Underground Garage. They don't blather on and on about bullshit calculated to offend and shame people with non-optimal appearances: bigger people, older people, women who aren't conventionally attractive.

 It's a huge relief to be able to do my job and have some music to keep me from dying of boredom without some stupid advertisement or idiot remark from one of the DJ's raising my blood pressure multiple times during my shift. I've thought about writing a letter to the radio station, but I doubt it would do any good.  

I hope one day we will have a world where a radio station playing such toxic advertising would be flooded by emails rebuking them. 

People deserve to live their lives without being constantly reminded that they are seen as undesirable thanks to the constant brainwashing by mega-corporations hell-bent on taking their money.

Advertising is usually a form of attack rather than an informative medium.

It's time to stop kowtowing to the Frankenstein monster which was in no small part created by behaviorist John B. Watson. Watson was a bit of a shit in any case. He was unscrupulous in his experimentation on vulnerable subjects. 

We need to learn to think for ourselves rather than allowing advertisers to mold our beliefs.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Accidents of Time and DNA

I was really having a go at myself yesterday. I was angry with myself for walking so slowly. It took me an hour and a half to walk 2 miles where it takes the average person about 45 minutes to do so. I later realized that I had been carrying about 20 pounds, one approximately 10 pound bag on each shoulder.

The next day I couldn't stand the sight of myself and continually referred to myself as an ugly old toad faced cow.

Today I remember Carrie Fisher's wise words.

Youth and beauty are not accomplishments. They are accidents of time and DNA.

This is one of my favorite images. It shows the same person with a relatively 30-year progression in age. There are a lot of people who say that this person has always been "ugly." Then there are those who say he was cute when he was younger but became "ugly" as he aged.

I say that those shallow sorts are cordially invited to go fuck themselves.

This person has never been conventionally attractive. He was too short and skinny to be a "manly man" and his elvish face wasn't exactly a "movie star" mug.

I don't think he "got ugly" as he aged, he just got older. People do that. We should be allowed to do that.

Recently, I ended up with chemical burns where one definitely does not want chemical burns. I put Nair on my legs to thin out the hair. I have very thick hair on my head, and with thick hair on the head comes thick hair on the arms and legs. Women are expected to have glorious, thick manes of hair on their head and hairless legs and arms. It's ridiculous.

When I was walking to the shower, because I don't have the ludicrous "thigh gap" that women are supposed to have (hint: the majority of women do not) my legs rubbed against each other and squeezed some of the depilatory cream to the point where my thighs meet my nether regions.

I am still recovering from chemical burns to the nether regions.

It is ludicrous that women feel the need to burn the hair off our legs or have the hair ripped from our private areas to make ourselves not even impossibly beautiful (it is, in fact, impossible to achieve the perfection that we are supposed to aspire to) but merely acceptable. In this society, anything less than stunningly beautiful is hideous. It is unacceptable to be plain or average.

A person's beauty does not lie in their external appearance.

People do not become "ugly" as they age.

There is nothing wrong with being an ordinary-looking person.

Perfectionism is deadly to the spirit.

It is a soul-destroying demon with which I have wrestled all my life. So too have the people whose pictures I featured in this post.

May we somehow learn to find peace with ourselves.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Click-Bait Articles and Bile-Yellow Journalism

I really hate clickbait "articles" with titles like "Ten Beautiful Celebrities Who Aged Horribly."

Shockingly, people age. Oh, the humanity! How dare they!

A few years back, I ripped the Daily Fail a new one (I know, not that they care) for publishing pictures of Malcolm Young, a person who could not possibly have consented to said pictures being taken of him because he has advanced dementia. Not only that, but of course they berated his appearance, including his attire (a sweatshirt and jeans), his graying hair (imagine, a person in their 60's having graying hair--what is this world coming to?) and his frailty.

They're right, of course. I mean, the crust of this rogue, having the temerity to appear frail when he's, you know, terminally ill and his brain is literally shrinking. How dare he not look like a hot, youthful stud muffin?

The caregiver who was with him was referred to as a middle-aged man, which is surprisingly generic coming from the Daily Fail. I guess since he isn't a celebrity, it wasn't worth their while to berate his appearance, although to rags such as the Daily Fail, being middle-aged is considered a terrible thing.

The photo I'm showing is one that Malcolm consented to while he was still well enough to have some autonomy. He obviously isn't well, whereas his brother looks like a reasonably healthy middle-aged fellow. When I first saw this picture, I thought that Malcolm might be developing Parkinson's disease, given his facial expression and stance.

At this point in his life, he was often accompanied by his children, his brother, or his nurse, all of whom the Daily Fail probably has something nasty to say about as well.

It's a horrible thing to go through life looking for ways to attack other people. If you don't like what you see, move the fuck on. It's simple. Other people really don't exist to be your eye candy.

The Cheese Hath Grated It

The Cheese Grates It: The Harsh Judgment of Victims of Multiple Cosmetic Surgeries

The person in the picture is Melania Trump, prior to having cosmetic surgery. She was told that she was too foreign looking to be a successful model. Of course the response of many people is to bash her for having had the procedures done.

I don't think it's right to say cruel things when a person feels pressured into getting cosmetic surgery or other procedures. Society puts a huge amount of pressure on people, particularly women, to remain young looking into our middle years and beyond. It often looks artificial, and it's sad that people feel such a push to alter their natural appearance. Saying things such as "she looks like crap" don't help. Judge a person's character, not their physical appearance.

I feel like it's sad when people have multiple cosmetic procedures in an attempt to preserve a youthful appearance, or due to body dysmorphic disorder, that they end up not looking entirely human. I question the ethics of a doctor who will do that many procedures on a patient.

I had a few minor procedures when I was younger, hadn't yet discovered size acceptance, and hated myself even more than I do now. I'd have the caps put on my teeth again. Because of the nerve damage to a couple of my front teeth, they are dark. I would still be self-conscious about that. I don't think I'd be as concerned about the gap that the orthodontic procedures which killed the nerves in the teeth from pulling on them too hard didn't close.

I had a mole "removed" with a laser, which I regret. It actually only lightened it, so now it looks like a bump. I don't know why I didn't get a second opinion. I didn't trust the guy who did it to do the surgery on my chin, which I had later. He wanted to take bone from my hip and implant it in my chin as he said I had a "weak chin." I just wanted liposuction. Why I let him talk me into the mole removal, I'll never know. He was later brought up on charges of molesting his female patients while they were under anesthesia. I was not under anesthesia for the mole removal, so he just got away with some of my money.

I later had a doctor with a more conservative approach do the liposuction on my chin. I have a one inch scar on the underside of my chin from the surgery, but just after the surgery I looked like I'd been in a really bad accident. My face was swollen and bruised. I had to wear an elastic band around my head for a month until the swelling went down.

While my face was in the process of shrinking, my loopy boss asked me what had happened. When I told her, her response was to pinch my cheeks and say "why didn't you have them do something about these chipmunk cheeks too?"

Being the delightful bunch of contradictions that I am, I vowed at that moment never to have any more plastic surgery just to piss people like her off. But who knows what may have happened if I had somehow gotten a "lucky break" and gotten into Hollywood, which used to be my big dream. I may have had all kinds of procedures in an effort to become "beautiful," because being a round-faced, chipmunk-cheeked, East European looking critter (my father's maternal ancestry is Lithuanian and I have that look) is not the chiseled, aristocratic look that Hollywood wants in its properties.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Cheesy Reviews: Between

"Between" on Netflix is interesting enough, although it's yet another youth-oriented show. This one takes the whole youth-oriented thing to a whole 'nother level, eliminating every person over the ripe old age of 22. I haven't watched enough yet to discern whether there might be some Lord of the Flies level ideas, or if it's just a dystopian teen-oriented drama.

I like diversity in my performers. I tend to find those productions which involve only Pretty Young Mostly White People, or as I call them, Pretty People With Petty Problems, dull. 

Between didn't just put the icky old folks in the background. You might say it went full on Logan's Run, but really, it was more of a Miri. The obsolete people over 30 voluntarily stepped into a floating laser death chamber in Logan's Run, because you surely can't have people with lines on their faces uglying up your society. 

In the Star Trek TOS episode, everyone who hit puberty died of a combination of retroviruses designed to preserve youth.

It remains to be seen whether Between has any sort of message about how people over 22 are actually useful in some way so if they died that would be a bad thing and stuff, or if croaking everyone over the magical age of 22 was just a cool excuse to keep Pretty Lake free of icky lines and gray hair.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

I have determined that this post needs more Keith Richards

The Cheese Grates It: Moving Target

A response to the article "Stop Asking Me to Have Sympathy for the White Working Class."

I happen to be white, and I'm heterosexual. That's pretty much where my privilege ends. In most ways, I'm a target. I'm an older woman. I'm a big person in a society that hates big people. I'm mentally ill.

I am not a target in the same way that non-white people are a target, but I am still a target of prejudice and hatred for people who enjoy making others' lives miserable.

I also happen to not have voted for the Bully in Chief. I am one of those people being told to "get over it" and "stop acting childish" because I will never refer to him as President.

I am part of the working class. I work a skilled job (nursing) and make a little over $30,000 a year, although I often work 60 hours a week.

I am unsure how people in the working class can think that electing this racist, misogynist, xenophobic fascist can possibly benefit anyone but his fellow millionaires. He doesn't have sympathy for any of us. We're a big joke to him.

Yet I know people who I consider to be otherwise good people who truly believe that he is the best thing for our country. They stand against bullying, yet they voted for the biggest bully imaginable. They excuse him talking about grabbing women "by the pussy" because he "apologized for it." As if his apology had a grain of sincerity. If folks are that gullible, I'd like to discuss a little beachfront property in the Gobi desert with them. I can get them into it at a very reasonable price.

I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I'm smart enough to spot an obviously insincere con artist. I'd like to say that Don the Con pulled the wool over this country's eyes. In some cases, that's what happened. Sadly, in all too many other cases, his appeal was making America safe to hate again.

Adding on to the above comment:

I understand people's criticisms of Clinton as a candidate. She was not my first choice. I was in the "I'm with her because she's not him" camp. It was a "lesser of two evils" vote. I understand the people who voted third party because they couldn't stomach either candidate.

People like to claim that third party voters betrayed us all and got the Bully in Chief elected. In fact, Clinton won the popular vote. The Electoral College put the Cheeto Demagogue at the helm of the ship. This archaic system needs to be abolished. Presidential elections should be decided by popular vote.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~