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)

Content copyright 2020 by Cara Hartley

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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.

The Cheese Grates It: College, Family Dysfunction, Patriarchal Attitudes, and Sexual Assault

This post is a response to Gail Dines' excellent essay about the patriarchy's fear of women's empowerment and the rise of pornography and suppression of courses such as women's studies in response to that fear.

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/10/04/hugh-hefner-represents-neoliberalisms-win/

The fear of truly liberated and empowered women does indeed terrorize those who are caught up in patriarchal beliefs. When I was bound for college in the early 1980's, I was signing up for courses, and one of the courses I signed up for was women's studies. My parents threw a huge fit and demanded that I withdraw from the course. They said that if people heard that I was taking "courses like that" they'd think I was "a dyke" and that I'd be ostracized and have no friends. I said that if someone thought that I was a lesbian simply because of a class I was taking, or that they would refuse to be friends with someone who was a lesbian, that was not someone I wanted to be friends with. They then stated that they would refuse to pay for college if I took this course. Because I didn't have the financial means or the knowledge to pay for college myself, I backed down. I lasted one semester. I was sexually assaulted early on in the semester, and I knew that because I was drunk at the time my concerns would be dismissed, so I never reported it. When I tried to tell my father what had happened, he asked why I had put myself in a position where I would be vulnerable to such an assault. I had a nervous breakdown and ended up getting married too young to the one person who treated me with any compassion. There is some positive outcome to this tale. I am still friends with my ex-husband. We divorced in 1994 but were able to repair our friendship. We had a son together who is now 27, and we are a family. Sadly but understandably, my son cannot stand my mother.

My father passed away near the end of 2010. In spite of his awful reaction to my assault, I hope that no-one will say it's good that he's dead or good that he suffered for many years before dying. He was a good man who had some stupid beliefs and I did love him in spite of these unfortunate ideas.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: That Crazy Moment When I Found Myself Defending Kellyanne Conway

This was a response to this article.

Not much I can say in Kellyanne Conway's defense, but I do agree with what the author of the linked post says. I've always hated the "working mother vs. stay at home mother" battle. There should be no such battle. 

I wouldn't say that being a mother is the most important job I've had in life because I didn't consider it to be a job. I do consider it to be my most important role in life, and that remains true even now that my son is 26 years old. However, I would never say that it must be everyone's most important role and fully support and defend people who choose not to have children. I've also always hated when people imply that those who choose to remain childless are somehow "selfish." 

Hell, I've had people tell me that I was selfish for only having one child because I deprived my son of having a sibling. My son's father and I divorced when our son was four years old. We did go to counseling, etc., but we were always fighting. We got along much better as a family once we were divorced, and to me, that's far more important than attempting to live up to some sort of white picket fence fantasy.

When my son was a year and a half old, I had an early miscarriage. While I wondered what could have been, I realized that something must have been very wrong with this potential child's physical vehicle and I can't say that I grieved for the loss. My marriage was already in the toilet at that point. Having another kid would not have allowed my son's dad and me to give him some of the things he ended up needing in life.

So, since I was divorced and all of my subsequent relationships were terrible too, should I have picked up some dude in a bar and gotten knocked up so I could give my son a sibling? Actually, my son was a surprise because I wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant due to polycystic ovary syndrome. I don't like casual sex, so the attempting to get knocked up would have been odious to me and probably put me in an even worse psychological state than I already was, having untreated bipolar disorder and all. 

So, this went off on a bit of a tangent, but what it boils down to is one thing: another person's choice may not be our choice, but we need to respect their right to make that choice. Being a working mother is not wrong. Being a stay at home mother is not wrong. Having no kids, one kid or several kids is not for anyone but those bringing them into the world to decide. I do, however, think that the doctor who agreed to perform the IFV for Nadja Suleman (Octomom) should be taken into a dark alley and beaten with a lead pipe. His actions were unconscionable. 

TL:DR Being a stay at home mother is not a lesser choice, and being a working mother is not a lesser choice. Also, respect other people's right to choose how they live their lives.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Politics of Body Shaming

Naomi Wolf says in her book, "The Beauty Myth," A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience." In other words if people (women here) are always focusing on losing weight, they don't pay attention to bigger, more important issues in the world.

~Cie~

The Cheese Grates It: Women at Work in the Patriarchy

The image comes from the following article:

https://www.citycalling.com/employer-advice/are-you-a-controlling-boss/bp251/

I wanted to talk about this but wasn't sure how to start. Tinfoil the Hat gave me a great lead in with her comment on this article:

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/10/31/sugar-sisters-third-wave-feminism/

Tinfoil the Hat:

No woman can escape having to work within the patriarchy. That's why patriarchy sucks. You do whatever you have to do. You need wages and a place to live and health care and food & drink and all the various and sundry things we ALL need. You're not responsible for patriarchy; you alone can't fix it, and its magnitude is DEVASTATING. A suggested mantra if you are struggling and doing the best you can, and still feel terrible: "Everything I do is okay, and there is nothing wrong with me." It feels alone but you're not alone!

Cie:

Indeed. Even as a contractor, it still prevails. I work for one home health agency but the patient that I was working with transferred to another agency. I applied at that agency with the assumption that I would be doing fill-in work for the same patient while my current agency found me a new full-time case. Just last week I applied for a position I never thought I'd be able to land, but the first interview went well and I'm now going for a second interview. My case coordinator went bonkers when I emailed him to say that I was considering this new position and if they wanted to put someone else on the case they were considering me for, I'd understand. He acted more like a jealous boyfriend than a supervisor, telling me that I needed to declare my allegiance to the agency, and that when they find cases for me I'm expected to fill that position, not be looking for extra work. It isn't that he's sexually attracted to me. I'm probably 20 years older than he is, and I look far more like Eccentric Aunt Bedelia, or even Grandma, than some sort of "MILF." I expressed my dismay at his reaction as he demanded to know why I hadn't informed him earlier that I was still considering other work. I found myself explaining how my high-functioning autistic son still needs me to take him to appointments, how my new glaucoma medicine is making me queasy, how my brother had been in town--all stuff that his none of his damn business! Unless there is a serious emergency, I always show up at work, usually on time. I work extra hours. I was working 60 hours a week for the past month. I was flabbergasted. Most home care nurses are female, and most of the case coordinators are male. Even though they don't expressly say it, they still expect us to defer to their male authority, even when we are old enough to be their mother.

Additional information not included in the previous comment:

I currently work with pediatric patients. I found, purely by accident, a position with an agency that works with retired nuclear and uranium workers who have respiratory issues. I was interested in the position but have no experience with this niche of nursing. I applied anyway. The first interview went well, and I'm hoping to get hold of the lady with whom I need to schedule the second interview soon.

I emailed my case coordinator on Saturday night to let him know. He cussed me out for not calling him over the weekend. I said "I've never before had a supervisor who would be okay with me calling them at home for anything but a serious emergency. So I apologize, but I hardly thought that calling you with this would be all right."

He basically made me out to be a traitor of some kind. I finally said to him "look, I know for a fact that you have other employees who work for several agencies. Why are you giving me grief for being interested in diversifying?"

He said that the trouble was I had agreed to go on Thursday for a meet and greet with a potential new family to work with. I said that was why I let him know as soon as I could that I'd had this opportunity. He demanded to know when I applied for the job. I said "I don't know. Wednesday, maybe? I stumbled over the link while surfing the Internet. I honestly never expected them to call me back."

None of which I should have to explain to him. It's none of his business. Again, I am an employee of the company he works for, not his girlfriend. Also, if I had a boyfriend who grilled me that way, I'd be having serious second thoughts about staying with him.

He said that if I wanted to remain as a full-time employee, I needed to remain on board all the way, otherwise I needed to go to PRN.

I said "fine. Put me as PRN."

He seemed to be surprised. He said "well, if you go to PRN, you have far fewer opportunities to get hours..."

I said "I'm aware of that. Put me as PRN."

"Well, okay," he said. "But if you ever in the future want to have full time hours, we can get them for you, but you need to be one hundred percent on board."

If the opportunity working with the retired uranium and nuclear workers fall through, I'm going to ask the agency taking over my current case for full time hours. I don't like working with control freaks. I've dealt with enough control freaks in my personal life.

A contract employee is not under any obligation to be exclusive to their employer unless it is fully disclosed that they have to be at the beginning of their employment.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Witchy Women Are Often Punished

Please read the powerful post by Natasha Chart, which the following is a response to.

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/10/04/this-is-how-they-broke-our-grandmothers/

"Women's work" (i.e. nursing, housekeeping, child care) is still looked down on as lesser, and those of us who hold viewpoints contrary to those of the male dominated church and government are still seen as dangerous and to be silenced. Natasha, this is an amazing and powerful piece. It brought tears to my eyes. As someone who was accused of "devil worship" back in junior high and high school because I was a feminist, held socialist viewpoints (I once dared to say that "socialized medicine such as they have in Sweden, seems like a good idea to me"), and liked the "devil music" (hard rock and metal). The way I was treated actually drove me away from the church and into exploring witchcraft. It took many years before I stopped having nightmares about the devil and hell. In junior high, I was also accused of being a "slut" and there were rumors that I had numerous abortions because I'd had sex with so many guys. The truth was, I was so naive about sex that I believed a blow job was blowing in someone's ear and had no idea why anyone would like that. I've learned over the years that women who speak out against the establishment tend to have people try to shut them down. A lot of these people would love to still be able to burn us at the stake, or at the very least humiliate us publicly and get away with it.

~Cie~

On Porn: The Blinders are Off

Image copyright 123rf.com

TRIGGER WARNING:

SEXUAL ASSAULT

PORNOGRAPHY

SELF-INJURY

The short version is a response to a post on Alternet about the summer's most popular porn.

Reading this turned me off rather than on. 

Porn is utterly unrealistic, and yet it's what people have come to expect sex is like. It harms rather than helps relationships. Yet we as a society glorify it.

A lot of people think of porn as just people being filmed having sex. You've got your guy-girl porn, your girl-girl porn, your guy-guy porn, and your group sex. If it's consenting adults, no big deal, right?

If it were just consenting adults having sex, it would be no big deal and would, in fact, be kind of boring. If you're not the one having sex, sex looks kind of silly.

Once on the Howard Stern show, Howard asked one of my favorite people, Angus Young, how much porn he watched. Angus replied: "I don't get off on watching butts bouncing up and down, especially not hairy man butts."

Angus may not be aware of just how much more disturbing than butts bouncing up and down porn can be. Hopefully he never finds out. I use his statement to illustrate that for the uninitiated, "butts bouncing up and down" tends to be what they think porn is. Thus, they can't understand the argument that porn is harmful, and view those making said argument as pearl-clutching fuddy-duddies.

For many years I had myself convinced that porn was okay and that I was being closed-minded in my knee-jerk reaction that it really wasn't okay and was exploitative of women. 

I also had a complicated relationship with porn, because my own past abuses led me to be simultaneously aroused and disgusted by humiliating fantasies. Part of me believed that I deserved to be hurt and humiliated. While I would never have sought it out in real life, I would spend entire days sometimes watching scenarios in which one person was the target of sexualized demeaning acts.

Back in 1997, I was involved with a very bad guy. He was looking for a victim, and he found a perfect one in the thirty-two year old me, with her untreated mental illness and terrible self esteem.

I had a history of two full-on sexual assaults, and most of my sexual experiences had been coercive. I was molested when I was very young. I was everything a guy like this abusive misogynist could want.

It started out with regular porn, and then he started bringing in worse stuff. At first it was scat, then it moved to bestiality. When I got upset, he laughed at me and threatened to withdraw his "love" from me if I left. 

If you're saying that anyone with any sense would have left, you're partly right. My sense was telling me that I needed to get away from him. My butchered self-esteem told me that I was throwing away "love." I was so desperate to have someone care for me that I put up with this abuse.

My boyfriend started flaunting his other conquests in front of me, and when I got upset he told me that men were incapable of being monogamous, and I needed to understand that. He made me kiss his feet.

At one point I showed up at his house at two in the morning with my wrists slashed, after having wandered about the neighborhood cutting myself repeatedly.

I finally mustered the courage to leave him for my son's sake rather than my own. I didn't care about myself. I thought I was garbage. I was still obsessed with him. It took months for me to fully realize what an absolute piece of crap he was and that nobody deserved to be subjected to his monstrous behavior.

It would be another seventeen years before I could break free of the cycle of psychologically abusing myself by watching demeaning pornography.

I'm going to keep this post in the material realm. One of these days I'll talk about how Gem helped me break free of my porn obsession.

Follow-up:

I should not be surprised that I had someone Mansplain to me that my argument was "completely invalid" because his experience with porn had been the opposite of what I described. Porn is totes realistic, you guys.

As we know, nothing will change a woman's mind quicker than Mansplaining. The poor dumb bitches don't know their own minds, after all.

Well, you've convinced me. Porn is wonderful and makes the world a beautiful place. It does not create unrealistic expectations about what sex is like, and it is never violent, demeaning or ugly. I will now return to my invalid existence, gleeful in the knowledge that at least I can always have porn.

~Cie~

The Cheese Grates It: Education, not Overpopulation

The following is my response to a post by Josiah Brown about his feelings on the abortion his ex-girlfriend had.

"There would be fewer abortions if comprehensive family planning were more widely available.”

THIS! I (and many others) have said it for years, but people still don’t listen. 

Cutting funding to women’s health clinics does not prevent abortion. It only decreases the likelihood that any abortion performed will be legal and safe. It also increases the likelihood of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy by removing access to education and methods of contraception.

I am not “pro-abortion.” However, I realize that abortion is going to happen whether I am “pro-abortion” or not, and it happens for many reasons, both reasons of medical necessity and personal reasons. My own personal feelings should not determine the ability of others to make this difficult choice. 

While I was able to conceive (I am now post-menopausal) I said that I would never personally have an abortion, but I fully supported keeping abortion safe and legal. I still support keeping abortion safe and legal, and I always will. I also support preventing abortion where possible through education and access to contraception.

On a planet where we are pushing the limits of our resources, I cannot for the life of me understand how people still think that “being fruitful and multiplying” is any sort of necessity. Regardless of what your religious convictions are, it’s time that archaic law was written off the books. I suggest it be replaced with “have fewer children and do your best to insure they are well educated and well adjusted.”

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Humorless Feminist Killjoy Cheese Grates It: Just Say No to Sexist T-Shirts

I’ve seen this floating around, and I have to tell you why there’s just so much NO here.

Big reason: this is sexist as fuck.

There’s the implication that girls/women can’t just be fans of music, they have to be groupies.

You’d never see a guy wearing a comparable shirt saying “good boys go to heaven, bad boys go backstage.”

I’ve been backstage. I’ve met musicians. I was happy to meet the musicians. I was not there to fuck the musicians. Not once. Not ever.

A musician would actually have to try harder than the average Joe Blow to get in my good graces due to the reputation that musicians have.

I’m not saying that there aren’t musicians I find attractive. I’m a heterosexual woman. There are plenty of musicians I’ve found attractive. However, I don’t see the need to fuck everyone I find attractive.

I would wear this shirt before I would wear a pro Donald Trump shirt. However, I would turn it inside out, because I sure as hell wouldn’t want this sexist bullshit emblazoned on my chest.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Cheese Grates It: Say Her Name

Thumbs up to the creators of The Get Down for their compelling, memorable characters, including Mylene Cruz, who has an amazing voice and admirable strength of character.

Thumbs down to the writer of this synopsis for the first episode:

“Zeke's resolve to woo a girl sends him into a dizzying, dangerous nightclub scene, where he crosses paths with a nimble local legend.“

You may be wondering what I think is wrong with this sentence.

Why not use Mylene’s name?

Mylene is an essential character.

“A girl” is a plot device.

Granted, Shaolin Fantastic’s name wasn’t used either. However, this character is a mysterious figure throughout the first part of the episode.

Mylene appears early in the episode. We know exactly who she is from the beginning.

Mylene may not be the main character, but she is a very important character. She should not be relegated to being just “a girl.”

It’s not like it’s hard to type “Zeke’s resolve to woo Mylene.”

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~