After This, We'll Be Best Friends.

     Hi, guys. I'm having a terrible time right now. Wanna hear about it? Cool. I hope you understand that what I write in this blog isn't even stuff that I actually say out loud, which may actually be really negative for my soul, but bear with me for now, okay? I'll get to the point where I can actually be as rude/boisterous/emotionally stimulating/courageous as I am on here in real life in my own time. Honestly, I'm kind of writing this post to get some sort of feedback on what I should do here.
     First of all, I'm having an awful time being inspired to do anything that I care about. I used to do so many good things, you know? I fucking painted all the time, wrote songs, rode my bike, read books, did origami, had arguments, etc. and now I don't do any of that, and I'm really trying to figure out why. I don't even read BOOKS anymore, guys. I used to read all the damn time and now I don't even want to. Well, maybe that isn't true, but I haven't found anything to be interesting enough to read in a long time. My main theory right now is that I'm kind of just waiting to start school and that, once I start school, I'll kind of get back into my groove, you know? But I'm just not sure, and it's the "not knowing" thing that terrifies me. Because I really liked who I used to be and I don't entirely like the person I'm turning into now, and I really want to change that, but I'm not motivated and it is TOTALLY KILLING ALL OF MY VIBES. So that's my first issue with myself - take it or leave it.
     My second thing is that I think I'm too angry. I was thinking about it today, and I realized that if I had to pick a personality type to describe myself, I would probably pick "passive aggressive". And I truly don't believe that's a bad thing, but sometimes I wonder if maybe I should take a break for a few minutes and just appreciate something - like, appreciate anything, really. I went to a rad concert last night and while I was watching it, crying my fucking face off, I was all, "Jenelle, this is why you're alive. You have to remember how this feels and transfer it to other parts of your life. You have to make things better. You have to appreciate other things." And that made me feel good! Because I was addressing the situation and I had a lot of hope, you know? I still kind of feel that today, but I don't feel the same spark, and I don't know how to get it back.
     I just "Stumbled" onto a page combatting teen pregnancy and got really mad and thought, "Well, what if those teens want to be pregnant? Fuckhead internet." And then I realized that was totally irrational and maybe I need to evaluate my life a little bit. I know that being an agitator is a positive thing in a lot of ways (in most ways), but sometimes I wonder if I'm too focused on being mad and maybe not focused enough on being happy? This is my dilemma.
     I don't want you to click away from this post thinking, "Man - Jenelle is really down on herself! She's not the confident, bad-ass bitch I thought I knew." Don't think that at all. I still think I'm fucking rad, I'm just kind of in a pickle right now and I'm trying to figure out how to solve it, and some friendly advice from people who care enough to read my blog would be refreshing. This probably should have just been a diary thing, but I don't like diaries and I really don't have one, so I'm giving my heart and soul to the internet in hopes of an answer. Without religion, the internet is all us atheists have, amirite? That was probably inappropriate. I'm going to stoop back into my late-night loneliness and let you cool cats get some sleep. Thanks for reading my internal frustrations that I spewed out onto the beginnings of my writing career. Hit me up with some answers, stand-in Jesus. Goodnight.

"Holy Actual Crap, Guys." (The Title of My First Book on Patriarchal Disdain.)

     Hey kids! Guess who's angry again?
     A friend of mine received this from a middle-aged male stranger at a bus stop today.

     The placement of this picture on my post is disgusting (I don't do pictures often), but that isn't the point. Just read this and let it sink in for a second. Now, forget all of the religious garbage. I don't think religion really has anything to do with the opinions of this man, I think it's just something for him to hide behind. Let's get down to the brass tax here. My friend was "rewarded" with this discriminatory note because she was wearing relatively modest clothing. Being modest is cool, guys - whatever. If a person wants to be modest, she should be modest and that's that. That isn't my issue. Correction - that isn't my ISSUES (fuck grammar right now). I don't even know where to begin. You know, I'm gonna make a list. Here we go:

1. "...Satan's influence...". Satan, who is probably a better soul than this man, has nothing to do with clothing. Satan doesn't have anything to do with anything. Satan is a figment of religious peoples' beliefs. Satan does not choose what a woman wears, a woman chooses what she wears - OBVIOUSLY. To shame a woman into thinking that choosing certain clothing makes her like/affiliates her with Satan in any way is a disgusting act, and that alone makes me want to punch this man right in his central belief system. Luckily for my friend, though, she didn't "succumb to Satan's influence", so at least she's safe, right? Fuck.
2. "...shaming and degrading yourself in wearing revealing and inappropriate clothing". Because that's what shame is - being scantily clad. Shame and degradation definitely are not a result of insulting women with condescending pieces of paper - oh no! Shame and degradation stem directly from women doing what they want with their freedom of choice. You know, maybe all women should have a uniform for each season to prevent their hellish behaviour, because apparently people can't deal with seeing our ankles or wrists. Maybe we should all wear head-to-toe body suits? But those would probably be too form-fitting... Maybe all women should just stay inside to prevent anyone being offended by ARMS. 
3. "Thank you for respecting yourself enough...". Give me a fucking break. Are you serious, dude? The amount of fabric on my body in no way represents the amount of respect I have for myself or for others. How can you assume something so horrid just by glancing in my direction? I dare this jerk-off to give women a written an explanation as to why it's okay for us to be bombarded by half-naked women constantly in advertising but it isn't okay for us to wear clothes that don't cover every bit of skin on our bodies, and also, why he is free to wear whatever type of shirt he wants, but if we wear shirts that are shorter than our elbows, we're the spawn of fucking Satan. I bet that if he was forced to explain this, he would find fault in his own reasoning even without anyone else saying anything about it. OPEN YOUR EYES, MAN. Self-respect is to clothes as the colour of the sky is to how fast a train moves: completely irrelevant on every level.
4. The bolded words and the fucking lollipop. As was already pointed out by my Facebook pals, it isn't enough that he insulted every woman in the world by creating this note, but he also had the audacity to help us with our literacy because we're obviously too stupid as a species to understand what certain words mean. And oh, hey! Here's a piece of candy because I'm a man and you're a woman and I'm higher above you in societal ranking and you need a reward for acting the way I want you to act! Good dog! 

     To top off my daily dose of patriarchal garbage, a WOMAN who is no longer my Facebook friend as of twenty minutes ago made a status along the lines of, "If you're going to wear low-cut shirts and booty shorts, you should expect that people are going to judge you. Stop complaining." I'm so furious right now, I can't even deal. As a woman - no, as a PERSON - I have the right to wear anything I want to wear in the universe. I can wear a sari, corduroy pants, a swimming suit, or nothing at all, and that should be okay. To this whole "stop disrespecting yourself", "you should expect this sort of attention", "remain modest" bullshit, I would like to say a big ol' fashioned FUCK YOU. Equality, guys. We, as women, do not need any patriarchal reinforcement telling us that we're "doing it wrong"; that we aren't being "proper". My definition of what is right is exactly that - MY definition. My friend's is hers. We do not need your opinion and we don't need your attitude, okay? Just butt out. Our wardrobes are not your business and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking otherwise. We're not asking for anything, be it your opinion, your thoughts, your feelings, or your penis - any of it. No one is asking for any of that just by being in public! If a person wants that from you, she will ask, you know? With words. Also, having people make comments about our bodies is not our fault ever. Society makes men (and women too, actually) think it's okay for them to say or do whatever they want when I'm dressed a certain way and that's false. The fact that people don't question these social norms put in place by the patriarchy really freaks me out. The fact that this middle-aged stranger thought that it was okay to even THINK about MAKING any sort of note like this scares me. These are the people that are holding us back, and that makes me really sad because they don't even know they're doing it, you know? Society has raised to them think that it's okay and that we, as women, have to just accept these judgements and move on. We don't and we shouldn't be expected to. We should be able to do, say, and wear whatever we want without people telling us that we're wrong. Yeah, maybe sometimes we are wrong, but who's business is that but our own? And when it comes to clothing, I'm sorry, but we can never be wrong. You wear those pink leg warmers and that nasty yellow knit sweater, girl! It's your choice and that's all. 

     This post isn't as nicely put together as I hoped it would be, but I'm just really angry at the world so that's my excuse. I just hope that one day, all of the women who were given these disgusting notes, or any sort of equivalent, rise up and tell people about it and that maybe it'll convince them even more than the REST OF THE WORLD already has, that we need feminism. We need feminism bad, y'all. That's all I have to say about that right now. Thank you for your time. 

To Wed Or Not To Wed...

     Hey kids! I hope all is well. I've been really bad at remembering to write my blog lately. I'm in a weird point in my life where I'm kind of just drifting through, waiting for school to start. Working is not for me, guys. I feel like that really messes up what I'm supposed to do with my future. Whatever, I'll just go to school until I'm ninety-nine and then die with mass amounts of debt. Realistic.
     I want to talk about why I am completely neutral to the notion of marriage.
     For a long time, I disagreed with marriage hard. I figured that anything created, at the start, to rule women and make them the property of men had to be fucked. I thought, "Hey! That kind of stuff shouldn't be happening at all." And I'm right, and I still feel that way, but I recently read this article and it kind of changed my mind about a few things. Now, before I begin, I want to repeat what I said earlier: I'm completely indifferent when it comes to marriage, even though I'm definitely arguing for marriage in this post. The article I read was focused a lot on gay marriage, but it applies to all people, I think. The basic idea of the article was to say that gay people aren't ruining marriage, ALL people are ruining marriage, but also that it needs to be ruined. Marriage began as a business, basically. It was all about property, rules, materials, etc. It has evolved a lot over time according to the beliefs of people in certain areas of the world. For example, even in our current times, marriage as we know it here is drastically different than marriage in China or marriage in Egypt, even. The article I read was basically saying that if we look at the origin of marriage and how far we've come from that, we have, technically speaking, "ruined" marriage. People blaming homosexuals for ruining marriage are right, in a sense. But it's not only homosexuals who have ruined marriage. Polygamists, people who participate in hand-fasting ceremonies, people who have weddings that include elements of both, for example, Christianity and Islam due to the people being wed having different backgrounds, etc. have also "ruined""marriage" (Quotations, gosh). We're at the point in history where marriage can literally be whatever the hell anyone wants it to be and that IS SO AWESOME. We've ruined marriage, yeah, and it's the best thing we could have done. Marriage began as a patriarchal, judgemental load of shit and now it can be anything. So when people say they disagree with marriage, I respect that, sure. But I do wonder if maybe people disagree with the origins of marriage and that's why they're so unwilling to give it a shot today? Women can propose, women can marry women, people can get married UNDERWATER IN SCUBA SUITS, okay? There are so many options now. I feel like the definition of "marriage" in our time is literally people declaring that they love each other. That's it. Marriage doesn't have to be anything you don't want it to be! The possibilities are endless! And that's why I don't give a fuck anymore. Sure, when marriage was an under-the-table handshake between a son and a father and a woman was tossed into uncertainty with a dowry in tow, that was nasty. Now it's anything, you know? So, who am I to say, "Hey! That man can't marry that woman! That woman can't marry that woman! Those two people can't marry their dogs to each other!", you know? It's not my business. People are gonna get married until the end of time, because people like to fall in love, and I think that's rad.
     Anyways, that's kind of all I have to say about that right now. I just think that it's really nice when people love each other and they should be able to do whatever they want about that love, you know? Let it run wild, or whatever.
     Coincidentally, as I'm writing this, my sister is eating a plate of ribs. She just looked over at me and said, "If ribs could talk, I would marry them." Have a nice day! Get married or don't!

I Said Nice Stuff. Weird.

     I got a text today that said "Are you on a blog sabbatical?" which I thought was hilarious. Hi, everyone. Sorry I haven't written in so long! I just moved back home for the summer and I've been busy with choir and I'm now working seven days a week, so my mind is kind of all over the place. This is me catching up! How have you been? The blogs I follow aren't exactly teeming with new posts either, so I don't feel too bad. Plus only a handful of people read the crazy stuff that I write. But I appreciate that handful! I appreciate that handful a whole bunch! So thanks, y'all. 

     I have a few things I'd like to write about today, so fasten your fucking seat belts. 

     First of all, I'd like to say that I just erased a huge paragraph about how angry I am (*a round of applause for the young cynic*). I'm angry, but I'm going to deal with it by myself because I don't find it necessary to bring you guys into my personal life in that regard today. I have better things to say, so I'm going to roll with that. Jesus, I'm proud of myself right now. 

     Here we go: So, if any of you know me relatively well, you'll know that I'm obsessed with a TV show called "Adventure Time". I don't have much to say about it except that a) it's radical, and b) there's a lot of sneaky life lessons in it that I really value. The show was created for children by Pendleton Ward. At first, I wasn't sure if it really was for kids because there's a lot of stuff that is questionable (funny, disgusting, and deep, but questionable), but I was informed by an expert friend of mine that the show was, in fact, created for children and that made me love it a billion times more. The way that Ward presents ideas about life to kids is so perfect. For example, in the episode "Mortal Folly" Finn wears a pink sweater with an embroidered heart on it that Princess Bubblegum made for him. It helps him to defeat the Lich (the villain of the episode). I love that this is in the show! Ugh! Finn the Human, a thirteen year-old boy, is wearing a pink sweater that helps him conquer evil. If I were a young kid watching this show I would be all like, "Awe yeah! Pink is powerful! Pink isn't weak!" (as is taught by the average society member to younger generations). That's such a great message for young boys and young girls. Boys learn that pink is cool and it's okay for them to wear it, and girls learn that they shouldn't have to be ashamed of their femininity. In another episode, "All The Little People", Finn and Jake are sitting on top of a hill discussing relationships, wondering who would make a good couple. Jake tells Finn that relationships aren't about science (biology) but about the "pumps-n'-bumps" of a person's heart. Finn then suggests that BMO and the Ice King would make a good couple (both males). Jake is confused and says that would be weird, prompting Finn to tell him to not be so "judgy". Right there, Ward just told kids that two people of the same sex can love each other, plain and simple, and it's okay. And that you shouldn't be "judgy". At the end of the episode, which is all about miniature figures of everyone in the Land of Ooo, miniature Ice King and BMO hit it off, which just adds to the cuteness of the episode, totally. Lastly, and most favourite-ly (?), we have Lumpy Space Princess. The voice of Lumpy Space Princess is done by none other than Pendleton Ward himself, which often leads people to think that she's a male. There's a theory that LSP may not be a real princess due to the fact that in the episode "The Lich" all of the other princesses crown jewels fit into the Enchiridion but hers does not. My favourite thing about LSP is that she's so damn confident. She looks like a floating purple cloud and refers to her "lumps" very often, leaving the viewer to assume that her lumps are her womanly curves. She believes she's incredibly hot and doesn't let anyone tell her any different. I just love that there's a role model like that for kids, you know? She's not necessarily feminine or masculine, but she's crazy confident anyway, and I think that's really nice for all kids to see. I guess I did have a lot to say about that. Huh. Anyways, watch "Adventure Time" because it's freaking cute and make sure all of your younger siblings, cousins, babysittees, etc. watch it too. Ward knows what's up. 

     So here's the other half of my post: I went out for a nice little dinner date with a friend last night and we got to talking about our futures. FUTURES. So much stress, guys, for real. She's a history major and wants to be a museum curator eventually, which I think is just so rad. She was also telling me, though, that she's worried about not getting a job and not making money, which is totally understandable. AND I HATE IT. I can't even begin to express how frustrated I am that people who choose to go into the arts, who study the beauty of the world, are in danger of being unemployed. I have nothing against engineering and don't take it the wrong way when I say this, but it makes me really mad that a kid can go to school for engineering for four years and build bridges forever and make double the money that I'll ever make even though I'm passionate about my work and I'll more than likely have an effing PhD. I know that there's no point in complaining about this because it's just the way capitalism rules the lives of its slaves, but do you get how frustrating that is? My goal is to write books. That's all I want to do. But in order to live, I'm going to have to get a PhD and volunteer and go out of my way to gain enough experience for such a feat and to be successful in it (probably a total of ten years just for school). I just need to live in a world where the arts are of equal value to business, engineering, medicine, etc. It's not going to happen, but a girl can dream, can't she? The reason I'm writing this part is not to complain, necessarily (that just happens by default because I'm negative), but to say that I'm proud of people who choose to do what they're passionate about. Take my choir conductor, for example. He's built this incredible empire of choirs with a phenomenal reputation and has also created a career for himself in the process. He's doing what he loves and he's definitely one the happiest people I've ever met. Seeing people like him helps me realize that I'm doing the right thing, you know? Even though I probably won't have enough money to have copious amounts of cats, sadly, I'll be satisfied in my heart with my choice. I'm not pursuing writing for any other reason than my pure love for it. Instead of trying to choose a career that leaves room for my hobbies, I plan on making my hobby into a career, and what could be better than that? After all of my teachers who hated teaching preaching to me about "doing what you love, blah, blah, blah", it took physically SEEING the teachers who sincerely loved what they were doing to help me make up my mind. It takes seeing those kind of people who actually love their lives to understand what is important. So, if you wanna do the arts, do the freaking arts, y'all. Give it a go! Do what you think will satisfy you on a personal level, not a financial one. That's all I have to say about that. 

     This was a weird post because I expected to write my big angry rant, but I didn't and I wrote about...nice...things? Whaaaaat. That doesn't usually happen, so you're welcome, kids. I hope you have a good day and I hope you write a book too. Bye!  

"'Life': A Diary Entry, At Best." (Title Of My First Book)

     I'm at my parents' house and I'm sitting by a warm fireplace. I was about to go to bed but then I got all emotional and stuff, so here I am.
     Sometimes I get really distracted by silly things. Sometimes I worry too much about the shape of my eyebrows, or how my boss will feel about me if I call in sick, or how much money I'm spending on chocolate a month. Sometimes I rant too much or get too angry about things that are out of my control. Sometimes I forget to look at the bigger picture.
     I'm not trying to be artistic with this post or anything, I just have a lot of fucking feelings that I can't really seem to sort out or make sense of. And I know that probably just makes the bulk of this post that much more confusing, but go with me here, okay? Right now, sitting in front of this fire at my parents house, I feel content. I have no idea what tomorrow is going to bring. I have no idea how drastically my feelings might change overnight. I have no idea in what condition my eyebrows will be tomorrow. But, right now, I feel okay. I'm not happy and I'm not sad, but I'm grateful and I feel okay. I forget how lucky I am to be who I am, you know? I'm fucking rad and I have so much to be thankful for (parents, sister, cute cat pictures on the internet, my choir, my best friend, coffee, Project Free TV, etc.) and sometimes that slips my mind. Basically, the reason I'm writing this post tonight is to remind myself to remind myself of these things. Yeah, sometimes (most of the time) my life doesn't work out the way I want it to, but I try to roll with it. Yes, I cry a lot and I can't even bring myself to watch "Les Miserables" because I think I might shrivel into nothing and die afterwards from loss of water via my tear ducts (that's a secret; don't tell any of my choir friends I haven't seen it...). And yes, I take two showers a day (one in the morning and one at night) due to my self-diagnosed OCD (afore mentioned) and because it generally makes me feel better and helps me sleep. Yes, I eat, on average, 1-2 cartons of Ben and Jerry's a week. But you know, what would my life be like if it didn't have a downside? At least my flaws give me motivation to do better. My life is really great and sometimes that slips out of my sights, if you will.
     Maybe you've been having a really hard time too and maybe this will help you rediscover the beauty in your life (I repeat: PROJECT FREE TV). Or maybe this post was just for me - something to help me sort my thoughts and emotions. OR MAYBE THIS WHOLE POST WAS A LIE MWAHAHA. Jokes, it was all true. I wouldn't do that to you guys.
     Well, time for me to turn my brain off now. I hope this was at least slightly entertaining. And hey, now you know my whole life story, so that might be a cool thing. Anyways, just try to calm down and appreciate. Forget about stress and hate. Eliminate. And make a date. With fate. Wow, look at me go!
     I'm actually going to stop being crazy now and put myself in a place where I can no longer type weird spoken word poetry on my blog and wreck it forever. Goodnight.

The "V" Word.

     Good morning, dudes! This is something different for me - I usually don't write in the morning. But, I have the day off, it's sunny outside, and I don't want to deal with my actual real life/my problems. So, here we go.
     I've been thinking about "slut-shaming" a lot lately. Now, if y'all don't know what this means, the definition of "slut-shaming" is: "the act of making a woman feel guilty for displaying certain sexual behaviours that aren't typical to traditional gender roles." It can also be used to define the way that some women are blamed for their own rapes and sexual assaults based on the clothes that they were wearing or their previously sexually forward manner. (Thank you, Wikipedia, for clarifying.) Obviously, this is gross. I can't believe that after all of the research done on women and the reproductive systems of women explaining our ability to have multiple orgasms and our bodies' insatiable desire for sex, we are STILL put under this stigma that we are surely, generally, "non-sexual" beings, and that if a woman is very sexual it is out of character. That is just so damn silly. Give me a break. The worst part about it, I think, is not this, but the fact that individual women can't do whatever they want sexually without being judged for it, you know? Like, maybe I have two friends and one of them is a "virgin" (by that, I mean having had no sexual experiences; I will discuss my views on virginity later on) and has no desire to have sex whatsoever and the other is a flaming sex pot. Both of them are going to be judged based on their choices due to things such as age, career choice, religion, etc., but most of all, gender. It's so wrong! If my two friends are both happy with the way they're living their lives, then why should they have to change simply because of what other people want them to do? They're being put under this blanket statement that says women are supposed to want sex these ways, this is how women should be satisfied, and anything more or less is completely unacceptable.
     This takes me on to my "Anti-Person of the Week" portion of my blog post. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only, Taylor Swift. This will be a small portion, since the only things I have to say are absolutely negative and what I'm trying to get at here is pretty plain. Usually, I don't like to hate on people, and I'm sure that (maybe?) Swift's mind could be changed if she were more educated, but for now, here we go. From the way she believes that fifteen year-old girls are all vulnerable, unassuming, and naive (listen to "Fifteen"), to her classic slut-shaming antics ("she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts" - therefore, she's obviously better, more pure, and less "slutty"), I've learned that T Swift is just a sad little person who got caught up in the terrible labels and discriminations that society is so insistent on handing out. In an interview, Swift was once asked if she identifies as a feminist. Her reply was simple; "I believe in equality, but I'm not a feminist." Well, I think that deserves a round of applause, don't you? First, indoctrinating little girls with your slut-shaming lyrics and then refusing to identify as a feminist because of the negative connotations? Bravo, Swift. You're a fucking winner.
     Lastly, I'd like to talk about the ridiculous concept of "virginity". Children are raised (especially religious children) with this title bestowed upon them. They are "virgins". "Virgins" are pure and completely void of sin. And once a "virgin" is ready to get married or bear children, his/her "virginity" is lost by having vaginal/penile intercourse, but, because it's through love and matrimony and between a man and a woman, that makes it okay. Now, in reality, this is what "virginity" looks like: You're fourteen and you find yourself in the woods with a certain boy/girl at a birthday party and things happen with hands and mouths and you're discovering your sexuality and it's lovely and exciting and new, but when it's over, you're left wondering, "Wait - am I still a virgin?" And then perhaps you feel guilty or dirty, because you feel as though some of your "purity" is gone and you're not sure if that's the way the concept of "virginity" is supposed to work. I just want to take a second and say, FUCK VIRGINITY (LOL. Pun not intended). It isn't real. The way that we are lead to believe that our bodies are for one person and one person only, that we can only "lose it" through one specific act (what about homosexuals?) at one specific time when we're all married up, but that other similar acts may tarnish our pure, white souls. Guys, this isn't right. This isn't the way the world works and I don't think being "pure" is something that should define how we feel about ourselves based on our sexuality or what we choose to do with our sexuality. I'm not saying that saving oneself for marriage is wrong; if you think that's for you, then do your thing, dude. What I'm saying is that it's terrible that adolescents feel as though they're ruining a part of themselves that DOESN'T EVEN EXIST by exploring what their bodies and hearts are curious about. There's nothing wrong with becoming, or not becoming, sexual beings in whatever way we decide to do so, and the only thing that "virginity" does for these people that are exploring is make them feel guilty about a part of their natural minds and bodies that they can't control. Also, if the concept of being a virgin didn't exist, then the chances of women being "slut-shamed" (by Taylor Swift and others) would be a lot less. There would be no ideal sexual being to compare these "sluts" to if we all just accepted that people choose to do what they want with their bodies and that's okay. So, that's why I think "purity" and "virginity" are a load of shit.
     I hope you all have a nice day. I'm out.
     

Why I Hate "Kinder Surprise": A Memoir

     Hey, kids! I hope everyone had a great spring break (too pedagogical?)! To start things off, I love you and your hair looked fabulous today. A quick update on my life: I've recently run out of Ben and Jerry's, so I have resorted to eating Greek yogurt which turns into real yogurt if you stir it a lot and I like that. Also, I shaved my legs, so that was cool.
     I think that the whole "society-based-around-gender" thing is really getting to me. I can't think about anything else. Whenever anyone in my life says anything, I immediately have to analyze whether or not it was prejudiced. This might have to do with my self-diagnosed OCD, but I'm also thinking that it's actually just ridiculous and I'm sick to death of people putting up with this point of view.
     For starters, on Easter, I received from my unassuming, beautiful, intelligent, independent relative a Kinder Surprise - for girls. My heart broke. I think I actually died a little bit inside. I had heard of these  from a friend and we discussed the topic pretty thoroughly. I have a few things to say about it. First of all, fuck you, Kinder Surprise. Fuck you for going along with the patriarchal assumption that girls are less intelligent and therefore we need to receive little kitty bracelets or miniature Barbie dolls as presents instead of stuff that we can actually build with our brains, you jerks. I hate you. Fuck you for making them pink and fuck you for creating a gender divide among a younger generation. I wish I could have presented that in a more polite manner, but it was impossible, so there you have it. Second of all, I'm really sad that my relative didn't see an issue with this. I have a seven year-old cousin whom I adore more than any other child I've ever known and I spent most of my Easter with him. He, of course, received a "boy" Kinder Surprise. When I opened mine and found a bracelet, I told him that I didn't want it and asked him if he waned it. He replied with a simple, "No, people would make fun of me." I said, "But I wouldn't make fun of you." And his final word on the subject was, "Not everyone is like you." I teared up a little. I feel like some of you might think that was an overdramatic response, but I don't. He's already been exposed to the opinion of society that he would be seen as "odd" or "not normal" if he wore a bracelet. He's been taught that there are boys and girls, and boys have boy toys and girls have girl toys and they don't mix. And that makes me really upset. He is, without a doubt, the smartest seven year-old I've ever known (he's beaten me at chess on several different occasions) yet society has already started to get the best of him. I guess the best I can do for him at this point is try to weasel myself into his life and continue to try to convince him that it would be okay for him to paint his toenails if he wanted to. Thirdly, and lastly, I'm really mad at myself for not saying anything about this. It's hard to correct someone who a) is older than you and has more life experience and b) you have a lot of respect for. The issue is, though, is that if my relative would have said, "Here's a Kindersurprise for the black kid and a different, better one for the white kid!", I would have freaked out, you know? Gender is such a touchy topic with so many people because, for some insanely idiotic reason, we aren't at the point yet where it's absurd for girls and boys to be treated as separate species. So, yes, I should have said something, and I'm still kicking myself. One of my personal goals is to become more vocal in my belief system, especially in situations like that. It's really tough to build up to, but I think that the more I do it, the easier it will become.
     I have a really hard time with stuff like this because even though parents and teachers and guardians don't think this kind of thing is harmful, it is. That's not even an opinion either, because there's evidence. How many young women are in school for engineering right now? I don't have any exact numbers handy, but I know, personally, five or six people who are taking engineering and not one of them is a girl. I'd say that's a pretty normal statistic in other schools and cities as well. The reason that a lot of women (myself included) believe that they cannot handle the academic challenges of engineering is that we grew up with this constant reminder that boys were better at that stuff. Boys got to play with Lego and cars, but we got to play with dolls and kitchens and tea sets. This is what we come familiar with and this is what we evolve into. I'm not saying that this is true for all women, but a fair amount of girls grow up in an environment where these are the play things that are readily available. (And I'm also not saying that being a wife or a mother as a profession is something that a woman should be ashamed of or looked down upon for. I believe that a socially conscious woman should be able to do whatever she wants to do, I'm just arguing this from a "forced-upon-us-by-the-patriarchy" standpoint.) A child doesn't bother to question why she is given certain toys; she's a child. This thoughtless indoctrination into a certain lifestyle isn't even at the fault of the parents. We, as women, are pressured by society into thinking that this is all we deserve and this is all we need; that we should be satisfied with domesticity. It's a really sad part of the world we live in. Imagine the incredible feats that could have been achieved by now if women were encouraged to do all of the things that men are encouraged to do. Does it make sense to deprive the world of the unique intellect of fifty percent of population solely based on the fact that this fifty percent contains a significant amount of uteri? No. No, it does not make sense. And, yes, every day new doors are opening and more women are becoming involved in science, mathematics, mechanics, etc. and that's fantastic! But how are we going to completely dissolve this gender divide if we still have stupidity such as separate Kinder Surprises for boys and girls? I'd like to propose a boycott against all toys, candies, books, etc. that are gender discriminative. Maybe tell your friends or relatives with young children about the problems it creates. It's hard to be so involved in peoples' lives, I know, but I feel like the importance of the issue kind of outweighs the privacy of parenthood in this aspect. I might be getting a little too "all-up-in-your-face" over here, but I'm tired and I just really care about this. Thanks for reading.
     And for the love of Darwin, please go buy some Ben and Jerry's so I can live vicariously through you. Goodnight.