Monday, April 11, 2016

Monday Happies: April 11th 2016


Today is a good day. I've finally completed the first draft of my thesis (minus my conclusion)! I'm basically doing back flips here!

Also, VOMD and I found an adorable cat who is the sweetest, most cuddly dude we've ever met (notwithstanding our current cuddly buddies, of course). We've taken him to the vet and he is not neutered or chipped. So, if nobody calls or emails us to claim him within the next week, he's ours for keeps.

Taking in another furry friend is something I didn't expect to do so soon after losing Toojoh. But, this guy showed up at our doorstep - actually, at our kitchen window - and VOMD immediately fell in love. He's a crazy cat lady at heart.

George and Lego are not too happy to have a new dude in the house. His un-neutered maleness is a lot to handle, I guess. He's in my office for now and has only come out twice. (Both times he's marked.)




If he is not claimed in the next week we are going to take him to get neutered, which should stop the marking behaviour and make the other cats less crazy. Also, he seems like the kind of cat who will likely run outside whenever he has the chance... so neutering it is.


This week I am working on being more positive, more active, and more open.

So far, so good.

Happy Monday!

-J

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

The [imaginary] hierarchy of injustice

I am nearing the end of my MA thesis, and beginning to daydream about my PhD, which will likely focus on cultural studies rather than political science. I hope to look at the way media produces and reproduces masculinities. If I mention this to a certain type of person they immediately go on that classic tirade anyone interested in gender or animal issues has heard far too many times before. There are people dying in the world; what about homeless people?; so what if people can't access washrooms?; so what if children are placed into narrow categories; there are worse things in the world than having to be a girl or a boy. 

The same sort of rant tends to come our of the mouths of people who don't want our tax dollars directed towards refugees because we should take care of Canada first. Of course this is usually the same person who refuses to acknowledge their settler privilege, and that they owe their lives to the bloodshed and continued colonization and erasure of indigenous peoples and ways of life.

As people interested in social justice we've probably all considered these things ourselves. I know I have. Last Friday night, during a long and fruitful conversation with VOMD, I admitted that sometimes I feel like all the work I'm putting into my thesis is pointless, and even my social activism, and my work for animals, are just bandaid solutions to a problem of inequity and systemic injustice that is so deep it will take a revolution to fix (uh oh, my communist is showing!). I worried that I should be focusing on something more immediate. I considered leaving the education system altogether to pursue activist work, and to remove myself from a system that has been largely co-opted by capitalist ideals. I ask myself those same questions that the conservative on a tirade asked "What about the homeless? What about people dying?"

We tend to create this hierarchy of injustice in our society... homelessness comes before refugees; sexism comes before bigenderism; access to housing comes before access to washrooms, and so on and so forth. But why can't we just see that all injustice is bad and that as individuals we must choose where to direct our attentions to maximize our effectiveness as scholars and as activists? Yes, I care that many people in Canada are homeless, and yes I care that people on many First Nation reserves do not have proper water, and access to healthcare, and adequate housing, and yes I care deeply that sex-slavery still exists all over the world and that the environment is degrading by the hour and that women still get paid less than men and that Jian Ghomeshi won his court case and that children are body shamed in grade school....

But for now, I am going to finish my thesis. I am going to argue that there is a problem with the strict adherence to a binary gender system that demands individuals fit within narrow categories of what it means to be a man and a woman. I am going to argue that the abuse and violence that takes place within public washrooms against non-binary and trans individuals must be addressed immediately, and in the right way, to ensure meaningful and consistent participation of all people in the public sphere, and especially in higher education in Canada. And I am going to recognize my place of privilege as a cisgendered white woman. And in my private life I will fight for non-human rights and I will rescue animals and I will continue to eat and live vegan.

And I will keep caring about all the other injustices in the world. But I am just one person. And you are just one person too. So, don't let someone tell you that your work doesn't matter because there may be something more pressing you could be addressing. Commit your heart and your mind and your life to your work. Do something.

Happy Wednesday,

J

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

I don't wear a bra



A group of teen to twenty something young men were laughing at my nipples showing through my shirt the other day, and it motivated me to write this post. Apparently women who don't wear bras are a big deal.

When I was about 11 or 12  my older sister told me that I should get a bra because you could see my nipples through my shirt. Until that point I had never really considered wearing a bra. I knew that people wore them. I had been seeing my mom's stretched out cotton bras hanging on the clothes line since I could remember, and I knew that my elementary school friend wore what she called a training bra because she had proudly shown it to me literally the first day we met in kindergarten when we were 4 years old.

Since then I have worn bras almost consistently, barring the short time between the ages of 15 and 16 when I experimented with androgyny (I still miss my buzz cut and baggy jeans sometimes). But about a year ago I started noticing that my breasts were not as round and perky as they used to be. I shrugged it off. I'm getting older now and of course my body is going to change as time goes by. Then I started reading a few studies here and there that showed that women who don't wear bras actually have perkier and rounder breasts than those who do. What?!

The more you work out any muscle, the stronger it gets; so, why wouldn't this be the case for the muscle that hold up our breasts?

Coupled with the problem of diminishing perkiness are the cultural implications of wearing something that changes the shape of our breasts to make them more uniform, straight, round, and high. While I don't think it is wrong for us to want perfectly round breasts, I do think it is strange that this is one cultural norm that we don't regularly question. People are very willing to shout it out loud that women shouldn't feel obligated to wear makeup; but we tend to think of bras as a necessity. I know even now some women will probably respond to this saying they have to wear a bra because otherwise their breasts would be sore and would hang uncomfortably due to their size (for stories from women who choose note to wear bras, follow this link!)

But my breasts are fine just the way they are. One is slightly bigger than the other, which means that one nipple always sits a little higher. They are spread wide apart so that cleavage is basically a pipe-dream (even when I wore one of those 2 cup sizes up bras for my girlfriend's wedding last year), and their shape and size varies throughout the month depending on where I am in my menstrual cycle, and their size and shape varies throughout the day depending on how warm or cold it is, or how active I've been. I don't need them to be perfect and round and high. I know it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but my choice to not wear a bra is empowering.

And if you want to make that choice too, it's completely up to you. But please consider why it is you think the bra is necessary, and where it is you got that information from. Chances are you were told that if you didn't wear a bra your breasts would sag as you aged. Maybe you were told it is inappropriate to let your nipples be seen through your shirt. The people who told you that are wrong. And if you like the bra, no part of me will ever judge you for that. Because you have the freedom to choose what you do to your own body.

Happy Tuesday!

J


Monday, April 4, 2016

Monday Happies!

Monday Happies are back!

It snowed. I wrote 7000 words. I drank way too much coffee. I cuddled with my fiance. I started packing to move at the end of the month. And I wore a sun dress to spite the stupid weather. Isn't it spring?




Happy Monday!

-J