Bad day.

 

This day sucks, so instead I’ll spend it dreaming about this guy.

Oh my

Read an article about a two and a half hour long gangrape that took place outside a school in Richmond, California. Up to twenty people watched a fifteen year old get raped. Some of the people who where just passing by or “just” came to watch participated as well.

Now, some of you may here wonder how that happened, but me, I’m not surprised. First of all, we have the group dynamics to count in. Young people, not even out of their teens or just recently out othem, are even more sensitive to peer pressure, group dynamics and mob mentality than more grown individuals. They have a bigger need for belonging somewhere.

When you are a teenager, you’re in an age where you are suppose to find a “pack”. To be able to follow a group is crucial. That instinct, that started out as a helpful tool in growing up, ends up being quite ugly when it comes to situations like these.

Second, we have the extremely low respect for women that seems to be a part of modern culture everywhere. Or rather, the low respect for human beings at all amongst men/boys. If it wasn’t for the fear of being called gay, I have no doubt that they would rape eachother equally much as they do women.

Teh Angry!

Can someone please help me calm down? seriously, how can people propagate against doing abortions when the reason is that the foetus will become a child with handicaps? Aren’t you forgetting it’s still a foetus? It’s part of the womans body and it’s her right to decide what to do with her body? How can it be morally wrong to do abortion if the foetus displays possible symptoms of developing downs syndrom… if deep down, you don’t think it’s wrong to abort in general? I mean, disease and handicap is one of the more easily defendable reasons!

I was on my way to do an abortion last spring, but my body got rid of it without the help of a doctor. For me it was the simplest choice. I just didn’t want a child. I don’t even like children. I wasn’t sad, it wasn’t a hard choice, the minute I realized I might be pregnant (period was 4 days late) I got a test, checked and booked a time to make an abortion. I didn’t even at all think about “keeping it”. Afterwards, any regrets? No, none at all.

I know friends who actually wanted children, who found the abortion thing (if they done one) sort of sad, in terms of it being sad because it reminded them that they can’t have children just yet, or whatever. But not one of them regretting making an abortion.

Their reason? Wrong time in life. My reason? Don’t like babies, wrong time in life, freaks out when thinking about having some tiny alien in my stomach ruling my life and being all icky and covered in horrible fluid stuff just gushing around in there… oh god. UH. Anyhow. And this far no one claimed this being wrong of me. As long as it a potentially healthy potential child I aborted, people agree that it’s my choice and my body.

But if I’d say: No, I’ll abort this one because it’s a boy (I really do have a problem with baby boys. If I dislike babies, I dislike boys even more. I have no idea why.), people would be all over the place throwing rocks and tomatoes and whatnots at me.

If I’d abort a foetus because it’ll most likely have a handicap that will make it’s life harder, shorter.. And my life and my partners will also be harder, etc. People would get the crazies. Obviously, if you decide to have a child by pregrancy (not adopting or other ways, surrogats, you know, stuff like that) you have to take what you are given. As soon as you say “I want children”, you loose your right to your body.You loose your right to decide about your own future, because you said the magic worlds. If you want children, you can’t in anyway say that you’d prefer a healthy child for example, because you don’t think you would be able to give a sick child a good life, or a mentally challenged child, or a handicapped child…

No, no, that’s morally wrong.

I don’t get this, at all. How can something like knowing your own limits and acting according to that knowledge, be wrong? How can it be wrong to not force a child to grow up in an enviroment not suited for them, not able to provide them with what they need to be happy?

Why does the magic words “I want kids” take away all your own rights to a happy fulfilling life?

And then he called

And after I wrote that post, my … friend … called and we talked a bit about the allowance our culture makes for misogyny, and without having read my blog (I don’t even think he has the adresse here) he casually drops into the convo that it was just a phace, by the way. I’ve stopped feeling like that. So how to handle that? I was prepared at first to  go for the thank god- never mind it all then approach. But I’m not much for forgiving things like that. Not if it doesn’t come with a big does of self analyzing and thinking. You can’t just think it’s suddenly ok because you stopped noticably feeling like that right now; because it might come back. If I tended to constantly fall over while walking outside, and then suddenly stopped for let’s say, five days, I would (hopefully) not just brush it off with it was just a phace, I walk much better now. I’d still check why I keep falling over. Ok, this analogy stumbled (har har) on the fact that I never check my health and so on, but you did get my point.

Not thinking women are horrible creatures doesn’t necessarily make you a better person, because, in many many cases, the quiet by-standers are just as guilty of the crime.

I don’t want to bash my … friend … too much though, he is new to feministic discourse and everything, and he is a bright, intelligent man. When I pointed this out to him he did understand and so on, but I wanted to write about it anyway, it got me thinking.

Things that makes me go AARGHHH

I have a new … friend … . Not really new, it’s been three months, but still in a way new-ish. He is sweet and all and nice and tells me nice things and all that, but he has one hideous habit that I don’t know how to handle. Every now and then he starts talking about how much he hates and distrusts women. It’s supposed to be an exaggeration and sort of a joke, but to me, a person with a vagina: it’s really just plain disturbing. I’ve told him this, some time ago, that it’s not funny and it’s not ok.

No, I’m lying. That’s not what I said. Because really, I’m such a door mat, I said to him Sure, those jokes are funny and all, but sometimes I’m a bit sensitive, and then it’s not ok. And praise teh lawd, he did cut down on them after that and a long, looong, LOONG discussion about feminism, a topic he is quite new to. I didn’t take that discussion in obvious connection to the jokes, oh no, wouldn’t dare that, but it worked. And I was happy.

Or rather, it worked a bit. Because what is left now, is that every so often, he just sneakes in a misogynist comment, masked as a joke, and I don’t dare to comment because it’s not as often as before. According to him, women are not to be trusted, are manipulative, evil and horrible. Why? Because poor him, he grew up in a world where the girls where always right. He even claims his teachers gave the girls in the classroom better grades and more space, because they were girls. I’m amazed, since all research shows the opposite, but that the girls and the boys usually thinks the girls take up more space than they actually do. But that’s not the case in his world, no, all women have misshandled him in different ways, have refused to treat him as an equal and so on, he have really grown up in the world of Egalia. I find this rather hard to believe, but I really try. Why? Because he is one of the most intelligent, nice, warm and all together fantastic people I’ve met, and I really don’t want to think of him as just another sexist. The realization here is that most guys are. I know plenty of people dumb enough to go all Hey, I’m not! right now and for the sake of things, let’s say: Ok, not you. But plenty of other, completely normal guys are. Most people, men or women, actually, are quite sexist. Me included. The difference is: I try to do something about it. Just like Fugitivus writes on her blog here, which really is a continuation if this post, and so on… Jokes are about relieving tension, and jokes about how horrible women are, is I think, about relieving tension about having to walk around all day and pretend that you like women. I very seldom make jokes about how horrible spiders are, because I don’t have to pretend to like them. I can just admit it here, in the open: they are horrible. And I seldom make jokes about how horrible puppies are, because I like them. But I do make jokes about how annoying it is to be a woman and always be one step down in the food chain, because it is annoying. And I can’t talk about it in the open, because nobody likes a feminazi*. And I need to relieve the tension I get from everyday fighting, screaming and kicking to get anywhere at all in life. But he seems to need to relieve tension from not really liking women at all. How handle that?

It feels just horribly sad. I really like this guy, and he is such a wonderful person in all other aspects, but being with someone who is under cover misogynist is equally bad as if an immigrant would date an under cover nationalist/racist.

Remember kids! “It’s just a joke” isn’t any fucking excuse to make jokes that makes it look like you brain and your ass has switched places.

*Feminazi: someone who mentions feminism in positive terms when there’s men around.

The internet is lost

The internet is lost. Yes, yes it is. I know you think that you are surfing it right now, but you aren’t, or at least quite soon, you wont be anymore.

Why is that? Off course the global web wont disappear in any way, but at least I think we move further and further away from browseroriented use of the internet and towards application-oriented. Also, the usage of global networks in applications will stop being a feature you promote, but being something you assume to be there to begin with. And do we really need to talk about surfing the web, when we are constantly? As society goes more and more digital, and more and more global, what we do need to talk about is what is not global, not digital. Like a word like snail-mail. We assume that mail is e-mail, the “e” has become obsolete, thus the need for words that define the other type of mail, the less common type. Old school postal style letters on paper-mail.

To surf the net is a definite action. To just work with interactive applications that uses internet based systems/apps/databases as a resource is not the same action. And takes a lot longer to say.

Pick a side

I just read an article about the whole “bro’s before hoe’s”-phenomenon, about the bizarreness in it. And that as a girl/woman/etc you’ll always somehow be second best.

I’d like to allow myself to be really upset about this, because it does upset me, but I do the same thing as she wrote about in the article, I prioritize my friends first, always. So I can’t really complain, can I.

Besides that I also stumbled upon some “real women/real men”-comments. That’s scary for real, can people be that dumb and left in the last century that they still think in terms of “real” men and women? So what am I then? How can you be a fake-gender?

tomorrow is a new day

I have one of those days when I feel the world slip between my fingers like grains of sand. I’m settled in in my new apt up here, and happy about more or less everything. But then there is this tiny tiny little glitch in the way someone talks to me, and I can feel everything just fall into pieces again. I’m always out here on the edge, I know that. But it would be nice, for once, to not be overly paranoid.

Well well. New job starting tomo. It’ll be good for me. Slow my brain down a bit.

Preparation deluxe

On sunday I’m going to be in stockholm and talk about blogs, diaries and new vs old media. Being an interaction designer AND writer, I supposedly know this stuff. I really hope I do.

Today is preparation deluxe day, I need to find my thoughts about this and sort them before tomo, since tomo is meet your new job-day for me. The problem is that I now all of the sudden lost my writers block that I had for a week, and have started to finish up the last pages of the novel. Not that it’s finished, after that it’ll be at least two months of re-writing before I know if it’s good enough.

I thought about sending in some poetry in the meantime, just to sort of steal my own attention away from the whole scary and angsty business of actually finishing a novel.

I’ll try to write some stuff here about the seminar/discussion later, it’s just that I need to do it in the dear mother tounge. I can’t promise I can  be bothered with translating.

peace out.

Artsy, isn’t it

The therapeutic writing processis one of the more complex ones to handle as a writer/teacher yourself. I at least find it very hard to critisize something that so obviously is part of a mental process necessary for the artist to grow as a person, even if the result is completely uninteresting from an artistic point of view.

Some claim all art, and at least all interesting art, is made in some sence for therapeutic reasons, and I’m quite ready to hum and nod and say “yeah, probably” at that, but there is a difference between making it obviously so and being human. So you have childhood traumas? Go to a psychologist. Get a dog. But don’t write about it, don’t paint it and don’t make installations about it, every other second. It isn’t that interesting. If you aren’t going to do it in a new, innovative and fantastic way, or for that, have a lovely intellectualized reason behind it, stop pushing your bad memories down my throat. It really isn’t that exiting to see it over and over again, done in the same way.

This flaunting of the self seems unavoidable nowadays, I do it too, so I really shouldn’t say anything. It seems to me that the discrepancy between market and people is pushing forward this voyerism-driven type of art, that while we crave more person and less company behind things we see, we also do it because we like to look at other peoples misery, it makes us feel better.

Also, not to forget. We like it because it’s simple art. It’s easy to understand. Doesn’t demand anything of us, but still feels more legitimate then just landscapes. It makes us feel, in the same way as hollywood productions does, but with the plus side of giving us a better self image, oh, how arty we are.

Suddenly we again despise things that demand something from us, because that demand highers the risk of failure, and the failure of many gives us an elite. And it is important in a society where the market is stearing everything, that the people feel like even the elite are as dumb and fooled as they are. An elite that diets, cheats and show breasts on tv is an ok elite, an elite with high up jobs that play golf and never read books are ok. But the intellectual elite is dangerous for the self image, since they understand just a tiny bit more than the others.

So suddenly we are standing with a whole generation och plump therapeutic art, and things like ugly vandalism, photographed in an ugly way, to keep it “real”. Everybody is siding with the people, and therefore also creating a community with nothing intellectual to strive for, ending up siding with the big global corporates.

.. and then we all die. More or less.