Pathetic brothers...

You'll have to excuse my language in this post. I'm pretty angry about what happens all the time, and even more angry at myself for not having the balls to speak up about it.

Today, my older brother took us (my 18 year old brother and I) to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. We haven't been in a while, and we were all craving steak. So, we went, and the girl at the door had a slight speech impediment (like maybe she had hearing impairment or a palate problem). It was hardly noticeable because all she did was open the door and welcome us in. But as soon as we sat down at the table, they gave each other that look that was pretty much a silent laugh between the two of them.

Then, our waitress comes over. Now, I'll admit, she was very pretty, and the makeup wasn't hurting either (if you can stand heavy black eyeliner on your face, I tend to rub it off by noon). Of course, boys that they are, my oldest brother ("C") goes, "Damn, she's hot." So, she took our order and walked away. She came back with Sprite for us all, and it tasted like sour seltzer water, like it was from the bottom of the soda canister. OK, granted, that happens, but they wouldn't ask her to take it back and order something else because "she's too hot." Nasty soda isn't her fault, just tell her politely that it tastes funny, and switch soda... Not difficult, and not offensive...

She then brought our food out. She forgot my older brother's garlic mashed potatoes, and my younger brother's ("D") ketchup. C was hesitant to tell her about the potatoes because "she's hot." He didn't want to complain because "she's hot." But I got him to eventually, and she was great about it. She brought out a big bowl of potatoes.

So, of course, that set him off. "She wants me, so she brought me extra." "She thinks I'm hot." "She's gonna hop on my dick later." "She wants to suck it." Now, seriously, waitresses get paid to smile and be friendly and flirt a little bit. It's how they get good feedback, and it's how they get tips.

I cannot tell you how many times I heard sexually-based comments about that waitress throughout dinner. So, when we were slowing down, I just asked C randomly, "So, if she wasn't hot, you would have objected to what she served you?" His answer: "yep."

C seriously does base his treatment of people on how attractive they are to him. He doesn't like girls who don't have pretty faces, he doesn't like girls who are a little heavier than the average person you see these days, he doesn't like girls who don't wear tight clothes, he doesn't like girls who are prudes (but he expects his female consorts to be virgins, because any girl who has previously had sex is a slut)... Basically, he is ridiculous.

Unfortunately, I can't say shit about it, because he would do nothing but harass me after that. It just pisses me off that MY BROTHER is exactly like every other male chauvenist out there. I mean, I've taken Women's Studies courses, and he's the type of guy all the girls hate. He's shallow, self-absorbed, and sneaky (not mysterious, SNEAKY). He would never actually approach a girl and say these things, or even hit on her, but he'll make degrading comments at his leisure when she can't hear.

Damn it, man, respect people, for crying out loud! You want to check a girl out? Go right ahead and look (hey, I said look, not stare). Don't tell me she's going to hop on your dick and ride you like a rodeo queen later.

You just don't have the balls for that, bro.

Volunteer Option

So, we had this really neat option to do volunteer work instead of writing journals, which I thought was pretty cool. For my volunteer work, I'm teaching a group of girl scouts things about feminism - laws that were put in place to hinder minority groups, societal standards we unconsciously ascribe to, etc. They're having a ball learning about it, and I get to hear what kids in high school are doing these days - the pressures they face, what they get angry about, etc. You might think that they get angry about high school drama, but the underlying issues are what we address in these "teaching sessions."

For example, one of the girls is having trouble with her friends because her friends are more interested in boyfriends than hanging out and having a good time. She gets upset because they're always trying to get hooked up with some guy. So, in order to address that, I talked about the norms of society, where a woman must always be thin, beautiful, big breasted, dependent upon someone with a penis, and oh yeah...a virgin. It's kind of fun to see them develop a sense of righteous anger. Now all I have to do is teach them what to do with it...

WSS 240 is going wonderfully. The quizzes have been pretty difficult, but that's because they require a close reading of the articles.

I'm excited to finally be able to get into our group project for the semester. Topic: disabilities. More about that later...

Au revoir for now...

"Inequality and Social Stratification"

In the article "Inequality and Social Stratification", by Robert A. Rothman, confronted by statistics - good, solid facts - combined with, not so much personal experiences, but I guess you could call it "common knowledge"...things you hear on the news, read in newspapers, magazines, online, etc. In my opinion, this is the best kind of article. It gives you the facts, but is not so dry as to be tedious.

The article concentrated on the three major forms of inequality - economic, social, and political. The economic disparities are the most visible. We see professional athletes, entertainers, and corporate businessmen earning millions of dollars per year. We see people lucky enough to be "born into money" - Paris Hilton, the duPonts, etc - never worry about shelter, clothing, or where their next meal will come from.
That being said, in America alone, more than 43 million people go without health insurance each year! One single visit to a regular doctor can cost anywhere between $100 and $300 dollars - and that's without getting a physical! Try to go to a specialist and you're looking at a bill for upwards of $400 dollars. That doesn't include the cost of any prescriptions or shots or any other treatment deemed necessary by the doctor...
"One child in ten lives in poverty in major industrial nations - Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, Israel, and Italy. In America, it is one child in five!" (page 2 of article) In 2006, the US Census Bureau decided that it knew what the poverty line should be. The average size of an American family is about 4 people, which means if they collectively make $20,614 per year, they are considered to be in poverty. For the hell of it, let's just flesh this one out. Let's take the figure $20,615 (which means the family is NOT considered to be in poverty) and play around here:

$20,615.00 yearly income
- 5,997.00 price of cheapest used car

- 2,339.00 yearly gas expenditure

- 6,525.60 yearly food expenditure on "thrifty plan"
- 8,100.00 yearly rent for a 2 bedroom apartment

- 400.00 yearly clothing bought at a thrift shop
- 2746.60

What do you give up? Where do you sacrifice? Do you tell your kids they have to go to school in dirty clothes with patches and holes? Do you tell them you don't have anything for dinner?

Social status...whoo boy... Don't even get me going on this one... But I guess I kinda have to cover it here. People can "earn" their social status (based on skills, personal appearance, etc), but most people never get the chance to do that because of their class, gender, race, etc. Women have always been ranked below men. The poor will never win. And if you're not white, you're screwed. A few "tokens" pop through every once in a while...Tiger Woods, Sarah Palin, Obama... But they're not "the real thing". They might have busted their butts to get to where they are, but they're just held up in opposition to the people from their "group", where they "really" belong...

Palin and Obama is a nice segue into the political aspect of inequality. A small percentage of people in America hold the power, but they hold ALL the power. Power is not something shared among the people, even though we supposedly live in a democracy. Power is collected, consumed, swallowed, gobbled up by a few people, and those few people control the rest of the population.

All in all, this article has accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do: present statistics, raise awareness, and piss me off!

AWSS 240 - Classism, Racism, and Sexism

Here I am, once again, looking forward to another semester of being aware, being alive, and being a fighter... Last semester, I took AWSS 101 - Introduction to Feminism. It was amazing...especially since Stac, Cleo, and Alisha were the best collectives in the world! (Well, actually, having no other collectives to compare them to, they receive the #1 position by default...) And here I am, ready for round two!