When Did Being Female Become a “lifestyle choice”?

Posted on by Ann

1926 US advertisement. "Birth Control"

1926 US advertisement. “Birth Control” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was passively enduring talk radio on the drive back from Dee’s soccer game this evening and caught the FOX shoutfest that is Hannity. They were yelling over each other about small government, which no American under 55 can seriously claim to have ever lived under or even have the slightest idea of what small government means in terms of daily life, but nevermind. Small government diatribes these days almost inevitably detour through the vaginas of America’s women, who are the true root of the horror that is big government.

“If they want birth control (I love it when “they” refer to us as “they”, don’t you?) then they can pay for it themselves,” Hannity opined like a Catholic bishop from the pulpit. “I don’t need to pay for their lifestyle choice.”

Lifestyle choice?

Let’s see. I have breasts, a vagina, uterus and two XX’s. And that’s a choice I made?

Being female is not a “lifestyle”.

Why is it that everything small government conservative types are opposed to is slapped with the “choice” sticker?

First it was choosing to be gay and now, apparently, one can choose to be female too. Like anyone would, knowing the world as the female non-friendly place that it is. Who wouldn’t choose to the male? And straight and white while one was at it. Why not? If life were a simulated reality video game, as was recently pointed out, smart money is on picking the easiest setting – straight, white male. A penis is like finding a gold ticket in a Wonka Bar.

But here is the real beauty behind the “lifestyle choice” strawman argument, it allows “them” to define “us” as sluts. Only a slut would use birth control. My mother certainly never used birth control. Except if she is a baby boomer, she most certainly probably did. Just as your sister probably did. And your girlfriend because the god of your straight white maleness forbid that you deny yourself anything by stuffing your burgeoning manhood in a condom as opposed to a sassy wet slutty cunt.

But your daughter, and likely many of her friends, use birth control. Your nieces. Your cousins. The women you work with.  The one who checks your groceries at the store and the one who cleans your teeth, make your lattés and tells you to “have a nice” day when you are strolling out of Walmart, all have a better than even by a long shot chance of having used birth control at some point in their lives.

Damn slutty female lifestyle choice. Can’t escape them. They are everywhere, tainting the landscape with their tending to their femaleness and thinking you don’t know it. They should be ashamed of their lifestyle choice.

I know I am.

If only I had chosen to be my brother, who’s had two children out-of-wedlock to my NONE.

But no, I chose the female lifestyle. With its monthly bloody shedding of uterine lining and sole burden of child incubating and birthing and breastfeeding and putting nearly all my own wants, wishes and desires on hold for ten or twenty years, so it can grow, learn and hopefully leave home before I am too old to get back to focusing on me for more than snatched minutes here and there.

Being female is a perk-filled lifestyle. I can’t imagine why more men aren’t choosing it.

When we are not bleeding, pregnant or lactating, we are being paid less for the same work and bruising ourselves against glass ceilings, doors, and walls. We cart home the bacon after having shopped for it only to cook it, be criticized for getting fat if we eat more than a bite of it and then clear it from the table and wash the plates from which it was eaten.

If we show cleavage, we are whores, but if we try to disguise our breasts, we are anal prudes with no sense of humor who should, “Just smile, Sweetie, because you are so much prettier when you smile. Don’t look so serious all the time.”

We get to have a special “place” and straight white god in heaven forbid that we shouldn’t recognize it and plant the asses we should not let get too fat right there where they belong.

What kind of bullshit is this lifestyle choice crap?

No woman on the planet would choose to be female. Why? Because as lifestyles go, it sucks. Lifestyles should be rich, famous, and packed with privileges. Being female is none of those things.

When the small government folk go on and on about “lifestyle choices”, they are attempting – and in the US with great success – to redefine what being female, or gay, really is. It’s not a choice. It’s a condition of being. Part of being female is managing the plumbing, and no one gets to stick his nose up my plumbing unless he’s my husband or has an M.D. behind her surname.

I am female by random chance, and I have lived a female’s life of which I am not ashamed of. Nice try, Hannity.

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In Another Country are You an Immigrant or an Expat?

Posted on by Ann

English: Dira Square (also known as Chop Chop ...

English: Dira Square (also known as Chop Chop Square by expats), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Taken by BroadArrow in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve referred to myself as both expat and immigrant but think that perhaps I have been mistaken about the “expat” self-reference. An expat is someone who still largely identifies with his/her country of origin. It is who they are. Even with permanent residence/green card status or even dual citizenship, the land of birth still trumps. But an immigrant is someone who wishes to assimilate and take on the new country as his/her identifier. They acquire first residence and then the second citizenship with an eye toward becoming a part of the new land.

In the United States, people bemoan “immigrants” who do not seem to want to be Americans. I would argue that this so-called immigrants are really expats who’ve come to America for political, economic, career or education reasons but who see themselves primarily as citizens of their native land. In that way, how are they different from Americans who pursue work opportunities in other countries for short or long periods of time but consider themselves always American – not bothering to learn the language or make friends locally and living in enclaves of other Americans?

The answer, of course, is that they are not different. But it is a very white versus not so much kind of prejudice that is not attractive or admitted to. Brits, Americans, Europeans, Australians and Japanese refer to themselves as expats but consider Eastern Europeans, Asians, Latinos and Africans immigrants.

In my opinion, if one leaves his/her nation of origin to settle permanently in another country that person is an immigrant. Even if he/she stubbornly refuses to mix, learn local customs and language and generally remains an elitist snob about the whole thing. When you leave to live forever somewhere else, you have emigrated and are therefore an immigrant. This state of being is further compounded by marrying locally, producing children and obtaining legal status up to but not always including dual citizenship.

Expat, really, has this sort of British colonial taint to it. It reminds me of stories of colonials living in India or Africa during the days of Queen Victoria and later under King Edward. Privileged white people enjoying semi-royal lifestyles at the expense of a local population who was considered second-class and expected to appreciate servitude in exchange for pathetic monetary “reward”. All quite Kipling minus the adventure.

It’s important, I think, to know who you are. Expat or immigrant. It informs others as much as it forms your purpose. Given that, it’s time for me to drop the expat and go full on immigrant. My ancestors left Sweden and Ireland to become Americans. They were proud, I am sure, of their heritage but I highly doubt any of them referred to themselves as hyphens. Irish-Americans or Swedish-Americans. They were just Americans (although before the Civil War, I guess that state would have trumped country). Therefore, I am a Canadian in the making. No hyphen.

 

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The Root of Road Rage

Posted on by Ann

 

A speed limit sign entering a school zone, alo...

School zone sign in U.S. In Alberta, the speed is 30km or about 22 mph – Calabasas, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I am starting to believe that people who rage at other motorists are simply embarrassed about their own dickish driving behavior. Those who thumb noses at speed limits, consideration for safety when passing and view treat stop signs like yields and yields as though they were invisible are perfectly aware that they are cunts and resent having it pointed out to them.

 

Few things will provoke a fellow road mate to rabid rage like honking at them when they cut off your vehicle or pull out in front of you. It’s not that the driver didn’t know he/she was committing a transgression. He/she is angry at you for not ignoring it. You are supposed to just “take it”.

 

I drove Dee to school this morning because I’d been guilted into volunteering to help chaperone her field trip to the annual historical festival at the local museum. The trip was short parent volunteers and despite the fact that my loathing of field trips pre-dates even my years teaching middle school, it was important to Dee. So I sucked it up and said, “yes”.

 

Upside was sleeping in. Downside was driving her to school.

 

The elementary school is located on a rather well-used road in the older part of town. The speed limit during school hours is a mere 30km, which is even lower than the U.S.’s 25mph, and during the morning rush, you can see steam hissing out of the ears of every driver crawling past.

 

It invites stupidity as commuters jockey and nudge each other to go just a tad faster and knowing what a clusterfuck it can be with angry workers off to their day job slog, parents trying to drop off students and school buses pulling in, off-loading and pulling out to vex the already late for work – I am in extreme slow and cautious mode.

 

Traffic was slow today even before I hit the school zone and cars pulling from the side streets did so with a whip-it turn and gun it that speaks volumes about how spatially challenged most people are. Therefore, I was watching the side streets carefully and it’s a good thing because a car raced up, barely slowed and then pulled out in front of me.

 

So I honked.

 

Which is where I went wrong because Princess already knew that she’d pulled a fast one and was basically expecting me to be fine with it. She was in a hurry after all.

 

We were barely two blocks from the turn into the school parking lot and Princess, not being able to see Dee in my backseat, likely assumed I was on my way to work. Her reaction to being chastised for being a dick driver was to slow down and slow down and then finally – slam on her brakes.

 

Did I back off? No. I was never in any danger of hitting her. I was under the speed limit to begin with and her wedge manuever caused me to slow even more. But, I am in a truck and she is in a little hatchback-ish thing and I probably looked closer and more menacing than I was.

 

And as if attempting to get me rear-ended wasn’t enough, she flipped me off.

 

So I gave her the finger back.

 

“You what?” Rob asked when I related this to him.

 

“Gave her the finger,” I repeated. “Why not. She was being an asshole, trying to teach me a lesson by causing me to get rear-ended. There are somethings that need to be commented on with profanity.”

 

And then she sped up and signaled to turn into … the school parking lot.

 

I’d have given a lot to see the look on her  face when I signaled to turn there as well.

 

She quickly whipped into the aisle leading to the drop off lane while I went to the back row of the lot to park. I kept an eye out for her and was amused to note that she parked in the drop off and stayed in her car until Dee and I had walked half-way to the building before she started up and darted down the center aisle of the lot. I watched her roll slowly past and even turned around and walked backward as she queued up to exit. I was tempted to wave. No, not with my middle finger. There were children in plain sight who aren’t mine and I am only allowed to corrupt my own child.

 

Lately, I haven’t been shy about using the truck’s horn. I don’t sit patiently behind someone as they fiddle with their smartphones and the light has been green for longer than it takes to blink slowly several times. I am not patient with semi-drivers who think it’s okay to pull out in front of me because they are larger and are “working”, which allows them some sort of road dispensation. I don’t suffer idiots to endanger my life with their precarious passing prowess because – their lack of brains and spatial awareness should only rid the world of them and not me too.

 

There was an interesting conversation on a local radio station a few weeks ago about the so-called “passing lane on the major roads in Edmonton. It’s a widely held, though completely wrong, belief that the far left lane is for the “fast” traffic. And by “fast”, they assume that means license to exceed the posted speed limit by a margin and a half. When the on-air host pointed out that technically the speed limit is exactly the same in all three lanes and that the far left is only for those to use to get around traffic that is moving slower than the limit – he was roundly and soundly dismissed.

 

Which just proves that there are a lot of stupid people being given licenses to drive. Like Princess this morning. And that they don’t appreciate it when their self-serving disregard for others is brought home to them. More often than not anymore, I am disinclined to care.

 

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