Kacks of Life

What does it all mean?

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:40:07 -0600

Every time I discuss literature with children, I see the message so much more clearly.

Why I celebrate Women's Day

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 03:42:00 -0600

I am a woman therefore whatever I do or am is womanly. I define what a woman is.

Tragedy

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:00:00 -0600

A few weeks ago I was reading to a class of 5-year-olds a book about opposites.

Hot and cold, up and down, inside and outside, clean and dirty

And when I introduced the page showing Boy and Girl, one of the girls in the class exclaimed in sincere exasperation:

Oh c’est trop nulle, être une fille.

It sucks to be a girl

(Nulle means worthless, useless, hopeless. Lost cause. I think kids use to mean something “sucks” although it’s not inappropriate. )

My heart broke. I stopped reading and said it wasn’t true and the other teacher said it was equally awesome to be a boy or a girl. Then we moved on. Which was a mistake and I’ve been really disturbed by this.

What really sucks is that a girl so young already sees the differences between her and her male counterparts and knows she is at a disadvantage. I know this girl has older sisters, so it could be an opinion based on the complaints of her post-adolescent role models, although it’s discouraging nonetheless.

Girls need women role models to show them how great it is to be a woman! How beautiful in all and various ways a woman can be!

What I really despise most is the segregation that occurs immediately upon scolarisation of children. I thought France, although a pretty sexist place in a lot of ways(in my experience), was better about treating children as equals than the US because kids of both sexes do everything together. They share a bathroom at school. They change for sports class in adjacent hallways, sometimes in the same room. The schools where I work require children to weartabliers, smocks, instead of gender specific uniforms. It just seemed like they were doing something right.

What I’ve noticed that isn’t better is the subconscious sexist treatment of the children in the nursery school where I teach. Comments are made about how boys are always rowdy. Girls are invited to sit on the benches in the group circle area while boys sit on the carpet. I know it’s an easy way to split a classroom but it just encourages the infusion of gender inequality, in either’s favor.

It’s ok that boys and girls know they are different from one another, but to think that different means superior is not a naturally occurring sentiment. Maybe it feels that way because it is so inherent in our society, but men and women need each other. In that way we are equal. Neither is more important than the other because we are both essential. If children could be encouraged to work together more often, in mixed gender groups, maybe they would come to understand this earlier.

Assigned Identities

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 11:14:00 -0600

The nature of my teaching jobs usually leads me to learn just as much, if not more, than my students. And everyone I teach has taught me something. Usually it’s just new words, but the subjects have also been hang gliding, keeping actual doctors-in-the-house in theatres, and Olympic table tennis. Sometimes the subjects have a more important lesson, too.

My student from Rwanda taught me all about life there, the most interesting fact being that each person there has their own personal name, given to them at birth. That is, family names do not exist. I asked her how they distinguished family groups and she paused, searching for a way to explain and answered, “You just know everyone you’re related to. The family dynamic is so much bigger than a name.”

There’s no confusion about families there. Granted, Rwanda is a very small country where historically people didn’t travel far and so had no need to identify themselves with a name. Since the genocide, however greater families were scattered around the world as refugees and forced to adopt local practices. A married woman using her maiden name was too confusing for the local authorities.

Learning this excited me because I finally had proof in my struggle against the tradition of a wife assuming her husband’s name! Of course, the people of Africa’s Rift Valley are not the sole proof of a society that functions without families being defined by their name, but they are the first culture I’d heard of to have never even considered this practice.

And what’s more, the ethnic cleansing during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 was based on the characteristics attributed to the traditional Hutu and Tutsi groups by European colonists in their censuses of the local populations earlier in the same century. The culture sees no inherent difference in these classified groups and it could be argued that racism did not exist before colonists came and divided these people over economics. My student told me she thought it was difficult for Africans to recognize racism because it was, for them, a learned behavior.

So here we have proof, clear evidence that these traditions and practices to which we are clinging so violently are invented and have no connate value. They are simply a gift of our ever-so-highly evolved race. A familiar story in history, but still a shocking lesson in humanity. A reminder that we will never learn.

plannedparenthood: Please like and reblog if you think we need...

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 04:46:33 -0500

plannedparenthood:

Please like and reblog if you think we need comprehensive sex ed now.

(source: publichealthdegree.com)

Neil Gaiman: Not-cool things to do, bro... Part 1

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 02:28:11 -0500

Neil Gaiman: Not-cool things to do, bro... Part 1:

stoya:

I can actually remember every time a person at a convention or trade show has touched me inappropriately. My first year at the Venus Fair in Berlin there was a man who shoved two of his fingers into my panty-covered vagina. It was really fast, like he was standing there one second…

It’s universal.

Street harassment happens everywhere to every woman and it’s disgusting, enraging, and very hurtful.

"It is not feminism’s goal to control any woman’s fertility, only to free each woman to..."

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 09:51:00 -0500

““It is not feminism’s goal to control any woman’s fertility, only to free each woman to control her own””

- Baumgardner and Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future

motherjones: nevver: Alright We’ve got. Nothing better to...

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:14:00 -0500

motherjones:

nevver:

Alright

We’ve got.

Nothing better to do.

Than watch TV.

And have a couple of brews…

This song has been in my head for DAYS!

“My being is captive To the concept of time The universe...

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:47:00 -0500

“My being is captive

To the concept of time

The universe calls

I answer in Rhymes….”

— Eugene McDaniels

theparisreview: “You can change up, right? You can say you’re...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 03:33:42 -0500

theparisreview:

“You can change up, right? You can say you’re somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story, but what came first is who you really are and what happened before is what really happened. It don’t matter if some fool say different because the only thing that makes you different is what you really do or what you really go through.”

A great clip from The Wire where F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is broken down.

How frustrating that those in our society with the highest economic value are all liars!

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 08:38:34 -0500

How frustrating that those in our society with the highest economic value are all liars!

Photo

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:24:01 -0500

fuckyeahgirlcrush: “Women get a really bad rep but they’re...

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 01:04:32 -0500

fuckyeahgirlcrush:

“Women get a really bad rep but they’re fucking excellent. I keep on having moments with groups of girls where I just think, girls are excellent, like really excellent. There is nothing like a friendship group of women, and for girly nights or whatever. It’s the best fucking thing in the world.”

Keira Knightley for Harper’s Bazaar

This is what the internet is for...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 01:58:27 -0500

The greatest collection of books on one webpage!

Or as I now have it bookmarked:

Gift Ideas

neil-gaiman:

Do not hesitate. Go to this link.

Then gaze at the book titles, and marvel.

(I don’t actually think I need to read any of them. It just makes me happy knowing they exist.)

Edited to add, someone has done an illustration for HOW TO AVOID HUGE SHIPS.

Tonight: Costume Party with Schizophrenia Theme

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 03:01:51 -0500

I was deciding how to interpret this theme and assumed the party hosts don’t intend everyone to come unkempt and suicidal. It’s not Halloween so it seems unlikely violent criminals are the intended result. The host’s interpretation of schizophrenia is to dress like a woman, which didn’t clear the definition up for me one bit.

So what’s a girl to do?

I considered dressing like a man to answer the host’s sexism. But that’s boring because my normal style is already more masculine than most of the fashionable French guys that will be there…

Then it hit me. How ‘bout I go as my exact opposite in this scenario?

A stereotypical French Man.

Beret, mustache, mariner striped shirt, knotted scarf. I GIS’d it and couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe I’ll grab a baguette on the way and start smoking again. It’s the perfect costume! Easy to do and clearly interpreted.

But then I realized, it’s possible I’ll be the only American at this party full of French people and this could be their first impression of my country in a social situation. I’d be a total dick to show up completely mocking their culture, right?

Is the hilarity of this worth alienating the entire party?

I’m thinking…bah ouais hein!

kateordie: Sometimes I have the time and patience to get from...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 08:08:10 -0500

kateordie:

Sometimes I have the time and patience to get from an idea to a fully fleshed-out, penciled, inked and coloured comic.

Sometimes I don’t.

theparisreview: Flannery O’Connor reads the title story of A...

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 15:28:55 -0500

theparisreview:

Flannery O’Connor reads the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find. A treat for a gray day (via Open Culture).

Although common marketing practice in North America, calling sweet potatoes yams is a misnomer.

Sun, 27 May 2012 03:34:05 -0500

The two plants are botanically very different. Many plants in the sweet potato family, Convolvulaceae, are actually poisonous and only one species is widely used commerically. Yams, on the other hand, yield from a variety of perennial vines.

Yams are an important crop in Asia and Africa while sweet potatoes - distantly related to potatoes by the way - have been cultivated in Central and South America for thousands of years.

Last night I was asked which medium I prefer : books, movies, or music.

Sat, 26 May 2012 03:56:00 -0500

For some reason my companions weren’t convinced that I am a music person and chose “books” for me.

And I just thought, What a silly question. How could I choose ?

So I said, You don’t have to choose. You enjoy each in a different state of mind.

But they weren’t buying it, so the issue was presented in a more concrete way:

If, on the same night, there were a music festival with all your favorite artists, a book festival with your favorite authors, and a film festival with your favorite actors and directors, which would you attend ? (Assuming each is an occasion to meet and discuss with these personal heroes and not just watch them from afar.)

Conneries

Wed, 16 May 2012 03:40:26 -0500

Somehow I’ve finally gotten pretty good at writing bullshit in French. Just finished writing my letter of motivation for a grad school application.

I mention something about wanting a dynamic and well-rounded education but I really just want to sleep, eat, read, play games, and internet all day.