What a wacky month this has been ... and it's not even close to over! Hillary snatched her campaign back from oblivion, and the Democrats continue to self-destruct as we march toward President McCain (if there were an actual election held in November ... see http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/06/7525/ for a taste of why I often refer to no election occurring).
We had a St. Patrick's Day overshadowed here in NYS by the swearing in of David Paterson, our new, history-making, blind, black governor who ~ are you ready for this? ~ cut right to the chase and revealed that he and his wife had a rough spot in their marriage and both have had affairs. Now can we move on to the budget? (Gov. Paterson apparently lived on Long Island! All anxiously await the magical transformation of the state budget and its beneficial effects on this fair isle!)
Oh, don't overlook the threesome news from N.J. Another fallen state gov, Mr. McGreevey, is not only a gay American but a fan of the French when it comes to menage a trois (the wife, the chauffeur and the gay governor ~ can't make this stuff up).
I mean, it's no wonder I have a hard time making this an actual daily dose ~ who can keep up with this nonstop tabloid that passes for news in this country?!?!? I had a funny idea for a post: the letter of the day is W (after hearing that an economist predicted a W-shaped recession -- no, I cannot explain that, I failed econ at my Ivy League college and had to change majors -- and how hysterical is that since we have W himself to blame for this sorry state of affairs???) Clearly, that became irrelevant as soon as the number of the day became 9 around here and we had to suffer through days of The Fall of the Prince Elliot Spitzer. Which quickly dovetailed with Ms. Geraldine Ferraro (who I spoke to at Spitzer's inaugural party at the Waldorf when he became AG ~ thus the segway) daring to speak about race and Obama. And let's not even get started with this pastor flap poor Barack is addressing in my old stomping grounds of Philadelphia. And Bill is on Fox talking to Greta? but Michelle Obama refuses to appear? has the campaign released a statement on this? because it really matters to the average American who can no longer afford to pay for gas, milk and health care in the same month, let alone week -- and did you hear that Bear Stearns went under?
I mean, who has the stamina for this? It's endless and exhausting and oh so entertaining if you can find a way to chime in every 10 seconds with the latest breaking "news." Oh, forget it ... I'm just going to rush over to my local AT&T storefront and have myself a merry little Madness-mas(TM) ~ what's that? you haven't heard? the NCAA tournament is now a holiday and you can connect with AT&T! bracket tracking, exclusive video highlights and up-to-the-minute score alerts. C'mon, it's your patriotic duty to stay informed! Cinderella and the dance and all that. Repeat after me: alternate reality ... corporate profits ... smoke and mirrors ... you are getting sleepy (but not enough to prevent you from placing a bet on that bracket!) Now get out and go shopping!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Women's History Month
yes, folks, March is Women's History Month ... it is better known for March Madness (college hoops are so much fun!) and green beer and an early Easter this year ... but let us not forget that International Women's Day is March 8 (www.internationalwomensday.com) and that this entire month is devoted to women's history.
The National Women's History Project explains (www.nwhp.org) about this year's theme:
"To honor the originality, beauty, imagination, and multiple dimensions of women’s lives, we have chosen Women’s Art: Women’s Vision as the 2008 theme for National Women’s History Month.
The history of women and art is quintessential women’s history. It is the story of amazing women’s accomplishments acclaimed at the time but written out of history. Join us in ensuring that their accomplishments are never forgotten.
This year’s theme provides a special opportunity to discover and celebrate women’s visual arts in a variety of forms and mediums that help expand our perceptions of ourselves and each other."
But today I am inspired to compile the women's news I have come across in just a few hours on this first Monday in March ... I call it "Mommies Mommies Everywhere!"
**two women got into a physical fight at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party outside of Boston, Mass. (another Fox News special, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334571,00.html). Hey, have you ever been to one of these places? Have Mukasey look into this since he won't do anything about waterboarding.
**14-year-old mother and her infant in the news here in NYC/LI because three people apparently tried to leave the baby girl at a firehouse, misunderstanding the safe haven law ... lots of trouble now for the livery cab driver who tried to drop the baby off because he made up a story as to why (false "hero" alarm). Yes, let's focus on this man just trying to make a living and do the right thing by an innocent baby. Let's not start talking about what the hell a 14-year-old is doing as a mother and how on earth she is supposed to cope with this.
**which brings us to the tragic death of three young children (6, 5 and 1), drowned by their mother here in Nassau County last week. This is opening up all kinds of trouble for the county and investigations into the Child Protective Services agency and a lawsuit by one of the fathers and accusations that "the system failed." Apparently, the mother had a history of mental illness and possible drug addiction.
Trouble is when these stories are reported, it is always with the implication that the mother is horrible. How could she? How could a mother do this to her own children? Do not misunderstand me: I am not condoning abuse and abandonment and murder. I am simply stating that there are underlying reasons for people's behavior, there is context and history and factual narratives that cannot be condensed into the 45-second spot on the local news. The 2-year-old got out of the house to find mommy at the laundromat and wandered across train tracks. The infant was left sleeping in the car and suffocated because the mother had no childcare but had to show up for work. Andrea Yates.
We all know the stories, we all feel sick to our stomachs and our hearts ache for these children. But where are the journalists to go one step further and examine what facts underlie these tragedies: the lack of childcare and the brutally high expense of it, the dearth of part-time work with health benefits that might allow for better balancing of work and family, the absence of paid sick days, the false promise of family-friendly anything, the ignorance about postpartum depression and the shame and stigma still associated with mental illness of any kind. Not to excuse the women but to explain reality and move society toward finding remedies for these issues. That's always the funniest part to me: motherhood is sacred in this country but there are no policies in place to prioritize the work of raising a family ~ not even for the daddies. (Now those could be family values people could rally around, not the moral righteousness peddled by the right wing)
Mothers are supposed to make it all better, we are idealized and expected to fulfill society's fantasy of maternal perfection (until it's the mother's fault for how the kids turn out, just ask Lynne Spears). Which brings me to my favorite item of the day (so far):
Susan Shapiro Barash has a brand-new book, Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie. I saw it reported in the Post (um, NY not Washington, hello) in the context of this woman on that lie detector show on TV getting caught for cheating on her husband and still loving her ex. We'll leave that aside for now.
The interesting tidbit from the book mentioned in the article by Susan Edelman is that "50 percent harbor 'mixed feelings about mothering.' One told Barash, 'I look at these children and I crave sleep and free time. They wear me out and make me jealous of working women who have no children, no husbands."
Gasp! Horror! Say it isn't so! I don't know whether to cheer that someone spoke the truth or be sad that the other 50 percent stuck with the cover story (you know the one: oh, motherhood is wonderful, I love it, everything is great) Things are complicated people! Shades of grey. Not everything can be boxed neatly (in Tiffany blue) and tied up in a fabulous white bow ... certainly not mothering. And admitting that all is not roses and peaches and cream all the time does not lessen a mother's love for her children or erase all the other moments she is filled with boundless joy looking at her kids ... admitting these truths does nothing other than open an honest dialogue that women who become close might have but are loathe to admit to each other otherwise. Women are complicated, too ...
Just ask Hillary ... won't it be ironic if her historic campaign ends during Women's History Month (not that we're having an election in November so this whole Democratic primary thing is besides the point ... again, another post). The coverage of her crying and the rage over saying Chelsea was being pimped out ... it's all so sexist. I'm not saying I bought the tearing up as 100% genuine (any politician is capable of calculation) -- it may very well have been -- but who cares? Did we agonize over tears in Mitt Romney's eyes when he was on Meet the Press? (you may not have heard about that one, here is one article for reference http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7415.html)
One writer posited that Hillary actually won women back when defending Chelsea because it finally showed her as a "strong mother." But she can't get all mama bear on us because that would not be commander-in-chief-like ... it's all so ridiculous. What if, as Sally Field suggested at the Emmys last year [in what could have been a fantastic speech if she hadn't gotten all "I'm trying to pass off a rehearsed diatribe as a spontaneous show of emotion" (see http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2007/09/the-emmys-reall.html)] mothers ruled the world? Would there really be no more war?
Maybe one March years from now my daughter's generation of women will have figured some of this out ... maybe my son and his peers will have helped (look at how much more our husbands do with the kids and the house than their fathers did -- c'mon you know they do, even the men who do "nothing" are doing more than their fathers were doing, I think that is a fair statement for the most part) ... all we can do is wonder.
The National Women's History Project explains (www.nwhp.org) about this year's theme:
"To honor the originality, beauty, imagination, and multiple dimensions of women’s lives, we have chosen Women’s Art: Women’s Vision as the 2008 theme for National Women’s History Month.
The history of women and art is quintessential women’s history. It is the story of amazing women’s accomplishments acclaimed at the time but written out of history. Join us in ensuring that their accomplishments are never forgotten.
This year’s theme provides a special opportunity to discover and celebrate women’s visual arts in a variety of forms and mediums that help expand our perceptions of ourselves and each other."
But today I am inspired to compile the women's news I have come across in just a few hours on this first Monday in March ... I call it "Mommies Mommies Everywhere!"
**two women got into a physical fight at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party outside of Boston, Mass. (another Fox News special, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334571,00.html). Hey, have you ever been to one of these places? Have Mukasey look into this since he won't do anything about waterboarding.
**14-year-old mother and her infant in the news here in NYC/LI because three people apparently tried to leave the baby girl at a firehouse, misunderstanding the safe haven law ... lots of trouble now for the livery cab driver who tried to drop the baby off because he made up a story as to why (false "hero" alarm). Yes, let's focus on this man just trying to make a living and do the right thing by an innocent baby. Let's not start talking about what the hell a 14-year-old is doing as a mother and how on earth she is supposed to cope with this.
**which brings us to the tragic death of three young children (6, 5 and 1), drowned by their mother here in Nassau County last week. This is opening up all kinds of trouble for the county and investigations into the Child Protective Services agency and a lawsuit by one of the fathers and accusations that "the system failed." Apparently, the mother had a history of mental illness and possible drug addiction.
Trouble is when these stories are reported, it is always with the implication that the mother is horrible. How could she? How could a mother do this to her own children? Do not misunderstand me: I am not condoning abuse and abandonment and murder. I am simply stating that there are underlying reasons for people's behavior, there is context and history and factual narratives that cannot be condensed into the 45-second spot on the local news. The 2-year-old got out of the house to find mommy at the laundromat and wandered across train tracks. The infant was left sleeping in the car and suffocated because the mother had no childcare but had to show up for work. Andrea Yates.
We all know the stories, we all feel sick to our stomachs and our hearts ache for these children. But where are the journalists to go one step further and examine what facts underlie these tragedies: the lack of childcare and the brutally high expense of it, the dearth of part-time work with health benefits that might allow for better balancing of work and family, the absence of paid sick days, the false promise of family-friendly anything, the ignorance about postpartum depression and the shame and stigma still associated with mental illness of any kind. Not to excuse the women but to explain reality and move society toward finding remedies for these issues. That's always the funniest part to me: motherhood is sacred in this country but there are no policies in place to prioritize the work of raising a family ~ not even for the daddies. (Now those could be family values people could rally around, not the moral righteousness peddled by the right wing)
Mothers are supposed to make it all better, we are idealized and expected to fulfill society's fantasy of maternal perfection (until it's the mother's fault for how the kids turn out, just ask Lynne Spears). Which brings me to my favorite item of the day (so far):
Susan Shapiro Barash has a brand-new book, Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie. I saw it reported in the Post (um, NY not Washington, hello) in the context of this woman on that lie detector show on TV getting caught for cheating on her husband and still loving her ex. We'll leave that aside for now.
The interesting tidbit from the book mentioned in the article by Susan Edelman is that "50 percent harbor 'mixed feelings about mothering.' One told Barash, 'I look at these children and I crave sleep and free time. They wear me out and make me jealous of working women who have no children, no husbands."
Gasp! Horror! Say it isn't so! I don't know whether to cheer that someone spoke the truth or be sad that the other 50 percent stuck with the cover story (you know the one: oh, motherhood is wonderful, I love it, everything is great) Things are complicated people! Shades of grey. Not everything can be boxed neatly (in Tiffany blue) and tied up in a fabulous white bow ... certainly not mothering. And admitting that all is not roses and peaches and cream all the time does not lessen a mother's love for her children or erase all the other moments she is filled with boundless joy looking at her kids ... admitting these truths does nothing other than open an honest dialogue that women who become close might have but are loathe to admit to each other otherwise. Women are complicated, too ...
Just ask Hillary ... won't it be ironic if her historic campaign ends during Women's History Month (not that we're having an election in November so this whole Democratic primary thing is besides the point ... again, another post). The coverage of her crying and the rage over saying Chelsea was being pimped out ... it's all so sexist. I'm not saying I bought the tearing up as 100% genuine (any politician is capable of calculation) -- it may very well have been -- but who cares? Did we agonize over tears in Mitt Romney's eyes when he was on Meet the Press? (you may not have heard about that one, here is one article for reference http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7415.html)
One writer posited that Hillary actually won women back when defending Chelsea because it finally showed her as a "strong mother." But she can't get all mama bear on us because that would not be commander-in-chief-like ... it's all so ridiculous. What if, as Sally Field suggested at the Emmys last year [in what could have been a fantastic speech if she hadn't gotten all "I'm trying to pass off a rehearsed diatribe as a spontaneous show of emotion" (see http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2007/09/the-emmys-reall.html)] mothers ruled the world? Would there really be no more war?
Maybe one March years from now my daughter's generation of women will have figured some of this out ... maybe my son and his peers will have helped (look at how much more our husbands do with the kids and the house than their fathers did -- c'mon you know they do, even the men who do "nothing" are doing more than their fathers were doing, I think that is a fair statement for the most part) ... all we can do is wonder.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)