Dude: Date me or get raped.

Internet: What. The. Fuck. PIG.

Dude: Bitch, I didn't actually rape you! Look at what this guy said about how rape isn't bad! I just think rape is funny, he thinks rape is ok.

The Internet: RAGE.

When I was a preteen, I moved from Hawaii to Washington. When writing back home to my friends, I liked to add a p.s. that went something like this, "Write Back Soon - or I'm sending the Beastie Boys to Rape You!" I thought the Beastie Boys were ugly. I thought rape was something... unreal. Nobody actually does anything like that, right? So sending ugly dudes to commit a mythical sin upon the bodies of your best friends was sooo damned funny to me.

I recalled this only recently and I'm horrified at my past-self. Today, I'm wondering about this kid at the exact same high school I attended (was I still writing shit like this when I was in high school? I can't remember.) - how horrified is he going to be in 20 years? I wrote a p.s. in a letter to some friends. He used Twitter and has thousands of followers.

from scootius.tumblr.com: facebooksexism-thisiseverydayracism

I wanted the rest of the story. He posted the infamous Prom Rape Joke in April. The guy tweets so much, it took me over 10 minutes to get down to the May tweets about his suspension. About another 5 minutes to find his pseudo-response to the whole thing:

Please read this if you think I'm a rapist
the-problem-with-slacktivism-rape-jokes-are-not-okay-and-neither-are-death-threats-nsfw … You're uneducated for believing everything you see on the internet.

It is an interesting read. A very calm, level-headed, look-at-all-sides-of-the-situation type post. The kind of thing I strive for in my own commentaries, with varying success. It misses the mark though. But I didn't even need to say that. "Anonymous" did it for me in the comments (intelligent comment discussions on a blog post?! holy shit!). I swear, I was asking myself if I had written this and blanked it out, it just sounds so much like what I would say. And it's 11 paragraphs long! But I swear I didn't write it!

[if the link doesn't properly send you to the comment, scroll down to 18 May, 2014 @ 7:00pm]

I've written about rape culture before. And one of my biggest pet peeves is a guy who responds to criticism by pointing out someone else's (my) bad behavior to take the heat off (not naming names, as that would get me divorced). But I don't know whether to rage or cry or just shake my head. I don't understand how someone so entrenched in social media (he tweets so much that I had to scroll 17 times to read just one day's worth of tweets) can be so fundamentally clueless about (a) the repercussions of tweeting anything controversial, (b) the ridiculous amount of rape threats being made by trolls across the internet on a regular basis, (c) the concept of "trigger" words or phrases that cause rape and other PTSD victims to relive their trauma every time it's even mentioned, and (d) pointing people to a blog written by someone else asking for mercy is not an explanation of your actions or a retraction or an apology. There are some great satirists out there. It's a human tradition. Posting a picture of an offensive joke, not explaining yourself, then vilifying/name calling/ignoring/redirecting those calling you out is NOT great satire. It's just a joke by a kid proving how totally and completely clueless he is about what real life as an adult is all about.

He (vaguely) claims the satire is to point out rape culture. If that was his intent, he should have known why rape culture is so harmful. He should have known what it actually is. He should have known that he would offend people. He should have accepted graciously the comments (no, not the death threats) by people pointing out that he was actually contributing to the culture he was allegedly trying to point out. He should have been willing to engage in conversation. He should have learned something. I don't see any of these points as true, so I have to doubt the veracity of his claims. Calling a joke satire after the fact does not make it satire.

Finally, one of the more frustrating things about this is the Lady Texan blogger's attempt to shame the people who called this kid's school.

Um, no.

Is he a kid? Sure. Can kids commit acts that need to be reported to the proper authorities? You bet. Is it up to those authorities to decide what to do with the information? True.

Once again, the moral of the story that everyone is missing more and more lately: it is not anti-acceptance to point out and refuse to accept improper behavior. It is completely reasonable to demand every one of us be human to each other and to face the consequences when we ourselves slip up. The United States is not an anarchy. We can accept a lot, but we will not/should not accept harmful behavior. Harm can only be defined by the victim, not the attacker. We have given authorities the right to judge whether harm has been committed. So we take our case to them. If it's dismissed, that's another matter. But you don't silence victims, regardless of how anyone else views the allegations they make. If they say there is harm, they have been harmed enough to say it. Whether or not that is enough to have real consequences is not up to bystanders to decide. So can everyone please stop shouting down the whistle-blowers?

ps: calling someone out is not "slacktivism"
pps: cyber-stalking is bad
ppps: death threats are bad
pppps: the kid has mentioned suicidal thoughts, so back the fuck off. No, we don't know if he meant it. Doesn't matter.

I am attempting to pull something elusive out from the ether that has been percolating in my brain. It is about the juxtaposition of the current American sense of of individualism and the basic human need for companionship.

I recently discovered the This I Believe radio series via Audible.com and, while it took awhile for the slower pace to grow on me, I am now a firm believer in listening. We would all be a lot happier if we slowed down and listened to others now and then, and this is a great jumping off point.

Two essays had content that jumped out at me, stayed with me, and are partially responsible for my current percolation. Albert Einstein and Robert A. Heinlein. How many of us are aware of the human side of Einstein? The title of the piece alone is illuminating, An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man. Here I will quote a snippet:

The individual feels more than ever dependent on society, but he feels this dependence not in the positive sense — cradled, connected as part of an organic. He sees it as a threat to his natural rights and even his economic existence. His position in society, then, is such that that which drives his ego is encouraged and developed, and that which would drive him toward other men (a weak impulse to begin with) is left to atrophy.

Couple that vision of 1950's American individualism with Heinlein's observations of community in the same decade. His essay, titled Our Noble, Essential Decency, brought tears to my ears just from hearing someone so important to me expressing feelings of hope for humanity. Here is a snippet:

I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

Take Father Michael, down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him. My next door neighbor's a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat—no fee, no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc.

I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say "I'm hungry," and you'll be fed. Our town is no exception. I found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, "The heck with you, I've got mine," there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, "Sure pal, sit down."

So what has been percolating for me, is this question of what happened to Heinlein's vision of his fellow Americans. What has happened to the notion of doing good for one another? How have we gone even further into Einstein's example, of Man avoiding Man, afraid of asking for help, afraid of needing anything or anyone at all?

So with those thoughts setting up my frame of mind, I have been dwelling on my loneliness and my depression. A recent conversation brought up, again, the concept that if I don't go out and find people, I will continue to be lonely. And I have gone out. I've gone out of my way to break through all of my blockages due to depression and anxiety, and the end result was very close to nil*. Zip, zilch, nothing. So I am back in my hole at home, nursing the wounds of extending myself without reciprocation.

[*No, not zero. No, not everyone's fault but mine. There was some reciprocation. There were near misses. There were huge failures on my part. In the end, I think nothing really panned out purely because of my inadequacies.]

I started thinking about all of the "checkpoints" to make sure that new mother's don't get lost in the depths of post-partum depression. How every single health worker I encountered during my daughter's first year of life asked me to talk about myself, how was I doing, who did I have to talk to and share my burdens. How both of my PEPS groups set aside blocks of time to talk about PPD and the need to reach out to those in need. How I revealed to both of my PEPS groups that I had depression.

And a completely new thought came to me.

Healthcare workers know they need to reach out to people at risk. They quiz me, the listen, some of them even sought me up for follow-up. So why is it that normal, everyday people around you don't know this? Or if they do know it, why aren't they acting on it?

I am a person very vocal about my depression. I am a first-time mother to a toddler who spends almost all of her time alone at home. Where is the line of people knocking on my door to make sure that I'm ok?

This thought shocked me. It is so self-righteous. People can't be expected to just drop everything and cater to me just because I'm sad and lonely.

Oh, but I'm not just sad and lonely. I have a disease. A disease with known symptoms of suicide, child abandonment, child abuse, and infanticide.

Long ago I discovered that I need medications for my depression the exact same way that a diabetic needs insulin: I need it to live.

Depression is like all diseases: there are things that help, and things that make it worse. So why not treat it like a disease? If I have Type 2 or 3 Diabetes, would you be inclined to sign me up for a Dessert of The Month or simply inquire about my health, my well being, and ask if I need help with anything? If I have a cancer and I'm taking chemotherapy, are you going to invite me to a rave complete with a hit of Ecstasy, or are you going to stop by for a visit, bring some chicken soup, and tidy up the dishes in the sink?

I'm guessing most people would enact any of those scenarios. Most people would just stay home and live their lives, maybe drop a line on Facebook or make a phone call now and then.

But while Diabetes is helped by insulin and cancer is helped by chemotherapy, depression is helped by companionship.

You are my medicine. I've asked for a regular dosage. So where are you?

I know it's difficult to get out of your comfort zone. Believe me, I've got a very small one and I stay socked in there constantly, so I know how hard it is to stand up, shake the dust of the rut off, and take the plunge into foreign waters. But I'm worth it, aren't I?

Maybe it's a tangent, maybe it's not, but I have to rant here. I am literally sick of hearing about "baggage" and how loathsome it is. The sentiment makes my blood boil. You've got baggage, I've got baggage, the freaking Pope has baggage, I assure you. I am not less of a person, I am not less worthy of respect and love and affection, because bad things happened to me in the past. When was the last time you looked in your closet and were surprised people still like you? That's what I thought. So can this sentiment about baggage making people less. Stop this sentiment that broken people aren't worth you time. Can we please halt this sentiment that someone is unworthy of you? I am all for girlpower, but who coined the phrases "You're better than him" and "He doesn't deserve you"? Those things sound nice when your heart has been stomped on, and they absolutely apply if your man beats you, but other than that... should you really be encouraging people to believe that they are better than others? That some people are beneath them?

That's about all I've got, folks. I said it was something percolating. I didn't say it was coherent. I have no solution. I have no Magic Wand of Fxing. I just have thoughts and hopes. And lately I'm hoping that we can find our way back to a sense of humanity where we're not afraid of each other or ourselves. I'm hoping we can all live in Heinlein's little town where all we have to do is ask for help and it will be given, no question asked. We're all hungry for something, and we all deserve to eat.

Finally, a disclaimer: This is not a cry for help. This is not a guilt trip. This is not about you. It's not really about me, except that these are my thoughts. My thoughts on humanity. People in general.

This one is for Dave.

So I'm on this Heinlein kick. The man is teaching me so much about so much, by just making me think about things I already knew but I wasn't really aware of. Each of his books seems to have some theme (or 2 or 12) within that resonates with me. I've just finished "For Us, The Living", his very first novel that went unpublished until quite recently, as it was found after his death. Whereas "Stranger in a Strange Land" had my mind reeling over the "man before his time" views on sexuality and religion, this book has me questioning a lot about capitalism I was taking for granting as truth. All this time, I've been convinced that communism is the best way for humanity to coexist in peace but so depressed that we couldn't ever reach a peacefulness that would allow it to work, so I've just been angry at capitalism and frustrated with democracy and livid with anyone afraid of anything that even dares to smell like socialism. But back in 1939, Robert A. Heinlein proposed that capitalism can work, and work beautifully, if we chuck out some silly ideas and drive some new ones into our thick skulls.

The whole thing seems to fly in the face of Ayn Rand, the movie versions of Atlas Shrugged anyway, which coincidentally I found on Netflix and watched just before reading this. That woman is a monster! Oy! Of course, Rand reminds me of Nancy Kress, ever since someone tried to give me a brief synopsis of the book and it sounded eerily similar to "Beggars in Spain", one of my favorite books of all time. And you know what? I'm not the only one seeing the connections. I Googled "Robert Heinlein Ayn Rand Nancy Kress" and found very promising hits on the first page, many of which I have bookmarked for reading AFTER I write this down. Because I didn't want my thoughts to get tainted by what others have to say until I've gotten all of this down.

So I've made my notes to myself, and drawn these conclusions:

On Kress vs. Rand: Nancy Kress rewrote the story of Atlas Shrugged, leaving behind one woman to fight for humanity but mostly just sympathize, and another woman within the enclave to come down from on high to actually do something about it. Except their meddling kinda makes things worse.

On Heinlein vs. Rand: Rand had an idea, Marx had an idea, Heinlein had an idea. Heinlein is pretty much the opposite of Rand. Rand wants Capitalism Deluxe where the dollar is mighty and anyone who doesn't work should be ashamed of themselves and go fuck off and die in a hole somewhere. Heinlein wants Libertarianism Deluxe where living life should be your greatest ambition, but not in a completely hedonistic couch potato way, but rather enjoy yourself, learn, educate, create, better yourself and others through the process.

I have notes on the rest, but that's about the gist of it.

But to really understand the remarkableness of what this book espouses, you have to read it. So I've just spent the past hour transcribing the 2 really important bits. But first, a tiny backstory: guy's car goes over a cliff in 1938, guy wakes up in 2075, guy has adjustment issues to current American culture, guy has interesting conversations with an economic scholar. Everything is quite different, thanks to 2 basic changes: the take over of banks to form one government bank (economic security for everyone follows, once they fight a little war that put the final snuff on the idea of an export-based economy), and the rewriting of the Constitution to ensure the total liberty of all citizens (social liberalism ensues, all thanks to a near-miss of having a wing-nut religious conservative in power).

Here's Heinlein in his own words, on how the only problem with Capitalism is our current allegiance to an export-based economy:

"It had always been the conventional point of view, especially in the economic beliefs of the conservative party, that a prosperous nation required a favorable trade balance or "gold balance" as it was formally called. In simple language, that means that a country is best off when it exports more than it imports. Phrased in that way it sounds silly, for it is surely evident that a country that ships out more than it takes in gets poorer every year in terms of real wealth. Nevertheless, there was an element of truth in it, a very practical truth at that time. The economic life was organized in such a comical fashion, that each year the country produced goods of greater value than the people of the country were able to buy back and use up. This was known as over-production, and many were the esoteric, nonsensical things said about it. But the situation was that simple. The system of necessity produced more than it consumed, of necessity...."

"Do you mean to say, that that was all there was wrong with business in the United States in my day?"

"That was all. And all of your labor troubles and poverty and physical suffering were as unnecessary as they were tragic."

Now here's Heinlein rewriting the Constitution to ensure Liberty for all (sorry, no mention of justice, but that's an interesting topic for later!):

"The members of the new Congress who had been elected on an anti-Scudder ticket were pledged to Constitutional reforms to prevent a recurrence of loss of individual liberty from any cause. In consequence, several hundred amendments were proposed in the first few days of the term. The parliamentary impasses resulted in a clever piece of lawmaking. At a caucus of the Libertarians, it was proposed and agreed to that a small representative committee draft and submit to the caucus an amendment in the form of a new constitution which, if adopted and ratified, would supersede the old Constitution in toto. The Committee consisted of 5 men and one woman, great minds, all of them." ....

"Their report was submitted to the caucus on 2028, April 20, and was debated in Caucus for 3 weeks. But the members of the committee had done their work so well, and in particular had been so skillful in retaining most of the wording of the original document, the new amendment was approved by the caucus without change, and submitted as a single bill signed by every member of the caucus. It's adoption, of course, was a foregone conclusion. It was ratified by the 37th state on 2028, November 12....

"The addition of a new restriction on the power of government. Henceforth, no law was Constitutional that deprived any citizen of any liberty of action, which did not interfere with the equal freedom of action of another citizen. Pardon me, I've stated that badly. These are the words of the new Constitution:

"Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person. No act shall constitute a violation of a law valid under this provision, unless there is such damage or immediate present danger of such damage resulting from that act.

"Do you see the significance of that last provision? Up to that time, a crime had 2 elements: act of commission, and intent. Now it had a 3rd: harmful effect which must be proved in each case, as well as the act and the intent. The consequences of this change can hardly be exaggerated. It established American individualism forever, by requiring the State in each case to justify its interference with an individual's act. Furthermore, the justification must be based on a tangible damage or potential damage to a person or persons. The person damaged might be a schoolgirl injured or endangered by a reckless driver, or it might be every person in the state endangered by the betrayal of military secrets, or injured by a manipulation of commodity prices. But it must not be some soulless, super person, the state incarnate, or the majesty of the law. It reduced the state to its proper size, an instrument to serve individuals, instead of a god to be worshiped and glorified. Most especially, it ended the possibility of the majority oppressing any minority with that hackneyed, hoary lie that 'the majority is always right.'

"In another place in the Constitution, corporate persons were defined and declared to have no rights of any sort, except wherein they represented rights of real persons. Corporate persons could not be damaged. An act committed against a corporate person must be shown to have damaged a real person in order to constitute an offense. This was intended to clip the wings of the corporate trusts, which threatened to crowd out the man of flesh and blood."

Now, there is a 3rd bit, but I haven't found the relevant section to transcribe. I'm reluctant to put it in here because I don't have the support or even the wording, just the idea as I remember it. But it's just as important as the other 2 bits. So, here goes: when the US Government created the US Bank, they started giving everyone something called "Heritage Checks" to cover their monthly expenses. Where does the money come from? The Bank prints it. They just make it up when they need it. Think that's ridiculous? According to Heinlein, it's exactly what private banks are already doing (or they were in 1939) when they make out new loans. There is no longer a gold standard, so why not print money when you need it? Money only has value because we believe it does. Producing only what America actually consumes keeps pricing down, technology eliminates most menial labor jobs, health care is free.

If you chuck out everything you think you know about today's economy and just start over fresh without a system of overproduction or investment banking, but instead have in place an economy based on a system of simply meeting people's needs bolstered by the dollars handed out by the government each month, couldn't things get simpler and actually work?

The thing about capitalism that bothers me the most is that it seems it's all about getting ahead and being on top, the flip side of which is there's always going to be someone on the bottom getting screwed. Dave's brother, Cliff, likes to demand where all the money is going to come from to pay for all the "welfare" of any move towards socialism. He is convinced the economy is going to collapse, a matter of when and not if. Heinlein answers all of that: capitalism can work without being dog-eat-dog, and there is money to pay for everything because we printed it. There is no debt if you're not borrowing from anyone to print that money. Did I mention the elimination of private banks and the formation of one national bank means no government borrowing from the banks to stay in business? It becomes a trim government, to the extreme. But in this digital age, shouldn't phrases like red tape and paperwork and bureaucracy become obsolete? If government is only there to actually run things, not dicker around with balancing budgets and infighting and passing endless laws against and for things, does it really need such bloated overhead?

So, my question to you, why aren't we doing this? Can this work? Why not?

Words are sacred to me. I love the way they sound, I love the way they look, I love the way they convey layers upon layers of meaning. They are an integral connection to our past, the most favored way to express ourselves in the present, and about the easiest way to communicate our visions of the future. Words can, and should be allowed to, live through millenia as messages from our past to our future selves. To silence speech is a wretched trampling of human rights. To erase speech, the attempt to erase our past, is nothing less than blasphemy. It is harmful to the whole of humanity. No one should have the power to lobotomize history. No one should want to.

But, alas, some poor, misinformed conservative Christians in the Netherlands have convinced their local school board chairman to do just that - at an expense of €15,000. The design work of six students - all 3,000 copies of student diaries - were destroyed for featuring Satanic symbolism on the cover. Because everyone knows that Lucifer's favored symbol is the peace sign, designed in 1958 for the British nuclear disarmament movement. Actually, I'm pretty sure that Satan wouldn't be in favor of nuclear disarmament, but the thought probably never crossed the mind of Mr. Johan van Puten.

You see, when confronted with anti-Satanic outrage by some local parents, the man did a little internet research - and seems to have completely bypassed any legitimate sources of information and instead skipped over to a site that sounds much more reliable than the likes of Wikipedia, about.com, peacesymbol.org, or teachpeace.com. No, with a little research of my own, it appears that the man decided to go with the authority on all such research matters: jesus-is-savior.com. Obviously, the wikipedia preview mentioning relevant tidbits about the olive branch and ancient Greeks just wasn't catchy enough. His eyes were drawn down to more exciting words like "Satanism", "rituals", and "Yasser Arafat" mentioned in the Google preview of jesus-is-savior.com. And like any respectable member of the academic community, he looked over the first source that supported his thesis and stopped all other forms of research and came to the conclusion that the parents were right, the peace symbol is Satanic, and the diaries must go. It was a hard decision for him, but obviously the right one: "he realises wasting good paper is a poor example to his pupils. 'But you have to understand, it was the lesser of two evils'."

Now that we've gotten down the facts - Oh, wait, those aren't the facts, now are they? I think people should be aware of some actual TRUE facts on the subject.

Here are some that our bumbling beaurocrat may have stumbled upon at his favored research website:

- the evil stems from the letter "V", because of the Masons (like Winston Churchill), the Illuminati, the Hebrew language (v = "van" = "nail" = the Brotherhood of Satan), Satan loves the five (V is the Roman sign for the number 5) sided PENTA-gram favored by Masons and Witchcraft, and is kept alive through current day usage by such Satanic cults as the Young Socialist Alliance, Vets for Peace in Vietnam, and the Students for a Democratic Society

- the ACTUAL peace sign is a Teutonic (Neronic) Cross "designed" by the Commies Gerald Holtom and Bertrand Russell, but has really been around for 2,000 years because Nero so despised Christianity that he had St. Peter crucified upside-down

- Hinduism is of the occult, blahblahblah, "witch's foot", blahblahblah, Germanic Runes, blahblahblah, Hitler, blahblahblah, Church of Satan, blahblahblah, Druids

- The Vulcan hand sign from Star Trek might be said to mean "Live Long and Prosper", but "Vulcan" was some ancient human deity who looked suspiciously like Satan, who married Venus, aka Lucifer, so Spock is the Devil!!!

- The Masons are sex fiends who wear pornographic golf pins to Church

It never ceases to amaze me just how often the truly moronic are elevated to positions of power. It would be amusing, if only for all the merry glee one could have in correcting them, except that they are doing so much harm using their defective brains to weild such power. So I will sigh at the loss of those diaries and the insult to the design work of his students, and console myself with dismantling the idiocy displayed by Mr. van Puten.

The letter "V", the Masons and Winston Churchill, certain letters of the Hebrew language, any symbol with five sides, witchcraft and Wiccans, socialists, communists, Democrats, and Vietnam Vets (regardless of their opinions on the war) are not Satanic.

Teutonic and Neronic do not mean the same thing and are not interchangeable words. Neronic refers to the Roman emperor Nero, who may or may not have hated Christians and may have crucified a few or more, but St. Peter asked to be crucified upside down as a form of humility because he felt he didn't deserve the honor of dying in the same manner as Christ. The Teutonic, Black, or Iron Cross refers to the Teutonic Knights, formed during the Crusades to aid Christians on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Crucifying someone, upside-down or right-side-up, is pretty mean but not Satanic. Christian orders, military or otherwise, are by definition not Satanic.

The peace sign was created by superimposing the semaphore symbols for "N" (nuclear) and "D" (disarmament). No crosses were broken or otherwise harmed in its creation. Jesus and the Saints were pretty much left out of it too.

The word "occult" means "of or pertaining to magic, astrology, or any system claiming use or knowledge of secret or supernatural powers or agencies. Or "beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding; mysterious." If Hinduism is of the occult, I would like Christianity to meet Mr. Pot and Mr. Kettle, both of whom share the surname Black.

The Church of Satan doesn't believe in Satan. It may sound like an oxymoron, but the Church of Satan is not Satanic.

Everyone knows that old-school Klingons look WAY more Satanic than Spock. Because Venus was a female deity, it's news to me that she could be Lucifer. Maybe it's the sexyness? So, woman is no longer of the devil, but actual IS the devil. As is love, which is also Venus/Aphrodite's domain. Or was Lucifier merely play-acting in girls clothes, a transvestite at the first gay marriage in recorded history? I've heard that the guy can be tricksy like that, but that is really something. I can see why everyone dislikes him so much, pulling one over on poor Vulcan that way. Wait... But... Are you implying that Vulcan and Venus are both Satan and thus Satan married himself? Mind. Blown.

Let this be a cautionary tale to those who would commit the blasphemy of censorship in the future: you harm your charges, you show yourself as an uneducated idiot, and you make my head hurt with your illogic. A mind-meld sounds like it could just about hit the spot right now. Peace, yo.

I like Pepper Schwartz. She's from the UW, so over the years she has appeared on local television from time to time. Usually, she is spot on. I am finding it difficult to stomach this piece she wrote for CNN where she adds to the "controversy" of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's fashion shoot with Vogue. To be fair, she attempted to be fair, weighing both sides of the argument playing out online.

Schwartz sees one side may be unfair for putting Mayer on the "role model" pedestal, but there she is, so she's sending a message that brains aren't enough. On the other hand, what girl doesn't want to be pretty? In the end, she sides with the angry mob:

"Unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration to say that Marissa Mayer is kind of saying, even though I am sure she did not mean to, that to have it all, sure, you have to be smart, but, let's face it, you also need to be beautiful."

I'm here to call Bullshit on Pepper Schwartz. So what if she is a role model? So what? Is a brainy person who has succeeded on their merits supposed to at some point start going out in public with a bag over their head? Uh, no. There are plenty of actresses and models out there who are plenty brainy, and they don't go out in paper sacks or hide their smarts. When you've got it, flaunt it. Why the hell not? Is it really a better message for young people to hear that you can't be both pretty and smart, not without feeling really, really guilty about it. We do not live in the world of Harrison Bergeron. Not yet.

I could stop there, but I have so many problems with this stance.

Halfway through reading the piece, I found myself arguing in my head with Schwartz, "But what if it wasn't a sexy pose? What if it was just a regular headshot? Photographers take a lot of pictures during photo shoots, and this is just one. What if they had gone with something else? What if Mayer is shy and this was really hard for her to do, and the photographer talked her into it? What if she is stunned to see how good she looks?"

I was aplogizing for Mayer. I couldn't believe it. Women now need an excuse to look and feel good about themselves? Would this somehow be better if she had been demure? Was that really where my mind was going? Had Schwartz considered this? Does any woman with an ounce of self-respect really, honestly believe a woman should only ever be demure in public, or else be labelled too sexy, a slut, a whore? I just don't think Schwartz has thought this out fully.

Because if she had, she would have asked herself what if it had been a man in that picture? Steve Jobs might have looked kind of silly in that outfit and that pose, but what if he did an interview for Vogue and they asked him to play "sexy" for the camera. Can you imagine what the photos might look like? How exactly do you make Steve Jobs look too sexy, to detract from his public persona of intelligence? Well, you might start by showing some abs, lifting up the shirt, right?

Mayer is fully clothed in her shot. Try again.

Give Steve some extra hair gel and zoom in on sultry eyes?

Mayer is shown full body.

What exactly is it about this shot that makes Marissa Mayer too sexy for our own good, something we could duplicate with Steve Jobs to show that a man doing the same would be just as inappropriate. Um, nice shoes? Bare calves? Have him appear to be lying upside down on a lounge chair? No, no, and no. You just can't take anything "done" to Marissa Mayer for this shot and use it to turn a man into a "beefcake" no one would respect for their mind. Because the only things "done" to her are enhancements of her natural beauty. Hair, make-up, clothes, lighting, camera angle. NO SKIN. Mayer isn't too sexy for her tablet. She's just sexy.

And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with looking sexy and being smart enough to run a company.

Next time Jodie Foster or Michelle Obama wear make-up in public, I don't expect to see a piece just as judgmental from Pepper Schwarz. I don't think she would blink. So, with eyes open, maybe you could retract this insulting bit of unnecessary commentary?

Footnote: I'm not a fan of Marissa Mayer. She set an incredibly high bar for working mothers when she went back to work after only 2 weeks of maternity leave, and then axed telecommuting for the entire company. She has since extended family leave benefits for her employees, but the woman still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not about to knock her for jumping at a chance to get gussied up for Vogue magazine though.

For those of you who know me a little, I might appear to be polite, "nice", maybe a little innocent or naive or shy. For those who know me a little more, you might add "kind" but remove the "innocent". If you think about it, hell if I think about it, you may come to the conclusion that I am one of those people who wants to be liked. However, the reality is that I truly just want to be understood, and second to that respected for the truth of who I am, even if you don't like that person. In all honesty, I can be a little mean, I can certainly be bitchy. I am the Queen of Whine, Sarcasm, and Understatement. Above all else, I strive to be Fair. In a disagreement, I want all parties to understand each other and hopefully respect each other's positions - I will usually break out into "moderator" mode to attempt accomplishing this. I find willful blindness infuriating. If you are going to hate something, you sure better understand it completely before you pass judgement. And for fuck's sake, be civil about it.

So it was more than a little surprising to me when I found myself banned from an Atheist forum. I was more than a little bit hurt. Being a Stay-at-Home Mom to a little one who doesn't yet talk, it was a nice place to find a few minutes (ok, hours) a day to rub some brain cells together and enjoy some adult conversation. Of course, that really depends on your definition of adult, but I at least always attempted to remain adult and civilized on the forum.

I was actually getting a bit annoyed with some of the members of the forum. It was getting a little predictable - far too many "let's bash religion X" posts, far too few topics that required critical thinking. I'm hard pressed to think of a single new thing I learned over the course of the few months I was active. Other than atheists have about as much in common as any two religious individuals picked at random. Or that interacting with so many people who do not speak English as their first language and who have so little in common can be quite eye-opening and frustrating and nerve-wracking.

But I tried. I really, really did. On occasion, I did stoop to berating the willfully ignorant. I'm not proud of this. But when everyone else is doing it, and the person is making you just so angry, it's a bit difficult to resist the temptation to drop the pretense of rational, civil discussion and just let loose your own angry tirade.

As far as I can tell, my few slips into confrontational jerkism had nothing to do with my ban. I usually received a pat on the back. And always, always the instigator of assholistic ignorance in these circumstances was banned. Let me repeat that: every time I stooped to a low level, the person I deemed to attack was banned, I was usually congratulated and/or agreed with, and no one on "my" side was banned.

So finding myself banned has me scratching my head. I have gone over and over in my head what could have caused it. I had few interactions in the 24 hours prior to my discovery of the ban. Oh, FYI, Facebook does not tell you when you're banned. And when you are banned from a Closed Group, you can't see the page any longer. Facebook somehow takes direct links out of your history for crying out loud. Searching for the group does not pull them up. In order to confirm that the group did not simply disband, I had someone else search for the group on another account from a different device. The group still exists, it still displays over a thousand members, it's still listed as a Closed group that displays the +Join option to another Facebook user.

So, was I accidentally deleted in a large culling of the ranks? A Group Admin had asked the Group if it was time to do this the previous day, but before an official decision was announced, that discussion devolved into some discussion of some sci-fi reference I didn't understand.

Was it my response to the member who asked how the (Christian) lunatics could be running the asylum? I rambled off a few things about Christianity contradicting itself that really bugged me, like hatred of "unnatural" gays born in a world created by a "God" who is the creator of all life in all forms who thus by definition cannot be unnatural or a mistake. How did all-powerful God allow Satan, his creation, to rebel? Why does he let the guy stick around? I mentioned a particular lack of understanding of American Christians, since Americans seem to share a DNA quirk of hating any sort of tyranny or rule by anyone other than the self, and yet American Christians are perfectly willing, happy even, to bow down and worship a God who allows so much human suffering. End comment. No anger, no bad words, just an honest feeling of dismay. The original poster "Liked" my post.

Was it my post in a L-O-N-G thread that had turned in a new direction the day before when I posted something about Evolution? My post this day began with "Way to take my analogy and run way, way left field with it guys." It went on to explain that I hadn't posted about evolution to somehow say I doubted it, but that there had been some arguing about "faith" and "belief" and some others had made comments about how frustrating the English language can be when we don't all agree on our definitions - because this was really what was at the core of this "argument", differing definitions of "faith" and "belief" - and so I posted a link to how scientists can't even agree on whether Evolution is theory or fact or theory AND fact. We had been arguing semantics, I was annoyed and so brought up another argument of semantics, and I come back the next day and my comment had begun a new argument of semantics. I also called out one person and asked him why he thought this other person was an evolution denier, when in truth he had never said such a thing but rather was trying to explain why he was in the camp of evolution still being "theory".

The Group Admin "Liked" my post. He responded with something along the lines of "and thus the evolution of a post." I loved that. I hit "Like" on his post. The end.

So we arrive to the my third and last interaction with the group. Someone had posted a link to and a copy/paste of a cutesy, feel good story about a professor on the first day of classes explaining to his students about how to important it is to pay attention to the big things in life that are the real influences on your happiness, to see how small and insignificant the rest of your life's annoyances are - basically, prioritize your relationships. Well, it so happens this professor thought that an important relationship, the first one to mention even, was a person's relationship with "God". sigh. So instead of ignoring that part and seeing the post for what it was - a nudge to remember what's important in life and not sweat the small stuff, most of the responses were negative. They ranged from "what's this drivel doing in an atheist forum?" to "I read up until "God" and then just heard blah, blah, blah" to "I have to read this shit every day, I shouldn't have to read it here". sigh. My response to all of this was something about how I was glad this was posted here, because I can use every nudge I can get to remember to step back and remember my priorities. It's too easy to get sucked into silly Facebook discussions and it's nice to get a reminder to look away and listen to my husband read to my daughter. This post is reminding us that relationships are what's important in life. Some people have a relationship with God, I don't, so I skip over that part.

Within minutes, the Group Admin, the same one whose play on words about evolution I liked so much in the other discussion, posted something along the lines of "Having a relationship with god is akin to having a relationship with the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus." That was ALL he said.

I was frustrated. He seemed to overlook what I'd said about appreciating the nudge to cherish what I cherish in life. He was focusing on the silliness of belief in God.

I have not yet mentioned that the earlier "argument" about the words "faith" and "belief" were between myself, the person accused of being an evolution denier, and a 3rd person I'll call SB. SB had become a bit of a thorn in my side, constantly putting down anything that mentioned faith, belief, religion, or "God"/god. He was really coming across as if he merely wanted the Forum to be a place where everyone either agreed with each other on how awesome atheism was, or spent their time attacking religion. No critical thought or debate or shades of gray or thoughtfulness. Just "agree with me" or "stand with me to hate them". He was the one who said he only heard "blah,blah,blah" after the word "God" came up in that silly copy/paste story about the professor. When someone called him on it, he followed that with the comment about not having to read shit like that "here". Because obviously his life is so tainted by religion, he has no tolerance for it, and wants this to be a place to go to hold up and not deal with it. I hope you are all following the irony of a person tired of religion thinking that an atheist forum is going to be a place of refuge free from discussions of religion.

SB was getting on my last nerve. That the Group Admin was giving him, and everyone else being negative about the post, a free pass to be snide against anything that dare mention "God", really chapped my ass. I waited and dwelled and considered. I took my time. Finally, I came up with a thoughtful response.

I addressed it to the Group Admin my name, and it was something along the lines of "Group Admin, your post gives the impression that you are in the camp with SB that anything/anyone that mentions god/religion is crap. I find this mentality infuriating. 99% of the people that I hero worship have/had some sort of religious belief: Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Anne Rice… Where would we be if we threw out everything ever made/created/discovered/said by someone of faith?" And I think, or at least I am very, very sure, that was all I said.

Because I was getting very, very tired of the constant need to put down everything and everyone associated with any and all religions. And the Group Admin wasting a chance to call someone, namely SB, on that position got on my last nerve. And so I said something about it. Something calm and rational. The most incendiary thing I said was the word "infuriating". I didn't say he pissed me off, or SB pissed me off, or even the discussion or any single post pissed me off. I said a particular mind-set made me mad, and it seemed that he shared it. This left room for discussion. Was that really the impression he was trying to give? If so, why? If not, call me on it.

No one responded. I went to bed shortly after this. The next morning, I dreaded going to Facebook. I shouldn't have used the word "infuriating". I shouldn't have used it when addressing the group admin. I shouldn't have lumped him in with someone I was annoyed with because he was flippant. sigh I had gone overboard and I was about to be called out for it. Dammit! But when I finally logged on to Facebook, there were no notifications from the board. No one had responded to what I'd said. Huh.

About an hour later, still no response. That's kind of odd. Considering I had left comments on 3 discussions and I should have expected a notification of someone having said something after me in at least one of them, even if it wasn't a direct response to me. I should have gotten some sort of notification about some discussion on the board. And I had none. I opened my Notifications and there were none from the group the day before. Or the day before that. Or… ever. I looked at my Facebook Page in various places and couldn't find anything about the group, nothing that I had ever said there, no mention of me being a part of it. Was it because it was a closed group? I did a search. The group did not come up. I searched my history. My history was blank except for one place, and when I clicked on it, it said the Page could not be Found.

I had Eric search for the group. He found it. I could not even find them in a Search.

I was banned.

No notice. No message. No warning. No evidence I had ever even been there.

Holy Fucking Shit.

It hurt. I'm not going to lie. I do want to be liked. I appreciated the brain stimulation. But what really bothered me was that I had been misunderstood. Somehow, somewhere, I had said something that a Group Admin had believed was offensive. And I had never, ever meant to be offensive to anyone. Not only was I misunderstood, but I was misunderstood on such a grand scale that I was cut off. I was silenced. I was never going to be given the opportunity to explain myself. I was never going to be given to the opportunity to be understood. I was never going to understand why I was not understood.

It was all so trivial. It was tame. It wasn't mean. It was rational. The only swear word I used was "crap".

I don't want to be part of a group like that. I was quickly coming to the realization that they could be just as closed-minded and bigoted a group as a bunch of Fundamentalist Christians.

But I wasn't given the opportunity to air my grievances properly.

And none of us are going to understand each other because the conversation was cut-off mid-sentence.

If only there was a way to go back, read the last page like Harry in "When Harry Met Sally". I will never solve this puzzle because the mean kid packed away all the pieces and took the whole thing home with him.

Bastards. Mother Fucking Cunt-Ass-Bitch Mother Fuckers!

I am an angry feminist. Why? Because the words "feminist" and "feminism" have become warped over the years to the point that a significant part of the population, or my friends and loved ones, don't consider themselves feminists. But in reality, dear reader, you are a feminist. If you are reading this, there is a 99% chance that I know and respect and love you. And everyone I know and respect and love is a feminist. Some of you just don't seem to realize it.

Enter Wikipedia*:
Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist advocates or supports the rights and equality of women.

Did you see that emphasis I added there to the end? It's the important bit. Oh, the first few words are pretty damn important - people seem to think there is one definition of feminist thought, and they are wrong, wrong, wrong! - but it's that last bit that makes you a feminist. Yes, you, dear reader, I'm talking to you.

This is something that has been rattling around my brain for quite some time. Many months ago, on a hunch I asked my Facebook friends and family if they consider themselves feminists. I am pleased to report that 8 people said yes, and only 3 people said no. But there were another 4 who gave thoughtful answers without answering the question. I can only assume that if they thought of themselves as a feminist, they would have said so. So that makes 7 people who do not call themselves feminists. 8 vs. 7. I don't like those numbers. It should be 15 vs. 0. Because 100% of you are feminists, I know it.

K said "No. But I DO believe we should get equal pay for equal work."
To K, I say "Equal pay for equal work is a central ideal of just about any flavor of feminism. Welcome to the Feminist Club. Do you want the bumper sticker or the lapel pin?"

P said "Well I'm not a shake-my-fist and yell "woman power" type, but I fully support gender equality. Like K, I'm not into the whole "sewer entrances" thing, but equal pay, equal opportunities, etc. Yes plz."
To P, I say "I really debated with myself on what column to put you under, but in the end you didn't say yes and you didn't self-label yourself as a feminist, so I put you in the "other" column. But I know you're a feminist. I do. I mean, you practically defined the word back to me. Would you like to sit next to K? She had the cookies last."

T said "No, I want to be treated like a human and with respect, forever the sexes are different and I don't wasn't to be treated with disrespect from other women because I'd rather be at home taking care of my family then trying to be all about having money and status in a career. I think women should just support each other, there its to much "in fighting"
To T, I say "I'm so glad you brought this up, because this goes to the core of what modern feminism is all about. Most of the feminists I know are fierce parents, many are stay-at-home Moms. And they demand to have that decision respected. You are a feminist because you choose to put family first - you made a choice about the future of your own life and you have the choice due to the feminists who came before you. So now you and everyone else better honor that or you're kicking butt and taking names. Please take a seat on the bus with your daughter, because I know you are raising her to be just as fierce as you are. There's plenty of room for your beautiful son, too."

H had a whole lot to say on the matter, "No, because the older I've gotten the more I just want to fight for the rights of people, regardless of sex or cultural background. I realize this may be idealistic/unrealistic because there are certain issues that are specific to women but in some ways I feel we have swung too far to one side. We need to find a happy medium and not pit the sexes against each other. We need to work together. My current world view centers around my children and having one of each I find it interesting the differences of how each are treated. Also because of the age of my kids, my focus is mainly on education. I see all these school programs geared toward girls, yet it is the boys that have dramatically fallen behind in school. Boys test lower in all subjects, and recently that includes math and science, more boys drop out of school and more girls go onto college and graduate from college. Women hold the majority of jobs and some how we still get paid lower. That part I don't understand and asked my own Facebook friends what they thought about it. So overall great for women, but now what about the boys? We need to help STUDENTS who need help. Education is just one area of feminism but recently this has been a focus in our family. Certainly there are many parts to feminism - equal pay, crime, health, etc but in an ideal world we should be fighting for everyone but then if everything were equal we wouldn't need to fight so much. Sorry this post was a bit rambling but I do think at the core of feminism was/is equal rights for the sexes but like I said earlier I feel we have now created situations where men have reasons to fight for their own equality but yet we women still aren't completely equal in others. So how about I'm a equalist. Just want to add, that my thoughts apply to the U.S. and other first world countries. In many parts of the world, women are suffering and there is much to be done."
To H, I say "If it's rambling, it was a brilliant, feminist ramble. I just wish you could self-label that way. You are a feminist because you want to fight for people's rights, because you are idealistic, because you want the sexes to work together, because you are concerned about the education of your children, because you rally for boys, because you are an equalist, and you realize that women in other parts of the world are suffering. Come in, take a seat next to your daughter, and make room for your son - with someone as strong, intelligent, and opinionated as yourself as his mother, he is going to be an amazing man who believes in equality.

B said "I am not clear on what it really means. I am in favor of equality. If I am in favor gay rights am I a homosexualist."
To B, I say "Tut tut. I have never said that to anyone in my life, but you get it a second time: tut tut. Don't mince words, I know you speak quite eloquently and know how to use a dictionary. You are a feminist because you are in favor of equality. Why don't you see if there are any cookies left?"

PD said "Interesting because my first thought would be no, but it is a little gray in places. I believe in inherent differences between the sexes as a generality (the average woman tends to be more emotional and the average man tends to be more physical, etc.) I think those differences need to be honored and celebrated. With exceptions, the average woman would make a terrible ironworker and the average male would make a terrible child care worker. Again, these are gross generalities. With that being said, I think there are double standards that need to be eliminated. Watching American Idol with my wife the other night, BOTH female judges were commenting on the male contestants sexiness, manliness, and such. If one of the male judges would have said to a female "I think you are so sexy and hot and I want you to have my baby", there would have been an uproar. At the same time, there are thousands of examples of men getting preferential treatment over women when none is due. I think it is the job of society to make social changes to correct attitudes, not the governments. The government has a role to make standards for themselves and to ensure businesses obey the law, yet I think it goes too far to have them decide or influence wages. I believe any job or position should be on merit alone, the ability to do that job, period. Whether it is race or gender or whatever, that should be the standard, no lower standards for anyone. In the military, women still have significantly lower physical requirements to achieve the same score and get into the same jobs, this is wrong. Men still get significantly more money in business for doing the same job as women, this is wrong also. Again, merit based and nothing else. Where I think feminism goes too far is reproduction issues. I don't think it is the job of government to force taxpayers to provide contraception or abortions for an individual. If we are a merit-based society then each person should be responsible for the decisions they make and what they do with their body. If you want to be on the pill, great. If you decide to have an abortion, that is your right, go for it. However, it is not right to make ME or anyone else pay for your decisions. Where I think feminism succeeds is changing attitudes within individuals. Most great social change starts with grassroots groups changing the hearts and minds of large groups of people to their way of thinking, not government mandating something and people reluctantly following. Equality in the workplace will happen much faster if individuals complain about inequality in their hometown company, which is where large support organizations come into play."
To PD, I say "You never disappoint me when it comes to hard topics requiring self analysis. Would you like to sit down before I continue? I don't want my favorite conservative to fall over when I tell him he's a feminist. You earned your ticket on the bus when you said the word 'celebrated' - celebrating women for being women is most definitely a feminist ideal. Your reaction to women getting away with what amounts to catcalling of men comes from a place of equality, because you made the connection that men would be treated badly for doing the same thing - wanting equality, not domination of a single sex over the other, is the core ideal of most feminists. You believe women should succeed based on their merit. You are in favor of pointing out inequality on the local, personal level. I am most honored to have you aboard."

C threw this out there while she was running by, "I like A's response."
To C, I say "I wish I could put you in the 'yes' column, but technically if you like someone's response, that doesn't necessarily mean you share the opinion. I believe that's what you meant though, and since A self-identified as a feminist, I welcome you to the bus. And let me just take this opportunity to assure you that although you may not have noticed it until recently, I am very aware that you have been a feminist for as long as I've known you and much longer than that. You raised three smart, sensitive, critical-thinking kids with your husband (FYI, I've got a pass for him if he wants to swing by later). You went to college, earned a degree, learned a profession, and pursued it passionately. You care about people and children, you support women who are alone, you give brilliant advice and heaps of moral support. You've travelled the world to help others. That quite possibly makes you the most influential feminist on this list. I salute you."

Is it getting crowded back there? Hey, T, M, P, L, H, V, A, and MD, you all be sure to make room for the new comers and give them a warm welcome. I hope you're not hogging the cookies. All 15 of you have earned your fill. Thanks for making me a happy feminist again, I love you.

So where should we take this bus next?

*For all of you Wikipedia-doubters, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, and Google definitions all agree, almost word for word.