In The News and On My Mind: School’s Back In Session

“Watching the news in the evening is a bit like being on an emotional Tilt-aWhirl. “Isis now sets people on fire.” “Harper Lee has a new book out!” “Some oddballs are bringing measles back because they’re scared of autism, which is a bit like saying I’m worried about birthday candles, so let’s start a forest fire.” “It’s going to be gorgeous this weekend!” “Look, a politician being deliberately rude.” “And also, look at these adorable puppies!” My limbic system does not work that fast!”
–JEG

Labor Day was Monday and now it’s back to school. This week is, thought by many, to be the end of summer.

A lot of what’s been going on in the news, I’m not sure, should be talked about. I’m not sure those I am referring to deserve to be mentioned by name, so I am going to try my best not to.

Instead, because these stories are still on my mind and, many are extremely bothersome, I will focus on recognizing those who do deserve it, just to balance things out a little.

***

Not sure how I feel about the British monarchy, but I did watch

“The Queen”

in theatres, on its release, and again, on television the other night.

It’s sixty years of Queen Elizabeth and Britain is celebrating her this week.

At the moment, those making the news with names I hesitate to mention include: a “comedian” who believes fat shaming is acceptable, another “comedian” who has gone on the record and defended rape, and the continuation of the circus around next year’s US elections.

There is a difference between honesty and bullying behaviour. It’s a fine line and I don’t know where that line is. We’re much too serious these days, we must learn to laugh at ourselves, but that can hurt when you constantly feel as if you are the one being laughed at and the universe always seems to be making jokes at your expense.

I don’t know what right anyone has to say any woman is “unrapeable”. I’m sick and tired of men like this, making stupid statements like that, falling back on the “innocent until proven guilty” line. I also don’t care how important of a TV sitcom doctor/father icon anyone was for the African American community during the eighties.

As for all talk of building a wall and kicking people out, splitting families up, this is likely a non issue anyway, but, I must admit, I do look forward to Colbert’s Trump jokes over the coming months.

Then there’s the judge who is becoming some kind of right fighter for the cause of religion and biblical belief. She has the right not to do anything she doesn’t feel sits well with her and her God of course, but she does not have the right to go against the newly set law of United States, as it has been set. The world is becoming a more accepting place, overall, and those who wish to fight this will get left in the dust of the past. Why do we seem so keen to stop progress and challenge love? It’s fear. We can’t let fear rule over common sense.

There’s been more news, stories every day, about the flooding of mostly Syrian refugees, into neighbouring, European countries. Boat. Train. On Foot. They keep on coming.

Images are powerful. I heard something about the image of a dead child on a beach. I can’t see it, but the visual in my head is still heartbreaking.

Germany is being praised for its acceptance of these people, so desperately in need and so is Iceland.

What about Canada? Would we here step up as well? What if I had to flee my home? Wouldn’t I want a safe place to open their arms wide for me and my family?

The decline of the once so self righteous Ashley Madison cheating website continues and I was, admittedly, happy about it from the start.

Then, last week, a literary website that featured a short essay of mine back at Christmas ran into some issues. There was a hack or a virus and the person running the site wasn’t sure everything would survive.

How Cranky is Our Little Editor? – Brevity Magazine: Precise Literary Nonfiction

I have included a link, in a past blog post of my own, to my essay on that site. I was worried that would be lost forever, as sometimes backlinks fail. This has happened with things I’ve written, guest posts I’ve done previously.

Surely, my glee at the misfortune Ashley Madison’s been having wasn’t resulting in karma being directed right back at me, was it?

🙂

I offered up that possibility, on Brevity’s Facebook page, that it may have all been down to it being my fault, and thus issuing my sincere apologies to them, assuming this might be the case.

All the names of those caught using the cheating website have slowly been released. This included a member of America’s most notorious TLC family of religion, and multiple children, so recently known to have been outed for sexually abusing his sisters over the years. Not to mention, the head of the cheating website himself.

He swore, although he ran it, he never used it personally. Yeah right!

One of my favourite late night television segments joked about the hack:

Jimmy’s Thank You Notes – Ashley Madison

Although the fate of Ashley Madison may be in question, Jimmy is right. Like a phoenix that rises from the ashes, it could always become OKStupid! This is because I believe people would continue to share their private details and take foolish risks and engage in secret keeping against those they claim to love.

Again, I hate to pick on them and specifically the guy who ran it. Anyone who can convince so many men and women to hand over their most precious personal information (names, addresses, credit card info, fantasies) may think he’s clever, but may not be making the wisest of choices, even for himself.

As the new school year begins, there is more of an uproar on the newly revised sex education curriculum in the schools here, last updated back in 98 and as school has begun, certain parents are keeping their children out of the classroom.

I don’t know what these parents are imagining. It’s as if they are picturing daily sex ed classes, all day every day, all year, from September until June, with a continuous bombardment of sexually descriptive indoctrination, but, from what I heard, the sex ed program is only days long and isn’t even scheduled to begin until the spring. So, these children aren’t missing anything, right now, other than the usual: math, science, and language arts. The only damage being done is that the children are pulled out of regular classes, with their peers and friends, into a make-shift class, organized by the fearful parents themselves.

I like how Canada and the US seem to be so afraid of the proper education, our priorities so horribly messed up on so many things, but something as important as sexual health and physical safety are left up to the internet and tales told out on the playground. Maybe we should have Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver explain the whole thing to us all:

This week, not only has school resumed, but the late night TV wars are beginning.

I like Stephen Colbert and I have been looking forward to his taking over of David Letterman’s spot.

I watched the premier and it didn’t feel all that different. Speaking of the cheating website’s troubles:

“With this show, I begin to search for the real Stephen Colbert. I just hope I don’t find him on Ashley Madison.”

Sure, he is now no longer playing a role, but just being himself. I just couldn’t tell. The tone in his voice and his style of speaking were very nearly what they were on The Colbert Report. I am glad because that’s what I like about him, all political affiliations aside.

I’ve always loved Conan and Fallon is always entertaining. I rarely have stayed up until midnight to watch, often preferring to check specific clips out on Facebook and YouTube after-the-fact:

Letters From Kids – Suggestions For Jimmy

A lot of these shows have been bringing the children into their skits lately. The other Jimmy has been asking kids a lot of interesting questions in his segments. It’s always a slam dunk with the audience.

***

I just saw a goofily-captioned picture of a puppy right next to a photo-story about the awful things we did in Hiroshima 70 years ago. How can we be the same species who loves cute puppies and came up with such a terrible idea as an atomic bomb? This being human is a strange thing.

Indeed, JEG, indeed it is. Let the stories about cute puppies and children always be there to balance out the horrible headlines about injustice and hatred.

She’s The Bomb

Say what you wanna say. And let the words fall out. Honestly, I wanna see you be brave.
– Brave, Sara Bareilles

With all this talk over the past few days of feminism, what with the speech heard around the world by Emma Watson at The United Nations, I thought today was a good time to share this.

There is a website I like to read, which posts interesting articles by young women with unique points-of-view.

I would call myself a feminist, but I too have had a hard time defining what that meant. Here is someone who knows a little something about it.

She is the creator of

TheFBomb.org.

She is a feminist, a blogger, and an author.

I contacted her a while back about doing an interview with me, to find out what feminism means to her and what she aims to do with the website.

Welcome Julie.

***

K: What is the FBomb.org?

J: The FBomb is a feminist blog written by and for young women and men who believe in equality. While I founded and edit the FBomb, the blog is really an open platform and community based on submissions and exists as a space for a younger generation to define what feminism means to us.

The blog is called (the FBomb) to poke fun at the way the term “feminist” is often vilified, in the hope that socially aware and passionate readers and contributors could reclaim this negative stereotype and show the world that feminism is really a beautiful, positive movement that, at the end of the day, is about the pursuit of equality.

K: How did you decide to start this site?

J: I first became interested in feminism in 8th grade when I started to research the movement and specific feminist issues for a required speech. With the guidance of some great teachers my freshman year of high school, I discovered the world of feminist blogging. I was so inspired and excited by bloggers who took feminist issues seriously while maintaining a sense of humour. the only issue I had with such blogs was that the teenage perspective on most issues – even issues that directly impacted us, like sex education, for example — was missing.

Additionally, I really wanted to create a community where young feminist-minded women and men could come together, share our ideas and offer each other support and advice. It was important to me that an adult or a corporation create this community, but that it was authentically peer-driven.

K: What are your hopes for this site, its future, and what it can do for women and men alike?

J: The FBomb just partnered with the Women’s Media Center, the non-profit organization founded by Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan, which aims to make more women visible and powerful in the media. I think this partnership will help this goal by allowing young women and feminist-minded men to develop and use their voices and giving them a platform from which they can add diverse and vital perspectives to the blogosphere and media at large.

On a more personal level though, I think the FBomb has and continues to allow young feminists to find a community and develop a stronger sense of identity as well.

K: What does feminism mean in your eyes?

J: Feminism is, on the most basic level, the pursuit of equality. Feminism as a worldview is about recognizing that people face a variety of different kinds of oppression due to their personal standing in the world (based on socioeconomic factors like race, class, religion, ability, etc.) that intersect to create unique experiences, but that any type of oppression is unjust and must be critically analyzed and pushed back against.

K: What do you think are still some of the biggest battles or issues women face in our world today?

J: I think it’s difficult to isolate certain issues because every woman, based on her perspective and place in the world — faces a unique intersection of challenges and this is why the feminist movement looks, feels, and serves a different purpose for everybody depending on where they’re coming from and who they are.

However, sexual assault and gender-based violence generally is an incredibly pervasive issue that impacts women young and old. For example, as many as 1 out of every 4 college women will experience attempted or completed rape during their time at school. Issues related to body image (including eating disorders, unrealistic standards of beauty in the media, etc.) are also incredibly pervasive amongst young women and an issue many teen feminists focus on.

K: Do you have any idols or role models in particular for yourself or for feminism as a whole? Do you see any women who are making positive changes and providing examples for young women to look up to?

J: Like most feminists, I always have and always will admire Gloria Steinem. She’s such an incredible icon for this movement. She’s an incredibly intelligent and charismatic leader and it’s undeniable that she completely changed and continues to change the way our society views women.

Female politicians – like Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren – are also doing fantastic work to advocate for women. and there are also plenty of women doing incredible things around the world – Leymah Gbowee’s work with Liberian women is astonishing, Zainab Salbi’s work with women for Women International is vital, and there are so many more.

the bottom line is there are plenty of people doing incredible feminist work and making positive change in the world: they just don’t always get the widespread recognition and media attention they deserve.

K: What do you think are the misconceptions people have about all things feminism?

J: In my experience, I’ve found that the biggest reason young women shy away from identifying as feminist is because they don’t feel that they really understand what the movement is or what that word means. Plenty of people still associate feminism with negative stereotypes, but I think more than anything else misconceptions about the movement stem from a lack of education about and exposure to it.

I find that my generation is more willing to identify with and support feminist issues than any other generation in the past (and the statistics back me up on that – according to advocates for youth, 74% of millennials support gay marriage, 68% support access to abortion and 88% support to comprehensive sex education) but more often than not, unfortunately, they don’t realize that that’s what the feminist movement is all about.

K: What’s your best advice for a woman with a disability like myself, or women with other additional challenges in general?

J: My best advice for women facing any challenge is to speak up about it. I started the FBomb so that young adults could find a place to feel that their stories and perspectives are valuable and that speaking out about our individual challenges will help us feel less alone and hopefully work to demystify and eventually eradicate prejudice based on ignorance. I truly believe in that mission: every voice deserves to be heard and the most radical thing one can do is to use theirs to advocate for change.

***

Thank you so much Julie for answering my questions and for everything you do to speak up for women’s rights and equality for all.

To find out more about Julie you can check her out

HEre,

or at her website:

http://juliezeilinger.com

and you can read more on The FBomb, on

Facebook,

or On

Twitter.

and I will be submitting something to the FBomb to speak up, just like Julie suggested because I too feel like I am tired of remaining so shy and staying so quiet.

BRAVE

What are your thoughts on feminism and what it means to be called a feminist in our world today?