Staying up until 2am generating AutoCad files makes me tired.
Every time I go and get my hair cut, the stylist blow-dries my hair and puts product in it. Plus or minus the birkenstocks and B.D.U.s, I invariably come out looking like Peppermint Patty. She always makes comments like, "Boy see your hair, they say, she so funky, go crazy. I know. I'm a funky lady, if they think you too funky, you no need them. You no need men like that. You have style. No one else can cut your hair." And then teases me about wanting my hair so short. She's really quite funny.
I wish I could get haircuts all the time.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Monday, January 01, 2007
In the News
By way of Feministing and CNN: A serial rapist targets men in Baytown, TX.
It's severly disappointing, even beyond the obvious problem of sexual predation. Here's why:
The U.S. Justice Department says one in 33 men in the United States has been a victim of a rape or attempted rape, compared with one in six women. Experts say men are far less likely to report a rape to authorities, because they fear being perceived as weak or see the attack as an assault on their masculinity.
In fact, investigators in Baytown fear there may be other victims of the rapist who are too ashamed to come forward.
"There's a lot of emotional damage that goes with being raped, especially when the victims are men," said Lynn Parrish, a spokeswoman for the National Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. But she added: "The best way to get this rapist off the street is for more people to come forward."
I support RAINN, but I don't see how anyone who's dealt with rape victims can even comment that rape is somehow especially more damaging to men. In any situation where a victim feels as though they will be perceived as weak or personally compromised, they will often be too ashamed to come forward regardless of their gender. When a man, particularly a heterosexual, is assaulted by a male attacker, that provides disambiguation of the act -- he would never willingly be on the "receiving end", therefore there is no question that he was raped. In comparison, how many instances of female sexual assault aren't even referred to as rape? How many cases are dismissed (in the court of public opinion, if not legally) as a situation where the girl was clearly asking for it? Is it somehow less worse for women because during consensual sex we would willingly be on the receiving end, or is it because more women are raped and somehow that ubiquity makes the act less terrible to endure? I would argue that the more abiguous the situation surrounding an assault, or the more closely it parodies an act that you might otherwise be able to enjoy, then the more damaging the experience and the more difficult it is to report. But no matter who you are, how old you are, or what gender your attacker was, rape is emotionally damaging, and you should be able to come forward without being perceived as weak, un-masculine, whorish or what-have-you.
A victim is a victim -- straight up.
It's severly disappointing, even beyond the obvious problem of sexual predation. Here's why:
The U.S. Justice Department says one in 33 men in the United States has been a victim of a rape or attempted rape, compared with one in six women. Experts say men are far less likely to report a rape to authorities, because they fear being perceived as weak or see the attack as an assault on their masculinity.
In fact, investigators in Baytown fear there may be other victims of the rapist who are too ashamed to come forward.
"There's a lot of emotional damage that goes with being raped, especially when the victims are men," said Lynn Parrish, a spokeswoman for the National Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. But she added: "The best way to get this rapist off the street is for more people to come forward."
I support RAINN, but I don't see how anyone who's dealt with rape victims can even comment that rape is somehow especially more damaging to men. In any situation where a victim feels as though they will be perceived as weak or personally compromised, they will often be too ashamed to come forward regardless of their gender. When a man, particularly a heterosexual, is assaulted by a male attacker, that provides disambiguation of the act -- he would never willingly be on the "receiving end", therefore there is no question that he was raped. In comparison, how many instances of female sexual assault aren't even referred to as rape? How many cases are dismissed (in the court of public opinion, if not legally) as a situation where the girl was clearly asking for it? Is it somehow less worse for women because during consensual sex we would willingly be on the receiving end, or is it because more women are raped and somehow that ubiquity makes the act less terrible to endure? I would argue that the more abiguous the situation surrounding an assault, or the more closely it parodies an act that you might otherwise be able to enjoy, then the more damaging the experience and the more difficult it is to report. But no matter who you are, how old you are, or what gender your attacker was, rape is emotionally damaging, and you should be able to come forward without being perceived as weak, un-masculine, whorish or what-have-you.
A victim is a victim -- straight up.
