Because it's sexier.

A growing body of work is suggesting that the human brain is very similar regardless of sex.  Another growing body of work is suggesting that both sexes want exactly the same things in life.  These studies imply that the two sexes are not as different as we are told as we grow up.

But when I discuss this topic with folks, they just don't want to know, don't want to hear about it.  The denial is almost absolute.  They put their hands over their ears and close their eyes.  Folks WANT the sexes to be different.  Why?  When pushed, most of them feel it just wouldn't be very sexy if everyone were the same; it's what's different that makes us attractive to the opposite sex.

Huh.  So where does that leave competitive women?  Or submissive men?  Where do these folks fit into the grand scheme of things?  Well, they are usually labeled as odd and shunted off to the side with all the other fetishists.

However, I believe that current 'norms' in sexual behaviour are actually fetishist and, further, if we just allowed folks to be themselves, sexual behaviour might ease into a more natural expression of honest emotion or honest desire as opposed to being rife with power plays as it is now.  Who cares who's submissive?  Who cares who's in charge?  Who cares who makes the most money?  It's just sex.

Society has so much to say about sexuality -- 'normal' behaviours, professions, even colours to wear.  Such small boxes to force people into, very tight patterns of living.  Now.  Why does society push so hard if people are naturally this way?  Surely, there wouldn't be so much pressure to conform if folks really developed gendered behaviours naturally.

Answer?  You wouldn't have to say a thing if folks naturally developed stereotypical behaviours along gendered lines.  So, so.  People do not naturally develop gendered behaviours.  They conform to them.  And some folks at great cost.

And wouldn't it be great if you could just be yourself?  Because, honestly, I think that's sexier.

Subversive by Walking

I am honoured to know and pal about with some fantastic people.  We talk a lot about what's wrong with the world and how to save it.  Sounds a bit arrogant, eh?  I'm not sure who we think we are, but there it is.

Some very good folks feel powerless, however.  They can't see how to get out of the matrix, if you'll forgive me, of modern life.  The cycles of consumerism, the idiocy of distraction, the pressures to conform.

Just how do you give up your nice house, your SUV, and your two weeks in Florida when that is all we're told we should want from the moment we understand speech?  The answer seems to be this:  Be yourself.

Be yourself in all your quirky goodness.  Turn off the TV (it will only make you jealous and needy, anyway) and indulge yourself in your bug collection, your fascination with fungi or the cosmos, or writing the next great Canadian novel.  Or fiddle about doing a bit of theatre, like me.  Whatever, whatever.  Just make sure that you are doing what you love when have a bit of time to do something.

You'll be too busy to watch TV, then, I think.  Too busy to care about Lost or what Brangelina are up to.  How radical.  How much more at peace would you feel if you miss those dozens of commercials every night telling you you're too fat, your house is too dusty, or your teeth are too yellow?  And just by walking, by breathing and being, you get to be subversive.  Awesome.

All that talk I indulge in with my friends?  I am aware enough to know that it amounts to very little.  It's the walking that does it, really.

Give yourself a shake.

I have often said that the current Canadian government is supporting policies that, somehow, seem anti-Canadian, anti-humane, and anti-me.

I look at a website like http://rethinkalberta.com and I am reminded, again, about the mentality of the type of people who are, clearly, funding Mr. Harper.  The pictures, the video, the dirty, nasty truth of oil extraction from the tar sands in northern Alberta seems not like reality, but like a nightmare.  And when one realizes that the oil companies (who are willing to pollute the land so horribly for a few barrels of oil) are providing the money behind Mr. Harper, a lot of things make sense. Only a certain kind of mentality would willingly pollute such a beautiful country when alternatives are to hand.  This kind of rape of the land and its people has to stop.


I am pretty sure that there is too much at stake here to trust government or big business to do what's right.  They are chasing the big bucks of popular opinion and, by definition, cannot show us the way.  So we must change popular opinion, change the minds of the people who consume the energy.  One mind at a time, I suppose.  I wish I could just give every Canadian's shoulder a gentle shake.  Wake up!  I would whisper it, gently.

Perhaps just getting the word out will help.  Maybe less people will consume petroleum products.  Maybe less people, by their consumer choices, will fund Mr. Harper.  Maybe.  You never know.

A new study suggests...

Right, right, right. Can someone please link to the study so I can read the bloody thing myself and make my own determination about what it says.  (And I know someone out there will read this blog and google the study better than I did and send me a link...but why not cite the darn thing in your newspaper article...!)

For example, some comprehensive study on working parents and the effect on their children was recently done in the UK.  17,000 kids were included in the study.  Right, great.  Leah McLaren of the Globe and Mail did what the Globe and Mail always does:  assuages its readers that everyone should be working (in a ridiculously sexist way of course, assuming that the mother would be the only one making the choice to stay at home).  Other takes on this study suggest that children in homes in which both parents are working experience an unhealthy lifestyle.  Still googling, folks.  As soon as I get my hands on the info, I'll get back to you on my take.  And I'll include a link to the study itself.

However, I am starting to believe that because we are all human (not machines) that the very act of choosing a parenting style makes it the right choice for your family.  If we do what we believe is right, this choice often happens to work out best for you.  So, so.  Some parents are ambivalent about parenting; it's probably better if they go to work.  Some parents are committed to the idea of hands on parenting.  So let them.  It's all good.  I am uncertain why we have to come out one side or other.

And while I'm at it, can we please start using the word 'parenting' and stop using the word 'mothering'.  Anybody?  Anybody?

Because we create our own future.

Why would Stockwell Day want to spend billions of dollars on prisons we don't need?  Doesn't make any sense.  The crime rate is down and has been dropping consistently for a long time.  So, when queried, Mr. Day told us that he is building these prisons on spec because of the huge rate of unreported crime.  Um, sorry?  Obviously, this makes no sense.

But what if we look at this in another context?  What if it's not supposed to make any sense?  What if this a tactic designed to make us feel a little more uneasy, to distract us?  What if this government is trying to emulate another, equally scary, regime?  What if Stockwell Day is doing his bit to be like the Dubya?

And just when you thought George Bush was finally gone.  Here, there be his ghost.  Fear mongering was a favourite tactic of the Bush administration, allowing Bush to encourage the people of his fine nation to wage (what I consider to be a largely personal) war, ignore real financial crisis in the making, and lock their doors against the monsters that lie without.  Well, we now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, no real external threat.  We know that we should have been more vigilant and that banks can't be trusted.  And still, the crime rate is dropping.

What was the result of Dubya's largely successful attempt to distract his public?  Where there was no real threat before, now there is anger.  Violent anger directed at the United States.  Not that folks didn't resent the country before, but now?  Well, now they're more motivated.  Funny how we can create our own reality.

So, Mr. Day, I am inclined not to be distracted so that you can get your pet project built. Why not just admit that you were putting the funds where they're not needed and move on.  I know.  Instead of trying to scare me, why not spend some time trying to find out where the funds could really help?  It's radical, I know.  But I think you can do it. 

And this way, you won't create a reality in which those prisons are filled.  I don't want that future.
 

On summer camps and the wind.

I have never really felt more disconnected from current society as I did when I read this article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/back-to-school/students-in-year-round-schools-do-better-study-shows/article1663859/

Essentially, this article reports that children do better at school if they stay in school (or school-like activities) all year around.  Why?  The children don't have two months to forget their lessons.  Subsequently, teachers don't have to waste time on review and can pick up immediately in September as they left off in June.  Okay.  So all those parents who paid thousands of dollars putting their children into enrichment camps all summer can heave a sigh of relief and feel that they are, truly, giving their children a better start.  Funny, I always thought summer camps were glorified baby sitting services.  Well, perhaps I was wrong.

But I can't help asking myself this question:  Are schooling scores a true test of a great education?

Similarly, I often ask myself if money is really a true test of the wealth of a human being.  The answer to this questions is no, of course not.  Some of the greatest human beings in history were as poor as the wind and the grass but they managed to make real, positive, and lasting contributions to society.

So, summer vacation.  Does it have a real, positive, and lasting contribution to make to childhood and, subsequently adulthood?  Who knows?  It's never really been studied.  But I remember those long, long summer days and how I invented myself over and over in imaginative play.  How I was free to make my own way in the world, to make my own decisions, my own rules. And I cannot imagine what kind of person I would have become had I been told what to do all the time.  Would I be this independent, this creative, this bloody minded?

Well, I expect I would be more docile, more likely to do what I was told by whatever expert has an opinion.  Perhaps, instead of writing this blog, I would be watching TV.


I have chosen to let my child run freely as much as possible.  She has done exactly no summer camps in the last three years.  She's over at the park right now with her friends.  Right now in the wind and the grass.  Inventing herself.

I'll take my chances.

Coming Clean

I am trying, very hard, to cut out nasty chemicals from our household.  A few months in, I have a few observations on Green Cleaning:

1.  It is just as effective as the noxious household cleaners.  The bathroom is sparkly.
2.  It requires a little more elbow grease.  And I don't mind mucking in now because no longer are the fumes making me feel ill.
3.  I have to clean a little more frequently.  My husband and I thought about this and both assumed that chemical household cleaners leave some kind of residue.  Fine, I will clean a little more frequently and skip the residue.

That's it for now.  No idea whether this is cheaper or not.  Just feeling better about the overall air quality in the house.  Cheers.