Sharks At the Shedd!!!

I shot this footage of full-sized sharks when Edward and I went to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago a month ago.  I edited the video by splicing together different segments and adding music to hide the background noise.  It's REALLY neat!!!

My Name Is Not Suzy Q. Homemaker

Until the day comes when I will pack up my belongings and move far away, one annoying aspect of living in a small town (or the entire Midwest region for that matter) that I must deal with from time to time is that I often get asked by people, "Why aren't you married yet?"  "Why don't you have any kids yet?"  "You need to hurry up and settle down, that's what you're supposed to do."  "You should be taking care of a home and a family instead of running around doing all the stuff you do."

Really.  Says who??

I must have missed the memo that I'm supposed to settle down and start reproducing and baking apple pies.  Where is this life rule written down or carved in stone at??  And what exactly is the punishment for not following this "rule"??

I don't think a lot of people realize that not everyone is cut out for that kind of life.  And I think it's especially difficult for people in rural small town communities to understand that concept.

There's a good reason why I haven't settled down yet. When I think of married life with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, I picture mini-vans, PTA meetings, frumpy clothes, shuttling kids to and from soccer practice, doing laundry, watching soap operas, and having the most exciting part of your day be trying to decide what to fix for supper.  I've read enough daily Facebook status updates from married moms to get a pretty good idea of what married family life is like.  And honestly, it doesn't sound that appealing to me.  I actually gave this "happy homemaker" life a try once several years ago when I lived with my boyfriend and his 4-year-old son for a few months.  That was long enough for me to find out that it was physically & mentally exhausting, dreadfully boring, and spiritually draining.  Following them both around the house picking up after every mess they made day after day got old REALLY fast.  I'm not trying to knock down homemakers or insinuate that no woman should ever want to live that kind of life, because I know that there are many women out there who do live the kind of life I described above and and do seem to enjoy and thrive in it.  It's their niche.  I think it's perfectly fine if other women want to have that life.  All I'm saying is that I'm a different kind of person and the only way I could ever put on an apron and devote my life to cooking, doing laundry and dishes, and cleaning up after a man and kids is if I were pumped full of Prozac and had a steady supply of martinis handy. I'm just not cut out for that kind of life, and trying to push me into it isn't going to do any favors for me or the rest of society.

You see, I've learned something about myself in the last few years:  I like my freedom.  A LOT.  I like being able to do what I want without having to answer to anyone.  I like being able to come and go wherever I please anytime of the day or night.  I like being able to spend my hard-earned money on myself.  I like being able to relax whenever I feel like it.  I lilke being able to travel to far away places at the drop of a hat.  I like being able to be in beauty pageants & fashion shows, read books and do research, and do all of the other activities I love without being hampered in any way.  If I were to settle down and become a typical wife and mother, a lot of that freedom would end.  And for me, that is a sobering thought.

I'm also what you'd call a "glamour girl".  I love high heels, gowns, designer accessories, big sparkly jewelry, and red lipstick.  I have a lot in common with women like Marilyn Monroe and Elle Woods from "Legally Blonde".  That's my role in life and I embrace it completely.  I've known that's the kind of woman I wanted to be ever since I was a little girl.  I'm also very career and goal driven.  I have a few social causes that I completely throw myself into.  My mission is to one day have a job that will allow me to work in one of the causes I support.  If possible, I would LOVE to work somewhere in the media, whether it be on TV, radio, or internet.  My great-aunt says she can totally see me doing that.  I just don't see how either of these roles could ever coincide with the type of life that everyone else seems to think I should have.  It would be like mixing oil and water. You know, there's a good reason why our feminist foremothers fought so hard to give future generations of women more options for their lives--because the rigid housewife-and-mother role that all women were forced into decades ago does not work well for everyone.

Does this mean I am completely opposed to ever being married or having kids?  Not necessarily...but I am definitely very leery of it.  It's not just the idea of losing my freedom and all the things I enjoy doing in life that turns me off on the idea, but the fact that the majority of marriages nowdays last no longer than a few short years doesn't make me anxious to jump into this either.  Right now, at least 90% of my married friends and peers are on their 2nd or 3rd spouse.  Yikes!  I don't want to leap into marriage and family life because I'm "supposed to" only to end up with TWO jerk ex-husbands battling me for child support & visitation and a handful kids with different fathers.  And I definitely don't want to end up like some people I know who rushed into marriage only to find out that they aren't right for each other but are forcing themselves to stay together in a miserable marriage because they have a child together.  Who the hell would ever want to live like THAT and fight with each other all the time and be miserable everyday??  I might eventually be open to the idea of it as long as no one tried to make me fit into some rigid stereotypical role that I'm not meant to fulfill or strip me of my freedom and identity.

However, I don't think people realize that even if I ever did agree to settle down someday, my daily life as a wife and mother would STILL be quite different than most people's. For starters, I would absolutely keep and maintain my career. Being a stay-at-home wife or mother is just not doable for me. If I had to stay home everyday, I'd go stir-crazy. I have to be out in the world doing things. I also refuse to sit idle and let someone else financially support me. It just wouldn't feel right to me. I feel that as long as I have the ability and the will to work and contribute, I should. I get a lot of satisfaction and pride from earning my own money. Secondly, I don't want to "lose myself", which often happens when you devote yourself to raising kids. I don't want the highlight of my day to be finishing the laundry or trying to think of an idea of what to cook for the next meal. I don't want to post Facebook updates about what I cooked for lunch or supper as if it was the only exciting part of my day. I don't want to drive a minivan, listen to Kidz Bop CD's in the car, or let my appearance turn into rundown and frumpy. I REFUSE to ever trade in my stilettos and pant suits for tennis shoes and T-shirts!!! You can see where I'm going with this. One of my friends once laughed and said to me that if I ever became a wife and mother, my life would look a lot like those women on "Real Housewives" or "Pregnant In Heels". Haha! Not exactly, but she makes a good point--Even if I did decide to settle down like everyone else, I will never be anything like June Cleaver or Roseanne, so I would probably STILL get a lot of static from people for not living a "normal" life. So what's the point?

Our culture has conditioned us to label women who display apprehension or displeasure at the thought of marriage and motherhood as "selfish".  And yes, some people do call me “selfish”, “self-centered”, or “materialistic” for being so apprehensive about settling down and not wanting to accept the roles and characteristics that our society thinks women my age should embody.  And you know what?  They’re absolutely right...I AM materialistic, selfish, and self-centered.  Not having to worry about anyone but yourself is a privilege few people get to enjoy at my age. I like it that way.  It saves me a lot of stress and drama.  As far as being materialistic and selfish goes, I like nice things, I know what I want in life, I go after it, and I refuse to settle for anything less.  What’s wrong with that?  Nothing.  My current lifestyle isn’t hurting anyone.  It’s not like I’m out there exploiting people or taking anything away from them.  I have my favorite charities and social causes that I heavily support, and I’m always happy to help someone in need or share what I have with them.  Other than that, my life is mine to enjoy. I’m in no hurry to settle down and put my needs & wants behind someone else’s.

If it seems like I am being overly critical of settling down, it's because having other people constantly trying to push that way of life onto me only makes it seem even more unappealing to me.  Nothing makes me turn up my nose at something quicker than when I sense that it's being pushed onto me.  There's no such thing as a "normal" way of life anyway.  Don't they know that?  Why can't people just live and let live?  Why do so many feel the need to tell others how they should live their lives and what paths in life they should follow?

I think my Uncle Mark has the answer to that question.  He has a phrase that explains it all:  "Misery loves company."  The people who are truly happy being married and raising kids aren't the ones bugging me to settle down like them, because they're too busy enjoying their own lives to bother hounding me about mine.  It's the ones who aren't truly happy or satisfied with their lives who are on my back all the time.  As Uncle Mark says, these people aren't really happy with the way their own lives turned out, so they want everyone else to follow in their footsteps and be miserable right along with them.   The ones who are always giving me static about not settling down yet have either never experienced the kind of freedom I enjoy, or at one time long ago they enjoyed being free before they settled down and now they look at me and miss that old freedom.  Either way, they resent me being free to do what I want and that's why they want me to hurry up and be just like them.  Another explanation is pure jealousy.  To put it quite frankly, there are some people out there who just cannot stand it that I have won a few pageant crowns, modeled in a few runway fashion shows, and have appeared in a magazine a few times.  And they hate and fear the fact that there is nothing they can do to stop me from succeeding and doing what I love.  So all they can do is try to pressure me into settling down and having children in the hopes that I will then be too tied down to continue doing the awesome things I've done.  Well I can see right through their ploy and I am not falling for their game.  Calling me a "spinster" and telling me that unless I have children RIGHT NOW my eggs will dry up and I'll never be able to have children in the future is not going to convince me to run out right now, grab the first man I see, drag him to the marriage altar, start pumping out kids, and stay at home to play Happy Wifey and Mommy instead of striving for success. So stop wasting your time.

Anytime someone insists that others live the same way of life that they do or follow the same beliefs that they do, that is indicative of an underlying problem.  It is never OK to insist that everyone else be just like you or dictate how other people should live their lives.  You certainly don't see me demanding that everyone else turn away from marriage and motherhood and compete in beauty pageants or do any of the things that I do.  I'm perfectly happy to let others alone to live their chosen lives, and all I want to do is be free to live my life without anyone else trying to push me into a lifestyle I don't want or tell me that my way is "wrong" or "abnormal".  And again, I can't help but think that this will happen only when I finally relocate to another region of the country where I will fit in better and where nobody will bother to care about how I live my life.

Congress says birth control is OK for wild horses, but not for women.

Which of these two would get birth control if the anti-choice leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives gets its way?

Politico and RH Reality Check are reporting that anti-choice Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana has introduced an amendment to a spending bill that would promote contraception--for wild horses.

This comes at the same time as the anti-choice House leadership is pushing to eliminate all funding for Title X, the nation's only domestic family-planning program for humans.

House members fighting to preserve a horse's right to birth control would be laughable, if they weren't trying to block women from accessing contraception at the exact same time.  You know what this move says??  It says that our own government considers the worth of a woman & her health to be less than that of a horse's.  Hey, Rep. Burton, Afghanistan called...they said they'd like you to give them back their views & opinions on women that you borrowed from them.

 

As a woman, I am utterly insulted.  And every other woman out there readig this should be insulted and outraged, too!

Ohio “Heartbeat” Bill Could Ban Abortion Just 18 Days After Conception!!

(As reported by Feministing)

Ohio lawmakers will soon introduce a new abortion bill that would make abortion illegal as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected, a move that some commentators say would mean a complete ban on abortion.

The “Heartbeat” bill will apparently be introduced later this month, right before Valentine’s Day (Get it? Hearts! Why let an unprecedented attack on women’s bodily autonomy get in the way of your seriously tacky marketing?) by Republican Representative Lynn Wachtmann. The bill is the first of its kind in the country, and if it passes we can expect copycats from other strictly anti-choice states like Texas and Oklahoma.  Robin Marty, writing at Alternet, explains why this bill would be tantamount to a complete abortion ban:

By establishing heartbeat as the criteria for banning abortion, the bill effectively rejects abortion from any point after roughly four weeks post conception, a time in which fetal heartbeat can be seen via high quality ultrasound machine. For most women, that would provide a window of two weeks or less in order to learn she was pregnant, make her decision about the pregnancy, arrange for an appointment, gather money for an abortion, obtain the mandatory counseling and sit through the required 24 hour waiting period. For a woman with irregular menstrual cycles, by the time she realizes she is pregnant it likely would already be too late to do anything but continue the pregnancy.

As Marty points out, this bill is, at first glance, less restrictive than the absurd “personhood” bills we’ve seen in the last few years, most notably in Colorado. Those bills grant constitutional rights to fertilized eggs and embryos, which of course do not have heartbeats. But the “heartbeat” bill is far more targeted at abortion than the personhood bills, which also inhibit IVF and some intrauterine contraceptive devices. While these lighter restrictions sound better to pro-choice ears, Marty sees them as a curse rather than a blessing. “With ‘Personhood,’ pro-choicers were able to hang all women’s autonomy together,” she says. “With ‘Heartbeat’ anti-choicers are trying to isolate women who want to terminate pregnancies, targeting them in isolation.”

If you are in Ohio and want to get involved in efforts to stop this bill, contact Planned Parenthood, which divides the state into Northeast, Southwest and Central Ohio. This is serious, and something I’ll be keeping a close eye on. If you’re in-state and want to get involved, don’t put it off!!

US Conference of Catholic Biships Speaking Out Against No-Cost Birth Control in the New Health-Reform Law

(As reported on NARAL's Blog For Choice)

More than 30 million American women need access to birth control. But, for many, it's simply too expensive. One in three women has struggled with the high cost of prescription birth control at some point in her life. 

Fortunately, the days of unaffordable birth control could end. Under the Women's Health Amendment, which is part of the health-reform law, contraception could be classified as preventive care. This means that it would be available to women at no cost in insurance plans that will be part of the new health-care system. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America cited this progress when Congress passed the health-reform bill last spring. Now we and our network of 21 state affiliates are making the push for no-cost birth control one of our top priorities this year. Donna Crane, our policy director, testified yesterday before a special panel appointed by the Institute of Medicine. She urged the panel to make birth control available at no cost, and explained that such a decision would mark a major step forward in helping women prevent unintended pregnancy:

In addition to bringing more than 30 million Americans into the health-care system, the federal health-reform law presents an unprecedented opportunity to improve women's access to comprehensive, preventive reproductive-health care by ensuring the affordability of family-planning services for all women. The current "system," such as it is, is expensive, uncoordinated, and, frankly, patchwork at best. Consequently, the United States has a far higher unintended-pregnancy rate than other industrialized countries.  Nearly half of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended, with more than three million unplanned pregnancies occurring each year.

Predictably, anti-choice forces, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Family Research Council, already are trying to block women's access to birth control. Their reasoning? According to one anti-contraception group, "We don't consider it to be health care, but a lifestyle choice."

NARAL Pro-Choice America will continue working to ensure that no-cost birth-control coverage is included as an essential part of the new health-care system. A decision on whether to include birth control as preventive care should come within the next year.

Mexican Women Convicted of Homicide for Abortion

(As reported on the Ms. Magazine Blog)



Six Mexican women have been sentenced to 25 to 30 years in prison on homicide charges for aborting their pregnancies.

Of the six unplanned pregnancies, two were because of rape. One woman miscarried. Activists say all six women, residents of the extremely conservative state of Guanajuato, were abandoned by the men who got them pregnant.

In this decade alone, more than 40 women have been put on trial for abortion in Mexico, a criminal offense that is punishable by up to three years in prison under the penal code.

Currently Mexico City is the only place in Mexico where abortions can be performed legally. In the last three years 40,000 women have undergone abortions in Mexico City and, of those, 1,200 have traveled to Mexico City from other states.

Reproductive rights groups in Mexico are fighting to expand abortion rights outward from the capital and to other parts of Mexico.

Marcy Bloom, an officer for the Informational Group on Reproductive Choice, GIRE, said:

The struggle for Mexican women’s reproductive rights is a very rough road, as it is for women and girls everywhere in the world, but I do believe that we will ultimately prevail as GIRE and other women’s groups in Mexico stay focused on working for women’s respect and access to legal and safe abortion for all.

GIRE played a critical role in the decriminalization of abortion in Mexico City in 2007.

14-Year-Old Bangladeshi Rape Victim Flogged To Death

(As reported on Ms. Magazine Blog)



Hena Begum, a 14-year-old old Bangladeshi girl, was publicly flogged recently in Shariatpur, 35 miles outside of the capital, Dhaka after being accused of having an affair with her 40-year-old old married cousin. According to the BBC, a village court made up of Islamic clerics and elders sentenced Begum to 100 lashes under Islamic Sharia law. The girl lost consciousness after 80 lashes and her family, who were also ordered to pay 50,000 taka (approximately $700), took her to the hospital where she died six days later.

“What sort of justice is this?” Begums father told the BBC.  “My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice. If it had been a proper court then my daughter would not have died.”
As for the “affair” accusation, Bangladesh’s Daily Star suggests that Begum was actually raped by the cousin.

Four people, including a Muslim cleric, have also been arrested in connection with Begum’s death and the police are looking for an additional 14 people who were involved. The country’s High Court has ordered officials in Shariatpur to explain why Begum was sentenced under Sharia law, since Sharia punishment was made illegal in October 2010. That’s when the High Court declared Bangladesh a secular state, making the issuing of fatwas illegal and a punishable offense.

Begum’s death is a testament to how, despite efforts by Bangladeshi women’s rights groups and civil society, the legal system in the country remains inaccessible for the majority of the population. It often fails to protect those who need it the most: women and children. Longtime Bangladeshi women’s rights activist and former Member of Parliament, Tasmima Hossain, explained the situation to me:

The legal system in our country has failed to reach the ordinary masses. Neither the Government nor the NGOs or any legal system is physically or financially accessible to 90 percent of the people. They cannot afford it. So the primitive Sharia law takes advantage of that in the name of salish, or arbitrary rulings like we have seen in the case of Hena Begum. The so-called mullahs and local village leaders take advantage of the situation in the name of religion.

The BBC reports that dozens of fatwas are issued under Sharia law each year by village clergy in Bangladesh, and this is the second death linked to Sharia punishment despite the practice being outlawed: In December, a 40-year-old woman died in the Rajshahi district after she was caned publicly for having an affair with her stepson.