[10 Feb 2008|12:07pm] Don't touch a girl she Hurts them all Hovering between your bed and night table And late at night empty-eyed Reaches out with Arms unstable Not quite so monstrous but The only true fable For god's sake don't do it If you are somehow able Tugging at britches she Wants to play and Squints at words you're Obliged to say her Empty eyes will stay that way and Your bright ones a small debt to pay The church goes on without a sound The beasts despite, I have found But she is somewhere deeper down A toothless tramp chasing the town And no getting to sleep tonight Though trying hard wit all one's might A barefoot slut of conditional delight To choke her to sleep slowly in spite Ginnie Rotten Born Forgotten Come to play under the stars Ginnie Sweets With your sapphire feet The nights go backwards but the nights are ours Ginnie Dear Needn't fear They can't take away what you don't have Ginnie Girl Out of this world They cut your throat and they cut you in half Why can't I button the top button. All the milk has gone sour under my nose and my comforting morning granola is suddenly less than satisfying. I grab the bundle of paper on the counter and leave the door, the flimsy screen top layer clicking by the time I reach the mailbox. Foolish for I know it is too early for the mailman to have arrived. I close it carefuly to see if any neighbors or such have been witnesses to my sad meaningless fantasy life. This is what I am good at and I know so enough to not need someone telling it to me. MY manuscript hidden under my puffy coat; the biter cold will make one unpleasant Waiting For The Bus. When I enter the escalator going down to the subway cars someohow my button is neatly closed. I dislike the foreigners with their gigantic coats families and luggage yet I am made immesnsely uncomfortable by them for I know they see how week I truly am; they all stare. And my day begins. My days consist of frequent trips to the bathroom; such inconveniences are attributed to numerous health problems I am too afraid to learn anything about; thus I am the victim to side effects. In the train I sit next to elderly women with hearts heavy feet and bags, we invisiblu whisper words of comfort to each other passionately, somewhat, as the grain grittily gusts itself deeper into the hells of the stompy city. Stomping on other's feet and they just turn around and glare at me, shutting me out into the cold. But what have I got to lose, after all. My publisher cousin tells me something big is gonna come my way. Big changes are gonna happen. My horoscope says to start planning my future now. IO find comfort in the anonymous permission it gives me; the invisible giant hand patting me in some direction. 1 Comment

[25 Mar 2007|11:51pm] I. Since the days of Ancient Greece women have been perceived as inferior to men. A. The only way to make it up, as to feel useful and purposeful in our society, is for women to use their beauty and charm to get somewhere ahead of men. B. In the Victorian age, women were responsible for domestic duties, and often spent day after day in the home. C. We have yet to have a female president. D. Because of women’s desire to feel useful in our society they often and throughout history take extreme measures to get ahead using their looks. E. In The Politics of Cosmetic Surgery and Asian American Women by Eugenia Kaw, Kaw claims that “As women, they are constantly bombarded with the notion that beauty should be their primary goal.“ II. Image is everything. We as Americans idolize the look of others. A. Body image is impacted by the girls we stare at in their bikini photos B. Young adolescents ironically are those most drawn to these magazines, as statistics show. Are these magazines a detriment to society? III. Fashion models are too skinny. A.Over the last 10 years the BMI requirements for runway models has dropped increasingly B. Anorexia and cocaine go hand-in-hand with high-end fashion shows. 1. Ribs and hipbones stick out of their skin. Girls see these models as role models and see it as image of success C (or should this be a new body paragraph). Eating disorders among young girls are higher than they’ve ever been 1.age starts earlier D. Hollywood also victim of need to be outrageously thin 1.movie roles are at stake for she who weighs the least,as is believed. a. These celebrity women are supposed to be our role models 2. Is this considered brainwashing? 3. Will America ever once again be satisfied with a natural body image? E. Mary-Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie are probably the most talked about role models for girls. 1. Coincidentally are the “skinniest” 2. Both have admitted to having eating disorders 3. Both young women are in their early 20s, the age most adored by pre-teens. 4. This is what Hollywood sees as a successful and glamorous lifestyle. IV. How far back does this self-sacrificing desire to achieve the ideal body image date to? A. 1700s: women were known to bind their feet as tightly as possible in order to have tiny feet, a sign of femininity that was considered attractive. B. Up until the 1920s women from their early teens strapped themselves into corsets, an apparatus tightly squeezing the waist in as far as possible, which often led to physical complications of the digestive system that could not be retracted; yet women still took pride in their tiny waists. 1.In Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, the first page notes that Scarlett O’Hara, the heroine of the novel, had the smallest waist in three counties. She was adored by every man who met eyes with her. C.1920s: after women gained the right to vote and slowly became more accepted in our society, women would bind their chests with various devices to flatten out their bustline in order to appear like men; the gender that seemed to have all the advantages in the world. 1.We don’t see men altering their appearances in large fads over history, even up to now, to be accepted in society and appeared as attractive. 2.For women, being attractive is a major contributor to success whereas men can be considered ugly and still end up with the better jobs and more money. D. In Ancient Greek culture Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty. She was very well the first image of what is beautiful and what is not for women to look up to. 1.Aphrodite was often referred to as perfect, and could easily get any man she desired. 2.Perhaps this made her the most powerful of all the female deities, because with the ability to get any man she pleased she therefore could find a sort of equality with the man who became her prey. a. She was self-absorbed and sought after, and this was forgivably so. Paris even decided her the fairest of all the goddesses, simply because of her aesthetics. B.What message does this give women? The most physically attractive is the most successful and of highest value. V. There are most definitely biological differences between the two sexes. A. Women live four years longer than men on average. B. Statistcally, women go for jobs which involve people and interaction with their environment, while men seem to be much more content keeping to themselves to keep the family going. C. Men are physically stronger than women. They needed to hunt to provide for the family. D. There was a feminist movement starting in the 1800s. They wanted the right to vote. E. Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte: female authors at the time who discussed the hardships of being a woman in society. F. Sigmund Freud wrote Totem and Taboo, explaining that men are the more dominant sexually. VI. Women’s body image issues lead back to the earliest beauties we know. A. Our media-obsessed generation is to blame B. It’s barely considered an issue these days because it’s expected. Comment

[25 Mar 2007|10:53pm] Since the days of Ancient Greece women have been perceived as inferior to men. Therefore, the only way to make it up, as to feel useful and purposeful in our society, is for women to use their beauty and charm to get somewhere ahead of men, or at least feel they are entitled to as much worth. Even in the Victorian age, women were responsible for domestic duties, and often spent day after day in the home. They were not allowed to be part of the man’s world (Gatlin). Now, we have yet to have had a female president in this country, simply because we as a whole country think it’s more of a man’s job. Because of women’s desire to feel useful in our society they often and throughout history take extreme measures to get ahead using their looks. In The Politics of Cosmetic Surgery and Asian American Women by Eugenia Kaw, Kaw claims that “As women, they are constantly bombarded with the notion that beauty should be their primary goal.“ Plastic surgery, extreme cases of dieting, and altering parts of the body to unhealthy measures come up decade after decade in new extreme and shocking ways. Firstly, there are most definitely biological differences between the two sexes. Women tend to live four to five years longer than men (it can be argued that this is to take care of a family for a longer period of time). Statistcally, women go for jobs which involve people and interraction with their environment, while men seem to be much more content keeping to themselves to keep the family going. Historically men are better at math than women. Men are physically stronger, as since the beginning of humanity the men needed more strength to hunt and more stamina in order to go long distances to find the resources to support the family. In modern times the role has stretched out naturally, as it would without a catalyst to make a severe worldly change in gender roles. Men have jobs that are far less physically demanding, with far less pressure as the only one in the family capable of keeping the family alive. Women, however, because of the modern technological advances, making them just as capable and adapted to physical equality, are resentful because all they seek is equality after so long. There was a specific era known as the feminist movement which took place in the late 1800s. Initially it began when women felt they deserved the right to vote (probably after slavery was abolished and women felt it was their turn for equality). They fought for almost three decades until finally, in 1920. Even authors of the time, such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, subtly expressed their frustration with the chauvinistic environment they lived in at the time. Right around this time a pshychologist named Signmend Freud wrote a book called Totem and Taboo. In this book he expressed some of his theories (which all revolved around sexuality, for the mostpart) that there was an Oedipus complex in every child (named after Oedipus, the character made famous by Socrates for murdering his father and falling in love with his mother) claiming that every child has an incestuous desire involving their opposite-sex parent. He went on further to explain his beliefs on male dominance; that is to say that in every sexual relationship, which therefore, because of his beliefs carries out into any sort of male-female relationship, the male feels he must be the most powerful, and is the most powerful. Despised by women at the time for being a male chauvinist, he changed the minds of American psychology forever nonetheless. Also during the 19th century to the early part of this century, prostitution was finally becoming a political issue. While in Ancient Greece, prostitutes almost had a higher place in society than other women (they had the ability to pay taxes and and received very large amounts of money for their servies, therefore being seen as successful) it was about time that women were tired of having to hide behind their sexuality as a means of success and financial security. Prostitution, though it is currently illegal, is still in practice all over the world. However, women now for the mostpart turn to prostitution as a sort of "last resort"; inability to get a job anywhere else, while women over a hundred years ago chose it to get a job because of the lack of opportunities to get a career elsewhere. Therefore, women now face much more self-shame if they choose this career path than they did, because it represents a whole new level of inability to "get by". In a society in which women feel inadequate to men, image is everything. Besides the fact that we feel it is our only strength above men, we as Americans idolize the look of others, and in many cases will do whatever it takes to mimic those we view as beautiful and therefore powerful and successful. Body image is impacted by the girls we stare at in their bikini photos. Young adolescents ironically are those most drawn to these magazines, as statistics show. Are these magazines a detriment to society? It’s true, however, that women and men at the beginning of time were intentionally biologically designed for different roles. The man got the food, risked his life every day, built a home with his strong muscles while women stayed home, watched after the children and cared for the domestic aspects of the family’s dynamics. However, now things are slightly different. Technology has more or less taken over our needs to have gender roles. Large factories make food for us so that men don’t have to go out hunting each day. We have stronger houses, healthier formulas for babies so that women don’t need to spend every waking second with them to keep their fragile infantile development intact. We have nannies now because both men and women have jobs. Similarly, gender cannot be equated with biological and physiological differences between human males and females (anymore). The building blocks of gender are socially constructed statuses (Lorber). Until a catalyst comes along in this issue, women will forever make less money, have less job opportunities, and be expected to take care of the home. While women have much better jobs than they did say 50 years ago, there will always be a stereotype that cannot be broken because, as men put it, “it’s a man’s world.” Women therefore cannot deny the fact that after all this effort we put into equality with men, gaining the right to vote, feeling more liberated and homogenous in our fashion, we are still treated differently. Women recruits in the U.S. Marine Corps are required to wear makeup…and they have to take classes in makeup, hair care, poise, and etiquette (Lorber). Even in the progressive media world, women have their own uses; to model pretty and expensive clothing is something that women are supposedly “good at” and have a purpose for. If this is what women are supposedly good at, isn’t it ironic that this represents the powerful female making her own living, and yet they still fall under the criteria of what is beautiful and what is not, trudging down runways and looking blankly in magazine advertisements, never having their voice heard? Nowadays, fashion models are too skinny. Over the last 10 years the BMI requirements for runway models has dropped increasingly, when the standard accepted by the World Health Organization is that anyone with a Body Mass Index (BMI) under 18.5 is underweight. (nbc). Anorexia and cocaine go hand-in-hand with high-end fashion shows. Ribs and hipbones stick out of their skin. Girls see these models as role models and see it as image of success. In a December deal with the Italian fashion industry, designers there agreed not to hire models younger than 16, and to require that all models submit proof that they do not suffer from eating disorders (access hollywood). However, the only reason such a change is being made is because of complaints and criticisms sweeping across the world about how these “beautiful” models influence young girls to turn to anorexia nervosa and bulimia to receive the same results. Anorexia nervosa is a disorder in which there is an intense fear of gaining weight, one loses at least 20% of their body weight in rapid time, the menstrual cycle temporarily ceases to function, and the victim has a distorted body image (i.e. looks at their emaciated body in the mirror and sees disgusting amounts of fat which are not really there). Bulimia is an eating disorder which incorporated “binging and purging”, or eating an enormous amount of food and vomiting it back up immediately. Both give the victim a sense of control over their own body, and a reason to feel good about themselves. Eating disorders among young girls are higher than they’ve ever been. Increasingly prevalent in the past two decades, anorexia nervosa and bulimia have emerged as major health and social problems (mcclang). The age for a girl to develop such deadly eating patterns starts earlier on average every year. Eating disorders come from a combination of environment and genetic makeup. Being exposed to an environment with a lot of emphasis on thinness can put someone with a predisposition to eating disorders at a very high-risk situation (access hollywood). Hollywood also victim of need to be outrageously thin movie roles are at stake for she who weighs the least,as is believed. These celebrity women are supposed to be our role models Is this considered brainwashing? Will America ever once again be satisfied with a natural body image? Mary-Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie are probably the most talked about role models for girls. Coincidentally they are constantly called the “skinniest”. In recent weeks, Nicole Richie’s weight has dropped to around 90 lbs (people magazine). Both have admitted to having eating disorders. Both young women are in their early 20s, the age most adored by pre-teens. This is what Hollywood sees as a successful and glamorous lifestyle. How far back does this self-sacrificing desire to achieve the ideal body image date to? 1700s: women were known to bind their feet as tightly as possible in order to have tiny feet, a sign of femininity that was considered attractive. Up until the 1920s women from their early teens strapped themselves into corsets, an apparatus tightly squeezing the waist in as far as possible, which often led to physical complications of the digestive system that could not be retracted; yet women still took pride in their tiny waists. As an article for the Victoria and Albert Museum stated, “The woman battles against the restriction of her undergarments but to no avail. She is doomed to her position in society: a slave to fashion, corseted and striving to be pleasing to men, whatever the cost.“ In Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, the first page notes that Scarlett O’Hara, the heroine of the novel, had the smallest waist in three counties. She was adored by every man who met eyes with her. 1920s: after women gained the right to vote and slowly became more accepted in our society, women would bind their chests with various devices to flatten out their bustline in order to appear like men; the gender that seemed to have all the advantages in the world. We don’t see men altering their appearances in large fads over history, even up to now, to be accepted in society and appeared as attractive. For women, being attractive is a major contributor to success whereas men can be considered ugly and still end up with the better jobs and more money. In Ancient Greek culture women were definitely treated as inferior to men, with only their beauty to validate their worth in society. For instance, Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty. She was very well the first image of what is beautiful and what is not for women to look up to. Aphrodite was often referred to as perfect, and could easily get any man she desired. Perhaps this made her the most powerful of all the female deities, because with the ability to get any man she pleased she therefore could find a sort of equality with the man who became her prey. She was self-absorbed and sought after, and this was forgivably so. Paris even decided her the fairest of all the goddesses, simply because of her aesthetics. Then there was Pandora, from the story “Pandora’s box.” According to the myth, Pandora opened a container releasing all the evils of mankind-greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining- leaving only hope inside come she had closed it again (Wikipedia). Why did Pandora carry out this task, instead of a man, to open the box full of evils, according to the story? Perhaps the curiosity and foolishness which drove Pandora to open the box were forever after viewed as typical attributes of women and supposedly justified their inferiority to men (Wikipedia). What message does this give to women at the earlier parts of history? The most physically attractive is the most successful and of highest value. Women’s body image issues lead back to the earliest beauties we know. Our media-obsessed generation is to blame. It’s barely considered an issue these days because it’s expected. Comment

[25 Mar 2007|01:23pm] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040102092401.htm There are most definitely biological differences between the two sexes. Women tend to live four to five years longer than men (it can be argued that this is to take care of a family for a longer period of time). Statistcally, women go for jobs which involve people and interraction with their environment, while men seem to be much more content keeping to themselves to keep the family going. Historically men are better at math than women. Men are physically stronger, as since the beginning of humanity the men needed more strength to hunt and more stamina in order to go long distances to find the resources to support the family. In modern times the role has stretched out naturally, as it would without a catalyst to make a severe worldly change in gender roles. Men have jobs that are far less physically demanding, with far less pressure as the only one in the family capable of keeping the family alive. Women, however, because of the modern technological advances, making them just as capable and adapted to physical equality, are resentful because all they seek is equality after so long. There was a specific era known as the femenist movement which took place in the late 1800s. Initially it began when women felt they deserved the right to vote (probably after slavery was abolished and women felt it was their turn for equality). They fought for almost three decades until finally, in 1920. Even authors of the time, such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, subtly expressed their frustration with the chauvinistic environment they lived in at the time. Right around this time a pshychologist named Signmend Freud wrote a book called Totem and Taboo. In this book he expressed some of his theories (which all revolved around sexuality, for the mostpart) that there was an Oedipus complex in every child (named after Oedipus, the character made famous by Socrates for murdering his father and falling in love with his mother) claiming that every child has an incestuous desire involving their opposite-sex parent. He went on further to explain his beliefs on male dominance; that is to say that in every sexual relationship, which therefore, because of his beliefs carries out into any sort of male-female relationship, the male feels he must be the most powerful, and is the most powerful. Despised by women at the time for being a male chauvinist, he changed the minds of American psychology forever nonetheless. Also during the 19th century to the early part of this century, prostitution was finally becoming a political issue. While in Ancient Greece, prostitutes almost had a higher place in society than other women (they had the ability to pay taxes and and received very large amounts of money for their servies, therefore being seen as successful) it was about time that women were tired of having to hide behind their sexuality as a means of success and financial security. Prostitution, though it is currently illegal, is still in practice all over the world. However, women now for the mostpart turn to prostitution as a sort of "last resort"; inability to get a job anywhere else, while women over a hundred years ago chose it to get a job because of the lack of opportunities to get a career elsewhere. Therefore, women now face much more self-shame if they choose this career path than they did, because it represents a whole new level of inability to "get by". Comment

[21 Sep 2005|01:41pm] Haha. A secret journal. For "writing". Comment

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