[Miscellany]

When I heard about Thomas Beatie, the transgendered man who is now pregnant, I didn't really even bat an eyelid. Well, maybe one eyelid..but it was only for a second. I probably have more of a problem with the traditional nuclear family than I do with gays, straights, transgendered people or even men giving birth. Why? Well, I figure that if you're about to go through hell or high water like that - with your every move under scrutiny - in order to have a baby, then that means you are really going to want one. People who really want babies are probably not going to end up mistreating them or using them in order to manipulate their partners. This is more than I can say for the love 'em and leave 'em scenario that seems to happen in too many so called traditional families. In any case - this Beatie baby (if it's even true) will be born into a nuclear family anyway - (mum and dad), so neh.

Out of all the hoopla surrounding the issue it was really this quote from Thomas Beatie that made me stop and think

“Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire but a human desire.”

And I realised that no one ever really talks about children as something that men desire. Sure you hear about men who 'one day want a family' etc but I'm not talking about in these general terms - I mean the real deal; the desperate urge to have one NOW. Women (of a certain age) are consistently made fun of for having a biological clock or for being what we call "clucky" - really wanting a child. Since procreating is ..well the ONLY way of keeping our species alive and thriving you'd think it'd be a female AND male urge to want children, and I'm pretty sure it is* but it's rarely discussed in such terms. It's usually discussed more in terms of women desperately wanting a baby and trapping the poor husband/guy into being a father. It's seen as something that happens *to them* rather than something they desperately desire.

I'd like to think it IS something they desire as much as we do but I have to admit I know a lot of girls who really want babies, but not so many men who do. Maybe the guys just don't talk about it all that much. Maybe it's a big myth created by the media..to perpetuate an image of the sturdy bloke who is tough and strong and without desires that tie him down. I don't know. If this is the case, surely it's as damaging to men as much as it is to women.

Why do you think that men are not ever thought of as "clucky"? Do they have a biological clock and if so just how loudly does it tick? If the option was available would they want to "go it alone" like women sometimes do? Do you know men who are clucky (I mean who really talk about wishing they had a baby and wanting to find a girl and have one, not in some distant future but NOW, right NOW)? If you are a guy, are you clucky now, or have you ever been?


* I realise not all men or WOMEN want babies.

Labels: babies, blokes, men, pressure, questions, what men want, what women want, women, wonderings

posted by M at 10:37 pm 24 comments

sonnet cxxx

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

I've been thinking a lot about this sonnet by Shakespeare and of how beauty does not create love but that the opposite is true - love creates beauty. I truly believe that for both men and women. It's part of our complexity as humans that we don't see things as they really are all of the time. Then I had a conversation with my friend about post baby bodies and had no idea what to think.

F was saying that due to a number of factors her post baby her boobs aren't as big as what they once were. She and a similar post-breastfeeding friend of hers were wondering about having a boob job to you know..fill up again. I was dumbfounded by why someone who is absolutely angelic looking and in the prime of her life would want to have such a procedure done.

I'm going to go right ahead and make an explosive comment: Do women really hate themselves THAT much?

I know that women are the masters of their own bodies yadda yadda yadda and that if a boob job is actually going to make a woman feel better about herself then what's it anyone's business but her own? I have one word for that: propaganda!

I want to know WHY altering something that is already completely normal makes a woman supposedly feel better in the first place? It's not like an overwhelming amount of women are going into surgery to remove a third breast or something - it's usually to make something that is normal look totally generic. Why is it such a good thing for a women to look generic and why god help me I'm going to kick someone right now, do women totally buy into it? Are we completely and utterly SPAZZTICATED?

Women have boobs and they all happen to be different because duh, we women are all different. Women who have breast implants for themselves have really got to ask themselves why, if they want to do something for THEMSELVES they would want that particular something to look the same as everyone elses something? Where are these messages coming from that would cause women to think that our normal functional boobs are somehow inadequate? Why would we tell that to ourselves? Why aren't we up in arms saying 'fuck you!' about this? Furthermore the scores of women who actually say they're doing it for themselves but survey men on what MEN find attractive about boobs have totally lost me. Let me get this straight you need their opinion because you're ...doing it for...yourself? Riiight.

You want to see something a bunch of women did for THEMSELVES? These women here (click link) accepted that their breasts were completely fantastic because they were actually THEIRS. This is not a work safe site and shows normal breasts that are not pornified (made up word). I encourage you to read the submissions that the women have made about their own breasts and I encourage you to read the visitor comments at the bottom on the page too.

Surely we realise that a man who picks a woman over how perfect her breasts are is a complete moron who we don't really want anywhere near our reproductive organs in the first place. Right? I'm sure they're rapt if their lady friend has really nice ta-tas, don't get me wrong I get that much about men, but for normal penis sporting men in search of a relationship - this is not actually a factor in deciding whether they like you or not, right? If anything men are more contrary and fickle than not when it comes to the subject. They tell the small chested girl that more than a handful is a waste anyway (I hate that saying btw) and the ample bosomed girl that they love big ones. Why do they do this? Well 1) they don't want their arses kicked, 2) it's like my friend said: "the only real boobs are the ones I get to touch". Amen brother.

Basically breast implants are just a big bag of poison (okay, okay foreign matter) inserted into someone's chest. If by some grace of god you don't develop the big C from them then surely you've read the stats on how MOST implants go hard because having foreign material in your body causes your body to start attacking itself and to build a shell around the implant. Not to mention that MANY women have to go back and have them replaced anyway - if you don't your breasts will be deformed. Also it's no big secret that many of them leak and rupture or deflate.

Pro-boob job sites/articles always interview women who have had breast surgery within the last 1-5ish years. It's not to say that all post 5 year implants produce suffering but you rarely hear the success story even 10 years down the track. You hear a lot of 'I wish I never did that' 10 years later actually. I've read studies that show 1/3 of women who have surgery have two ruptured implants (or deflation or something like that) - and up to 67% have ONE implant that has ruptured and needs to be replaced. That shit is fucked up. Don't you think it's fucked up?

Anyway, I was lying in bed the other morning thinking about my friend F and her already lovely boobs and lovely life. I was thinking about her being successful in her career and how she already has the man of her dreams and a gorgeous child I just couldn't figure it out. I ultimately came to this conclusion - no women is ever beautiful enough because all beauty that is held up in consumerist society - by both men and women - is unattainable (I mean it's airbrushed for fucks sake of course it's unattainable). If no women is ever beautiful enough then she will always be vulnerable to feeling inadequate - enter boob job. Women who are totally immune to this either have a strong sense of self and trust completely that they are loved for who they are on the inside or ...I don't know, live alternative lifestyles on the fringe of society rather than the mainstream (?).

Then over the radio came the news that blew both the "doing it for themselves" and "men love all boobs because duh, they're boobs" theory out the window for me.

Zoo Magazine has a competition running, in case you hadn't heard. Male readers get to win fake implants for their girlfriend. Well, FOR their girlfriend... to UNDERGO surgery that is. Could you EVER imagine Cosmo or Cleo Magazine offering women the chance to get their boyfriend penis enlargement surgery? Could you even imagine a woman subscribing to this on behalf of her man? I really can't.

What say you - boob jobs; women empowering themselves or women duped into thinking that they are empowering themselves? What part do men and Zoo have to play in all this anyway? And with my musical Monday in mind - are all women threatened by Jolene and images of women who are perfect?

And now to a song that I only recently grew to appreciate and to a singer whose chest doesn't play even a part in what I think of her music. Funny how that works eh?

Jolene - Dolly Parton



Honorable mention to The White Stripes whom have done a BRILLIANT cover of this song.

Jolene (under the Blackpool lights) - The White Stripes




[I just need to clarify here that I'm not talking about post breast cancer mastectomy augmentation or any medical procedure to do with boobs like back problems or inverted nipples etc]

[I also know women who have had boob jobs who love them, I don't doubt that women love their fake boobs - you'd better love them after spending 10,000 on them, I just wonder why we have to have them in the first place!]

Labels: boobs, men, pop culture, pressure, rant, what men don't see, what women want, why, women, wonderings

posted by M at 1:47 pm 23 comments

I decided to beat prin to the punch this year by getting some displays up early for our parent information night next week (we had another parent night last week too, I have no idea why they can't just combine them). Last year in my first year of teaching art Prin decided to suddenly spring btw the whole school needs to be decorated by you two days before the night. This year I am on my game. Oh yes! Of course since the school is doing a lot of pre-testing at the moment I haven't actually taken the whole school for art yet. I have no art work to put up at all. I've gotten around this by putting up only photos. In order to fill up the mammoth sized boards though I've had to take a hell of a lot of photos. It's been very fiddly and expensive but it's the only thing I can think of that will tide me over until the art program officially starts.

Instead of teaching art I've been back in the classroom subbing for their teacher who is doing pre-testing. It's actually been a lot of fun being back in the classroom. Having one grade exclusively for a few days in a row seems like such a luxury to me now. You can follow up on discipline properly, you can carry work over and there's a hell of a lot more control and downtime. I think I'd like to move back into the classroom in a couple of years. Maybe even next year. I love battling with them through their learning difficulties. I want to teach them to write perfect sentences and how to use different strategies to add. Then again...I love the freedom the art program affords me. I love the excitement in the kids when we learn something new in art and I love the lack of parents being aggro.

I had a taste of it in the classroom this week. Since we are officially only 8 days back the kids are still being tested for reading/writing/maths. Typically what happens with children's reading is that over the holidays they lose a bit of practice and so when tested teachers will find that they move down a couple of levels. This is VERY short lived and the kids are back on track very quickly. In the classroom I was in, the teacher hadn't tested reading yet so for one week she put all kids back one level so they could get used to reading again and then when she tests them next week they will be on their correct levels. Of course I had a bazillion anxious parents in with me complaining that their children were not progressing in this class. I wanted to shoult, we're EIGHT DAYS IN, go take a valium! But somehow managed to channel the spirit of Mother Theresa and was serene and sweet instead.

Kids get stressed when parents are obsessed about their progress. I caught a 7 year old BAWLING her eyes out in the corridor the other day. When I asked her what the matter was she could hardly speak for all the gasping and crying. I'm n-n-not s-s-sma-a-a-art enou-u-ugh! she eventually said. Talk about heartbreaking. I know this child very well. I taught her two years ago and she didn't match up to her peers academically. I wanted her to stay down but her parents wanted to move her up - so she did. The next year the gap between her and her peers widened even more. The damage has already been done. She feels dumb. Never mind that she's a beautiful kid, great artist and great dancer. None of that counts...even though it should.

It's a tragedy for which both teachers and parents are to blame. Kids have way too much pressure on them to succeed in Literacy and Numeracy. Schools put pressure on them because results count these days (I mean they're even talking about paying teachers according to the results they get - ridiculous!). And parents put pressure on their kids by being obsessed with reading scores and how much homework they're getting and their successes in school. Parents compare results in the yard and so kids compare each other in the classroom too. The whole thing depresses me a lot.

Maybe I do want to stay in the art room.

Labels: obsessive parents, pressure, school, stressed teachers

posted by M at 8:29 am 16 comments