While the mice are away...

Because obviously the cat is here... The Bosses are out enjoying the day with their family, so I thought I would break my internet silence for a post. :)

Life has been pretty standard fare of late. Not too much out of the ordinary going on.

Although! This weekend I *finally* managed to FINISH The Autumn Queen, who I have since dubbed Mary. Points if you can figure out why. ;) Anyway, she's done, she's beautiful, and I took pictures that will be posted later. If you care about that sort of thing. Now I just need to save the mega-bucks to get her framed.

Kyle is doing fairly well in his rabble rouser class, though it's still definitely a work in progress. Last week we actually let all the dogs meet each other. And Gus, who Kyle has had such an issue with, turned out to be the more dominant of the two. Which was apparently fine with Kyle. In fact, once that was established- Kyle wouldn't leave Gus alone and HAD to follow him everywhere! I guess he liked it... A LOT. Seriously, the boy would not leave Gus alone, would get between Gus and the other dogs... It was really funny.

Hubby and I went to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on Sunday. Now, I really liked the first movie- it was a lot of fun, Johnny Storm especially. I'm not sure why other people didn't like it. The second one was much fun too, but not quite like the first one. Some of the character banter seemed diminished. But I *loved* the way they did the Surfer, using Laurence Fishburne as the voice was just amazing. I do love that these four don't have secret identities. Makes things more believable to me- rather than the 'oh I have glasses on' sort of disguise.

The kitties are doing well. Sasha still rules Kyle with an iron paw 'o doom. Leo still harasses Sasha, so it all kinda works out. In non-related news, it looks like I will be heading to Philly come September in order to visit my older sis and her hubby. :) My parents were planning to go, so I'm going to tag along. Poor my hubby- he has classes he won't be able to miss and thus won't be able to go. But someone needs to watch the animals, right? ;) Wow, this will be my first 'trip' in almost 5 years!

So yeah, that's my world at the moment- how's you?

Gender Equality (POAC?!)

Note to readers- the below discusses violence- just so you know. If anyone asks me to cut-tag this post I will.




So I got to thinking about assault and equality. This has been mulling around in my head for awhile now- but a recent post I saw brought it back to mind.

*First things first- hitting people is wrong.* Just to get that out of the way.

Now, I've been watching the first season of Battlestar Galactica recently, well, I have one more disc to watch so I'm not done yet. Yeah, I'm a little behind- so NO spoilers for Season 2+! The scene that brought up my equality thoughts specifically is one wherein there is a confrontation between Apollo (male) and Starbuck (female, in case you don't watch). She gets angry to the point where she slugs him, so he slugs her right back. I could have cheered.

Because that my friends is equality in my mind. Remember, hitting is wrong. However, if a woman is going to slug a man I don't see why his slugging her back is so awful. This idea that 'hitting a woman is wrong' counters the whole 'men and women are equal' thing, at least in my mind. How is it so much worse for a man to hit a woman than vice versa?

How is it equal that a woman can be assaulting a man, beating him with whatever comes to hand- and yet when he hits her back he becomes the bad guy? Sorry, that just doesn't work for me. If person A hits person B, then person B should be 'allowed' to defend themselves. If a woman is going to take a swing at a man, she better be prepared to have him react. Same thing for a man, if he's going to hit a woman, he should be prepared for her to react. How can there be equality when we tell a man he can't hit her because she's what? Weaker? Unable to defend herself? How can a woman be equal when she knows she can hit a man and have him be the bad guy if he reacts in kind? Or at the very least have him ridiculed for being weak for allowing her to hit him?

When people talk about a man hitting a woman it seems like we all have this mental image of a Bluto (from Popeye) going after an Olive Oyl. A situation where one punch from him might kill her. What are we really saying with that? That men are brutes and women fragile and unable to actually cause damage to said hugely brutish man? But what if the situation were more Xena and Joxer? Which of them is in more danger of being actually hurt by the other? Now those are somewhat larger than life examples, but it seems to be that mental images aren't always realistic.

How can there be equality when there's such a double standard? There will always be certain physical differences that are simply not able to be overcome no matter what society says. However, social differences CAN be overcome so that it's your person that matters- not what sexual plumbing you have. (Especially considering that some people identify with the gender of the opposite plumbing they have!) That's the big deal to me- the PERSON should matter, their personality, abilities, interests and training. Who is best for a job? Well who fits based on the just mentioned traits? Gender should be less than an issue than those things.

Equality isn't just about the good stuff (same pay for the same work, etc.) it also has a down side.

All this said, there's nothing that says that an individual can't decide for themselves how they want to be treated. If an individual woman wants to be coddled and treated like a helpless kitten- groovy, if she can find someone to fulfill that. However, that's not the same thing as society as a whole expecting that all women want to be taken care of all the time. Some women might prefer being the one to take care of their partner. Some men might prefer to stay home and raise the kids. Everyone should be free to make those choices for themselves. That's equality to me.

So in closing the moral of my story- if you want true equality between the genders, and you're going to hit someone, be prepared for them to hit you back, no matter what their gender (or yours).



Addendum: I am NOT talking about domestic violence here. That's a whole other ball of wax and tends to involve more psychological issues than merely physical violence. We see countless cases of domestic violence that involves a female victim, and it's horrible. Yet, it's just as horrible to be the male victim of domestic violence. Eradicating abuse of loved ones would be a great thing, as would accepting that it's not just a women's issue.