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Appease or Alone

February 11, 2013 By 52 Comments

Sleeping BeautyWhether negotiating a peace treaty between warring nations or who will do the dishes, each side has in mind a desired outcome. The parties come to the table girded for a war of words, their negotiating tactics firmly in mind. Each party, whether they admit it or not wants the upper hand, wants to win.

Do you find yourself wanting to win? Maybe just who makes the coffee in the morning or whether the coffee cup belongs in the sink or the dishwasher sometimes these simple things grow into what breaks us with resentment. Marriage, partnerships whatever we find ourselves in are not hearts and flowers all the time despite what we would like others to believe; indeed they are often something far more challenging than negotiating a piece of contentious legislation or world peace.

Princess Bride Forever

Princess Bride Forever

With the pronouncement of solemn vows, the agreement to love, honor and cherish something shifts. We think the honeymoon will last forever, it doesn’t; truthfully it cannot life has a habit of moving in with you when you return from paradise. We may believe roles don’t or won’t change, they do and they will.

No matter how clearly we have drawn our lines in the sand, written our boundaries (in our heads), those little words “till death do you part” have a profound effect on both of you. Whether it is social norms, cultural norms, gender norms or a combination of all of these, whatever you thought during courtship will change.

In the politics of relationships our hearts and our futures are on the line, we have often invested years in our marriages / partnerships. It is what you do when negotiating your relationship, your boundaries and your future that makes or breaks you. Not just your relationship but you.

  •   Concede – Accede
  •   Appeasement – Concession
  •   Compromise – Reconciliation

The above are words we might think of, might act out in the rough waters of our marriage or partnerships. Only one pairing has a good outcome, yet all too often, we find ourselves doing something other than what is healthy, what is good for our relationship and ultimately us as individuals.

We make concessions, or concede our positions on some points. Perhaps these are minor, things we can easily give. Concerns that have no real bearing on our long-term happiness or the foundation of our relationship or the agreements we thought we had made. But wait, before we accede do we talk about them, do we discuss why these concessions matter or do we simply give in, setting the pattern for all future interactions within our relationship.

My mom & dad 1951

My mom & dad 1951

With each concession, do we allow our resentment to grow? Do we disappear under the weight of another person and his or her demands for ‘their way’? Do we become a passive member of our relationship simply to appease the other, out of fear of loss, fear of public condemnation or shame, fear of loneliness. What happens to our ego or our boundaries as we appease, as we concede positions?

The boundary we established for ourselves that line in our mind the one that said we would be a full partner has now changed. We have agreed to a different more passive role in our relationship, without realizing or acknowledging the change in our status. Our emotional investment in the relationship is greater than our partners, it is no longer an equal partnership. Truthfully, it is no longer a partnership at all, rather it is a relationship without balance.

Can a new balance be established?

Is it possible for you to reassert yourself, redraw the boundaries and redefine your needs within a relationship where you have practiced appeasement for peace. This is a question I suspect many women in my generation ask

wikipedia.com

Amazon Image

themselves. We teeter between fear of growing old alone and resentment when we have given too much of ourselves away. We are a hybrid of our mothers and Betty Friedan, we burned our bras yet shopped for the perfect wedding dress. We demanded equality in the workplace, yet remain uncertain how to negotiate equivalence in our homes.

We talk a good game, yet we still lose ourselves within our desire to be loved, needed and not alone. Initially we might say, it is small perhaps even it is nothing. The coffee cup in the sink rather than the dishwasher, the bed unmade or love notes unwritten on our heart. It is important though, are we conceding authentic self, our true need for the sake of not being alone? Is not being alone enough?

These are questions I hear from more and more women today, women my age. Women in long-term marriages, both first and second go-arounds, seem to be questioning their relationships and their standing within those relationships. Are we having another awakening?

Filed Under: Marriage & Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Our Body Our Self id

October 6, 2012 By 51 Comments

I have been thinking lately about how I see myself and it causes me some angst, this has been on my mind a weight on my heart even. I know, it shouldn’t I am a tough old broad, generally not given to inner flights of fancy or brooding about what cannot be changed. My fifty-fifth birthday has come and gone now, I am past middle age and heading towards, well something else entirely.

Why am I noodling this? What am I really talking about; I am talking about Me, Myself, I, Id, Ego; all the things that make me ME. More importantly, I am talking about what I see in the mirror of my mind versus how others judge me when they see me on the street or meet me for the first time. Perhaps even more hurtful it is how those close to me offer up their helpful suggestions and thoughts on my ‘health’ and appearance.

I wonder does it never cross their minds to ask, “How do you feel today?”

Can it be that even those closest to me have decided I made a personal choice and it was to be fat? Do the people who claim they love me honestly think (this is a stretch, the thinking part) this is the look I chose? That I enjoy being laughed at on the street, dismissed as lazy and worse stupid. Do those who profess their care for me truly believe I don’t see myself, know my ass enters the room approximately thirty-two seconds after my boobs? Do they think this doesn’t bother me?

Of course it does you bunch of insensitive social incompetents!

There was a time in my life I wanted to be a Ballerina, I wanted to float across the floor in beautiful flowing costumes en pointe’ making art with my body. Then my body betrayed me, my ballet teacher smacked my breasts emerging like angry beehives from my chest and explained in her thick Russian accent, “No prima ballerina has breasts like a peasant!”

Ten years of grinding practice only to be told my peasant breasts were not the stuff of ballerinas. Nevertheless, I continued to dance, because I loved it. I also took gymnastics, rode horses, skied, ran, played soccer and did many other things all because I loved them. After all, with prima ballerina off the table everything else was on! There were times I brutalized my body, it didn’t matter I just kept going. I tore my knees up; I would walk again long before they healed properly.

I learned many forms of dance from ballet to belly; dance was my favorite form of expression and art. Dance was my heart.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

100 pounds.

That is how much I gained in the first two years after I was shot. Sometimes I lose some of it. Then I have another setback, another surgery or another round of partial paralysis. The reality is I don’t think I will ever lose it, not ever. Before I was shot I had already gained weight, I was in a miserable marriage and I was unhappy, I wasn’t fat but I was no longer thin and perfect either.

I wonder I look at those words and I wonder no longer thin and perfect. What does that mean, perfect in what respect and perfect according to what measurement. Who or what am I measuring myself against?

Now at fifty-five I use wonderful words to describe myself, words like Zaftig, which is one of my favorites. I laugh along with others at the shallowness of a society that would dare to judge me on my dress size without taking the time to value my intellect, my capabilities or my accomplishments. The reality is their judgment hurts. My own judgment hurts truthfully I am diminished by both.

Don’t you want to lose weight?

I am asked this question quite frequently. The answer is always the same, of course I do you nitwits. I also want to live without pain, wake up every morning leap out of bed without any numb spots anywhere on my body. Given a choice, I will take pain free over thin any day of the week. I won’t achieve that one in my lifetime either.

Would I like to lose weight?

Certainly, I would love to lose weight. I would love to shop in stores that didn’t specialize for ‘fat girls’. I would love to go to the gym and not feel ashamed; in fact, I would love to not be afraid to go to the gym.

I would like to go to the gym and take a yoga class where not everyone looked like they just stepped off the pages of Cosmopolitan. Why isn’t there ever a beginner’s class for fat people?

I would like to go to the gym and not feel like an alien, not be stared at as if I belonged somewhere else, anywhere else but there.

I would like for people to see me and not judge me. I would like to look in the mirror and not judge myself.

Why in the hell do gyms have so many damned mirrors anyway?

Kirstie Alley before and after at least she still looks like a woman

I would like to not be asked by those who profess to love me why I don’t lose weight. I would love, just once for someone, anyone who loves me to ask me how I feel today.

I have read so many great blogs recently on the subject of our bodies and social judgment; one stands out in part because as a woman it hit home I hope you will go read Sweet Mother http://sweetmotherlover.wordpress.com/2012/10/03/dear-fat-dudes/

I previously wrote this, a lighter look at the subject. http://valentinelogar.com/category/personal-notes/

The truth  is, this might just be my reality. I can eat the best I can. I can walk on the days I am not hurting so badly it is all I can do to crawl out of bed. I can try to overcome my fear of the gym, but I suspect that one is harder than anyone can imagine. My truth is, I live within the body I have and it doesn’t love me. I don’t fit the world and I don’t have the fight left to force the issue. We are so shallow we are willing to diminish anyone that doesn’t fit our narrow vision of beauty forgetting there is a whole person inside the body we judge not good enough. So today I will cheer for those women like Jennifer Livingston who was brave enough to address the man who berated her for her ‘choice’ to be obese. I wish more of us were willing to stand up to those who are so socially inept, cruel and frankly stupid.

Filed Under: Personal Notes, Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Brain Farts aka Gaffes

August 25, 2012 By 10 Comments

It has been an interesting week in the political arena, a week of revelation and frank nastiness. Stupidity on the part of some of our national figures seems to run rampant doesn’t it? Without fail some members of the GOP simply can’t help but open their mouths and thoughtless statements flow out from between their lips without any restraint. Shall we look at the blatant ideological stances and “oops I made a gaffe” of the week?

Please, keep in mind my personal opinion of a gaffe is simply the lips moved before the brain engaged. The speaker said what they thought before they could think of a plausible lie.

Representative Todd Akin, R-Missouri

“It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

We all know this just started a storm swirling around every circle, Left, Right and Center. There were few who didn’t jump on the bandwagon to denounce poor Todd and demand he quit the race immediately. The GOP pulled funding for his Senate race and disinvited him from Tampa.

Bad Todd, bad indeed. But it wasn’t because he was taking a position so far out of the mainstream from his party, no indeed not. The fact is they were simply mad that he gave voice to their platform. Todd Akin let the cat out of the bag!

While all the controversy is swirling the GOP is hammering out their platform. Mitt and Paul are there, hammers in hand knowing this will be the soapbox they stand upon leading up to November. Oh, look at that there is that pesky language…..what’s that you say?

“Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.”

There is more, you can read it here: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/23/full-gop-platform-statement-on-abortion/comment-page-2/

Next we have Mitt, the top of the GOP ticket who believes he can pretend to ignore the Platform he will be standing upon. Can we all say what a chump, you Mr. Romney courted the Wingnut Right and you will owe everything to them should you by some slim chance make it all the way to the White House. Your boy wonder VP supports Personhood Amendments to the Constitution and should he have a deciding vote in the Senate women will die in your new America, but let’s take a look at the statements of the GOP ticket shall we?

In an interview on August 20, with the National Review Online Mitt said the following:

 “Congressman’s Akin comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly, wrong,” Romney said. “Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive.”

Love how he refers to himself as ‘we’, wonder if that is the royal ‘we’, he certainly isn’t talking about he and his running mate who had this to say.

“I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life,” Ryan explained. “But let’s remember, I’m joining the Romney-Ryan ticket. And the president makes policy.”

From an interview with WJHL this week, see more here: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/24/ryan-on-abortion-exceptions-rape-is-just-another-method-of-conception/

Just one more little bit of humor from he who would be king, yes that’s right the Mitt, good old Mittens. I wonder if he aspired to a career as a failed stand-up comedian in his younger days, do you think this is might be the reason for his board stiff stage presence. Also do you think he is taking advice from the Donald?

“No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate,” he added. “They know that this the place that we were born and raised.”

Next we have a few of the reasons why we all need to make certain we are getting out to the polls and voting this year. Here is Iowa Representative Steve King discussing his knowledge, or should I say lack thereof, regarding the incidence of young rape and incest victims (specifically twelve year old girls) who might need abortions.

“Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way, and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter,” he said.

Unaware of one of the more famous Tea Party Gaffes, teen mother Bristol Palin with baby daddy

Steve King is a staunch supporter of Personhood legislation and came out in support of Ted Akins. This is a Republican who last year refused to debate his female Democratic challenger, offering instead to debate her husband former Governor Tom Vilsack in her place. Want to see more, http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/08/21/kings-no-pregnant-12-year-old-rape-victims-just-latest-his-anti-choice-diatribes

Finally on the hit parade for the week we have this piece of awe-inspiring stupidity from my home state. This judge from Lubbock County is a real winner in judiciary prudence I tell you, or as we say down here this is one dumazzed sumbitch. Judge Tom Head, well he indeed had a full head in an interview broadcast on a local Fox station talking about what will happen if President Obama is re-elected, he had the following to say:

“He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N., and what is going to happen when that happens?” Head said. “I’m thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.”

“Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops. I don’t want ’em in Lubbock County. OK. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say, ‘You’re not coming in here’.”

Of course, everyone in Lubbock, Right and Left are attempting to disavow his statements. Judge Head is an elected official and there are no real rules to remove him from the bench unless he can be shown to be just outright starkers. Currently the Judge is the head of the Emergency Management Plans for the county, he also presides over mental competency hearings (how scary is that).

Through all this the GOP has been pointing to the single statement by VP Joe Biden regarding Wall Street made in Virginia to a mixed crowd. The statement was as follows:

 “He is going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street. He is going to put y’all back in chains.” 

For the past two weeks, since the VP made this statement the Right and even some of those on the Left have been furiously hammering away at the Dog Whistle of race baiting this statement blows. But does it? I would say no, indeed we are not only defined by a single form of slavery and that being the horrific slavery of the African traded and abused on these shores for hundreds of years. While this was a terrible part of our history that continues to define a society even today, it is not the only slavery and not the only form of chains we endure.

The statement by Joe Biden, in my mind was not a gaffe at all but a very clear and truthful statement of where we are as a nation if we do not get back to some basic truths and basic facts. One of those is we must regulate Wall Street and Banking. How much clearer can we be than this?

So we all need to get over it. We are slaves to political correctness in this regard. We need to unchain our minds and allow ourselves to use the English language to express ourselves properly and with intent!

Rape is Rape. Force is Force.

Living breathing women must never be slaves to the moral choices of others who have no interest in their lives or futures.

Stand up, be counted.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Career Trajectory at Fifty-Five

July 30, 2012 By 19 Comments

Let’s talk about some of old adages we use to accept as truth, but not so much any longer.

  Age before beauty
  Practice makes perfect
  Experience is the mother of wisdom

What has changed you ask? Better, what exactly am I referring to when I say these are no longer truths within our culture?

These I think are more apropos for today:

  Hype and arrogance trumps experience
  Blame the other guy or circumstances beyond your control for your failure
  Two in the bush for half as much makes perfect cents

Why do I think this, it is a fair question. Honestly, this is about career progression and how those of us who have not been fortunate in our bonus checks, must navigate the ever-increasing rough waters we find ourselves in as we age up and out of our career relevancy.

My career and educational path was not a straight line, by the time that sheepskin was in my hand, the shine was slightly tarnished and I had a few years of work behind me. What that first degree gave me was the burnish I needed to move up the ladder, be taken more seriously and yes, be paid a little more for the work I was already doing.

As a woman in the world of business, you may move up, usually more slowly than men; this will depend on your willingness to throw others under the bus in your climb to the top, including your friends and family. My rise

The difference truly men are willing to go to great lengths

through the managerial ranks was impeded only by lack of corporate / political sophistication; encumbered by my failure to identify my enemies and my belief that ethics and quality outweighed arrogance and a penis. It didn’t, not even once.

In my thirties I was handed a gift, a career opportunity that would change my trajectory and open doors that might not have opened otherwise. I walked through those doors; I also walked through University doors once again and pursued a Masters to polish my credentials, one more time. This gift didn’t come without sacrifice, including playing in an entirely new sandbox with much different, bigger and more aggressive dogs. There were pros and cons to this career gift such as:

PROS

  • Challenging work
  • Fascinating, always new experiences
  • Travel, national and international
  • Education, lots of it
  • Decent income and decent opportunity for women, myself included, initially

CONS

  • Long hours, 70 hour weeks were the norm
  • Long weeks away from home, it wasn’t unknown to be away two to three weeks at a time
  • Dog-eat-dog mentality within the industry
  • Ten years ago the industry was outsourced badly

Career Relevance and Age

I don’t think of myself as old, irrelevant or outdated. Truth be told, I think of myself as damned near in my prime. I am experienced, knowledgeable and unencumbered by many of the outside influences others might still have. I no longer want to move up the career ladder, been there done that and found I didn’t all that much enjoy some of the jobs I landed in. Now I know the jobs I enjoy and am happy when I am doing them. I love challenging work and love to produce quality results, whether for an employer or a client.

I have worked as both an employee of consulting firms and as an Independent Consultant. There are clearly pros and cons of both. The problem with independence is the market is no longer geared toward individuals and their

How it feels, stop and all

capabilities or past references. In fact it is rare to find an opportunity that isn’t through one or many off-shore farms that advertise on the boards, set the rates (low) and nine times out of ten will rarely talk to you if you are (1) a woman; (2) American.

Does the above statement sound bitter? It is not bitter; it is simply the truth of what has happened in our market today.

What is happening?

I did not think at fifty-five my future would be no-future or at least as frightening as it is. I didn’t think that all my work my 70 hour weeks, my time away from hearth and home, my investment in certifications and additional

degrees would result in nothing. Just a career that came to a screeching halt in my prime. What I thought was I would do my consulting time, I would learn my craft and prove myself (I did this in some of the most difficult

environments there are) and then I would go to work for the last fifteen or twenty years of my career in some capacity as a full-time employee. I would earn a decent living, with benefits no less. I would mentor younger members of an enthusiastic team. I would write books about my experiences. I would be a visiting lecturer at local universities about quality, ethics in business and values, how to do things right.

What I didn’t realize is at fifty-five I am old and perhaps the best I can hope for is Wal-Mart Greeter.

Filed Under: Work & Employment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Enough Already

June 26, 2012 By 13 Comments

Another medical provider, one focused on women’s health has fallen victim to Operation Rescue and the inaptly named “Right-to-Life”. These are the same people who cheered at the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in 2009. It seems it will never end, women’s health and those who provide healthcare will continue to be under assault until we throw up our hands in surrender.

Dr. Ann Neuhaus will lose her license if Kansas has their way. The years she spent in school will be lost. The years she spent serving women in her community, lost.

If you read the article, the deck was stacked against her before she ever stepped before the board that would judge her; one seeded by an Anti-Abortion Governor with past members of Operation Rescue. The outcome was decided before Dr. Neuhaus presented a single piece of evidence or answered a single question.

Is this the America any of us want? Whether you support a woman’s right to choose, or not. Is this truly the America you want?

READ THE ARTICLE BELOW

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In a continuing effort to both curb access to abortion and reiterate their own opinion that there is never any situation where abortion could be necessary for a patient’s well-being, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has decided in favor of revoking Dr. Ann Neuhaus’s medical license. Neuhaus, a colleague of Dr. George Tiller, assisted him by providing second opinions for mental health exceptions for late abortions.

According to the Associated Press, Neuhaus was hoping to have her full medical license restored after spending years only allowed to provide limited medical care for charity work.  Instead, an ongoing investigation into 11 patient cases obtained by Operation Rescue became the center of a movement to have her license stripped all together.

Read More at Reality Check by Robin Marty

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Where have all the Flowers Gone, Boomers and Feminism

June 19, 2012 By 13 Comments

When I was born in 1957, society was on the cusp of change, women, particularly in the West, were beginning to shake off traditional roles and demand their place in the offices and the boardroom. I was born in the last cohortwikipedia.com of the Boomers, the generation of rebels and idealists. Mine was the generation swept up in the second wave Suffrage, rebranded Feminism and ignited by the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Mine was the generation who wanted more than marriage and a house in the suburbs, who are now struggling at the end of our careers and wondering just what in the hell happened.

My generations coming of age began in 1967, better known as the Summer of Love, it ended with the start of the Reagan years in 1981. During the intervening years we saw many changes in our thinking, our social views and even across the approximately 69,000,000 members of the Boomer Generation still alive, there is a greater divide than in other generational cohorts. Perhaps this is why we struggle so with the loss of all we gained during the great uprising of our youth, the time when we were still fresh, rebellious and idealistic.

It was during this time we pushed for freedom to choose a career and delay marriage and motherhood; we thought we won. We won the right to access contraceptives whether we were married or not (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965). Through the generosity of a single woman, Katherine Dexter McCormick hormonal birth control was developed by Gregory G. Pincus and finally brought to market as an oral contraceptive in 1960. We saw our right to health privacy and body integrity affirmed (Roe v. Wade, 1973). In 1972, we saw the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), sponsored by Martha Griffiths (D-Michigan) in the House and Sam Irvin (D-N.Carolina) in the Senate, pass with bi-partisan support.

What you might not know about the ERA:Wikipedia.com

Finally, in 1994, then Senator Joe Biden a legislator of our generation drafted and passed with broad support the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA HR3402, 1994, 2000 and 2005) which until this year has been reauthorized with little opposition. The 112th Congress is still battling to reauthorize VAWA this time, thus far the Senate passed the reauthorization with new provisions reflective of our times while the House in a very partisan vote said ‘Nay’ and is busily rewriting for the third time their offering with reduced funding and of course changed provisions.

Some things you might not know about women both locally and globally:

  • Women perform 2/3 of the world’s labor, this includes both paid and unpaid
  • Women make up 51% of world’s population and 50.9% of the US population
  • Women with children make up 13.1% of our entire national community, or 8.3 million women. Women globally head 83% of households.
  • Women account for 2/3 of the world’s illiterate adults.
  • Women globally earn only 11% of the world’s income and own <1% of the world’s land and assets. In the United States, on average women earn .77¢ for each dollar earned by a man for the same work.
  • Gender based violence kills more women worldwide than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war. It is estimated one in three women will be the victim of gender-based violence between the ages of 15 to 44.

We hear a great deal of rhetoric right now with the political season upon us. A lot of slogans dancing across our screens and men talking big about morals, ethics and the Right American Way as they beat their drums and flap their gums rapidly to keep the money pouring in. There are billionaires buying elections, Churches crying the blues, talking heads spewing hate and idiots making up nonsensical string theories to scare the naïve into cult like head nodding while they chant the names of their favored candidate or platform meme.

One thing I believe as a woman is true, we have looked away too long. There is indeed a war being waged and we are losing. When I asked ‘what the hell happened’, it was a very real question not just about our jobs but our public life, safety and enfranchisement within society. In 1967, we thought we were moving into a new age of freedoms and opportunities. What we have found instead is a scarceness of opportunity as we approach our retirement. We did not achieve equality for ourselves and our daughters’ watch helplessly as what small steps forward we did take is being stripped from them through legislation intended to diminish them and effectively strip them of their freedom.

The 112th Congress has floated the following:

  • 61 Abortion bills since they have been in sessions, or should I say Anti-Abortion bills.
  • 813 separate pieces of legislation specifically related to health care and insurance, much of which is directly related to the Affordable Health Care of 2009.

What the 112th Congress hasn’t done is focus on putting our nation back on track and working in a bipartisan way to fix what is ailing us. Instead, what we have seen is women being pushed further and further down, across the nation laws are being passed that are draconian in nature and elected officials are using language that even a decade ago would have seen them run out of the office. Meanwhile, women are being silenced for saying VAGINA.

What is next?  Will we be back to begging in the streets when we grow too old to sell our wares?

I leave you with this, it is I think relevant and I leave you with one other question is it time to stand back up not only for American women but for all women everywhere.

SOURCES:

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-14.pdf

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

http://www.opencongress.org/money_trail

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-01-26/features/9001070809_1_decency-real-thing-guardian-angel

Filed Under: Society, Sociology & Evolution Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Careers are made to be broken

June 16, 2012 By 29 Comments

I started on a completely different career than the one I am on today. Somewhere in 1990 the IT giants made a dramatic announcement that would panic the world.

The sky is falling, well no but might as well have been. What was really happening was the Millennium Bug or Y2K, the giants of IT had announced no software or internal clocks were prepared for the Year 2000. OH NO! What

Y2K Bug

did this mean for the rest of us? It meant millions of dollars were going to be spent preparing for the year 2000. Software giants would push their products, fortunes would be made and new careers would be launched. It meant a fairly egalitarian new marketplace would be created.

My new career would launch in 1994, I loved it more than my first and would invest and sacrifice, push the limits of my health at times, crawl over broken glass and fight for my right to be there more often than I can count. The problem? While we, those of us here in the US were building this market and sacrificing to do so, it was being slowly ripped out from underneath us. For those of us who happen to don skirts and stilettoes, we have seen our opportunities diminish and our careers, no matter what success we may have achieved previously, lay in shambles at our feet.

I joined the ranks of consultants in 1994 with a fortune 50 company. I was one of the first hired into their new SAP practice, a practice that would grow to thousands worldwide. I remained with them for seven years and achieving great success. I would join two more global organizations in senior roles over the course of the next ten years. By the time I decided to venture out on my own as an Independent the market had changed, Americans and especially women were seeing less opportunity and their incomes greatly diminished.

What is wrong with this industry? We don’t own it in any shape or form in the US and it is our fault. Prior to the Millennium, Bill Gates and other ‘experts’ demanded and won an expansion to the H1B program. This is the government program intended to enable industry, science and education to fill shortfalls by recruiting from overseas. The first wave of recruitment was predominately from India, it was two parts; Insourcing and Off-shoring.

Suddenly we had hundreds of thousands of technically capable but socially inept resources swelling our ranks. The cultural issues were many, the stratification of their own country by caste, religion and frankly gender were pervasive in those early days. It wasn’t infrequent an Indian man would refuse to shake my hand or the hand of a woman client. In many cases communication was insufficient, for all of us.

To further bolster the perceived on-going shortfalls of hands and feet to do work the H1B remained at the pre-Millennium numbers. As recently as 2007 Bill Gates testifiedin front of a Congressional Committee of the need to continue to import talent, as if we didn’t have sufficient skilled resources in the US. Yet, most of us in this industry had been forced to Independent contracting by then, with lower rates and no benefits. Unemployment and

Bill Gates Testifies 2007 Senate Judiciary Committee
courtesy Microsoft.com

under-employment in my industry was the norm, long before the 2008 economic crash. Our problem as Independents? We don’t have affordable access to on-going training, skills enhancements, industry conventions or any of the other opportunities those imported ‘employees’ have. Go figure.

I have been an Independent Contractor for five years.

This year I decided to join a company. There are reasons for this, one of the biggest being my desire to refinance my home. I know, sounds stupid doesn’t it however, the banks don’t like independent contractors no matter how successful we are. The company I joined is India based; I was concerned about this but after several interviews with their partners including their one American partner I was convinced they had culturally assimilated.

I was wrong.

So here I am, palm meet face. My ego is frankly shattering in a million pieces a day. First, because I think I have made a horrifying mistake in judgment. Second because I feel so useless and dispensable. Since February of this year, I have been employed by this company and almost completely ignored. Yes, when someone wants or needs something they seem to remember I am here and happy to help, but I am more of an overpaid secretary than a highly competent professional.

What to do?

I have begged to be allowed to contribute to the Intellectual Capital of the organization, it is something I do well and have done for both clients and employers in the past; to no avail, I am ignored.

I have begged to participate in the sales cycle, I am good at this and have done this in my past career. I am ignored, except when I am needed to build a slide deck, develop a pricing schedule or audit a Statement of Work.

I would of course love to be assigned to manage a project, this is what I was hired to do. I accepted a position below past roles in other organizations so I could do what I love doing, Project Management.

Nothing, Nada, Zilch

Me, I am simply feeling a bit of despair. My ego is bruised and my options at my age dwindling. Dreams maybe need to be changed, I hate this feeling of having no control.

Perhaps this is my future…..

For lack of stimulating work
Courtesy TravelingThought.com

What to do? What would you do?

http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2012-Green-Card-Sponsor.aspx

Filed Under: Work & Employment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Zaftig in a Mirror

May 10, 2012 By 20 Comments
Fears & Tears

My 2 Fears

I have been holding this in, trying hard not to spew venom over my sisters on the fat side of the scale. Yes, I said it…..FAT. Let’s all be honest, for just a brief moment, we are out here in the world, our scales register above thin and perfect, our BMI well it is imperfect also. We shop where we can, if it isn’t in stores designed specifically for us where all sizes start at 14 and head up from there it is in designated parts of the store, usually tucked away where others can’t see the fat girls shop. Some stores, such as Neiman Marcus, don’t sell plus sizes in their stores, not even in the Outlets but they will take our money on-line; I guess they don’t want their more rotund clients wandering the aisles and scaring other customers with their succulence.

24 Hours

My 24 Hourglass

Now that is out of the way, I am Zaftig (I love that word, don’t you). Have been for years and have a sneaking suspicion it isn’t going to change perceptively without surgical intervention which I am not at this time considering. If my doctor says I must consider intervention for my health, I would do so but he has not and thus I accept my hourglass figure being more a 24 hour than a single hour. The popularity of my abundant assets went out of style more than a century ago, along with corsets and bustles. It isn’t, mind you that I am in love with the view in my mirror, I have simply made peace with the idea there are battles I am not going to win, one of them is the one with my waistline. Frankly, my ego could not withstand the struggle along with all the other things I regularly fail at accomplishing.

After Surgery and One Year Maybe

One Year After Surgery Computer Generated

I know that I am Zaftig, Well-Padded, Succulent, or hell just plain fat, I am betting if you are you know you are too. With this knowledge in mind and knowing you are out there why oh why, pray tell me this do you insist on dressing in clothing that was never intended to contain your more ample curves? Why, please help me understand when there are plenty of wonderful options in your size do you insist your size is still in single digits or worse comes with JR in from of the single digit. Help me understand; is it self-delusion on your part? Do you believe the labels on those packages that say you will shrink two dress sizes by wearing those magic Lycra All-In-One

We all want to see this in the mirror. The perfect hourglass.

panties that tuck you in from stem to stern; you didn’t check your mirror before you left the house did you? Or, do you simply have a magic mirror, one of those fun house mirrors that distorts reality and lies to you all at once. If you have one of these, may I borrow it please, my ego could use a boost.

I am not trying to be a hater; really, I don’t want to take a rubber mallet to your fragile ego. I know how hard it is to find clothes that fit and make you feel good. It is possible though to find clothing that fits and doesn’t make you appear as if you are wearing either a potato sack or a sausage casing, these are not the only two options. I will be honest with you my rotund sisters, when I see you in the mall; I feel your pain, until I notice what you have chosen to wear in public. I know how hard it is to find clothing that makes you feel beautiful and feminine. But, really, does a dress two sizes too small and so short you are unable to bend over for fear of showing every bit of your so not sexy underwear; is this really making you feel desirable? Do you honestly believe what is exquisite on an infant; you know those adorable and kissable little

www.flickriver.com

Fat Baby Thighs are kissable

rolls of fat around their thighs is also attractive on a grown woman? You could not be more wrong, I promise you those rolls of fat on your thighs is anything but attractive especially framed by a mini-dress and high-heels, it is this sight that makes me want to shake you till your teeth rattle and you cellulite realigns.

Believe me when I tell you us succulent, bigger girls are still beautiful and still have wonderful gifts to offer the world. We are not defined by society that tries to shame us into boxes with labels that are hurtful and ugly. This doesn’t mean though that we should simply ignore all decorum, throw all good taste to the wind and not use good sense and our mirrors. We should at all times, celebrate who we are, just as we are right now. But ladies, mirrors please.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Inside Domestic Abuse

May 3, 2012 By 31 Comments

The 112th Congress has refused to reauthorize the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, significant in the original passage it opened the door to what had previously been viewed as private family matters and provided both education and funding to help victims and law enforcement. Never, since its original passage has it been the subject of a partisan fight on the floor of either house of Congress, yet this year it is. The overall tone of the Right, women are of no particular value unless they are in the kitchen, pregnant and silent. The objection to the Bill, is the expansion of services, the boogie man of ‘other’; Gay, Transgender, Native Tribes and Immigrant Women are included in this years re-authorization, we all know none of us are part of humanity and should be served, right?

I wrote this several years ago. At the time, it was wrenching to write. Today it remains wrenching for me to read. To answer the question, I know first hand what it is to be a survivor of Domestic Abuse. I also know how very important this Bill is to all those Women and Men who are now and will be in the future Victims. I ran from an extremely volatile, horribly violent relationship after having been hospitalized multiple times with multiple broken bones, I knew I would not see my eighteenth birthday if I stayed. I had nowhere to go, no money and no support structure; still I ran as far and as fast as I could go.

I survived.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why we stay, pitiful in our bruised bodies and our excuses, our fear palatable yet even before we are healed we return to the hell that is home. Why do we stay? The question is asked repeatedly, often with a tone of derision. Our answer, sometimes that we love him, sometimes worse that he doesn’t mean to hurt us he loves us. The truth though is harder for us to admit to you when you ask and ourselves; this is all we deserve and we have nowhere else to go.

How did we get here?

Is it because we seek what we believe that we deserve? Do we have a neon sign swinging over our head that says “I am here and vulnerable”; I will take it, whatever you dish out. I will take it and even be grateful to you for staying one more day, one more month, one more year.

Have we been so convinced by our mothers, our fathers, or society that we must conform, not speak out; not fight back that we will take the slaps, the closed fists, the kicks and on our knees begging for it to end still be thinking that he loves us and if only we do better it will not happen again?

Why is it that we stay? 

Why do we make excuses, transparent excuses for the broken teeth, the black eyes, the bruised arms? Why do others believe our excuses? Do they really think that we are so incapable of walking from our beds to our baths that we run into doors once a month or once a week? Is it easier to believe that we are so clumsy that we cannot walk up or down a flight of stairs? Do those who claim to care for us find it easier to ignore the truth than acknowledge that we are in danger?

Why is it that we allow ourselves to be so brutalized? What happens to us that our flight or fight instinct is entirely broken? We find no comfort, realizing even those to whom we reach out for help find us incomprehensible in our pain. Even if we finally find it in our spirits to run, to escape we are broken by the prison of our shame. Our defeat is what we carry with us; our inability to explain our willingness to take what our abuser gave; his love in closed fists, slaps, kicks, hate filled words that tore down the walls of our humanity and convinced us that we had no value in our homes or in the world.

Run, with Nothing but You

The telephone, our greatest enemy each time it rings we jump through our skin; we know it might be him. We know we are still weak and frail; that we have no defenses against his apologies and his protestations of his own weakness. Even through our nightmares; those screaming, cold sweat nightmares; we know that if we hear his sugar coated voice telling us that it will never happen again; we might believe him because we need. Who else will love us now? He has destroyed all that was ever lovable in us. We know that in our heart and soul; in whatever humanity we have left we know that we might listen and might return. It will be good for a while; as good as it was in the beginning. Then it will start again, we know that too; even knowing these absolute truths; we are weak and fearful and lonely.

Our frailty during our initial freedom, so tenuous, unreal to us because there is no one to confirm our existence and we don’t know where to begin. The slightest sound behind us is no longer the precursor to pain. The footsteps on the stairs, not a reason to fear but maybe a friend come to call instead. Bumps in the night no longer herald a rape by the person who promised to love and care for us. Still all those sounds send us into a paroxysm of fear, self-doubt and finally anger that our lives will never be without our abuser because he is inside of us; he has replaced everything  that was good with his vileness. We may have escaped him physically but we will never escape him fully, we think this now and in our hearts know this as a truth. We have lost ourselves to his definition of us, weak and of no value.

Nightmares

Our minds work in miraculous ways. If we can stay gone long enough we begin to heal and rebuild. We can begin to take the abuse he called love and place it in appropriate boxes sealing them tightly and marking them as our hated history. When the boxes are full of our past we can stack them in a room within our mind padlock the door; knowing that some day we might return to examine them to try to understand what led us there; but not today. Today just stack the boxes tightly, shut the door and turn the key. Face each day knowing that the door exists and all the boxes exist waiting for us to be strong and come back to learn; but not today. That we might revisit them in our nightmares and run screaming down the corridors of our sleeping mind; waking in cold sweats and shaking in fear; this we can escape. This will happen for some of us it will happen forever, when we least expect it sometimes at the end of what we thought was a great day. In our nightmares the maniacal horrors of our past will sneak through the cracks of that door we locked to terrorize us; to remind us of what was or what might have been.

Future Glory

Our history does not have to hold us hostage; we can shape our future we can redefine ourselves. We were somebody before they arrived to tear us down. Somewhere else in our mind we have a room with a locked door that contains the “us” before them, before the abuse. We have the key to that door also, even if it is lost in the trash that our abuser has piled on us. We have the ability to unlock that door and find the “me” that was before them. Perhaps we will find there were reasons we let them in, the neon sign that was lifted above our heads inviting them in; we can fix this. Possibly we will only find ourselves in the here and now that we are stronger now, more able to face today because of our past. Perhaps we will only find only that we can let go, say no more and look forward without fear.

Whatever we find we will ultimately know that we are precious, worth more than the blows, the slaps, the kicks, the venom that dripped from the lips of our abuser. We will know no amount of pain masked as love is the truth and abuse is not the reality that we deserve in our lives. We will roar our anger and our frustration at the waste of our days in agony rather than joy. We will cry out our pain. We will whisper our validations of self and finally scream our truths in the wind if no one else will hear us.

We will most certainly stand free of what was told to us as the truth knowing finally it was a lie.   

Filed Under: Society, Women Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Defiance

March 13, 2012 By 5 Comments

It has been only 48 years since women were granted the right to determine for themselves when they would start families, freeing them to pursue their own interests including education and careers. Suddenly, the subject of our independence and choice has reached epic proportions; we are in the eye of the storm, fodder for every politician and evangelical minister with a pulpit from which to scream their wrath at our defiance.

Should we have seen this coming?

I wonder what brought us to this cultural impasse. How have we reached a place where social values, mores and even women’s standing in the community seem to be the battleground of the day and not just of the political Suffragette Float, New York 1913 Courtesy Wikipediaseason? The battle lines were drawn years ago; they have just not been the deeply divisive trenches they are today.

Our history as a nation saw women working toward suffrage for nearly a century before we gained any true recognition that we might own our humanity, our intellect and even our bodies. Since women won the right to vote and then our right to determine our reproductive health 45 years later it has been uphill, now it seems we are careening downhill on a cultural collision course.

Date

What Happened
11/5/1872 Susan B. Anthony, women’s suffragette, illegally casts a ballot at Rochester, New York in the presidential election to publicize the cause of a woman’s right to vote.
11/7/1893 Women in Colorado are granted the right to vote
8/2/1924 Women are given the right to vote when the 19th Amendment to the United States constitution grants universal women’s suffrage.
6/7/1965 Griswold-v-Conneticut decided the fate of married couples and their right to determine when they would add children, meaning their right to privacy and access to hormonal birth control
3/22/1972 Eisenstadt-v-Baird, extended the right to access of hormonal birth control to unmarried women. Broadening the right of privacy and obviously the right to bodily control.
1/22/1973 Roe-v-Wade, finally the critical decision extending the rights of women to determine their needs, responsibilities and establishes privacy across even abortion.
2/2/2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed

We have fought each step of the way, not just to prove our worth and value but to retain those rights and privileges our mothers and grandmothers won for us. A fight to prove our value as independent voices in our Sandra Fluke Testifies Courtesy Wnd.com communities, our workplaces and sometimes even our own families has demoralized many of us already. For every step forward it seems there are those who would rather throw us down in humiliation, Slut Walk the brightest of us and define us all as ‘less than’.

The demagogues of radio and television are feeding our young women to the populace in a frenzy of public shaming for no cause other than they dare to stand up and disagree. Elected officials stand before their peers and compare women to barnyard animals as they fight to reduce access to safe abortion in their states (Georgia Legislature Rep. Terry England). The archaic views of presidential nominees on sex and birth control are in the forefront of the national debate, these are now considered vital to our economic and national security, I can only wonder how or why. The religious values and in some cases hypocritical standards of paternalistic agitators  fly in the face of our Constitution (1st Amendment & Article VI), their statements against women and their right to be fully enfranchised members of society with equal opportunity for education and work, even to plan for our future diminish our human value and our past and future contributions.

I have struggled in writing this, fought for words and to keep my emotions in check. I have walked away more than once as I found my normal pragmatism lost, my ability to step back had vanished entirely. My normal ability to see issues from both sides and walk the middle line had flown the coop along with my calm certainty that we, that is women were 100% a part of the American culturalThe future of our daughters - Courtesy of MakingSenseofThings.com and social experiment, that we had gained our right to participate and could not be, would not be consigned to the backroom or required to don the veil. I was wrong, clearly I was wrong.

What does this mean for our daughters?

If we don’t fight back, it means our daughters will have less opportunity than we had. It means everything our foremothers fought for and we took for granted will be lost. What does it mean? It means we will revert to a society where women are simply a commodity, a convenience and nothing more. Our voices will be silenced as we struggle to avoid too many pregnancies, for lack of access to safe birth control. The redefinition from victim to accuser in the case of rape will lower our standing in the courts and in the eyes of society. Should we wonder what is next? Marital abuse cases will change, no longer will be able to seek intervention from the courts as no longer will we have standing.

Is the above simply the worst-case scenario? Perhaps it is, however I lived in the time when the police were called to stop my husband from beating me (1973). They took me to the hospital, they did not arrest him. I have lived through having to hide from a husband who said he was going to kill me if I left; the police did nothing because I was married to him. I have seen that version of the world. I have seen the world that says rape isn’t rape (1968), it is just young boys having fun; even my mother thought it was my fault. I lived with the aftermath of those actions taken against my eleven-year-old body and soul for most of my life, I paid the price.

I have seen the world that says women and young girls have no value, that we are nothing more than –

SLUTS – PROSTITUTES – BITCHES

Where is the outrage?

Filed Under: Politics, Society Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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