#YesAllWomen - Equality Now

Equality Now is an organization that I have supported for many years. Yesterday on Twitter I noticed their retweets of the hashtag #YesAllWomen and looked into what that was. In my research I found this post by Joss Whedon. A few years old, the message it carries is still very much current, unfortunately. It made me think about some other research I did, about 20 years ago, about women in pre-historic times.

My reason for researching the topic back then was to verify the veracity of a book I had procured. The results of my research got me hooked on anthropology and I have been keeping up to date on new developments in the field. Strangely, those new developments are rarely broadcast to a larger audience. In fact, it can be downright difficult to find the articles in the first place as they are only published in specialized magazines, or even just as thesis papers.

What I have discovered during these 20 years of study is that not only did women have a vastly different role in pre-historic societies than we have been led to believe, but also that what initiated the changes that have led to the societal views we have today was the emergence of organized monotheistic patriarchal religion. The biggest culprit has been the semitic religion, by which I mean that which evolved into the three largest faiths in modern western society: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

From what I have seen of archaeological and anthropological findings over the past 20 years, I believe that before the semitic monotheistic faith began to spread people were considered equal, regardless of gender or anything else.

Firstly, common sense says that it would be completely counterproductive to have half the community doing nothing but popping out new mouths to feed and taking care of them. That would quickly lead to the extinction of the human race.

Secondly, with the oftentimes harsh climate and living conditions of pre-historic humans, I just don't see them wasting any kind of resource, whether material or labor. Even supposing women did no kind of hunting at all, they were still very much able to gather vegetable foods, like roots, fruits, berries, nuts, etc.

Thirdly, there is actually archaeological evidence that women, at least in some societies, held status equal to men. For example, women buried in graves of equal or greater opulence than men, with grave gifts of spears, knives and hunting nets.

Fourthly, for humans without the scientific knowledge we have today it would make sense to give women high status since they are the bringers of life. Humans have always tended to worship that which they cannot understand, such as natural phenomena (thunder, lightning, the sun and moon), it would follow logically that they would see the ability to produce new life as special and even sacred.

I believe the decline of equality began when men realized that they are needed to produce new life. My theory is that this made men stop seeing women as sacred, which was the first step toward the patriarchal society we have today. If women are not sacred, but merely equals, the next step would be to put men above women because men genetically have greater physical strength and a larger build. They can take women's ability to give life out of the picture entirely. After that it is easier to reduce female deities to lesser roles and raise male deities to a higher level, followed by the slow but inevitable eradication of female deities altogether, mirrored by the reduction of women's roles in society, until we are left with the skewed male dominatated patriarchal society we have today. Even as late as 1000 years ago, the Norse society held women in high regard. Women were priestesses and the keepers of the keys to their homes. This did not change until Christianity got a firm hold in their society.

We, every one of us, has to realize that we are all humans, that nothing else matters, not gender or skin color or sexuality or anything else. Change has to start somewhere and there is no better place to start this change than in your own home. Raise your children without the constricted views on gender roles that society pushes on us. Raise them to see all as humans, and not to put labels on others, or judge others. Raise them to be individuals.

Equality should not be a dream for the future. It should be a reality. Now.

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Some suggested reading:

Sons of the Mother: Victorian Anthropologists and the Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
New Women of the Ice Age
Questioning Prehistoric Patriarchy & AnthropologyStone Age (.pdf document)
Cave Women Rocked: Science Shows Prehistoric Gender Equality
Women in Prehistoric Communities: The Start of the Division of Labor
Matrilineality (Wikipedia)

This Weekend @ Loordes of London: Saturday

At the Like Salesroom this week Loordes of London is offering The Babbage Post jacket for only $L75. It comes in several lovely colors, pictured here is only one of them. Head to the Like Salesroom to see all the colors offered.

The Babbage Post in green, here paired with Liverpool Jeans in green and The Keep necklace Green/Copper and The Euclidean earrings.

 

 

 

 

This Weekend @ Loordes of London: Friday

There are some truly spectacular new items at Loordes of London this weekend, and I'm not just saying that because I work there. Take a look at the pictures and judge for yourself.

Fi*Friday this week is The Greek Tragedy minidress, which features a tight bodice and a ruffled layered skirt. The dress has lovely gilded details and goes very well with the A Touch Of Deco necklace and the Monet earrings. The shoes are the Medicci Boots #2

Here a close-up of the A Touch Of Deco Necklace and Monet earrings.

The Greek Tragedy minidress and A Touch Of Deco necklace are both available at Fi*Friday. The Monet earrings are available at L'Accessories.

Go shop! And Enjoy your Second Life.

Live & Learn, and perhaps Teach?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the impact we as adults have on the children around us. Not just our own children, but any children we come in contact with, directly or indirectly. My mother used to say that children are like 24/7 cameras, they record absolutely everything you say and do, even when you think they aren't paying attention. So what kind of example are we adults setting for the children around us?

There are complaints that children spend too much time in front a screen, be it a TV, computer, iPad, smartphone, etc. Where do you think they picked that up? When was the last time you put your phone/pad/laptop/etc. down and actually had a conversation with a child, let alone another adult? Did you know that you probably spend more time in online* conversations, than face-to-face interaction? What are children supposed to take away from that?

My very intelligent brother once called the TV "a weapon of mass-deception" and I believe I have never heard it more aptly described. In many homes the TV is always on like some sort of background noise, and nothing is more alluring to small children than brightly colored moving shapes, so naturally they are drawn to the magic lightbox, spending their days staring in some sort of mass-hypnosis at the moving pictures. It's no wonder we find a declining trend in the ability of children to focus for extended periods of time. When their minds are constantly being wired for action by the lightbox, how are they supposed to learn to keep their focus on such slow-moving things as reading books?

Speaking of reading books, when was the last time you picked up a book to read? How are we supposed to get our kids to read if they don't see us doing it? I hear the arguments now: there's no time, the kids don't like to read, we don't have any books, I don't have kids, and so on and so forth. I tell you right now, no argument is good enough. Even if you are the slowest reader on the planet, there is always time for a paragraph or two on the train/bus/etc to or from work, a few minutes while waiting for the dinner to finish, or heck, why not take the night off from TV and read with the family? Pick a book everyone can enjoy and make it a family book club. Don't have kids? Read in public places where kids can see and be inspired. Donate books to school libraries. There are so many ways to set a good example for our children, and make them excited about reading.

The best way I have found to pitch in, besides getting my own child excited about reading, is the charity Kids Need To Read, founded by author PJ Haarsma and actor Nathan Fillion, and supported by Fillion's enormous fandom. In an effort to bring more books to schools and public libraries, they help get books for children and young adults published and distributed to schools around the U.S., as well as organize events to raise funds for the work they do. To learn more about Kids Need To Read (or KNTR), go to www.kidsneedtoread.org. The story of the creation of this charity is an inspiration.

To conclude, please be mindful of the example you set for children (and other adults for that matter) around you, even if it's just the children walking by your local coffee shop each morning. Read a book instead of staring at your phone or iPad, and maybe they will feel inspired to pick up a book instead of staring mindlessly at the magic lightbox. If you have managed to change one person's life during the course of your own, you have made a huge difference. Like rings on the water, pay it forward.

Stay Shiny.


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*online in this case covers all of the above mentioned devices.

No one watches TV anymore.

Through my most recent hook-up, Twitter, I have discovered a whole new universe of things. One

of them is web television. Thanks to Geek & Sundry I plunged head-first into watching some

very funny series, and now am even contributing in a small way by translating subtitles for

their new series Caper.

For someone like me, who never turns my TV on anymore, web TV is an excellent solution. It is

not so much that I do not like watching TV, I just hate commercial breaks, and dubbing, and

subtitles, and having no control over what comes on.

So being able to choose what I want to watch, when I want to watch it, pausing whenever I

need to, and not having to put up with commercials, well it is just awesome. Those TV

channels that put their content out on the Intertubes in addition to broadcasting it the

traditional way - kudos.

For those of us not in the U.S., and thus not able to use Hulu, YouTube is a great

alternative. I also discovered that Amazon has a web TV section with some exclusive web

series. One I personally enjoyed was Bosch, a new murder mystery police series. Not so much

because the concept is unique or anything, but I find the characters intriguing and would very

much like to learn more about them.

All in all I think Luke (Caper) hit the nail on the head when he said that "no one watches TV

anymore anyway. All the good stuff is on the Internet".

Thus I leave you with this list of web TV series from Wikipedia. Have fun.

#IWantMyNerdHQ

Not too long ago, during my quest to find everything on the Intertubes related to Nathan Fillion (*swoon*), I came across the YouTube channel for Nerd Machine. There were these videos from something called Nerd HQ, an event organised by Zach Levi (from the TV series Chuck) to benefit the charity Operation Smile.

When I found out what Operation Smile does, I fell in love with Zach Levi, almost as much as I was already in love with Nathan. Since I am lazy and want to avoid more typing than necessary, I am just going to put in a link to another blog where it explains more about Nerd Machine, Nerd HQ and Comic-Con: Nerd Power|Chuck This.

Operation Smile is an organisation that helps children that are born with cleft palate or other facial deformities in countries that lack the medical care that we in the Western world are privileged enough to enjoy. Surgeons and other medical staff volunteer their vacation time to go to these countries and perform surgeries. Each surgery costs about $240 (that's US currency), and takes less than an hour, but it can save a child's life and it certainly will change that life forever.

This organisation is especially dear to me because my son was born with a severe cleft palate. Thanks to the excellent care at Children's Hospital in Seattle he has never had to suffer any problems because of this. Even the surgeons over here, when we met with the team after we moved, were impressed with the level of expertise. Today, people that meet him do not even notice his scars.

So to be able to contribute to this organisation, even by making a small donation, is something that puts a smile on my face. I think about how I felt about my son, and I imagine how it must feel to a mother somewhere who has seen children die because they were born with a cleft palate. How much more intense must her happiness be when her child is saved by a simple little operation. I cannot even imagine.

That is why I fell in love with Zach, because he runs Nerd HQ as a fundraiser for Operation Smile. All the money from ticket sales etc goes directly to charity. So when he sent out a Tweet the other day about asking us fans for help, I immediately set aside some money to donate. And I think if I can do this, when I live on welfare and barely scrape by, then anyone can do it.

In the words of Captain Malcolm Reynolds: "We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty".

Let's do this.

It's a big big world...

I have recently discovered that I live on the wrong side of the planet. This is a feeling that is not entirely unfamiliar to me. Around age 15 I started feeling this inexplicable pull to move half-way around the world. Eight years later I ended up in Seattle, WA, and if it had not been for the company I found myself in I would have enjoyed the experience more.

While I was over there, I had my son and, as any parent knows, my life kind of shifted it's gravity to revolve around this new person. So when it came time to make a decision to stay or go, I chose to go because I felt it was the best thing for him.

Long story short, turned out it was not the best thing for him, or for me, but hindsight is 20-20 as they say. Now he is older, and no longer with me, and the pull is back. I feel like an alien over here. Wrong place, wrong time. Unfortunately, I can do nothing to change things.

The absolute worst part of it all is that I am pulled in two different directions. I want to be over there (Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, somewhere along the coast there), but I also want to be close to my son and he is here. If I believed in a hell, this would be it.

Lately I ask myself at least once a day, why I chose to go. Would it really have been so bad to stay? I could have made it work. But again, hindsight. I honestly thought our life would be better here.

So here I am, stuck on the wrong side of the world, using the Intertubes to live vicariously through others and keep some semblance of contact with the life I wish I had. Holding on by my fingernails to some scrap of sanity by keeping an active virtual social life. Sad, isn't it?