Silent ramblings

when my cat got deadly sick she refused to eat a single thing and it had been days but when i started crying she ate just a little bit, and upon seeing how happy it made me, kept doing it whenever she could.

now whenever im sad or crying she finds wherever i am with a mouthful of food and eats the pieces one by one, every time looking up at me making sure i was watching her eat it all because she knew it made me happy. and it DOES make me happy

They'll bring up how apparently many cultures have this idea, how women have menstrual cycles in stages throughout the month, and how women are "more emotional" and "irrational" and prone to "mood swings" and "reacting" to stimulation "passively" instead of being "active" and "stable" like men.

They'll say that women are like the moon, which goes through phases of visibility each month and glows only because of light from the sun. They use this to say that women's concerns are almost always figments of the imagination and petty cat-fights over slights, and that men should be like the sun and give the moon everything it has, be "providers" and "always be the light" even when women can't due to their reproductive function.

Well, guess what? "Sun" is feminine in German. And a lot of other languages. And the "moon" is masculine.

How did these stupid symbols come from rock and fire in outer space? How did we come to use them as predictors of every single damn action of a human being? How did nature become used to entrap human growth and creativity instead of be a resting place for freedom?

Obviously, a lot of power dynamics are at play, and given that, I'll respond with some of my own linguistic and observational meanderings that I'm surprised I've seen nowhere else.

1 The MOON does not actually PHYSICALLY go through phases. It only LOOKS like this from the earth. It therefore is MOST CONSTANT. It helps to control the TIDES EVERY DAY, TWICE A DAY. Its DISTANCE from the earth stays fairly constant.

2 The SUN actually has lots of disturbances. It has sun-spots and solar flares, unpredictable ebbs and flows in its surface temperature. Therefore, it is FLUCTUATING not even on a daily basis, but a HOURLY basis. When earth is tilted away, the sun doesn't come to its rescue to save it from winter. It stays there and we go through the seasons. The sun CHANGES our weather and how we feel every day.

To follow these examples up on an uncomfortably physical basis, MEN don't fluctuate on a monthly basis, or anything longer and more stable. They fluctuate throughout the DAY. They CAN'T CONTROL a lot of their erections, especially the one(s) that occur at night. Yeah, some end up CHANGING their sheets fairly often. And they can't control VISIBLE and PHYSICAL erections when aroused a certain amount. That's gotta be EMBARRASSING. They must want to HIDE. After all, excess desire is a social disgrace in women, traditionally, right? Especially when young and rejected? Just THINK of all the times guys get erections and can't do a damn thing about it except be embarrassed and realized how they're too young and shy and unattractive for the thing their BODY IS TELLING THEM they need. These poor benighted creatures, these men. With their dicks that have lives of their own.

Women -- now THEIR cycles are hidden. Aren't they lucky? And predictable, right? A nice luteal phase, etc.

Men accuse women of being inconsistent to drive attention from the fact that THEY are inconsistent. This is supposed to make men feel stable. Not ethical.

Men are famous for getting angry. Getting drunk. Breaking things. Impulsive behavior.

When women get angry, it's so often a gradual understanding of a wrong. That's very rational and premeditated. They often use their words in the right environments to express how they feel and what they want to happen.

But somehow we've got a cultural stereotype of a negatively nagging woman, hysterical for no reason, and a steadfast, mute man who must contain her.