justlaura

I do not think it should need to be said, but unfortunately it absolutely is, that nobody should ever be forced to become pregnant, be a parent or carry a pregnancy to term. Ever. This requires both complete and total abortion rights & access but also the dismantling of the gendered expectation of women to want and need children. Remaining child free should not only be possible for women, it should also be normal and completely accepted. Anything else is oppressive.

However, I am deeply bothered by how many people who share these views talk about children. I have come across many posts describing children in cruel and dehumanizing ways, emphasizing how gross and terrible children are and how much of a burden they are to their parents. This, I think is also wrong.

Children are a particularly vulnerable population. They often have very little rights and autonomy and are at the whims of adults around them, which makes then particularly vulnerable to abuse. Children are real, fully realized people who have very specific needs and considerations. Constantly discussing how disgusting and terrible children are, means attacking people who have no power and cannot defend themselves, legally or otherwise. These views cannot be separated from calls to remove children from public life, like parks and transportation, the practice of which is both dehumanizing and oppressive. This goes hand in hand with the gendered oppression of women who are unfortunately still often the primary caregivers of children. Forcing children out of the public sphere means forcing mothers out of it too. And the right to not have children needs to go hand in hand with the right to have children. Women need abortion rights and access but they also need the right and access to give birth for free. They need robust childcare and child & family friendly infrastructure. Otherwise the only people who can afford to have children are wealthy elites.

human error

sheer incompetence

rabid pigeons

liquid shits

drowned in shit

chainsaw castration

chinchilla attack

It's just all societal expectations dressed as ambition. There are two ways for a woman to be successful: 1) get a degree, get a high status job, earn a lot of money etc. - the way man are supposed to be succesful too, that extended to women in the past couple decades 2) be a good mother and wife and run smoothly a beautiful house - the traditional way women would be successful.

If a woman is spontaneusly giving up plan a to follow plan b something tells me that she didn't really have dreams of her own, she is just doing what is expected of her, and choosing among the options based on what's easier in the moment.

Your dealing with stub your toe pain no matter the cause.

and it's a perfect circle for capitalism, isn't it? they make trillions of dollars asking you to lose weight so that you may be a more valuable asset. you need a nose job and lip filler and a bubble butt. you need more time at the gym, more protein, less freedom. you need your hair removed unless you're a different kind of person and then you need to be so hairy. you need a ton of makeup unless you're a certain skin color and then fuck you, we're not matching our foundations to you, buy 2 and mix 'em. those clothes are cringe now, buy a whole new wardrobe. you need 18 kinds of skincare, you need 12 hair products, all must-haves.

"here's the steps i'm never skipping in my morning routine - and how it made me rich. we all have the same 24 hours, right, you should just wake up earlier. click the link in my bio for the pills that made me like this. for the class that taught me how to prioritize myself. for how to be a better you; and by that i of course mean how to be beautiful."

and the way people talk about bodies. holy shit.

and it's tiring, and you are exhausted, and you are insecure because of course you are - how could you not be? nobody looks like you. nobody else has loose skin or bad skin or scars or back pimples or stretch marks or cellulite or a broken nose. the filter literally sorts all of that out, and leaves beauty behind. the things that are yours are erased.

so you buy the $14 mascara because honestly it really is a nice mascara and it lasts for a while and besides, it gives you a little boost of confidence. so you buy the expensive face mask because it is your skin, you deserve like, one nice product. self-care is now a product, isn't it? self-care isn't just meditation, now you need to download this meditation app, and then you'll be okay again.

and it's so fucking hard to find your way back to your body once you've gotten used to the price of it. because, what, you're going to pay 200 dollars a session for a "somatic" therapist? (you don't even really believe in a lot of "somatic therapy." what the fuck are they saying when they say "trauma is kept in your hips". the body keeps the score; but like, you believe the real help for trauma lies in neuroscience. you'll still do the stretch just in case, but come on). and the thing is that you are selling your body - no matter how gentle your work is; your time on this earth is limited, and you are selling hours of that time in order to make a miniscule profit (ha! as if breaking even equals "making profit").

so how do you take care of the thing that is essentially your tool? capitalism recommends you hone it. you certainly don't feel better when you rest; you feel almost self-indulgent. quick-fixes make you feel worse, annoyed with yourself for stopping at a fast food place; calculating how much cheaper it would have been to just buy the stupid ingredients and get over how tired cooking makes you.

I am in no way an expert, but I took a vinyasa yoga class last year and we did a "programm" on chakras. Loosely explained, the principle is that different parts of your body hold a chakra that regulates a different part of your spiritual life.

By exercizing different parts of our body, combining it with respiration a visualization, we are opening (healing, exploring) a specific part of our spiritual emotional self. We started with the root, which is at the base of the spine, and worked up to the crown, which is on the top of our head.

The root chakra is related to security and stability, so it makes sense, for this approach, to associate hip movements with healing from trauma.

That yoga class has been the best way I've been able to feel a connection between my body and my emotional state, and I think it's an amazing way to contrast this body/mind separatism that you are suffering. If you are interested, I think you could find vinyasa yoga classes and practices online for free.