#womans issues

Ah, how I love to be a woman

Since Trump won I guess I'll post a preview piece for my gallery project for Senior Seminar. Basiclly it is the bias against women that is out there. This will be a motion graphics piece in the end with text on it. There will be two companion pieces involving sexuality and age as well.

We had a midwife to prepare us, but our midwife wasn’t prepared... for us... to be a few weeks premature (she had only been delivering babies for about 30 years). Thus we weren’t prepared. We hadn’t done the last “class”- and so this is what it looked like for us: I woke up at 3am to have a bowl of cereal (normal behavior for me), and my husband was still up (normal behavior for him). As I sat down with my bowl of cereal, I pee’d myself a little and I thought, that’s a nice new addition to this pregnancy thing. After a few more bites I realized, wait, that wasn’t pee- my water just broke.It was the weirdest realization- a mix of “well, that was underwhelming and sooo not like in the movies”, immediately followed by an adrenaline rush- extreme excitement, panic, fear, anticipation of THE moment that all this planning and shopping and fighting and daydreaming and re-folding of itsy-bitsy-teeny-tiny-clothes has been building up to, all jumbled together.I wanted to scream with joy, but I couldn’t for my vocal chords- trembling with nerves- and I wanted to scream in sheer terror... labor was coming- we hadn’t done the breathing class! No- I didn’t do lamaze- I work. Don’t you? It was a moment that was so crammed in thoughts and feelings. I must have bent time just to have had this moment. Have you ever had a heart palpitation? That was THAT moment. I caused that. And when I were done with that freak-the-fuck-out session, I was standing in the hallway with a towel fashioned between my legs like a Sumo wrestler, my husband rolling on the floor clutching his leg. He had walked into the foot-board of the bedframe looking for the hospital bag and really f'd up his shin. What I haven’t told you is that before the bowl of cereal, we had been in a multi-day fight. With the towel between my legs, I joined him on the floor, the contractions starting to come now. I remember a little speech broken up with long contraction “Oooooooohhhhs!”, about this being a memorable night, him being the sentimental one that will retell this story (“aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!”) for the rest of his life, so we had better do away with the argument (stronger one- ooooohhhhaaaaahhhhh!) and make a good life long memory. We called the midwife who said, “Go back to sleep and call me in the morning!”. WTF!?!Didn’t she hear? My water broke? Isn’t this where you kick into gear, mad panic + sirens + running + kissing + screaming + hospital = baby? I texted  my friend Kirsty- she had had her first a year earlier. She told me which contraction app to download, to time them, and asked if I really wanted to be stuck in “Auckland morning traffic”, delivering my baby? We timed contractions and by 6a- we hopped into the car and headed to the hospital. No. We didn’t know where to park. We parked in the wrong place. We didn’t know where to enter. We entered in the wrong place. And to make it more interesting, I stopped at every bench in the hospital on that long, long walk, to the “right” place, to have my contractions on all four, like a dog. I don’t know why. Instincts took over, and that’s what felt best. When there wasn’t a bench, my husband had to help me get down; and get up. When we finally got to the maternity ward, the 200 year old receptionist informed me that my midwife was “supposed” to meet me there, and was "supposed" to have informed me about these procedures. I informed her that I was premature, and hadn’t been given ‘that class’. She wasn’t satisfied with my answer. She is lucky to still be alive.

Brian Benson, Professor of English, Tulsa Community College

I’m trying to work on fixing this and giving myself what I need. It’s just hard to be aggressive when you’ve spent your whole life avoiding confrontation.

CEO Satya Nadella's comment that female employees should trust in karma opened Microsoft's eyes to unconscious bias.

But most of all, I need feminism because these thoughts shouldn't be going through my head. If I had a Y chromosome, these thoughts would be irrelevant and unnecessary. Because I should have enough confidence in myself to succeed without having to rely on a man. So this blog is about having the confidence to wake up alone and proving I'm an independent woman who don't need no man.