August 16, 2010

slighty offended

news are screaming about the Pakistan crisis. im right now wrecking my head to remember where was Pakistan again. i know i know...ive seen the maps, many times, but geography was never my strong field. anyhow, im not there right now. which begs the question, why not? i wish i even found time for Iran first. and id like to go visit home of course... but first things first i guess. i need to get(make) enough money to support myself first, get things even here...THEN i could theoretically travel if i had time off work.

and me and doctor have some money-hungry plans coming up too. if they materialize. we will see.

this Newsweek study called 'world's best countries' has a nice interactive map thing.

the thermometers are showing around 30C or even less at night, when i return home from work. very merciful.

my other class finished today with a level exam. and they are starting level 3 next month, after ramadan, i hope i am assigned to teach it - at least my students also wish so and well, the customer is the king, no? today we were supposed to review and then have a exam, which we did, but as last week, in a slightly altered manner as after 8 these people are finally allowed to eat and need food. so we go to a restaurant next to the school/office with the condition that we speak english there, i practise certain forms and structures with them. after food the men went to the mosque nearby to pray, its a special ramadan prayer for men only (...?) and then we started the exam.

just before finishing the exam i was offered a class for tomorrow, their teacher is ill or something. so yay, another 30e or so for me. its a lot of money here so i wont complain about having to get up early as the class is at 10am.


why do i torture myself by reading these Sociological Images articles? they CAN be thoughtful at times, and some of the commentary/discussion below the articles can be intersting but usually i end up pissed and enraged anyway. take this "why not gender neutral clothes?"article for instance... i mean - seriously?? because a few people dont feel like they are comfy with the roles of men/women, they make it everyones issue? and yes, its really just a few people. im really sure that most people, including most homosexuals, dont have a problem with men's and women's department. but this whole gender-bullshit - its SOOO inconsiderate and even narrowminded to think that biology would make any sense. i dont have a problem with people changing sexes but theres this group of gender-issued-individuals who just cant handle the world as it is. of coyrse, the world is not perfect and improving ideas can be good, but even suggesting that a person is born with a gender is somehow rude. some of these people are allergic to the thought that children are signed a gender, although -i could be corrected if im wrong- as far as i know most people are born with genitalia. not to mention a couple chromosomes here and there. yet, u can choose to change yourself later or u might after all feel attracted to your own biological/physical or imagined gender, and thats so cool too. but i dont see how it should be made into a problem that everyone is dragged in. to abuse a stereotype, if youre a butch or just imaginative, u should be brave enough to find your clothes from whichever section u wish and not be so pissy about a couple of labels that make the life easier for the MAJORITY of all chromosome carriers! some people, who are over 2m tall for example, have to go to special fuckin stores or have their stuff handmade! so shut up, go to that H&M or Sears and be happy.

there are women who dont have curves and men that have more than said women, but really, how many guys like dresses and how many women are into fuckin ugly striped polo sweaters? i dont see the objective to make clothing stores unisex... id just be pissed. where is my sexy bra? perhaps sexy bra should be banned cos its SOOOO GENDERED, like, its almost like suggesting that some of us are born with these TITS and LIKE them, its very rude considering the biiiillions of women who dont want to wear bra and so offensive to even suggest that the women who like to wear bra, would like the bra to be sexy. the whole word 'sexy' is so gendered and offensive towards people who find other things sexy. the word sexy should be banned cos it offends the rights of those who dont find things typically considered as sexy, to be sexy. and the word typical OMG, its so offensive, because some of us are not typical, and to even suggest that there is such a thing as typical, its really offensive towards those who might not feel that typical is really typical, and might like things that we cant call typical but which some people call typical anyway. who do those people think they are anyway, calling things TYPICAL? i could go on. but the list of offenses with the gender-issued-individuals in quite endless.

oh and i was wondering what is this cis-woman or cis-man, that people sometimes refer to themselves as. wikipedia answers.
"Cisgender is a neologism that means "someone who is comfortable in the gender they were assigned at birth"
"people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their subconscious and physical sexes as being aligned"
"set of unearned advantages that individuals who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth accrue solely due to having a cisgender identity"

so basically, THE AVERAGE FUCKIN PERSON. tavis in finnish. see, its so offensive to even assume that an individual born with XY chromosomes would be happy that way and drool at those with XX. so you need a special term (cis) to suggest "a person who is happy with the genitalia theyre born with and happens to like the opposite sex". how random, isnt it, imagine, someone who likes the opposite sex AND their own biology? it needs a special label for sure...

oh and a quote from the gender neutral clothes-article:
"One might make the argument that adult males and females have different bodies (an argument I might argue with)"

lol. yeah, i might make that argument and you can feel free to argue with it. lets see how that goes. a few midg...height-challenged and milk gland-challended inviduals dont make up the RULE. and jeans are always too long for me but im not going to be pissy about it either.


these sociology-forum posts are often so out there. like the one about children, how they are no different from adults, and should and could be taken anywhere, like bars, as they probably find it much more fun anyway... and for adults to want to hang out within themselves, without children, well thats just so fuckin offensive.

but some articles are decent and interesting read, like this one "Guys on Immodesty, Lust, and the Violence of Women’s Bodies"

2 comments:

tiago said...

I agree with your overall opinion of the material on Sociological Images, and these days I rarely actually read more than one or two of their articles per week, but that's fine, I disagree with them without getting very upset. About that particular article, I think the problem with the gendered clothes stores is not so much that they are gendered, but that a girly man or a manly girl could be harrassed and humiliated by other people if they shop at their opposite gender stores, indeed like you say they shouldn't have a problem stepping into the opposite gender clothing stores and they don't, it's the other people that have a problem with it and are keen to punish the deviants who deviate in public. But moreover, I wish you hadn't dismissed the significance of the word cisgender there. I think to assume that the term describes the "average person" relies on judging the world around you solely by the behaviors people ultimately play out in front of others, which I believe is done under pressure more often than we think, not to mention we know there are behaviors regarded as queer in some cultures that would go completely unnoticed in other cultures, which I think shows that this “average” may expand to fit whatever the “average” is supposed to be. But to be rather safe than sorry, I'd prefer to not imagine that the average is comprised of actual average persons, and since I don't have intimate access to everyone's brains, I can't presume that all of these average persons that seem to be comfortable with the gender they were assigned actually are.

suzi9mm said...

hi Tiago. thanks for the feedback and keeping it professional.

however i still think that while a girly man or a manly girl might be harassed if they shop from another department, but i am fairly content that thousands of people do it daily without any problems also. i have done it, and seen others do it. and because every day 1(referring to smaller percentage compared to the ones who dont) person will be harassed/get a bad look, does that really make it sensible to combine the departments, considering the downsides which i mentioned? unless the way we dress changes dramatically, the cashier could still give u a bad look when u pay for your thongs. and harass you. send the mob to beat you up. and what about wearing the clothes? i think that causes even more issues than the shopping itself which are not solved by making one unisex department in a store. if living in a small remote conservative village of iran, u could order your opposite-gender-clothes online but might get stoned if u wear them in the public or your cousin finds out. yeah, some cultural stereotypes flying here...

i still think its okay to refer to average. for example, if 65% of british women are around 160-165cm tall, id call that the average british woman (heightwise). and while there are unfortunately many people due to circumstances in closets and otherwise hiding their true feelings/personalities, i am pretty certain that the vast majority are still heteros and happy with their designed sex. hence: average. probably related to how the species goes on too.

how some behaviors are regarded or judged in some cultures (hugging men in finland are gay and so on), doesnt change that i believe a majority (safely put 75%?) of all people are probably okay with their assigned bodies etc.