It's a Matter of Perspective

My Perspective on Being a Woman in Today’s Society

Buckle in, folks! This is going to be a brutally honest deep dive into as many layers of the nonsense we put up with as I can get through without bursting a blood vessel. I hope this brings vindication to all those who identify as female and enlightenment to all those who identify as male. Let’s start from the body and work our way out.

There is such a contradictory shroud of shame and objectification that education on the female body is practically nonexistent. A couple examples of this that spring to mind are such occurrences as: one of my brothers not learning until his late teens that women grow leg and underarm hair too, one of my friends legitimately used to think that girls don’t poop, and a different friend not realizing that women’s hair could get oily. And it’s not just the menfolk who don’t have the best education about our bodies. One of my friends was slut-shamed by her mom for having a yeast infection. Just… WHAT? Why is it as a society that we consider it so shameful that women have bodily functions, grow hair, and can sometimes just get infections? We are humans too! The expectation that we always present ourselves as smooth, perfectly quaffed, sexual objects that excrete new car smell is infuriating and just plain unattainable. The fact that a man not shaving for a day or two is considered ‘rugged’ but a woman doing the same is considered ‘nasty’ makes my blood boil.

Next I will dive into the absolutely asinine world of needed objects that we’re criminally overcharged for. Razors, for example. Men’s razors not only function better but are also way more affordable than women’s. For the same price as a ‘pretty’ razor for ladies that will inevitably clog the first or second time you use it, you can get a men’s electric razor that will last you a heck of a lot longer. I know this from first hand experience and have not exaggerated this in the slightest. Also, let’s talk bras. I could write an entire BOOK on the garbage fire that is life with bras. The ‘cheap’ bras usually run around $30. A necessary undergarment so that we can walk/run without discomfort if not outright pain, that keeps us from scandalizing people with our ‘scary and obscene’ nipples, and that helps our clothing fit better. And a good portion of us don’t even have one that fits correctly because apparently having breasts and needing bras is such a scandalous thing that we aren’t taught about their sizing or how they should fit. So not only are we overcharged for them, they also almost never fit right and cause more problems than they solve.

And CLOTHES. The difference in how things are sized is just unfair. In men’s pants, they size things in waist and leg measurements (i.e. 32″X36″). That is way more standardized and at the same time more customizable. For women’s pants, it’s sized as even numbers but the actual size varies between brand and store based on their ideal of what the standard woman should look like. I usually am too lanky for the women’s section, so if I don’t want to have all my clothes tailored at an extra cost I have to shop in the teen’s section. As a 26 year old woman. We don’t even get useful pockets most of the time. So we have to either buy bags, ask someone to hold our stuff, or deal with our stuff poking out of our ‘pockets.’ You wonder why we flip every time a dress has pockets? Purses cost at least $20 and at that particular price point they don’t last particularly long.

And after all of this shaming, price-gouging, and weird sexualization…. some men have the gall– the GALL– to tell us how to govern our own bodies. (Even more than insisting that we remove hair from 80% of our bodies.) It isn’t right that laws have been passed about women’s health by those not educated or having any personal experience with women’s health.

The sad news is that even with all of the above mentioned issues and numerous issues I didn’t even touch on; in general women are treated better than they have been in the past. We can vote, we can have jobs (even if we still aren’t always paid the same and our trans sisters are sometimes fired for being themselves), and we can actually charge people for assaulting us. It says a lot about society that those basic things are considered achievements.

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on Language

This will come as a shock to absolutely no one, but I love words. Language is amazing and some of them don’t even require words. (i.e. body language, the language of flowers) The ways we communicate are fascinating to me.

To keep the surprises coming, written word is my favorite way to communicate. The ability to create images in peoples’ minds with words thrills me. Evoking emotions through careful word choice and punctuation is exhilarating. Poetry is absolutely one of my favorite forms of writing because you can make the words have a rhythm, convey things in a unique way, and there’s no rules.

I also have a mild obsession with the Language of Flowers. It’s just fascinating that each flower has multiple meanings and therefore a bouquet could either mean something insulting or be the highest compliment; only the sender would know the true intent and message. I mean, doesn’t that sound like fun? Making the most ambiguous bouquet as possible to irritate your friends? Maybe it’s my slightly sadistic side coming out to play, but that just sound like the height of pestering someone in a harmless way.

Most of all, I love how everyone has a language. Everyone can express what they want to, they just have to use a language. Heck, each individual seems to have their own unique language. Interpreting them sometimes takes time, but it’s always worth it in my opinion. Some people use ‘idiot’ as a term of endearment for example. It’s just so interesting how differently others can use words.

Just. It’s awesome.

Thus ends my love letter to language.

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on Helping Others

It not easy sometimes helping others. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. That’s usually when they need help the most. At least, that’s been my experience. In this post, I’ll share how I go about helping others the best I can.

It’s easiest to help people with physical or financial problems. You need someone to help you move? Here I am, just feed me. You’re a little short on rent? If I have the means, here’s that cash. These are situations with clear cut ways to solve the problem. All you have to do is be willing to help.

It’s harder when people need emotional or mental help. You have to exercise careful judgement to suss out what would be most helpful in a particular situation. If someone seems really wound up about something, I’ve found that just letting them rant while you actively listen usually helps a lot. Sometimes they just need to get things off of their chest. It helps them to have someone actually listen to them. If they’re sad, there’s a couple of different approaches that are on the whole pretty successful. If they just need to let themselves feel sad, just quietly be there and offer hugs. If they’re stuck on a downward spiral, distract them and generally be a clown until they laugh their way out of that spiral. The most important thing for helping others on the whole is being there.

It’s also important to realize when you are unable to give someone the help they need. That’s when you get others to help you help them. If you think someone is a danger to themselves or others, call 911.

All of this having been said, I’m of the opinion that if you can help others you should. Friend, family, or foe… we’re all human and what’s humanity worth if we don’t help each other now and again?

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on Being Hit On(Part 2)

I don’t intend to revisit topics that I’ve already posted about often; but it seems like the universe has just sent me more ammunition to talk about this subject. I will try to tackle different aspects today.

I mentioned in my previous post that I seem to attract the ‘weird ones.’ I actually have had a guy earn three strikes with me in 30 seconds since my original post. So I thought maybe I could explain where guys have gone wrong with me (using this particular guy as an example) and maybe this will shed some more light on the way that some come-ons come across. On to the story of Mr. Vegan.

Scene: I’m at the grocery store, trying to quickly grab ingredients for taco soup. I hear some guy mutter something in my direction. Confused and thinking that he might be asking where something is, the interaction begins. For context, I’m wearing a Howl’s Moving Castle shirt that has Calcifer on it with the phrase, “May all your bacon burn.”

Me: Sorry, what?

Mr. Vegan: That’s a mean curse to put on someone. (Is visibly looking at my chest and not my eyes)

Me: Huh?

Mr. Vegan: (still staring at my chest) I mean, I’m a VEGAN and I still think it’s a mean curse about the bacon.

Me: (realizing that this dude was trying to win me over by making a comment about my shirt without recognizing the reference and done with having my chest molested by his eyes) Well, then may all the vegan bacon burn too. (grabs taco seasoning and walks away)

So the first strike against this guy was him never taking his eyes off of my chest. I would very much appreciate if I could be treated as an actual human instead of a sexual plaything. There is just something dehumanizing about someone staring at your chest rather than looking into your eyes as you talk. So, pro-tip: If you want to make a good impression with someone you wish to be romantically involved with, talk to their face not to their breasts.

The second strike against Mr. Vegan is that he didn’t understand my shirt’s reference, but he tried to make out like he did. Look, I am a freaking nerd. I know that not everyone is going to get the references on my shirt or know the characters on them. That’s fine. But acting like you know something that you don’t is not an attractive trait. He could have asked, “Why does your shirt say that?” or “Where’s that from?” and gotten much better responses from me. Instead he said something weird and vaguely insulting about it.

The third strike was bringing the fact that he was a vegan into this short, first conversation we had. I have no problems if someone is vegan. That’s their choice and if they’re someone that I’m going to be making a meal for, I’ll take that into account. However it has been my experience that if someone mentions that they are vegan with minimal to no prompting, they are the sort who are unbelievably smug about their dietary choices and talk about little else. That’s just obnoxious. Imagine if everyone went around and unprompted said “I’m an omnivore!” or “I’m a vegetarian!” and expected worshipful glances.

So the long and short of it is that I feel like suitors would be more successful and I would be less salty if they would look me in the eyes and treat me like a human.

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on Loss

This… is a tough one. On the eve of 9/11 which just also happens to be my late grandma’s birthday, loss is heavy in my mind. I had the thought that I might be able to help others by talking about how I deal with it.

Spoiler Alert: It’s not easy.

You have to let yourself cry if you feel like you’re going to. It’s also fine if tears don’t come to your eyes. Just don’t cut yourself off from your emotions or suppress them. It doesn’t end well when you don’t acknowledge your feelings as valid and let yourself feel them. I’ve learned this the hard way. Suppress your sadness and you’ll end up sobbing about a scarf.

Once you’ve let out all that you can, you can start to rebuild. Instead of thinking about how they’re not there anymore, replace that with a thought about a good time you had with them. Wasn’t it great that you got to have that moment with them? When you see something that reminds you of them; instead of losing yourself in grief, remember why you have that great association of them with that object. It is absolutely natural to miss those you’ve lost, but with time and effort… it’s possible to turn the deep chasm of grief into the warm glow of fond remembrance.

I realize that my first two tips sound very contradictory, but let me explain. It is my belief that you need to let out your initial grief, but if you cling to it that will eat away at you. It will definitely make it so that even thinking of the good times is monstrously painful. I’m not saying that my approach is pain-free, but it does seem to be a lot less heavy to carry around.

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on Working in Fast Food

Oooooooooooh man, do I have some STORIES! I worked in food service for three years. Some days were fun; I would be working with a good crew, the customers were nice, and we got everything done. Other days were dumpster fires; I would have people who didn’t want to work, we would be slammed, there would be whole flocks of Karens, and we would end up staying late to get everything back to a state where the morning crew wouldn’t want to murder us. Those were the days where I would go home, walk straight to my closet, and do a shot of whiskey to re-calibrate.

My biggest peeve is the lack of respect that the employees get– from almost everyone. These are the people making your food, keeping your favorite quick meal spots running, and if you treat them with even basic human decency they will most likely go the extra mile for you. It’s not just the customers who need to take a course in how to treat people, the franchise owners could definitely use one too. I remember one franchise owner would yell at us if we took breaks to eat and we had to hover when he would make the schedule to make sure he wouldn’t schedule us on days he already granted us off. Another would ‘forget’ to pay us on time. The thing is, if they had treated us as actual people who’s time had value; they probably could have kept a staff and that staff would move mountains for them. When you do bare minimum for your staff, that’s what you’re going to get in return most of the time.

I also am of the opinion that everyone should be paid a living wage. Period. Everyone should be able to afford feeding and housing themselves. That shouldn’t even be a question. Yet most fast food places will work their hardest to pay you as little as possible and give you just the correct amount of hours that they get a good amount of your time, but they don’t have to give you full time benefits. It’s disgusting.

Speaking of disgusting, let’s talk working conditions. I briefly touched on this earlier, but in one restaurant I worked at we weren’t allowed meal breaks. If you were roped into a double shift, you would be running on energy drinks and sneaked bags of chips. In another, we had a very serious rodent problem. We never closed. We were told to just toss nibbled on food and clean up the droppings. I didn’t even realize how ill that particular environment was making me until I quit.

Hands down the best part of working these jobs were some of the cool people I worked with. I consider one of them to be sister now. I also got over some of my shyness working in food service. You have to. They also helped my multitasking and helped me learn to keep my cool under pressure. (One of my restaurants was in a shopping center. Christmas. Enough said.)

So, like, it isn’t ALL bad; but it definitely could be infinitely better is what I’m saying.

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on the US’ Healthcare System

It sucks.

The end.

Just kidding. I won’t cheat you all out of a full length post because I’ve been up for 36 hours and my brain is like oatmeal. I have to say that this will probably get heated. Because how else can one possibly talk about such a hot mess?

Lets talk about how much it costs to have an average quality of life. It costs $10,000 to give birth in a hospital. I was born with the cartilage in my feet being messed up. The surgery that I needed to be able to walk without pain was the price of a mid-range brand new car. An ambulance ride is $800. It is not okay that in an emergency, you have to waste time to think if you can afford the privilege of having your life saved. If you are going to buy food or the medication you need. If you can deal with whatever ailment or injury without going to the doctor, because it’s that or your water bill.

The insurance that is supposed to be helping you will actively do anything to make sure that they don’t have to help you. Insurance for you average individual is just ridiculous. The deductibles are so exorbitant that you’d actually have to get into a car wreck for it to start actually helping you pay for anything. Along with the extra slap in the face that is the monthly fee you pay. Most don’t even cover prescriptions or mental health. To be clear, I’m talking about insurance that you purchase for yourself and not anything that is partially employer funded or any of the government funded coverages that you can apply for. The employer provided plans are horridly expensive if you try to continue them after you lose your job, like you’re allowed to. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that it should not be so complicated to get affordable care.

If other countries can have free or affordable healthcare, it really just comes down to greed and pettiness as reasons that we can’t have it. That’s it.

That’s my perspective.

What’s yours?

My Perspective on Writer’s Block

It seems fitting that I’ve been staring at this screen for a good twenty minutes. And that it’s taking me just about the same amount of time to come up with more sentences that I like the sound of. I know I’m not alone in suffering for this blight on those of us who enjoy writing.

The experience of writer’s block for me usually involves me staring blankly at a screen or empty page with dial up noises playing in my head. I hate it. I know that in my case, a good portion of it is probably my Depression. Some days it takes hours for me to find the inspiration to get out of bed, never mind trying to come up with something interesting to write about. I’m trying to write through a particularly bad case of having no inspiration right now and I can actually feel my brain burning.

Usually I can spring myself out of a funk by listening to music or re-reading previous things that I’ve written. That doesn’t really seem to be the case today. When I try and write without inspiration like I am right now, it all just sounds like garbage to me.

So I’m going to pass this off to you: How do you beat writer’s block?

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on Asking for Help

This is going to be a fun one. I do think that the topic of asking for help isn’t talked about enough, though. At least, not in a positive light. Especially not in the US.

When I was younger, even as recently as last month, I have struggled with being able to ask for help when I need it. This stems from a lot of different experiences and influences in my life. Whether it’s being called weak for asking for help opening things, being told to ‘not be a burden’ when I accept offers of help, or just generally growing up hearing stories of people in my parents’ generation being able to live off of part-time jobs…. I’ve been practically hardwired to try and take everything on by myself. Even if it slowly destroys me. I think a lot of us Millenials and Gen Z kids are conditioned like this.

It’s not alright.

Because another integral part of my personality is being the friend that others can always depend on, who will drop anything to help out. But I think that my needs are lesser and my struggles are something that I should be able to handle on my own. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like us younger generations are bred to have a martyr-complex. That’s just messed up.

Recently, I finally bit the bullet and reached out for some help from my family. Shockingly, the world didn’t end. I didn’t become a pariah. My sense of self wasn’t lost. My relationships with them have actually strengthened. My life has gotten at least a little easier.

This shifted my entire mindset.

I would now argue that it takes immense strength to ask for help and that if you can’t count on someone to be there for you at least a fraction of the amount that you are there for them; perhaps it’s time to examine that relationship. Historically, we as a species are more likely to triumph if we work together and depend on each other.

What’s your perspective?

My Perspective on Adaptations

As someone who is very much a nerd, you can bet I have some strong opinions on book to movie adaptations. Done well, they are one of my favorite types of movie. Unfortunately it seems like Hollywood often makes three specific mistakes.

One mistake that irks me the most is when they don’t wait for the book series to be completed before they start making the movies and/or shows. When they get impatient and don’t wait for the story to be complete, it’s almost a certainty that they will cut out details that turn out to be important later. Prime example, the mirror that Sirius Black gave Harry Potter for Christmas in Order of the Phoenix. This was discounted by the movie makers as insignificant, but it came back to save the Golden Trio in Deathly Hallows. They never introduced it and just had it randomly became a thing once they realized that it was important.

Another way that adapting a series before it is completed can ruin things is that once the show catches up, you either get a stupidly long hiatus or the show’s writers start making things up. When they start making things up on their own, the show 9 times out of 10 loses the fleshed out feeling of the universe the author created. *cough* Game of Thrones. *cough* Also, there’s a very good chance that they could go in a different direction than the author intended with the story. Granted it might be interesting to see an alternate ending, but I’ve found that these endings don’t usually feel right or fit.

The second common mistake I’ve found in adaptations is that they dumb down the characters and/or the plot. Case and point: Ronald Weasley. I’m not saying that he was a genius or anything, but they took away a lot of his common sense and strategic knowledge. He was unbeatable at chess and had a wealth of knowledge on the workings of the Wizarding World that Harry and Hermione didn’t. Harry lost a lot of his smarter qualities as well. The movie writers pretty much gave Hermione all of the smart lines. In the books, they’re written to compliment each other and fill in the others’ gaps in knowledge. I feel like it does characters and the story a great disservice when they make it where only one character can be the ‘smart’ one. They need to trust that we can follow along and trust that they can explain things correctly.

The last of the three most common mistakes is excessively cutting out content from the books. I understand that they can’t put everything into the movie and that some things don’t translate well into film. No really. I do. But when they pretty much bank on the movie goers having read the books and don’t explain half of what’s going on, that’s where I have issues. I didn’t even realize until recently that they never explained in the movies what characteristics each house is supposed to represent in Harry Potter. That’s just one example. But not everyone who sees the movies is going to have read the books. That’s a fact. So if you leave out a lot of the explanations and plot points, they’re going to be confused. I’ve been reading Harry Potter to one of my friends recently and the number of times she’s said something along the lines of “That makes so much more sense!” is staggering.

All of that being said, you might think that I don’t like the Harry Potter movies, or other movies based on books altogether. That’s not true. On their own they’re usually pretty decent. But when considering them as adaptations, the quality seems to be a lot more varied. The Harry Potter movies will always have a fond place in my heart, and the casting was on point. But I’m hoping for a better adaptation in the future, and I’m hoping adaptations in general get better.

What’s your perspective?