Brains is weird

[jhetley]

I have no idea why I came up with Cher as mental music for this morning's bike ride.  "Born in the wagon of a traveling show, Momma used to dance for the money they'd throw . . ."

The Sunday ride, it was Johnny Horton and "Sink the Bismarck".

Stupid.  Why am I wasting brain-space on forty or fifty year old pop music?  The lyrics and music are all still in there . . .

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Cher. I remember hearing that song as a teenager, and understanding that what it was really describing was the way in which, as long as women were seen as commodities, the system was rigged to continue producing an unending supply of women who would have few options besides becoming commodities.

Not that I phrased it that way at age 14 or so; articulation had to wait until I read MZB's short story "There Is Always An Alternative," which addressed the same issue much more directly, and the addition of the term "commodities" derives from recent feminist dialogue. But the message was clear as a bell even to my 14-year-old self.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

And men aren't "commodities"?

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

No, men are understood to own themselves. This becomes really obvious if you think about what happens when there's a gender imbalance in a society. In a man-scarce environment, men reap the profits (both monetary and intangible) of being in high demand; in a woman-scarce environment, those profits go to the men who control the women.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I've been an interchangeable part in too damn many machines to swallow that whole.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'll add that the Selective Service System made their views quite clear on the question of whether I own myself . . .

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Apples and oranges. No one in their right mind would try to argue that the military reflects society as a whole.

I'm talking about the real world, where significant numbers of men still believe that:
1) Buying dinner and a movie entitles them to sex;
2) Attractive women must smile at them, and it's okay to command a complete stranger to do so;
3) "If I can't have her, nobody can" is an understandable response to being broken up with;
4) It's preferable to have your daughter die of cervical cancer than to give her access to a vaccine which "might encourage her to be promiscuous";
5) A pregnant woman has no right to do anything which might endanger the fetus, no matter how infinitesimal the risk -- and if she does, she should be prosecuted as if she had mugged someone.

And this in spite of close to 50 years of effort and education about the right of women to be considered people. Hell, HHS is buying into the woman-as-commodity thing right now, with that birth-control-is-abortion crack. Do not even THINK about trying to tell me that men are considered commodities in the same way that women are; it doesn't fly.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

You've never been drafted. By society as a whole.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I had to wait a day before I could reply to this with any semblance of civility.

The draft is GONE, and not likely to return. Everything I discussed is still happening, today and every day. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

Also, the McCain "my military service trumps everything" ploy doesn't become you. He's too old to know better; I hadn't thought that you were. But I am beginning to think that you are too old to understand this issue.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

You concentrate so much on your own chains that you don't see the chains others wear.