Who is up for DIVERSITY?????

I started posting at a new forum site this week and it has already been an interesting experience. Apparently they have had some really bad experiences in the past because someone started 'working the computer' to find out who I am, but then got all their information wrong. I apparently was the mother of a disabled child, then the mother of three healthy children, and then I was a renegade albino Catholic monk trying to keep a secret...oh wait, wrong show.

Hopefully they got it all straightened out and now won't feel so threatened by my presence. I am hoping to bring a kind of Aquinas philosophy to the discussion - it does not always have to be either/or...sometimes, it can be both/and....not on doctrine or dogma, but certainly on the beginnings of a solution.

Meanwhile the slings, arrows and bigotry of LOM and others at the Hive is increasing. I have never in my life seen such unhappy, angry people as those who post there and I really miss the whimsy of people like Malc and AE...but they are as disgusted as me so don't go there very often. I feel like I am trying not to focus on the darkness that is The Hive and bring a little bit of light to the situation...but right now it is like holding a tiny match in an underground cavern filled with sightless bugs and birds.

Ah well.

I was watching an advertisement for a birth control product recently and it suddenly struck me how it was being marketed. Those darn menstrual cycles - what a pain! How they hold you back, you young woman of the future! Here's your chance to get RID of them for three months at a TIME....that ought to add to your freedom!

Am I missing something here?

For all the failures of the Feminist Movement of the 1970(s) one of its driving forces was its celebration of being a woman. When did it become unfashionable to love the wonder that is our feminine bodies?

This pill is not being marketed as a cure for endrometriosis (spelling?) or any other disorder associated with what can be a real physical concern for some females; rather, the push seems to be that becoming something other than fully female will be one step closer to having 'control' over our lives.

This self-loathing we women fight is really what keeps us in shackles, isn't it? I mean, why do we need to be shadow beings in order to be successful and liberated? Why is having a period a bad thing, rather than a sign from God that one is now capable of having children?

Again, I am not speaking to those who suffer from a real physical problem that may cause them horrific pain. I am speaking, instead, to that world of advertising that has women convinced that having the body of a prepubescent boy with very large breasts and no pesky period for three months at a time is the ideal.

What is WRONG with us? What happened to not shaving our legs because 'natural' was good? What is natural about tricking your body with chemicals into not doing what it is SUPPOSED to do? How the heck is THAT supposed to help us in business and politics?

We have a real war going on against women in this country. Why we celebrate us on specific holidays (Happy Mothers' Day!) and then spend the rest of our time trying to not be women is beyond me. Since when did being a feminist mean hating being female enough to alter ourselves chemically?

Good GOD we have horrible collective memories of the valium pushed on us in the 1950's and 1960's - you'd think we'd know by now that whom ever comes up with these types of products are not doing so with our best interests at heart.