WE CAN ALL HAZ CRACK
Mar. 17th, 2008 12:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richSince I posted my own crack yesterday, I thought I'd pass along another piece someone else wrote - for anyone interested in J/E, W/E, J/W, or any combination of the three, I think you'll find this humorous. (And if you do, be sure to let her know!)
Fandom-wise, go talk about your favorite POTC character. NOW BEEYATCHES.
In other news, still sick. Sleep is sporadic thanks to the Cough That Erupts every time I get horizontal-ish. And now my upper back hurts from doing it so much. Barnacles!*
I've been reading this book I picked up a few weeks ago, called Sex, Time, and Power by Leonard Schlain, who is apparently a middle-aged surgeon. The book is his thoughts on female sexuality and how human women gaining control over theirs influenced the course of human development and society.
It takes a few chapters, but he gets to his central premise, which concerns women's menstrual periods. His premise is that there aren't many mammalian species that bleed after being in heat even if they don't become pregnant, and doing so robs a female human of valuable, necessary iron - so why did Nature engineer it this way? His answer is that it was Nature's way of teaching humans how to think in what he calls 'deeptime,' or in less fancy terms, to understand there is a future. Humans are the only animals who realize they are each going to die someday, and by linking menses with lunar cycles and pregnancy, ancient females finally figured out "if I have sex, I'll get pregnant." Since giving birth was such a hard proposition back then, and came with a high mortality rate because of how the bipedal human body was shaped and the size of the ever-growing brains/heads of infants, some females elected NOT to get pregnant, thus potentially endangering the continuation of the human species.
Following on the heels of women figuring out cycles and calendars and such led to the observation/discovery of each person's individual mortality - with that came prehistoric men's realization that the only way he could hope to "live forever" would be through reproduction, once he realized there were definite children in the tribe that looked like him, belonging to women with whom he'd had sex. To ensure his progeny grew safely to adulthood - to breed yet more of his family line - he created sexual partnerships such as marriage, both to ensure his children were cared for and to ensure their mother would not mate with other males, thus throwing his parentage into question. And women participated in this to gain providers for their children and themselves, especially to provide iron-rich meat ... to replace the iron they lost through menses, breastfeeding, and a whole host of other things for which the female body seems badly designed.
It's an interesting book, and he makes a lot of neat points - I don't know if I believe all of it, but it makes a sort of logical sense. (And to be fair, I don't think we're ever going to know just exactly how the nuances of human development "went down.") He also makes several side points about various facets of human development, including how it was around 40,000 years ago when human development suddenly changed to reflect an interest in art and burial and its attendant rituals (realization of mortality) in all parts of the world where they were humans. He pointed out, too, that since there wasn't the kind of travel or communication we enjoy now, it had to be a species-wide Nature-programmed "schedule" of development, since people in the Middle East couldn't communicate with those on other continents, for example.
Of course, he also addresses patriarchy and misogyny and how he thinks in individual men they are rooted in puberty, since when boys are little they adore their mothers (so what makes them turn against women as they get older?). His hypothesis is that when boys want to play with pubescent girls and experiment with their bodies, and are repeatedly refused (since girls HAVE to be a lot more careful about getting disease and of getting pregnant), they grow resentful of anything resembling female power, even a women's power over herself and her own choices. The only problem I really have with this is (a) there are obviously men who don't hate women, and (b) how do you explain all the women who are misogynistic and anti-choice? (For people who say women CAN'T be misogynistic, I say you're wrong; it is possible. But in the spirit of many past fandom-related rants on the subject, you need to pinpoint the target of a woman's complaint about something - if it's just one person/character she doesn't like, who happens to be female, that's not misogyny.)
One comparison that was especially interesting was his comparison of the development of a fetus to the development of humans. He points out how a fetus does not start out with a human brain or organs - gills, for example. (And it's been pointed out by others in medicine and religion that early fetal brains are more like reptiles than mammals.) And human beings didn't just spring into existence as primates, they started WAYYYY back as something else altogether, if you go for evolutionary theory. (Which I do.)
I'd be curious if someone else would read/ has read this book and would share thoughts as well.
I've also seen that meme going around about "ask me anything, especially stuff I don't blog about." Well, there's an awful lot I don't write about, notably really personal or family stuff much, and there's a reason for that - personal information and all. I just assume if there's anything anyone ever wants to ask me, they will - but if you feel you need a special post to ask something, go right ahead and I'll see what I can do ...
*One of the "swear words" on "Spongebob Squarepants" is "Barnacles!" Others, equally amusing, are "Tartar Sauce!" and "Fish Paste!"
Fandom-wise, go talk about your favorite POTC character. NOW BEEYATCHES.
In other news, still sick. Sleep is sporadic thanks to the Cough That Erupts every time I get horizontal-ish. And now my upper back hurts from doing it so much. Barnacles!*
I've been reading this book I picked up a few weeks ago, called Sex, Time, and Power by Leonard Schlain, who is apparently a middle-aged surgeon. The book is his thoughts on female sexuality and how human women gaining control over theirs influenced the course of human development and society.
It takes a few chapters, but he gets to his central premise, which concerns women's menstrual periods. His premise is that there aren't many mammalian species that bleed after being in heat even if they don't become pregnant, and doing so robs a female human of valuable, necessary iron - so why did Nature engineer it this way? His answer is that it was Nature's way of teaching humans how to think in what he calls 'deeptime,' or in less fancy terms, to understand there is a future. Humans are the only animals who realize they are each going to die someday, and by linking menses with lunar cycles and pregnancy, ancient females finally figured out "if I have sex, I'll get pregnant." Since giving birth was such a hard proposition back then, and came with a high mortality rate because of how the bipedal human body was shaped and the size of the ever-growing brains/heads of infants, some females elected NOT to get pregnant, thus potentially endangering the continuation of the human species.
Following on the heels of women figuring out cycles and calendars and such led to the observation/discovery of each person's individual mortality - with that came prehistoric men's realization that the only way he could hope to "live forever" would be through reproduction, once he realized there were definite children in the tribe that looked like him, belonging to women with whom he'd had sex. To ensure his progeny grew safely to adulthood - to breed yet more of his family line - he created sexual partnerships such as marriage, both to ensure his children were cared for and to ensure their mother would not mate with other males, thus throwing his parentage into question. And women participated in this to gain providers for their children and themselves, especially to provide iron-rich meat ... to replace the iron they lost through menses, breastfeeding, and a whole host of other things for which the female body seems badly designed.
It's an interesting book, and he makes a lot of neat points - I don't know if I believe all of it, but it makes a sort of logical sense. (And to be fair, I don't think we're ever going to know just exactly how the nuances of human development "went down.") He also makes several side points about various facets of human development, including how it was around 40,000 years ago when human development suddenly changed to reflect an interest in art and burial and its attendant rituals (realization of mortality) in all parts of the world where they were humans. He pointed out, too, that since there wasn't the kind of travel or communication we enjoy now, it had to be a species-wide Nature-programmed "schedule" of development, since people in the Middle East couldn't communicate with those on other continents, for example.
Of course, he also addresses patriarchy and misogyny and how he thinks in individual men they are rooted in puberty, since when boys are little they adore their mothers (so what makes them turn against women as they get older?). His hypothesis is that when boys want to play with pubescent girls and experiment with their bodies, and are repeatedly refused (since girls HAVE to be a lot more careful about getting disease and of getting pregnant), they grow resentful of anything resembling female power, even a women's power over herself and her own choices. The only problem I really have with this is (a) there are obviously men who don't hate women, and (b) how do you explain all the women who are misogynistic and anti-choice? (For people who say women CAN'T be misogynistic, I say you're wrong; it is possible. But in the spirit of many past fandom-related rants on the subject, you need to pinpoint the target of a woman's complaint about something - if it's just one person/character she doesn't like, who happens to be female, that's not misogyny.)
One comparison that was especially interesting was his comparison of the development of a fetus to the development of humans. He points out how a fetus does not start out with a human brain or organs - gills, for example. (And it's been pointed out by others in medicine and religion that early fetal brains are more like reptiles than mammals.) And human beings didn't just spring into existence as primates, they started WAYYYY back as something else altogether, if you go for evolutionary theory. (Which I do.)
I'd be curious if someone else would read/ has read this book and would share thoughts as well.
I've also seen that meme going around about "ask me anything, especially stuff I don't blog about." Well, there's an awful lot I don't write about, notably really personal or family stuff much, and there's a reason for that - personal information and all. I just assume if there's anything anyone ever wants to ask me, they will - but if you feel you need a special post to ask something, go right ahead and I'll see what I can do ...
*One of the "swear words" on "Spongebob Squarepants" is "Barnacles!" Others, equally amusing, are "Tartar Sauce!" and "Fish Paste!"
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-17 07:28 pm (UTC)"ask me anything, especially stuff I don't blog about"
I don't recall you saying much here about the whole LJ drama - that has reared its ugly head again. (Damnit! I knew that would happen the minute I went back to a paid account. I knew it! *Is getting crankier*)
What's your opinion on the whole mess? Will you be participating in the boycott?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 04:30 am (UTC)I don't really have an opinion of the LJ drama, probably because I realize that 6A is a business and will worry first and foremost about its bottom line. I've worked for too many publications to know by now that "free speech" isn't really free - it's subsidized if it's printed or online, someone's paying for it. To be fair, if I'm paying for an account, I should be able to say what I want unless it's clearly illegal (such as written or visual child porn), since it's my own space. But the people who do blog about it and have opinions, I think that's great, because we can't all be everywhere and up on everything - it's like my friends who post about politics all the time, such as