Somewhere Between Jesus and Huey P. Newton

I saw one of the laborers (lowest level worker at the sandbox, not unionized, not an Opposite of Dog employee) from the sandbox at Kroger last night in the self checkout area.

He was like, “Do I know you?”

I was all, “Yeah, I work at the Sandbox.”

And he comes back at me with, “Now I see why you wear long sleeves all the time.”

“Yup,” I retort.

We chat a bit further. Carter is in the cart so we talk about him for a minute and then he finishes checking out.

What struck me about that conversation was that I barely see this dude 2 times a week in passing, maybe more, maybe less.

The one thing about me though that stands out in his mind is that this dude is always wearing long sleeves, even if it’s 90° and sweltering in the shop.

He must not be alone. I’ve found that your blue collar worker will ask you why the fuck you’re wearing long sleeves when it’s 90° outside, the engineer will not. I’ll typically be straight with the blue-collar worker and tell him I’m heavily inked and I don’t want to stifle my career, to the engineer I will not (unless I know they’re cool.)

Because I face this discrimination and prejudice. In that way I have a kindred bond between the angry feminists I was arguing with in the past. We are both being discriminated against because of something about us. I understand what it’s like to be stared at. I understand what it’s like to have your opinions questioned for no other reason than what you look like. My glass ceiling is covered in ink.

I have no control over my urge to become more and more heavily tattooed. I’m taping into something that’s been done for over 5000 years by humans. It’s been passed down from the iceman on.

I really, really, really want to get neck and hand tattoos. At that point the discrimination would be over the top and I’d most likely be out of a job. I still have a lot of torso and all my lower body left though.

This is like listening to a discussion on Foxnews except with an Angry Feminist viewpoint.

Text of the Discussion
(I stayed out of it.)

All the ass slapping and atta-boys, or in this case nipple tweaking and atta-girls?

One thing that he mentions in his book that I totally don't buy is how our first ancestral "double income household" was a man hunting and a woman gardening. There are a number of problems with this theory based on other reading that I've done, some of which came up in our discussion with My Biggest Fan on Erica's blog. Also, my sister, who is a nutritionist and has studied such things, says that those ancestors likely did communal raising of children, such as multiple women breastfeeding one child, etc., rather than a standard nuclear family structure that this guy is a proponent of.

I enjoy the logic of instead of only a woman who has a child having enormous engorged milk filled breasts, not cradled in a bra for support, now the entire community of early human woman have them, and then are out killing prey. Maybe the nursing was done communally, but those women weren't out hunting.

But, I am willing to give the book a go, because it's such an interesting theory, and of course, one that jives with my own convictions against the patriarchy.

I also enjoy and prefer only getting information that conforms to my viewpoints.

Square pegs end up fitting in round holes when you're just skimming the top of something and not thinking of the logistics of it.

It's good they don't want kids of their own because by the time they finally do decide and they're 40 they'll end up with genetic defect if they even make it to term. Again logistics of the situation, your bodies weren't meant to have kids that late in life. It's a fundamental part of the human condition, just like the hormones that make little kids gravitate to the toys they want, just like I can't fly by flapping my fucking arms up and down.

I totally want this book. It just makes sense that women want fewer children than men. It takes such a toll on our bodies and so much work to raise them. I hate that men use our bodies to prove their virility. I hate that so often, our bodies are not our own.

The unwillingness to believe that there are women out there that are strong, powerful, and independent who give birth and raise children on their own terms and conditions blows my fucking mind. The generalizations they make are just as bad as “all women should stay home and raise children” and “all men want to fuck everything that moves to make more little versions of them”.

When you kill a king, you don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch him die.

That quote was in my mind while I was dreaming last night. When I woke up I was thinking about how Obama could finish off Clinton.

It would be cool if he had enough SD’s on Tuesday night to get over the 2118 and the whole thing would be done. I guess he would need 5 extra so Clinton doesn’t complain about Michigan. I was watching some of that Michigan and Florida rules committee debate on Saturday because you can’t do a whole lot keeping a baby comfortable. When the whole thing was decided there were these women who supported Clinton who were all pissed off and said they were going to vote for McCain.

Seriously? You’re a woman who wanted to see a woman become the president for the first time, but you’re going to vote for a man who wants to put Supreme Court justices on the bench who would overturn RVW. Yeah, that will show the “man” how sexist he was in treating Hillary and you’ll help get the right to choose what you do with your body taken away. Great statement to the world. Two enthusiastic thumbs up. Brilliant idea.

Fucking idiots.

We’re heading back to the city I love on the 13th . Our friends from college are getting married at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. I met Ehron while working part time as a Janitor at Meriter Hospital. We cleaned up the hospital together, and wasted time talking about music, video games, and philosophy. He didn’t go to school at the time. He was just working getting by, an interesting dude. He lived in the same building as my wife and I with his now fiancé.

I cleaned up his blood after he tried to kill himself. It wasn’t a halfhearted attempt either. He cut the long way. I visited him in the hospital, and let him know he had friends who cared about him. Like I’ve said before, when shit like that happens the world becomes crystal clear to you. I’m glad he’s alive. I’m glad he’s getting married.

I miss hanging out with Ehron.

As a semi-adult and full-blown adult, my friends have almost never been engineers or professionals. Professionals are dicks, as we’ve all seen, including myself.

Another chunk of wisdom my dad gave me, I think back in junior high, was that you shouldn’t treat people who do a job that may seem like bullshit any different than if they were doing your job. I believe it was in reference to the janitors at the junior high where he worked and I attended.

I’ve lived by that bit of wisdom. I probably have more respect for janitors, grocery store workers , butchers, and machinists than I do for doctors, lawyers, and engineers. I’ve done all of those “shit”, hard working, and lower education requirement jobs. They’ve been with some of the finest people I’ve ever met. Less bullshit, less tiptoeing around “sensitive” issues, less hubris and pretentious ass-hat-ery.

I feel kind of dirty

I was in one of those online mudslinging debates with a bunch of angry feminists.

I preface this by saying my wife would identify herself as a feminist. She’s made a choice that I think these angry feminists would abhor. She’s decided to get married, have children, and stay at home with them while they are young. (The horror!) My boss at work is an intelligent, strong woman who has the respect of her piers. The validation engineer, whom I go to for advice on testing is also a woman engineer, also intelligent and well respected. When I come to her seeking advice she takes the time to have a thoughtful discussion with me, free of personal attacks and thinking every word that comes out of my mouth is an attempt to show my male dominance over her.

I share in the housework; regardless of what it’s gender roll is considered. I also take an active role in raising our children. I cook dinner every night because I like to.

It turns out I’m a closet sexist.

Why?

I made the assertion that based on observing my son, and many other young children at our Attachment Parenting functions that very young children have a hard-wired propensity to play with gender specific toys.

Carter likes trucks and cars. He doesn’t like baby dolls.

I was met with rude personal attacks on my intelligence level and claims of being an “armchair scientist” and a sexist.

I never said that girls and boys CAN’T or SHOULDN’T or WON’T EVER play with opposing genders toys. I simply said they tend to gravitate to those toys and a certain type of play.

I was initially wrong in thinking that it was due to instincts from when we were uncivilized monkey men living to survive. It turns out that it’s actually hormonal, and studies were done that supported this, although I found them in an undergrad text (how yucky and common).

They disregarded these decade old studies and sited a study not specifically looking at children’s play and propensity to toy choosing, simply on hormones creating both boy and girl behavior in both sexes. I’m sure that study is true. It still doesn’t address my point. Carter wanted to dress and carry around a doll for about 2 days after Oz was born, but he was right back to the trucks and cars after he lost interest in the baby. I guess the rampant sexism in Sesame Street has thwarted our parenting attempts to let him play with any toys he wants.

I was then told that raising kids gives you no special knowledge.

The responsibility for another human being’s life doesn’t teach you anything, or give you any special insight into the human condition.

So I thought maybe I was crazy and I spoke to my validation engineer who has 3 kids, 2 boys and a girl. She was a successful woman. Did she see the same things as sexist Lawryde?

I asked her about it cold, without prefacing her to my debate. She agreed that her boys gravitate to boy toys and a rough type of play. I asked her if she thought it was a social thing or if it was just the way they were.

She thought it was just the way they were. I said, well are you sure that television and your parents and how you treat them doesn’t affect it. She said it would have some affect, WHICH I AGREE WITH. I talked to her about those first moments when they were just starting to choose what they like (around 1.5 years and 2) and asked her if they just kind of gravitated towards gender specific toys. She agreed and agreed that social factors would be almost non-existent at that point. We have different parenting styles so now I have a sample size of two with the same results and 10-year-old research that backs me up.

I then told her about my debate with these immature (still in school or just starting their real adult lives, no kids of their own, not responsible for anyone but themselves, but experts on child development, can’t see the forest for the trees, full of advanced degrees and debt from going to school but no idea how practical things work, knowing everything about me and my typical feminist thoughts, enlarge clitoris’ and labia that look like balls due to high androgen hormone levels during gestation, not understanding respect is something that is earned not implied, mad that I was, by all standard measures, smarter than all of them in high school and now make more money than they do and I’m happy with my loving beautiful family, should be wondering if maybe it’s not that I’m facing sexism on a daily basis, but that really I’m just a big fucking jerk and a terrible excuse for a human being.) (Was that just immature of me? Fuck it. This is my corner of the internet.) girls I knew from high school who were convinced that only social factors affect toy choice in children. She said that before she had kids she had some of the same thoughts, but after having both boys and girls she sees things differently.

The angry feminist will be talking about me now, because that’s what women do. Emails and text messages and phone calls. “Oh, my God. Look what Lawryde wrote. What a sexist asshole!” “He’s so predictable and stupid and his children are going to grow up objectifying women and raping goats.” “We’re so right, and so awesome and so much smarter and better than him.” “Yay, Us!”

I’m sad, it also looks like I lost a facebook friend. (Tear)

I feel clean now.

Full Text of Debate

And I think the modern philosopher Kanye West put it best: