Continuing in the Vein of "Gah! Stupid Sexist Society!"

So, last night in class we did Violence Against Women.

We watched a film on the Polytechnique Masacre.

Afterwords we talked about it. We talked about how the threat of violence is hanging over our heads all the time, and about being afraid to walk down the street after dark, etc. etc.
We talked about "Is there anything that can be done to keep this kind of stuff from happening?" The response that came up a number of times was "we need to teach our daughters not to fear".
Which is garbage. You can be as confident and as fearless as you want, and that will make you a target to someone (because you need to learn to fear... to "respect"... what-ever man is targetting you for your confidence) just as much as the "please don't notice me" body language of someone who has been hurt again and again (and will, therfore, be targetted because they're easy prey, if nothing else).

Anyway. I responded to this by saying that rather than teaching our daughters not to fear, we could teach our sons not to hurt -- teach them that the kind of entitlement-behaviour that leads to everything from wolf-whistles on the street, to copping a feel, to rape and murder is simply not acceptable. (You've all heard this before, I know).

But I was surprised at how... emotional I was. I was litterally having trouble getting my voice out (I was really hoarse all of a sudden). It's suprising when you're reminded of just how much that behaviour effects (affects?) you. wow.


Anyway. I got home, and Paul and I watched a movie -- "Total Recall". Which is excessively violent on a number of levels... It's an Ah-nold movie, though, so who's surprised... but that didn't help. -- And then I told him about what we'd talked about in class.
I told him about how Polytechnique was just an extreme version (manifestation?) of what we (women) are dealing with every day.
And he got really angry. (Well, really angry for Paul). He thought that by saying that the Polytechnique guy was *not* an isolated incident, but part of a much larger problem, I was saying that he was just like that guy.
"I refuse to have you compare me to that guy. And if you do... We've got an issue."

I understand why people (particularly male people) would want to say "this isn't normal" or "he was a mad-man" or "this was an isolated incident". Because if it's isolated, it means we don't have to deal with the larger problem (because the larger problem 'doesn't exist'). If it was a mad-man, then 'clearly' no sane-man would ever do anything even remotely like that. Normal people couldn't possibly be capable of such appauling things. Such horrible things. To Other this guy, is to say "He's not like me. You know I'd never do something like that".

So it's not that I don't understand the desire to disassociate from someone who goes out and commits a multiple-homicide.
But to disassociate from it so much that you refuse to see how endemic... the intimidation and/or degredation of women is... That isn't going to make the problem go away. It's just going to make you feel less accountable for it...

I think there are still a lot of things I need to talk to him about this stuff. And I'm very worried about how those conversations are going to go.

Partridge Berries. :-)

The Partridge Berry is a low-growing relative of the cranberry.
It is known as Puoluka (poo-oh-look-ah... I think) in Finnish, and Lingon in... Sweedish or Norweigian... I can't remember which.

My Mom just went to Newfoundland for ten days (mostly for a conference, but she also visited a friend).
She brought home a jam for each of us.
I chose the Partridge Berry jam (although I could have gone with Blueberry or Bakeapple -- I now want to know what Bakeapples are. They're a type of berry... I'll have to look them up on Google. ;-)

Edit: Have looked them up. They're Cloud Berries. Basically, picture two leaves, growing low to the ground -- they look like Currant Bush leaves, or Purple-Flowering-Raspberry leaves... or really wacky grape leaves, maybe -- with a single yellow raspberry growing over top of them. That's a Cloud Berry (or a Bake-Apple). They are related to raspberries, but don't (according to Torrain (I think) and her knowledge of Lakka) taste like them. I'd like to grow them, too. :-)

Tonight I made a dinner (turkey, baked potato, buns (from a store) and beans-and-carrots -- just 'cause. ;-) and we had the Partridge Berry jam in lieu of cranberry sauce.

This is what it tastes like:

Cranberry sauce coupled with the smooth-slick taste of the inside of a dried apricot.
It's yummy. :-)

So.

I now want (more than before) to have Partridge Berries in my back yard. (I'd have two+ (medium-height?) blueberry bushes growing just along the Eastern hedge, and then have the Partridge Berries growing in-front/underneath them. Both of these like acidic soil (which they'd have, growing right next to a cedar headge) and they can handle lousy soil, so they'd be fine in the mediocre soil that I've got in that particular spot of the garden.
Whee! :-D

It's not that I need-need-need to be totally self-sufficient (or want to be, for that matter... I'd be a littl leary of doing my own killing, pathetic as that is, and my attempts at growing dry-beans have not been successful so far...), but I'd like to be able to supply a good amount of fruits and veggies on my own. Plus it will give me, my family (my kids!) a link to the land we live on. And that's important. :-)

And now to paraphrase Starhawk (From Earth Path wherein she really seems to be Getting It):
"Grow food. If you eat the food that comes from the land, the land will become part of you".
Which is totally true.
Also: If you compost your hair-brush hair, your finger-nail clippings, your menstrual blood, etc. you become part of the land. You feed the land, and the land feeds you.
I think that's important. :-)