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Happy birthday, me! There are some aspects of my life that are less than ideal right now but I've got great friends here on SG, a wonderful and supportive boyfriend, and good things to come in the future, I'm sure of it. I'm going to start this birthday off on the right foot by being positive about where being 29 will take me.
It helps that my first birthday celebration thing will be a couple's massage with Danny.
So. There's that. I know I'll be super upset about having to dive back into the misery that is job searching without any solid prospects soon but right now I'm relatively calm.
In better news, it's my birthday Wednesday.
This morning while trying to fall back asleep, I had thoughts swirling around in my head about various discussions online I've had/read about men approaching women and women's boundaries. I've been thinking about this a lot more than usual in the past couple of months mostly because of what was called "Elevatorgate". If you don't know of it, I'll warn you that googling it will lead to a LOT of 1000+ comment threads, though I think the best posts about it in general were at were at pandagon and Greta Christina. If you do know about it, you're probably tired of hearing about it. Long story short and probably pretty edited behind spoilers:
I think I finally hit on what upset me about this the most. First I'll say that there were plenty of men who got it, who listened to the women in comment threads about this stating their boundaries (which of course were varied) and internalized it instead of arguing with every little point. But they were the vast minority. The undercurrent of almost every post saying Watson was in the wrong was that if women stated their boundaries, men would have "no place" where they were allowed to approach women. Again and again women posted about what made them uncomfortable (again, this was varied): being approached on the street while they were clearly listening to music, being stopped on the street, being approached on the subway, and yes being approached in elevators late at night. Women said that these behaviors could make them feel nervous, degraded or even scared.
And again and again the response from SO MANY MEN was "but if we can't do that when do we get to approach you for dates/sex/conversation?". Many of these men started off bemoaning the fact that they don't know what women want and what their boundaries are but then responded to women explicitly stating their boundaries by bemoaning that this limited their opportunities to approach women. But here's the thing: when they responded that way what they were saying, in my translation, was that THEY DON'T CARE that women said some behaviors make them feel nervous, degraded or afraid. They were telling the women in these threads that what is more important to them, in the end, is their "right" and entitlement to approach women. And that is horrifying and scary to me. The response when another human being says "this is hurtful to me" should generally be "oh shit, I shouldn't do that, then". It speaks to a really fucked up priority system in our society that so many of these men felt that their desire to get to know a woman trumped a woman's general right to feel safe.
There are two other common responses that bothered me, and they were:
1. Women saying Watson was over-reacting. To me this spoke to a general thought process of "this wouldn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you". Which obviously just shows a problem with the ability to empathize. It's fine with me if being stopped on the street, being approached on the subway or even being approached in an elevator at 4 a.m. is okay with another woman. That doesn't mean it has to be okay with me.
2. Many people insisting that the Elevator Guy (and therefore almost any guy approaching a woman at any time) was probably just a genuinely nice guy with no ill intentions, and therefore Watson/women in general were over-reacting. Maybe he was a nice guy. No one involved in this can know. But here's the thing: people aren't mind-readers. I have no way of knowing whether or not a dude approaching me on the street just wants to have nice conversations or if he wants to hurt me. This is why the Schrodinger's Rapist article is such a good and important read.
Not only that but asking me to assume good faith on the part of every guy who approaches me is asking me to go against every single thing I have been taught about safety as a woman since I was young. It is teaching me to go against what society has ingrained in me. And you know what else? I can guarantee you that if I did assume good faith for every random dude and one of those dudes ended up attacking me, I would be asked why I wasn't more cautious. So I can't win here.
Anyway, that's my rant.
I've been unemployed since the end of last August. I'm also very committed to social justice and I know that the attitudes stated above are generally bullshit and show a severe lack of understanding of the economy, of class differences and of many other issues. Yet it is still hard not to internalize those negative messages of the unemployed. The other night I lay in bed feeling so guilty and terrified about the prospect of continuing to be unemployed to the point where I didn't get to sleep until 3:30 am. And I had become so anxious that I was shaking enough that I thought there might be a minor earthquake going on in Chicago. There is that much internal anxiety about joblessness for me, and that much guilt because I HAVE internalized the idea that I must not be trying hard enough.
But today I kicked major ass and really throw off a lot of that internalized guilt. That's not to say it's all gone, but when in two days I've applied to well over 30 jobs, set up an interview at an employment agency, and found a dozen new job seeking sources, I don't think I can feel too terrible or think that I'm not trying hard enough. Today I feel fucking proud, and screw anyone who tells me I'm just not using my bootstraps enough!
Also, if you haven't read it already my new casual review column is up. Check it out right here and I'd be very pleased if you commented!
I wish I had more to report, especially on the job front, but things have been relatively quiet. A few good leads job-wise that I'm hoping will pan out, but otherwise life is the same as it was last time I posted. Which of course isn't all bad, as I still love spending time with Danny and my friends and by virtue of being home all day most days have plenty of time to read and play new games.
1. I had a really good trip home. It was wonderful to see my Mom and my Dad and stepmom. My Mom and I watched tons of movies together and talked a lot, which was great, and it was awesome to see her cats again. Especially her cat Hobbes, who we rescued years ago when he was stuck in the engine of someone's pickup truck. My Dad and my stepmom and I had a great time catching up as well, and Dad and I saw Super 8, which might be the first Abrams film I didn't end up disappointed by in some way. I'm really glad I got to take the trip.
2. Since I've been home I've been playing lots of fun video games. I won't mention what they are here yet because I'm going to put a lot of them in my next game review column (which I should finish sometime this week). But I will say that the day after I played one of them and said to myself "I definitely have to put this one in the game review column", I saw that PAX 10 had selected it as one of the best 10 indie games EVER, which made me feel proud in a very, very nerdy way.
3. Speaking of games, I'm taking advantage of the WoW "free to play for the first 20 levels" trial, because my mom thought it'd be awesome if played with her guild. Which is really amusing to me because 1. I'm the video game geek in the family and I've never played WoW 2. My mom is super high-level and plays all the damn time. Anyway, that sound be fun. I'm also playing Eternal Sonata now on our new PS3, AND have read a ton (mostly comics) in the last week. It's been a fun week, basically.
Hope y'all have a good week!
ETA: In good news, it looks like I might be able to be a part of several paid studies in the coming months and also get paid to work at Chicago Pride (hopefully). It's not a full-time job, which in the end is what I'd really like best, but getting some extra money in for the household will be great. Plus at least one of the studies may help solve the mystery of the pain I've been experiencing on and off for six months now.
