ladybusiness | (Reply)

From:

Yeah, I, uh.

Okay, military rant first: In the US military at least, men don't seem to be much interested in "protecting" women, unless women fighting beside them don't count. (A number of servicewomen have died because they weren't drinking enough water. The reason they weren't drinking water after early afternoon? They'd have to go to the bathroom in the evening... and leaving the barracks to get to the bathroom would have put them at high risk of rape. From their "fellow" troopers. BUT I BET THOSE MEN WERE JUST BEING PROTECTIVE! RIGHT? If they'd seen a female trooper get shot, they'd be traumatised for life; so obviously the female trooper should either be raped or die of dehydration before that could happen.) Human history does not support the idea that those in power are "protective" of those without it, and I really wish society would stop trying to tell itself that... Cryinoutloud, if men were really so "protective" toward women, rape and domestic abuse rates would be incredibly low and most rapists/abusers wouldn't survive to go to trial, once their fellow men found out what the charges were. SOMEHOW THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN.

Ahem. Returning to the much less volatile subject of book covers: Yeah, what you said re: balancing the idealistic and the reality; and the complexity of the issue on both sides. If you can't teach them that it's okay to like "Girl Stuff" sometimes... What do you do? (Or, I'd like to think, While you're teaching them that it's okay to like "Girl Stuff" sometimes, but before they've quite got the message, what do you do?)

The sarcastic part of me wants to say: "Buy your son a blue book cover". :P