It seems like writing yesterday's blog post broke the ice for me to start updating this blog again. When I last talked about my life story, we were in the apartment I was sharing with a college friend after I graduated. My privacy had been well and truly violated, which I totally was not digging. One thing I forgot to tell you is that when I spoke to her about my not being happy with boundaries being overstepped, she said that where she's from that type of behavior is okay. I was thinking "Really? I'm from rural Georgia, and although we aren't the most couth people, even that doesn't fly with us."
After all of that went down I knew that I couldn't trust her, and went about my business for the rest of the summer. I found out that she was planning to move back home for a bit and then move to Las Vegas with her sister, so once our lease was up, she was out. On the day that she actually moved I didn't know she was leaving until I got home from work that afternoon. There was a note on my bed telling me that she was gone and that I owed her money for my part of the utilities. She included her parents' address so that I could send the money. I fully intended to send the money until I went into her old room and saw the note that she left for the freeloader girl. In the note she went on and on about what a great friend freeloader girl had been to her and how maybe she could visit her once she moved to Vegas with her sister. Wtf?! I was the one who got her out of a jam when she needed someone to take over half of the lease. I'm the one whose stuff her family and friends commandeered why I wasn't there. All I got was "You owe me money. Send it to this address." While this other girl who did nothing but mess up dishes without washing them, as well as not taking a turn cleaning the bathroom gets "You have been such a good friend to me." After reading that I knew there was no damn way she was ever getting the money that I owed her for utilities. When it comes right down to it, I got screwed in that deal. Looking back on it I just hate the fact that I didn't have the guts to speak up for myself. Of course with time comes maturity and hopefully, the ability to take action when someone is treating you unfairly. I just know that were I in the same situation today there's no way that I would stand for what went down. Live and learn.
Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Pretty Isn't All You Are
The media bombards us with images of women that trade on their looks. When young girls see this they figure that the only way they're going to get anywhere in life is by looking pretty. Every time I see a story about that 17 year old girl who married that 51 year old actor (at her mother's urging), I'm like "For real?" Now that the two of them are married she spends her time posting provocative pictures of herself on Face Book in low-cut tops and short shorts. Cleavage abounds up top and down below. If that's the way this mother wants her child to live her life, then that's fine. Those escapades don't need to be laid out for public consumption.
Of course one of the biggest pop culture headlines of the moment has to do with Kim Kardashian's 72 day marriage. The backlash is monumental. During a period in our economic history when a large part of the population can't keep their homes and there's a man trying to rob Burger King with a sock http://consumerist.com/2011/11/man-tries-to-rob-burger-king-with-a-sock.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter, the last thing this world needed was the gross display of conspicuous consumption that constituted her wedding to Kris Humphries. This isn't the effin' 1980s! To spend all of that money and have all of that hoopla, and then to turn around and say "I'm divorcing him." flies in the face of everything that many people hold dear.
If either of the women that I mentioned above were homely, with no sex appeal, do you think we'd even know anything about their stories? Of course not! The media is teaching our young women that if they want to get anywhere they have to be beautiful and willing to exploit that beauty for all it's worth. In a bid to measure up, eating disorders continue to be on the rise, and bullying seems to be at an all time high.
The only way to completely insulate your daughters against this would be to ban all forms of media from your household. Not only is that drastic, it's nearly impossible. A more effective way to combat these harmful messages is to sit your girls down and talk to them. Let them know that looks fade. Unless they're willing to spend their whole lives chasing youth (which I consider a waste of a good life), there's always going to be someone younger and prettier. If a woman doesn't base who and what she is on her looks, that's not going to matter to her. There's a whole world out there that needs fixing. Women have the intuition, listening skills, and nurturing nature to bring this world back around to what it needs to be. There's no law that says we can't look good while we're doing it, but let's not make looking good our sole purpose in life.
Of course one of the biggest pop culture headlines of the moment has to do with Kim Kardashian's 72 day marriage. The backlash is monumental. During a period in our economic history when a large part of the population can't keep their homes and there's a man trying to rob Burger King with a sock http://consumerist.com/2011/11/man-tries-to-rob-burger-king-with-a-sock.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter, the last thing this world needed was the gross display of conspicuous consumption that constituted her wedding to Kris Humphries. This isn't the effin' 1980s! To spend all of that money and have all of that hoopla, and then to turn around and say "I'm divorcing him." flies in the face of everything that many people hold dear.
If either of the women that I mentioned above were homely, with no sex appeal, do you think we'd even know anything about their stories? Of course not! The media is teaching our young women that if they want to get anywhere they have to be beautiful and willing to exploit that beauty for all it's worth. In a bid to measure up, eating disorders continue to be on the rise, and bullying seems to be at an all time high.
The only way to completely insulate your daughters against this would be to ban all forms of media from your household. Not only is that drastic, it's nearly impossible. A more effective way to combat these harmful messages is to sit your girls down and talk to them. Let them know that looks fade. Unless they're willing to spend their whole lives chasing youth (which I consider a waste of a good life), there's always going to be someone younger and prettier. If a woman doesn't base who and what she is on her looks, that's not going to matter to her. There's a whole world out there that needs fixing. Women have the intuition, listening skills, and nurturing nature to bring this world back around to what it needs to be. There's no law that says we can't look good while we're doing it, but let's not make looking good our sole purpose in life.
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