Saturday, May 01, 2010

New look, new title

As an unanticipated consequence of my subject about using technology in the language classroom I decided I should try to use my blog more often, more often that is than once every ten months which is how long it's been. I do have a good excuse, but I thought it was time to delve back into the pleasurable vanity of blogging as a handy procrastination tool. I am studying again, I have had a baby. Both these things mean I have no spare time (mostly the second one) and therefore it follows that I need something to do in all the spare time I don't have.
Clear as mud.

The reason for the new title is that I feel having a daughter has sharpened those feminist instincts I had as a feisty teenager and were dulled by early adulthood and other distractions. We live in a sexist world, sometimes so much so it hurts to look too closely at it in case you throw your hands up in despair and go and live in a cave. But a blog is a good way for me to point out all the things I don't like about the world without boring my loved ones to tears, and without sending myself to the asylum by keeping it all bottled up. Which is bad for you.

The first thing I would like to rant in a very unstructured way about is: breastfeeding. Not the act itself, which is pretty damn fantastic, but its sheer invisibility in the world. You never read about it, you never hear about it, you never see it in movies and rarely in life. I can't express milk in public because it's weird. Why is it that I can blow my nose, but not express milk for my baby? This Facebook site was a result of women reacting to the decision by Facebook to randomly delete pictures of them breastfeeding because they were deemed obscene. So, not only is it invisible, when it is out there it's seen as flashing your breasts. The fact that there is a baby involved is somehow so irrelevant to the primary issue which is of course, women as sexual objects. Get over it, world.