Hey, Dove: The 1950′s Called.They Want Their Ideals Back.

Overall, one could argue that gender equality is doing better today than at any other time in human history. True, we are no longer viewed as property, and we can educate ourselves in other things than embroidery and harpsichord-playing, but actual equal opportunity is still in a galaxy far far away. Having a Y chromosome still means that you are part of the group which owns the bulk of the Earth’s resources and holds most of the influential positions in the world.

What I find very interesting, are the more inconspicuous ways in which women are defined and pigeon holed from birth all the way throughout life. These ways, I have found, are fairly numerous, and you will be pleased to know that I have decided to rant my way through all of them.

So without further ado, I’ll start with the first in this series of tirades.

A few days ago, Dove came out with a commercial called ‘real beauty sketches’ in which several women were sketched twice by a professional artist, first based on the woman’s own description of herself, and afterwards as the woman was described by someone else.

I admit the add does a very good job at tugging at even my cynical heart strings (damn you Dove’s marketing department), but after the initial ‘aaaawwww’ sounds died down in my head, the reality of what this add portrayed became apparent.

As as far as I understand, the point here is that women are often too harsh when judging themselves and we are supposed to realise that we are already the beautiful desirable snowflakes we always wanted to be.

Brilliant.

Thank you Dove, for shamelessly perpetuating the notion that the most important thing for a woman is to feel pretty.

Although it’s true that Dove sells body care products, which for obvious reasons means that their focus is on physical appearance, their commercials take on much more than ‘oh, this soap makes my skin smoother than a kitten’s ass’. You see, Dove has decided to enlighten us women on issues such as self worth and ‘true’ beauty and manages to do this in the most patronising way possible, I might add.

I’m not even going to go into the whole topic of how all the features which were implicitly positive, all fit into the standard female beauty ideals of today (thin, young, rosy cheeks, fuller lips), as the issue I want to address is not whether the women were beautiful or not. What I want to know, is why we are even talking about the physical appearance of these women, rather than who they are. Not one word about what these women do or are capable of, but whether they can feel pretty while doing it.

In contrast we can take a look at the popular old spice commercial aimed at men, where the attractiveness of the main character is not solely based on looks but very much on how powerful he is and what he can do.

Imagine the same Dove commercial (or most other advertisements aimed at women, really), but with men instead; men sitting there talking about their appearance in the the same way the women were. This illustrates beautifully how condescending the whole concept really is. On the other hand if you imagine most male-targeted commercials with a female lead, she would most likely come across as strong and powerful.

If we take a look around, it becomes clear that a large amount of the narrative we encounter in society, maintains the general notion that women are attractive if they look great and men are attractive if they do great things. Even when we are presented with modern story lines where the female protagonist is strong and self reliant, she is rarely anything but pretty.

How are we supposed to ever reach a point where men and women have equal opportunities, when girls are spoon fed this kind of propaganda? Even the fairy tales we tell kids are rife with antiquated gender roles, where typically a demure beautiful princess is saved by a capable and competent prince. Via this mindless regurgitation of the stories told by past generations, we ensure that their gender biases survive decade after decade, and when we become too old for fairy tales, companies like Dove graciously step in to continue filling our heads with the same old horse shit.

It only takes a few moments of perusal through the world wide gender statistics to realise how dire the situation is. Some say women don’t hold a fair amount of influential positions because they don’t even apply for them. That is very likely true, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to speculate why this might be. If women are told all their life that their appearance is more important than their achievements, or that being gentle and sweet is more valued than strong and forceful, it’s no wonder men are running the world, while women are busy checking their lipstick.

R.I.P. Blasphemy (I wish)

Blasphemy.

A word specifically used to describe not only the, oh so terrible, offense of disrespecting a mass delusion but which implicitly proclaims that this ridiculing, of things which are completely deranged, somehow slants towards the negative. Words such as this should not only be discontinued from any living language but become a dusty unused relic, mentioned only when telling the story of how the human race accidentally veered off course for an alarming number of years.

Yet here we are, still wading through the proverbial desert of discombobulation with not so much as a soothing drop of sanity in sight.

So blasphemy as a term is unfortunately still very much alive; a demented concept that survives in the dark crevices of credulous minds and likes to spend its time kicking reasonable people in the shins. It permeates our society, like a subdued hush, demanding reverence where none is deserved.

When Louis C.K. appeared on The Daily Show a couple of years ago, Jon Stewart, in a fascinating display of Foucauldian self surveillance, expressed clear awkwardness when Louis proclaimed that the pope fucks boys. Now, The Daily Show is not exactly known for pulling punches, and seeing the host’s reaction was therefore quite surprising. But afterwards, I had to admit that I also, without even realising it, had felt the sudden stab of uneasiness when I heard the statement, even though I am in clear opposition to everything that the church, and especially the pope, stands for. I have no reason to feel any hint of reverence or respect towards a man who represents a disturbed spiritual dictatorship, which continues to cause enough damage and suffering world wide to rival plagues and natural disasters. Except it’s, you know, much worse, since no bacteria or tectonic plate ever declared that you will be thrown head first into an eternal inferno of doom, unless you kill gay people and feel ashamed for enjoying sex.

In the end I recognised my own response as being the internalisation of the veneration expected in most, if not all, cultures towards religious ideas, representatives and artifacts. To feel this in my own skin made me realise the extent to which this phenomenon has an iron grip on its victims, and I have since made it a matter of principle to fight against this unwelcome squatter, as much and as often as I can.

Because it’s not just about the respect for something supposedly sacred. That in itself could theoretically be harmless enough. No, this concerns the ideals and dogmas which dwell inside the concept of blasphemy, all of which are a cancer in our society. By perpetuating it, we are also perpetuating the madness which serves as a justification for people to mutilate their own children, discriminate against people because of who they love and treat women as 2nd class citizens.

Last year, Poland’s Supreme Court ruled that Adam Darski,  frontman for Behemoth, committed a crime when he tore up a bible on stage and called the Catholic church “the most murderous cult on the planet”. If the lower court decides to convict him, he can face up to 2 years in jail for blasphemy. Yes, actual jail time, alongside murderers and rapists, for the act of simply offending a bonkers belief system.

In my ignorance, I reacted to this news by counting myself lucky to live in a country, which prides itself on being progressive and having both feet solidly planted outside of the realm of the dark ages. That is, until my boyfriend kindly informed me that blasphemy is indeed still counted as a felony here as well.

“Here? In Scandinavia? So the whole ‘free speech’ thing is just for decoration?” I asked myself, while my faith in humanity rapidly dwindled into the size of a small shriveled raisin with herpes.

But after some deliberation, and a stiff drink, I regained some scrap of hope, that one day maybe, just maybe, it might all change. Though this outdated pest still runs rife, even in the least likely of places, I felt that people would eventually start seeing through the cracks of its false promises and no longer entertain the misguided ideas which sustain it.

Then again, that last bit could have just been the martini talking.

Who am I kidding.

We’re doomed.

Existential Musings On A Not Very Particular Monday.

For once I’m writing a blog that was not inspired by something that infuriated me.

This evening I went to see documentary called ’The End of Time’. I say ‘documentary’, but that doesn’t really give a good sense what it was. More accurately it could be described as a meditation on the concept of time. I was expecting some kind of scientific approach to the subject, with experts giving their account of what they believed time to be or how it could be measured or defined. It was in fact nothing like that, and watching it spawned a myriad of  thoughts and ideas, which isn’t useful when you’re supposed to go to bed early because you have a busy day tomorrow.

In the 2 hours it lasted, there was very little dialogue or talking at all. It mostly consisted of visuals ranging from clouds rolling across mountaintops to illustrations of particle collision in the Large Hadron Collider. There were scenes of great rivers of lava spilling into the sea, creating new land. We also saw decay in all forms, from derelict houses in Detroit to the burning of bodies in India. It was scenes of every day existence which became completely mesmerizing when one took the time to really look at what was happening.

This made me ponder the idea of what decay and death actually means. In most religions or spiritual beliefs, the consciousness or soul continues existence after the body passes away. The idea of reincarnation presents the concept of the individual consciousness as being demarcated and evolving throughout lifetimes by being reborn into new bodies.

But watching this gave me the idea of reincarnation being something slightly different: Nothing ever dies. Everything in the universe, even matter, is made out of energy. We are made out of the energy which came into existence at the birth of the universe, and when we die we’re once again scattered into the cosmos, effectively immersing us into the fabric of the universe as particles rather than human beings.

If this thought experiment has any merit, then there is no true death, only a change in how energy is distributed.  That would mean the definition of death is ‘change’ rather than a finite end.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this idea, as I do like the concept of disappearing completely rather than having to continue existence in some form or another after death. Then again, I would not be conscious of becoming dispersed into the trees, the air or an animal, just like none of the molecules in my body have any individual awareness, in which case I wouldn’t even be ‘there’ to be bothered by my lack of non-existence.

Who knows, I might be so far off the mark that I’m not even in the same galaxy as the truth, but for now, in my mind at least, it seems like a reasonable possibility.

The Right To Die

Civilized societies take great pride in the protection of human rights. We seek to protect individuals  against injustice or persecution for speaking their mind and we aim to give people every possible opportunity to live with dignity.

But what about dying with dignity?

A few weeks ago a man by the name of Tony Nicklinson lost a legal battle he had been fighting in the UK, for the right to receive aid to end his life. He was paralyzed from the neck down after suffering a stroke in 2005, and the quality of his life had steadily deteriorated, as he needed constant care, and could never return to the active life he once had.

Devastated by the court ruling, Mr. Nicklinson did the only thing he was still capable of to fulfill his wish; he refused sustenance, resulting in his death one week later.

All he wanted was to take control of his life and end the suffering, yet today it is still somehow considered a felony to make decisions about one’s own body.

What gives other people more right to decide whether an individual should die, than they themselves have? This is not only a debate for the UK. This is something all countries should address and requires people to stand up and demand to take back control of their own existence.

I realize this is not an easy issue and a new law allowing suicide or euthanasia could potentially be abused, but the whole ‘slippery slope’ argument which many politicians fall back on every time they have no rational statement to make, is as hyperbolic as saying that people will be marrying cats and dogs before long, if gay marriage is allowed.

Claiming that people will be killing each other or themselves left and right simply if suicide or assisted suicide becomes legal, is first of all not proven by any credible tests or data, nor is it likely that people will start being nonchalant about death. And in any case, it is not our business if  another human being chooses death. We can be sad, we may want them to stay for whatever reason, but any reason will ultimately be selfish, well-meaning though it may be, and today’s legislation leads to people ending their life in horrible ways, which traumatizes those left behind even more than necessary. We are compassionate when it comes to animals, yet leave human beings to suffer.

Most, it seems, agree that people who suffer from painful physical diseases should be allowed to end their life. My position on this matter is far more lenient. To my mind, the right to die should be anyone’s right, regardless of what their mental or physical state is.

We as a society should always offer help and therapy to those who need it, but sometimes people simply wish for life to end, and I for one respect that wish.

I do not believe in any god who will punish this action, nor do I believe that it will make any great ripples across this vast universe, that a few individuals on a floating spec in the cosmos take matters into their own hands. You may believe it is wrong to kill yourself, but at least give others the right to decide for themselves.

The War On Ignorance

Once upon a time the church burned people for daring to claim that the earth was not, as previously thought, the center of the universe nor flat as a pancake resting on the back of everything from elephants to giant turtles, but actually quite rotund and floating around the sun in an intricate ballet through the cosmos.

But this was hundreds of years ago, and western society today prizes itself on no longer being medieval and barbaric.

Ahem.

Actually, anyone who keeps up with current news will have noticed that although doing much better than in the times of the spanish inquisition, we still seem to be humoring the strangest of dogmas, which have no basis in logic or sanity.

I appreciate that some traditions are more benign than others, but tied into the fabric of the beliefs on which they are based, are numerious extremely harmful and debilitating tenets.

When I read about gay parades being banned (article) or when a German district court ruling making circumcision illegal is not supported by the rest of Germany (article) (oh, and did I mention the mohel sucks the blood from the penis? You didn’t know that did you (source)) or that a large number of parents in the US  fight against their children being taught evolution, it baffles me beyond comprehension.

It all comes down to people trying to control the actions and bodies of others; If you are an adult and you think circumcision is the best thing since sliced bread, be my guest, knock yourself out, but don’t maim a defenceless infant. If you believe dinasour bones were put there by god to confuse us, that’s just fine, but don’t keep your child from making up their own mind. And you don’t have to attend a gay parade if you don’t want to (although it’s heaps of fun and highly recommended).

Even if you consider yourself to be completely secular, many base their moral compass on ancient ideas, which are barely noticable to them in the undercurrent of their thought patterns. Why is public nudity wrong and obscene to most people? Why is it, when people, and especially women, engage in a life of numerous sexual encounters, it is labelled as being tawdry? Why do open relationships have such a bad rep compared to the ‘nuclear family’? These are all remnants of old rules and ideologies, which served a purpose hundreds of years ago, but have no place in a modern society.

Make no mistake: We are at war. War against ignorance, war against the tyranny of religion and war against outdated traditions and antiquated mindsets. We should not stand idly by while human and scientific progress is stagnated in the name of invisible cloud people.

No more should we humor ridiculous dogmas and unsubstantiated claims, simply because ‘a lot of people believe in them’. There is no basis for debate about things which are simply not true. Just like I would never enter into a lengthy discussion with a 4-year old about whether or not Santa exists, I would also not waste my time debating creationism vs. evolution or whether or not it’s a sin to draw a picture of a Muslim ‘prophet’. It’s basically the equivalent of humoring the crazy guy who claims to be Napoleon. If you do that, you’re just as crazy as he is.

Rule No. 1: Mind Your Own Business

It seems to me that most of the problems in this world could be solved by this simple rule.

All the grief and torment we encounter daily on this planet, is predominantly caused by the fact that people want to control how others live their lives. Why are humans so hell bent on being up in other people’s business? So what if Steve and Alan want to have sex or *gasp* get married? So what if Marjorie prays to an entity with a different name than yours? So what if I don’t believe in the same thing you believe in? What does it matter? I fail to understand how it is justified that so much money and time is dedicated to limiting personal freedom. As long as you are not forcing anyone else to participate in whatever you want to do, why should anyone care?

I appreciate that some of the issue stems from the fact that most nations have taxes, which pay for things all citizens have access too, such as health care, and if the people who, say, don’t drink and smoke pay as much tax as the people who do drink and smoke, some might say that’s unfair (random fact: I live in a country with public health care). But if the rules were changed, and personal freedom to do with your body as you wished, whether that be e.g. ingesting certain substances, or choosing to end your life for whatever reason, then the tax thing might just even itself out. Maybe the non smoker needs health care for a disease that has nothing to do with smoking. Maybe the smoker dies earlier and thereby doesn’t wear out the public roads so much (another random fact: I’m a smoker), or some other of a myriad of circumstances happens that somehow creates an equilibrium. We won’t know until we try it.

Naturally, there will still be disagreements and trials about whether or not someone was forced to do something, or did it willingly, but hey, I would still argue that we would be going in the right direction by not treating adults like children, constantly telling them what they can or cannot do with their own bodies.

Oh, and feel free to dislike whatever your neighbor is doing. Just stop deciding for her whether or not she can do it. You will suddenly realize that you have a whole lot more time on your hands to do the things that you enjoy.

Separating Fact From Fiction: A Cautionary Tale

As most of you are aware, a man was attacked by a person who is now being called the ‘Miami Cannibal‘ due to the fact that he chewed off a large part of the victim’s face. This horrible event has been getting a lot of media attention, which has emphasized certain aspects of human nature that I find very worrying.

One would hope that journalists base their articles on facts in the attempt to clarify and uncover the actual truth, or at least that they attempt to the best of their ability to present events in the most unbiased way possible. To me, jumping to conclusions based on hear-say, personal opinion or even outright falsehoods in the name of entertainment is just plain bad journalism. Unfortunately it seems more the rule than the exception that the media is less interested in facts and more interested in sensationalism. I know, I know, I’m being naive. Shame on me for hoping that people actually strive to be honest and unbiased. I know this, but what I have been seeing in the media about the ‘Miami Cannibal’ has made the hairs on my neck stand up in pure disbelief.

What I noticed very quickly was that most of the articles without further ado jumped on the bandwagon called ‘Let’s make this out to be all about how drugs are ruining society’, by claiming that the perpetrator was high on everything from LSD to bath salts. The example here is especially annoying, as a police spokesman makes all kinds of claims which are basically based on making a correlation between this event and other completely unrelated cases. First of all, the toxicology tests from the autopsy have not even been released, so we have no idea what caused this man to attack another person in such a way. Second of all, even IF he was under the influence of any substance, this is so far an isolated incident, and should be treated as such. Also, the mental disposition of a person who ingests any substances has an effect on how they react to them, be that alcohol, caffeine, cocaine etc. etc.

Unfortunately the articles that I read did not even go as far as to question the claims, but presented them very cleverly in a way that made it sound like it was more of less the truth.

The thing is though, that even when the media potentially skews the facts,  the public should be able to discern between fact and fiction, or at least approach information with some healthy skepticism. People seem to be very quick to form ideas and opinions based on one-off events and single occurrences, and especially if they have some preconceived notions they use these individual cases to support their opinion.

I sometimes work with statistics, and one of the first things you are taught when learning about how to analyse data, is that statistically you need many cases (30 at the very minimum, but preferably many hundreds or thousands) to make any kind of informed analysis. Naturally you can use single or few occurrences as indicators of some trend which should be further investigated, but it requires a lot more than ‘this sounds about right’ to really judge a situation or claim that a correlation is actually due to causation.

I have often caught myself thinking that something makes perfect sense in my head, but upon further scrutiny of a ‘fact’ or situation, I find that what I thought to be true is the exact opposite, or at least heavily shaded in layers of grey, rather than simply black or white.

Newspapers, online magazines and news channels will try to make events sound exiting and interesting, because they want to make money. This is a fact of life, but we have the option of using our human intellect to sift through the information we are bombarded with on a daily basis, and form our opinions on well-researched facts rather than over-hyped drama.

Life Disclaimer: Fun Not Guaranteed

A great many things perplex me.

Mostly I am perplexed by how people complicate their life and the lives of others completely unnecessarily. Although I am no stranger to melancholy (it can be beautiful and poetic in its own right) I have nevertheless arrived at the conclusion that being happy and having fun seems to be a better way to spend any given afternoon than, say, wallowing in conflict and despair. Yet it is the latter with which I am constantly bombarded. ‘ World News’ seems to be a synonym for ‘Another day of  people fucking everything up and being miserable for no reason’.

It is this lack of understanding of issues I encounter on a daily basis, that has led me to begin this mapping of my thoughts through the medium of blogging. It is my hope, you see, that through this endeavor I might be able to receive some feedback from you, dear reader, and this might shed some light upon my ignorance. Clearly I am missing something, because ‘What on earth is going on!?’ is my reaction to most news I come across.

Without further ado, let’s jump into the first issue I have been scratching my head over:

Gay marriage. Or as I like to call is: Marriage. I mean, you don’t call it ‘gay swimming’ or ‘gay walking’ just because the person doing it is gay.

Yet it seems there are many people who are hell bent on claiming there is a difference between ‘gay marriage’ and ‘marriage’, doing what they can to deny other people the right to marry each other, regardless of the fact that they are consenting adults trying to find happiness, just like everyone else.

I simply cannot comprehend the line of thinking which leads a person to believe they have any right whatsoever, to make decisions about the choices of  people, when these choices in no way infringe upon the rights of others. If you don’t want to get married to a person of the same sex, then don’t. Simple as that. I mean, just because marriage between a man and a woman is allowed, it doesn’t mean that every single man and woman has to get married. It’s a personal choice, and as long as you are not forcing anyone to enter into a union with you, you should be allowed to go about your business without interference from anyone.

Even the fact that we are still discussing it is obscene to me. It should really just be a total non-issue, in any context, what gender your partner is.

A twist to this issue was presented in a blog I stumbled upon, written by a Josh Weed, where he proclaims that he is in fact Mormon, gay and married to a woman. All at the same time. Happily and with kids, he might add.

I chewed my way through the entire blog, believing till the end that it must be a joke of some kind. The most scary thing, was the way he stated lies as if they were commonly accepted truths, such as :

“One of the sad truths about being homosexual is that no matter what you decide for your future, you have to sacrifice something. It’s very sad, but it is true.”

I could make a comment about the above statement, but it is just so clearly misguided that I’m not even going to further point out the painfully obvious.

Then I read the comments section, which I could believe even less. People were actually praising this man for  denouncing his sexuality.

This whole proclamation was basically about how happy he is because he has a loving family who support and love him enough to help him overcome his homosexuality, as if it was akin to being born with a handicap.

Now, I have to make clear that I would never want to force this man to live in any other way than he is living now. It is his choice, and if he and his wife agree on their relationship, then I have no business telling them otherwise. What is worrying, is the general mindset on which his current life choice is based on, and that there are people who are made to feel horrible because they are different than what ‘god’ wants them to be.

Another blog in the same vein, from a female perspective, can be read here. Again, the tone is that of homosexuality being something that needs to be oppressed and struggled with.

How can we call ourselves an evolved species in any way, when large groups of our population continually preach the suppression of completely benign and natural urges, in the name of a deity who has never been proven to exist in any way shape or form. Josh may do as Josh wishes, but as soon as children are added to the equation; children who who soak up the misguided advice from people like Mr. Weed, they will not be able to discern between fact and fiction until it is too late, and religious fairy tales become ingrained in the fabric of their basic assumptions.

By now it is clearly no secret that I do not condone religion, and that I am even less fond of the fact that parents are allowed to fill their children’s minds with stories written by mere mortals, who were either flat out lying or having some kind of drug induced mental space trip.

What I do not understand, is the reasoning behind believing blindly in written words which have no proven provenance. There must be some logic I am missing, some explanation as to why someone would fight against their own nature to please an invisible entity. If  you believe that your god will punish you for doing something that does not hurt anyone, why would you even want to be devoted to this god? Why wouldn’t you want to rebel against  a deity who seems to be narrow minded and arbitrarily preoccupied with certain issues?

So there you have it; My first venture into the blogosphere. Hopefully with many more posts to come, which will foster some interesting debates that will expand the minds of all who wish to participate.