Blessings of Healing



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Mansplainers

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The term mansplain is not new, but if it is new to you here's the idea: A woman expresses her perspective. A man disagrees, but rather than simply state that he disagrees, he explains to her what he supposes she must not understand. The assumption being, if you understood this subject adequately you would have the right (my) opinion. The assumption also being that a woman could not possibly know as much about any topic as he does.  There are many different examples of mansplaining, different kinds of mansplainers . Not all men are mansplainers, but all mansplainers are men. Mansplaining is essentially taking advantage of the the many privileges in discourse that come along with being a man in our culture. It is presenting your (male) opinion as more authoritative or definitive than a woman's regardless of how much expertise she has on a topic.     Mansplaining is especially common and frustrating when it is a man telling a woman that her feelings are invalid ...
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Changes Worth Waiting For

I hate generalizations. I feel that they're the result of intellectual laziness. When you're too lazy to make the effort to be accurate to reality, when that reality is nuanced and complex, oversimplification and stereotypes help you feel like you "understand." I hate that generalizations make people feel left out, or somehow wrong. I feel like they're about 60% accurate. All of that being said, I have a few generalizations I'd like to make about feminists, using the feminist I know best as a template - that feminist being myself. Feminists are highly logical. - Many feminists that I know tend to be "left brained." We have a lot of respect for reasoning. This also might be why we're so very angered by some unflattering stereotypes regarding "women and their hysterics." Feminists like to be in charge. - And we're good at it too. We are used to being respected in our social groups, looked up to and trusted. We can coordinate l...
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Rippling Pectorals

The other day I went for a long walk with my dog and my baby in his running stroller. As we went along our usual Provo route, we went by a park where there was a young man doing sprints. He was wearing nothing but a pair of running shorts and some shoes. At first, I thought nothing of it, as I'm sure most people wouldn't. But then it suddenly occurred to me that if I were doing exactly what he was doing, wearing exactly what he was wearing, I would get arrested for indecent exposure. And I thought: this is a perfect example of patriarchy. Noticing patriarchy around you is all about noticing the ubiquitous assumption of a male perspective. Why can men walk around topless and not women? Because women's breasts are obscene. Why are they obscene? Because they're sexual. To whom are they sexual? Heterosexual males. So because heterosexual males find my body obscene, I can be arrested for wearing the exact same outfit as that man and doing the exact same thing he was do...
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