Female Oppression by Various Names

i love this excerpt. i love the intro by Jill...
i love this. I know this. I see this but somehow, i was made and born without the chip. and it pisses folk off like you would not believe. I am readily called selfish but it is because i am not a doormat to make men and others comfortable and certainly never at my expense.

it has been a long haul of a meditation and comparison; in silent and not so silent ways...with men it makes me /i am called a ball breaker...cause my strength shows up how spineless they are; my competence, their lack. and then they run rather than buck up. cause lets face it who demands that they do? what father or mother demanded that they did when they were growing up? None

Funny too this post at this moment. Just a minute ago I was in the shower and thought how hard it is to be a prostitute and certainly a high class one nowadays: a courtesan...it is so free and given away, even in public, every day, every minute of the day, who is going to pay for it now? and who will pay for the extras when everyone is so crass and base? ..same sentiment...

service. and service without any consideration to the one providing it...to the extent that it be free is the expectation, and free from bother, reciprocity. its deep.

---------------

Jill Lian Goddard:

"In this excerpt of a piece by Marilyn Frye it discusses how a part of the oppression of woman is that we often provide for the service needs of others, especially guys. I have noticed that even when I am not asked, I will fill in the gaps of which services are needed. I will make sure children are taken care of, things flow smoothly, conversation is balanced, etc. It's not that I want to stop being of service to others, it's that I want to keep bringing some examination of this idea about who provides the support. Sometimes I just want to invent something new, or make a new discovery but instead I find myself at the sink or doing the excel spreadsheets, or filling in the financial gaps etc. A constant struggle for me."

from the article:

"'Whether in lower, middle or upper-class home or work situations, women’s service work always includes personal service (the work of maids, butlers, cooks, personal secretaries),* sexual service (including provision for his genital sexual needs and bearing his children, but also including “being nice,” “being attractive for him,” etc.), and ego service (encouragement, support, praise, attention). Women’s service work also is characterized everywhere by the fatal combination of responsibility and powerlessness: we are held responsible and we hold ourselves responsible for good outcomes for men and children in almost every respect though we have in almost no case power adequate to that project. The details of the subjective experience of this servitude are local. They vary with economic class and race and ethnic tradition as well as the personalities of the men in question. So also are the details of the forces which coerce our tolerance of this servitude particular to the different situations in which different women live and work.

(* At higher class levels women may not do all these kinds of work, but are generally still responsible for hiring and supervising those who do it These services are still, in these cases, women’s responsibility.)"
--------------------------------

my friend chippy likes to tell me i am fighting battles already won but he is clueless and has no idea, like racism, gender bias and sexism gets more nuanced, hidden and sophisticated...and increasingly so when colorism and class are included, and even relational dynamics where every man thinks that every woman who wants to hang with him wants him romantically or sexually. some of us are just boys trying to hang./aint nobody interested in your (include descriptor) ass.

it is all a long line of degrees on issues of privilege, withdrawals, objectivity and subjectivity...to the extent that males are happy or not.

lovely meditation

http://feminsttheoryreadinggroup.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/marilyn-frye-the-politics-of-reality-oppression/

Puzzle Pieces

Ester Ishtar

"I went from homeless, suicidal and penniless to owning 3 properties and a multi-millionaire dollar enterprise as well as becoming a self made millionaire in less than 4 years."
This is a comment by a Vodoun practitioner whose life was transformed when he accepted his calling to become an ATR practitioner. He is the 2nd ATR practitioner that I know who is a millionaire. The other one practises Palo and IFA. I bring up these two examples because I am reminded of when people ask why are so many ATR practitioners broke or struggling financially? They all reside in the US and worship the same deities but the difference between these affluent practitioners and the rest is this - these deities are their blood ancestors."

Me:

"interesting. i wish for you to tell em more. i am not sure i understand everything but this got me: "these deities are their blood ancestors."

i dont know what atr is.
i will tell you that for decades i have been told i have a calling on my life. and the calling perceived is directly related to the beliefs o the person speaking those words: from traditional christian--calling to the pulpit, to healers, shamans...

my great great cousin was a healer, the greatest known healer in trinidad and tobago...and the signs are there, too many to mention but two big ones is a blind seer told me never to make offerings. and my ancestor's right hand man told me no man trained my ancestor, that the spirits came for him every night, and taught him. he returned each morning by grace, in a trance. and from then i knew not to look to any human being

but this post appeals to me. for plenty other reasons. too many to share here...

the other thing I will mention here is because one of my closest support in the tradition tells me "i have not yet answered my calling..Twa Makandal Ishtar

what is atr
who is the practitioner who spoke those words? is he on fb?

wow/
as'e to blood ancestors and healing traditions
give guidance"

Black Girl Chronicles/ Otherwise Known as Racism, White Supremacy, and Culture Shock of the UnInitiated

One

"A few friends shared with me “I, too, am Cambridge/Oxford”, and it means a lot to me that they considered sharing those links with me. It’s recently been quite difficult to function. I constantly have to push myself and suppress how I feel and my body hates me for it. It’s strange because I know that I can be an emotional person, a sensitive person, a person who notices a lot….but I’ve never known myself to be as emotionally unstable as I’ve been since moving to England. I think that many people at home would view me as rather calm, able to sleep in the midst of stressful times, quite capable of just chillaxing, but for the past two weeks I’ve been finding that incredibly difficult to do.

Why? Well, I’ve been trying desperately to answer that question myself. My hope is that the solution will offer some hope of relief to my mental and physical 'trauma'.

History lesson: When I was a child, I got short-breath attacks a few times, usually after my body has been through intense physical exertion. During these attacks it was incredibly difficult to breath and for the entire time I felt like I was going to die. It’s probably one of the scariest feelings when you constantly feel like you’re running out of air and you’re desperately struggling to get more of it…and I try as much as possible to avoid getting into a situation where I’d feel that way again. My parents would have to rush me to the health centre where they’d put an oxygen mask on my face and try to get my body back to a normal state. I’d sit in the same spot for a long time and just breathe pure oxygen until I was able to breathe slowly again. This type of thing never happened after I left primary school.

Fast forward a couple years to 2013…I had a near experience shortly after I got here where I felt an attack almost coming on…and I wasn’t physically exerting myself. It didn’t escalate to the point where I was really fighting to breathe though. I was able to calm my body down. Last week though, on two occasions, my heart started racing, breathing became difficult, my body felt as though it was going crazy, and I became very afraid that I’d need medical assistance unless I calmed down. The same fear that I’d lose control of my breathing and need a doctor came over me this week on my second attempt at skiing-my instructor wasn’t too happy with me-, but I wasn’t going to risk being on an icy slope, barely able to stand, whilst having a short breath attack and no way of getting out of it, or to a health facility, without more exertion. Last night again, my body went into a state of shock and then my heart began to race and I had to struggle to get myself to calm down. I spent a long time just trying to relax.

…and I’ve been trying to find the answer as to why this has been happened to my body so frequently within the past two weeks: and I figure that quite a bit of it has to do with what is going through my mind. Whereas in Trinidad I’ve had people tell me that I under-react when people violate my personal space, are prejudiced against me, threaten me, betray my trust or hurl abuses at me with atypical frequency…the opposite is true here. So much of what I feel seems to be an overreaction, so much needs to be hidden, unexpressed, and it’s been really hard trying to reconcile what is appropriate to feel and what isn’t. Are my feelings valid?..I’ve never had to face that question as directly as I do now. I’ve been trying very hard to ignore it, to hide what I go through… I don’t think that it’s normal, it’s good, it’s fair, that it’s right. But… well, I still need to express my feelings and I guess that’s why it helps me so much to share on this blog. ..and although my emotional frustration extends well beyond racial issues it’s really comforting to see people at Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard share what they go through too."

Two

"Interesting read.... especially since I have been experiencing similar feelings since being here... specifically being emotionally unstable.... and questioning the validity of many scenarios... even my own existence...

I would like to believe that the weather and maybe my hormones had some part to play in my emotions and further period of depression, but like you I am still seeking to answer that question..

Thank you for sharing...

I haven't been able to reconcile any of my emotions with race though Maven.... never even thought of it... interesting perspective, I am journal my emotions so in a different space and time I can reflect... because these emotions are new to me and really made me question if something was wrong with 

me!"

 

My Responses:

• i am at a loss for words
  though i wish to be comforting
  
  at the beginning as i read, i immediately thought {the culture shock of being black in a western racist dominant sexist prejudiced hurtful to self paradigm} but at the end you say it goes way beyond racial issues.
  
  perhaps..isolation, cultural shock, sensitivity overload, emotional-mental-psychological demands to 'buck up' swallow it. accept...
  and the limitations of coping mechanisms, I dont know..
  
  but i wonder if some Nina would help
  She has been counseling my soul this night
  
  http://vimeo.com/36905801
  
  thank you for bearing your soul..i bear witness in honor

   

  

  Nina Simone - The Legend

  vimeo.com

  Video by the Official Nina Simone Estate at http://ninasimone.com/ Follow: https://twitter.com/#!/NinaSimoneMusic

   

   
• 

  i swear you all are experiencing classic text book stages of black trauma in a white supremacist world. but i am sure that reads like total madness to you both.
  
  Black Rage is a book that comes to mind
  and plenty others that are no longer at my mind's eye or fingertips to list
  
  the shit is real!
  and these are the reactions when you step into it full blown, unknown.
  
  i wish i had some witnesses

  
  
• 
  

  Teocah! what you just wrote is a classic stylized fact of that whole phenomena
  
  i was trying to research but it is insufficient..I just came up with
  Racism, White Supremacy and Culture Shock of the Uninitiated
  
  this thread even brings my own awareness...I lost a job in Mexico as a Travelling Faculty...and it was because I was already weak and fragile. took the job. landed in a hornets nest of the most dreadful power struggle of factions for the program housed at Boston College, and I literally broke down during planning and orientation session... they thought I was crazy>
  
  i am now seeing that experience in a light shaded by your experiences this evening.
  
  being black and female aint no joke and places like trinidad inure us into thinking...everything is a cakewalk and there are no differences between human experiences when in fact, it is the direct opposite
  
  But let me pause there...I find this rich beyond belief but do not want to skew or taint your respective perspectives..>let that happen on its own..let what it is unfold.to your awareness.
  journaling and writing though is a sure fire path to solution!

trinidad humbles and humbled

"but trinidad humbles you"

there is a magnitude in that small participle

trinidad has humbled me.
trinidad does humble all
either by your own doing; lara, duprey,
either by your own not doing: verna, douglas
of by the country insisting you are not
and not ever to be given the chance to do,
or the chances other idiots get
i fall into the latter category

a category that says and shows that you aint shit
by reflection if the whole country are printing their  phds on hps at home
it means yours that you sweat, fought and studied for year long qualifying exams are
rendered just as fake
it means if the biggest clowns are Drs there is no way you can ever use the term again
it means if medical doctors slaughter their patients, mothers and infants and utero babies,
for instance, there is nothing but an abattoir. no hospitals.
if the whole country are going to a school system that teaches them to be colonial subjects
it means you who never there ventured are also a slave
and if the university have papers sharing like chewing gum
it matters not///bachelor pads and master boards are both bereft and of no consequence to the nation.

"but trinidad humbles you"

but the greatest part in that statement gives me pause and wonder..
i think somehow, unintentionally, without that being my mission, just be me speaking what is before me. what i see. what i experience, and all the myths i discovered were lies and all the delusion and dissonance amidst swirling the population..i by dint of things was humbling trinidad.
 and a lot of persons like myself do that...

persons who could be making this place a useful, better and enriched places, but robbed of corners, space  and access...should we be brave enough to speak and tell out our stories, we do .  we indeed

humble trinidad

that i find interesting.
no other person humbled this place more than naipaul
and still in its deep deceit...for i have recently learned that in trinidad blood, land and character what is biggest above all, even dissonance..
is Deceit...they ignored him. as if it were not everywhere true. as if it were not the labasse corruption douen elephant in the room/country.

BadassBlackBe

"Racism does not care that not all Black people act the same. It's no point trying to reason with an ideology that is based on ignorance."



i know this. i know this personally...
i can look back in amusement...
cause i was and would think: i am unusual black girl. i grew up in privilege. i grew up internationally. i grew up with white leather cowboy boots. had a car since i was sixteen..i am smart and sharp as a tack intellect. i write collections, publish essays. i have protocols, stock. lineage, propriety...I DID> i am quality. I have education. I can do a whole heap of stuff.

EH HEH???

Wow. that bubble busted over a decade ago
first when i saw brothers make no distinction between ratchet hood wenches and uptown princesses.....long ago in life i was bemused by some thing: i have always felt there were men i could not measure up to, would never consider...but in turn i wondered why dont i see this in males. that there are some people outside your league and please act accordingly. does. not. exist. i dont know if i have that same perspective now or if it has been swapped for something far more salient...i find you are more likely to meet men and males who are cads across status, exposure age, qualifications, accomplishments...the one line consistent among all of them is that they know how to treat women badly...so i stay away equally...

but i have come to know that i am just another negro girl and that comes out across gender, age, ...the only difference is the ones who know that i am not regular, in a country like trinidad, just ignore me, blank me, sideline me, wont let me in to give their incompetence competition...the bottom other side...will just sidle off quielty knowing the league thing...but guess what...the outcome is the same no matter the quarter it emerges..

fascinating
being "good" dont matter

and that is why i have been done with that program
folk will always look to see something that dehumanizes you, makes you less than them.. i experienced that a few months ago with a clutch of women, most of them white or less melanin, some thinking they are special for being an expat...and i remember when i lived in that too..in zimbabwe...but back then, it seemed that within your group you still gravitated and connected. i dont know. it seems the more time passes, the older i get, the more i learn how alike we all are is the more i have experiences in small petty places that create designations to separate and alienate,

hm
and i laugh at the negros who try to be good thinking that will give them entree and inclusion.. and now i am like jesus flipping over the table...i have no desire to sup at your table. me with my linens, silver, draped in diamonds, gold, mined colored stones and knowledge to recite your future...i will just sit at the stream and read a book or listen the water.



badassblackbe

"In the end, racism and homophobia and sexism care very little that you are one of the "good Blacks" or "good gays" or "good women.""
"Racism does not care that not all Black people act the same. It's no point trying to reason with an ideology that is based on ignorance."

The Anti Intellect Blog

observations on operating and surviving in trinidad

are things really that hard? as hard to impossible as it appears to be?
and yes the answer is a resounding yes

apart from human foibles and incapacity dishonesty abounds so effortlessly. i saw a man who i thought was someone on my facebook page and asked him if he was so and so, he said no, smiled and replied on, but he is a good guy. weeks later i am talking to the guy on my fb and i mention i saw this guy...yadayada yada...and he says offers nothing. it was just casual chat . then this morning i see in a post reference to a brother. and it hit me bingo. the two clowns are brothers. both of them. almost identical so as to be twins. one stocky the other a bit thin. both have the same baldhead. and i wrote on the thread my puzzle answer. but in reflection, it is dawning on me the extent to which folk are dishonest for no and all reasons, even in casual situations...trinidad twicksters tricksters

then i was to be in a group meeting at 11:30 this morning. among five people minimum: ideas man, land owners, designers, builders, contractors, lawyers. it was confirmed from since early in the week. you know just now the ideas man calls to say he has something...i did not get the call so i cants say what but it surely did not sound like an emergency and certainly nothing that you would disrupt five to seven other people's lives who agreed to slot that time for a meeting for you to do something else just cause something else came up???? are you all feeling the schism in that as I am?? and i was struck at how unbelievably selfish and sociopathic that is / one against five. if five to seven people say they can meet at point a at appointed time b who would dare throw a keg in that program knowing that may be a challenging thing to do? that strikes me as such total shit it just made me realize the extent to which people on shit here. just for like breath and breathing

the other thing i realize is that people seem to be unable to process think through and problem solve the easiest non thought of things...like making appointments and setting schedules. if someone cant make 1pm if they can make 3 4 or 5pm why not go ahead and do so to just accomplish that goal? So is it that people not interested in the mission or are they that out to lunch? I am struck here with the extent to which you cannot trust others to do or handle your business

i am reminded of a friend who was making a big time appt for me with one of his clients. i got the appt but i so read people from a mile away, the character of these trinidadians who believe the sun rises and sets at their ass...and suggested to him to one, come to the meeting with me so that what i say will not be translated wrongly..i have a witness that  i am dropping valuable intellectual property. i also asked him to call and confirm the day of the meeting just so no backing out can happen. know the person tell me yes he will do it but an hour before the meeting he did not. you know what call i got exactly at the hour dont you? and i realized then that my friend had lied to me and had no intention of calling, that he just dismissed my concerns as over hyper vigilance and miserableness that was confirmed as valid approaches and strategies. and then on top of this did not press this person to reschedule. and the deep part...i know in my heart that the star was looking at our mutual friend and believing..thinking...{look at you, what legitimate business , person or connection could you possibly have to make this worth my while.} my friend eh see that yet. but i see if that is your client friend...and he thinks so little of you to dishonor his word to you, let alone not talk about dishonor his connection with you, he is showing you how meaningless you are. you just serve his needs and purpose and nothing else need proceed from that...and if the two of you all are comfortable disappointing me, it says a lot about people's integrity and honor. there is no, "i said it so let me stand by it' everything and anything can change.

and in the midst of all this, i thought how much alike gordon deane and carlos john. i have a longer history with one than the other, but they are both the same. they will both be very responsive, answer all calls and texts and emails. both will promise you to do and both will follow through to some point-- what that is and which you will never know. but for all that attention and responsiveness. NOTHING> i laugh. cause it is effective as hell. Amazing. no one can ever say either of them blank them. but the measure of accomplishment to achievement in plans, desires, intentions/ i would advise you not to hold water eh

observations on operating and surviving in trinidad
and what is the narcissism meter reading on this post?

No Strange Bedfellows

what is it when you sleep,  you dream, you are awake, you are taking notes, and orchestrating life plans and projects...all at the same time...that if one were to look at you they would say, soundly sleeping?

i was in a house/office with sandie-lee tempro ...my father's golld fob chain that i wear as a bracelet fell off but i now cant remember who were the people, men, i parted to get it. i had more ideas about the interview series...developed it into 'beinghuman'...

the only thing that broke it all...the stream and the memory is that a phone call woke me up. i started looking at a show of children reciting poetry, and then i went straight to shower, washing it all away, before i gathered my thoughts in this realm and wrote a single sentence

i do remember one thought i had...i was thinking of all the black folk i know...and who know me and the all of them who have not helped me when they could have...in positions of power, have connections to those who make decisions, know of my stock, professional pedigree and competence, and either took things for themselves, not even choosing to share or partner, or just left me in the wilderness...or those who have in recent years tried to destabilize me by holding on to my gratuity...is only black public servants doing that...one indian woman of no jet in HR...but...the crazy thought response i had was..."i wish the pp stay in power"

nothing will change for grounded unswayed people like me. so is best we cast chart and throw our lot with the other. there is a bigger chance in that gamble than seeking out with your own...like randall robinson i think said, all your skin folk aint your kinfolk...and who knows, you might be an exotique that you might try to trade in and on...so many mafias to negotiate...makes me think of ozzy's skylife and theories of trinidad music scene...the most or all  have to lose in perpetuity in order for the one or few to succeed...and even the remnants who rise, they must know it is only for a while...so follow me here cause it is high tension chess i am strategizing here...this is also the game board reality when folk cant work together...will not. refuse to...like their death is tied up into any kind of kindness. as if i am friends with you i cant be friend with massa...so hear what...i see that.so clearly. among so many of the natives-- the sons mainly, the daughters just wishing to be bed partners, make pikney for the one with the greatest money...so town say eh. i eh know...if so is the case, best you gamble with unlikely cohorts and unknown friends

partner associates..