Month: December 2015

What does a child understand, what does a woman understand?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

To being born a girl means still very different things everywhere than being born a boy. This must be said aloud since it is thought that we have managed to solve such issues as inequality of sexes, solve inequality at birth here in the West where feminism has effected positively in how women and girls are treated and what kind of opportunities they will have in their lives. To speak of inequality at birth we mostly think of those developing countries in which more conservative points of views come to decide how sexes become to follow their duties on strictly guided paths, how difference is made clear. Difference is a gap but also something intolerable. Intolerable and agonizing point is where one is born into and sex is unchangeable truth, overwhelming and either bad or good. Knowing what are those two sexes for without possibility to change that mental landscape. How are our capabilities utilized by society, family and by persons themselves is a key issue and what is there to be utilized, what for are we produced products? The very heart is how well can we live as persons or can not and how roughly are we pushed to be an obedient mass. What is a nation for? What happens to those who simply do not fit in? How do invariable, rightful and lawful members of society make the construct of nation build by families?

Who can and will have minds of their own, minds of our own, a mind of my own, how is mind educated? Family values and where they come from play an important part in how children become to value themselves, others and how they see their possibilities and roles outside the family. To be able to see sexes as equal but different has proved to be a very difficult task as sex is seen through traditions; how we should be and become, models for living are passed on though we are very different now than 50 years ago, at least as civilization, and born to do different things as such. Opportunities are there to be grasped for more people than ever, knowledge can be found and used. What are we born to do then with what we have got? How will we find the right and tools to know who we are? Who is to decide and when will child decide for himself/herself? That women and girls are by definition less than men easily happens to be the guiding thought even this definition is not verbalized but an actively played part with gestures, clothes, innuendos, structure of society which leads the way. Gender roles which are unconsciously followed because we are not challenged enough to do otherwise, think otherwise? Are we that irrational? The construction and basis of our gender ideology we obediently follow has not been thoroughly changed. Such turnover would alter centuries old structure beneath us and the world as we know it. Would we be completely lost? There are many reasons why we tightly stick to safety which stability brings. It is a time and energy-consuming a too complex issue to tackle with to change the very ground. How women and girls are treated by default, by an invisible order, how will they be provided for the same opportunities as boys and why it is extremely important to pay attention to consciously influence on changing inequality. Not to pamper but to make sure there are no walls and obstacles that normally are there for girls. Boys are naturally given the place in which they are glorified, important, let to run and act wild and somehow the directing place falls on them just like that. Their honor lies in different achievements. Woman’s honor is her calmness, her kindness, gentleness and prohibition from sexual pleasure.

The happening of gender, making of it by thinking we know what gender is and what does any gender do, is supposed to be like, the easiness of falling into old ways of thinking is the place where we have to be extra careful. How we do not favor someone because of their outer traits, because we see them as better because of their sex, because self-assurance is a sign of quality, because wearing a suit is a sign of power, because those who have the loudest voice are allowed to speak for others etc. It is extra important to unlearn such learned ways of thinking where sex by default is something particular because we are first thinking persons then sexual beings. This duality we go through from very young age: am I my genitals, am I my brain? I am not my sex although I am completely defined by it, by what I look like which is feminine and sexual, sexualized and for sexual pleasure. I am much more than that which can be difficult to pay attention to and very difficult to acknowledge. This I do not say to boast, I state it as a fact that happens repeatedly not only to me but to many women, which detail is a stepping stone for those who look and who function like the most repetitious. Looks should not be an issue but it is always. It is as if I am not for me and I am not allowed to the same rights to exist, make, create and accomplish as others. Stating this it is clear we are not equal. What I represent in the eyes of others defines me and some of my opportunities. How much does it weigh how I define myself and how broadly I stretch to test my limits remains still to be seen. Paradox is that women can be very flexible and capable of doing a large variety of things when they are allowed to try.

One cannot highlight enough how important role of adults is, any adult, all of them. To not call women whores just because you can, to not be violent towards children and women, do not be violent at all. To understand what is violence, verbal and mental violence, abuse, exploitation and violation. It is a growing process for all. Adults are not ready people, they do not know everything, they do not possesses divine laws by which to tell who is absolutely right and what that other should be like.

http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/dear-daddy-this-rape-prevention-video-is-incredibly-powerful–ZyRy2DPpqg

dog in snow

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Image | | Henna Timanttimetsä

Freedom to exercise and move is a basic human right.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
How much moving do our bodies and minds need to be healthy? My phone tells me there are recommendations according to which to walk 6000 steps per day is a minimum which all should follow. It is not just my phone that tells me things, it is my body and my brain. They both are needy for sports every day. Without moving and sweating I begin to feel a low that is very uncomfortable and painful and I feel how not moving effects. To push one’s limits via sports is what also tells that one can push those bodily boundaries pretty far, even further. As I sit down most of the day I must walk and jog daily. My feet hurt because of this routine but I know it is a good hurt: I have used my muscles, my thinking benefits from this muscle pain, gush of blood. On that track which I go to whether it rains or not, heavy breathing against cold breeze forcing of myself to go faster and do more, running uphills as fast as I can. I do it even I feel tired, especially when I feel tired.
To think there are prohibitions for women to not use their bodies to exercise is quite horrible thinking the benefits of sports and feeling of freedom it brings, feeling of youthfulness and happiness. Body that is made a jail is also jail for the mind, which jailing of course serves those who like to rule those feminine bodies and sentiments as those bad things females possess ruin the society, ruin minds of men bringing chaos and destruction of virtues and order. When female body causes such dangerous effects on those who can be corrupted by devious and evil thoughts, which obviously and naturally are there, men corrupted by looking at women’s bodies, thought occurs how sensitive and naive are those men, how delicate and horny by nature poor creatures. Power of women is therefore pretty mighty. Those who are born males are not corrupted by their gender and sex and are given opportunities because they deserve the privileges. To deserve something is interesting here. They who are lifted above and shall not be taken down by women, this must be the logic, are holier. Women, less holy, those sub-beings who are corrupted and irrationally ill need the chains. It feels rather strange to be a woman.

http://time.com/4143865/saudi-arabia-elections-women/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter 

Saudi Women Make History in Elections

Is there wisdom in how we live and what we expect other people to do for us?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

The rest of the life, which should seem a long time. Any breath is a long time if you feel pain of living, if you think life is burdened and you can’t take it. What is life for those who are scared to think further, even over night, the next day what will it bring, scared to take a step aside because something horrible will come of it,  terrified of getting lost because nothing else can be found. How about for those who are not scared and do not think a minute further to consider why and what should they do, those who jump and those who do not think about time as something lengthy, life as something to measure, something to feel sad about, as a time to gather and own, life for those who cannot let the thought of the rest of the life go as they stay haunted by the idea of being trapped. What is the rest of the life? What has it been so far? Will you have something to contribute to and influence what it will be like? How have you contributed to your life so far? Is it far or is it close by for what you have been reaching? Do you know what to reach for? When you were little what did future look like? Full of opportunities, happenings and events of joy, no hardship but chances to grab like gifts. That is how you should see the rest of the life still, an opportunity and chance you have been granted. Do not feel sorry for what you do not get, it is not about taking and having. But what else do we do but give and take. Is it so we cannot do otherwise and we must draw lines in between to whom we give and to whom we do not?

http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/blog/hundreds-take-part-protest-performance-louvre-museum-over-oil-sponsorship It is still interesting how powerful cultural and artistic connection is for companies and cities. How art is used to make things look better than they are, how art can be used to manipulate and is harnessed for business purposes to make money for those who understand marketing value of high art and importance of creating illusions of kind, creative, open and collectively giving industries and corporations who do good. The thought is of course it is used and manipulated. Art needs money. How necessary finance is in making art, displaying it and producing? Money and getting it play bigger part than it should, how ethical and correct relation between finance and art is can and should be argued.

Drones

| Henna Timanttimetsä

watercolour on paper, 2015

How do we feel on the internet?

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Amount of emotions is what we tackle with. Emotional life is our soft spot. How should we feel and why we feel the way we do. It is that we have emotions we cannot hide, deny but deal with them is something we must be able to do and we have to find the tools to express ourselves within the frame of society. How to show love or hate and when not to, decisions has to be made maybe in seconds, to react, feel and think at the same time. It is quite a complex process and web of levels. To choose when to show how we feel and when not to, firstly know why. How conscious process of emotions is and how responsible are we of them? To feel inside but not outside the body which is filled with chemical reactions, nerves and ideas of feelings we need to recognize and give or keep. We are to give those inner feeling forward to exist. Without that interaction we are partial, invalid. We are suffocating, suffering, misunderstood when we are unable to verbalize what we feel, our feelings are not met, when we do not know how to show to that other person what goes on inside if anything, not to speak understanding what that other is feeling and why. When we do not show visibly understandably what we feel, we can be seen as cold and emotionless, incapable of showing emotion and giving, sharing which is seen a basic tool between humans to make relations and bond. To talk about feelings is therefore not inaccurate and wrong, outdated even though we have a social pressure of not showing too much feelings. Emotional is wrong in the sense of modern effective human who performs and is just too much, but emotional is compulsory to live. We cannot cry in public without it causing awkward situations but when someone dies we are expected to react in a certain manner. We cannot laugh all the time even though we feel ecstasy of joy. Stoic expressionless existence is seen expression of someone who is in control. To control feelings is seen a wise and clever thing to do as what goes inside is a very private matter and every little thing matters, all. Women are accused of being highly emotional which is the animal side, sign of low self-control indicating low rational abilities. Rational, logical people hold on to their emotional life, keep it a secret, something that is shared with special people.
Do we feel with others enough, sharing feelings we must, common issues that are emotional for us as every day is personal and emotional, choice and under rule of others, do we feel for good reasons, causes or not at all? Are feelings manipulated, show off and a cover? Do we share something personal by sharing feelings on the internet because it has meaning also in general creating our image, are we sharing just to be heard and seen? Are you able to understand how someone might be feeling and what does taking part in common causes that rise considerable emotions mean?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/nov/29/sleazy-chatbot-internet-misogyny?CMP=twt_gu

Something to say about women in art, in music, in any craft which have been taken over by men usually white men: Creativity by and of women how is it seen or not seen as work and valued or not.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

To begin to analyse topic of creative womanhood, creative women which is always acute, easy to make controversial, scandalous. A topic which is on the nerve still in this time is a thing of puzzle where one has to find the very issue of the dilemma existing, problem and glitch that keeps on making controversy and scare being the obstacle above which we struggle to rise, look objectively and which we tackle to solve. Generation after generation change happens so slowly it begins to look like something that cannot be but an suffocating relic a carved in stone kind of command that we fight against and it just stays like a stain. How unbearably demanding it is to listen and watch the state of denying women from being complete. It is so easy to tell us what women should be doing, look like and what women are for, tell that with threats and ultimatums. Women under, women on their backs, women in the places where women do things women do; this is the kind of way to speak that should be history, the way of instructing and ruling what women are supposed to do, what women are and stand for. How women are treated within society reflects how any kind of difference is treated and welcomed, how strict purity of society kept in the sense of bordering and limiting how people interact, who can and who can’t, who has a say, which laws are in use. What kinds of limits we take seriously and obey, what kind of border crossing is intimidating and seen as wrong. What kinds of things we get punished for and how scared we are to be?

Interesting study on differences between concepts xenophobia and racism, roots and reasons for
http://philpapers.org/archive/KIMXAR.pdf Xenofobia and racism, David Haekwon Kim and Roland R. Sundström

It is interesting to see similarities between racism and misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia, reasoning any kind of discrimination, reasons for brutality and cruelty are very irrational and based on ignorance and need to use power in a violent way, how putting groups of people below is justified and happening without an end.


It is difficult to see things in different ways, from different perspectives, from a view of another, see in new kinds of ways that can be refreshing but weird, that might show something other than what has been repeated for years and years, to see another kind of truth, something one kind of truth is said over and over without much change in sight, without logic, compassion, looking for easy answers is too clear. If there has been change it has been so slow it has been barely visible, barely there or barely existing, hidden: to detect that altering in reality can be exciting, rejuvenating. So what is the scare and reluctance?

Change which is bare, powerful, instant, compulsory and challenging is something we do not wish to witness and experience since it can be too much to take and handle. It is a lot of work to learn and accept, do all over again, begin from scratch, do a total turnover when all we want is comfort and security. Change is something we like to hinder, at least some of us, comfort of old ways of thinking, seeing and doing hold on tight. It is intolerable but necessary, something we need to have in order to have meaning and value. Things that stay the same start stinking, rotting and die. It is difficult to change yourself and your views especially if you are not prepared, not willing, not ready and accepting toward the fact that you do change, like it or not, your body changes, something around you changes all the time. What are the things that do not change? How does one’s mind and brain change in the process of aging, in the process of changing without much say over, no control over one’s physicality? As it seems we let body rule which means the sex we represent dictates what we should be and do in our lives, how we are perceived as humans in comparison to others and in society, what is one’s place is the body we happen to be born in. How to understand change, the inevitability, the scary, the happening and participate?

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/french-revolution-advertising/418920/

When existence is about hating because it is the way to solve things, maybe learned, maybe the only way to react, it can be the emotion one is grown into, it is the feeling making us and them, me and those others, separation, segregation, discrimination. The way to act when there are no other effective ways to make one’s voice heard, power in the moment of powerlessness or in need to stay in power. Hate is a consuming emotion but it is creation via destruction and low. You can experience the amount of energy emotion uses in you when you are horribly angry, exhausting. Hate tires you up, it wears you out showing no way out other than hurt and causing more hurt, bringing despair and hopelessness but also a strange illusion of power, individual power in how one acts and in making one’s mark via violence, against oneself and others. What to hate? To hate is justified because you have suffered, you have a position that is threatened, you have been treated wrongly, you want to make other people feel the same pain you have felt. To be angry is purifying but it also is when felt on a daily basis eating out strength and creativity when used against others in violent way. How to use one’s anger and rage constructively is what is useful to go through consciously every day as anger is felt and is powerful as there are angering issues nonstop. You hate because you have the right and you have something to lose, something you do not want to share.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/not-a-british-subject-race-and-poetry-in-the-uk/ n his 1962 introduction to The New Poetry, Al Alvarez famously railed against the Movement’s overriding “concept of gentility” — the “belief that life is always more or less orderly, people always more or less polite, their emotions and habits more or less decent and more or less controllable; that God, in short, is more or less good.”

 

Too bad to know how hateful people think.

Image | | Henna Timanttimetsä