textualdeviance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
textualdeviance) wrote2004-02-18 06:12 pm
textualdeviance) wrote2004-02-18 06:12 pm
Entry tags:
Random amusement
It just occurred to me how funny it is that there are people who like to claim that I'm anti-woman or not really bi or something along those lines because... *snort*... I'm not attracted to underage girls or people who look or act like them.
That's right, folks. In order to be pro-woman you have to be attracted to little girls.
God I love the logic.
I was thumbing through a copy of Bitch the other day, and realizing it came out around the same time Bust did. Both capitalized on a surge of interest in Third Wave feminism in the mid-90's. Yet the philosophy behind the two couldn't be more different.
Where Bitch, while it has some advertising, is largely about killing marketing, critquing the way the media portrays women in the name of money, and getting rid of harmful stereotypes about women, Bust took the "Girl Power" tack and is instead about celebrating so-called "girl culture." They use the word feminist, but don't seem to have any real concept of the history behind the movement. Where Bitch is largely devoid of color, and is text-heavy, Bust is splashed with pinks and reds, and lots of graphics, particularly retro images of girls and women. Bitch celebrates thought, political action, philosophy and anti-consumerism, and Bust gives links to websites that sell clothing and accessories. Both are sex-positive, and queer-friendly, but Bust has a distinct bent toward "how to pick up cute boys (or girls)" As the Bitch mission statement says: ""Girl power" and "girl culture" are more about fashion and marketing than politics or social change."
And therein lies the difference between me and a lot of other young women who consider themselves feminist. Perhaps from having grown up with feminist mothers who didn't let them play with dolls or something, a lot of young women these days have become anti-feminist feminists. While of course not all are on the same extreme psychotic level as Katie Roiphe or Camille Paglia, there are still a lot of young women and girls who have bought so heavily into consumer culture that they fear anything which appears to threaten their rights to buy as much clothing and makeup as they want, and present themselves as a Barbie with a Brain. They've also been brainwashed into believing that the natural state of female sexuality is to be objectified, and so they throw fits, and rail on about sex-negativity or whatnot when confronted with the idea that just maybe, wearing heels and a mini isn't exactly a feminist act.
It's quite insidious, this girl culture stuff. But it comes from a singular philosophical root, which is essentialism. Rather than understanding that what we here in Western culture consider essentially feminine is entirely a cultural construct (if it weren't, what's considered feminine here would be the same cross-culturally, and it's not) they've bought into the notion that passivity, vanity and being an object are things which are essential to being a woman, and to deny them is to be anti-female. Dammit, it's our god-given right to shave our legs and wear pushup bras! ;) Some higher-level girl culture theorists have tried to answer criticisms of this stance by talking abour reclamation or defusing the power these things have to oppress by actively choosing them, but it rapidly becomes obvious how much selfish panic is behind those arguments, not to mention sheer ignorance of the fact that there is no such thing yet as a woman being able to actively choose these things entirely outside of cultural pressure to do so.
The truth is that mandatory consumer-centric femininity has not, in any way, disappeared. Sexism is alive and well and torturing women as we speak. Some angles of feminism have traditionally blamed men for the oppression of women, and some men do indeed still oppress women, but it's far more complex than that. Men are just as much victims of sexism as women are, because they, too are brainwashed into behaving a certain way that their culture deems appropriate for their gender, and it happens to be a way that involves the subjugation of women. Men and women both enforce these cultural commandments just as much as women in fundamentalist Muslim culture enforce the subjugation of women there by being the primary practitioners of FGM. From girls who humiliate other girls in grade school for being "unattractive" or not dressing correctly to older women who shame women who haven't gotten married or had kids, women, not men, are the primary officers of the Gender Police. And Bust, and the girls who adhere to that philosophy, are just another squadron.
While it's entertaining to imagine some sort of corporate Illuminati sitting in their boardrooms deciding to co-opt feminism and find a way to make money from it, I don't think it's that specific. But I do think greed and the "American way" of money equalling status is probably at the root of the problem. After all, if women and men are content to be as they are, love each other, and accept the people around them, how can anyone sell things to them? Aside from the essentials of life and things which are inherently pleasurable or entertaining, if you have a product you need to sell, you have to create a need for it. And in the case of products aimed at women, the easiest way to create that need is to imply that if they don't have that product, other people will think less of them. So how do you sell things to women and girls who have self-esteem and strength and strong opinions? Easy: you convince them that your product, however inherentily sexist it might be, is in itself a source of strength. These glitter platform heels are SEXY and sexy is STRONG, so buy these and you will be SEXY and therefore STRONG! Whereas (some) traditional feminism (supposedly) liked to equate sexuality with oppression, this shiny New! Improved! feminism believes sexuality, or at least one particular variety thereof, is empowering! So be sexual and you will be empowered!
Good theory. I'm sex-positive myself. But why, oh why, is it only one kind of sexuality that is supposedly empowering? And why is this sexuality inherently linked to consumerism? And why is it exclusively femme? And, for the love of all that's holy, why is this sexuality something which centers on being a "girl" rather than a woman?
There is a long, rich history in Western culture (and some Asian cultures as well) of sexualizing adolescent girls. Sociobiologically, it makes some sense in that relatively young women are usually very healthy and fertile and therefore good breeding stock, but hopefully humans are a bit beyond that, and even so, we tend to sexualize even the essence of preadolescence. Women shave or trim their pubes and other body hair. They try to have narrow waists and hips and slim thighs, rather than the womanly pear shape that comes with puberty and sexual maturity. Everyone tries to have perfect, flawless skin, just like that of a child. Some highlighted forms of feminine sexuality promote shyness, virginity, innocence, even actively aping the hallmarks of childhood in a sexualized way. Lollipops. "Baby doll" dresses. Undersized clothes. Mary Janes. Plushies. Why is this okay? Why is it okay to sexualize childhood? Why is it supposedly empowering to behave like a little girl, and use that as a way to attract people? And why is it wrong to NOT be attracted to that?
I love female bodies. I like breasts, I like softness, I like curves. I like sinking into a lush, fully-adult female body and not coming up for air. ;) I like a round, ripe rump. And, to be crude and blunt, I like pussy. But I prefer those things on adult women, not little girls. I like 19 year olds as much as the next person, but only if they're strong, intelligent and self-assured, and not if they're permanently stuck at 12. For that matter, I can't stand 40 year olds who are permanently stuck at that age, either. There are a ton of women out there who couldn't wait to have kids so they could regress into a second childhood, and not have to think about adult responsibilities or taking care of themselves, or leaving a legacy in the world besides the continuation of their genetic material. (Which is not to devalue parenthood, just that "mommy" culture is just as oppressive and belittling as "girl" culture-- in fact, the two are inherently linked, because it's these overgrown girl mommies who produce the same vacuous little twits, who in turn pass the same vanity and lack of ambition on to their own daughters.)
There is nothing wrong with youth or actual girlhood. Childhood and adolescence are wonderful things because they're blank canvases on which learning and growing and discovering the world, each from their own unique perspective happen. And yes, discovering their bodies and sexuality is part of that learning as well (I happen to think it's deplorable that our culture tries to deny the normal development of adolescent sexuality; adults shouldn't be mucking with the sexual development of children at all, neither to exploit it, nor to try to shut it down. Adults should be there to give information and answer questions, not have fits about their 10 year old playing with himself.) But it deeply bothers me that youth, and the ignorance thereof, has been somehow set in stone as a major component of *adult* female sexuality.
Perhaps it may seem a little hypocritical of me to feel this way, since I have a major case of the hots for a young man who clearly looks underage. But if his maturity level dovetailed with his physical presentation, I would have zero interest whatsoever. There are plenty of men several years older than him who still act like mindless 14 year old boys and I can't stand them. Even when Elijah was 14, he still displayed a grace, intelligence and wisdom well beyond his years, and that's pretty damned cool. So it's not a physical thing, or even an age thing, it's a mental thing. Even women who are naturally flat-chested, slender and young-looking still attract me so long as they *act* like adults. But girls who celebrate immaturity, playground politics, and dressing and acting like they still want to play with My Little Pony? Yuck. I'm not attracted to actual little girls, so why should I be attracted to girls who refuse to grow up?
It's a huge pity that Bust, and the girls with that philosophy have co-opted female empowerment. But really, it's just yet another component of having a sexist culture in the first place. It's undeniable that it's extremely hard to make your way in the world and have a full, satisfying and comfortable life if you don't fit what your culture prescribes for your gender, so it's not surprising that a fear of that kind of difficulty has led a lot of these girls into convincing themselves that there is power in being powerless, and strength in being passive. They're intelligent and educated enough to know that one's sex life, and often livelihood, for women who haven't managed to establish careers which don't depend, in some way, on their looks, virtually disappears if one is 40 and everything has fallen four inches and they fear losing that. A lot of them are girls who were very pretty in childhood, and whose parents and other caregivers lulled them into believing that their looks and attractiveness would get them everything they need in life, and so they try to violently protect the social pecking order which gives pretty girls those advantages. Someone who tries to argue that pretty girls shouldn't be given perks just for being pretty? Kill her! She's taking away our power! She's upsetting the natural balance of things! ;)
My mom's one of these, actually. Her entire life she's rested on being cute and passive, and she gets pretty much all her needs met that way. She's never had to be educated or have a real career or navigate the world on her own because people have always coddled her and taken care of her because she's such an adorable little girl, and she shouldn't worry her pretty little head about anything meaningful. She loves playing helpless because it's easier than actually learning to do something for herself. But she's a product of her culture and generation as much as anyone. The time and space she grew up in, a woman DID have to be passive and pretty and domestically talented to survive in the world because that was how one got a husband, and one's husband was the sole source of economic and social survival.
We're lucky that at least laws and most economic factors now support women who want to make their own living, but there are still huge social survival issues attached to mandatory femininity. Sex, for one. Because most men and even a lot of lesbians and bi women have still been brainwashed into only being attracted to one kind of feminine sexuality, these girls know they're not going to get laid unless they pander to that, at least on some level. We may be able to earn our own money and pay our own bills, but we still want love, intimacy and sexual pleasure, so we still have to sell ourselves in stereotypical ways which bring us those things. But that problem isn't going to go away so long as we give in to it, and so long as women still subjugate other women who reject that sexual paradigm. Rather than taking the (incorrect) essentialist view of this is what real female sexuality is, and accepting our culturally-constructed attractions and pandering to those attractions as normal, we have to all take the responsibility to dig deeper, and re-construct our own views of female sexuality, and find ways to express that and love it that don't continue to exploit ourselves and other women. Maybe it'll mean having to stay home a few nights with the vibrator instead of whoring yourself out to some guy who wants you to look or act a certain way that devalues you as an adult person. But ultimately, the sex and love you get from the people who don't ask you to devalue yourself that way is much better anyway. And then we can all have good, healthy sex lives as adults, rather than having to act like little girls in order to get laid.
That's right, folks. In order to be pro-woman you have to be attracted to little girls.
God I love the logic.
I was thumbing through a copy of Bitch the other day, and realizing it came out around the same time Bust did. Both capitalized on a surge of interest in Third Wave feminism in the mid-90's. Yet the philosophy behind the two couldn't be more different.
Where Bitch, while it has some advertising, is largely about killing marketing, critquing the way the media portrays women in the name of money, and getting rid of harmful stereotypes about women, Bust took the "Girl Power" tack and is instead about celebrating so-called "girl culture." They use the word feminist, but don't seem to have any real concept of the history behind the movement. Where Bitch is largely devoid of color, and is text-heavy, Bust is splashed with pinks and reds, and lots of graphics, particularly retro images of girls and women. Bitch celebrates thought, political action, philosophy and anti-consumerism, and Bust gives links to websites that sell clothing and accessories. Both are sex-positive, and queer-friendly, but Bust has a distinct bent toward "how to pick up cute boys (or girls)" As the Bitch mission statement says: ""Girl power" and "girl culture" are more about fashion and marketing than politics or social change."
And therein lies the difference between me and a lot of other young women who consider themselves feminist. Perhaps from having grown up with feminist mothers who didn't let them play with dolls or something, a lot of young women these days have become anti-feminist feminists. While of course not all are on the same extreme psychotic level as Katie Roiphe or Camille Paglia, there are still a lot of young women and girls who have bought so heavily into consumer culture that they fear anything which appears to threaten their rights to buy as much clothing and makeup as they want, and present themselves as a Barbie with a Brain. They've also been brainwashed into believing that the natural state of female sexuality is to be objectified, and so they throw fits, and rail on about sex-negativity or whatnot when confronted with the idea that just maybe, wearing heels and a mini isn't exactly a feminist act.
It's quite insidious, this girl culture stuff. But it comes from a singular philosophical root, which is essentialism. Rather than understanding that what we here in Western culture consider essentially feminine is entirely a cultural construct (if it weren't, what's considered feminine here would be the same cross-culturally, and it's not) they've bought into the notion that passivity, vanity and being an object are things which are essential to being a woman, and to deny them is to be anti-female. Dammit, it's our god-given right to shave our legs and wear pushup bras! ;) Some higher-level girl culture theorists have tried to answer criticisms of this stance by talking abour reclamation or defusing the power these things have to oppress by actively choosing them, but it rapidly becomes obvious how much selfish panic is behind those arguments, not to mention sheer ignorance of the fact that there is no such thing yet as a woman being able to actively choose these things entirely outside of cultural pressure to do so.
The truth is that mandatory consumer-centric femininity has not, in any way, disappeared. Sexism is alive and well and torturing women as we speak. Some angles of feminism have traditionally blamed men for the oppression of women, and some men do indeed still oppress women, but it's far more complex than that. Men are just as much victims of sexism as women are, because they, too are brainwashed into behaving a certain way that their culture deems appropriate for their gender, and it happens to be a way that involves the subjugation of women. Men and women both enforce these cultural commandments just as much as women in fundamentalist Muslim culture enforce the subjugation of women there by being the primary practitioners of FGM. From girls who humiliate other girls in grade school for being "unattractive" or not dressing correctly to older women who shame women who haven't gotten married or had kids, women, not men, are the primary officers of the Gender Police. And Bust, and the girls who adhere to that philosophy, are just another squadron.
While it's entertaining to imagine some sort of corporate Illuminati sitting in their boardrooms deciding to co-opt feminism and find a way to make money from it, I don't think it's that specific. But I do think greed and the "American way" of money equalling status is probably at the root of the problem. After all, if women and men are content to be as they are, love each other, and accept the people around them, how can anyone sell things to them? Aside from the essentials of life and things which are inherently pleasurable or entertaining, if you have a product you need to sell, you have to create a need for it. And in the case of products aimed at women, the easiest way to create that need is to imply that if they don't have that product, other people will think less of them. So how do you sell things to women and girls who have self-esteem and strength and strong opinions? Easy: you convince them that your product, however inherentily sexist it might be, is in itself a source of strength. These glitter platform heels are SEXY and sexy is STRONG, so buy these and you will be SEXY and therefore STRONG! Whereas (some) traditional feminism (supposedly) liked to equate sexuality with oppression, this shiny New! Improved! feminism believes sexuality, or at least one particular variety thereof, is empowering! So be sexual and you will be empowered!
Good theory. I'm sex-positive myself. But why, oh why, is it only one kind of sexuality that is supposedly empowering? And why is this sexuality inherently linked to consumerism? And why is it exclusively femme? And, for the love of all that's holy, why is this sexuality something which centers on being a "girl" rather than a woman?
There is a long, rich history in Western culture (and some Asian cultures as well) of sexualizing adolescent girls. Sociobiologically, it makes some sense in that relatively young women are usually very healthy and fertile and therefore good breeding stock, but hopefully humans are a bit beyond that, and even so, we tend to sexualize even the essence of preadolescence. Women shave or trim their pubes and other body hair. They try to have narrow waists and hips and slim thighs, rather than the womanly pear shape that comes with puberty and sexual maturity. Everyone tries to have perfect, flawless skin, just like that of a child. Some highlighted forms of feminine sexuality promote shyness, virginity, innocence, even actively aping the hallmarks of childhood in a sexualized way. Lollipops. "Baby doll" dresses. Undersized clothes. Mary Janes. Plushies. Why is this okay? Why is it okay to sexualize childhood? Why is it supposedly empowering to behave like a little girl, and use that as a way to attract people? And why is it wrong to NOT be attracted to that?
I love female bodies. I like breasts, I like softness, I like curves. I like sinking into a lush, fully-adult female body and not coming up for air. ;) I like a round, ripe rump. And, to be crude and blunt, I like pussy. But I prefer those things on adult women, not little girls. I like 19 year olds as much as the next person, but only if they're strong, intelligent and self-assured, and not if they're permanently stuck at 12. For that matter, I can't stand 40 year olds who are permanently stuck at that age, either. There are a ton of women out there who couldn't wait to have kids so they could regress into a second childhood, and not have to think about adult responsibilities or taking care of themselves, or leaving a legacy in the world besides the continuation of their genetic material. (Which is not to devalue parenthood, just that "mommy" culture is just as oppressive and belittling as "girl" culture-- in fact, the two are inherently linked, because it's these overgrown girl mommies who produce the same vacuous little twits, who in turn pass the same vanity and lack of ambition on to their own daughters.)
There is nothing wrong with youth or actual girlhood. Childhood and adolescence are wonderful things because they're blank canvases on which learning and growing and discovering the world, each from their own unique perspective happen. And yes, discovering their bodies and sexuality is part of that learning as well (I happen to think it's deplorable that our culture tries to deny the normal development of adolescent sexuality; adults shouldn't be mucking with the sexual development of children at all, neither to exploit it, nor to try to shut it down. Adults should be there to give information and answer questions, not have fits about their 10 year old playing with himself.) But it deeply bothers me that youth, and the ignorance thereof, has been somehow set in stone as a major component of *adult* female sexuality.
Perhaps it may seem a little hypocritical of me to feel this way, since I have a major case of the hots for a young man who clearly looks underage. But if his maturity level dovetailed with his physical presentation, I would have zero interest whatsoever. There are plenty of men several years older than him who still act like mindless 14 year old boys and I can't stand them. Even when Elijah was 14, he still displayed a grace, intelligence and wisdom well beyond his years, and that's pretty damned cool. So it's not a physical thing, or even an age thing, it's a mental thing. Even women who are naturally flat-chested, slender and young-looking still attract me so long as they *act* like adults. But girls who celebrate immaturity, playground politics, and dressing and acting like they still want to play with My Little Pony? Yuck. I'm not attracted to actual little girls, so why should I be attracted to girls who refuse to grow up?
It's a huge pity that Bust, and the girls with that philosophy have co-opted female empowerment. But really, it's just yet another component of having a sexist culture in the first place. It's undeniable that it's extremely hard to make your way in the world and have a full, satisfying and comfortable life if you don't fit what your culture prescribes for your gender, so it's not surprising that a fear of that kind of difficulty has led a lot of these girls into convincing themselves that there is power in being powerless, and strength in being passive. They're intelligent and educated enough to know that one's sex life, and often livelihood, for women who haven't managed to establish careers which don't depend, in some way, on their looks, virtually disappears if one is 40 and everything has fallen four inches and they fear losing that. A lot of them are girls who were very pretty in childhood, and whose parents and other caregivers lulled them into believing that their looks and attractiveness would get them everything they need in life, and so they try to violently protect the social pecking order which gives pretty girls those advantages. Someone who tries to argue that pretty girls shouldn't be given perks just for being pretty? Kill her! She's taking away our power! She's upsetting the natural balance of things! ;)
My mom's one of these, actually. Her entire life she's rested on being cute and passive, and she gets pretty much all her needs met that way. She's never had to be educated or have a real career or navigate the world on her own because people have always coddled her and taken care of her because she's such an adorable little girl, and she shouldn't worry her pretty little head about anything meaningful. She loves playing helpless because it's easier than actually learning to do something for herself. But she's a product of her culture and generation as much as anyone. The time and space she grew up in, a woman DID have to be passive and pretty and domestically talented to survive in the world because that was how one got a husband, and one's husband was the sole source of economic and social survival.
We're lucky that at least laws and most economic factors now support women who want to make their own living, but there are still huge social survival issues attached to mandatory femininity. Sex, for one. Because most men and even a lot of lesbians and bi women have still been brainwashed into only being attracted to one kind of feminine sexuality, these girls know they're not going to get laid unless they pander to that, at least on some level. We may be able to earn our own money and pay our own bills, but we still want love, intimacy and sexual pleasure, so we still have to sell ourselves in stereotypical ways which bring us those things. But that problem isn't going to go away so long as we give in to it, and so long as women still subjugate other women who reject that sexual paradigm. Rather than taking the (incorrect) essentialist view of this is what real female sexuality is, and accepting our culturally-constructed attractions and pandering to those attractions as normal, we have to all take the responsibility to dig deeper, and re-construct our own views of female sexuality, and find ways to express that and love it that don't continue to exploit ourselves and other women. Maybe it'll mean having to stay home a few nights with the vibrator instead of whoring yourself out to some guy who wants you to look or act a certain way that devalues you as an adult person. But ultimately, the sex and love you get from the people who don't ask you to devalue yourself that way is much better anyway. And then we can all have good, healthy sex lives as adults, rather than having to act like little girls in order to get laid.
no subject
hoom.
Re:
What bothers me are: Appearance being emphasized over character, or being thought to constitute some essential and important factor in character; passive, stereotyped or hyper-sexualized femininity being considered "real" femininity when they're not, and instead are cultural constructs; and any of the above being thought of or promoted as a feminist act. Domestic arts, playing mommy and playing dressup are all fun, of course-- even for boys-- but they're not empowering, and when taken too seriously are actually counter-productive.
I prefer to see fashion in a "drag" sort of sense. Performed that way, with a clear message that it is intended to be theatrical and not taken seriously, it has entertainment value, just as any other theatrical or make-believe performance would. But all too often, fashion comes with an essentialist or idealist message, rather than a "don't try this at home" message. Little girls are still starving and dying to try to look like models and Britney Spears. Girls are also getting into sex and objectifying themselves sexually before they really want to because they've been conditioned to believe that their sexual value to straight men is one of the prime components of their overall value.
Part of the problem is that even exaggerated femininity performed as ironic theater doesn't always make it clear that it is, indeed, a joke. Savvy adults may be able to see the joke, but kids can't-- they take it seriously, and take it to heart. And so this exaggerated femininity becomes just as much a tool of oppression as the non-ironic kind was a generation ago. Is Barbie camp? Sure, absolutely. But little girls still try to look like her, and without an accompanying message of "don't take this seriously" girls do, indeed, take it seriously, and end up hurting themselves and others with it.
Re:
so i guess i learned feminine drag from magazines. but sex i learned from my first true love, when i was 7.
Re:
And I turned out all fat with a loving for strange dolly outfits. I feel empowered when I wear a striped knee-high!
no subject
I think the problem is not so much a feminist one (although that is part of it) but a human one. We have forgotten how to be decent to one another, to respect one another, love one another without a hidden agenda. We value things more than people. We judge each other based not on character but on appearance. For now, those of us who see this and speak out about it are labeled 'fringe' or 'new age' or whatever. It will probably take 100 or more years before true social change takes place - which is really not that depressing - at least change WILL take place.
Re:
Yep. And it's not that there's too much "sex" in the media, it's that there's only one kind of it, and it's only represented by blonde, hypersexual 18 year olds emotionlessly rutting strangers. Sex has been stolen from anyone who doesn't look and act like that, and so people, as they are naturally wont to do, crave sex, but their culture has taught them that this is what sex is, so they crave that, instead of craving some fun intimate time with someone they care about, no matter if they look like a model or not. What's taboo isn't things like swimsuit issues or girls in bikinis selling beer, but actual loving sex between people who are of average "attractiveness" and that's a direct result of the problem below.
We value things more than people.
Yes, I do think this is a large part of the problem, and it's why I'm largely a socialist. I don't think capitalism is evil, I just think unchecked marketing and advertising is.
Something I've noticed, with some of the "backlash" girls who had feminist parents who wouldn't let them play with girly toys, etc. is that a lot of the reason for their backlash isn't necessarily that they were denied something they consider a large part of life, but that they were denied an opportunity to consume something that they were constantly told, by marketing efforts, was necessary for them to have. Naturally there's some element of simple rebellion there, and I'm sure some parents denied these things in a way that backfired, but I do feel sorry for a lot of parents who try to do the right thing, but keep getting hamstrung by how pervasive sexism, violence, vanity and consumerism are in our culture. You almost have to make sure your kids don't go to a public school, live in a very progressive community, and severely limit the media the kids are exposed to to make sure that it's you that's raising them, and not advertising and peer pressure training them to be good little gender-stereotyped cloned consumers. Marketing has convinced kids that it's their right to be violent, to exploit other people, to be selfish and unconcerned with the needs of others, to aspire to shallowness, materialism and frivolity, and so when they're guided away from these things, they rebel, feeling their rights have been violated.
I'm kind of glad I haven't had children yet. And if I do decide to, I'm pretty sure I'll be raising them outside the US if I can possibly manage it, or at least finding alternative schooling for them, to get them away from those capitalism-soaked suburban kids.
no subject