"Great minds discuss ideas; mediocre minds discuss events; shallow minds discuss people."
The above quote that Arcadian mentioned in her "no judgment" post is one my mom once told me, though I forget the context of why it was said. Both my mothers are pretty awesome, and this mom has always steered me through the thorny briar patch of life with pretty sound advice ("if you don't want anyone to find out about something, NEVER EVER WRITE IT DOWN." - sorry mom, I have a journal!)
I think people use the above quote to probably keep young people from gossiping. ("Now kids, stop talking about the new kid at school and go play hopscotch")
In my University class on Chick Lit (yes, really) One of the topics I presented on was Sex and the City, and the notion that women often build friendships through talking. Like the girls on the show do - witty banter back and forth, most of the time they talk about other people. And the generality of "girls talk, boys do stuff" when it comes to friendship feels like common knowledge to me. And girls like to talk about other people. Or themselves. Or both.
So there we have it:
"talking about others makes you a low and petty person."
"women like to talk about themselves and other people"
"women are low and petty people"
which, ok, I already knew that stereotype was going around (along with how irrational we are and stuff), but I never realized how much I felt guilty for talking about people because of this uncontentious connection I was making in my head. I can't want to talk about people I know, that makes me one of THOSE women. One of those "Sex and the City" liking girls. Because after all if women like it it must be stupid. And so talking about each other and ourselves is just us being dumb and petty and things.
I'm coming to a couple of realizations:
1. Facebook. Everyone loves facebook. And facebook is ALL about other people. Talking to them, yes, networking, yes, but you're doing it ALL on a public forum - Everyone can see your conversations and is welcome to opinions on all your relationships and interactions. There's even a status button for your relationships, which everyone gets to comment on if you change. There's a reason social networking has exploded all over the internet and it's because everyone is interested in everyone else - whether they choose to talk about it or not.
that's because 2. we are a social species. It makes sense that other people interest us - we spend most of our time surrounded by other people! Having knowledge of other people actually DOES translate to real business-y world know-how - didn't we cover that in networking?
All of this has been brewing through my head for two reasons, 1 - the quote we started off with and 2. this video:
Catchy. But is that what us young girls talking about ourselves really sound like? "I was like, he was all, OMG, totally" - and do we still sound that way as young women? old women? And why aren't boys the same way - too busy playing computers and inventing things I suppose, right?
In conclusion: I've rambled on a subject that I would like to be more academic about, but have mostly failed at sounding as academic as I would like. I am proud to say I enjoy discussing people, including myself - and I would challenge people who say this makes me petty to hop off their facebook account and come and have a word with me, because I thing discussing people, relationships, words said between people, and other people in general makes sense in this social world of ours.
03 November 2010
02 November 2010
Thank You For NOT Smoking
Now, I know it’s never a good idea to expect great things of a screen adaptation of one of your favourite books. It’s an even worse idea to hope for good things from a TV adaptation of a Terry Pratchett book. However, I’m an eternal optimist, so was quite excited to finally sit down in front of Sky’s adaptation of Going Postal. Despite the previous Pratchett adaptations inflicted on fans and regular viewers alike (an average version of Hogfather and the truly abysmal Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic both inexplicably starring David Jason) I figured that with its lack of high fantasy and streamlined plot – not to mention the modern day and film parallels/references scattered throughout – Going Postal could actually work quite well.
It didn’t. For all sorts of reasons. It wasn’t too bad – there were some nice stylistic touches, and the majority of the casting was great – but there was still quite a lot of ‘I want to beat you round the head Mr Adapter/Director Man then do the job properly myself’. However, there was one aspect in particular that got me really confused, enraged and then despairing of film and TV in general.
The female lead in Going Postal is a character called Adora Belle Dearheart. A complete homage to female characters in film noir, and Lauren Bacall in particular, she’s strong, spiky, deeply sarcastic and a chain smoker. As in, cigarette permanently in hand – so much so that another character comments that Miss Dearheart reminds him of a volcano goddess, especially when the weather god has “rained all over her lava”. It’s a running joke, but one integral to the character.
With the target audience including children, teenagers and young adults I had wondered whether The Mob (the production company behind the Going Postal adaptation) would dare to keep this habit of Adora Belle’s alive on screen - indeed, with the anti-smoking attitude now prevalent in the entertainment industry (on screen at least) I had half resigned myself to it being surgically removed. Imagine my surprise when Claire Foy, as Adora Belle Dearheart sashays onto the screen, cigarette holder firmly in hand. My surprise continued as a large section of the plot of Going Postal developed into a half soaked, melodramatic anti-smoking advert. Rather than the chain smoking bitch expected by fans, the Miss Dearheart presented by The Mob has been morphed into a desperate, neurotic young woman, who was driven into nicotine by grief at the loss of her family’s fortune and demise of her brother. Themain character actually experiences a ‘flashback’ in which he sees a young, wholesome Adora Belle (wearing a brightly coloured dress and flowers in her hat) so distraught at the financial ruin of her family that she runs over to a stall in the street, rejects the comfort of a chocolate bar and instead chooses the dreaded box of cigarettes to the sounds of dramatic music. We later see her holed up in a barn (why?), forcing herself to smoke, coughing pitifully as she drives herself further into anti-social despair.
Now, I’m not a fan of smoking in any form. I do understand that role models, such as actors and movie characters, glamorising smoking is bad. I don’t understand however, why The Mob felt that such a melodramatic and patronising depiction of smoking would do anything for the audience save irritate the hell out of us. I looked up Going Postal on SceneSmoking.org, a website rating films based on their smoking content which I both sort of admire and find terrifying, to find out what they thought – sadly it wasn’t listed, which is a shame as they would have had a field day. Because despite the ‘beat you over the head with how bad smoking is’ attitude, if you give a sexy woman a cigarette holder, and, this is important, have the hero to take no notice of the fact his lady is occasionally puffing on it, you undo any of the vague intent behind the patronising additions to the story. Claire Foy, as Adora Belle Dearheart, makes smoking looks elegantly cool. All you’ve done is annoyed the fans, and frankly, anyone with half a brain.
The ironic thing is that in the original book character is, Pratchett very carefully, and subtly, does exactly what The Mob failed to. The Adora Belle Dearheart of the book, however awesome, is no role model. She’s neurotic to the point of needing serious therapy, and wields her cigarettes as anti-social weapons, a foul device to isolate herself from a society she refuses to trust. The main character, when meeting her for the first time watches her suck down smoke with a mixture of horror and fascination. The smoking isn’t carefully ignored, but seeps into both conversation and action – upon kissing Adora Belle, the hero comments that she tastes “like an ashtray”. Not exactly the glamorous society seems so scared of. Perhaps if more care and intelligent thought had been put into adapting Going Postal and *shock horror* stuck more closely to the text, The Mob could have had their cake and eaten it – a strong, spiky cigarette wielding heroine, who puts an impressionable audience right off smoking.
Election Day Special
We here at FnBs would like to remind and encourage all U.S. citizens to take a bit of time today and exercise your right to vote. No matter your background, at some point in history some badass representative of you said something along the lines of "Fuck this, you don't get to tell me what to do without a little bit of oversight and accountability from me," and fought so that you now get to exercise that accountability. Whoever those people were for your group, they were pretty awesome, so don't flip 'em the metaphorical bird today because you can't be bothered. Go forth and participate in the political process.
01 November 2010
On the Having of Standards
About six weeks ago, my mother, my sister, and I drove halfway across the U.S. to drop the aforementioned sister off at her new Institute of Higher Learning. We had rules about driving, snacking, and the putting on of tunes -- namely that the tunes were under control of the driver at all times, unless one of the passengers was so unhappy with the choice that a head explosion was imminent.
And it had to be a real head explosion, which is how my sister got away with putting on the new Vampire Weekend album no fewer than four times in the first three days. I finally did plead imminent burstability on that, and she switched to Taylor Swift.
I was wary. I have nothing against Ms. Swift as a person, but I'd heard a lot about her songs and none of it sounded appetizing. I listened to the lyrics with particular attention. "That's rubbish," I said, more than once. "How can she say that? She's speaking for girls and she's inviting abuse." Or if not abuse, nastiness, or shame, or some other unfortunate thing. "Sure they're catchy," I said, "and some are sweet. But how can you ignore the messages?"
"You always go right for the rape," my sister said wearily.
My sister has long been confused about why I read feminist news blogs. She thinks I just make myself unhappy, since it's not like I'm doing anything about what I read. (That is, I'm not an activist.) My mom and I sometimes quarrel in the second wave/third wave divide, which is also about standards. (I don't want to quote her here, since I don't want to misrepresent her views online, and as her daughter I have a genetic predisposition to misinterpret anything she says that I more easily may disagree with her.)
The question is, of course, how high should the standards to which we to hold ourselves be? How about the standard to which we hold our friends? Our pop culture?
If the standards are too low, you move into the territory of victim-blaming, excuses, and privilege. Nothing changes, because shouldn't we just understand where our bigots are coming from? Aren't there two sides to every issue? Don't both sides deserve to be heard? You can't hate someone (or distrust them, or refuse to listen to their music, or, or, or) just because of one poorly chosen remark, can you?
That place is one that people who fight for any equal right have had to reject out of hand, thoroughly, before their campaigns can begin to make any sort of impact. And yet -- go too far on the other side, and you can't really have a conversation with anyone. No one agrees with you 100%, not even about the "important stuff." You'd have to stop consuming pop culture entirely, I should think, since all of it is tainted by the culture in which it's made.
(The other danger of this extreme is hard to articulate, because most of the people who complain about it are too far the other way. That is, you become so obsessed with the way people say things that you forget to look at their actions and your own. This is known as becoming too PC and you usually see complaints about it from people who claim they didn't realize their language was offensive and will now proceed to whine about how you deleted their comment. Ninety percent of the time I have no sympathy, but every once in awhile I think people become so obsessed with changing language that they forget about changing actions.)
I've seen this question a lot, posted to feminist weblogs. (Some of the ones I read are on a list on the right, you can search through their archives to find examples.) A new "born-again" feminist will ask -- God(dess), what do I do now? My senses are on high alert. Every single one of my friends has already offended me at least once. Help. And the author will start talking about finding an individual balance.
Of course you have to find an individual balance. Somewhere between "Sure, I mean, I guess that's all right, I mean, the victim existing probably provoked it, or something," and "You're a bigot, and not easily distinguishable from a Nazi."
But there is something confusing about facing the fact that your balance is not exactly like anyone else's. I honestly believe it's the same feeling of confusion you get when you realize your religion is not exactly the same as anyone else's (a feeling I remember from my youth, when I was religious myself). Because, especially when you've invested thought and/or time, and/or argument into your convictions, be they cultural or religious, you of necessity become invested in their inherent correctness.
And then, before you know it, you're back where you started. Other people have different standards! How should you react to that?
Maybe the having a solution to this dilemma is just another meta-layer that traps you in the same way. Balance may only be able to exist as something ever-shifting, ever-accommodating. (But not too accommodating. Too accommodating and you get stuck at the accommodating end.) Certainly the only gauge I have for my balance is trying to look at results. Will fighting this misogynist joke have the results I want? What about fighting this rape joke? Will I alienate and offend, or clue in and wake up?
I don't know if it's a good balance. I often feel that it isn't. Plenty of people see me as too hard-ass, but I still feel like in order to be a "real" feminist I should be much more hardass. (Never feeling like you're legitimate is a whole section of cultural misogyny that deserves another blog post.) I can try to stay consistent, and I can try to stay true to myself and my golden rules. But trusting myself on this is both the most natural impulse and the one I doubt the most.
POP QUIZ:
Where do you stand on this?
And it had to be a real head explosion, which is how my sister got away with putting on the new Vampire Weekend album no fewer than four times in the first three days. I finally did plead imminent burstability on that, and she switched to Taylor Swift.
I was wary. I have nothing against Ms. Swift as a person, but I'd heard a lot about her songs and none of it sounded appetizing. I listened to the lyrics with particular attention. "That's rubbish," I said, more than once. "How can she say that? She's speaking for girls and she's inviting abuse." Or if not abuse, nastiness, or shame, or some other unfortunate thing. "Sure they're catchy," I said, "and some are sweet. But how can you ignore the messages?"
"You always go right for the rape," my sister said wearily.
My sister has long been confused about why I read feminist news blogs. She thinks I just make myself unhappy, since it's not like I'm doing anything about what I read. (That is, I'm not an activist.) My mom and I sometimes quarrel in the second wave/third wave divide, which is also about standards. (I don't want to quote her here, since I don't want to misrepresent her views online, and as her daughter I have a genetic predisposition to misinterpret anything she says that I more easily may disagree with her.)
The question is, of course, how high should the standards to which we to hold ourselves be? How about the standard to which we hold our friends? Our pop culture?
If the standards are too low, you move into the territory of victim-blaming, excuses, and privilege. Nothing changes, because shouldn't we just understand where our bigots are coming from? Aren't there two sides to every issue? Don't both sides deserve to be heard? You can't hate someone (or distrust them, or refuse to listen to their music, or, or, or) just because of one poorly chosen remark, can you?
That place is one that people who fight for any equal right have had to reject out of hand, thoroughly, before their campaigns can begin to make any sort of impact. And yet -- go too far on the other side, and you can't really have a conversation with anyone. No one agrees with you 100%, not even about the "important stuff." You'd have to stop consuming pop culture entirely, I should think, since all of it is tainted by the culture in which it's made.
(The other danger of this extreme is hard to articulate, because most of the people who complain about it are too far the other way. That is, you become so obsessed with the way people say things that you forget to look at their actions and your own. This is known as becoming too PC and you usually see complaints about it from people who claim they didn't realize their language was offensive and will now proceed to whine about how you deleted their comment. Ninety percent of the time I have no sympathy, but every once in awhile I think people become so obsessed with changing language that they forget about changing actions.)
I've seen this question a lot, posted to feminist weblogs. (Some of the ones I read are on a list on the right, you can search through their archives to find examples.) A new "born-again" feminist will ask -- God(dess), what do I do now? My senses are on high alert. Every single one of my friends has already offended me at least once. Help. And the author will start talking about finding an individual balance.
Of course you have to find an individual balance. Somewhere between "Sure, I mean, I guess that's all right, I mean, the victim existing probably provoked it, or something," and "You're a bigot, and not easily distinguishable from a Nazi."
But there is something confusing about facing the fact that your balance is not exactly like anyone else's. I honestly believe it's the same feeling of confusion you get when you realize your religion is not exactly the same as anyone else's (a feeling I remember from my youth, when I was religious myself). Because, especially when you've invested thought and/or time, and/or argument into your convictions, be they cultural or religious, you of necessity become invested in their inherent correctness.
And then, before you know it, you're back where you started. Other people have different standards! How should you react to that?
Maybe the having a solution to this dilemma is just another meta-layer that traps you in the same way. Balance may only be able to exist as something ever-shifting, ever-accommodating. (But not too accommodating. Too accommodating and you get stuck at the accommodating end.) Certainly the only gauge I have for my balance is trying to look at results. Will fighting this misogynist joke have the results I want? What about fighting this rape joke? Will I alienate and offend, or clue in and wake up?
I don't know if it's a good balance. I often feel that it isn't. Plenty of people see me as too hard-ass, but I still feel like in order to be a "real" feminist I should be much more hardass. (Never feeling like you're legitimate is a whole section of cultural misogyny that deserves another blog post.) I can try to stay consistent, and I can try to stay true to myself and my golden rules. But trusting myself on this is both the most natural impulse and the one I doubt the most.
POP QUIZ:
Where do you stand on this?
30 October 2010
Weekend Free-For-All: There Goes My Hero Edition
Stephen Fry!
Shit, man! I loved you! I named you as the one living person I'd like an interview with! You were awesome! You were an advocate for mental health awareness! You host QI, and are consistently awesome about it! I never thought you were perfect, but I respected you and was impressed with your shit.
And then you drag out this goddamned tired cliche? Fuck, man. That's low. That's crap. That's a) deliberately ignoring a slew of cultural factors, b) speaking with authority on something about which you have gathered only anecdotal evidence and data, c) propagating stereotypes (which, by the way, I thought you were generally against), d) going for a cheap laugh instead of trying to challenge prevailing cultural attitudes, and e) coming across like a shmucky douche.
Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done. You know I love you, but that doesn't mean you get to just be a dick. I expected better.
UPDATE:
Fry says he was misquoted and misconstrued. He is not, however, apologizing in a particularly mature way. Maybe you and I just need some time apart to sort through our feelings, Stephen.
Shit, man! I loved you! I named you as the one living person I'd like an interview with! You were awesome! You were an advocate for mental health awareness! You host QI, and are consistently awesome about it! I never thought you were perfect, but I respected you and was impressed with your shit.
And then you drag out this goddamned tired cliche? Fuck, man. That's low. That's crap. That's a) deliberately ignoring a slew of cultural factors, b) speaking with authority on something about which you have gathered only anecdotal evidence and data, c) propagating stereotypes (which, by the way, I thought you were generally against), d) going for a cheap laugh instead of trying to challenge prevailing cultural attitudes, and e) coming across like a shmucky douche.
Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done. You know I love you, but that doesn't mean you get to just be a dick. I expected better.
UPDATE:
Fry says he was misquoted and misconstrued. He is not, however, apologizing in a particularly mature way. Maybe you and I just need some time apart to sort through our feelings, Stephen.
28 October 2010
Buck up, buttercup! On the need not to feel better.
N.B. I am extremely apprehensive about posting this, because several friends and co-bloggers have posted, written, or said loving, well-meaning things to me in the past week about how I can stop being depressed. I don't mean anything in the following post to be a brushback to those kind impulses. I am so grateful to know you all, and it warms my (tiny, shriveled, coal-black) heart to know you care for me. But...well, here we go.
Amusez-Vous
Just for you, because God forbid we here at FnBs start advocating maturity as a general rule (although Fish's post made me realize that God, yes, I am a grown-up): a new toy!
http://nine.frenchboys.net/
Use it to create your own French romance novel. Everything but the syrupy writing.
And if you feel like playing with some of the characters it generates -- or any literary or historical figures from the Regency period in Europe --, check these out:
http://savivi.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1oj4iz
and
http://savivi.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d15vg5d
Disclaimer: We here at FnBs are not affiliated with any of the above websites or artists. As far as we know they're not associated with each other, either, although we have no evidence for or against that. We just think they're fun.
http://nine.frenchboys.net/
Use it to create your own French romance novel. Everything but the syrupy writing.
And if you feel like playing with some of the characters it generates -- or any literary or historical figures from the Regency period in Europe --, check these out:
http://savivi.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1oj4iz
and
http://savivi.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d15vg5d
Disclaimer: We here at FnBs are not affiliated with any of the above websites or artists. As far as we know they're not associated with each other, either, although we have no evidence for or against that. We just think they're fun.
first you stop trick-or-treating, and then...
I had these great plans for Halloween this year. It essentially was: tag along with my friends and high-tail it down to Seattle to party. And by "it essentially was" I mean "that's what I was going to do."
Then some stuff happened. Stuff like getting sick and remaining slightly under the black raincloud of that illness for the past week. Not quite sick, I was constantly vaguely tired. Like having a nap was a permanent fixture on my "what to do right now" menu. This could also be related to my not getting 8 hours of sleep in one go at all this week. I made do with a few 6 hour stretches and a 4 hour "shoot me in the head" cat-nap before a 6:45am shift.
I have two things I need to get done for work (due last Saturday and this Tuesday), and I have a demanding shift on Monday night that will have me up and running around until 1am.
So, I did the "Grown up thing" - I decided to not go party and instead stay in town so I could sleep and get some shit done over the weekend. My boss approved of this plan - but then again she has a bias toward me being functional at work. My lover, who was one of the ones I was tagging along with, said it would be good to rest up.
And possibly the scariest? I approved of this plan.
I will miss the party. And I'm... ok with that? I am. A friend of mine recently posted a facebook status where she ended with the statement "I think being a grownup means not being scared that something amazing is going to happen without you if you go to bed early."
I would add that being a grownup is knowing that something awesome is going to happen and then realizing that some boring stuff is going to be a way better choice anyway.
No longer is getting woo-hoo drunk and staying up till who-the-hell-cares the end-all be-all. I mean, it's high up there on the list of important things, because I never really got to do that in university, so I'm making up for it now and that's important to me - but... SLEEP MAN! Holy shit, I need some sleep. And my body will just kill me if I get drunk. And the stress of going away for the weekend is SO not worth the stress of knowing how messy my apartment is and not knowing when it will get clean. And the stress of work and worrying about if I can function would dampen my buzz anyway.
It's weird to finally be on that adult side looking back and going "yeah, doing stupid stuff is actually just a bad idea" when my young ideals from the past still want it to be worth it. But it's not. It's just a bad idea.
I may still party on Halloween (or the Saturday of) but I will refrain from getting drunk and probably from alcohol altogether. I am not really looking forward to the holiday it self, but I am wickedly delighted that I don't have to set a wake-up alarm for two days in a row.
But I guess I shouldn't worry too much - it's 1:21am and I'm on the internet so I'm not a "real" adult yet.
Then some stuff happened. Stuff like getting sick and remaining slightly under the black raincloud of that illness for the past week. Not quite sick, I was constantly vaguely tired. Like having a nap was a permanent fixture on my "what to do right now" menu. This could also be related to my not getting 8 hours of sleep in one go at all this week. I made do with a few 6 hour stretches and a 4 hour "shoot me in the head" cat-nap before a 6:45am shift.
I have two things I need to get done for work (due last Saturday and this Tuesday), and I have a demanding shift on Monday night that will have me up and running around until 1am.
So, I did the "Grown up thing" - I decided to not go party and instead stay in town so I could sleep and get some shit done over the weekend. My boss approved of this plan - but then again she has a bias toward me being functional at work. My lover, who was one of the ones I was tagging along with, said it would be good to rest up.
And possibly the scariest? I approved of this plan.
I will miss the party. And I'm... ok with that? I am. A friend of mine recently posted a facebook status where she ended with the statement "I think being a grownup means not being scared that something amazing is going to happen without you if you go to bed early."
I would add that being a grownup is knowing that something awesome is going to happen and then realizing that some boring stuff is going to be a way better choice anyway.
No longer is getting woo-hoo drunk and staying up till who-the-hell-cares the end-all be-all. I mean, it's high up there on the list of important things, because I never really got to do that in university, so I'm making up for it now and that's important to me - but... SLEEP MAN! Holy shit, I need some sleep. And my body will just kill me if I get drunk. And the stress of going away for the weekend is SO not worth the stress of knowing how messy my apartment is and not knowing when it will get clean. And the stress of work and worrying about if I can function would dampen my buzz anyway.
It's weird to finally be on that adult side looking back and going "yeah, doing stupid stuff is actually just a bad idea" when my young ideals from the past still want it to be worth it. But it's not. It's just a bad idea.
I may still party on Halloween (or the Saturday of) but I will refrain from getting drunk and probably from alcohol altogether. I am not really looking forward to the holiday it self, but I am wickedly delighted that I don't have to set a wake-up alarm for two days in a row.
But I guess I shouldn't worry too much - it's 1:21am and I'm on the internet so I'm not a "real" adult yet.
25 October 2010
We all need to feel better!
So, apparently, I'm way into posting videos, but it seems to me a lot of us here on this blog could use some calming down, cheering up, and general feel-better-ness. (this completely includes myself)
So just remember, when everything feels HOLY-CRAP-OMG-THINGS-ARE-TERRIBLE-AND-I'M-GONNA-DIE!.....:
So just remember, when everything feels HOLY-CRAP-OMG-THINGS-ARE-TERRIBLE-AND-I'M-GONNA-DIE!.....:
Things I Learned From the Movie Waitress
Certain things in my life are messy right now (seems problems of that sort hit many of the FnBs contributors simultaneously, which figures). Anyway, I'm not in much state to write a fresh perspective on something, so here's the next best thing: a list I wrote a few months ago after watching Waitress. Next week, look for a post about more current and more general media. Meantime, enjoy. -- Arcadian
Okay, yes, I watched Waitress. Any distress I feel is of course my own fault. I caved! I wanted to see Nathan Fillion playing a straight romantic hero, instead of an anti-hero, or a tool-hero, or a goofy, womanizing hero. Surely it will be interesting to watch him play straight, I thought. It wasn’t like I paid any money for the privilege.
And, okay, I did not hate Waitress. I don’t think it was worth two hours of my life, but I didn’t hate it. I learned things from it! It was like going to school. You learn stuff, but not necessarily true stuff, or stuff you want to know, or stuff you’ll ever use again, and it takes much longer than it’s worth. Actually, the way I felt about this movie was more like a Bible-thumper going to an evolutionary biology class. Or an atheist going to a Bible study.
Okay, maybe I hated it a little. But here are the things I learned. (Spoilers abound.)
1) If thou art pregnant, thou shalt deliver. No matter how much you don’t want a baby, no matter what sort of environment you’re living in, no matter any other circumstances in your life, abortion is absolutely off the table. Having no money is no excuse to get rid of an unwanted baby. Being unable to make sense of your life is no excuse. Not feeling ready to take on the task of motherhood is no excuse. An abusive rapist of a husband is no excuse. Pregnancy means birth, dammit, and your feelings and circumstances are immaterial.
2) Once thou deliverest, thou shalt adore thy baby, forever and ever amen. Giving birth is magical, and no matter what your feelings were before or during your pregnancy, when you get the baby you will have no mixed feelings whatsoever, but be filled with all-consuming love.
3) Having thy baby will give thee the strength and courage to fix any problems in thy life, and will also potentially bring thee financial gain. Because giving birth makes you exhausted and in need of rest and relaxation in a really powerful, feminist way. Always. No matter what your previous feelings or behavior might have been.
4) Afterbirth is totally for sissies. Never happens to you if you’re pretty, or Southern, or both. Also, the first sign of impending birth is not contractions, but your water breaking.
5) If thou requesteth drugs of thy doctor, and thy doctor giveth thee drugs not, thou shalt never bring it up again, and it really maketh no difference at all. A request for drugs is the kind of thing doctors should take lightly from a woman in labor (especially if he's sleeping with her) and they should really just not listen when she talks at all!
6) Thy abusive husband shall always take it crazy well when thou deliverest his baby and then immediately after requesteth divorce papers. Abusive husbands totally listen to you and believe you, they never try to bully you, they put up only a slight fuss and then they disappear from your life. They will never stalk you, or threaten you, or harm you, or make life difficult in any way (besides moderately financially) despite what their behavior up to this point might indicate.
7) Thou dost not need a man to be happy in life, so long as thou hast a baby. I mean, you are a woman, right? See above re: adoring the baby without any mixed feelings, and remember, you’re happier as a single mom than you ever could be alone.
8) Someone announcing after a five-minute date that he is wildly in love with thee, stalking thee at thy place of work, and refusing to leave when thou clearly asketh him to is great husband material. Especially when you can see the hell your best friends are going through with their abusive and unhappy marriages.
9) Boinking your married OB/GYN while you’re pregnant and have an abusive husband will never, ever backfire on you. In fact, it is the best plan ever, and will save you from yourself. Or something like that. Anyway, it’s okay to have an affair, just as long as you never ever have an abortion. Or even say the word “abortion.” That’s totally what makes bad people.
10) Nathan Fillion doth not in fact have chemistry with all members of the tribe of Woman. Thank you, Keri Russell, for being the exception. We can all rest easy again, now that that question has been answered and Nathan is no longer trying to eat her face. (Have a sandwich, dude. You’ll feel better.)
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