the book seems like a very well thought out, balanced attempt to discuss this issue, sure. but what irritates me to no end is the way we ask over and over again: why do women stay with abusive husbands or lovers? instead of: why do men sometimes abuse their wives or lovers?

if fathers should have rights, why doesn't this bill then give them the right to choose NOT to be a father--as in, force the woman to have an abortion? it's no more barbaric than forcing her to give birth. viva the american taliban.

i have a nagging feeling that i suffer from a similar disability, though not as bad as that of the author. i have to mapquest everything. once i'm inside a building, i have no idea where everything on the outside has gone--which way is the street, which way the alley. GPS has rescued me from myself, in many ways. but it still gets old to hear friends and family make fun of me, and act incredulous about my constant state of disorientation. yay for the author for being so bold as to write about her challenges.

when my boyfriend was growing up, his mommy did all his laundry. he must somewhere, in some corner of his mind know that mommy is no longer going to do that for him, but he sure doesn't act like it.

his laundry ends up in a gigantic pile on the floor of the closet. the pile grows until it is so big that i have to wade through knee-deep dirty clothes to get to the clean clothes that hang in the closet. one time, he went four months--FOUR--without doing his laundry. he bought socks and underwear as needed, and then did the smell test on everything else. i was secretly horrified but said nothing.

then, i caught him trying to perform the smell test on UNDERWEAR, and lost it and freaked out. i offered to do his laundry; he refused. i offered again; he refused. i told him it grossed me out that he was wearing dirty clothes; he nodded thoughtfully and the laundry still didn't get done.

i finally secretly did his laundry, and then threw it back on the floor so he wouldn't know. three weeks later, after god knows how many fights and arguments about this, he caved and did his laundry. of course, this involved re-washing the clothes i'd secretly been washing, but he didn't know that.

the saga does not end there; the clean clothes came back from the laundromat and stayed in this huge bag. he'd dig through it to find things, and then all the clothes eventually ended up on the floor again. so now there was a huge pile of clean clothes and a growing pile of dirty clothes. the piles eventually came to merge, with him insisting that he knew which was dirty and which was clean, and wholeheartedly resenting my repeated offers to do his laundry, go shopping for organizational tools with him, or help him do his own laundry.

we solved the problem by agreeing to look for a new apartment with a washer/dryer, and a large closet. until the lease expires and we get this new apartment, i just secretly do his laundry and throw it back on the floor. he has no idea.

the victim probably said the name of the perpetrator, who she had met earlier at a friend's apartment. i have read several studies demonstrating that NO ONE intervenes if the woman says the man's name.

yelling "help" is more effective when a victim looks someone in the eye and orders him or her, personally, to help. otherwise diffusion of responsibility can occur.

by and large, the best way to get people's attention, however, is to yell "fire" followed by "call the police".

this is a sad reflection of our attitudes towards abuse and violence. i guess some part of us thinks it's "ok" for someone to abuse his or her spouse or partner.

yeah...i don't get it either. if a guy had one too many and drifted in and out of awareness and mumbled "no" a couple times while another man stuck it in him, it'd be rape, right? even if they'd hung out all night drinking and playing video games in their underpants. even if...well, even if anything. it would be rape. why there's some sort of gray area when one is a woman is sort of confounding.

anyway the whole article is ridiculous. rape existed even in the eisenhower era when ladies wore white gloves and were the gatekeepers of chastity. people like the dumbass who wrote the article still found ways to blame the women though, just like they do today.

is the message really that we should all find it very important to be so very rich and so very pretty?

in a way, i think that these shows accomplish the opposite.

the message that i see when i see shows featuring beautiful, vapid, moneyed people: class mobility doesn't work. those who reach for the sky will fall flat on their asses. don't try to be in a position of power, because you'll come to regret it.