I posted this on OkCupid but it was overran with sexism and angry men, so I didn't get any decent responses. I know no one reads my blog, but it's worth a shot!
________________________
Dear Women on Ok Cupid!
So, I have a friend that is a very active user on OkCupid.. He hasn't had much luck with OkCupid, and he thinks that all of the pretty women want alpha males. I'm a Psychology and Women's & Gender Studies major and have heard quite the opposite in all of my classes (both psychology and WGST classes, seperatly, as not to skew the people that come to the classes). The only thing that the women agreed on was that they wanted a man that didn't seem to lose all the fights, but wasn't picking fights for just anything (in other words, able to protect but not aggressive for no reason). So my question to the women that view this is.. Do women that are on this website like men who are more like Tyler Durden or Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby on the Cosby Show)? Do you like men that are overly masculine, general assholes, very athletic, best in everything, emotionally reclusive, business oriented (as opposed to family oriented or people oriented), protective, cares little about your sexual pleasure, etc.? Or do you prefer someone who shows their emotion, not always best at everything, care about their family, does an equal share of the domestic activities (washing dishes, taking care of the kids, vacuuming, doing laundry, etc), allows you to do what you want outside of the home and is understanding of the fact you need your own time, cares about your sexual pleasure, etc? Note that I didn't put "generally attractive" in either category; I know plenty of men who are unattractive who strive to be Tyler Durdens and know men who are pretty damn attractive that are Cliff Huxtables! Also, you don't have to agree to ALL topics; you can definitely pick and choose which ones you think are great and which ones aren't.
And again, this question is mainly for the opinion of women. If men have smart responses that add to the conversation, feel free to say something.
As far as I go, I definitely prefer the Cliff Huxtable type. However, this doesn't really apply to OkCupid, since I didn't find him on OkCupid. I like that he is independent and not overly emotionally dependent on me, but I love that he helps around the house and we both have activities we do away from each other. We don't have the public sphere vs. private sphere thing that a lot of our parents experienced (my parents included). As a matter of fact, he is totally supportive that I plan on going to law school (or at least grad school) after I finish my undergraduate degree. We have already agreed that who ever makes less will take more care of the children, once we get to that point, which is a HUGE step for most men, since being employed is part of the masculine concept. The idea of being a "house husband" is a pretty foreign concept for most American men.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
In Memory of My Grandmother, Joan Baggott
Cancer is bad. Cancer is probably one of the worst ways to die, in my opinion. In one of my previous classes, I learned that women are most afraid of dying of cancer.. The only problem lies that they are most afraid of breast cancer. Because of this immense fear, a lot of research is put into this field, as well as a lot of the NIH's cancer funding.
My grandmother died from a horrible, long painful death. She had stomach cancer, one of the rarest cancers in the United States. Most cases of stomach cancer are in Asian countries (China, Japan, etc.) so it is pretty rare here. It is caused by a bacteria in undercooked food, mostly. The unfortunate part about this cancer is that most people do not get tested until the cancer has progressed incredibly far. This was the case with my grandmother.
In August, she had surgery to remove a mass in her stomach. Before the surgery, she was declared to have stage two stomach cancer. When she went in for surgery, they found that it was actually stage four cancer and had to remove a large portion of her stomach and hundred of lymph nodes surrounding the stomach. Because of the surgery, she was never able to eat much and vomited the majority of the food she tried to eat. She went through many months of rigorous chemotherapy and radiation. The cancer continued to spread rapidly through her body and eventually spread to her bones. The past month has been horrible for her and my family. A little over two weeks ago, she was sent to a hospice house and died on May 14th, 2009, surrounded by her family. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, she weighed 180 pounds; when she died, she was under 100 pounds and looked like nothing but a skeleton.
This being said, why are we putting so much money towards breast cancer research? Shouldn't we be putting money into these cancers that are found normally in the late stages? Breast cancer can easily be found, through frequent self breast exams. If we are to put more funding into breast cancer research, we should be putting more money into heat-sensitive "mammograms". Heat-sensitive technology is MUCH more reliable than mammograms, since mammograms only became popular due to the high cost of the machinery. In any other country, women are not recommended to get mammograms every year until much later in life. Studies have shown that mammograms aren't more reliable than self breast exams or exams done by palpating the breast. So, why are we putting so much awareness on breast cancer? We should be putting more money into these organs that are less easy to discover cancer on!
Now, before I post this, I want to make sure that anyone that reads this understands that I do feel sympathy for people who have had breast cancer, for those who have died from breast cancer, and those that are fighting breast cancer currently. I have numerous Susan G. Komen items around my condo and certainly think that breast cancer is a bad thing too. However.. there are other cancers that we should be concerned about. As a matter of fact, the number one killer of women isn't even a cancer; it's heart disease! Cancer is something that has hit my family and I very hard. My father fought and won against kidney cancer in 2008 - we were incredibly lucky that his cancer was contained in his kidney so all he had to do was have his kidney removed. I have had teachers and classmates before that have fought and won against other cancers. One of my aunts and I have also dealt with a cancer of our own. I certainly have sympathy for people who have had cancer and I can totally empathise what they go through.
All that I ask is that everyone question what they hear from the healthcare field and that they not latch on to fads about health. Look up the information on the research that you monetarily support and get the word out that we need to research these other cancers too. Cancer is a very large issue and I hope that during my lifetime, we find a cure for cancer entirely.
Thanks for reading this far and I hope that you've learned something from what I've said.
Kaitlyn Timmerman
In Memory of Joan Baggott, 5/14/09
My grandmother died from a horrible, long painful death. She had stomach cancer, one of the rarest cancers in the United States. Most cases of stomach cancer are in Asian countries (China, Japan, etc.) so it is pretty rare here. It is caused by a bacteria in undercooked food, mostly. The unfortunate part about this cancer is that most people do not get tested until the cancer has progressed incredibly far. This was the case with my grandmother.
In August, she had surgery to remove a mass in her stomach. Before the surgery, she was declared to have stage two stomach cancer. When she went in for surgery, they found that it was actually stage four cancer and had to remove a large portion of her stomach and hundred of lymph nodes surrounding the stomach. Because of the surgery, she was never able to eat much and vomited the majority of the food she tried to eat. She went through many months of rigorous chemotherapy and radiation. The cancer continued to spread rapidly through her body and eventually spread to her bones. The past month has been horrible for her and my family. A little over two weeks ago, she was sent to a hospice house and died on May 14th, 2009, surrounded by her family. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, she weighed 180 pounds; when she died, she was under 100 pounds and looked like nothing but a skeleton.
This being said, why are we putting so much money towards breast cancer research? Shouldn't we be putting money into these cancers that are found normally in the late stages? Breast cancer can easily be found, through frequent self breast exams. If we are to put more funding into breast cancer research, we should be putting more money into heat-sensitive "mammograms". Heat-sensitive technology is MUCH more reliable than mammograms, since mammograms only became popular due to the high cost of the machinery. In any other country, women are not recommended to get mammograms every year until much later in life. Studies have shown that mammograms aren't more reliable than self breast exams or exams done by palpating the breast. So, why are we putting so much awareness on breast cancer? We should be putting more money into these organs that are less easy to discover cancer on!
Now, before I post this, I want to make sure that anyone that reads this understands that I do feel sympathy for people who have had breast cancer, for those who have died from breast cancer, and those that are fighting breast cancer currently. I have numerous Susan G. Komen items around my condo and certainly think that breast cancer is a bad thing too. However.. there are other cancers that we should be concerned about. As a matter of fact, the number one killer of women isn't even a cancer; it's heart disease! Cancer is something that has hit my family and I very hard. My father fought and won against kidney cancer in 2008 - we were incredibly lucky that his cancer was contained in his kidney so all he had to do was have his kidney removed. I have had teachers and classmates before that have fought and won against other cancers. One of my aunts and I have also dealt with a cancer of our own. I certainly have sympathy for people who have had cancer and I can totally empathise what they go through.
All that I ask is that everyone question what they hear from the healthcare field and that they not latch on to fads about health. Look up the information on the research that you monetarily support and get the word out that we need to research these other cancers too. Cancer is a very large issue and I hope that during my lifetime, we find a cure for cancer entirely.
Thanks for reading this far and I hope that you've learned something from what I've said.
Kaitlyn Timmerman
In Memory of Joan Baggott, 5/14/09
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Dear Diary...
I saw this in a free local magazine that I picked up earlier and thought it would be kind of interesting to do one for myself.
Dear Diary,
I get really anxious when people mess with my stuff. I like to clean my room by myself or else I get seriously distraught.
People named Jeremy tend to gravitate to me.. or there are just a lot of people named Jeremy inbetween the ages of 19 and 30.
When my abusive boyfriend broke up with me the day after my 16th birthday, I slept in the same bed as my mom and we both cried together all night.
I named both of my first two dogs "Alex" - one was a boy and the other was a girl.
When I was younger, the coolest place to go was my parent's basement because it had ambient floodlighting with dimmers.
When I was 8, I would stay up all night watching crap tv on MTV.
When I was younger, I wanted to be black because I said that white skin was too plain. I also had to get black barbie dolls. I wanted them soooo much. :)
I was born without two of my permanent teeth. Now, they're implants. My nickname in middle school was Spongebob.
I broke one of the bones in my arm when I was really little because I was jumping on the bed when I was supposed to be sleeping. Compared to the rest of my family, I have been miraculously unharmed.
I like guys that look masculine but act feminine. I've always thought that the perfect guy for me would be a bisexual male.
I have a wide collection of Gameboys. I got my first one on my birthday, two days before my sister Larkyn was born. I also remember I got a Casper doll with glow in the dark eyes, because my nickname was Kat, like the girl in Casper. We apparently looked similar.
Up until middle school, my mom would match my siblings and I together with matching Kelly's Kids outfits. All the teachers thought I looked cute. I think I got the award for Best Dressed every year. My bows always matched my clothes.
My favorite bow had a pipecleaner bumblebee on it. It always freaked people out because they thought I really had a bee on my head.
My favorite section in my elementary school's library was the section where the teachers read to the kids, because they had the tiny Beatrice Potter books. For my 19th birthday, my mom bought me a set of all of the books. Nostalgia!
I really like socks.. a lot. My favorite pair of socks was of a giraffe. It had a lot of little giraffes on it against a black background. I think they've long since died, but I would love to find another pair someday.
When I was really little, my grandmother had a phone that looked like a piano that she kept in one of the bedrooms. My cousin and I were messing around on it and we "accidentally" called 911. We hung up and they called back. We definitely got into trouble. :) A few years ago, I found that same model of phone on eBay. I bought it.
To Be Continued...
Dear Diary,
I get really anxious when people mess with my stuff. I like to clean my room by myself or else I get seriously distraught.
People named Jeremy tend to gravitate to me.. or there are just a lot of people named Jeremy inbetween the ages of 19 and 30.
When my abusive boyfriend broke up with me the day after my 16th birthday, I slept in the same bed as my mom and we both cried together all night.
I named both of my first two dogs "Alex" - one was a boy and the other was a girl.
When I was younger, the coolest place to go was my parent's basement because it had ambient floodlighting with dimmers.
When I was 8, I would stay up all night watching crap tv on MTV.
When I was younger, I wanted to be black because I said that white skin was too plain. I also had to get black barbie dolls. I wanted them soooo much. :)
I was born without two of my permanent teeth. Now, they're implants. My nickname in middle school was Spongebob.
I broke one of the bones in my arm when I was really little because I was jumping on the bed when I was supposed to be sleeping. Compared to the rest of my family, I have been miraculously unharmed.
I like guys that look masculine but act feminine. I've always thought that the perfect guy for me would be a bisexual male.
I have a wide collection of Gameboys. I got my first one on my birthday, two days before my sister Larkyn was born. I also remember I got a Casper doll with glow in the dark eyes, because my nickname was Kat, like the girl in Casper. We apparently looked similar.
Up until middle school, my mom would match my siblings and I together with matching Kelly's Kids outfits. All the teachers thought I looked cute. I think I got the award for Best Dressed every year. My bows always matched my clothes.
My favorite bow had a pipecleaner bumblebee on it. It always freaked people out because they thought I really had a bee on my head.
My favorite section in my elementary school's library was the section where the teachers read to the kids, because they had the tiny Beatrice Potter books. For my 19th birthday, my mom bought me a set of all of the books. Nostalgia!
I really like socks.. a lot. My favorite pair of socks was of a giraffe. It had a lot of little giraffes on it against a black background. I think they've long since died, but I would love to find another pair someday.
When I was really little, my grandmother had a phone that looked like a piano that she kept in one of the bedrooms. My cousin and I were messing around on it and we "accidentally" called 911. We hung up and they called back. We definitely got into trouble. :) A few years ago, I found that same model of phone on eBay. I bought it.
To Be Continued...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
First Post!
Obviously, this is my first post (on this blog)! :) I signed up with this email address for another blog, but I figured I'd write in this one as well and make this one more public, rather than anonymous or protected from public view. So...
I'm hoping that this blog will become a legitimate way for me to express my ideas, mainly about feminism, gender, and queer theory. I'm looking forward to writing some thoughtful blogs soon :)
Kate
I'm hoping that this blog will become a legitimate way for me to express my ideas, mainly about feminism, gender, and queer theory. I'm looking forward to writing some thoughtful blogs soon :)
Kate
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