Twilight Saga Ruins Womens' Rights & The Allure of Vampires!

Two MONUMENTAL things occurred for women in the last week or two. Unfortunately, more people, even females, know of one of the monumental occurrence, rather than the other. Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn has just come out, sending women into a blood-curdling and moist frenzy at the sight of their sparkly vampire, Edward Cullen. It made a mad killing (pardon the pun) at the box office; THE BELLA wedding dress, which is the most anticipated wedding dress of the year after the Duchess of Do-Little's wedding dress (aka Kate Middleton), has already inspired knock-offs which will be flooding the lucrative bridal market and filling the heads of starry eyed bride to be's with silky-lacy dreams. Need I continue on the number the Twilight books and movies have done to the collective romantic fantasies of women? They have turned sparkly vampires and muscly, stinking werewolves, into viable romantic partners for mortal females? I'm sure the release of this movie has not gone unnoticed.

Then the second event, which may have slipped the notice of many a woman: it was the day of November 25th, The International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women. Such an important day, yet it doesn't receive half as much media coverage or leave an impression on the collective conscience, as those mind-numbingly silly Twilight books and movies have (must be pretty obvious by now that I dislike those poor excuses of literature and cinema, immensely)!

We are in the 21st century, yet horrific violence towards women still continue. Be it a woman who is being abused every which way by her husband/spouse; women being killed by their partners or families; to cultural notions of men being superior; to women being seen as easy & being preyed upon by sexual predators; to women being displayed as sexually available, quiet & submissive beings (a la Bella in Twilight); to women not being believed by judicial authorities (run predominantly by men) when they report their sexual assaults; to global sex trafficking of women to available "buyers"; to female rape being used as a weapon meant to cower and defeat war opponents.

Social support services for women in Canada are facing downsizing and cutbacks by government, thus leading to another method of exploitation of women. One of the many cases in point is the funding that was stopped by the Conservatives for the Sisters in Spirit national database for murdered, missing & cold cases of hundreds of Aboriginal women (Read more here: http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/02/03/conservative-mps-back-sisters-in-spirit-database-funding/).

These are the issues that the Nov 25th day is meant to raise awareness of; to keep fighting against the ignorance, which begets the violence, towards women; and fight towards the elimination of this kind of violence.

And then you have the Twilight books and movies, which promote the following, that takes the women rights movement back by 50 years:

1.) Revolve your entire life around getting the boy of your dreams, at the expense of having your own friends & social life, supports, paying attention to your family; developing a fulfilling career & gaining financial independence, instead of Bella depending on Edward to fill the emotional holes in her life & counting on him to always love her & take care of her.

2.) Constantly forgive & make excuses for a man who is emotionally abusing you & abandons you, by believing that he is doing this because he passionately loves you & doing it for your own good (just like Bella & Edward)!!! Kind of sounds like what a male spousal abuser will say to his wife, who he has gotten used to using as his door-mat.

3.) If the man is handsome enough, he can treat you however the hell he wants to, because hey....at least he is handsome and is a stallion in bed!

4.) Your boyfriend/partner watching you sleep & following you around, without your knowledge; should send tingles of lust up your spine, instead of tingling your fingers to dial the phone and call the police. 

And there are many more instances of how these Twilight books, which millions of young females are reading & developing their ideas of a romantic adult relationships, are giving females the wrong idea of what kind of treatment they should expect and demand from their partners. These Twilight books & movies, entrench ignorance about the presence of violence in relationships (such as justifying any psycho behaviour as love and possessiveness), and teaches women to not recognize signs of abuse being committed by their partners. Keeping females dumbed down through ignorance, breeds the prime ground for violence to occur and for a woman to continue being abused. It teaches women to accept that violence can and will happen in any romantic relationship, until the woman can change the man for the better! Which is what Bella Swan did, ladies. 

I'm not blaming the Twilight saga alone for promoting the idea of "abusive relationships are real relationships" myth & for all the other evils of the world. Nor am I saying that by engaging with this garbage literature and the far worse movies, all women will behave this way. 

What I'm trying to say is that global media phenomenon like The Twilight Saga, will be read by many women, through which many women will learn that the Bella-Edward relationship is a star-crossed, ideal, love story; the women's ideas about relationships could be influenced; or it could confirm many womens' insecurities about relationships, because they may say, "Hey Bella, the not-so-popular, not-so-hot girl got to marry and bang the totally hot vampire, by being willing to give up everything for him!" These media products and many others like it breeds women's ignorance; women's quiet acceptance of their victimization; and women confused ideas about their sexuality! 

These are what I feel takes the fight of elimination of violence against women, backwards! 

I will FULLY blame the Twilight Saga for one thing though: they have turned vampires from the towering, sexy, mysterious and deliciously dangerous villains of literature, into puny, sparkly, whiny, brats with forever bed-head hair! I hate the Twilight Saga for this very reason too!

Manly Movember Moustahchio-ed Man

Courtesy of smartcanucks.ca

So my brother has decided to grow a moustache in honor of prostate cancer month in November. From what I "hair", growing a moustache raises awareness and money for prostate cancer research (through sponsors). And it does the added job of raising awareness and donations for a worthy cause, in such a fun and light-hearted manner.....completely unlike those World Vision adoption ads exploiting our eyes capacity to turn into instant lawn sprinklers...

You know what I'm talking about

To me, the movember moustache represents just one flared bell bottom away from a man looking like a 70's era porn star...but there has been increased media coverage and awareness of prostate cancer, new research being done for the cure and urging men of ALL ages (not just you oldies) to get a thorough annual physical, due to the Movember.

And I myself reiterate that message guys:  quit thinking there is nothing macho about a male doctor with latex gloves cupping and squeezing your nether regions in the name of health...and GO GET YOUR ANNUAL PHYSICALS!

Moving on from the public service announcement, all the power to the "Mo Bros", but being the dedicated "Pisser on the Parade", I have to wonder amongst all the hair-raising fun being had in the name of men's health awareness and charity, even donating money all the money that one can to Prostate Cancer Society, is there any real hope of these health challenges being cured? Is it even in the interest of these multi-million dollar Cancer Societies to help find a cure to cancer? If a cure to many forms of cancers are found, where will these cancer societies go? Who will employ these guys for awareness and outreach campaigns? Who will pay these societies' CEO's their handsome salaries and compensation packages? Would we need the existence of such societies to the extent we need them today? 

Is it even in the interests of these cancer societies to cure cancer at all, when it can potentially be so lucrative financially and positive media publicity-wise? The thought of that alone made me cough out a hairball (alas, the hairball looked suspiciously like the downy textured and tawny colored hair belonging to my cat! UGH!)

But Movember is still a worthwhile cause, it still raises money into research that makes new discoveries and new ways to fight this disease and can continue promoting the message that guys can still be macho and manly even during a wholly, thorough physical exam.

Btw, check out  http://flashyourstache.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/stache-styles/ (Flash your stache Blog) for different kind of moustache style ideas for Movember! There is even a fun one called the "Jihad Jack"...how politically correct :P

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment- Jane Austen

But most unfortunately for our Ms. Kim Kardashian, her "love" never made the jump to matrimony; instead it made the huge leap from love to the other big "M" word...here are 2 clues as to what they can be:

1.) Rhymes with Honey and funny
2.) George Washington features very prominently on it.

I won't go into a whole diatribe upon the greedy, rhinoceros hided, paintgun face painted, evil Medusa-like monsters that are the Kardashian women! Nor will I go into how journalism has come into an all-time low by reporting on this so-called divorce ad nauseum, to the detriment of other personal victories and large-scale disasters that are happening all over the world; nor will I go into the whole "Boycott Kardashian" movement, because I trust that my readers have a lot more sense than to consume any sort of feces that are excreted by the Kardashians...

I will only say this much to those who are still adamantly opposed to a man making the jump from admiration to love to matrimony for the sake of another man...or a woman doing the same for another woman. That it is not same sex couples who will be spitting upon the sanctity of marriage; so-called straight people like, Kim Kardashian, have made a fine joke of marriage all by themselves, thank you very much! I'd say we continue making a farce of marriage, because we are greedily consuming the Kardashian divorce drama news (myself included, as I sit her idly during my reading week and find myself impossibly bored and rendered useless) & reading these divorce reports for sheer train-wreck style entertainment (or some may actually be shocked that this divorce actually happened).

I say let us bring equality to all the sexes and sexual orientations by giving same-sex couples the right to marry and not sniff up our noses at it, because it offends our delicate religious sensibilities. As a society, let us go further and give a celebrity gay couple the equal chance to have a 4hr wedding special on E! Channel; have a $10 million circus show of a wedding; make a gulp inducing $18 million in endorsements and free wedding products; and get divorced after 72 days of wedded bliss....just like the very straight Kim Kardashian did.

Somehow, we are very skewed in our sensibilities if we find ourselves disgusted or "wierded out" by 2 men or 2 women wanting to marry each other, but finding it to be a big laugh and a joke at this train wreck Kardashian wedding!