Beka > Recent Status Updates

"While the homicide rate generally declined, sex-related murders rose 160% between 1976 + 1984. These murders weren't simply the random, impersonal byproduct of a violent society; at least 1/3 of the women were killed by their husband's or boyfriends just after declaring their independence in the most intimate manner -- by filing for divorce or leaving home."

"Women themselves don't single out the Women's Movement as the source of their misery. To the contrary, in national surveys 75 to 95% of women credit the feminist campaign with improving their lives, + a similar proportion say that the Women's Movement should keep pushing for change."

"From 'the man shortage' to 'the infertility epidemic' to 'female burnout' to 'toxic daycare,' these so-called female crises have had their origins not in the actual origins of women's lives but rather in a closed system that starts + ends in the media, popular culture, and advertising -- an endless feedback loop that perpetuates its own false images of womanhood."

"In poll after poll in the decade, overwhelming majorities of women said they needed equal pay + equal job opportunities, an Equal Rights Amendment, the right to an abortion without government interference, a federal law guaranteeing maternity leave, decent childcare services. They have none of these. So how exactly have we 'won' the war for women's rights?"

"In colleges, in 1991, undergraduate women receive only 70% of the aid undergraduate men get in grants + work-study jobs.

Federal funding for battered women's shelters has been withheld + 1/3 of the 1 million battered women who seek emergency shelter each year can find none. In the 80s, almost half of all homeless women were refugees of domestic violence."

"The triumph of equality, they report, has merely given women hives, stomach cramps, eye-twitching disorders, even comas.
But what 'equality' are all these authorities talking about?

If American women are so equal, why do they represent 2/3 of all poor adults? Why are nearly 75% of full time working women making less than 20k a year (compared to less than 35% of men making that measly amount.)"

"Law enforcement officers and judges have pointed a damning finger at feminism, claiming they can chart a path from rising female independence to rising female pathology.

As a California sheriff explained it to the press, 'Women are enjoying a lot more freedom now, and as a result, they are committing more crimes.'"

OY.

"Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his fellow anti-abortion majority on the bench will be handing down edicts on women's health, wealth and wellbeing for decades to come."
-from the updated foreward

"I've spent my whole life in a deeply destructive collective, pinned to the hard end of a philosophical extreme. When my pendulum swung back the other way I had plenty of momentum, but I never really got the chance to experience life in the middle. I never had much balance."

"When we are loving we openly + honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, + trust.

Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. What we cannot imagine cannot come into being. A good definition marks our starting point + lets us know where we want to end up. We move toward a desired destination, chart the journey, create a map."

"When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive.

Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care."

"Affection is only one ingredient of love.
To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients -- care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.

Learning faulty definitions of love when we are quite young makes it difficult to be loving as we grow older."

"I already know where this is headed, and I brace myself for the same conversation we've been having for years. Intelligence is a virtue, but curiosity is something else."

"This despair about love is coupled with a callous cynicism that frowns upon any suggestion that love is as important as work, as crucial to our survival as a nation as the drive to succeed.
Our nation is a culture driven by the quest of love (it's in pop culture, films, literature) even as it offers so little opportunity for us to understand loves meaning or know how to realize it in word + deed."

"Everywhere we learn that love is important, + yet we are bombarded by its failure. In the realm of the political, among the religious, in our families, + in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together.
...we still hope that love will prevail."

I'd argue that money makes the list over love in why people make many decisions

"Male fantasy is seen as something that can create reality, whereas female fantasy is regarded as pure escape."

"Indeed, all the great movements for social justice in our society have strongly emphasized a love ethic."

"I had a multicultural education class to teach and I invites him to sit in on my class. Afterward, Tupac began to share his ideas on how the arts could be included in school curriculums to help youth address some of the issues they were experiencing in their lives.

By combining art with education, Tupac felt we could begin to heal society's pain and confusion."

"She wanted to be emotionally uninvested in ____'s journey, but in so many ways, their journeys were inextricable. They'd both been shaped by the same man, and now they were both trying to figure out how to shape themselves."

"She was starting to think that if they both looked the past unflinchingly in the eye, they might be able to cobble together some kind of relationship in the future. She wasn't sure she wanted that yet, but she wasn't sure she didn’t."

"As day turned into dusk, she settled into the corners of herself she hadn't used in so long she'd assumed the locks rusted shut."