Friday, November 18, 2011

Fun with Hormones

The Matron is sitting at the kitchen table. Laptop open. TV on. Tea simmering. The rest of the house is busy: John and Merrick are building a fire, HWCBN is engaged in some online war, the dogs mine for treats and love.

The Matron is alone with her psyche until John and Merrick walk into the room.

Merrick: "Mom? What's the mattew?"

John: "What's wrong sweetie?"

Matron, taken aback: "Why, nothing. I'm just thinking."

Merrick: "It must be pwetty awfuuul." ( he still talks that way, Buddha bless him)

John: "Nothing can be that bad!"

Matron, doubly taken aback: "Actually, I'm trying to think of something funny to blog about. I'm sitting, here, thinking funny."

John's turn to be taken aback: "Good God."

Merrick: "Weally?"

Matron: "Really. I just can't think of anything funny to blog about. It's time for levity in the blogosphere."

John: "Well . . . maybe you should watch Modern Family or something instead of CSI?"

Matron: "That's funny."

Merrick: "How come you say something is funny when you look like you'we going to hit somebody?"

Matron: "It would appear that my life is completely devoid of humor. I find nothing whatsoever funny."

John, tentatively: "Actually, that's funny."

Merrick: "I'm funny! You have me."

Matron: "Did you clean your room?"

Merrick: "Mom. That's not funny."

Matron: "See? Life. Completely. Devoid. Of humor."

John: "Can I just say again . . . that really is funny."

Matron: "In a dark sort of way, granted."

Merrick: "I know, I know! It's funny you sitting here awguing about blogging about funny!"

Matron: "Not really."

John, assessing with 20 years of wisdom behind him: "PMS jokes? Sound funny?"

Matron (snappy): "Now why would that be funny?!"

John to Merrick: "Remember that emergency fire drill stuff we practiced? Time to do it now, very carefully out of the kitchen and away from Mama."

Merrick immediately drops to his belly on the floor and starts writhing toward the door.

John: "Husband in training."

That, the Matron found funny.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Calling It Like It Is

The Matron is enlisting this woman to work on the Herman Cain campaign.

Seriously, read that link. Read it now. Nobody can say it better.

The Matron's lighter touch continues to evade her. Yes, Satan's Familiar refines his fetid habits (mostly involving routing out excretions of any sort for dessert) and the big guy, as all 80 lb coon hounds are prone to do, knocks over toddlers with his tail. Her busy actor is fully deploying the emotional range available to all newly minted teenagers. Let's just say nobody here really needs to step into the theater for drama (the Matron thought she'd drop that in there to keep you hooked for an upcoming Stage Mother). He Who Cannot Be Named (HWCBN) lives the mysterious life of a young man poised on adulthood: his own. Merrick is, well, eight. With a perpetual sling shot and nerf gun by his side. All this by way of saying that levity does indeed exist in her world, always.

She's simply not there.

Instead, the Matron is one more angry person on the planet. Note that gender was not invoked. Because the vast majority of men, who do not rape, kill, torture, maim, kidnap, prostitute and capture women should also be very, very angry at those who do. We should have a whole lotta anger revvin' up the place.

Guys? Some of your ilk are giving the breed a bad name.

Here's the thing -- while there is justified moral outrage surrounding what she calls The Penn State Silence, there is umbrage and suspicion when sexually harassed women speak. The victims are being questioned, called to task: what do they have to gain? why now? who's paying the lawyer?

When asked "why" she was coming forward, Sharon Bialek replied that it was "the right thing to do."

Not doing the right thing at Penn State is a moral crime (yes!) but doing the right thing regarding Cain is cagey. Just read this ABC report on Sharon Bialek for the tenor surrounding these women. From headline to first paragraphs, this reads like a rap sheet. The photo selected? Why, she's pretty darn happy about her new found place in the media sun.

Now, the Matron knows exactly what you're thinking: raping children cannot be equated with sexual harassment. True. She even put it in colorful italics for emphasis. There is a fundamental difference between the psychological and sexual torture to which those young boys were subjected and the pain, however sharp, of sexual harassment.

Yet these two events -- big stories that enthrall a nation -- do share a fundamental quality: male violence. The Matron is just now establishing an official continuum for male violence called the MVC or Male Violence Continuum. Sexual harassment is on one end, the rape of children on another. But that continuum is a stream of the same impulse: male violence.

Yes, women harass, steal, torture and kill. Let's get that out of the way. But here, the Matron is addressing the majority. Americans like majorities. We have the Moral Majority on the right and now the new Occupy claim to the 99% of us on the left. Big groups rock. They get our attention, hold sway, demand notice. So . . . she's looking to the thick part of the violence pack and she sees testicles.

Yours truly did a little google search and then a more refined search in the education and government fields for "male violence." Here's what she got: domestic violence, gun violence, youth violence, gang violence, Central American militia violence, war violence against women, violence against women, men who murder their families, and intimate partner violence.

Ding, ding, ding! Anyone hear 'men' in there? But not one web page explicitly used the word 'men.'


Ask why men commit most violent crimes -- no, wait, just POINT OUT that men commit most violent crimes and you are a feminist bitch determined to derail half the human race. Wow. That's a whole lot of power in these feminist hands.

And the Matron, 'bitter feminist' that she is, does indeed hope to reduce men who rape, kill, torture, kidnap, maim and prostitute to middling puddles of poo on the carpet.

Guys? Once again (sigh, this always happens -- such a burden on her) you have the Matron to thank. Because the majority of victims of male violence are other men. See? Those rotten eggs are sullying the entire basket. Men and women alike have much to gain by noticing that masculinity and violence are intricately connected. Because men get mugged, raped, kidnapped, tortured and prostituted too.

Hey! There's that darn white elephant in the room!

Pointing out that men commit the majority of violent crimes -- from trying to shove a woman's head into his crotch to raping a girlfriend or boyfriend -- isn't a feminist plot to dethrone the phallus as ultimate signifier or in anyway dehumanize men.

It's just the truth.