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Raising Teen Girls to Survive Misogyny, Sexting and Slut Shaming

by Deborah Cruz 2019/02/18

The things we have to talk to our children and teens about these days is intense. I never remember my mom talking to me directly about misogyny, slut shaming, rape or even consent. She definitely didn’t talk to me about sexting because it didn’t exist. I remember my dad adamantly telling me to respect myself and my body and to stand up for myself. Maybe that was the 80’s version of the same thing I’m talking to my girls about. My dad has a black belt in karate and he taught us all how to throw a punch so maybe he was prepping me for the real world, in his own indirect way.

I grew up and knew that I wanted to have a very open dialogue with my children, especially when they hit those difficult, awkward teen years. By the way, all kids are awkward at this age so it’s not just your kid. They all need a little TLC during the teen years when they can sometimes be at their most unlovable. Just remember all of that angst is probably masking insecurity.

READ ALSO: Parent Guide to Teen Slang Words

Lately, I’ve had to have some very direct conversations that I never thought I’d have to have. The two I most thought I’d never have to have a direct conversation about are misogyny (it’s not you, it is definitely them) and slut-shaming (it’s never ok to be a part of that problem). Thanks to modern politics and the trickle-down effect, it has had on our community, it’s been necessary to explain to my daughters that it’s never ok for any man to treat you like you are a less valuable human being because of what’s between your legs.

Women are 100% equal to men, as we are all human beings. The only thing that elevates a person’s worth in the world is the way in which they conduct themselves and interact with others. We should be measured by our contributions, not our sex.

Thanks to a prevalent case of moral superiority that seems to permeate the circle they have found themselves surrounded by, I’ve had to jump to the rescue of strangers for making questionable moral choices. At this age, everyone is a critic and the higher the number of kids judging, the worse the criticism. I’ve always told my girls that they should live their own best lives and do good in the world but we don’t judge others because their life choices are between them, their conscience and their God.

Do I want my daughters to grow up and make questionable moral choices? Of course not, but do I want them to live a full life? Yes. So maybe that means they make some choices that I wouldn’t make or they take chances that I would have discouraged them from making. Will we always see eye to eye? Definitely not. My girls have free will and I wouldn’t change that.

I’m not particularly excited about watching them fail or get hurt and I will always be there to pick up the pieces and kiss the booboos, no matter how old they get, but I can’t live their life for them. This is why we have to have the hard talks. This is why I’ve been talking to my girls about sex, misogyny, and respecting themselves and their bodies since they were toddlers. You have to start these conversations when they are young.

We’re at a particularly uneasy part of childhood; the part where they are not quite children and not quite adults. They are naïve, hearts wide open, full of hormone fluctuations and walking around looking like adults.

Ever wonder why our teens make the choices they do? Something, not so much shocking as unexpected, happened at my daughters’ school recently and I found myself shocked that in this day and age a kid would make this poor choice because I thought all of us were having the same conversations with our kids. I sometimes forget how new the Internet really is. Sexting happened.

READ ALSO: Who is Protecting Our Daughters

Maybe it’s because I work in social media but my kids have known since before they were in school that the Internet is forever. Anything can be screenshot. Not everyone is who they appear to be online. Don’t measure your worth by how many likes, follows and “friends” you have. It’s all a smoke show. It’s fake and not seated in reality. But above all, it is forever and like the angry ghost of a crazy ex, it can haunt you forever so make good choices kids. Not all parents have this conversation even once with their children.

My girls have both had smartphones with parental controls since they were 9-years-old. We openly monitor their activity. We check their phones. They are only allowed an Instagram and Pinterest account, which they share. The accounts are monitored. Everything they post is monitored. There is no Finsta. I check their DMs. I block people. We’ve not made it taboo but the girls know that any time we could be watching so all I ask is that they respect themselves and not say anything on the Internet that they’d be embarrassed for their grandfathers to see.

Back to this sexting situation. A girl in 8^th grade sent explicit unsolicited photos of herself to a boy she liked. He told his mom but not before consulting his friend. He sent the picture to his friend and the friend sent it to a group chat. The mom went to the school to tell on the girl. The police are now involved because this is the distribution of pornography involving a minor. As if this is not horrible enough of a situation, the 8th-grade girls are shunning her and one girl pointed at her in the presence of my daughter and called her a “slut.”

READ ALSO: Good Girls and Double Standards

My daughter shut it down because I’ve taught my girls that we never slut shame. It’s not our business to judge anyone, especially another woman, because of a momentary lapse in judgment or even if someone outright chooses to be promiscuous. I feel bad for this girl. She has to live with this choice and I’m sure that’s not easy. I’m not sure how you recover from something like this in a Catholic school where everything they do is seeping with moral superiority and virtue.

For me, I don’t understand why she chose to do this but maybe her parents never explained that anything you put out into the world digitally lives on forever. Maybe she was just so desperate for the attention that her judgment was clouded. Or maybe she just didn’t fully realize the weight of her actions until after she hit send. Either way, she made a choice and now, unfortunately, it will follow her.

I’d also like to point out that we live in a world where girls feel like they need to share these kinds of photos to capture a guy’s attention. Girls are objectified from very young ages. She’s not the only one who participated in this situation, she may have sent the photos but the boy could have deleted them. He didn’t need to share them with anyone and the kid who shared those private photos with the entire group chat, in my opinion, is the most culpable.

READ ALSO: Love Letter to My Daughter

My girls were shocked by the behavior of the girl who sent the texts, the boys who shared them and the girls who are now doing the shunning. My oldest is feeling disillusioned by her friends. But I explained to her that these are just growing pains and it’s also a good dose of reality and a lesson in consequences.

Like my dad, I am saying to my girls respect yourselves, do good, make good choices and stand up for what you believe. Misogyny and slut shaming may be something our society tolerates but it doesn’t have to be. It starts with individuals choosing to do better, choosing kindness and compassion over judgment and cruelty. As parents, we need to remember that even when our teens don’t want us, they still need us and we need to see past their eye-rolling and exasperation and step in if necessary. They’ll get over it.

How do you teach your girls to survive sexting, slut-shaming and misogyny?

2019/02/18 2 comments

Throat Punch Thursday

Misogyny the Great White Hope of Rio Olympics

by Deborah Cruz 2016/08/11

written by Deborah Cruz

The Rio Olympics are in full swing and so is the misogyny. What if we talked about male Olympians the way we talk about female Olympians?Unfortunately, hate to say it but this week’s Throat Punch Thursday has to go to all the misogynistic men out there. No, I’m not talking to you good feminist men. You’ve got this shit handled. You understand that women are equal. You want a partner, not a slave. You see women as people, for that I commend you.

That’s right, in this day and age, I still have to commend men who are not blind and have respect for fellow human beings because misogyny is still that rampant in our society. It happens on a daily basis, even more so than all of these police shootings of black men lately.

Aww, thank you smartphones for allowing us to reveal to the world the asshatery that plagues us. P.S. You KNOW that the twits that are shooting black men are the same sort of men who are dismissing the value of women. It’s a classic case of if you are not a white man, you really aren’t human in their eyes.

I still haven’t figured out the hierarchy though. Are black men higher up the rung or lower than women? I guess I’ll never know, being a minority woman. I’ll always be on the bottom. Lucky for you, I have a big mouth, so you’ll never forget I’m down there and you’ll always hear me. Squeaky wheel, party of all women and minorities please.

Anyways, so there have been misogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton and Melania Trump because apparently being a woman is a liability. Having a vagina in the world puts a target on your back and it becomes a free fall for men to exploit any semblance of femininity you have as an inherent characteristic flaw.

What Melania being naked has to do with the kind of president Donald Trump would be makes no sense at all. I think he leaked it to let her take the fall for his obvious shortcomings. You know, if you’re certain that you’re going to lose an election why not blame the wife? And there have been so many crazy things said about Hillary that I can’t even list them. One of the worst, being the first woman to ever be elected as a presidential nominee and having the cover story photo be of a man. What the f*ck?

But then there are the Olympics, one amazing female athlete after another crushing it but do we give them credit? Nope, we reduce them to feminine stereotypes or attribute their success to their husbands. Firstly, gold medal gymnasts are highly evolved athletes not bubble gum smacking teeny boppers at the mall. These young ladies have poured hours of their lives, their very childhood, into becoming super athletes don’t trivialize their achievements or their sacrifices.

Also, when a woman wins a medal, don’t attribute the medal to the man she is married to. She’s the one who did the work. She’s the one who earned her spot. She’s the one who trained and made the sacrifices. Give her the glory. I don’t give a fuck what football team her husband plays for or if he helped train her. Do we give credit to Michael Phelps fiancé and coach every time he medals? Why do we have to undermine these women’s achievements? Does it make men feel better that they can take credit for our successes?

What’s next, commentary on fashion and how the female athlete’s bodies look in their outfits? Oh wait, I’ve already seen a thousand dirty comments about wanking to the women’s volleyball team. Have some respect people. Women are people too! A gold medalist is a gold medalist is a bad ass and her accomplishments should not be reduced to another pat on the back for the man in her life.

2016/08/11 0 comment

misogynist, misogyny, robin thicke, miley cyrus

Social Good Women's Issues

When Misogyny Speaks the World Listens

by Deborah Cruz 2013/09/02

written by Deborah Cruz

Last week, I wrote a post about Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke that really seemed to piss people off. Worst of all, it pissed women off but not at Robin Thicke for being a misogynistic pig but at Miley Cyrus for being a whore who obviously violated Robin Thicke and anger towards me for having the gall to write a piece that not only insinuated that Thicke was partially to blame for the VMA performance but straight up called the guy out for being the smarmy pig he is.

Women all over the world came to his defense saying things like he is a good guy and whores like Miley and feminist bitches like myself are all up in arms because we hate men.(This was actually said to me). I assure you that I do not hate men. In fact, I have a sweet spot for them.My husband is one of my favorite people in the world. Anyways, I spoke the truth and anyone with eyes and common sense, knew I was right. Still, they argued. Obviously it was me, not Robin Thicke who had the problem. Even after I prominently featured his misogynistic video for Blurred Lines, they still defended him. I could not win.

Then, while I was traveling in San Diego for a press event, a reader sent me a post by a male blogger who wrote essentially the exact same perspective and opinion as I ,myself, had written on Monday and Tuesday only there was one main difference, he had a penis. Where I had been called a man hating feminist bitch, he was patted on the back by women for being such a wonderful man. Praised, patted on the back and swooned upon. In fact, I am sure team Robin Thicke has even jumped the shark and become team the Matt Walsh blog. I salute you Matt Walsh because you said everything I did and somehow managed to avoid any backlash. Damn, I had no idea the penis wielded such protection powers. Damn unsafe vagina.

Speaking of vaginas, can anyone explain to me where Robin Thicke has been this entire time? Why did he not speak out on Monday and let the world know that the crass behavior, twerking aside, on Miley’s part was directly from HIS video? Think about that, Robin Thicke fans.Where was your precious, chivalrous Mr.Thicke when a woman was getting the beat down of all backlash that he was responsible for?

Then another reader & friend sent me this, because y’all get me, you really, really do.

And another reader sent me this and I know we are all not choking down the misogyny that is being spoon fed to us by media and society.

I’m not a “man hating feminist” nor do I have anything personal against Robin Thicke and I really don’t think that Miley Cyrus twerking and Robin Thicke dry humping her on stage is more important than people in Syria being gassed with Sarin BUT I do, with all that I am, believe that women have been treated like objects rather than people for far too long and to ignore it any longer would be detrimental to our society as a whole. We are mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers and wives. We are somebody’s everything and dismissing women as less than men, making us nothing more than what lies between our legs, is lessening all of us as the human race. You are squandering your most precious asset.

What are your thoughts on the treatment of women in the world? Will you stand by silently as this continues? I will not!

2013/09/02 10 comments

Texas 6-week Abortion Ban is Misogyny Disguised a Pro-Life, pro choice

Women's Issues

Texas 6-week Abortion Ban is Misogyny Disguised as Pro-Life

by Deborah Cruz 2021/10/06

written by Deborah Cruz

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

When some people think of Texas 6-week abortion ban, the first thing they think of is the “baby”. They are pro-life for the unborn fetus. They pat themselves on the back for advocating for an unborn child. But who cares about the mother who is carrying that child? Texas, a Republican state that has always tried to keep a stronghold on women’s uteruses, wants to make its own rules; they want to vilify women who choose not to carry their pregnancy to term and the doctors who provide those services safely. They want to criminalize a woman’s right to reproductive autonomy. Texas wants to punish women who dare to think, feel and live for themselves without a man’s permission. As someone born with a uterus, I’d like to say fuck you Texas, with no KY and right up your bum.

Texas’ 6-week abortion ban is misogyny disguised as pro-life. Full stop.

I got my first period when I was 12 years old, the summer before 8th grade. I knew next to nothing about what was happening to me. There I was, trapped in a bathroom stall at McDonald’s, like Carrie White, after a long day playing at the park without any frenemies to throw me, a much-needed, pad. That was the beginning of my journey into womanhood. It was a little traumatic to say the least and has been every day since. But this was just the teaser trailer of what it’s like to have a uterus.

In the beginning, my period was always erratic. I never knew when she was coming or going. Optimistically and quite frankly ridiculously , I kept right on wearing white pants, shorts and skirts. I was a daredevil. I had no older sister to guide me and my mom told me as little as possible about menstruation, reproductive health and sex. I’m not that kind of mom.

While in the meantime, my dad made it very clear that virginity was the only option, whether it rocked or not. Good Catholic girls don’t get pregnant and have babies out of wedlock (that’s what blow jobs, hand jobs and butt sex are for, haven’t you heard? Don’t clutch your pearls at me, you know it’s true. j/k not really, ask your kids if you don’t believe me)

Those that do not agree that virginity rocks, mysteriously fall down steps. As I didn’t particularly want to take my chances with the steps, there was nothing any guy could say to get me to have sex in my teens.

By the time I was in high school, fending off boys trying to dry hump me felt like a full-time job. But still, I maintained my blessed virgin status because, again, those fucking stairs. Of course, as all “good Catholic girls” know, sexuality is full of loopholes and there is no one better at finding those son of a bitches than a good girl trying to maintain a serious relationship while not compromising her morals and the stair abortion she is sure to find herself receiving should she fall off the virginity wagon.

Still, saying no and keeping your hymen intact is hard work and not always well received by the opposite sex. You know since men think they are entitled to sexual gratification by all women at all times. It’s no wonder when you consider how the government has one hand in our uterus and the other in our pockets at all times.

It wasn’t until college that I actually had consensual sex with someone I loved for the first time. Well, unless you count being on the receiving end of oral as sex. I’m still not sure where I stand on that. I told my girls if anything is penetrating the other body whether it be tongue, toy, penis or fingers…I think you probably had sex but that definition could be different for everybody. Your body, your choice. It can’t really be all about the hymen. I broke that when I was only 8 years old in the bathtub sliding accident of ‘81. Maybe sex should only count when we say it does. Give us back our power.

Why should some asshole who raped, molested, browbeat or begged us into sex get to choose? But that’s the way it’s always been, right? Some men feel entitled and empowered enough to relentlessly approach women for sex via grabbing, pushing, pulling, begging, drugging and forcing without consent. When we say no, we are called teases and sluts. When we say yes too often or too early, we are called easy or whores.

Why is it that in this world, men are free to take as much as they want but we are not allowed to give as freely or as often as we might like. Most importantly, we are not allowed to say no because we should feel flattered by their catcalls and groping but we can’t say yes too fast either, because who wants it if it isn’t a challenge? Where is our choice? Once again, the Texas government is trying to say we should not only lose control over our own reproductive rights but we should be punished for thinking we have equal sexual rights to men. This is America.

If you think that it’s ok to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies, maybe you should go get surgery and get your own vagina and then handle it as you’d like. As for me, my body is only my business. What I do or don’t do with it, who I do or don’t do it with, how fast, or slow or many times I do with it…not your fucking business. We girls and women are not put on this planet to just make babies and service men. We are actually, whole human beings who don’t need anyone else’s approval to exist, nor do we need guidance and certainly not rules, regulations and restrictions for how to handle our own bodies. We wrote the owner’s manual. The audacity that you must have to mansplain women things to women is flabbergasting.

6-week abortion ban makes pro choice impossible

Of all the targets of Texas’ hatred, and they sure do hate and discriminate against a wide array of people ( Blacks, Latinos, Indigenous people, Haitians, members of the LGBTQ, people who believe in science, the Holocaust, a man on the moon, Big Bang theory, evolution, dinosaurs, climate change, CoVid and those who get vaccinated and wear masks) people with uteruses have always been at the top of their hit list.

So if you believe that human beings are capable of free thought and intelligence, how could you support a government that seeks to ban and control women’s basic human right to live freely and of her own choice? Even if you don’t approve of abortion for your own personal choice, what right do any of us have to decide what is best for another human being? What makes our morality superior to anyone else’s? Why can’t we live and let other’s live; in the end, their body, their choice.

Update: A federal court has temporarily blocked Texas’ 6-week abortion ban from continuing to wreak havoc on the lives of people who need abortion care.

2021/10/06 0 comment

Hillary Clinton, Democratic nomination, president, first female president, women's rights

Girl Mom News Politics

Hillary Clinton’s Nomination Just Kicked Misogyny in the Balls

by Deborah Cruz 2016/07/27

written by Deborah Cruz

Hillary Clinton just made history shattering the glass ceiling to become the first woman to be the presidential nominee for a major political party and I got to watch it happen with my little girls. As a Mexican American woman this means more to me than I can put into words. I grew up in a house where women were second class citizens. While the rest of the world was marking their value by the payment of 80 cents on the dollar, I knew in my house, I wasn’t even worth half. Or so that was what I was told but, I always knew better.

I knew what Hillary Clinton proved tonight. I knew that I could be anything that I put my mind to and was willing to work my ass off for. Being a woman, the simple act of being born with a vagina, has always been equated with being less than and that has made life harder. We’re seen as the “weaker” sex and given no power. We have to work twice as hard and fight for everything we get. I was willing to do it because I’ve never let anyone tell me what I could and couldn’t do. I want better for my girls. I want a woman president in their lifetime.

I want Hillary Clinton as my president. I’m with her because she is with us.

8 years ago, I got to be part of history and vote for our first African American President and it felt good. I felt like, for once, we less thans were changing things. I could feel the shift. It felt monumental and it was. It is. Finally, a minority President was a reality. How far we had come. This gave me hope that a woman could be next.

But still, politicians forgot about we women. All of this legislation was being proposed that allowed middle-aged white men to decide what I could and couldn’t do with my own body. For all of our so-called rights, we women were never treated (and still are not) as equal human beings. Our worth was not so great as our male counterparts, no matter who we were or what we did, we still lacked one main quality of greatness…a penis. But I never believed it, not for one second.

After all, I am woman. I know you hear me roar but you ignore my battle cries. The thought of this being my daughter’s reality was unbearable. The thought that my daughters could ever be made to feel less than simply for being born with a vagina, saddens and sickens me because I know better. I taught them better. Every woman knows that a vagina is tougher than a penis. We give birth and devote our lives to loving and caring for our children, all while still existing, working and thriving in a world that either doesn’t respect us or doesn’t see us at all. We spend our lives being provoked and dared to respond. Hillary changed that. We changed that.

Tonight, when roll call was done and Hillary Clinton got the democratic nomination, that was our moon landing.

One small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind. In one nomination, Hillary Clinton gave us hope that we (the American citizens who have vaginas) can achieve equality in the eyes of the law but more importantly, in the eyes of our daughters.

The glass ceiling was shattered tonight and all the mothers and daughters of the United States are celebrating because we know that the next time we tell our little girls that they can be anything they want to when they grow up, we’re telling them the truth. The possibilities are endless. We’ve shattered the ceiling and we’re never going back to the way it was.

I know I will never forget this night when our world changed for the better. The moment equality was on the precipice for women. The night I got to witness history being made and changed with my two beautiful little girls by my side. The night I was moved to tears because finally, women might be seen as human beings with human rights.

Women’s rights are human rights. Thank you Hillary Clinton for reminding the world that women can do anything men can do and better.

2016/07/27 2 comments

An Open Letter to Men from Women on Misogyny, Abortion, Sex and Equality

Uncategorized

An Open Letter to Men from a Woman on Equality

by Deborah Cruz 2021/09/08

written by Deborah Cruz

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

As a feminist mom of teenage girls, this is the post that lives in my mind at all times. As a daughter and granddaughter of a mother and grandmother who have always been marginalized by what lies between her legs, I am offended. As a woman who has been judged, juried and punished for being feminine and curvy, I am livid. As a woman who has been sexually harassed and abused by men and afraid for as long as I can remember, I am done. As a woman who thinks and feels and sees and exists, I am outraged. This is my open letter to men on misogyny, abortion, sex and equality

For as long as I can remember, I have walked through the world feeling in danger. In danger of being touched, groped, raped and even assaulted by men. Worse still, I have learned to survive. To make myself small and quiet when I needed to which if you know me, you know is not me. I am not alone.

When strange men on trains, on planes, in clubs, at school, at church, online, at frat parties, walking home from school, playing at a friend’s house, while shopping, while eating, while working, breastfeeding, playing at the park with my children, while living my life and even while sleeping have forced their crude remarks, wandering hands and themselves upon me, I had to learn to escape with the least amount of damage; not unscathed because, as any woman knows, that is impossible. So I made a decision, a long time ago, I refused to raise my daughters to make themselves small and I myself will never again make myself small…because they (my daughters) are watching.

Misogyny

I refuse to raise my daughters to hunch their shoulders, hide their bodies in baggy clothes, feel shame for being attractive or saying no. Not today misogyny. I would not raise them to consider anyone other than themselves when getting dressed. No one else’s opinion on what they wear, their size, shape, hair color, makeup or sexual prowess is any of their business. I taught my girls that they are equal to men and, let’s be honest, in some ways, they’re better. Most importantly, I raised them to respect themselves and their own thoughts and opinions over anyone else’s. That being said, they were taught that everyone else is entitled to their opinions about life but those opinions have no effect on our lives.

My girls know what consent is. I taught them to say no loudly and habitually when they want to. Their body is their body, not mine, not yours and not some random dude who can’t keep his toxic masculinity and hormones in check, not even their husband or boyfriend. Believe me, toxic masculinity comes in more forms than just a rapist in a dark alley or skeevey dudes at the clubs, these men can also be your boss, your priest, your friend, the old man down the road, the boy next door and the guy who’s supposed to protect and serve your community.

I’ve fought the school on dress codes and refuse to have my daughters wear baggy clothes just because it’s too distracting to the boys. Why aren’t clothes that fit enough? Sorry, breasts and butts happen. We all have them.

I’ve fought public opinion on my daughters wearing bikinis when they were toddlers because someone had the audacity to say I was sexualizing my toddlers. No, you pervert are the one sexualizing a child. That’s a “you” problem. I was simply buying a suit that was comfortable for my tall child. Covering her belly button is not more important than preventing discomfort or causing infections. As teenagers, I stand by that statement. What women are wearing is not a concern for men. If it offends you or overstimulates you, overt your fucking eyes. Stop policing us. We don’t police you. Stay in your lane.

Sex

I’ve taught my daughters that sex is beautiful when they are mature enough to handle all that comes with it. We’ve talked about sex since they started asking. It’s not dirty or bad. They are not naughty for being curious. I don’t preach abstinence. I talk about respecting their bodies, themselves, their partners and waiting until they are ready.

I tell them that sex does not equal love. Sex is sex and someone can love having sex with you and not love you at all. I’ve taught them about birth control and responsibility, taking it themselves and demanding it of their partners. Sex with someone you love is beautiful and sex with yourself is cathartic. We don’t slut-shame so I’ve even taught them that we don’t judge and criticize other people’s sexual choices.

Abortion

I am pro-choice and I’ve raised my girls to know why. It’s not that I am pro-abortion or that I’ve had or would’ve ever chosen to have one. It is that I respect women and their lives and it is every single human being’s right to be in control of what happens to their own body. You can argue that you are pro-life because you believe every single life is precious but if that’s your reasoning, what about the life of the girl or woman who finds herself pregnant (for whatever reason, the reason is irrelevant…women should not have to qualify the choices they make for their own bodies to anyone else, especially men) and is not capable of raising it, taking care of it, wanting or loving and providing for it in the way that she wants at that time?

If you are pro-life only for an unborn fetus, then you are not concerned with life (because you have disregarded the woman’s) you are concerned with moral superiority and inflicting your beliefs on others. It’s a power struggle not a pro-life issue. If abortion morally offends you, simply do not have an abortion. Period. While we’re on the subject, can all the politicians please GTFO of our uteruses?

Whatever your belief is, the consequences rest with the woman having the abortion and it’s between her and her God. She will have to live with that choice forever. There is no way around that. If you think the decision to have an abortion is one a woman takes lightly, you’ve never actually asked a woman who has to make that choice. Her decision has no immediate or direct effect on your life. It’s not your business to decide and making abortion illegal will not stop abortions, it will only stop safe abortions which means they will put women’s lives and their future reproductive health in jeopardy.

Equality

My girls are free to make their own choice on which side they choose to support because I respect them, their intelligence and their right to choose. If my daughters ever find themselves unexpectedly pregnant, I will do what any parent should do, I will counsel, love and support them in whatever decision they make for themselves. But at the same time, it’s my responsibility, as a parent, to teach them about respecting their bodies, loving themselves, pregnancy prevention, sexual safety and knowing the difference between love and sex.

Don’t misunderstand, I am not promoting teen sex, promiscuity, unplanned pregnancy or abortion. I am simply saying that these things happen and, in case no one was paying attention, it takes a man and a woman to get pregnant but only the girl or woman is left with the immediate responsibility of raising, caring for and providing for the child because we are the ones who carry it. Men can walk away and pretend it didn’t happen and some do. Men are not the ones paying for the consequences of one night for the rest of their lives, women are.

So until men can be held equally accountable for women’s reproduction, they should have no say in what we do, how we behave or what we choose to do or not do with our own bodies. Women are not property, nor inanimate objects, we are not born to provide care and pleasure for men…we are simply born to live and pursue our own happiness, just like every man.

It’s enraging enough that we are not given equal pay, equal voice or equal respect or rights as human beings. The world teaches little girls that doing anything like a girl is bad, weak and less than. It teaches girls to be quiet, be amiable, smile more and accept the places they’ve given us. Little girls need to be encouraged and empowered to use their voices, stand up and be everything they dream of being without the worry of being oppressed and reduced to their sexuality. Our girls are more. We are more.

This is not about me bashing men. This is me protecting and standing up for my daughters and every other child. These things I am teaching my daughters; need to be taught to our sons as well. Things will never change until we all work together to change the way things are; we have to stop accepting misogyny (in all its forms) as just the way it is. I don’t want my girls to feel scared and afraid of men and boys and I don’t think your boys want my girls to feel that way either. It starts now by refusing to let one more girl make herself feel small and quiet just to feel safe living with girl parts in the world.

2021/09/08 0 comment

misogyny, feminism, Robin Thicke, Kim Hall, Richard Thomas, Universtiy of Vermont, Cherice Morazlez,

Throat Punch Thursday

Who’s Protecting Our Daughters?

by Deborah Cruz 2013/09/05

written by Deborah Cruz

It is once again Throat Punch Thursday and after the past two weeks, I feel like I might need to create a tab on my blog labeled misogyny gone wild. People, I don’t want to stay up here on this soap box defending women’s rights and equality but what is going on in the world? People have lost their damn minds and the world has declared rapid fire war on women. So today’s throat punch is plural. It’s ok though, last week I gave you sunsets in San Diego so I owed you one anyways.

First, there is Mrs.Hall, a mom of teen boys, who wrote a blog post titled, FYI ( if you’re a teenage girl) in which she blames all the braless teen girls on social media for her sons’ sexual urges. Look, I get it there are some women who are submissive and agreed to all that “obey” and “submit” shit in their wedding vows, who believe misogyny is a good thing. I am not one of those women. I know that good Christian parents want to raise good Christian children. I do. I get it. I sent my kids to Catholic school for just this reason. I want my girls to be raised with a good moral compass just as much as Mrs. Hall wants her boys to be raised with a “good moral compass.” That’s my job; to raise my girls to have self-respect and be strong, independent women who love their bodies and don’t need societal approval. I want to raise self-confident, intelligent and happy children. I want them to become women who know that at the end of the day, the only person they have to qualify their choices with is themselves and God. Not to me, not to some guy and certainly not to some guy’s overbearing, crazy mother.

It’s not my job to police all the teenage boys in the vicinity and shame them into staying away from my daughters. It is not my job to make my girls feel like they should be ashamed of their bodies and are less than a man. I refuse to teach my girls that men are slaves to their penises so girls have to operate on the defensive, lest they be raped and it be their own fault. Because men succumbing to their sexual urges is natural but a woman doing the same is shameful and sinful and any woman who does so is not only in danger of going straight to hell but also in taking every penis within her reach with her. This is what Mrs. Hall fears most.

Mrs. Hall you don’t think too much of your boys if you believe them to be so weak. I don’t understand how you can demean young girls for going braless in selfies when you, yourself, posted topless photos of your sons on the beach. Your misogyny and willingness to perpetuate double standards, sickens me. Why not just raise your boys to not look at braless selfies? Or can you not trust them to escape the hold of the braless teen breast?

Bottom line, Mrs. Hall’s post was condescending and seething in passive aggressiveness. Don’t tell me to control my girls. Don’t tell my girls to control themselves. Do your job and teach your boys to control their own sexual urges.Keep your threats of online exile and maybe consider parental controls, limiting social media for your boys or just plain taking it away. By the way, I think it’s pretty effing creepy that you sit around the table as a family and scroll through photos of teen girls looking for braless selfies so you can pass judgement and dole out consequences. You get a throat punch, Mrs.Hall, for your very unbecoming behavior as a mother and a woman.

Second, a convicted rapist, Richard Thomas, collapsed after police told him he may have contracted HIV from the woman raped while she slept. Thomas “let himself into her home uninvited in the middle of the night and she awoke to find him raping her from behind. He’d been drinking heavily and taking ecstasy and claims to not recall any of it.

Thomas was sentenced to five years and four months after pleading guilty to raping a woman while she slept. He will find out from test results later this week whether he’s contracted the disease.

Okay, let me just say that I don’t give a rat’s ass if Thomas remembers doing it or not. He did it. Whether you remember it or not is inconsequential. He seems to have absolutely no remorse about what he has done, even though he has definitely ruined her life by taking away her sense of security and safety in her own home and violating her in such a vulnerable position, now, does he really expect people to feel sorry for him that he might have contracted HIV?

I don’t. In fact, if he has contracted HIV, he’s gotten what he deserves. He may be the first rapist in the history of the world who has. I wish he’d caught some sort of venereal disease that made he penis shrivel up and fall off because, for what he’s done, that is exactly what he deserves and owes his victim. I don’t feel sorry for you, Mr. Thomas, instead I bestow upon you a Throat Punch. Fuck you and your bullshit story about not remembering, may your HIV serve as a constant reminder that women are not here solely for your entertainment and use.

Third, the University of Vermont frat brothers who are looking via Craigs list for a MILF (a woman over 25. What?) to come clean and cook for them in exchange for free sex with the lot of them. Like a house mother but with, you know, “perks” because that is what every grown woman wants, right? The privilege of having sex with some fumbling, drunk college frat brother who doesn’t know his head from his asshole. EWWWW! Boys, that’s why women almost always date older men; sexual experience, mental maturity and stable finances. What grown woman wants an inexperienced, selfish lover who smells of Axe body spray and skunked beer?

We are a house of 10 men who all are seniors at UVM and are looking for an attractive older woman to come and cook for us every few days. In exchange she gets her pick of the men of the house to have.
Requirements aren’t lengthy; be a woman older than 25 who can cook and would like to enjoy some hot sex with a number of fit 20 somethings. Hopefully you can come by every week for a meal and some play time. Obviously we can work to accommodate your schedule. 😉
We are located in Burlington, are a fun and clean group of guys, and are all 21+.

These boys clearly have no respect for women, mommy issues and a warped sense of humor. Well, at least I hope this was an attempt at humor, a Craig’s list ad written under the influence of a night of binge drinking. Because if not, the University of Vermont campus has bigger problems and might need to hire some extra escorts and pass out rape whistles to all the incoming freshman and female janitorial staff because these boys don’t discriminate. I wonder of any of them are recent graduates of Steubenville?

Fourth, Facebook and porn! Oh dear Lord Facebook, what the hell were you thinking? Yesterday afternoon, I jumped on FB to check my account and what to my shock did I sit down to see staring me back but a screen full of a close up shot of some woman’s vagina being manually manipulated by herself. At first, I was so stunned and a vagina on my FB tread was so out of context that it really took me a moment to figure out just WTF I was looking at. Seriously. Then, I immediately saw that it was an photo attachment to a comment left on Arianna Huffington’s status. In my shocked state, I was fumbling to unfollow and hide the photo before one of my kids walked into my office and saw it. I am not ready for the masturbation conversation yet. The really crazy thing is that FB will snatch down a photo of a mom breastfeeding her baby in a second and deem it as inappropriate but the up close beaver shot fell through the cracks. Is FB just more of a beaver man than a boob man? I don’t know but I prefer my Facebook without the side of pornography. Thank you. So FB, you too get a throat punch.

There were more like itsparenting.com swiping content from bloggers and claiming it as their own, even being so ridiculous that they featured a post about themselves being plagiarist. Huh? Or how about Cherice Moralez, a victim of rape, being held responsible for provoking her rapist and in some way consenting when she was only 14 when it happened, the rapist was 49 and they both agreed it was not consensual. The judge ruled otherwise giving the rapist only 30 days in jail! Cherice Moralez committed suicide because we live in a misogynistic society who doesn’t protect it’s women from it’s men. This is a fact and a trend and I want better for my girls. I want them to be treated with the respect and reverence they deserve by men, by their government and most importantly by other women.

Who do you think deserves a throat punch this week?

Photo

2013/09/05 14 comments

Donald Trump, parenting, politics, racism, misogyny, bigotry, children, America, American values, xenophobia, America is great

News Parenting Throat Punch Thursday

How Donald Trump will Destroy America for our Children

by Deborah Cruz 2016/03/17

written by Deborah Cruz

I wanted to write a lighthearted Saint Patrick’s Day post today but Donald Trump has me terrified. It has nothing to do with being a Republican or a Democrat; it’s him, as a person. I am a Political Scientist by degree, I’m not sure many of you know that about me. Politics are my jam. I know all the ins and outs and I have my affiliations but I’m not asking you to vote the way I vote, I’m just asking that you consider all the facts.

I absolutely believe in the right to free speech and the right for every single person who is a citizen of this country to be able to vote for who they want to lead us, we are the people of “we the people”. It is our country. The President is an elected official. By staying silent and allowing a monster to be elected, because you don’t want to get called for jury duty, makes you part of the problem, not the solution and your (yes, you!) vote counts!

I’m not here to Trump bash, though if you know anything about me, you know I can’t stand his politics. But this is Throat Punch Thursday and I don’t think anyone deserves a bigger punch to the gullet, with a Chuck Norris round house kick more than Mr. Trump. If you support him, we’re probably not friends and aren’t reading this so I won’t worry about you unfriending me but on the off chance you are a Trump supporter, I would love to hear why you think he is the best candidate for you in the comments.

When I think of Trump the businessman, and I know many people think that the United States needs a business savvy person to run the country to fix the economy, I think of the top 1%. He is without a savvy businessman. He has more money than he knows what to do with and I think with that comes a God like feeling. When you don’t need people, I think you begin to lose touch with reality and that is a slippery slope to losing your humanity. It’s almost as if he can’t help it. He’s lived in this Trump bubble of his for so long that the situation the other 99% lives in (paycheck to paycheck) is not even fathomable anymore.

What scares me the most about the thought of Donald Trump winning the presidential election is that he thinks he is above all reproach. He will not be held accountable. He incites hatred and has made racism, misogyny, bigotry and xenophobia acceptable behavior by American people. In the short amount of time since he has began campaigning, people are crawling out from under their rocks and hurling hatred at one another in the most disgusting ways and it’s trickling down to our children.

Children hear and see everything. I discuss politics with my daughters. We have dinner together every night and we discuss our days and the news. I don’t believe in keeping my kids in bubbles. I think that kind of gullibility makes them vulnerable and susceptible to other people’s opinions so we discuss. I allow them to form their own opinions by presenting the facts. They know that they don’t have to agree with me but they do need to make informed choices in life.

I’ve worked really hard parenting my children to become good human beings. I don’t want Donald Trump to ruin our children’s futures with his agenda of hatred. Personally, I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of parenting and I want my kids to stay on the trajectory they are on as good, decent human beings who see other human beings.

What do you think of Donald Trump and his campaigning antics?

Donald Trump: A History of Violence“

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2016/03/17 2 comments

#YesAllWomen, marriage, misogyny, abuse, The Washington Post, women's issues

Marriage and Relationships Women's Issues

Does the Washington Post Hate Women? #YesAllWomen

by Deborah Cruz 2014/06/11

written by Deborah Cruz

Oh look, the Washington Post thinks that for women to protect themselves from being victims of violence and rape we should all get married or live with our biological fathers because hey, if we’d all just stop being such cock-teasing whores for one minute and stopped taking lovers and made honest women of ourselves, we’d never have to worry about feeling threatened and “uncomfortable” and all of this #YesAllWomen business could just go away. Coincidentally, once again placing blame on the women for being abused. I mean come on, if the b*tch wasn’t drunk and half-naked, the least she could have done was gotten married and stopped trying to be such an independent woman. That’s how she got herself abused and if she hasn’t gotten herself abused, the dumb broad probably got her kids abused because she decided to date again after leaving the crack-headed, wife beating, meth head she was married to.

It was written by two academics by the names of W. Bradford Wilcox and Robin Fretwell Wilson, whose names aren’t the only thing out of the 19th century: the article looks at a bunch of statistics in regard to violence against women and children, and concludes that “the data show that #yesallwomen would be safer hitched to their baby daddies.”

Basically, once again, the world (more precisely the Washington Post) has lumped us all into 2 categories; whores and virgins and there is no room for gray, only black and white. The bottom line is that the Washington Post has at least two misogynistic writers who blame all women for being treated like second class citizens. Hell, maybe there’s even a secret woman haters club at the Washington Post that meets once a week and is lobbying for the acceptance of drowning baby girls because really, what the hell’s the point? Because apparently, some people think that men can procreate without women and our pesky uteri. Apart from cooking and cleaning in all of our bare footed glory, women serve no real purpose in the world other than to look pretty and be quiet, right? News flash, women are people too.

Yes, misogyny is alive and well at the Washington Post.

Men are allowed to do as they will and women are supposed to suck it up and just accept their fate. I mean WHY would any woman think that she has the right to happiness after divorce or at all, for that matter? It doesn’t matter whether the man was an abusive jerk who beat her on the regular and had started molesting their children, she is his property and she needs to just accept that and be alone and in fear for the rest of her life. If not, it’s going to be her fault when something bad happens and it will because women are like magnets for bad shit to happen so prepare your daughters.

Eff it, happiness is overrated anyways plus I hear only men can truly experience happiness, it has something to do with the happiness receptors being located right under the tip of their penis or wait, maybe it has something to do with being an asshole. I can’t remember. What do you expect, I was just some kid whose mother stayed with her husband and I was raised by my biological father but we all still got to experience our fair share of abuse. I guess we were just lucky.

When I was about 8, I begged my mom to leave because even at that young age, I knew that it was wrong. I knew that there had to be something more out there than just accepting your situation. I KNEW that she deserved better. That we all deserved better. But none of us got it. We all got to suffer in silence. Do I think that my life is better because of her sacrifice? NO! Do I think she is happier because of her sacrifice? NO! Did it save her from abuse, pain and humiliation? NO! This is the oldest story in the book. This is fear-mongering and it is about time we stop letting fear keep us quiet. It’s time to get mad; downright pissed off and to stand up against the misogynistic world we live in It all starts with one person willing to say no; to be the change. I’m saying no for all the women who couldn’t or haven’t. NO!

Maybe life would have been better had my mom not been brainwashed into staying in her abusive marriage by a society that taught her that it was better to be miserable and have a husband, better to be abused and let your children get abused than to be alone. Thank God for a society who looks out so deeply for its women folk. No thanks, I’ll take my chances and try to decide for myself what’s best for me and my children. Unless you are living in the same dire situation that some women face every day by being abused and raped by their partners, you have no right to insist that she take it on the chin and just accept it.

Hey Washington Post until you’ve lived in the world with a vagina, why not stop skewing statistics to fit your agenda?

2014/06/11 2 comments

#yesAllWomen, Elliot Rodger, women's issues, misogyny, sexism, rape, shooting spree

Girl Mom Women's Issues

#YesAllWomen Matter

by Deborah Cruz 2014/05/26

written by Deborah Cruz

I had no idea that #YesAllWomen movement began this weekend. I spent the weekend with my family, celebrating my daughter’s 7^th birthday. Her birthday was Wednesday and we were busy every single day until her birthday party held on Saturday. 15 tiny, beautiful little girls surrounded me; little girls who still think they can do and be anything. They giggled and laughed and we played and had cake and I had no idea about what had just happened with Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old student at the University of California Santa Barbara.He went on a shooting spree and killed 6 people before killing himself.

In the weeks leading up to the killings, Rodger posted a series of angry, bathetic YouTube videos and a hundred-and-thirty-seven-page autobiographical “manifesto,” declaring his hatred of all women for the rejection and disdain he claims they dealt him throughout his life.

I had no idea that there were other mothers who were mourning the loss of their daughters for no other reason than a mad man who felt that women deserved to die because they had rejected him. Misogyny is running rampant and no one is stopping it. Not anyone in specific, just all women in general and even men just for having sex when he was having none. This was avoidable, had anyone cared to listen. If anyone ever cared enough to listen when people ask for help.

Director Peter Rodger and his wife Moroccan-born French actress Soumaya Akaaboune said through their lawyer that they contacted police several weeks ago after seeing a series of YouTube videos their son posted which made references to suicide and murder.

I blissfully unaware soaked in every moment of my time with those girls on that beautiful Saturday in May. Not until tonight, when the girls have all gone home and my littlest girl is snuggled in bed tight next to me did I see the story and watch the video and here I sit ugly crying. Not because I am scared for my girls, for all girls, but because I am mad. I am fucking pissed off. What gave him the right? Who’s protecting our daughters?

What a spoiled, disgusting animal Elliot Rodger was. He thought like so many other men that women are here solely for his pleasure and when they did not accommodate he decided that they must face a day of retribution and annihilation for no other sin than being born with a vagina. This spoiled child made himself, judge, jury and executioner.

The sad fact is that the world is full of men who feel indignantly wronged by women who dare refuse them. There are men that feel that women owe them everything from their time, to their love to their very life. There are men who feel like we owe them our hearts, our bodies and our respect but they don’t feel that they need to give those things in return. In some men’s eyes, women are no better than property; a piece of furniture, a toy or an old sock. We belong to them. We belong to the world that doesn’t respect us, value us or love us enough to fight for us and they have beaten us down for so long that we let them without so much as batting an eye.

We do not buck and strain and resist, we passively walk with our heads down, quickly out of harms way for fear that what lies between our legs makes us a willing participant in the victimization of our own flesh. We can’t walk alone in the dark or leave a drink to pee. We can’t smile at a man without him taking it as consent to have his way with us. This is nothing new. Most men believe it; women accept it and it sucks for all of us. I am a mother of daughters and I refuse to accept this fucked up status quo. This is my line in the sand. I say no more.

I do not want another little girl to go through life running from men for fear that they will be attacked. We cannot raise our girls to believe that what they wear or say or drink makes victimization their fault. We cannot accept fear as normal. We need to teach our girls to be strong; to fight back, to stand up and to value themselves for who they are, not what lies between their legs.

Sexism is nothing new; the ideas that perpetuate systematic marginalization, outright violence towards women, rape culture, and the demonization of women who dare to stand up for themselves has been around since the beginning of time. A strong woman is a threat. A strong woman is too much trouble. Women are here to be seen and not heard, to service men in every way; this is what some believe. Not me. I am a fucking human being and I am sick of everybody from the UPS guy to the local preacher to the old man on the golf course and every single stinking asshole who ever pushed up on me in a bar in between who thinks they have the right to use women and abuse women because we are here for their disposal.

He wanted to abolish sex, thereby equalizing men and ridding society of women’s manipulative and bestial natures, and to lock women in concentration camps so they would die out. (“I would have an enormous tower built just for myself, where I can oversee the entire concentration camp and gleefully watch them all die,” he wrote. “If I can’t have them, no one will, I imagine thinking to myself as I oversee this. Women represent everything that is unfair in this world, and in order to make this world a fair place, women must be eradicated.”) His idea was to imprison a few select women in a lab, where they would be artificially inseminated to propagate the species.

We have all endured catcalls and men openly touching themselves in front of us while licking their lips like we were steak. I’ve personally had strange men expose themselves to me in broad daylight, men I dated force my hand and my head to places I didn’t want to go, had male employers corner me in small solitude rooms and make unwanted advances. I’ve had drunken frat boys try to force me out of my clothes, put their hands up my skirt and drunkenly dry hump me in plain sight. No one helped. I’ve dated men who kept pushing past where I felt comfortable and didn’t care that I said stop. It breaks off little pieces of your self-esteem, it chisels away at your sense of safety and soon you feel as worthless as they make you believe that you are. When I’ve spoken up for myself, I’ve been called a cunt, a bitch, a tease and a dike because if I didn’t submit to their will then obviously it was because something was wrong with me.

I have held my breath and my tongue more times than I can count and I can’t anymore. What Elliot Rodger did was shocking but not surprising. I watched his video and physically became ill at the callousness with which he spoke of massacring women because he felt rejected and alone. He had no care for their lives, it was completely narcissistic and outrageously removed from humanity. He equated women with animals to be slaughtered and why wouldn’t he? Our own government has done so on several occasions.

Look at us. See us! We are people. We are not property. We are not animals. We are not inanimate objects put on this earth solely to bend to the will of man. We are more than sperm receptacles and objects of desire. We have thoughts, dreams, goals, wants and needs. It frightens me that this man did this with no remorse, no second thoughts. It was like a spoiled child who wanted a piece of candy and had been denied and decided that the entire population needed to be eradicated because he was mildly inconvenienced. Worse still, he is not the first who has done this and he will not be the last. This makes me sadder than any words could ever convey.

When you lie awake and think about the horrors this man wanted to inflict on women, please remember that #YesAllWomen matter.

2014/05/26 3 comments

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