Dream

I often find myself at the new moon dreaming of dead people I've known in life. They're usually fairly realistic and pleasant dreams. No harps or wings or devils or anything like that. Just something fairly normal and a nice lighthearted conversation. I suppose my subconscious mind wants to think of the people we've lost in good situations and happy, it's a nice way to reassure myself that death isn't going to be so bad. Or at least that is my theory of why I dream about the departed fairly reliably at the same time each month.

So, I dreamed about Flavio last night. We had driven to New Orleans in two cars because we were travelling with some of the Steampunk Cruise folks and wouldn't all fit into one car. We had decided to have dinner at Galatoire's, so we got all dressed up at our hotel and then went to the restaurant. There was some hassley bits about paying the parking meters but we got there and were shown to our table. The waitress asked what we wanted for appetizers and Flavio said "we haven't even had a chance to sit down and look at the menu yet," and the waitress told us we had to hurry it along because we only had 5 minutes to eat our food because they were so busy. We started to look at the menu. The lowest priced item on the menu was a hot dog for $97. It had some kind of fancy name like "Rene Du Boeuf" but the description was basically a hot dog with some kind of French sauce on it. We decided 'eff this' and left the restaurant. I apparently knew of some spot in the Quarter with kind of an open air food court where everything was really good and not as expensive. I was warning everyone that all the places might not be open right now since it was a weeknight but apparently that was OK with people. Flavio was telling all of his old stories to Jess and John and I was smiling because they hadn't heard them before and Flavio had found a new friend-couple to hang out with. LOL. It was a nice dream, good to see Flavio again.

Quora: Is it an indication of the level of misogyny in America that most of the public believes John

Is it an indication of the level of misogyny in America that most of the public believes Johnny Depp’s side of the story over Amber’s or does she just come off as a nastier, less credible person?

 


The United States is definitely a misogynistic place; one has only to examine the tenets of the main religions practiced here (Christianity, Judaism, Islam), the beliefs and practices of organizations such as Proud Boys, One Percenters, Oathkeepers, MRA, the KKK, Incels, etc. and the higher eschelons of power in corporate and political life to see that women tend to be discounted, dismissed, reviled, and held in low esteem in general by society.

However, as AH herself said “One does not inform the other,”

The fact that our society is generally misogynistic and awful does not excuse or dismiss the existence of female abusers. It certainly does not exonerate female abusers such as AH.

The fact that so many misogynists have decided to hang their hats on the AH/JD situation does not make misogynists correct or good. It certainly does not ‘disprove’ the ‘me too’ movement or mean that ‘me too’ should stop happening. Men are still abusing women. Men in power are still misusing their positions to take advantage of women and silence them when they try to speak out.

However, Female-on-male domestic violence DOES exist. Women can be abusive, and their abuse can be as bad or worse than male abuse —because women can inflict as much physical damage as men can, because women are often more emotionally intelligent so that their verbal and emotional abuse cuts deeper and lasts longer than a mere physical bruise, and because the systems in place in society are not adapted to handle the reality of female abusers, so that their victims are often not believed and the damage done is minimized or dismissed.

AH is a nasty, less credible person. She is a proven liar. That does not make misogyny the correct response to her behavior. It should also not discredit the efforts of feminists to bring about equality for all., or tar all feminists with the same brush.  

 I hope that we, as a species, can move towards treating each situation with the care and consideration it deserves rather than lumping one abusive woman in with ‘all women,’ as an excuse to hate and mistreat all women or conflating one abusive man in with ‘all men’ and using that as an excuse to mistreat and hate all men.

=====================

 Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com. 

They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal 

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.