one of those days vs. just who the hell am I anyway?

Class today was badly controlled chaos at best. None of these things were classroom management issues--it should be OBVIOUS to one instructor that walking into another instructor's class during lecture to let another student use a computer isn't cool. It should be OBVIOUS to a student that if you get your wisdom tooth removed you probably shouldn't come to class right afterward. Duh.
And yet, neither is apparently obvious enough.

That said, one of my posts from weeks ago is getting attention from a masculinist site. What began as a post essentially directed at a friend who was espousing the crud that was in the quotes I pulled turned into a "shut up the evil radical feminist!" game.

Here's the thing: I'm a BAD feminist. Bad feminist, no cookie--and no, I'm not kidding. By the most common definition of feminism held by the commonest of people who haven't, you know, studied it or anything, I'm NOT a feminist. My freaking fiance doesn't seem to think I am even.

But if I call myself a feminist online, *naturally* I must hate men, blame them for all my problems (to which I ask, what problems? No... really... stuff's pretty good...), have a short haircut, be fat and ugly, AND be a lesbian. No make-up, no girly shoes (did you not see my name on here? It's not sarcasm...), no nice clothes.

I'm engaged, I like shoes (particularly nice designer ones that don't make my feet hurt), I shop on Bluefly.com....

But, at the same time, I think that many things about the way women are treated, in general, are pretty fucked up, and I'd like to change them--thus, I'm a feminist.

There are many different kinds of feminists. Some of these dudes who were alternately telling me how ugly and fat I must be and how much they hated me even say slightly feminist things in other posts on their own site. But to them feminist is a dirty word--so no, that couldn't be possible, could it? (Of course, there's just as many guys saying things like "Women don't really have much choice [except to have sex with] an experienced player" as well...

There are radical feminists, who think women need to stop wearing girly clothes, girly shoes, and make up. There are feminists that think women should be able to choose whatever sort of life they want, and call that feminism. There are feminists who just think that equality in relationships is important. There are feminists who just want to keep it okay for women to work and not have kids in spite of increasing pressure to stop work and have babies.

They don't all think the same things, and they don't all react in the same ways.

Furthermore, men and women can *both* be the enemy. The first time anybody threatened to rape me it was a girl my own age. I could either cut my hair and join her stupid clique at school (who swore they weren't a gang) or she and her group would threaten rape. That's some pretty fucked up stuff right there--and it wasn't a guy. I don't see this girl, or the woman she grew into, being any sort of friend to woman-kind at all in general.

But men, too, can be either friend or foe. It's harder to determine who is who though, with men. Plenty of guys lie about who they really are in order to get laid, or in order to have some sort of power over women. They HATE it when women do it back (women are evil "hors!") and yet, in my experience, lie just as often to gain power over somebody. (Example: the fellow who targeted me for "dating" purely because somebody with a similiar degree had once really pissed him off, that didn't have anything to do with anything but power.)

But apart from relationships, there are still many other screwed up things going on in America today surrounding gender. I'd like to think it'd entirely change when the "old boys" club finally becomes the "ancient boys" and kicks off--but their ideals are unlikely to die. Maybe, even if their ideals don't die some of their absolute gall will (telling somebody they shouldn't take a class because it's too hard for young girl, asking a girl to describe her bedroom during a phone interview, researching a women you are about to hire online to make sure she's not fat...).

In the meantime, the boys will no doubt continue to scream at this "bad feminist," but I don't see why *I* should have to shut up if they've no intention of doing so. My only concern, of course, is that saying anything at all just hurts the cause in the end.

Dear Head, Meet Keyboard

I'm working on my plan of work. I really just need to know that the event hinted at above and my QE's aren't going to happen at the same time. I added everything up and I'm 2.5 credits short.
WTF? WTF PEOPLE? I'm using your brand spanking new system to figure out QE date and I'm 2.5 credits short. I took the maximum number of diss. credits and the max number of transfer credits and it's 2.5 short. SHORT! Argh! Okay, so if this is right, then I've got one more term of coursework or pre-diss research. Or, there's just something hinky in the system that they never added up (we need 90 credits to graduate) and that's not working.
GRAR!
Or you know I hit plus one less time than I was supposed to. It's possible. But probably not.