lol, well we agree on the mechanism, just not whether the mechanism is something we find conducive to human freedom or morality (such as it is) to have almost caused someone's *death* via skinny jeans! lol I cannot even

If I didn't already know it's Maine, I'd say that sounds like paradise.

Comfort seems to vary. Respectful is exactly why I wear one out, thanks for articulating that for me. In separate news: yikes, man. Since when is the shape or confinement of my breasts a respect issue? It's not like underwear (panties); those I wear for comfort. It's absolutely a social marker of "I am compliant with expected norms, don't judge me or think I'm weird." But I don't wear makeup often, which in my area is socially abnormal. Those of you who don't wear bras (and don't have the kind of breasts where you can't really tell anyway): do you ever see other women your age who don't wear them? Is it just more socially neutral, or are you exceptionally resistant to social pressure?

Shockingly, cultural norms around what parts of women's bodies are considered sexualized and/or must be covered (or exposed, or accentuated) at what times are culturally dependant. Or, as RuPaul once said, "you're born naked; everything after that is drag"

Do you wear one at home? I rip mine off when I walk in and hang it on a coat hook to put back on on my way out the door 🤣

Gah I shave armpits and below the knees when someone might see (armpits all the time). I know I could stop, but it's sooooo ingrained that I really feel uncivilized and gross when I don't shave. It's amazing to me how firmly internalized this completely made-up requirement is, and it makes me wonder what ideas or beliefs I take completely for granted that are in fact just internalized cultural patriarchy. But like, I'd be more comfortable wearing a headscarf (which I've never done) than not shaving. I'd rather stop brushing my teeth. It's horrifying. Strangely, I love seeing other women who don't shave. I have high hopes that ours (millennials) are the last generation to be thus encumbered. But maybe I just know above-averagely-independent-minded Gen Zers.

It's why I wear one. I mean, it's internalized - like shaving. But it didn't come from me; I didn't come out of the womb wanting a bra; I don't wear a hair covering or other clothing that indicates control/concealment/enhancement (depending on context) of what men see as female sexuality in other cultures - only my own. But like, I will not leave the house without one. I really admire young especially queer women who refuse to participate.

80/100

You know, I get frustrated and snarky about it, but I also know that I go over and over the same issues, both in therapy and talking to my close friends - not Tex's issues, but my own. Sometimes progress is incremental, and it feels like you're rehashing the same thing over and over - although with this, it doesn't feel like it ever progresses at all - it just feels like being part of a recurrent sitcom that's out of new material. But I must be getting something out of getting drawn in again, so that's on me.

I wonder if you maybe just don't remember these from 5-7 years ago (different user name). Perhaps you were on the education boards more then. This is not a new pattern.

I'm also much less internal when I'm busy, or around other people being communal. When I'm alone at night, when the kids are asleep and the work is done, all my internal anxiety and grief bubbles up and I have to either accept it and deal with it honestly (hard) or escape it by reading fanfic online or watching TV or etc. (easier, but then my dreams are iffy and it just comes up earlier and stronger the next day)

And also, before I started acknowledging my own bs at all, I used to defend against the conscious evidence of my shadow (my aversion toward heterosexual partnerships) by taking, consciously, the opposite position: I said to others and to myself, I am a failure at marriage but marriage (esp. monogamous het marriage) is the ideal human state, people shouldn't have sex before marriage, gays shouldn't get married, etc. I was actually quite a bigot, externally. The first step was letting go of that defense (like your "I need to be more self-sacrificing, other people are better than I am" defense). The second step was starting to feel my real position, which is the opposite of that thing. The third step is figuring out where all that antipathy is coming from in the first place. It takes, in my experience, years.

Acknowledging your shadow is fun! It's painful, and horrifying, but also interesting! And your life becomes more interesting to you, because there's more of you in it. Hard to do by yourself, though. I'd look for a psychodynamically trained therapist at the bare minimum, and try to commit to a year before bolting in discomfort.

I would guess that your shadow also has a lot of resentment, maybe even hatred, for people who are beautiful or very intelligent or even just very happy. I, underneath, where I don't like to look, sometimes really resent happily married couples. It's such a strong resentment that when I experience it consciously, I think I'm not even sure men and women can be happily partnered without abuse. I don't like married couples and I think they're faking it, and if they're not faking it I think it will end miserably for them, and it should. When I catch myself thinking this way, having this aversion, I try to remember that it's my shadow; that under the intellectual justifications is a seething mass of hatred and pain; and by acknowledging that, the conscious position adjusts a lot; I can tolerate more nuance; I can accept that maybe other people are okay. When I ignore the shadow underneath, I only have access to the twisted stuff that comes out on top; when I acknowledge it and treat it with respect (not deference, but respect), the extreme emotional reactions lose their power, and I am more in control.

I sense a Lonesome Dove reference here and I like it

This reads as an inflated self-image (I'm meant to be special! It drives me crazy when other people are better at things than I am! My writing only matters if other people like it! Here are all of the great things I have in my life that I unfortunately don't like!) masked by an extreme version of what you perceive to be a more socially acceptable self-image (I'm not as good as other people; I owe other people care before myself; I don't love myself as much as I love others; you're right to judge me, I'm a terrible person). When people challenge you to acknowledge the ridiculousness of this dichotomy you get super defensive. What would it look like to just accept the inflated self-image without trying to defend against it or justify it? Not "I'm great because I accomplished x" or "I should be content to be y because after all I'm a failure," but instead "there's a part of me that thinks I'm an exceptional person and I want ALL the things and I want people to like me and approve of me all the time and I don't want anyone to be better than I am at things and I want to eat all the cookies in the universe and stay skinny anyway so people think I have self-control, etc.etc." Sometimes just acknowledging to yourself that you have this shadow part of your personality that might not look great, or seem acceptable, or feel good, can lessen it's power over you and reduce your distress about it. Denying it over and over, and getting people online to buy into your denial of it, just makes it stronger, sometimes. Accepting it might help. Just acknowledging it openly, without judgement either way, might help.

I think you could replace this with "reasons to wear a short dress" and get a similar list.

Yeah, I think this is generationally dependant. I can pretty much guarantee you that many Gen Z women would not see it as their responsibility to protect an ex-boyfriend's feelings by restricting what they wear. I also think they'd see the confrontation alluded to by more than one poster here as A. Unlikely if he's a decent guy and B. His job to avoid by not being an ass, not hers to prevent by wearing the correct things.

I think this is probably an issue where different generations may attach different meaning/implications to the act of wearing the necklace - so I'd let her handle it, or encourage her to ask people she trusts in her age group.

Or they might be testing whether asking about abortions in a veiled way (sleep plus abortions) yields more reporting of abortions than if they ask the questions separately - this would be good info for how to get better data about abortions in future surveys, given the political climate where women especially in some states may not be comfortable answering an abortion question directly

I assume that if they have a large enough budget and get enough data, they can extrapolate the average number of abortions in the last five years by subtracting the average sleep (for people asked only this question, or from other surveys maybe) from the average sleep+abortions from this survey - without having to record data specifically saying "I had x abortions"

I'm so sorry you're so ill, and I hope they are able to start treating you soon to improve your symptoms. Potential cancer is so scary. Lymphoma in particular is, even in pretty late stages or in a fast-growing form, comparatively treatable and survivable. Once they know what to do, even if the diagnosis is lymphoma, I have a lot of faith that they'll be able to treat it successfully. The odds are in your favor. You can make it through this. It must be so hard to be so completely exhausted right now. I hope that will get better quickly once they are able to begin targeted treatment.

I found the rape in Clan of the Cave Bear pretty traumatizing as a young teenager - but I barely noticed it in McCaffery, and I think it's actually more problematic in McCaffery, so take that for what it's worth

The sexism, especially in some classic sci-fi which is otherwise technically "clean," worries me a lot more than violence or especially sex. I always thought I read Anne McCaffrey too young (11ish? 10?) because I remembered it as sort of sexually explicit; when I tried to reread in adulthood to see just how explicit it has been - boy howdy was the sexism and weirdish rape-makes-gay thing the disturbing part. Don't even get me started on Heinlein. I'd let a kid watch game of thrones long before I'd give them a random "clean" Heinlein, even the juvenile novels.

When I first started homeschooling I was a little unschooly and I loved the idea of project-based learning. I found this blog, with a pretty decent following - I think called fun in my backyard (fimby). They lived in a cabin in Vermont or something; she made soap; the kids were really into art and stem, it was neat. I was pretty jealous of their life and their homeschool. I'm not religious; they were, but not in any obviously conservative way, and it didn't get in the way of my jealousy. Then one day I read a brief post she made on the blog, about how her kids always obeyed immediately, the first time, and with a smile - and about how she would absolutely never be willing to disclose how she'd gotten them to do that, because she knew it would create some controversy among her readers and she didn't want to argue about it. She was quite pleased, almost braggy, about the obedience, though. I had read enough here to know how she'd likely achieved this, and I was sickened. My jealousy immediately transformed into schadenfreude; I wanted her to fail, to be shown for a monster, etc. I checked every now and then for years hoping for this to happen, and when it did, I was gleeful. This was all many years ago, while I was in a severely abusive marriage myself, in which I allowed my own children to be abused by their father out of fear for my own safety. I just remembered her today, and the jealousy is gone, along with the schadenfreude. I just feel sorry for all of them, her included, and for me. Bring caught in a patriarchal cult of abuse is hard for women. We have to do better. But also, the men who perpetuate these systems have to be held to account.