"The best and the whitest" ~ Love, NASA

For the past nine months to a year, I've been avidly following space-related news and happenings around the world... a shared interest between myself and my husband. As a pair of Gen-Xers with two children who will end up being the ones inheriting the catastrophic results of climate-change our government continues to deny, how can we not be interested in the efforts to understand and learn how to navigate and possibly exist in space?

So from NASA to SpaceX to 3-D printed housing for Mars, I've "oohed" over the gorgeous photos of the Milky Way and our solar system, and snarked about Bezos' ultimate power trip. I love watching live broadcasts of spacewalks at ISS, and the educational efforts of NASA TV encouraging us all to "do science".

Late last month (July 2019), three astronauts -- from Russia, the United States and Italy -- were lifted into space and flown to the International Space Station to begin their stint on the ISS. They lifted off from at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. I spun through these photos of the formal send-off and launch of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft, and was struck -- really horrifically taken-aback, honestly -- by the sheer number of white men dominating the ceremonial or real positions of authority.

Image source: Spaceflightnow.com

Image source: Spaceflightnow.com

Where are the women? Where are the people of color? 
Wow, NASA. I mean, really.

I understand the send-off took place in Kazakhstan, right next door to Russia, and presumably Russians might dominate as attendees. Maybe this wasn't the right lift-off to scrutinize, and I'll definitely be paying attention to the photos of the next lift-off from the United States. But as NASA was sending astronaut Andrew Morgan up to the ISS, I have to assume they were duly represented. And I couldn't find a single person who even appears to be in a position of power in that whole string of photos that wasn't a white male.

NASA talks a good game about diversity here on their career page. I guess it's just positions of leadership that are so closely guarded by white men.

If you look at NASA's "No FEAR Act" filing for the overall agency, it becomes clear that, except for "reprisal" (33 filings for 2 18), filings related to "race" and "sex" are the highest reported categories (each at 27 filings for 2018). The next closest category of complaints filed were around "age" (18 for 2018).  And the year-over-year comparison shows the issue is only getting worse, which I'm inferring to mean the more women and people of color they bring in, the more painful the issues become with the "old guard". It looks like if you dare report an issue about race or sex, you can definitely expect a reprisal. Sweet.

It's looking like the agency that is supposed to rocket us into the 22nd century is still sitting back in the 20th century.

I will keep monitoring this issue, and will post updates if I learn my impressions were incorrect.

you gotta love male logic

Excerpt from The Cult of True Womanhood:  1820-60
by Barbara Welter

The Ladies' Wreath offered a fifty-dollar prize to the woman who submitted the most convincing essay on "How May An American Woman Best Show Her Patriotism." The winner was Miss Elizabeth Wetherell who provided herself with a husband in her answer. The wife in the essay of course asked her husband's opinion. He tried a few jokes first- "Call her eldest son George Washington," "Don't speak French, speak American"-but then got down to telling her in sober prize-winning truth what women could do for their country. Voting was no asset, since that would result only in "a vast increase of confusion and expense without in the smallest degree affecting the. result." Besides, continued this oracle, "looking down at their child," if "we were to go a step further and let the children vote, their first act would be to vote their mothers at home." There is no comment on this devastating male logic and he continues: "Most women would follow the lead of their fathers and husbands," and the few who would "fly off on a tangent from the circle of home influence would cancel each other out."

The wife responds dutifully: "I see all that. I never understood so well before." Encouraged by her quick womanly perception, the master of the house resolves the question-an American woman best shows her patriotism by staying at home, where she brings her influence to bear "upon the right side for the country's weal." That woman will instinctively choose the side of right he has no doubt. Besides her "natural refinement and closeness to God" she has the "blessed advantage of a quiet life" while man is exposed to conflict and evil. She stays home with "her Bible and a well-balanced mind" and raises her sons to be good Americans. The judges rejoiced in this conclusion and paid the prize money cheerfully, remarking "they deemed it cheap at the price."

Emphasis mine
Thanks, Lydia, for bringing this fascinating article to my attention.

Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2, Part 1 (Summer, 1966), pp. 151-174
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

teaching past "gender"

Son, on how he can have babies~ Age 7
"Okay, I'm half you and half dad. And when an adult male sexes with an adult female, then the baby's half me and half her."

Simple. Too simple.

Crafting the perfect pregnant woman
shell for her brother

I dreamed about how life would be between myself and my child when I was pregnant, but it was the first time I caught myself saying or doing the things I hated most as a child that I had to sit down and truly consider what sort of parent I wanted to be. No, what kind of child I wanted to raise, rather. Left in passive mode, I realized that I would simply become my mother, with a lot of my father mixed in for good measure. Was this what I wanted?

To understand what my children are thinking and feeling, as completely different people than I, I can only compare what they’re experiencing to my own childhood and try to analyze whether I think my own experience on such subject created positive, or negative, responses to this day in myself. But in this method there is a flaw, which is that in parenting reactively to my own upbringing–and trying to be the opposite on issues that I feel affected my own upbringing negatively–I still don't address what made me grow up inclined to be the "opposite" of what my parents wanted for me.

The quandary comes into play in trying to find the balance between raising a daughter who knows without a doubt her own worth–by reiterating this point in as many ways possible–and raising a daughter who then sets out to be as different from you as she can. What’s making the point, and then what’s belaboring the point? When I think back, I realize most of my unconscious social construction was taught by example, rather than words, while the conscious construction is always under construction, thank you very much.

Words are dismissible. Learned behavior is much, much harder to shed.

“Did I put too much love in that hug?” 
Son, after finally releasing me from a long hug that included hanging on me and sound-effects ~ Age 7

Johnny is dungeon master for the kids
and their cousins

I eventually had a daughter, and a son. And it took time for me, years actually, to be able to set off the idea that I was a bad human being for behaving as though my own needs were equally important as my family’s needs. But to raise a daughter who has no question of her own worth, I decided that I must be an example of it. As a woman who constantly struggles to believe in her own worth, this is the role of a lifetime. It began with trying to weed out my own destructive behaviors and self-hating thought processes, so that I wouldn’t unknowingly pass them on to her, or my son.

I despair sometimes, thinking about how partially effective I may be:  does that mean my daughter will only partially believe in her own worth, and should she succeed in instilling in her daughter a little more self-worth than she has, then can I expect to have a great-granddaughter or two who truly believe in their own inherent self-worth? I want to succeed in this so badly:  the thought of my own daughter struggling as I do infuriates me. Because I believe it would be a personal failure should I not be a true reflection of her awesome little self. When she looks in my eyes, I want her to see complete belief and acceptance, and I fear that with all the personal issues I struggle with, that what she sees reflected is instead my own doubt.

Example is damned hard to fake.

John, amused: “Get some pants or shorts on, boy.”  
Son: “Why?”  
John: “Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”  
Son, in complete seriousness: “I like my body.” ~ Age 6

Son rather impatiently suffering
to be dressed as a girl by
his sister. The topknot really
didn't impress him.

Raising a son is an equal quandary:  less example, and more words. My partner works closely with me to be his example, but I find that as his mother, for the most part, I am here to challenge him when he appears to accept without question all the world wants to lay at his feet.

All I can do is challenge his assumptions, and encourage him to actually think about what he’s saying, and attempt to justify it. Can he, or is he just aping something he’s seen? Between John and my needling that he not accept everything he hears blindly but that he must be able to identify justification, and John's atypical social example as a man who stays home with the children while I work outside the home, we hope to see him and his sister develop into people who thinks for themselves.

interviews are so scary

Two today, two on Tuesday of next week... two yet to be scheduled. Talk about serious red-tape, a heart-attack inducing series of red-tape for me. Not that I didn't go through 3 interviews when I joined the company in the first place, but now that I'm trying to move up and on within... Accountants take their red tape very, very seriously.

Blot lipstick. Again. Separate eyelashes... what was I thinking when I put all this mascara on this morning? Oh yeah, fun times.

WTF, I don't even wear lipstick! [Blots off] Grumble... 

[reapplies lipstick, tool of patriarchy that it is]

generational divide bites again

 Ms. blog, "Then + Now: TV Team Dramas"

At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old twit at age 23, I have to say: Ad campaigns for TV dramas that target teen girls seem incredibly raunchy these days. I grew up watching quirky, grungy 90’s protagonists like Angela from My So-Called Life (premiered 1994), Clarissa of Clarissa Explains it All (1991) and Spike from Degrassi High (1989)...

But now impressionable viewers are offered Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and Fly Girls (yuck!), whose female protagonists all sport empty stares and the same generic cocktail dress. I don’t want to end up with more pseudo-alternative shows like My Life as Liz, which was awarded Bitch’s Douchebag Decree, but I (and hopefully others) need another Angela: a non-conformist with interests, who can be dramatic and sexual without being petty and pornographic.

Thank you, Erica, I couldn't agree more. Angela rocked.

The insipidity is actually one of the main reasons we don't have cable in our house:  impressionable 15 year old girls might actually want their own vampire, and all he needs is an invitation through her window?  HA! 15 year old boys are bad enough for parents without the fangs.

lovers on the bridge (film critique)

A feminist critique of 'Lovers on the Bridge' with Juliette Binoche and Denis L----, by Martin Scorsese

This movie was a hard-core lesson in misogyny. The male lead character did all of the below: struck female lead twice, screamed at her in anger, conspired and went through a lot of trouble to keep her from getting a surgery that would save her eyesight, then lost his temper at her---when she didn’t jump into bed with him when he got out of jail---and grabbed her, throwing them both over the bridge into the water below, with obvious intent to kill them both.

Point 1. When he struck her, his first offense, she hit him back, fought him rather "girlishly" and ineffectually. He hit her again--in the very effective, "manly" way--knocking her on her ass. Then the next scene shows her tugging and pulling on him to try to get him to ‘open up to her’, and stop being so 'closed', and to ‘stop tormenting himself so’??!! Um, really?

Point 2. Next, he ran all over the city destroying the 'missing' posters of her, which told of the surgery that could save her eyesight. Better yet, he found the man who was putting up the posters and tracked him down, setting the car and all the posters inside on fire. The man came running back to save his car, and was shish-kabobed when the car did a little explodey thing; dead! All this to make sure the woman stayed with him on his bridge, and didn’t leave him or have that surgery she wanted so badly. In the end, she finds out anyway, and realized immediately she'd have to drug him to get away from him and find the people who wanted to help her. He’d never have let her go otherwise! Which she did.

Then, she forgives all this stuff and visits him in jail, where he’d gone for vehicular-exploding-manslaughter. Oh, she does love him, after all. He is angry with her at first; refusing to look at her, asking why she’d tried to forget him, why she hadn’t visited him---didn’t she know he’d waited for her? (Is that supposed to be romantic? Because it's not, it's scary!)

Point 3. So he gets out of jail, and they meet as they’d agreed on the bridge they’d lived on as homeless lovers. They have a good time, and in the end, she tries to go home, saying ‘some things take time.’ This enrages him, because he wants her to go to a hotel with him that he’s picked out, and he screams at her. She tells him not to yell, and that they need time; he wraps both arms around her and throws the both of them off the bridge! (Insane maniac!) They struggle underwater before freezing, staring at each other and apparently coming to some obscure deep-water understanding? (Or something.) Because they pop up on the surface and climb into a passing boat, where they decide to head to the Atlantic, grinning happily (nervously) at each other!

Was the lesson of this movie to clasp our abusers and oppressors to our bosoms? I was reeling. Was this for real? This is what we women are supposed to do with men like this? See past their problems, maybe, love them for who they are rather than what they do?

“Surely the fact that he was ugly and tormented and couldn’t sleep made up for the fact that he was evil and selfish?”

A resounding NO! I could just imagine the lead male character's reaction if/when the lead female decided she didn’t like her life threatened and wanted to end the relationship. He’d have killed her for sure. The man was a mad, selfish abuser.

our storm

Pictured is a piece I lettered for my mother-in-law, someone who I find to be amazingly inspirational and woman-centered.

She encouraged me to learn all I did of anti-hierarchy and respect for my fellow human beings. The peice is hung from a stick of driftwood I found on the beach by my house. It's a little blurry, but it reads:

Speak to me of your power. Speak to me in riddles, in a woman’s tongue. This day is coming into being and I need no translation. I can feel you breathing, sisters. The calm static before this long-awaited storm.

Our storm.

This is a stanza in a poem written for my mother-in-law by another woman, whom I only know as "allecto". If anything else is known about this person, I would be happy to give credit as due, here. It's a wonderful poem.

the house healthcare bill sells out women and poor

Why is a Democrat-majority house so happy there were rumored tears of joy when they passed a health care bill that infringed on women's existing rights and absolutely screwed the poor of this country by mandating the purchase of an expensive service? A service that, I imagine, they would probably have purchased before if they could actually afford it in the first place? For instance, my parents. This bill, should it pass the Senate, would completely screw them over, laughable subsidies included. Me? Above the poverty line, sure, but still paying a tenth of my income on health care for my family. It is unacceptable to pretend that you're talking about "Health Care Reform" when you're just demanding that people who can't afford health insurance as it stands now produce sizable penalties when they still can't afford health insurance!

Thanks for nothing.

The subsidiaries are a joke of an amount, when they're discussed at all. I've been googling and googling for a number that means anything, and all I can get are obscure references to obscure percentages or statements to the fact that they're holding that info close to their chest. Hm. Maybe because it's a tease to keep us compliant and hopeful that this "reform" will actually help the poor, but they know that when they actually publish clear statements of what these health care subsidiaries will mean to you and I, they will have a riot on their hands.

Perhaps the tears were relief stemmed from no longer having to deal with the absolutely obnoxious conduct of the Republican party as they tried to conduct their business.



However, relief that you no longer have to deal with heckling doesn't excuse the fact that you, and 64 other Democrats, actually passed this horrible bill through the House. Where were all the progressives from the Progressive Caucus who swore they wouldn't pass anything less than a robust public option?

Cuz, in case you didn't notice, it ain't there.

According to NOW:

The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
• Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

And as Joe Walsh succinctly states in his article at Red Green and Blue:

A New Enemy Within? Greens, Gay Rights, Pro-Choicers and Peaceniks

More than in 1994 though, Democrats in Congress might be facing backlash from both sides as 2010 advances. The climate bill’s “giveaways” alone would not have been enough to energize hardcore progressives to unseat sitting Democrats, but add in the escalation in Afghanistan; a lack of progress on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;” and, now the health care vote and its abortion amendment and Democratic leaders may have done just enough to instigate a mutiny that unites the four most active and important political power players within the party: greens, gay rights groups, anti-war advocates and pro-choice women’s interests.

In other words, it is not inconceivable that by splitting the baby (turning John Kerry’s famous phrase on its head, many Dems from deep blue states voted against the anti-abortion amendment before they voted for the bill), Democrats who were already vulnerable have made themselves beatable.

You said it. I'm ready to vote the Democrats out (including and especially Obama and Pelosi, prime sell-outs), and vote in someone who actually knows what the term "progressive" stands for.

the importance of being earnest

I voted yesterday to protect the rights of domestic partners in Washington State, among other things.

I vote to protect my rights and those around me whom those in power would do their best to disenfranchise, to keep the consolidation of power right where they want it. I wish every woman would do the same.



Look at the courage of this woman, alone in a sea of unfriendly looking men, demanding her right to vote.


I am in awe. I dream of the chance to see a similar courage from my fellow American women in the difficult times ahead: demanding equal health care coverage; equal pay for equal work; a re-visioning of the American work-week to address the new reality of over 50% of workers being women, and many, many of them mothers who still face unequal--and as-yet unpaid--demands of work at homes; reproductive freedom and all that entails; equal representation and thereby say in the American government; and last but not-at-all least, real and measurable help for our sisters around the world who experience a life with countless more hardships, terror and inequalities.

Have you seen Iron Jawed Angels, yet? This movie is the true story of Alice Paul, one of the leaders of the American women's suffrage movement that finally ended in my right to vote. After understanding the bare minimum of the pain that they endured to secure this right of mine, I can no more shrug it off or "not bother" than I could spit in their faces.

helping women succeed in the workplace

I had the opportunity yesterday at work to stand up and take a leadership role in the creation of a women's networking/mentoring group for the Seattle office. Though my company has many awards and recognition around Diversity efforts, these nationally driven efforts can apparently be neglected on a local level. The creation of this group has been something I've agitated for since I transferred from Los Angeles--where this network was stronger. I couldn't understand after my transfer why Seattle was lagging--we're tough chicks, sure, but that doesn't replace the affect of the good ol' boy network.

I am extremely excited to not only take a leadership role in which I would have some say in the direction the group takes--networking for mentors and educational panels vs. spa-days, pls thx--but also to see who around me was similarly inspired to take this on.

Opportunities, opportunities. :D

fox news is the stupid

They're laughing... but are they joking?



I don't think they are. Which means their opinion of their viewers... is also the stupid. The ways this story is just so wrong are countless. I won't even try. *gag*

it's about time

All we want is the following straight forward sentence added to the constitution.

"Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex."

Not such a big deal, right? Can you read it, and tell me why it's been such a hard fight? Really?

Rep. Maloney (D-NY), who reintroduced the Equal Rights Amendment together with Judy Biggert (R-IL), said in a press release on Tuesday:

“Women have made incredible progress in the past few decades. But laws can change, government regulations can be weakened, and judicial attitudes can shift. The only way for women to achieve permanent equality in the United States is to write it into the Constitution.”

Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal:

"Although women in the United States have made considerable gains in the last 40 years, we are now lagging behind the rest of the world in closing the gender gap. According to the World Economic Forum, the US ranks 31st of 128 countries overall, but 76th in educational attainment, 36th in health and survival, 69th in political empowerment, and 70th for wage equality for similar work. In the representation of women in our Congress, we rank 71st. Clearly, the US needs an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to help women overcome systemic sex discrimination in our nation."

Now that's just embarrassing.

Obama's Supreme Court nominee: Sonia Sotomayor

A Hispanic woman nominated to the Supreme Court? Finally! I'm happy to see that Obama's weak decision-making with regards to Afghanistan or Iraq doesn't extend to internal issues such as these.

Speaking of good decisions, I am also pleased to report that Obama has stated his intent to enable a two-state solution for Israeli/Palestine, a solution our previous presidents of the past 50 years or so have done less than lip service to.

"President Obama offers the best chance yet to set new terms. He has acknowledged the legitimacy of both sides more than have previous presidents. Despite Netanyahu’s bluster, Obama knows that Israel cannot afford an altered relationship with the U.S. If ever there was a time to exert our diplomatic muscle, it is now. The entire region depends upon this most delicate and difficult dance towards peace. If the Netanyahu government cannot be brought to a saner place and fast, Israel stands to find itself in a dangerous and self-inflicted isolation from which it will be difficult to emerge."

Read the entire article by Marji Mendelsohn here.

inspire leadership?

(Is it an oxymoron to follow that statement with a question mark?)

I've been thinking of women in the workplace today, and what I can do to support the women I work with--not to mention, how to encourage other women to support each other, as well. I've actually written it into my formal goals for the year to further networking and find means to inspire leadership in women in my workplace. I am committed, and a bit inspired myself. I have a few other women on board with me--it's a start.

I snapped this picture after getting off the bus yesterday. The ferry can be seen from our house; I am planning to hop on it for a 1-day pleasure cruise with my family sometime this summer--as soon as I find somewhere I want to go. >.<

You can't see it well, but it was all misty out around the base of the islands and the other side of the Sound out there. It was mesmerizing.

Because you made me

Husband: “Jude, why are you a boy?”
Jude (son, 6 years old): “Because I’m a kid and my name is Jude.”
Husband: “Mae, why are you a girl?”
Mae (7 years old): “I don’t know!”
Me: “What makes you a girl?”
Mae: “Because you want me to?!”
Me: “What makes you a boy, Jude?”
Jude: “Because you made me!” ~ early 2002

Even at such a young age, my son communicates in emphatic statements and my daughter in questions, and appeals for approval. Without a doubt, their personalities play a part in this. But even while the little snippet above illustrates their ignorance about sex and gender, it also showcases its effect on them at such a young age.