Jami, a Feminist? Part 1 - What's in a Name?

You know how sometimes a certain topic seems to become a theme in your life? Feminism is one of those things that seems to pop up with some regularity and often in unexpected places. It's a term that I think has gotten so over-used and twisted that I really started to hate it. So let me just take a quick moment to explain my personal POV on this: Feminism, in its original form, was about bring women to equal status with men in regards to rights and employment. And I am totally down with that. Everything over, above and beyond that is often doing our gender more harm than good, in my personal and not-at-all-humble opinion. Believe me, I've put thought into this. So let's start with . . . Maiden Names/Married Names and the whole Miss-Mrs.-Ms thing. First, allow me to clarify that what you do with your name is your business and I personally don't give a toot in a windstorm. Call yourself The High Holiness Hoopmadingle if it tickles you. Go with an unpronounceable symbol, Artist Once Again Known As Prince. Have one name, Cher or four (like me!). Don't care. I like my maiden name. It's pronounceable, spellable, middle of the alphabet (so I never had to be first or last when we went that way in school - the design of my W-maiden-named mom). In my high school/college years, I pondered the implications of changing it when I married. How could I leave "me" behind to be someone else? I like me. I think family is important - how will others know I am so-and-so's daughter or sister if my last name is different? I am a (blank) and always will be. Oh sure, I doodled my potential married name in notebooks when I had a crush "Mrs. Jami Lynn Boy-of-the-Week" but that's not really serious. At a friend's wedding, I overheard another guest loudly declaring how "proud" she was that the bride planned to keep her maiden name. She talked about what a shame it is that "so many women today who you think 'get it' just give up their identities when they get married". I didn't chime in, though by that point I was married and had indeed chosen to take the Husband's last name. Lose my identity? Am I no longer me because the last part of my name has changed? If your sense of who you are rests on your surname, how sure of yourself are you? She went on about how women just changed their names out of a "knee-jerk reaction to our society's expectations". The more I listened to her, the more I assumed she didn't change her name out of pure knee-jerk not-really-feminism. Where was her thought behind it? She offered no reasoning behind her ideas, just that it was bad. It makes sense to me for women who are well known in their profession to keep their maiden names in the business world. I worked with a woman who was Ms X at the office and Mrs. Y in her personal life. Worked fine for her and her husband. But, as I thought about it, talked to others about it and looked ahead into the I hoped to have, the decision to add my Husband's last name to the end of my own seemed easy and obvious. Here's why: 1. I'm not just marrying a man, I'm marrying into a family. You don't just get the guy, you get his parents and siblings and cousins and whatever. Now, this goes the other way, too, but it's a privilege to me to be identified as a member of his family. I'd think twice if I hated his folks so much I couldn't stand to be called by their name. 2. We are starting a new family. I want us to be identified as a family. I didn't want my kids to have different last names from at least one of their parents. I don't want to go to their schools and clubs and events and repeatedly explain, yes, I am the mom and my husband is their dad, but we have different names. I want to be able to sign cards "Love, the X's" not "Love, Mr. X, Ms Y, and little X-Y". I'm not opposed to married couples picking a new name together. Or the man taking the woman's surname if they both are down with that. I just think a family should have a name, not several names. 3. What you call me doesn't change the person I am. Even if my last name became Hitler-Mao-Stalin-Hussein, I'm still me. If I am willing to stand up before God, family and friends and declare that this is the man I commit to spending my life with, how unimportant is the little matter of a name? I proudly wear the banner of the decision I made. My main thing is that it should be a decision you make both rationally and together. If you are both on totally different pages about the name thing, is it a one-issue-wonder or do you have divergent goals and ideas of what the marriage will be? Better figure that out. And, as for the Mrs./Miss/Ms - Here's the deal ladies - is it sexist that our designation indicates married or not while the nice generic "Mister" doesn't? Probably. Get over it. If you wear a wedding ring, people can figure it out. "Oh, you're 'Ms Smith'? How will I ever determine if you're married or not??" Isn't that one of those things you tend to find out about someone fairly early on? If it's a secret that you're married, you probably shouldn't be. If you're not married - good for you, you're probably discriminating. So suck it up and be what you are.

Jami Holds Back No More

I am guessing this post might ruffle some feathers, but I guess maybe it's time I did. Because I am a person of strongly held convictions, a moral, compassionate, intelligent woman, mother, wife and professional, who doesn't take what anyone just hands out as truth, but looks into important matters more deeply, looks for confirmation and asks, "Which of these stories makes sense?" And maybe the hormones are rampaging today, but I've reached the breaking point of trying to hold in my opinion so as not to offend anyone or start battles or whatnot. I usually keep politics and the like out of my blog because I want it to be a fun and interesting read, and often there is nothing more boring than someone else's political take. But today, I'm going in . .. I respect your beliefs and your right to hold them and I wish you'd start doing the same. Yes, I'm a conservative, but if you think I'm heartless or greedy or mean, than you are more of a bigot than you accuse me of being because I'm not any of those things and neither are most of the conservatives I know. I don't jump to conclusions if you say you're a liberal, because I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you looked into the issue, too and just have a different take. Capitalism isn't evil. It's fair. If you don't like something, don't buy it. If you earn something, you get to have it. If you don't like the way a company operates, you can ask yourself, "is my belief worth the money or inconvenience of going somewhere else or doing without?" Yes, there should be very basic controls on companies, but you know what caused all the crap going on now? Government sticking too many fingers in the pie and then crying "Look! Free markets don't work." It's bull. I am against abortion, because I am FOR women and for choice. You have the choice to not have sex if you don't want a kid. You have the choice to use birth control, if you do have sex. You have the choice to parent or place your child with a loving family. Half of those children being aborted are future women, so I don't think we should kill them. Or the future men for that point. Don't give me the "rape/incest" thing because the last thing I read was something like less than 1% of abortions performed in the US were in the case of rape or incest. You don't know when life begins? Neither do I, so why err on the side of murder? Killing unborn children cheapens all life. If I can abort at 12 weeks, why not 20 weeks? If I can have a partial-birth abortion, ending the life when the baby is partially out, why not 10 minutes after he's born? Why not a day later? A life is unspeakably precious, to terminate it for convenience should be appalling to us all. I am for more freedom for everyone, and that means the freedom to fail, the freedom to be a big jerk if you want, the freedom to live where you want and spend your money how you want. I am against illegal immigration, and pardons for illegal aliens. I'm 100% for immigration. I have friends from all over the world, some who have become citizens, and I wish it had been easier for them. But that doesn't mean that just because you managed to beat the system to get or stay here you get a pass, because it's hard to do it the right way. It's hard for me to earn more money, so I should be allowed to steal from my neighbors? There is a reason for immigration law and believe me, I know firsthand how long and tedious the process can be. I was finger-printed three separate times by three agencies to get my son into the country, but that doesn't mean that I think everyone else should bypass it. I'm sure that many of the illegal aliens are very nice people. But they are still breaking the law and they chose to do so. I have lots more things I'm for and against, and I'm not going to bore you with the entire list. But before you write me off as an evil conservative b*tch, have you *really* considered the other side? Look at statistics, think about it, talk to someone who thinks differently than you and honestly consider their points instead of thinking what you're going to say next. Remember that there is NO SUCH THING as an unbiased report - this is one of the first lessons we learned in broadcasting and no matter what you think, it's the truth. And most of all - if you're still reading, thanks, and if after you've thought and prayed, considered and learned, discussed and debated, you still don't agree with me, I still like you. I still respect you. I hope you'll do the same.

Jami Takes Over the DMV

Okay, not really, but I have some ideas. Mostly, it's because there are too many people on the road and far too many of them are apparently unfit to drive, complete morons, or just jerks. We all have our bad driver moments, I know. We've all made an illegal turn, accidentally or on purpose - it happens. There is no one among us who can claim they never have been distracted while driving or drove when we were a little too tired, a little too mad or even just a smidge intoxicated. (I've done one and two, never three). But seriously, there are limits and I should be allowed to disable your car and take your license when I see one happening. Last week I saw a woman driving with a can of soda and a cigarette in one hand (which rested halfway out the window) while applying mascara and driving with the other hand. The Husband saw someone driving around the hairpin turn by our house while shaving. A former coworker informed me that she used to prop a book up on the steering wheel and read while on the highway, because highway driving is so boring. My house is not hard to find. Seriously, it's fairly easy. And yet, of the 7 or 8 times I've had FreeCycle items that someone is picking up, the person has either called me and said they drove around the area for an hour and couldn't find it, gave up and went home. Or they call me from their cell and say something like 'I know you said to take the immediate left on Poplar, but I must have missed it because I drove straight for 15 minutes and now I don't know where I am'. If it was an 'immediate' left, maybe you should have stopped after, I don't know, the first 10 streets you passed? I've messed up directions in my life, but usually I do something like retrace my route. Or, if I'm driving around for an HOUR in a fairly small locale, I look for someone who looks like they know the area and say "Is this Name-of-street? Do you know how I get there?" If you can't figure out how to get to my house, maybe it's not safe to be on the road. Just saying. A few weeks ago, I saw the slowest low-speed collision ever. Two elderly drivers pulling out of parking spots in Wal-Mart's parking lot backed into each other so slowly that even though I was standing next to them when they hit, I didn't hear a thing. That's right. I didn't even know they'd bumped into each other until both men got out of their cars and walked around to look at their bumpers (no damage of course, you probably could have put an egg between the cars and not broken it). This was the most avoidable accident ever, caused by two old guys who weren't looking, even though they were going less than 1 mph. A local news station reported that in PA there are nine licensed drivers over the age of 100. Yeah, read that again. Look, I am all for active seniors, I just don't want them running me over, even at low speeds. So, in the interest of not getting crushed by an idiot driving 3-tons of Escalade while downloading music to his phone and eating lunch, I say: I should be in charge.

Clear and Present Danger

Usually, in my blog, I do attempt some humor or lightness. The more serious ones tend to me about me, or the occasional rants. But, folks, I am serious - dead serious - today. There is no doubt that we are fast approaching a nexus in our history, a point where if we teeter over, we face a grave and possibly permanent threat to our freedoms. Listen up, my friends, for sadly, this is no joke. The First Amendment to the US Constitution (quoted below) precludes our government from policing our thoughts and speech. While there may not be laws being passed per se threatening this all-important right, there is a definite trend in the US against this basic right. Hear me clearly when I say, if we lose the right to say what we think, to share our opinions, however bizarre, ugly or insane, none of our other liberties will matter. You cannot lose your ability to speak your mind without losing the ownership of your thoughts and that is what is happening. "Political Correctness", an idea which started off as a way of ensuring polite speech, has run rampant - even to the point where newscasters during the recent crisis between Iran and the UK refrained from using the word "hostage" because using that word in conjunction with Iran is politically incorrect, EVEN THOUGH THAT'S WHAT THEY WERE. Instead, they were "detained". British soldiers, who were in Iraqi waters (that has been proven, NOT in Iran, got it?) are captured and held against their will by a country they are NOT currently at war with. That is a hostage. Not using the word hostage implies agreement with the Iranian government and makes us complicit in their actions. This is where political correctness is leading us. In England, they will no longer be teaching the Holocaust or Crusades. Because it might make people feel bad. Don't believe me? See the story here. Let's not teach history if it hurts feelings. Scientists trying to show that global warming is not caused by humans and/or is not the hideous danger we keep hearing that is, anyone who says for any reason that homosexuals shouldn't marry, Christians, they are all being systematically shut down, shouted down and called Nazis, hate-mongers, evil, bigots. Love her or hate her, Dr. Laura got absolutely creamed a few years ago for saying that homosexuality is not the biological norm. That's all she said, I personally heard the episode that aired when she said that, and it's true. Put your emotions aside and think about the statement. But she got lambasted up and down the news channels, Internet etc. If you think I'm making this up, try stating one of these opinions in a group go here for more examples. Look at politicians who have said any of these things. Whether you agree with them or not is not the point. If you allow ANY viewpoint to be shut down because someone doesn't like it, what is to stop someone from shutting down yours? We need to protect our right to say and think and believe what we want, and we need to start now. Honestly, I can't recommend a single course of action. I don't know who to tell you to write to, but at the very least be aware. Don't let the fear of being called hateful override your good sense. Please, please, don't look the other way while your rights are being stolen. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.