I feel awkward when I run into people I went to high school with, individuals I haven't seen or spoken to in over two decades, who inevitably ask for either my phone number or to send them a Friend request on Facebook so we can "catch up sometime" and talk about the "good old days" and other classmates with whom they've kept in touch.

High school is not something I lived; it's something I survived, and just barely at that. I have no interest in looking back, and it's depressing to me to see that they not only do look back but enjoy it.

There. I said it.

I loved high school (I found out 30 years after the fact that I was one of the "popular kids") and I get together with friends from those days whenever I can. I understand it sucked for a lot of people, though, and I feel bad about that. If it makes you all feel better, though, junior high was hell on earth for me.

Cei-U!
I summon the double-edged nostalgia!

What has been said, specifically, that is moronic?

Since we'll be talking about Cerebus soon... heres my take on Dave Sim's supposedly unassailable list of 15 impossible things to believe before breakfast.

Fifteen Impossible Things To Believe Before Breakfast That Make You A Good Feminist:

1- A mother who works a full-time job and delegates to strangers the raising of her children eight hours a day, five days a week does just as good a job as a mother who hand-rears her children full time.

This is clearly a crude oversimplification unworthy of a man of Sim's intellect. It is quite easy to find working moms who are amazing mothers as well as stay-at-home moms who are just awful in their parenting (and vice-versa, as holding a job and being a good mother have sweet f#ck-all to do with each other). I am surprised that Sim doesn't make the same point about fathers: are working dads really shunning their paternal duties?

2- It makes great sense for the government to pay 10 to 15,000 dollars a year to fund a daycare space for a child so its mother - who pays perhaps 2,000 dollars in taxes - can be a contributing member of society.

I like this point because it is easy to test: is society better off with subsidized daycare? I originally thought not, and might have shared Sim's opinion... until I saw the numbers here in the province of Quebec. Following the implementation of universal daycare at $5 a day, women employment went up, tax revenues went up, and the program made more money than it cost. If Sim is truly as focused on facts as he says, he must acknowledge that.

3- A woman's doctor has more of a valid claim to participate in the decision to abort a fetus than does the father of that fetus.

That's the way things are right now, because a woman's health is indeed a matter to be settled by her with the help of her doctor. It may be hard to accept, but having two different genders mean that we can't have it all: women don't pee standing up and men do not get pregnant. If a man wants a baby, he will just have to be very nice to his partner and convince her that their having a child would be cool.

4- So long as a woman makes a decision after consulting with her doctor, she is incapable of making an unethical choice.

That's just wrong, and demonstrably so: how many pregnant women are lambasted for drinking, smoking, or engaging in any kind of activity that some say are harmful to the fetus? Plenty. Despite the sympathy elicited by the state of pregnancy, future mothers hardly get a free ride when it comes to ethical choices.

5- A car with two steering wheels, two gas pedals and two brakes drives more efficiently than a car with one steering wheel, one gas pedal and one brake which is why marriage should always be an equal partnership.

That's the problem with analogies: they work until they don't. A marriage definitely should be an equal partnership because it is the association of two free, independent and self-reliant adults. I suppose that Sim would argue, by the same logic, that in team tennis one player should have a more important role than the other.

6- It is absolutely necessary for women to be allowed to join or participate fully in any gathering place for men, just as it is absolutely necessary that there be women only environments from which men are excluded.

For the life of me I don't understand what Sim means by that one. Does he mean men's clubs, old style taverns (men only) or women-only gyms? There are still plenty of places where gender-based segregation occurs, in public restrooms and gym showers to start with. There are boys-only and girl-only schools, and some religions segregate men and women in their temples. Boy scouts and Girl guides don't attend the same weekly meeting, I think. Is there really something to discuss, here?

7- Because it involves taking jobs away from men and giving them to women, affirmative action makes for a fairer and more just society.

No, affirmative action makes for a fairer and more just society because it forces the issue of certain sectors of activity being exclusively controlled by certain groups that exclude others. Things are getting better in many societies, but there still is a glass ceiling for women when it comes to positions of power, just as there is one for people with skin darker than beige. To deny it is to bury one's head in the sand. Is affirmative action a good thing? In the long run yes, even if in the short run it looks like a necessary evil. Hey, bombing Germany was a rotten thing to do and it hurt a lot of innocents, but it finally got rid of the Nazis, which in the long run was a good outcome. (Do I lose because I mentioned Nazis?)

8- It is important to have lower physical standards for women firepersons and women policepersons so that, one day, half of all firepersons and policepersons will be women, thus more effectively protecting the safety of the public.

This is disingenuous. I just checked what the armed forces demand as far as physical prowess goes, and the tests are the same for men and women. I do not know if the standards were "lowered", but they certainly aren't anything a pushover could handle, irrespective of gender. I agree that tests should not be made so easy that a firewoman couldn't carry an unconscious person down a ladder, but I don't think that's the case. A 120-pound man couldn't either, and neither would pass the test.

9- Affirmative action at colleges and universities needs to be maintained now that more women than men are being enrolled, in order to keep from giving men an unfair advantage academically.

I work in a university and can guarantee that there is no such thing as gender-based affirmative action here. And with the level playing field we have now, there are more women than men in medical school... simply because they are better at school.

10- Having ensured that there is no environment for men where women don't belong (see no.6) it is important to have zero tolerance of any expression or action which any woman might regard as sexist to ensure greater freedom for everyone.

This is not typical of women, nor of feminists: our society as a whole has developed a very thin skin and many people claim to have the right to never be offended by anyone, over anything, at any time. An irritating problem, yes. Just not a feminism-associated one.

11- Only in a society which maintains a level of 95% of alimony and child support being paid by men to women can men and women be considered as equals.

I have a problem with the currently dated view on alimony myself, but the fact is that men still earn more, on average, than women. That the alimony amounts be skewed is to be expected.

12- An airline stewardess who earned $20,000 a year at the time that she married a baseball player earning $6 million a year is entitled, in the event of a divorce, to $3 million for each year of the marriage and probably more.

That is something I find insane, yes, and I find it even more ridiculous when the two are NOT married but a court still rules that the richer party has to pay a fortune to the poorer party. My solution? A mandatory and clear marriage contract, for everyone, detailing who gets what in the case of a separation.

13- A man's opinions on how to rear and/or raise a child are invalid because he is not the child's mother. However, his financial obligation is greater because no woman gets pregnant by herself.

Two points here. The first is untrue, as a father's role in raising a child, if anything, is getting more and more popular acceptance as time goes by. Regarding point two, I don't see how a father's financial obligation is "greater"... unless he earns more money than the mother. I would cut Sim some slack here when it comes to the financial obligations of a father to an unborn fetus. It does seem odd that a father has no say in whether the fetus is brought to term or not (when he does want it to be born and the mother does not), but still has to pay for it (when he does not want it to be born and the mother does). That point alone could be discussed for a good long while.

14- Disagreeing with any of these statements makes you anti-woman and/or a misogynist.

No, it makes you Dave Sim or a like-minded person. (And a little bit of a drama queen, apparently).

15- Legislature Seats must be allocated to women and women must be allowed to bypass the democratic winnowing process in order to guarantee female representation and, thereby, make democracy fairer.

"Because we're in 2015", said our new Prime Minister! I personally don't like most quota systems meant to redress every little wrong in history, and our political environment, while not having reached parity on its own, hardly prevents women from getting a cabinet position or becoming prime minister. However, it's true that by their testosterone-driven nature, males are more likely to seek positons of power; positions for which they do not necessarily have the necessary qualifications. That gives us a society mostly led by males, who can be dumb as posts even if they are bigger, yell louder and have more money. Perhaps getting a few more women in Parliament would be a good idea.


There! I said it.

Grown men wearing big baggy shorts look stupid and my opinion of someone drops instantly if I see them so attired.

There, I said it!

Cei-U!
At least kilts look dignified!

I didn't want to 'like' this post...but there's no option to click if you 'get' it.