Women’s breasts and the breasts’ role in child rearing has become a subject of serious political debate. Oh, yes, reality is indeed stranger than fiction. The controversy began when the IRS announced that “the purchase of breast-feeding equipment would be considered a medical expense” and therefore be tax deductible and could “be reimbursed under flexible spending plans.”

First Lady Michelle Obama, a breastfeeder, spoke up about encouraging mothers to breastfeed in order to reduce childhood obesity and to provide health benefits.  Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, also a breastfeeder, who has more children than First Lady Obama spoke against this. According to Rep Bachmann, the reimbursements and the tax deductions (not to mention First Lady Obama’s concern with what women choose to do with their breasts) could lead to the creation of a nannystate.

This has resulted in many women talking about the practical functions of their breasts and how the bureaucracy should regard them. Diane Rogers is an economist expert and a mom who had chosen to breastfeed her four children. She is also against tax-deducting breast pumps as a medical expense:

But a breast pump is not a health-related expense, as it’s not necessary in order to treat a medical condition or ailment. It’s a work-related expense that happens to promote or be consistent with a healthy activity. For the vast majority of women without severe obstacles to breast feeding the natural way (direct from the source!), breast pumps are not necessary in order to breast feed one’s baby unless and until mom goes back to the office and can’t have baby with her.

Breastfeeding is highly subject to social and cultural norms. To me, social conservatives seem more willing to breastfeed than are social liberals. Michelle Malkin has also breastfed her children, yet as with other conservatives, she is also against the tax deductions because it will discriminate against mothers who chose not to or who cannot breastfeed:

… Bending the IRS code to confer preferential tax treatment on breast-pumping working mothers over stay-at-home nursing moms who don’t use pumps and other moms who for whatever reason have freely opted not to breast-feed their babies.

The preferential tax treatment will also discriminate against two homosexual men who adopt a newborn and against a heterosexual father whose wife tragically died during childbirth. Unless biology has radically changed this past month, men cannot lactate. Will their children be doomed to obesity?

Reality is that breastfeeding throughout history has been subject to social and cultural norms. In hunter-gatherer societies, mothers tend to breastfeed 2 -3 years; this saves on meat and plant resources because the nursing children do not need to eat those. Furthermore, women are less likely to become pregnant again while breastfeeding. In industrialized cultures, women are more likely to bottle-feed so that they can return to work – all a part of equality in the workplace. Throughout Europe’s medieval era, the royal and noble families used wet nurses. High-status women refused to breastfeed their own children because they considered it animalistic, lower class, and beneath their dignified status.

Mothers are hassled for bottle-feeding by someone with different cultural beliefs and/or are hassled for breastfeeding longer than the cultural norm. The decision to breastfeed is up to the mother. Breastfeeding provides no more nutritional supplementation than does vitamins. Unless a person’s actions threaten others, the government and our legal system could keep silent about what people decide to do. Breastfeeding is irrelevant to the health of the child. A research director with a Ph.D, Rebecca Goldin stated that repeated research about the health benefits of milk vs formula has been inconclusive:

The result is that we cannot discover whether breastfeeding is correlated with obesity because infant formula or bottle feeding leads to subsequent overeating or disposition to being overweight, or whether those parents who breastfeed are also more likely to offer their children green beans instead of French fries. Despite weak evidence, there is a lingering conviction that formula causes obesity among pediatricians and the press; if anything, the study about infants should make us reflect more carefully on this conclusion.

… The simple observation [is] that overweight kids are fed a variety of foods that are known to increase weight raises what should be an obvious question: are people who use infant formula more likely to eat at McDonald’s? If so, one cannot say that formula is the culprit for obesity rather than McDonald’s.

The moral of the article is that the government and the IRS should not give preferential or discriminatory treatment over whether or not women choose to breastfeed. Furthermore, all these additional deductions accomplish is a bigger headache for women when they fill out tax forms. A conversation I had listened brought up comments such as “Adding more and more things to be able to itemize for deductions doesn’t really help anybody, except those who want to sell us tax software or accountants,” and “this is just a ploy to make women feel good because they are doing this “patchy” things, and the overall effect is to continue with a system more cumbersome that in the end has more benefits for those who can make deductions.”

There is a common misconception about history – a belief that history is all about facts and dates. Those are important in learning history, but history is much more than facts and dates. History is the analysis of humanity. History is understanding the cultures, behaviors, and motivations of the people involved.

To be more precise, history is the interpretation of the facts. Wrong answers do exist. Hellenic Greek influence is not why Hitler persecuted the Jews. However, because history is all interpretation, there is no single right answer. There can be multiple correct answers.

Take Catherine the Great for instance. From a feminist perspective, she is an awesome female monarch. From a Russian perspective, she is an awesome reformer. From an equally valid Polish perspective, she is a horrible tyrant. And there is some controversy over whether or not she is more liberator or oppressor. Two people can read the same Catherine document and reach two very different yet completely correct interpretations.

And the same applies to Black History. Two people cherish racial equality and civil rights. One person loves Martin Luther King, Jr for his speeches, for his writings, and for being the leader of a big movement. The second person hates him for obscuring the spotlight from all the ground workers; second person thinks he did not sacrifice enough. Both viewpoints are correct.

History is complicated and messy.Perhaps that explains partly the variety of viewpoints. For everyone who wants tolearn more about the ground workers of the Civil Rights movement, we have Anne Moody’s autobiography. Anne Moody never achieved anything spectacular, but she was a participant in the ground force of the Civil Rights movement. Her autobiography provides us with an intimate knowledge of the field and with a perspective I had never seen before.

She risked her life on multiple occasions and even faced jail time due to her participation. She and other students who once had promising academic careers risked flunking college because they could not dedicate all their energy to both their individual futures and to the NAACP. Her family ostracized her and shunned her because they did not want to risk their own lives, so Anne Moody had no emotional help or support whatsoever. She almost lost her sanity as a result of all the strain. And she speaks for all the ground workers. Sometimes, we do have to question who made the bigger sacrifices.

Anne Moody is brutally honest about everything, and she refuses to hold back, even about herself. Her autobiography is significant from both a racial and gender perspective. During her high school years, a white police officer was caught having an affair with a black teenage girl. Both were embarrassed and humiliated, but for the most part, their lives continued as usual. Now, society discovered a black man and a white woman being lovers. The townspeople tried to burn alive the black man, but they also tried to torch the white woman as well.

History is not merely about facts or dates or even snippets of information. History is all-encompassing and can provide us with a multitude of perspectives and interpretations. What better way to comprehend more of Black History than to read this primary source, Coming of Age in Mississippi ?

Read it. Determine what you think about this study of complicated and messy humanity that we call history.

Jung Chang might be the best known female author about Communist China during the rule of Mao Zedong (Tse-Tung). She was born into communist China and lived there during the cultural revolution and the height of the Cult of Mao. Disenfranchised, disenchanted, and disillusioned, she immigrated to Britain and became a British citizen.

Her most well-known book is Wild Swans, the true story of her grandmother, her mother, and herself. Her grandmother was born into a low-ranking family when women’s feet were still bound. Feet-binding became illegal between the birth of Jung’s grandmother and grandmother’s younger sister. Her grandmother’s father sent her off to be the concubine of a warlord, which proved to be an isolated and lonely existence for six years. Shortly before the warlord died, she gave birth to a daughter.

With no where else to go, she returned to her parents and fought fiercely against her neglectful father. Eventually, she fell in love with a doctor. Although the doctor’s family wanted her to be his concubine, he loved her so deeply that he insisted she become his official wife. They married and raised the little girl together.

Jung Chang’s mother was raised in a loving family but also under Japanese occupation in the puppet state of Manchukuo. Japanese teachers were abusive toward the Chinese students and hit them at the slightest breach of etiquette. Schools were essentially large shanties. A classmate caught reading a forbidden book was shot to death by Japanese soldiers.

When the Japanese vacated at their defeat in WW2, the area was flooded with Kuomintang soldiers. The Kuomintang was little better than the Japanese, but not by much. Her mother and stepfather wanted her to marry and to find protection away from the Kuomintang, but their main prospect was a wealthy and obnoxious idiot. Fortunately, they left the decision up to her. She became a local spy against the Kuomintang and aided Communist resistance. She risked torture and death for a cause she believed in.

She fell in love with another communist soldier, the father of Jung Chang. Jung’s father received permission from the Communist party to marry because he matched men’s criteria, having been “at least twenty-eight years old, a Party member for at least seven years,” etc. (pg 128). Although Jung’s mother was not an official member and thus did not match the marital criteria, she was permitted to marry anyway. She went to work for the Women’s Federation, which opposed concubinage and closed brothels. However, the other women in the Federation often accused her of being bourgeois for her education and her fancy clothing. Thus, she had a difficult time becoming an official member of the Communist party.

Many things such as hand-embroidered baby clothes were considered bourgeois and anti-Communist. Her boss, Mrs. Mi, was her worst critic and forced her into a depression. Her next boss, Mrs. Ting was much more tolerant and permitted her to read books “without a Marxist cover,” and saved her from taunts about being a “bourgeois intellectual.” (171) Before her twentieth year, Jung’s mother became the head of the Youth League. Shortly after Jung Chang was born, her mother’s stepfather died. Her grandmother was denied permission to hold a Buddhist funeral ceremony for the man she loved.

Throughout most of her mother’s career with the Communists, she was always under suspicion for being bourgeois. Occasionally, the accusations were not petty gossip and were actual government investigations. Sometimes, she was detained for six months and her children had to be kept in state-owned nurseries. More than once, she was interrogated for conspiring with the Kuomintang. Her husband was forbidden from writing or phoning her or else, he would also fall under suspicion. Fortunately, her mother was never convicted. It was all a test to ensure her loyalty. People who suffered for Communism became better Communists (200).

Jung Chang had a nurturing, loving family that prospered for the most part, thanks to their rank and status among the Communists. Due to her privileged status in the hierarchy, she and her family were spared the mass starvation from the Great Leap Forward. She entered school a year earlier than her peers because of her advanced skill with classical poems and calligraphy. Schools also endorsed the Cult of Mao by having a picture of Mao in every classroom and teaching the students about how great and wonderful Mao was. Even though the Communists had complete control of China by this time, Jung and her classmates were incessantly reminded to maintain the class struggle.

The Cultural Revolution began when Jung was fourteen. Mao decried that China has been proliferated with “capitalist-roaders” Newspapers demanded citizens destroy all who opposed Chairman Mao, China’s sole savior from capitalism. Mao himself also issues nationwide calls to action. Anyone who refused to search out capitalist-roaders were also on the path to capitalists. This resulted in students attacking teachers as well as other teachers attacking them. Some were killed, some were compelled to commit suicide. The emergent Red Guards broke into the houses of suspects, beat them, forced them to confess anything against Mao, beat them some more, and stole the household property.

The basic functions of society existed – grocery stores, post offices, and so on – but theaters, tea shops and other placed labeled bougerious were closed. Because this was the Cultural Revolution, everything belonging to the Old Culture had to be demolished. Antiques were shattered. Buddhist shrines were smashed into rubble. Literature was burned.

Although the Cultural Revolution began with the students attacking the teachers, it soon escalated toward people from all positions in society. Provincial authorities became involved and, instead of condemning the violence, helped it to continue. Jung’s parents fell under suspicion. Her father was taken away without explanation for months where officers interrogated him and psychologically tortured him. He returned home a traumatized man. Eventually, Jung Chang and her entire family were blacklisted as capitalist-roaders and were kicked onto the streets.

The final part in the Cultural Revolution came when it ensnared Mao’s political enemies and decried them as capitalists. Every capitalist-roader was sent into organized labor camps. Mao died a few years after he ended the Cultural Revolution. China opened up to teach English and to invite foreigners. After a life of isolation, the adult Jung Chang met foreigners for the first time. Eventually, she decided to flee the nation that traumatized her family and to emigrate to England where she now lives.

The second book by Jung Chang that I read is Mao: The Unknown Story. I have spent a considerable amount of time considering how to summarize this for a small article. As I read it, Ioften referred to it as the “Fat Yellow Book of Mao.” Jung Chang spent a decade searching for all the material to write the book. It is 700 pages of text with 200 pages of bibliography.

Mao Zedong is perhaps the most sadistic dictators to ever have ruled. When compared alongside Hitler, Hitler actually seems noble in comparison. This is not to minimize or dismiss the WW2 atrocities; this is to emphasize how much worse Mao Zedong was.

Mao’s father worked hard to make his family the most prosperous in the village. Chinese peasants actually owned their land instead of living as serfs (pg 4). Mao was the first son to survive infancy; two other sons died early on. Mao thrived on ambition, but unlike his industrious father, he hated work, was rather lazy, and avoided any type of job. During his early adulthood, he briefly joined the Kuomintang but left because it required too many chores and too much effort. During WW1, France hired Chinese men for menial labor. Most of the workers returned with Communist ideals, but Mao stayed in China.

After WW1, the Chinese Communist Party emerged. China at the time was essentially bankrupt. The Chinese Communists decided to receive funding from the Soviet Union, even though this meant they needed to obey the Soviets. Mao joined the CCP for the paycheck. In Hunan province, he discovered that he enjoyed violence and torture – two things he never before experienced. He developed quite a knack for it and became sadistic.

In the late 20s, the Kuomintang attacked the Communists. Although Mao was placed in charge of an army, he essentially hijacked the soldiers for his own purposes, led them into the mountainside and used them for banditry. Even though Mao already had a wife still living and had several children, he abducted Gui-yuan to be his next wife (71). He abandoned his other family so that when his wife died, his sons were forced to sleep on the streets. Because of Mao, Gui-yuan became pregnant several times; each time, the child either had to be abandoned due to the marching or had died before the first year. Gui-yuan eventually had a severe mental breakdown and was institutionalized. Only one daughter survived, and she led a sad, lonely life.

The Japanese invasion put on a hold on the Kuomintang/Communist rivalry, which resumed in the 40s after the Japanese were defeated. Mao never did anything laudable, consistently ignored his superiors, and wasted the lives of numerous soldiers. In sharp contrast to Mao was the heroic and noble Peng De-Huai who was the anti-thesis of Mao in every aspect from social origin to treatment of women. The Kuomintang lost against the Communists due to the sentimentality of Chiang Kai-Shek, keeping commanders who were ill-fit for their positions. The Communists also had sleeper agents in place who simply surrendered without a fight and who led to an easy Communist victory.

Mao’s own propensity for purging and torturing resulted in the alienation of numerous officials. The rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky in the Soviet Union also influenced China with Chinese Stalinists or Trotskyites. According to the Mao and his followers, Stalinists were good while Trotskyites were bad. If anyone criticized him (and many did), Mao had that individual captured in secret and systematically tortured to break that person emotionally, psychologically, and all other ways possible. Mao became paranoid about his own personal safety. With good reason, quite a lot of people wanted to kill him. He rose to be the leader of China’s Communist government.

Next, Mao needed to make himself independent from Stalin. Chapter 34 – beginning page 434 in my book – discusses the political motives between North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union that led to the Korean War. At first, Stalin wanted to avoid aiding Korea because he feared a subsequent war with the United States. Mao wanted a Korean War in order to coerce Soviet aid in the form of military technology (Atomic Bomb). Stalin decided a Korean War would be a good idea to determine America’s fighting strength. Once the Korean War started, Stalin distanced himself politically for the sake of global appearances and gave the reins to Mao. The Soviet dictator hoped the war could wear down and weaken enough American forces to render a third world war possible and easy for Soviet global conquest.

The war did not go as Stalin hoped. The United States had North Korea beat within a year. However, North Korea’s communist leader Kim Il Sung then permitted China’s forces to flood the nation and attack the Americans. This was essentially an abdication of authority. Mao became the leader and dictator of North Korea – and especially its military – for the duration for the war. Prolonging it two extra years started to have an almost genocidal effect on the North Koreans. Jung Chang used the term “below replacement level.” Kim Il Sung begged Mao to surrender. Finally, the United States threatened to use nuclear weapons against China. Mao then asked Stalin to have the technology to have an atomic bomb. Stalin refused to give Mao that knowledge. Stalin decided that the Korean War must end. Then, he promptly had a stroke. A third of Chinese POWs did not want to return.

The Great Leap Forward was Mao’s attempt to industrialize China. China needed to finance itself, and the only commodity it could export to foreign countries was its agricultural products. Mao knew nothing about economics or industrialization, nor did he bother to learn. His whole program was a failure. His massive exporting of agriculture resulted in a senseless famine that killed tens of millions of Chinese peasants. The famine was entirely avoidable. Mao knew about the peasants dying, but he simply did not care. Other Communist leaders were essentially screaming at Mao to let the peasants eat. The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s plot to take revenge against his political opponents from the Great Leap Forward.

Jung Chang has estimated that 70 million of the Chinese people had perished underneath Mao’s dictatorship.

The third book by Jung Chang that I read is easy to summarize because it is a summary in and of itself. This book is Madame Sun Yat-Sen (Soong Ching-ling), written for Penguin’s “Lives of Modern Women” series. Starting this right after the massive 700+ page Fat Yellow Book of Mao, I felt rather disappointed to find a book of only 138 pages. I also feel that this book and the series were written for much younger audiences. A lot of the horrors, tragedies, and realities had been glossed over.

Soong Ching-ling was born in 1893 to devout Christians. Her mother was highly academic, and her father became an ordained minister after eight years traveling the United States from 1878 to 1886. She was very interested in improving China politically through the will of the people. She fell in love with Sun Yat-Sen, the first president of the short-lived Chinese Republic. She believed that women’s rights were complimentary to men’s rights. Her beliefs were deeply rooted in the old Chinese culture from which she and her husband had emerged. A strong example of this complimentary nature involves marriage. The parents always chose who their sons and daughters should marry. Sons had no choice in their arranged marriages.

After her husband died, she was forced to choose politically between supporting Chiang or Mao. She chose to support Mao Zedong. She became the single most-influential individual in all of China due to her own strengths, capabilities, and intelligence. After the Communist takeover, she lived a luxurious lifestyle. Some people criticized her for it, but she believed that luxury was a good thing as long as it did not rely upon exploitation. She was targeted during the Cultural Revolution, but she was spared the worst of it due to her own reputation.

Once I finished reading this last book, I figured that a review over the entire “Lives of Modern Women” series would be more appropriate instead of a review over a single book because the series appears to be designed to spark young children’s interest in the study of historical women. For each author review, I have decided to read a minimum of three books per author. I have already read two by Phyllis Chesler – “Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman” and “Death of Feminism.” I know she wrote plenty of books, but I cannot decide which should be my third. Any reccomendations?

Here is one major reason why parents should liberate our schools from government and union control: when organizations instead of individuals control our school systems, the organization will impose its own biases, prejudices, and values upon the students. Because the responsibility of education often falls to the mother, women become the main targets and have their rights violated when the controlling organization does not approve of their decisions.

Kelley Williams-Bolar was a single mother in Ohio with two teenage daughters. She feared for her children’s safety, so she enrolled them in a safer school district. Although they lived in Akron, they attended school in Copley Township. She cared deeply about education, which was why she sent her daughters to schools with excellent ratings and why she attended college to become a teacher.

Violence filled the Akron schools and the house projects where she and her daughters lived. However, the Copley school district hired a private investigator who followed her children and who learned that her daughters were not residents of the district. The organization admitted to making and example of her and accused her of grand theft worth $30,500. She was sent to jail for ten days, and a felony record destroyed her opportunity to become a teacher.

Racism becomes disguised as promoting racial diversity. Such was the case in Berkeley High School. Berkeley High eliminated its advanced science programs because the majority of African-Americans and Latinos were simply not interested in science. Although the students enrolled in advanced science courses were 17% African-American and 15% Latino, Berkeley High decided that “the science labs were largely for white students.” Removing the science programs also eliminated the educational opportunities many students desired including the African-American and Latino student population.

Brenda Voydatch is a single mother like Kelley Williams-Bolar. Also like Kelley Williams-Bolar, Brenda Voydatch gave active attention to her daughter’s education. Instead of selecting a public school, she chose to home school her daughter. Many mothers home school their children for a variety of reasons – to provide history on racial or cultural heritage, to add other courses, to provide a more conducive atmosphere, and also to provide a religious education.

When the government learned that Brenda Voydatch home schooled her daughter, the government forcibly took the girl and placed her in a public school. This violated her right as a parent. There is a twist in the story, however. Her ex-husband got the government involved in the matter. Brenda Voydatch apparently had main custody of her daughter, and he could not tolerate his ex-wife exercising her rights. The sexist action of her ex-husband can endanger the constitutional rights of all Americans.

Good Morning America: ‘Skins’ on MTV, Porn for Teenagers?

If MTV’s new series Skins has anything to teach us, it can teach us one thing: our culture wants to see underage children naked, being in sexual situations, and partying wildly. That is the world we live in. I just happen to be a social rebel because I disapprove of the rampant underage sex and nudity.

MTV’s series Skins is about teenagers having sex orgies and using illegal drugs. Just go to the Skins website and watch the “reverse party” clip. One scene from Skins features a teenage boy pumped up on Viagra, running naked and ejaculating everywhere. According to MTV, that scene and the orgies were not meant to appeal to teenagers. After all, the channel gave the series an TV-MA rating which means it is for adults. So, it features teenagers in sexual situations and makes sexual jests out of teenagers, but it is not appropriate for teenagers and is targeted toward adults.

Parents Television Council has predictably accused MTV of violating child pornography laws. The Council’s president urged the Dept of Justice, “Since it is not necessary for Viacom or MTV to distribute the material in order to be in violation of the law, we call upon your committees to immediately investigate Viacom and MTV for the production of this material.” Is a television show featuring underage sex orgies geared toward adults child pornography? Or is this modern culture, and are we all prudes? I was often called a prude.

As soon as the controversy began, Taco Bell pulled its advertising out of the series. Taco Bell advertises on MTV to reach adults aged 18 – 34.

Professor Amy Adler said, “There are times when I look at mainstream culture and think it is skirting up against the edge of child pornography law,”

According to that statement pornography is mainstream culture. MTV has also stated that Skins portrays what teenagers actually do in real life – the social norm or the mainstream. Because social rebels go against mainstream culture, prudes have in fact become our nation’s social rebels. I encourage everyone who shares my rebellious attitude to protest and condemn what we find dangerous for our children and our culture.

But we need to do more than that. We also need to motivate the television industry and the music industry to give us role models and storylines that can help change our culture. Particularly with the television industry, we need to contact them and tell them what we want every new season and every time a series goes off the air. We need to remove the distasteful elements of our culture, but we also need to replace those elements with something better.

When news of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was first aired, the reports were confusing and sometimes contradictory. Some news reports stated she had died, but other reports had stated she had survived. Sheppard Smith said her type of injury had a 5% survival rating. Greta van Susteren attempted to untangle the conflicting reports.

We now know that Congresswoman Giffords is alive and is recovering well. With such a low percentage of survivors – Smith’s 5% statement and ABC’s comment “Two-thirds of people who are shot in the head never make it to the hospital.” – we should consider her survival a miracle and her recovery a testament of her strength.

Upon her arrival at the hospital, doctors had quickly removed part of her skull to reduce the possibility of swelling and to prevent further brain damage. Full recovery might be several months, and no one knows what the long-term effects would be from an injury in an area that “controls speech abilities and the movement and sensation of the body’s right side” as well as many other significant functions. The neurosurgeon in charge of her care said:

“In the brain, there are so many pathways we don’t know what’s going to be permanent, and what will be restructured by the brain itself and what will be compensated,”

However, she has displayed strong positive signs right from the start. The day after being shot, she was already responding to verbal commands by moving some of her fingers. Yesterday, she began moving both her arms. She can also breathe on her own, but the doctors insisted they keep “a breathing tube in place as a precaution.”

On Tuesday, University Medical Center Critical Care and Trauma Director Dr. Peter Rhee predicted: “She has a 101 percent chance of surviving.”

Then, last evening, President Obama shared that Congresswoman Giffords had opened her eyes for the first time during a visit to her room:

As soon as Obama finished his remarks, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, let it be known that she, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, were in the room at the time, along with Kelly and Giffords’ parents.

“It was like witnessing a miracle,” Gillibrand told CNN.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is in America’s prayers, and I hope for her full and speedy recovery. With such quick improvements, she has shown herself to be a powerful woman worthy of our admiration.

Earlier, I wrote that the video game industry has failed to attract a female audience. So, what games would truly appeal to female gamers?

Women want video games with powerful storylines. Women want video games with more characters like Lucy McClane from the fourth Die Hard movie, only with her having the adventure and saving the day.

Women want a female character to be the strong protagonist. Yuna from Final Fantasy X is an awesome example. Her mission was to save the world and bring hope to her people. She chose her mission of her own free will. Throughout the game, she becomes stronger and bolder. Her quest resulted in her discovering a deception that has oppressed the world for a thousand years. She challenges society and everything she knew to save the world.

The two Lunar games also have some positive examples. Both games have two strong fighters, a competent fighter who specializes in healing, and two mages. However, in Lunar: Silver Star Story, the healer is fierce and independent Jessica while a mage is Mia who starts insecure and shy but becomes an assertive leader. In Eternal Blue, a strong fighter is Jeanne who overcomes a tragic past and learns to wield martial arts. The mage is a Lemina, who is arrogant and elitist, but successfully avoids the sexist stereotype of “bitch.” The healer of Eternal Blue is a former priest.

Some ideas:
Sometimes, inspiration for a story can originate from an appealing yet marginal aspect within a much larger story. Many stories reuse the same ideas or types but are altered for a completely unique idea. For example, most Final Fantasy stories have a brooding character, a spunky character, a dark-past character, a loyal fighter, etc. The loyal fighter in Final Fantasy games are very different from each other – childhood friend Tifa (FF7), castle knight Steiner (FF9), Kimahri (FF10). All three are loyal fighters, yet their personalities, histories, and possibly motives are vastly different. Tifa was a potential love interest; Steiner was bumbling comic relief; Kimahri was silent, muscular, and fierce. Vincent (FF7) and Auron (FF10) have dark pasts, yet their personalities and histories are also different. The goals, motives, and histories of the spunky characters are likewise different.

Sometimes, inspiration for a story can originate from an appealing yet marginal aspect within a much larger story. In order to create a new and unique story, you can turn that tiny and marginal aspect into the shining centerpiece for a new story’s plot. So, some ideas for female protagonists and plot pieces come from already existing video games.

In Tactics Ogre, one female character – albeit marginal and in fact optional – was Orias Oberhode. She was a Priestess who rebelled against her Necromancer father. Take that concept and make it the plot of a video game with the Priestess as the central protagonist. To make it original, remove everything else involved in Tactics Ogre. Supplement with original material. The possibilities for world-building and supporting characters are endless. This is how new stories can be created. Any religion or culture can have a Priestess and deal with Necromancy.

Again in Tactics Ogre, there is the character Sisteena – less marginal but still optional. She is a guerrilla fighter against an oppressive government, but she becomes disillusioned and disaffects from the guerrillas. Again, take that concept and make it the shining centerpiece of a video game plot. Change the setting and all other characters. There is quite a lot that can be added in there.

Personally, I would love to see a video game with lots of fighting and character classes. Have the central protagonist be a woman wielding two katanas. Be sure she is dressed modestly like Lady Kayura from Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers. In fact, be sure all the characters are dressed modestly. When Kayura shouts her attack “Star Sword Scream,” she can certainly kick Ronin butt. However, the protagonist can simply be a fighter, no surekills attached. Her love interest can be an archer who is full of academic/book knowledge, arrogant, and egocentric much like Rowen/Touma from Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers. No castrated male stereotype! But please, ease up on his egocentrism as their love progresses. I want him to view her as an equal at the end of the story.

A mother of a six-year-old girl, Jennifer Tesche, in Madison Heights, Michigan near Detroit was concerned about the cheers on her daughter’s cheerleading squad. She voiced her concern to the coach and to the local school officials. Instead, her daughter got kicked off the cheerleading team, and she is now publicly and socially ostracized.

The cheerleading she objects to?

“My back aches
My skirts are too tight
My booty shakes from left to right.”

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/H-0SB8KmrZU" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

Jennifer Tesche underestimated just how much other parents and how much coaches enjoy watching or even imagining six-year-old girls shaking her butts in too tight skirts. Certainly quite some imagery, hm? Cheerleading coach Lisa Ernest called her a “lunatic” A lot of people are comfortable with the actual sights as well as the mental imagery of 6-year-old, 8-year-old, and 9-year-old girls gyrating . They shout out, “Shake that booty!”

She described the reasons given for kicking her daughter off the team: “They said that the tension would be too high … among the parents if we remained in the organization, and that we could come back next year on probation if we wanted to” Her response: “We’re in such shock that they’d do this to a 6-year-old girl, that I think they owe her an apology,”

I wonder why these people enjoy 6-year-old booty shakes. I am one of those lunatics who think their behavior toward and their grooming is inappropriate toward the 1st graders. I know I am crazy. I consider Jennifer Tesche a hero for combating the sexualization of little girls. I think encouraging 6-year-olds to booty-shake in a gyrating manner is pedophilic, but they are not pedophiles. They are merely voyuerists who enjoy watching the sexualization of little children. Pedophiles just happen to have the similar interests.

If you believe Jennifer Tesche is a hero in defending her daughter against sexualization, please find her and lend her the support she needs. The cheerleading coach Lisa Ernest needs to be kicked out. Do not punish a mother who is concerned with her daughter’s well-being.

I worry this will be the next disturbing trend in our society. Just recently, I received a link to an article. The article stated:

Sarah Reedy was working at a Gulf Station in Cranberry, Pa., in 2004 when a man came into the store and held the 19-year-old at gunpoint. After robbing the register, he held the gun to her temple and forced her to give him oral sex.

She immediately called 911. Detective Frank Evanson didn’t believe her story.

Instead, the officer accused her of being an accomplish to the crime despite the fact that numerous other women had previously filed similar charges against the rapist who was later caught for serial rapes.

On September 14th, there was a Senate Committee on the repeated mishandling of rape cases. I am reminded of the information within a NYT article: “the number of episodes classified as rape has declined significantly, down 35.7 percent from 2005 to 2009. Yet since 2005, the number of sex crimes classified as misdemeanors has risen by 6 percent.” Has the incidence of rape actually decreased? Statistics can be manipulated to be higher or lower than what they truly are. Furthermore, The given percentage of rapes is dependent upon how many victims come forward to file complaints, but the victims might not come forward. The 6 percent can be much more easily verified because all the researcher has to do is look through the reports; the 6 percent refers to classification of crime and not the crime itself.

After all, the same article acknowledges: “At the same time, there has been a sharp increase in the rate at which complaints of forcible rape have been dismissed by the police as false or lacking enough evidence to take to court.”

So, I more readily believe the 6 percent increase in classification of rape as misdemeanor and not believe rape has actually declined. In fact, the variety of methods in which rape has been committed as well as a narrow definition of rape can play a significant part in lowering the statistic/percentage and thus lowering the number of reports needed to determine the statistic.

The president of Arlington’s Feminist Majority Foundation described the problem in reporting:

“In the Uniform Crime Report Program, only forcible rape is counted. The UCR instructions to law enforcement ensure that the definition will be interpreted narrowly,” said Smeal. She added that forced anal sex, forced oral sex, vaginal or anal fisting and rape with an object could all be excluded. Such exclusions, she said, can create the perception that rape is a much smaller problem than it really is and requires fewer policing resources.”

Carol Tracy is the executive director of Philadelphia’s executive director of the Women’s Law Project. In the city of brotherly love, she learned that “Thousands of sexual assault cases–almost one third of all reports from the mid-1980s through 1998–were buried in a non-crime code.” She discovered that the problem is not limited to Philadelphia and that “the shelving of rape reports [occurs] in New York City, Baltimore, New Orleans, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Cleveland.”

New York City believes that the police need additional funding to teach their officers that rape is a serious violation and to teach officers not to blame the victim.

Several counselors who have sat with victims while they spoke to the police said inappropriate questions were common: Why didn’t you scream or call for help during the attack? When was the last time you used drugs? Are you just trying to get revenge because he does not like you? Do you pick up guys often?

But shouldn’t these officers not already consider rape a serious violation? Shouldn’t they already know not to blame the victim?

From the top left, clockwise: Jeri Thompson, Michelle Malkin, Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin.

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.

The times they are a-changin’ — and it’s ladies of the Right who are kicking ass and naming names.

So says Michelle Malkin, one of my favorite role models and icons. For too many years, conservative women have been bashed and marginalized by the liberal women. We have been intimidated into silence and into having our 1st amendment right violated. This 1st amendment right is what the original feminists – suffragettes – sought to protect and establish for women through the vote.

The trick here is that the establishment continues to be dominated by the patriarchy. Hillary Clinton had been derided as too old, meaning that the notion of women’s rights as human rights was now outdated. Women of all political parties are similarly doubted and downplayed. Jeri Thompson described the patriarchal reactions toward Christine O’Donnell:

A strong, vocal woman upturned the political tables in Delaware, a state where both political parties have been run like blue-blooded patriarchies for the better part of half a century, and all the boys that compose “the establishment” can muster is omniscient edicts about her absolute un-electability in a general election.

James Carville tried to fear-monger voters away from Christine O’Donnell. He spun her willingness to talk openly about her own sexual desires in a partner into being anti-sex. This is the same type of manipulative tactic used to keep women “in their place.” This manipulation kept liberal women at the throats of conservative women and has systemically destroyed the foundation of true feminism. Liberal writer Phyllis Chesler noted the hypocrisy in her book, The Death of Feminism: “What ‘tolerance’ do we demonstrate if we only allow those who agree with us to be heard and scornfully silence those with whom we disagree?” (18)

Feminists can and do have a variety of different beliefs and perspectives. We should embrace that as a symbol of our diversity. Even though we disagree about the origin of life, we – liberals and conservatives – share many of the same concerns about the treatment of women in our country. We want our representation. We want our friends, neighbors, and daughters to be free from harassment. Sexism sees only gender and is blind to party affiliation.

When the conservative talker Karl Rove described Christine O’donnell as “nutty” and “misleading,” same tactics employed by liberals against Sarah Palin, the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin spoke against Rove’s derision:

Might as well have been Olbermann on MSNBC. The establishment Beltway strategist couldn’t even bother with an obligatory word of congratulations for O’Donnell. He criticized her “character” and “rectitude” and claimed she hadn’t answered questions about her financial woes. She did so. Rove mocked her security concerns as “nutty.” Yet, her concerns have been more than justified.

Jeri Thompson noted about the patriarchal double standard:

Funny, I don’t recall hearing similar talk from the likes of Rove and Cornyn after Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, Joe Miller won in Alaska, or Rand Paul won in Kentucky. In fact, despite similar sliming by the state party apparatus before Paul’s victory Rove was downright supportive of him, saying on Fox News that Rand Paul could win the general election, just as he could win the primary. And this was after the state party did its darnedest to tear Paul apart and to make him look like an incompetent kook, in many ways similar to what the Republican political class has been doing to O’Donnell.

The difference here is that once the primary was over, the political elites in Washington stood by their men. Why won’t they do it for the woman?

Let this be a wake up call for both the political and patriarchal establishments. Just as the anti-entitlement and anti-incumbent Tea Party is shaking up our nation, let all of us – liberals and conservatives – join together in a united sisterhood to shake up the patriarchy everywhere.