Friday, February 24
Feb. 25th, 2023 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Sunshine, even though it is still very cold.
I got up a little earlier than usual for me, and it allowed me to see River earlier than usual (after clearing it with R; all the lessons are canceled so it was fine, I wouldn't interrupt anything). That allowed us to go see a live performance at the little theater in town.
Seeing River today was more of a health check than it was a work session. It was about -27 C, so you can't really do much when it is that cold. We brought him into the barn, took off his blanket to groom him and make sure all was well under there, gave him some mash, then put his blanket back on. In the arena, I did about 20 minutes or so of just groundwork and a bit of Liberty (mostly some yields and mirrored walking) and he did well. That was good enough.
Then we came home, had a bite to eat and got cleaned up and went into town.
The performance was three parts, different "plays", all kind of around "women's stories". The event was to support the local Women's Shelter.
The first one was good, and felt authentic as it was very much about the writer's personal story.
It was a about a young woman who yearned to play hockey (then only open to men), and learning that she was a lesbian, that most of the women on a local women's hockey team were also lesbians, and apparently her Mom too (who likely had an affair with a lesbian on the hockey team even though she stayed married to the author's Dad).
So, you can't call it good or bad as a story, because it was her story.
The other two were both kind of...I don't know, felt really over done? Predictable?
One was very short, and frankly awful. About a prostitute in a holding cell, where two "upstanding" women are brought in for basically a misunderstanding about a guy grabbing one of their butts and getting a slap.
Long story short, it was really preachy, because of course the prostitute is smart and articulate, and the "uppity" women are metaphorically "no better than she is" because they are in a holding cell too.. blah blah, then the two uppity women get out, BUT they post bail for the prostitute, showing that SHE misjudged THEM too..and yawn.
Then the next short play was ALSO about prostitution and the relationship between a madam and a woman who is "better than the prostitute", but not THAT much better in society because she runs a boarding house for young single unwed mothers, so the "good women" in town look down on her too.
So, the whole night was KIND OF good, in that the actors did a great job etc, but the topics themselves really felt outdated and old-timey, as well as being really worn out as tropes.
Yet, I'm struggling to articulate this...I'm bored with "Women's Stories" all being about either being a lesbian having difficulty with talking to family about it (though again, this one was a personal story, so somewhat exempt), being a wife in a loveless horrible marriage, bearing children, or being a misjudged prostitute.
I guess I should be thankful that there wasn't one about rape.
I feel like it's maybe time to look for new women's stories. These ones felt stuck in the past.
Maybe modern stories could include something like a young woman whose family came to Canada, learning to be Canadian and trying to reconcile that with her parent's restrictive culture?
The relationship a woman has with her three or four other female friends who all never wanted kids and it was fine for all of them?
A woman who pursued her education, got a good job, bought a house, and casually looked for a partner, though was kind of indifferent to whether or not it happened, but was also doing pretty well on her own and had a darn good relationship with her parents?
A woman who runs her own riding barn, also has a husband and a child, but she got to still have a family and do what she loved?
A woman who got unfairly fired from a company where she'd worked for nearly a decade, she sues them, wins, and uses the money to open her own business in the same field and successfully supports herself until she retired?
A woman whose husband dies, leaving her with a farm and nine kids, and she chooses NOT to remarry in order to remain autonomous, runs the farm, raises her kids HER way, and passes the farm to her son (only flaw in the story, she should have passed it on to a daughter).
Help me out, can anyone else offer a modern women's story that feels relevant?
I learned that when identical twins have children (each with unrelated partners), the children (who are cousins) will be similar enough genetically to be more like half-siblings.
https://innovation.umn.edu/family-can-lab/current-research/children-of-twins-cot-study/
Sunshine, even though it is still very cold.
I got up a little earlier than usual for me, and it allowed me to see River earlier than usual (after clearing it with R; all the lessons are canceled so it was fine, I wouldn't interrupt anything). That allowed us to go see a live performance at the little theater in town.
Seeing River today was more of a health check than it was a work session. It was about -27 C, so you can't really do much when it is that cold. We brought him into the barn, took off his blanket to groom him and make sure all was well under there, gave him some mash, then put his blanket back on. In the arena, I did about 20 minutes or so of just groundwork and a bit of Liberty (mostly some yields and mirrored walking) and he did well. That was good enough.
Then we came home, had a bite to eat and got cleaned up and went into town.
The performance was three parts, different "plays", all kind of around "women's stories". The event was to support the local Women's Shelter.
The first one was good, and felt authentic as it was very much about the writer's personal story.
It was a about a young woman who yearned to play hockey (then only open to men), and learning that she was a lesbian, that most of the women on a local women's hockey team were also lesbians, and apparently her Mom too (who likely had an affair with a lesbian on the hockey team even though she stayed married to the author's Dad).
So, you can't call it good or bad as a story, because it was her story.
The other two were both kind of...I don't know, felt really over done? Predictable?
One was very short, and frankly awful. About a prostitute in a holding cell, where two "upstanding" women are brought in for basically a misunderstanding about a guy grabbing one of their butts and getting a slap.
Long story short, it was really preachy, because of course the prostitute is smart and articulate, and the "uppity" women are metaphorically "no better than she is" because they are in a holding cell too.. blah blah, then the two uppity women get out, BUT they post bail for the prostitute, showing that SHE misjudged THEM too..and yawn.
Then the next short play was ALSO about prostitution and the relationship between a madam and a woman who is "better than the prostitute", but not THAT much better in society because she runs a boarding house for young single unwed mothers, so the "good women" in town look down on her too.
So, the whole night was KIND OF good, in that the actors did a great job etc, but the topics themselves really felt outdated and old-timey, as well as being really worn out as tropes.
Yet, I'm struggling to articulate this...I'm bored with "Women's Stories" all being about either being a lesbian having difficulty with talking to family about it (though again, this one was a personal story, so somewhat exempt), being a wife in a loveless horrible marriage, bearing children, or being a misjudged prostitute.
I guess I should be thankful that there wasn't one about rape.
I feel like it's maybe time to look for new women's stories. These ones felt stuck in the past.
Maybe modern stories could include something like a young woman whose family came to Canada, learning to be Canadian and trying to reconcile that with her parent's restrictive culture?
The relationship a woman has with her three or four other female friends who all never wanted kids and it was fine for all of them?
A woman who pursued her education, got a good job, bought a house, and casually looked for a partner, though was kind of indifferent to whether or not it happened, but was also doing pretty well on her own and had a darn good relationship with her parents?
A woman who runs her own riding barn, also has a husband and a child, but she got to still have a family and do what she loved?
A woman who got unfairly fired from a company where she'd worked for nearly a decade, she sues them, wins, and uses the money to open her own business in the same field and successfully supports herself until she retired?
A woman whose husband dies, leaving her with a farm and nine kids, and she chooses NOT to remarry in order to remain autonomous, runs the farm, raises her kids HER way, and passes the farm to her son (only flaw in the story, she should have passed it on to a daughter).
Help me out, can anyone else offer a modern women's story that feels relevant?
I learned that when identical twins have children (each with unrelated partners), the children (who are cousins) will be similar enough genetically to be more like half-siblings.
https://innovation.umn.edu/family-can-lab/current-research/children-of-twins-cot-study/
