Wednesday Words

**Disclaimer:  This post is of a more serious nature, which isn't what I usually about, but I feel it's important to acknowledge.  The thoughts projected here mention a sensitive subject (rape), and are used to make a point to bring awareness to the act of "thinking" as a whole.  Keeping that in mind, if you don't wish to continue reading, please stop here.

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"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."  -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

also

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it."  -- Henry Ford

I've recently (as of a couple of hours ago) begun to read the book pictured above, titled Think:  Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World and written by Lisa Bloom, and as intended, it has encouraged me to think about the world around me.  As soon as I finish it, I'll be sure to give a more thorough review/explanation, but for now, her basic argument is that women think and care more about petty, materialistic, and superficial things (cosmetics, shoes, bags, and the latest celebrity scandal) than they do about real, important, heavy issues, like the state of our country, war, and people in need across the world.

It's already affected me, even in the very few pages I've read.  It made me stop and examine an email I get every so often from Military.com regarding news in the military.  This time, I actually read through more than just the link advertised in the email's title.  Eventually I got to a story on how the military is cracking down on soldiers, sailors, airmen, etc. participating in the growing sex slave trade problem in the world.  In the comments section of the article (when will I learn to stop reading comments on controversial stories?  It only serves to rile me up!) people actually had issues with this.  They claimed it interfered with military members' freedoms and rights to do what they wanted in their own free time (and mind you, these rules the DoD/government are imposing are for prostitution [a trade that is illegal in our home country of the US] and prostitution only, not sex between two consenting adults free of charge), and they also claimed that they are only enforcing/creating such rules because the wives are upset (but that's a whole other issue in my opinion).  I think that the first part of that argument is pretty silly, considering when you sign up for the military, the government tells you pretty much anything you can and can't do from the get go.  The second part I'll save for another time.

But that isn't the end of the story.  In my mind, it went too far when one person (presumably a man, in my opinion, but who really knows) actually openly stated that prostitutes probably helped keep the number of military member-on-military member rape cases down because they helped to "alleviate stress."

I'm still fuming over the ignorance and stupidity of this kind of statement.  It gives men SO little credit when it comes to the responsibility of controlling their bodily actions and alludes to the idea that if men don't obtain sexual satisfaction, they'll turn into raping time bombs, which is ridiculous.  I for one have a bit more faith in the male gender than this person obviously does.  The "argument" (if you can even call it that) also completely ignores the fact that rape isn't about sex -- there are underlying reasons to why someone (man or woman) commits a rape, like power and control.  It's never because they needed to "alleviate stress."

It's incredibly frustrating for me to attempt to understand what goes on in some people's minds, and why they have absolutely zero sense on something as solemn and grave as an issue like this.  It's enough to drive me batty, quite frankly, since it seems many people share these kinds of ignorant opinions on our society.  But it can also serve a purpose as well -- it can keep those of us who are actually sane from becoming complacent  so we can use our common sense to battle this kind of obtuseness and keep it from becoming a part of mainstream thought.

I suppose it looks like Wednesday Words has turned into something more like "Mrs. Landrum on Her Soapbox," but I feel things like this can't and shouldn't be ignored.  We need to be aware of the ideologies surrounding our cultures, especially when they are ignorant (and sometimes vindictive).  So thank you, Lisa Bloom, for helping me continue on a path that encourages thinking.