#I’m just talking about how they’ve both internalised the expectation and responsibility to act like a grown up to survive

[catofoldstones]

I love how in every chapter since asos sansa and arya both say “I’m a woman grown” or “I’m 11, a woman now” or “I’m a woman flowered”. Like you’re both severe minors, haven’t even broken the eggshells of the eggs from which you’re yet to hatch 😭😭 calm down there, buckos

[datingadviceonreddit]

I wish someone had told me these points earlier, so I’m sharing them with y’all now. Read on and see which thoughts align with how you think and an explanation for why you need to learn to remove yourself from other people’s behavior sometimes.1. When someone does something to annoy or upset me, I often think that it must be because of something I’ve done or a flaw that’s triggering it.There’s such a thing as placing yourself far too much in the centre of other people’s actions and thought processes. Some people behave like jackasses because that is their way. Others lack empathy and don’t consider the impact of their actions. Others act as they do through a lack of boundaries on your side, which they take as a green light to take the piss – that means you’re enabling what someone is inclined to do anyway, not causing. And sometimes people unintentionally eff up but don’t mean you ill harm and regret and apologise. To believe you’re responsible for all that others do to you, is giving yourself too much credit and removing their accountability.Stop internalising every wrong action of others and allowing it to change how you feel about you – unconditional love of self is fundamental to self esteem and healthy relationships. Instead ask: What is it about this person or what’s happening in their lives that they are behaving in this manner?2. People who are loveable and worthy don’t have others treating them badly and taking advantage of their boundaries.You’re effectively saying that bad things happen to bad, unlovable, unworthy people, which is fundamentally untrue. To assume the wrongful actions are intrinsically linked to your value creates a very distorted view of the world and you and in reality, you see examples in life that clearly demonstrate that your belief is unfounded. The reality is that even with some boundaries, others will attempt or manage to do things that cause us to feel bad, however we can lessen the opportunity for it by ensuring that we don’t place ourselves around people or in situations that detract from us by treating ourselves with love, care, trust, and respect. This means opting out or where appropriate taking protective measures.3. If they don’t reciprocate my interest, I wonder what is wrong with me or what I could potentially do to ‘win’ them over.Why does something have to be wrong with you that they’re not interested? It’s impossible for everyone to reciprocate and there could be any number of reasons why they’re not reciprocating and not one of them may be an indication of your ‘flaws’. They may have other things going on, different values, not attracted, involved with someone else, not ready for a relationship, whatever. The point is that it doesn’t have to mean something bad about you and ultimately, just because we feel interested, doesn’t mean that ipso facto it should be returned. Lack of interest means ‘back away from the light and wind your neck in’ – don’t try to sell yourself like a used car salesman. You will devalue yourself in your own eyes by trying to make people see your value. I doubt that you feel interested in every person that shows an interest in you – is that because there is something ‘wrong’ with them?4. In a current or past relationship, even though the other person was doing and being things that were counterproductive to the success of the relationship, I’ve believed the responsibility of the problems in the relationship were mine to bear.Making yourself responsible for the success/failure of the relationship removes the responsibility and accountability from the other person. Take them down off that pedestal you have them on and recognise that making yourself responsible for the unproductive actions of another person will cause you to not only indulge in blame and shame, but to potentially keep going back to ‘fix’ things and try to do the loving and the ‘work’ for the both of you. Fact is that you’re ignoring the real problems that exist and seeing their actions/inaction as a reflection of you – you’re two separate entities and you’re trying to absorb responsibility and take control of the uncontrollable. You can only work at a relationship where you’re both prepared to acknowledge the real issues. If you don’t, you may be trying to ‘fix’ with irrelevant ‘solutions’.5. If a partner cheats on me, I believe it’s because I have failed to meet their needs.People cheat for all sorts of reasons and often it has nothing to do with needs that are not being ‘met’ by the existing partner. It’s often about their own beliefs and values and cheating is like rebelling with a passive aggressive act that undermines the relationship and relieves the itchiness caused by ‘commitment’ and gives them a sense of control. Some people cheat because they can. Let’s imagine you didn’t meet their needs – is that really a legitimate excuse to cheat? Let’s turn it around the other way – In believing what you do, does this mean that if your needs are not met, you’ll be cheating on a partner?6. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and but I have often wondered what it is that I did wrong.You are assuming that the reason they didn’t treat you well is because you must have done something wrong. In fact, you’re rejecting the base information that they did something wrong in favour of focusing on obsessing about what you did wrong, which causes you to stay invested. However if you spent more energy acknowledging their actions at a very basic level – they treated you poorly – and recognised what that tells you about them, you would see them as a separate entity that has failed to act with love, care, trust, and respect. Fact is, if you want to pin yourself to ‘something’ you’ve done ‘wrong’, say ‘I obviously didn’t choose a great partner as they’re clearly not right for me because they did X,Y,Z, so next time I will endeavour to choose better by addressing any factors that led to this choice’. This is far more empowering than saying ‘There is something wrong with me because they’re an assclown’.7. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and who I know had not treated others well either but I still wonder what I did wrong and why they can’t be different with me.You’re painting yourself into a corner by still feeling that someone should have made you the exception to their rule of behaviour, a rule, by the way, that you’ve seen in action with others so it’s not even ‘personal’ to you. You have no ‘logical’ reason for this – this is your ego and dodgy beliefs talking. On some level, you believe that your love is better than others love and a key reason for pursuing them making you the exception to the rule is because in being with them in the first place and knowing they’d been the ‘rule’ with others, you believed that it just took the ‘right’ person and the ‘right’ love. You thought it was them failing him/her and you believe that love is about someone making you the exception to their rule of behaviour. Even if it may seem from outward appearances that others think that the sun shines out of the person who mistreated you’s bum, the reality is that you just don’t know the people that they have mistreated. Unless they just fell out the sky into 2021, they haven’t chosen just you to be an assclown to or just this relationship. Don’t get things twisted!8. I believe that when you love someone, if that person has ‘problems’ and basically things that need to change for the relationship to work/me to be happy, that they should want to change.Genuine loving relationships require acceptance. That doesn’t mean you should accept shit behaviour but it does mean that you need to accept them as they are so that you see them in reality and determine whether on that basis the relationship can work. If you’re not acknowledging the problems and what they actually mean about the person’s capability for a healthy, committed relationship, you may get blinded to the danger by the potential you envision for them and your reluctance to acknowledge the truth of their behaviour. You’re also basically saying, ‘If you love me, you’ll change’ and the reality is that people have to change because they want to, not because it suits someone else’s vision of what they could be in a relationship. Often when we expect or even demand change from others, we don’t both share the same vision of the relationship and we have a misguided confidence about their ability to change based on our desire, not based on their capabilities.9. I believe that if I love enough that the problems will no longer exist.You’re assuming that the solution to the problem is love, which means you haven’t assessed the problem in reality. If someone coming along and loving us was all it took for problems to be solved, what a different world we would live in. The fact is, if someone has a problem, especially one that existed before you came along, you are letting your ego run wild in assuming that it’s your love that cures their problems. If you imagine that it’s like they have a disease and they’ve tried other medicines, you believe that you’re the cure they’ve been waiting for. Lack of love is not the problem and if it’s lack of self love they have, it’s like you’re trying to love for the both of you. You also need to recognise that if your idea of love is based on negative beliefs, your basis for being with them will be unhealthy. If you have to think of yourself as being the solution to someone’s problem, your motivations for a relationship and how you perceive your fixing/healing/helping self is a problem. You need to feel needed.10. I am involved with someone or have been involved with others, where I have wanted them to make me the exception to their rule of behaviour.In wanting someone to make you the exception to their rule of behaviour, it means that even though you disregard the rule in favour of trying to get love against the odds, you do actually know the rule. It is important for you to address your beliefs about love, because at the moment, your idea of feeling that someone loves you is if you extract change through difficult and dramatic circumstances. You believe that the route to love involves pain. You want love against the odds and unfortunately, this means you won’t recognise when to fold and have the potential to end up ‘bankrupt’ in your pursuit of the fairytale. Remember that relationship insanity is doing the same things, carrying the same baggage, beliefs, behaviours, and attitudes and choosing same person different package and expecting different results.It’s important to address your inclination to factor yourself into everything and take it as some sort of reflection on you, especially because in doing this, you’re directly impacting your self-esteem and in putting the ‘you’ into everything, you’re likely to devote your energies to the wrong things and find it, for example, difficult to move on from past relationships, to let go of destructive relationships, or may even impact your mental health because you’ll let anger within yourself fester. You’re not an island, you’re not alone, everyone else around you are not ‘saints’, and the reality is that you’re giving yourself far too much credit for other people’s thoughts and behaviour. Fact is, as human’s, we’re inclined to be a tad self-absorbed – we do what ‘works’ for us which means being a Blame Absorber is a futile activity because you’re trying to control the uncontrollable. Take people off the pedestals you place them on as the only place for them to look at you is down and stop being so hard on yourself. Removing yourself from the equation and considering other possibilities adds balance and objectivity, plus it creates individual entities with individual responsibilities. And remember – if you’re going to work at a relationship, go back to one, or actually put yourself in the position of taking real action to make changes, being realistic about the factors that created problems is critical and that can’t happen while you’re playing the blame game with yourself. via /r/dating_advice

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 3: Legend of Chapter Three. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Game 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Game 2

Chapter 0 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

Your mother gives you a nod as you slide into your seat. She's decorated her classroom in a style you recognize from her lab back in your childhood home: deconstructed doomsday devices on the walls, and here and there trophies of vanquished enemies. The column containing her former mentor (and your former professor) Dr. Cerebrist, in suspended animation, is a centerpiece of the classroom. 

The Science! elective is open to students of all levels, so while you know a number of your classmates, some are new to you. From the back of the classroom, Sona waves her cannon arm at you, in what you choose to interpret as a friendly and sociable manner.

"I wonder," says your mother, "do you all know what you're doing here?"

This sort of thing is usually the prelude to making an example of whoever's foolish or proud enough to open their mouth, and the class stays quiet. 

"Science!" she announces, and begins stalking down the classroom. "The wonder and power of forbidden knowledge! The—"

"Professor Maedryn?" Sona has put her cannon into the air. You see a number of your classmates duck, wary of the weaponry, or of the usual reaction your mother has to being interrupted. But your mother does not react with the flamboyant fury that the class has come to know and expect. Maybe your mother is making a point to you, that she's cultivating Sona as a potential replacement. Especially since you aren't taking the leadership of the Science Fiction residence hall.

Sona seems completely unconscious of her privileged status. "You keep talking about science, Professor," she says, "but when are we going to actually do any?"

Between this and a few other scenes, Three is fairly certain that Maedryn is indeed cultivating Sona as a potential replacement. And with this happening in Three’s game so soon after the first time they ever really disobeyed Maedryn, it makes even more sense. I’m toying with having Maedryn make Sona her TA, too. Being Sci-fi’s RA and genre leader, all while studying for her final year at the Academy is probably more than enough for Sona to be getting on with, without TA duties too, but Maedryn isn’t the kind of person to care about people’s limits. And I’m not sure that Sona would realise that she couldn’t handle all of it quickly enough to refuse.

Three’s first reaction to realising Sona’s their potential replacement is fear that Maedryn may not find them useful for much longer. Closely followed by fear for Sona, who doesn’t deserve to have to keep up with Maedryn’s ever growing demands. They’ve spent so long struggling to remain Maedryn’s number one for their own safety, they haven’t considered how awful that position would be for some kind of actual person with their own desires and freedom.

It’s also seeming likely that Maedryn was the person who got Sona permission to have so many personal weapons attached to her. Which stings a little, considering Three doesn’t dare ask their mother if she’d mind them upgrading “her” body with technological capabilities.

"Ah! Three! Professor Ulik says, even before you enter the classroom. "I've got a stack of quizzes for you to grade. Go ahead, take them now; you can do them along with the homework for this class."

The Evil Landscape Architecture elective is open to students of all levels, so while you know a number of your classmates, some are new to you. A Baroness is already at her workstation, and her eyes flick briefly over to you as you enter the classroom. She moves slightly so as to conceal her design from your prying gaze. Clearly she wishes to give nothing away.

The class is working on an actual piece of the Academy grounds: a burned-out section behind the Dining Hall that was damaged in the Faculty War last year. Professor Ulik, as part of her plans to rehabilitate herself after her place in the rebellion, is turning these grounds into a garden, with the help, not to mention the free labor, of her students.

So far the plan for the garden (occasionally referred to as a pleasure garden, occasionally as a terror garden) is in the design phase. Professor Ulik wants her students to have a thorough grounding in the principles of evil design before implementing anything on the school grounds, and so at first you think today will be another class on theory.

"Ms. The Deathless," she says to a bandage-wrapped junior from Fantasy, "Why did you decide to take this class?"

"Well," says Kayla the Deathless, twirling a bandage around her fingers, "it was, like, to develop my sense of personal style, you know, for my tomb or whatever. Personal style is so important."

"No!" snaps Professor Ulik. "Personal style is of tertiary importance at best. Quaternary! If you do your jobs right, your designs will speak for you. And crush your enemies for you! If you chose this elective because you thought it was going to make you flashier, that you could go swanning about spitting sparks like certain candidates for full professorship—"

That's definitely your mother she's referring to.

"—then you are in the wrong class! I expect hard work, concentration, and your full—full attention!"

Everyone straightens up. A Baroness delicately drapes a handkerchief over her work so no one can sneak a glance at it.

I felt a tiny bit bad in the first game that as Competence-focused as they were, Three’s favourite class was a Style one. Ulik teaching a Competence class is everything they want from their education, and they’re honoured to have the opportunity to work on the design of the Academy itself. With all the problems they’re dealing with this year, working on Evil Landscaping, and starting to see something form and grow the way they wanted it to, provides a much needed escape. 

Three spends as much time as they feel they can get away with helping Ulik, and their ever growing interest in design leads to them starting to map out the uncharted areas of the Academy too, and trying to better their understanding of how the Academy expands itself. For now, they only share their discoveries with DarkBoard and Professor Ulik, both of whom are very happy with the results.

And then there’s the fact that Ulik is perfectly happy to insult Maedryn in front of her entire class. Three is a little concerned that this could draw Maedryn’s attention to her in a very bad way, and lead to a further test of their loyalties. They admire Ulik for being so unafraid of Maedryn though--with other people they might have assumed insulting Maedryn was an act of foolishness, but that is certainly not the case with Ulik--and it is refreshing to hear her spoken of quite so dismissively. And it is certainly nice to know Ulik has no particular respect for her colleague, and isn’t likely to get Three in trouble if they ever say anything non-complimentary about their mother.

#Traps of some sort. I'm a master at puzzles, and what's an evil landscape without cunningly designed traps?

You begin sketching immediately, keeping a running column of notes. You design site-specific traps and traps that could be integrated into the landscape anywhere in the garden. You design fatal traps, merely humiliating traps, darkly ironic traps, and some traps that pay obvious tribute to the Sci-Fi genre.

Professor Ulik pauses as she walks by your workstation. She's been going through the room answering questions and making suggestions, but she stops short at the sight of your designs. 

"No, no, Three, this is very good," she says, in response to your questioning look. "Very good indeed. I'm going to have to review these, of course, but I think you can be pretty well assured that these are going to have a place in the final design. And I'm going to have to have a talk with the Sci-Fi faculty sponsor—these are exemplary."

Three loves trap design--they’re basically advanced strategy puzzles--and they love it even more when Ulik compliments their work. They know she’s honest, and not impressed easily. But the really important thing here is that Ulik’s going to be finding Maedryn and letting her know how absolutely incredible her kid is.

This is your chance to make any major modifications to your personal appearance—barring unforeseen lab accidents, of course. Looking the part of a Sci-Fi villain may or may not help your residence hall, but it will give you a chance to stand out. And frankly, given that the maintenance staff are all clones of you, standing out might be particularly important.

The clones make Three a lot less eager to change their appearance, actually, and it’s not even primarily about keeping Maedryn happy now. While there’s a part of them that would love to go for a cybernetic enhancement and featureless silver eyes, Three has a surefire way to go wherever they want in the Academy almost entirely unnoticed. They may not be happy about the clones, but if they’re here, Three’s going to make sure they can use them. Even if they don’t need to spy on someone, or gain access to a restricted area, it’s nice to have the option to just slip away far beneath everyone’s notice and just clean or fix something for a bit.

LOADING DARKBOARD STUDENT MESSAGING…

    You Have 60 Unread Messages

    Message 1

    Subject: Your Science! Homework

    Message 2

    Subject: Your Science! Homework - revision

    Message 3

    Subject: Re: Your Science! Homework

    Message 4

    Subject: Tenure Discussion - Assassinations?

    Message 5

    Subject: DarkBoard, Recall Previous Message!

    Message 6

    Subject: Tenure Discussion - Assassinations?

    Message 7

    Subject: NO NOT LIKE THAT!

    Message 8

    Subject: Recall! Cancel! Do not send! Mewling computer, do you dare defy

    CHARACTER LIMIT REACHED

It’s nice that managing the clones is keeping Maedryn distracted, too. Three apologises to DarkBoard for their mother’s rudeness, and mentions that they hope no one who wishes to undermine Maedryn thinks to forward these messages to Professor Ulik and Professor Fen. It is such a shame that AIs have a habit of picking up out of context bits and pieces of dialogue like, “Forward these messages to Professor Ulik and Professor Fen,” as Three and DarkBoard both agree afterwards.

You're awakened in the middle of the night by someone shaking you. You fumble under your pillow for your knife. A hand grabs your wrist. 

Val?

"Get up! Three! Grab Anaxogoras and run!"

"What?"

"No time! No time! We've got to get out of the Sci-Fi dorm now!"

You scoop Anaxogoras out of its box and into your arms. It burbles questioningly. You grab for your backpack that you always leave beside the bed. Grabbing your school papers, and your new suit, you fling open the door to your room. Val throws on a bathrobe and the two of you race through the hallways and the stairs, past the outer doors, and out into the night air. 

"Val, what are you—"

There's a deafening explosion and the upper deck of the starbase goes up in flames.

Obviously, since Val is roommates with Scorpius, who’s in Thriller, ze does not blow up Three’s room in the Sci-Fi dorm. Ze’d instead be betraying Thriller to Sci-Fi and blowing up their bunker. And while Three isn’t interested in taking part in the genre tournament, they’re at least keeping an eye on what Sona’s doing, and keeping her and Maedryn as happy as possible, so they’d definitely hear about the plan.

The thing is though, Thriller’s dorm getting blown up will be unlikely to reflect well on Professor Ulik, as faculty sponsor. While winning or losing the tournament is unlikely to be a big decider on who gets the tenured position, Three would feel much more comfortable if Thriller did better in it than Sci-Fi. They find ways to subtly undermine Sci-Fi’s efforts when possible, and make sure A Baroness gets an anonymous tip about Val, so the explosives can be deactivated in time. A Baroness, as head of the Shadow Council, is competent and powerful enough to trace the tip back to Three, and suggests that if they don’t want Sona and Maedryn finding out what they did, they make sure the explosion actually goes off in the Sci-Fi dorm.

Meanwhile though, Scorpius is hating being in Thriller and, after running away from zir room one day when ze accidentally released a scorpion in there, ended up hitting it off with Dev, crashing in their room for a while, and deciding Horror was the best genre and absolutely deserved to win the tournament. Thriller, on the other hand, is the worst, and boring, and A Baroness told zir off for accidentally letting zir scorpions escape in the common room, and then all the competent Thriller villains judged zir, so Scorpius is willing to do whatever it takes to bring them down. Ze steals the explosives before Three can pick them up, runs off and dumps them in a dungeon, and promptly forgets where ze left them.

Three was, obviously, not doing well with the discovery that A Baroness had tracked them down and had blackmail information on them. They can at least now counter with a, “I’m sure it wouldn’t be good for your reputation if anyone knew you let one of your own steal and lose the explosives,” while they try to track down any more blackmail on her. Fortunately for them, A Baroness finds that she keeps running into errors on DarkBoard whenever she’s considering moving against Three. While she now finds it even more prudent to keep an eye on them, she decides that having her financial account suspended, her weekly schedule displayed incorrectly, and her homework submissions blocked isn’t quite worth the effort.

Val, meanwhile, has picked up a few things about Three while working with both Sona and A Baroness, and has enough influence with DarkBoard, to also realise it’s worth keeping an eye on them, and their slowly growing narrative weight. And since, if you make a deal with her after she blows up your dorm on a Sci-Fi or Fantasy route, Sona tells you that Maedryn wants her to find information on Val, it seems likely that Three has also been instructed to do that. Three and Val are definitely going to end up having some talks about Destiny and their motivations, although I’ll get into those more in the next chapter.

While all that is happening, over in Fantasy, Cazenar has decided he doesn’t care as much about his genre winning the tournament as he does about betraying Aurion, who recently agreed to be his nemesis. He ends up finding the explosives Scorpius lost in the dungeons, and promptly uses them to blow up the Fantasy dorm. And that’s how all three of my PCs end up trying to take down their own genres in the genre tournament.

[seo32company321toronto]

Education for the Advancement of Women and the Social Development of the Planet

Not often does it fall to individuals to be a part of history in the making. For the few who are given that privilege, its true value can only be estimated only in hindsight. More than 150 years ago in a garden at Badasht, Tahireh - Iranian poet and revolutionary - renounced her best shapewear  veil and before the stunned participants announced through the power of this deed a new age in the cause of women. Four years later, at the moment of her execution, she cried "You can kill me as soon as you like but you cannot stop the emancipation of women".

One and a half centuries later, and a decade into a new millennium, I pause to remember Tahireh, and all those men and women since, who have kept the flame of her cause burning brightly down all the years and passed this torch on to our generation here today; another people, another land, another century. In my mind they remain with us, and will continue to inspire and guide us just as we too must inspire and guide the generations still to come.

The Connection Between Education and Emancipation In the globally disseminated statement "The Promise of World Peace" the Universal House of Justice describes the important connection between education and discrimination, stating "...ignorance is indisputably the principal reason...for the perpetuation of prejudice."

More and more we realise that if we are to change the cruel, destructive ways in which human beings treat one another, we must first change the way they think, and the things they value. Highlighting the supreme urgency of re-educating the souls and minds of Maternity Shapewear humanity, H. G. Wells said "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."

A crucial aspect of this education which is necessary if we are to avert catastrophe and bring balance to the present state of disequilibrium, and which will eventually contribute to a new definition of humanity, is the process which some have called the 'feminisation' of the planet.

'Abdu'l Baha, son of Baha'u'llah, Prophet Founder of the Baha'i Faith, described this process;

"The world in the past has been ruled by force and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the scales are already shifting, force is losing its weight, and mental alertness, intuition and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy. Hence the new age will be an age less masculine and more permeated with the feminine ideals, or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilisation will be more properly balanced."

The first entry in Collins Dictionary defining the word education is " the act or process of acquiring knowledge...". This broad definition vastly extends the sphere of education beyond that limited and formalised type of education provided by the state school system. Clearly 'the act or process by which we acquire knowledge' takes place on washer dryer clearance  many levels. One purpose of this paper is to identify some of the primary ways in which we have acquired our present beliefs about the role and value of the sexes, and to suggest positive directions for future educational change.

True Education Creates Enduring Change The real value of education lies in how it permanently changes our behaviour and our thoughts. Professor B. F. Skinner offers this definition; "Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten." People can learn to behave in outwardly politically correct ways, but the real challenge is to so internalise new values that they become an inseparable part of the individual. This is what Baha'u'llah asks of us when He calls for us to become "a new race of men." Steven Covey, author of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" says "What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do." How you behave in your day-to-day life is a truer indication of your inner beliefs than are the words you speak. For this reason we need to focus upon our deeds rather than our words. Baha'u'llah says "The reality of man is his thought, not his material body". In seeking to promote the advancement of women, we need to retrain thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and values. We need to do this for ourselves as individuals, but we also seek to influence others at every level of our personal and collective lives.

A popular catch cry of feminism has been the statement that "The personal is political". "The Promise of World Peace" describes how personal attitudes do indeed have political and international appliances houston consequences, stating that denial of equality "promotes...harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations."

In the article 'Training for the Year 2000', James Aggrey maintains that the education of girls is of the greater importance because "To educate a man is to educate a single individual, but to educate a woman is to educate an entire nation." The words of William Ross Wallace that 'The hand that rocks the cradle Is the hand that rules the world' have become legendary.

An earlier quotation from 'The Promise' described how inequality promotes harmful attitudes and habits which men carry with them into all spheres of life. It continues by saying "Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavour will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge" and in the subsequent paragraph states "...it is through educated mothers that the benefits of knowledge can be most effectively and rapidly diffused throughout society."

Here then are two key factors in the education and feminisation of our society; * the education of women which will enable them to participate equally in all fields of human endeavour and in doing so become in themselves a source of education; a 'feminising influence' to car dealerships in houston  others * the crucial role played by women in the education of the coming generation

The Education of Men is Crucial to True Equality It is impossible to consider the issue of the advancement of women as belonging to women alone. In fact the Universal House of Justice states it is an issue that men too must own; "It is important to acknowledge that the wellbeing and advancement of men is impossible as long as women remain disadvantaged. Men can not be happy whilst women are oppressed, and neither can they hope to remain unaffected by the changes women are making for themselves. The growth and development of women needs to be balanced by complementary growth and development on the part of men."

Poet and pacifist Robert Bly stated:

"Contemporary man is lost... damaged by a childhood lack of contact with a strong male figure to initiate him into manhood. He has become a "soft' or   naive' male, who, by rejecting the aggressive and obnoxious male traits that he has been taught women dislike, has also abandoned the forceful and heroic aspects of masculinity, to the detriment of society."

Christchurch psychotherapist Paul Baakman bluntly observed "No wonder when boys grow up they can't talk with other men, they've never learnt to talk with their bloody fathers."

The N.Z. Dominion newspaper carried luxury cars houston  a report of an 11-country study of parental involvement with children. The study reported that "Preschoolers worldwide are alone with their fathers on average less than one waking hour a day...". In their survey of the routines of four-year-olds, researchers found young children were rarely in the sole care of their fathers, regardless of the culture, and the article quoted an editor of the study as saying that "It certainly indicates that the rhetoric of equality and the male taking his share of the responsibility for child-rearing is a lot of talk but certainly not a lot of action."

Sandra Coney writing in the N.Z. Sunday Star Times (22.1.95) describes how faulty perception of male roles in society creates negative behaviour patterns which may have contributed to that country having the world's highest youth suicide rate, reporting;

"Research by the Alcohol and Public Health Research Unit at Auckland University found low self esteem was the dominant characteristic of today's young men.

The men's peer group was their principle source of belonging, support and acceptance. The group's solidarity was reinforced by drunken, foolish exploits which won approval and became part of the lore of the group.

Women threatened the young men and the cohesion of the group. They represented commitment, responsibility Houston SEO Expert  and the possibility of rejection. The men protected themselves from this by being hostile and offensive around women.

The cultural context we provide for young men is all wrong. We expect, even tolerate their antisocial behaviour. Fathers provide poor role models as husbands and fail to develop emotionally close relationships with their boys."

And, as final evidence of the faulty role modelling of males in Western society, let's not forget comedian Rod Dangerfield who also suffered from low self esteem as a child, and complained; "Once I told my father, 'Nobody likes me'. He said, 'Don't say that - everybody hasn't met you yet." "

The need to develop positive sex roles is common to both men and women, and presents an important challenge for our communities in order to heal past sufferings and bring about personal transformation, through identifying and developing strong options for the future. As Elizabeth Kubler Ross said; "I'm not OK, you're not OK, but that's OK".

'Abdu'l-Baha emphasises that the equality of men and women presents issues which will negatively affect us all until they are resolved;

"Until the equality between men and women is established and attained, the highest social development of mankind is not possible....Until woman and  man recognise and realise equality, social and SEO Company Toronto  political progress will not be possible."

Supporting the advancement of women is clearly in the interests of men, on many levels. Because women are the first and most influential trainers of sons, their development will in turn enrich men, who will be better educated from the earliest years at the hands of proficient mothers. When fully one half of the world's human resources, lying largely untapped in the hearts and minds of women, are released and developed, the potential for global transformation on every level is profound. Therefore, in view of the eventual advantages to both males and females, it is easy to see why Abdu'l-Baha states "The woman is indeed of the greater importance to the race. She has the greater burden and the greater work..." '

New Concepts of Power Many people have felt the need to what career is right for me  coin new terms for the advancement of women that are not burdened with the negative associations many now attach to the word 'feminism'. The term 'feminisation' has already been mentioned. Another phrase used by Maori in New Zealand-"mana wahine"-refers to a recognition of the rights of a woman to participate in all aspects of society. Until recently there have been clear distinctions between politically feminist and more spiritually-inspired thought. Feminism has focussed strongly on the achievement of equality through the acquisition of power by women. The spiritually-inspired ideal seeks power too, but in a different context. The development of a more balanced view was expressed in the opening address at the 1985 Nairobi Conference on Women by the Conference Secretary-General who commented ;

"Power, as it is increasingly seen by women today, is not a means of dominating others but rather an instrument to influence political, social and economic processes to create a more humane and democratic world. Will this vision be translated into reality? Let us hope so."

In this context women seek the power to influence, to have access to areas of human endeavour where our voices can be heard and our feminising influence, our 'mana wahine', felt. We seek for men to actively support us in becoming more educated, more influential. One business analyst certification  potent means of educating others is through the 'power' of example.

Role Modelling Role modelling is a popular term for what is referred to in Baha'i teaching as 'the dynamic force of example'. Tahireh was an early champion of this influence, in her challenging words to "Let deeds, not words, be your adorning." 'Abdu'l-Baha offered the example of His own life, saying; "Look at Me, follow Me, be as I am". The Universal House of Justice calls upon the Baha'i community to be a model.

Women have always exerted a strong yet often unacknowledged influence upon following generations through the power of their own lives. Macho Australian league player Alan Jones said; "What Australia needs today are examples and heroes, people and standards to look up to and live by. My mother will always be my hero."

The powerful attraction exerted by mothers makes them important teachers and role models for better or for worse, whether they do so consciously or unconsciously. Even the physical proximity  early childhood development of mothers is powerfully attractive; Helen Keller recalled; "I used to sit on my mother's knee all day long because it amused me to feel the movements of her lips and I moved my lips too, although I had forgotten what talking was."

The creation of more role models for young women was considered to be one of the lasting benefits of Women's Suffrage Year. Our communities need to consider how we can promote good role models for both our male and female children, within our families and within wider society, in day-to-day life and in their formal education.

Women's History How well does the present system of state education promote healthy sex role attitudes? Personally speaking, my own experience of school inclines me to the same view as rugby-playing All Black Andy Haden who said "I make no secret of the fact that I went to school to eat my lunch"

Does the content of our formal education promote healthy attitudes free from prejudice or is prejudice still perpetuated in ways which are especially dangerous because they are so insidious, subtle and deceptive? Our present education system is in reality only a narrow slice of human knowledge; it omits the input of many cultures and, with few exceptions, fully one half the world's population since it is largely the history and knowledge of men. It denies intuition, and creates an artificial  technical schools near me separation of church and state, of science and religion, of materialism and human values.

For example, Rosalind Miles, in 'Review of The Women's History of the World' tells us what we could have been, but were not, taught, that;

"Aspatia, a women of Miletos was Plato's principle teacher.

Aristoclea, another woman, taught Pythgoras.

In the fourth-century Alexandria, Hypatia, again, a woman, invented the astrolabe, the planisphere and a hydroscope, Artemesia in the command of the fleet, defeated the skilful Athenians near Salamis.

Mary Reiber was transported to Australia in 1790 at the age of 13, for stealing a horse; she was to become a grain trader, hotelier, importer, property developer and shipping magnate."

It is no surprise that girls have grown up burdened by a belief that they have only a narrow sphere of influence and opportunity in the world, whilst males have an opposite but also burdening belief that they must know everything. This societal pressure has produced what was wittily described in an article called "Male Answer Syndrome; Why men always have opinions, even on subjects they know nothing about." I admit the tone of this article is a little flippant and unscholarly, but readers who are able to approach it with a sense of scientific detachment can easily recognise the key point, which is of course an exposure of the tragedy of faulty  A+ certification training sex role stereotyping.

Mothering Politically-slanted feminist conceptions of power usually diminish the role of motherhood with its attendant physical and historical limitations and restrictions. Spiritually-based teachings on equality place great emphasis on the role of women as mothers. Indeed, this is the area in which women have the greatest manifestation of their power. 'Abdu'l-Baha states that the greatest of all ways to worship God is to educate the children and that no nobler deed than this can be imagined, thus acknowledging the primacy of mothers in their capacity to shape minds and souls during a child's most formative period. In this context it is mothers who, upon receiving the necessary education and resources to maximise their own potential, can "..determine the happiness, the future greatness, the courteous ways and learning and judgment, the understanding and faith of their little ones."

The role of women in educating children, particularly in early childhood, provides the vital foundation for the collective education of humanity, for it is in early childhood that values are most effectively transmitted from one generation to the next, and "....it is through educated mothers that the benefits of knowledge can be most effectively and rapidly diffused throughout society." It follows that the role of the family in the advancement of women is a crucial one for it is here that attitudes are most rapidly and effectively disseminated from the individual to the family and ultimately to the world.

Therefore, in considering future directions in the advancement of women, primary considerations include; * raising the status and perceived  plus size shapewear value of mothering * providing training and resourcing for women to become competent mothers * developing and promoting quality parenting programmes * investigating and demonstrating how such mothering is compatible with full participation in wider human society * providing good role models of this compatibility * educating and supporting fathers, and providing strong role models *fostering an understanding and value of the importance of families to the world *fostering the development of scholarship and literature to develop new models for mothers, fathers, families, workplaces etc.

The Transmission of Values A primary function of the mother is to teach good character and conduct, to train the children in values. Without morals or values, education can become as much a source of harm as advancement. G.M.Trevelyan observed of education that it "...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading."

There appears to be one noteworthy exception to the lesser role into which men have traditionally cast women. Those values which men may not be able to recognise in women collectively, they are often able to appreciate in their own mothers. The musician Glenn Miller testified to his mother's training in values, describing her as "The inspirational head of a family in which she tried hard to establish an exceptionally high code of morality and a really deep-seated and lasting mutual love."

Len Evans said of his mother; "There was great love, affection and care, but there was also a rigid code of conduct which followed her perception of exactly what was right or wrong...inflexible, stubborn perhaps, but also totally honest, upright, endearing and supportive. A woman to be reckoned with."

The development of courses such as The Virtues Project, a global grassroots initiative inspiring the practice of virtues in everyday life, have proven to be effective first steps in helping mothers and fathers raise a new generation committed to equity, justice, cooperation, peacefulness and those other divine qualities which will transform individuals, galvanise nations, and unite the world.

Ultimately, all those who labour in the cause of the emancipation of women must realise that concepts of equality, unity and equity are spiritual concepts. Their true attainment is reached only through spiritual striving, They cannot be lobbied, legislated or demonstrated for. Feminism for the most part seeks to create outer forms and representations of equality, but it is not looking to the only sure and underlying source of sustained unity which is achieved through spiritual education which begins in the family.

Peace Issues New Zealand is distinguished for being the first country in the world to grant votes for women; it is also a country distinguished for horrific loss of life on the battlefields of the twentieth century.

"My poor little New Zealand" said James Herbert Henderson. "Exporting frozen meat in peace, live meat in war."

Women are the most important factor in world peace; surely the present day attlefield of women, having attained used appliances houston distinction in winning the vote, is to become distinguished in the pursuit of a peace which will preserve the lives of sons and grandsons to come. The Universal House of Justice states;

"The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetuates an injustice against one half of the world's population and promotes in men harmful habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations. There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological upon which such denial can be justified. Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavour will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge."

The peace which spiritually-minded women seek is not to be gained by waving banners and lobbying politicians, but by creating in our human society a climate both moral and psychological, in which the attitudes of peace will gain widespread acceptance. The process of the feminisation of the workplace will introduce into daily life those qualities essential to the creation of a peaceful world, as women model the reality of "Abdu'l-Baha's words that "...women are most capable and efficient...their hearts are more tender and susceptible than the hearts of men...they are more philanthropic and responsive toward the needy and suffering...they are inflexibly opposed to war and are lovers of peace."

When women, aided and encouraged by those very men whose own lives are most at risk from war, achieve full partnership in all areas of influence and decision making, the qualities of tenderness, compassion and peacefulness will prevail in human affairs, and the Most Great Peace, the Kingdom of Heaven, will come.

I began by recalling the events of the conference at Badasht, and the occasion on which Tahireh chose to announce the liberation of women from the shackles and veils of the past. I close with those same words from the Qur'an with which Tahireh, the Pure One, concluded that address, and which foreshadow the age of peace to come

[mmwm]

Yesterday, spouse and I went to Kezar Lake in Sutton NH, as we often do, but instead of us both walking around it, this time he brought his canoe. He took off from the inlet, after checking in with the Lake Host on the other side of the lake (the Lake Host is there to check for invasive species that could be tagging along on watercraft), and paddled an almost-straight trajectory through the marshy area — and over two small beaver dams, where he had a surprise encounter with a large snapping turtle — across the lake to the beach side, while I meanwhile walked the 3-mile road around the lake.

During the entire hour my walk took (his paddle was considerably shorter), the sound of a speeding motor boat with water-skier was grating on my eardrums like fingernails on a chalkboard. Among perhaps 10 canoists, kayakers, people fishing in bass boats, and folks in slow moving pontoon boats was this one power boat, zipping and circling around the lake, apparently heedless of the two adult loons and one chick in the water.

I watched the boat almost drive right over on adult loon. I couldn’t get the bow number on the boat, unfortunately, because while power boats are allowed on the small lake, harassing loons by being too close to them is illegal.

So dismay, anger, fear for the loons, frustration were coursing through my veins, and the noise of the clamorous power boat ringing in my ears. (I realise it doesn’t bother lots of people, but it bothers me. Sort of like the effect of Mary Hart’s voice on Kramer, in Seinfeld)

Then I watched a young (10-ish) boy in the water with a large (beautiful) doberman dog, pretending to shoot it repeatedly with a stick close to the dog’s face, then splashing water on the dog’s face. The dog seemed unsure what to do, moving away from the boy but not entirely out of the water, barking once or twice, not seeming to know how to respond. If there were parents nearby, they did nothing to stop what seemed to me like taunting behaviour. The dog seem confused, the boy persisted, and I felt sad watching this interaction.

Then I rounded the corner,  where a slightly older man, walking the opposite direction, jokingly (I guess?) said, “You’re only halfway done!” My response and the set of my mouth was apparently not what he felt they should be, because he followed up with “Smile, young lady!”

If you know me, you know I don’t swear aloud much, but with the motor boat sound, the recklessness of the boat and the danger to the loons, the way I interpreted the dog interaction, I was this close to telling him to STFU. Instead, because I know that reaction would be unkind, rude, and not compassionate, on the one hand, and I also know it would be escalatory and potentially dangerous on the other hand, I kept walking, serious face and all, angry, downhearted, and disquieted. Definitely not smiling.

When I had earlier met this man on the other side of the lake, with no other people around, and he had boomed out “Hello there!” in a sort of odd way (I felt), I’d had a slight frisson of discomfort, and now I was very thankful I was near the beach, among a small crowd people, even the taunting boy and his lax parents, because I know that what can follow non-compliance to the command “Smile, young lady!” is verbal abuse, attempts at intimidation, or worse.

I left that encounter walking fast (-er than usual) and furious, eventually breathing normally again, eventually letting my senses take over, smelling the air, observing what was around me, feeling the road and my ligaments and muscles as I moved, listening for the bird calls through the sound of the power boat.

A half-mile later or so, I encountered this lovely Yellow Wooly Bear (Spilosoma virginica), who obligingly curled itself around my offered clover stem so I could move it off the road.

Then later a white admiral butterfly (Limenitis arthemis … there is also a red-spotted purple form of the same species) —

And this interesting fungus formation —

*

I realise that some folks (even some women) don’t understand why many women react so strongly to being told to “smile.” They don’t understand how it’s patronising and demeaning, this auditing and evaluating (by complete strangers!) of another person’s emotions, this assertion of a right to control someone else’s emotions or the way those emotions show up on their face.  Here’s some help for those folks:

The Sexism of Telling Women To Smile, in Atlantic: “I couldn’t imagine that my facial expression should affect strangers in any way. I couldn’t understand how I was supposed to just go about life smiling at nothing all the time. It’s pretty nonsensical. Why would I smile for the duration of a 30-minute walk?  I felt it was very much about them, not me — as if my facial expression was a reflection of them, I wasn’t a whole person with thoughts and feelings of my own, and I was put on this earth to reassure men they were adequate on a daily basis. And I was viscerally aware that this rule only applied to me because I was female.”

Men, we need to stop telling women to ‘Smile!’ by Matthew Hansen in the Dallas News : “”You really should smile,” a man will say. Or: “Why you so mad? Smile!” Or: “You’re pretty. You would be prettier if you smiled.” In this moment, Rosie Meegan is faced with a choice that nearly all women recognize, and a choice of which most men are blissfully unaware. She can smile, even though a male stranger telling her to smile makes her feel the exact opposite of smiley. Or she can say no and potentially face his wrath. … ‘It assumes that I’m a decoration in your life, an ornament, here to give you pleasure.’ … By my count, I have talked to 19 women about ‘Smile!’ All 19 said it has happened to them. Most said it happens regularly. All 19 said they don’t like it. In some cases it’s simply grating. In other cases, it carries a vaguely menacing undertone — fear is a main reason women do force a smile, women told me. Most depressingly, all 19 women I spoke to considered it a fact of life, part of the tax that women must pay. And here I am, drifting through days during which no one ever requests that I change facial expression.”

Nope, from Shakesville: “Telling people to ‘smile’ and/or ‘laugh’ is not, in fact, nice. Telling people how to behave is an assertion of ownership; it is disdainful of individual agency, a failure to acknowledge boundaries and autonomy. That auditing other people’s emotions could be considered ‘nice’ is absurd.” (She’s responding to a “Do Something Nice” campaign in Vancouver, which is why she keeps using the word ‘nice.'”)

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s “Stop Telling Women to Smile” street art project: “I am not here for you.”

*

I have male friends (and a few older female friends) who sometimes make it known that they like it (me?) more when I smile (e.g., if I post a non-smiling photo on Facebook, I usually get at least one “Where’s that pretty smile?” or “I’d rather see you smiling” comment). I’m ambivalent about that — when it’s actual people who know me and really might have my best interest at heart, who really might feel sad because I look sad — but my response is totally unambivalent when a stranger on the street instructs me to look or feel the way he wants me to: I’m not here for you.

Yes, being told to smile — generally by men who are only acting on what they’ve learned and internalised, who aren’t intending harm — is a minor thing compared with the kinds of oppression, suppression, violence, and the threat of violence that many people face daily. Everything is relative. But it is a regular reminder for many women that being pretty, seeming attainable and non-threatening, looking agreeable and cheerful no matter what we feel, are what’s expected of us as full-fledged autonomous human beings in this culture, and that when those cultural expectations aren’t met — when we don’t smile on command or if we respond with something benign like “No thanks, I don’t feel like it” — men may retaliate with slurs, intimidation, threats, verbal abuse, and rarely (I hope), physical abuse. As one of the women in the Atlantic article says, just being told to smile makes us feel watched and vulnerable. Being called “bitch!” when we don’t smile makes us feel worse.

A woman quoted in the Dallas News article says that though she used to force a smile in response, and apologize, and feel bad about herself without understanding why, now she “she doesn’t smile on command, even though she’s risking the possibility that the benevolent sexism will turn into something worse — the hostility often reserved for women who refuse to accept gender norms.”

I guess that’s where I am, unwilling to smile on command; it’s certainly where I was yesterday, when I was feeling dismayed by humans and our wanton aggression and destructiveness. And I don’t want to add to the culture’s already high level of resentment, aggression, and anger by rudely rebuffing a probably well-meant (or at least unthinking) attempt at encouragement; but on the other hand, I think I have a right to look and feel the way I do, without being told to change because a stranger is uncomfortable with it.

Being told to smile leaves me with no good option here — either I ignore it, probably appearing rude and dismissive; or I react angrily, which will almost surely evoke resentment and retaliation (toward me or a convenient scapegoat); or I smile or make a joke — one woman says “I’m trying to cut down” when men tell her to smile — but that seems to me a capitulation equal to smiling on command, seeking to help him feel comfortable about her demeanor — and in fact her being.

So men (and a few women), please, please stop telling strangers, and even acquaintances and coworkers, to smile. If we’re looking serious, sad, angry, upset, dismayed, or anxious, we probably are, and you’re not going to turn that frown upside down by force or by even by suggestion. If you want us to really smile, give us a reason to do it: do something kind, say something genuinely funny, or just smile at us without expecting repayment in kind.  Thanks.

Black-eyed Susans along road

    Walking, Not Smiling Yesterday, spouse and I went to Kezar Lake in Sutton NH, as we often do, but instead of us both walking around it, this time he brought his canoe.