#but women have a long history of being invalidated period and i think we should be more aware of it when it comes to stuff like this

[carebooks]

makes me kind of sad that no one’s made a proper multifemale edit of taylor’s who’s afraid of little old me? bc, okay look, the song is filled with so much female rage that when i see people using it for edits for male characters, and it’s male characters that i like or love don’t get me wrong, it’s like they’re not getting what the song is about. it feels weird seeing it paired to anything other than women and what we’ve struggled with.

[whetstonefires]

Your post about romance was so spot on and this is from someone who really likes reading romances some of the time. I just wish there were more books where friendships (which after all make up the majority of people's relationships!!) were given the same weight and importance as romance gets unthinkingly. Like, I want books or fic which show the development of two (or more) new friends *as the plot and main part of the book*, and the same thing for the progression of pre-established friendship.

Human relationships are varied and complex and interesting and limiting writing to mainly concerning romantic or dating ones is infuriating! I enjoy reading character driven stuff, which is why I like some romances but I really want to see similarly detailed deep studies of friendship. Friendships are so important, and romantic relationships do not supersede them.  Obviously there is gendered bias against romance as a genre but that is not the only reason to be uninterested in romance damnit!

Sorry for ranting in your inbox about romance and thanks for the post

Hah thank and welcome. Very true!

Yeah, the problem is not just how ubiquitous romance is but the inevitability of it. So many people are so much in the habit of hanging their emotional investment on ‘couples getting together’ that not putting one in is a risk, as a creator, and the faint suggestion of a possibility that a romance might eventuate between two characters constitutes a promise that the audience will be outraged to see not followed through.

So making a story focus at all on a relationship between two people who are considered valid potential romantic partners means having to go through incredible backflips and contortions as a writer to get away with not pairing them up, or there will be outrage. There will be outrage anyway, but hopefully on a contained scale that doesn’t have people throwing your book away.

(The easiest way, of course, is to give one or both of them an alternate partner, but then you either have to build up that relationship as the central focus instead, because you aren’t allowed to love anyone that much and not be romantically involved or be romantically involved For Real with anyone but whoever you love most, or accept that you’ve plastered on a beard of some kind in a way that at this point makes your main duo look even more romantic to people who are looking for that in the first place, even if it lets you write a plot that doesn’t acknowledge this.)

This has contributed enormously to the cultural truism ‘men and women can’t be friends.’ They aren’t allowed to be. And this weird intense romantic pressure is now increasingly extending to same-sex friendships, and it’s like...it’s good that gay visibility and acceptance are growing! That’s great!

But it means that all relationships are increasingly exposed to this honestly fucked up set of expectations. That every single love of any intensity is romantic and probably sexual. That that’s the only love that’s real, or that really matters. With occasional exemptions carved out for parents.

And that’s cultural, I want to say. The inclusion of and an interest in the romantic lives of characters in fiction is definitely natural and practically inevitable, but the outsize role it occupies in our current media culture is abnormal and totally non-compulsory. The central role of romance in so much of narrative is just...a pattern, a narrative schema that currently holds sway, born of an assortment of historical accidents and trends, and I don’t think it’s a good one.

I think it would be better for us as a culture and all our individual relationships for that particular social construct to be broken down.

Because this cultural obsession with The Romance in media mirrors and continually recreates the obsession with The Romance in real life. You know how many people are making themselves miserable by either being in a relationship predicated on the need to have one, any one, rather than actual mutual affection, or about not having a love interest currently at any given moment?

Like, quite separately from the actual frustrated romantic feelings themselves, people feeling like they are less or failures or just...unfinished somehow, because they don’t have a romantic partner. It’s so harmful and absurd! We all know this!

And there are of course a lot of sociological factors that have led to that point as well, but it’s linked particularly closely I think to the atomization of modern society.

You’re not likely to retain any particular community for long--we move around so much over the course of our lives, anything you have is designed to be taken apart. School friends are only rarely retained after school, work friends are only until you get a new job, family is quite often something to be avoided or something you have to leave behind, and not usually an extended network anymore anyway.

We are always moving into new contexts, or knowing we might be moved, and holding onto relationships from one context into another is generally regarded as an unusual feat betokening particular, though not lionized, devotion, and leaning on these relationships ‘too much’ or pursuing them with ‘too much’ energy is regarded with deep suspicion.

This, too, is not particularly normal in the human experience. We are not psychologically designed for this level of impermanence. And we have developed very few structures as a culture thus far to make up for it, which is why the modern adult is so famously, dangerously lonely.

But we have all these social protocols for acquiring a person and holding onto them. A person who’s just yours, all yours, who it is promised will fulfill all those gaping needs all by themselves, and if they don’t it’s because you or they are wrong, and need either a different partner or fixing.

The fact that this is insane and not how romance works over 90% of the time is irrelevant to the dream of it, and the dream overwhelms and controls the reality. I agree that codependency is really fucking romantic, and having a kind and supportive mutual one is a lovely fantasy! It’s just...

A lot of harm eventuates from pursuing this fantasy in reality with a media-based conviction that it is 1) a reasonable thing to expect and 2) a necessary precondition for wellbeing and worthiness.

But we have poured so much cultural freight and need into this one single relationship format. At this point having need in any other direction is regarded as disordered and suspect and probably a misdirected application of sexual desire.

The law, too, has put a lot of energy into supporting the focus on seeking the romance as life goal, because the nuclear family is built on the codependent marriage, and capitalism likes the nuclear family very much. The nuclear family is extremely vulnerable to market pressures and bad at collective action, and tends to produce new tiny humans whose main social outlet has been within the school system, which is specifically structured to condition you to accept abusive workplace conditions as a normal precondition of existence, and not to attempt too much intimacy.

Ahem. Spiraled there. But! It’s all connected! Many of the privileges piled onto the institution of marriage were put there specifically because the nuclear family was considered desirable for the expansion of the economy. That’s clearly documented historical fact.

So yeah, the modern cultural obsession with the romance is a symptom of collective emotional disorder, and it chugs along at the expense of the more complex emotional support infrastructures most of us need and deserve.

It’s not just about me wanting representation, wanting an image in the narratives of my culture where I can see myself with the potential for happiness. Everyone needs this. We learn so much about how to be, how to relate to others, from media at this point, since the school system and other weird age-hierarchy stuff keeps us largely segregated from human society for a majority of our growing years and limits our exposure to live examples.

So the paucity of in-depth explorations of friendship, of mutual support, of widespread narrative acceptance that you can have a good life without a romance as its central support pillar, is harmful to people in general.

-

It’s funny, I get frustrated about this periodically, when a piece of media lets me down, or even when I’m following along a funny piece of meta and then the punchline is ‘and the ace character is obviously in denial about how they’re already dating their favorite person’ or whatever.

(The meta is annoying on a surface level and distressing on a deeper level because it’s a threat; so many times a good platonic relationship will buckle under public pressure and it doesn’t matter how asexual, how uninterested in romance, how emphatically platonic the affection has been established as being, The Romance arrives in the next installment of the story because it’s what people expect. Which reinforces the general perception that any other love is illegitimate, lesser, and as soon as it’s meant to be taken seriously it has to be crammed into that one valid shape, and invalidates future insistences in the same mode.

Seriously people stop doing this, we long since reached the point where a character saying in words ‘I have no romantic interest in [person]’ is perceived as a glaring neon sign that they’re destined to get together and that does not do good things for fostering a culture of consent. Obviously people are in denial sometimes but it should not be understood to be the rule.)

But I don’t get upset about it until someone starts in with reasons I’m bad and wrong for not liking these norms.

Like, whatever, media does not cater to my needs, I’ll cope, but when people start trying to get in my head and make me not only responsible for my own discomfort that I’m managing thanks but dishonest and malevolent I...get upset. There’s history there, okay.

‘You don’t care about this ship because you’re homophobic’ ‘you don’t want a love interest in the sequel because you’re racist’ ‘you don’t like romance in stories because you’re a misogynist’ fucking stop.

And occasionally it’s like ‘i guess you have the right to feel that way but how dare you talk about it where other people might hear’ which...well, is particularly common and particularly ironic in the context of people hung up on gay representation.

If we as a society had a healthy relationship with romance, there wouldn’t be negative side effects to that crowd’s pursuit of their worthy goal of applying that schema in places it has been Forbidden, but as it is we don’t, and there are.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 14 Mar 2020 (Free audio of Masque of the Red Death and When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, Ada Palmer on censorship, Women of Imagineering, Glitch unionizes, Tachyon/EFF Humble Bundle, Canada Reads postponed, data-caps and liquid bans paused, Star Wars firepits)

Today's links

Masque of the Red Death: Macmillan Audio gave me permission to share the audiobook of my end-of-the-world novella.

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth: A new podcast audiobook of my 2005 end-of-the-world story.

Ada Palmer on historical and modern censorship: Part of EFF's Speaking Freely project.

Glitch workers unionize: First-ever tech union formed without management opposition.

Women of Imagineering: A 384-page illustrated chronicle of the role women play in Disney theme-park design.

Tachyon celebrates 30 years of sff publishing with a Humble Bundle: DRM-free and benefits EFF.

Honest Government Ads, Covid-19 edition: Political satire is really hard, but The Juice makes it look easy.

TSA lifts liquid bans, telcos lift data caps: Almost as though there was no reason for them in the first place.

CBC postpones Canada Reads debates: But you can read a ton of the nominated books online for free.

Star Wars firepits: 750lbs of flaming backyard steel.

This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Masque of the Red Death (permalink)

Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1842. It's about a plutocrat who throws a masked ball in his walled abbey during a plague with the intention of cheating death.

https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

My novella "The Masque of the Red Death" is a tribute to Poe; it's from my book Radicalized. It's the story of a plute who brings his pals to his luxury bunker during civlizational collapse in the expectation of emerging once others have rebuilt.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250242334

Naturally, they assume that when they do emerge, once their social inferiors have rebooted civilization, that their incredible finance-brains, their assault rifles, and their USBs full of BtC will allow them to command a harem and live a perpetual Frazetta-painting future.

And naturally – to anyone who's read Poe – it doesn't work out for them. They discover that humanity has a shared microbial destiny and that you can't shoot germs. That every catastrophe must be answered with solidarity, not selfishness, if it is to be survived.

Like my story When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, the Masque of the Red Death has been on a lot of people's minds lately, especially since this Guardian story of plutes fleeing to their luxury bunkers was published. Hundreds of you have sent me this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/disease-dodging-worried-wealthy-jet-off-to-disaster-bunkers

I got the message. Yesterday, I asked my agent to see if Macmillan Audio would let me publish the audiobook of my Masque of the Red Death for free. They said yes, and asked me to remind you that the audiobook of Radicalized (which includes Masque) is available for your delectation.

I hope you'll check out the whole book. Radicalized was named one of the @WSJ's best books of 2019, and it's a finalist for Canada Reads, the national book prize. It's currently on every Canadian national bestseller list.

There's one hitch, though: Audible won't sell it to you. They don't sell ANY of my work, because I don't allow DRM on it, because I believe that you should not have to lock my audiobooks to Amazon's platform in order to enjoy them.

Instead, you can buy the audio from sellers like libro.fm, Downpour.com, and Google Play. Or you can get it direct from me. No DRM, no license agreement. Just "you bought it, you own it."

https://craphound.com/shop/

And here's the free Macmillan Audio edition of Masque of the Red Death, read with spine-chilling menace by the incredible Stefan Rudnicki, with a special intro from me, freshly mastered by John Taylor Williams. I hope it gives you some comfort.

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/

(Here's the direct MP3, too)

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332_-_The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death.mp3

Ada Palmer on historical and modern censorship (permalink)

My EFF colleague Jillian C York's latest project is Speaking Freely, a series of interviews with people about free expression and the internet, including what Neil Gaiman memorably called "icky speech."

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

The latest interview subject is the incomparable Ada Palmer: historian, sf writer, musician, and co-host of last year's U Chicago seminar series on "systems of information control during information revolutions," which I co-taught with her. Ada's interview synthesizes her historian's distance from the subject ("yes, this is my subject, and these people are terrible, and it's kind of fun in that way") with her perspective as a writer and advocate for free speech.

"One of the victims of censorship is the future capacity to tell histories of the period when censorship happened….. It renders that historical record unreliable… makes it easier for people to make claims you can't refute using historical sources… It's similar to how we see people invalidating things now—like 'that climate study wasn't really valid because it got funding from a leftist political group"—they're invalidating the material by claiming that there has to be insincerity its development.

"Pretty much every censoring operation post-printing press recognizes that it isn't possible to track down and destroy every copy of a thing…An Inquisition book burning was the ceremonial burning of one copy. The Inquisition kept examples of all of the books they banned."

Fascinating perspecting on whether nongovernmental action can really be called "censorship."

"The Inquisition wasn't the state – it was a private org like to Doctors Without Borders or Unicef, run by private orgs like the Dominicans and it often competed with the state." As she points out, everything the Inquisition did would be fine alongside the First Amendment, because it was entirely private action.

Next, Palmer talks about market concentration and how it abets this kind of private censorship. This is something I've written a lot about, see for example:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

"If you have a plural set of voices, then you're always going to have some spaces where things can be said, just like you have a plurality of printers printing books, and some will only print orthodox things and some will only print radical ones."

And while the internet could afford many venues for speech, in practice a concentrated internet makes is plausible to accomplish the censor's never-realized dream: "You can make a program that can hunt down every instance of a particular phrase and erase it."

Tiny architectural choices make big differences here ("Architecture is politics" -Mitch Kapor). Amazon can update your Kindle books without your permission, Kobo can't. Amazon could delete every instance of a book on Kindles, but Kobo would need cooperation from its customers.

Palmer is just the latest subject of Jillian's series. You can read many other amazing interviews here:

https://www.eff.org/speaking-freely

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (permalink)

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of people have written to me to draw comparisons between the pandemic emergency and my 2005 story "When Sysamins Ruled the Earth" – an apocalyptic tale of network administrators who survive a civilizational collapse.

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-Overclocked-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html

I started writing this story in the teacher's quarters at the Clarion Workshop, which was then hosted at MSU. It was July 6, 2005. I know the date because the next day was 7/7, when bombs went off across London, blowing up the tube train my wife normally rode to work. The attacks also took out the bus I normally rode to my office. My wife was late to work because I was in Michigan, so she slept in. It probably saved her life. I couldn't work on this story for a long time after.

Eventually, I finished it and sold it to Eric Flint for Baen's Universe magazine. It's been widely reprinted and adapted, including as a comic:

https://archive.org/details/CoryDoctorowsFuturisticTalesOfTheHereAndNow/mode/2up

I read this for my podcast 15 years ago, too, but the quality is terrible. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I should do a new reading. So I did, and John Taylor Williams mastered it overnight and now it's live.

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/when-sysadmins-ruled-the-earth-2/

There's a soliloquy in this where the protagonist reads a part of John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. Rather than read it myself for the podcast, I ganked some of Barlow's own 2015 reading, which is fucking magnificent.

https://vimeo.com/111576518

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. I've spent a lot of imaginary time inhabiting various apocalypses, driven (I think) by my grandmother's horrific stories of being inducted into the civil defense corps during the Siege of Leningrad, which began when she was 12.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. I've spent a lot of imaginary time inhabiting various apocalypses, driven (I think) by my grandmother's horrific stories of being inducted into the civil defense corps during the Siege of Leningrad, which began when she was 12.

You can subscribe to the podcast here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

And here's the MP3, which is hosted by the @internetarchive (they'll host your stuff for free, too!).

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_331/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_331_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.mp3

Glitch workers unionize (permalink)

The staff of Glitch have formed a union. It seems to be the first-ever white-collar tech-workers' union to have formed without any objections from management (bravo, Anil Dash!).

https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/tech-workers-app-developer-glitch-vote-form-union-and-join-cwa-organizing-initiative

The workers organized under the Communications Workers of America, which has been organizing tech shops through their Campaign to Organize Digital Employees.

https://www.code-cwa.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIovDRsc-S6AIVCuDICh0rFQCMEAAYASAAEgJb1PD_BwE

"We appreciate that unlike so many employers, the Glitch management team decided to respect the rights of its workforce to choose union representation without fear or coercion."

Women of Imagineering (permalink)

Next October, Disney will publish "Women of Imagineering: 12 Careers, 12 Theme Parks, Countless Stories," a 384-page history of a dozen pioneering woman Imagineers.

https://thedisneyblog.com/2020/03/13/new-book-highlights-stories-from-the-women-of-walt-disney-imagineering/

Featured are Elisabete Erlandson, Julie Svendsen, Maggie Elliott, Peggy Fariss, Paula Dinkel, Karen Connolly Armitage, Katie Olson, Becky Bishop, Tori Atencio, Lynne Macer Rhodes, Kathy Rogers, and Pam Rank.

When I worked at Imagineering, the smartest, most talented, most impressive staff I knew were women (like Sara Thacher!). It's amazing to see the women of the organization get some long-overdue recognition.

Tachyon celebrates 30 years of sff publishing with a Humble Bundle (permalink)

For 30 years, @TachyonPub has been publishing outstanding science fiction, including a wide range of stuff that's too weird or marginal for the Big 5 publishers, like collections of essays and collections.

https://tachyonpublications.com/

Now, they've teamed up with Humble Bundle to celebrate their 30th with a huge pay-what-you-like bundle that benefits EFF. There are so many great books in this bundle!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/celebrating-25-years-scifi-fantasy-from-tachyon-books

Like Bruce Sterling's Pirate Utopia, Eileen Gunn's Stable Strategies, and books by Michael Moorcock, Thomas Disch, Jo Walton, Jane Yolen, Nick Mamatas, Kameron Hurley, Lauren Beukes, Lavie Tidhar and so many more!

I curated the very first Humble Ebook Bundle and I've followed all the ones since. This one is fucking amazeballs. Run, don't walk.

Honest Government Ads, Covid-19 edition (permalink)

Good political satire is hard, but @thejuicemedia's "Honest Government Ads" are consistently brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKRw8GAAtm27q4R3Q0kst_g

The latest is, of course, Covi9-19 themed. It is funny, trenchant, and puts the blame exactly where it belongs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hks6Nq7g6P4

If you like it, you can support their Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/TheJuiceMedia

TSA lifts liquid bans, telcos lift data caps (permalink)

Your ISP is likely to lift its data-caps in the next day or two. @ATT and @comcast already did.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74qzb/atandt-suspends-broadband-usage-caps-during-coronavirus-crisis

And TSA has decided that 12 ounces of any liquid labelled "hand sanitizer" is safe for aviation, irrespective of what's in the bottle.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21179120/tsa-hand-sanitizer-liquid-size-airport-screening-coronavirus-covid-19

What do these two facts have in common? Obviously, it's that the official narrative for things that impose enormous financial costs on Americans, and dramatically lower their quality of lives, were based on lies. These lies have been obvious from the start. The liquid ban, for example, is based on a plot that never worked (making binary explosives in airport bathroom sinks from liquids) and seems unlikely to ever have worked, according to organic chemists.

Keeping your "piranha bath" near 0' C for a protracted period in the bathroom toilet is some varsity-level terrorism, and the penalty for failure is that you maim or blind yourself with acid spatter.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/on_the_implausi.html

And even if you stipulate that the risk is real, it's been obvious for 14 years that multiple 3oz bottles of Bad Liquid could be recombined beyond the checkpoint to do whatever it is liquids do at 3.0001oz.The liquid ban isn't just an inconvenience. It's not even just a burden on travelers who've collectively spent billions to re-purchase drinks and toiletries. It's a huge health burden to people with disabilities who rely on constant access to liquids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m12mLXgO1A

And as we knew all along, the liquid ban was a nonsense, an authoritarian response to a cack-handed, improbable terror plot. It embodies the "security syllogism":

Something must be done. There, I've done something.

Think of all those checkpoints where all confiscated liquids were dumped into a giant barrel and mingled together: if liquids posed an existential threat to planes, they'd dispose of them like they were C4, not filtered water. No one believed in the liquid threat, ever. TSA can relax the restrictions and allow 12oz of anything labeled as hand-san through the checkpoints. There was no reason to confiscate liquids in the first place. But don't expect them to admit this. The implicit message of the change is "Pandemics make liquids safe."

Now onto data-caps. Like the liquid ban, data-caps have imposed a tremendous cost on Americans. In addition to the hundreds of millions in monopoly rents extracted from the nation by telcos through overage charges, these caps also shut many out of the digital world. They represent a regressive tax on information, one that falls worst upon the most underserved in the nation: people in poor and rural places, for whom online access is a gateway to civic and political life, family connection, employment and education.

We were told that we had to tolerate these caps because of the "tragedy of the commons," a fraudulent idea from economics that says that shared resources are destroyed through selfish overuse, based on no data or evidence.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/first-as-tragedy-then-as-fascism-amend

(By contrast, actual commons are a super-efficient way of managing resources)

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons

Telcos insisted that if they didn't throttle and gouge us, their networks would become unusable – but really, what they meant is that if they didn't throttle and gouge us, the windfall to their shareholders would decline.

What's more likely: that pandemics make network management tools so efficient that data-caps become obsolete, or that they were a shuck and a ripoff from day one, enabled by a hyper-concentrated industry of monopolists with cozy relationships with corrupt regulators?

So yeah, maybe this is the moment that kills Security Theater and data-caps.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-could-force-isps-to-abandon-data-caps-forever/

(Image: Rhys Gibson)

CBC postpones Canada Reads debates (permalink)

The folks at the @CBC have postponed next week's televised Canada Reads debates, so we're going to have to wait a while to find out who wins the national book prize.

https://www.cbc.ca/books/canada-reads-2020-postponed-1.5497678

Obviously, this is a bummer, though equally obviously, it's a relatively small consequence of this ghastly circumstance.

And on the bright side, the CBC have just released a ton of excerpts from the nominees:

https://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/read-excerpts-from-the-canada-reads-2020-books-1.5496637

If you're looking for some Canada Reads lit for this moment, my novella "Masque of the Red Death" appears in my collection Radicalized, one of the finalists. I put up the story as a free podast last night (thanks to Macmillan Audio for permission).

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/

Star Wars firepits (permalink)

West Coast Firepits went viral when they produced a Death Star firepit, though of course, I lusted after their Tiki Firepit.

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/tiki-firepit-69825

But now they're really leaning into the Star Wars themed pits, with an Interceptor pit ($2500):

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/interceptor

Or, if you prefer a post-apocalyptic version, there's a Crashed Interceptor pit, also $2500.

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/crashed-interceptor

If those prices seem high, consider that they're hand-made onshore, and contain 750lbs of 1/4" and 1/8" steel.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago How DRM will harm the developing world https://web.archive.org/web/20050317005030/https://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/itu_drm.php

#5yrsago Anti-vaxxer ordered to pay EUR100K to winner of "measles aren't real" bet https://calvinayre.com/2015/03/13/business/biologist-ordered-to-pay-e100k-after-losing-wager-that-a-virus-causes-measles/

#1yrago A massive victory for fair use in the longrunning Dr Seuss vs Star Trek parody lawsuit https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190313/09554041791/big-fair-use-win-mashups-places-youll-boldly-go-deemed-to-be-fair-use.shtml

#1yrago A detailed analysis of American ER bills reveals rampant, impossible-to-avoid price-gouging https://www.vox.com/health-care/2018/12/18/18134825/emergency-room-bills-health-care-costs-america

#1yrago Ketamine works great for depression and other conditions, and costs $10/dose; the new FDA-approved "ketamine" performs badly in trials and costs a fortune https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/11/ketamine-now-by-prescription/

#1yrago Facebook and Big Tech are monopsonies, even when they're not monopolies https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-not-monopoly-but-should-broken-up/

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: EFF Deeplinks (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/), Waxy (https://waxy.org/), Slashdot https://slashdot.org).

Currently writing: I've just finished rewrites on a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I've also just completed "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel next.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/when-sysadmins-ruled-the-earth-2/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

[friend-o-dorothy]

Full disclosure, I support trans and non binary people. But I don’t really understand the “terf” standing? I would really appreciate it if you explained the argument that if they pass a law stating that identifying as a woman is all u need to do to enter women’s spaces - it will result in men pretending to be trans and entering women’s spaces? Has that happened before and is it likely? Even if u have a link to smth that explains it, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank u!

Hey! I’m honestly not one to keep receipts around and it’s pretty late, so I’ll put this out there and hope followers reblog with links. If they do I’ll reblog it here.

There are cases of men posing as women to get into women’s spaces to harm women. Bathrooms are sensitive and vulnerable spaces for women. Trans women have the same rates of violence as their cis male peers. Imagine being 11, starting your period, wanting to talk about that with your friends in the bathroom, and sharing that space with a male bodied person. Do little girls not deserve privacy? It’s also important to know the history of the bathroom debate. There used to only be male bathrooms in many public spaces because women didn’t enter those spaces. Women fought long and hard to be able to have bathrooms because it was unsafe for them to use public restrooms with men. Here we are having the same debate.

I think the obvious solution is to have more unisex single stall restrooms. I empathize with trans women in the sense that men are violent towards transwomen usually due to homophobia. Single stall restrooms (most places already have them anyway), are safe for anyone who may prefer more privacy. But I have to wonder if it’s really about safety. Because if it was about safety, the movement would be pushing for single stall, especially since they talk about how TERFs are violent. If we’re so violent and you’re vulnerable then why would you want to be in a space with us that makes you vulnerable? It’s not about safety, it’s about validation. And I don’t believe that the safety of females should be sacrificed for the validation of males.

I think the broader issue here, beyond immediate safety is the argument of what makes a woman a woman. Does femininity make a woman a woman? If so, are masculine women, butches, tomboys, athletes, those that like short hair, those that don’t wear make up or shave—are they not women? If femininity and gender roles do not define womanhood, then what DOES? Our biology. And the basis of our oppression has always been our biology. I won’t pretend that trans women don’t experience violence at the hands of men, but it is not because they are women, it is because they are men who dare to be feminine. Our experiences are not the same.

As someone who has been to female only festivals and TIM inclusive festivals, I can say there is a difference. When we celebrate our biology with pussy hats, with art about the vulva, with the vagina monologues—when we celebrate the bodies we have been socialized to HATE, we are told we are transmisogynistic and exclusionary. When we talk about our real challenges with menstruation, we’re either faced with an onslaught of misogynistic insults in which we’re referred to as “bleeders” or are expected to grin and bear it while a TIM tells us about phantom cramps while we suffer real ones from conditions like PCOS and Endometriosis, both conditions of the female body with next to no research on how to treat or correct them.

We need female-only space. We still have work to do in terms of female-specific oppression. And when we allow our oppressors to enter our spaces, our goals, our liberation, our work is put on the back burner while the relentless task of validating the identities of trans women who think they’ve identified into an oppressed class come to the forefront. I would never presume to enter the spaces of trans women or black men, or Spanish-speakers. Because their experience is unique and I would not come unless invited. The experience of being female, of being raised female, of the pain that comes with the oppression of the female sex, is unique to us. We deserve to find spaces of common experience where we aren’t silenced because our stories may make someone feel invalid.

[slytherpuff9]

Things I Cannot And Will Not Believe Anymore

1.People are inherently evil.

2.People deserve the apocalypse/hell.

3. Women are responsible for the sexual impulses of men/can control the sexual impulses of men.

4. Men deserve authority over women.

5. Doubt is the devil using my spiritual gifts against me.

6.I owe sex to my husband/other forms of submission or obedience to my husband.

7. LGBTQIA+ are confused/evil/led astray -- their orientation/identification is wrong or invalid and forcing them to change/deny this about themselves will be good for them.

8. Women should not be in positions of leadership/roles that are considered to be traditionally masculine. Certainly not over men.

9. Jesus is the only absolution you need for sins that hurt other people.

10. Self-worth is pride/arrogance/vanity.

11. Religious values should dictate secular laws/civil rights.

12. Intimacy (psychological OR physical) that I share with men I love before I meet/marry my husband cheats my husband out of elements of my sexuality/liberties upon my body to which he is entitled.

13. Mental illness is merely a soul crying out for God and professional help is a scam to steal your money and lead you away from God.

14. People in unfortunate situations must have done something to deserve it/bring it upon themselves.

15. Women who have abortions want to kill their babies/hate children/are cruel and callous and loose/would choose murder over living with consequences of their presumed promiscuous lifestyle/believe abortion is the only form of birth control.

16. Men cannot and should not be expected to control their sexual impulses toward others on their own. (see #3)

17. Evidence supporting scientific/medical/psychological advancements that clash with a literal interpretation of the biblical account should be ignored, boycotted, banned, and impeded or even outlawed.

18. Sexual confidence (real or perceived) cheapens one’s worth as a person or invalidates one’s spirituality.

19. Teens cannot be trusted with an actual education in safe sex. In fact, I should deliberately mislead my daughter about birth control until FOUR MONTHS BEFORE HER WEDDING. There’s no way that could backfire spectacularly, cause damage to her health, her marriage, or even my ambitions to have grandchildren one day. (NOT ON YOUR LIFE, NOT FOR MANY, MANY YEARS!!!)

20. People who are not “with” me -- who believe what I do without question -- are “against” me -- militantly attacking me personally. The people “out there” are out to get me. They want to tear down my faith and send me and my children to hell.

21. Teens and unmarried women cannot be trusted with freely available contraception. If we make contraception available, they will do ALL the sex! O.O *gasp! horror! clutches pearls!*

22. It is okay and an expression of Christ-like love to demand that other people forsake their lifestyle, religion, and worldview, but feel personally persecuted and threatened when they question mine.

23. Teens cannot be trusted.

24. Women cannot be trusted.

25. Men cannot be trusted.

26. Doubt is selfish/dangerous/a slippery slope and means I’m not really sincere in my faith, or my faith is weak, or can grieve the Holy Spirit and take away my faith completely.

27. The Bible can and should be used to enforce anti-immigration policy. (see #11)

28. The Bible can and should be used to shame/denigrate victims of police brutality.

29. Unfortunate accidents/hardships that happen to me or my family can and should be seen as signs that God is punishing or testing me.

30. Disobedience -- even psychological disobedience (i.e. skepticism) -- casts into question or completely invalidates my morality.

31. It is okay to rail against affordable healthcare, actively impede it in the polls, then slander health organizations like Planned Parenthood and shame those who accept their help ... all without providing a viable alternative but claiming that the church can do it better.

32. “You just need to have faith”, “It’s a mystery”, “That’s a good/hard question, I’ll get back to you” (but he never DID), or “That’s the Old Testament Law, Jesus freed us from that” (when so many other O.T. laws are quoted and used to define sin, just sayin’ ...) are ACCEPTABLE and SATISFACTORY answers to questions about the 100% literal, true, God-breathed verses explicitly prescribing stoning or marrying rape survivors to their rapists ...

10/10 FELT SO SAFE AS A TEENAGE AND YOUNG ADULT CHRISTIAN WOMAN!

33. People who reject the evangelical message are just butt-hurt, pouty, selfish, petulant liberals who don’t want to face hard truths.

34. People who believe differently or celebrate different religious holidays in winter should be forced to use my seasonal religious greeting and failure to do so indicates a vitriolic antagonism to everything I stand for. But it is unreasonable to expect me to extend the same consideration to them.

35. It is okay to deny/limit/discourage my child’s access to the level of education required to succeed in the world we live in (even with the caveat that it clashes with my beliefs/worldview and I believe it to be false) because I do not trust my child to discern my interpretation of the Bible in the face of a single chapter in their no doubt riveting 10th grade biology textbook. I’m sure they’ll just breeze through that in college.

36. Children are also not to be trusted with intellectual/psychological/spiritual autonomy.

37. Not a single word of this book could possibly have been mistranslated, misinterpreted, metaphorical, made obsolete with time, or simply penned by a woefully misguided human being. (see #32)

38. If I open my mind enough to really understand the person I am trying to reach, my brain will fall out.

39. To seriously question these things is to deny my faith/attack that of others.

40. It is okay to train a child to be a soldier in my culture war.

41. It’s okay -- virtuous and caring, even -- to tell someone who is struggling or grieving that this life is meant to be a trial and their lot will improve drastically after they die.

42. There was a point in human history when water covered Everest by 22 feet of water, and scientists are actively hiding the geological evidence because they are in league with Satan and want me to go to hell.

43. Obedience = protection. “If you just follow God’s plan, nothing bad will ever happen to you.” The Bible is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth and if you just do what it says, you’ll live a long and successful and fulfilling life.

44. Bad things happen to good people because omniscient God has reason to question/test their devotion. They are just being petulant or are deluded about their secret sin/doubt/disobedience, and if they search themslves and the Bible, they will see that God is well within His rights to hurt their families/hurt them/cause this hardship. (see #1,2,5,10,14,18,20,26,29,30)

45. It is okay -- advisable, even -- to tell someone who is struggling that they are being prideful/sinful/selfish, and they need to “die to self”. That can in no way be interpreted as a message of “just get over yourself or die already.”

46. In fact, just the whole ANY death imagery should be considered kind and appropriate dialogue with a human being who might be thinking of suicide. They should just know that isn’t what I mean at this turbulent point in their life. I have no responsibility to consider any other interpretation of my words or the biblical jargon/verses I use. I have no responsibility to examine what those words/jargon/verses really even say.

47. A survivor of abuse or assault has a civic duty to come forward to keep me and my daughters/children safe, but I have NO civic duty to believe/accept their account if:

a. I know the perpetrator.

b. They know the perpetrator.

c. They wear clothes I disapprove of.

d. It’s been a certain period of time.

e. They behave in a way that I disapprove of.

f. They are “sex-crazed/rebellious” teenagers or unmarried young adults.

g. The perpetrator is a public figure I approve of.

h. They “allowed” themselves to be alone with the perpetrator/somehow “put themselves” in this situation.

i. They continued a relationship with the perpetrator.

j. They are married/related to the perpetrator.

k. I am THE authority on what is abuse/assault, and believe their account does not qualify.

48. Not only do I NOT have a civic duty to believe/accept the accounts of abuse/assault survivors, I have the right to slander them publicly when I don’t. To shame them. To question the veracity of their account in the same breath that I demand why they didn’t jump at the chance to defend the women I actually care about in the wake of their trauma. They are the problem here.

49. It is impossible to have a fulfilling spiritual experience/personal contentment in life if I do not believe all of the things on this list.

50. It is certainly impossible to have a fulfilling spiritual experience/relationship with compassionate and unconditionally loving Christ if I do not believe all of the things on this list.

51. I have a spiritual and civic duty to force society worldwide to conform to my specific beliefs. (see #11)

52. It is okay to tell an underage girl that her clothing is distracting grown men in the congregation, but NOT tell the grown men in the congregation presumably raising these complaints that their “distracting” sexual thoughts are predatory and constitute pedophilia, or even incest in some cases. Similarly, it is okay to tell these girls that their clothing is distracting boys their age, but NOT tell these boys that their “distracting” sexual thoughts are predatory and sexually objectifying their sisters in Christ. It is okay to put the onus of males’ sexual sin/distraction on underage girls who presumably have better things to do (like stress about their skirt and posture and bra straps) than listen to the sermon the men are blissfully enjoying.That isn’t at all distracting or distressing to the underage girls, who need the message ... less?

Will add more as they occur to me. If you feel personally attacked by any of these things I no longer believe, please know that was not my intention, but perhaps you ought to bring that to God and find out why it is so offensive to you that I do not believe it. I was taught all of these “values” in a church by wonderful people who know not what their doctrine really says to the children they are raising and the people they are trying to reach.

[pinelife3]

Whatever happened to Lainey Gossip?

Lainey Gossip was the smartest celebrity gossip site on the internet. I was an avid reader for most of my adult life. You may recall my April 2016 blog post about gossip and, in particular, blind items. Well, it’s been nearly a year since Lainey posted a blind item. In the site’s heyday (pre-2017), she posted a blind roughly once a month.

Beyond the drop-off in blind items, the site has decayed in a number of ways. It’s become smug and self-aggrandising. They rolled lifestyle content onto the main blog feed, so now I have to scroll past posts about, I kid you not, baby names. (Caring about baby names is so inherently stupid to me, I feel genuinely irritated just being exposed to that content. Just name your kid something out of the primary religious text for your culture/region/family. Adam can never go out of style.)

The main thing which has turned me off Lainey Gossip is the writers’ misapprehension that the site is some kind of arbiter on social justice issues. Every other day there is a post with some insufferable moralising about feminism, equality, systemic racism, Rowling’s transphobia etc. It’s not that these are bad takes - I actually agree with what they’re saying. But I don’t want to hear it on this site. I don’t refer to gossip writers for guidance on this. Lainey is not a political activist. The writers on the site are just regurgitating ideas and lessons they’ve learnt elsewhere. This post from June was the final straw for me. The relevant part of the post is Alia Shawkat’s apology for saying the n-word during an interview in 2016. The clip of her actually saying the n-word seems to have disappeared from the internet, but basically she was describing a time when she and some of her friends arrived in a very nice hotel and how she thought of the lyric: “Nigga, we made it" from the Drake song “We Made It”. 

Here’s Lainey’s analysis:

As people have pointed out on Twitter, 2016 isn’t that long ago. And Alia was in her 20s. Whether or not you decide to cancel her, as many are doing, is up to you. 

I can’t fully account for it, but the phrase ‘Whether or not you decide to cancel her is up to you’ rubbed me the wrong way. Whether you decide to cast her into the fire for not correctly censoring herself when quoting a Drake song. Whether she is destroyed as a person forever. A worthless husk. Irredeemable. Whether her soul should be torn out and her body fed to crows. That’s up to you. The new god? It’s you, the reader of this gossip blog!

This was during the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests and discussion this year. So, in the second half of the article Lainey gets high on her own farts, like so:

While I have never used the n-word casually, and many of you may say the same, we do all engage with Black art, we do all borrow from it, consciously or unconsciously, in the ways we express ourselves, in the way I have expressed myself here, from fashion to language to GIFs. Think of how much cultural colloquial vocabulary comes from the Black community – recent examples include “lit”, “snatched”, “shady”, “flex”, “tea”, and phrasing that’s become commonplace and permanent in our language like “chill”, “dope”, “extra” – all of this comes from the creativity of Black minds. And they’re almost never credited for it.

So yes, of course, call out people like Alia for their irresponsible use of the most egregious words, but at the same time, let’s all consider how much we owe to the Black community for what they’ve given to us and for little we’ve given back in respect, appreciation, and credit. Because while the immediate urgency of Black Lives Matter is to prevent more senseless killings of Black people, the broader focus of BLM is Black dignity in all forms, and all of this is related. We can’t say that we honour Black humanity if we are erasing their contributions in all aspects of our lives.

Thanks Lainey. To be clear, I wouldn’t mind if this was the only time she’d shared an opinion like this - but this type of argument is repeated ad nauseaum across the site. She’s a therapist. She’s a civil rights activist. She knows what’s good for you. She speaks with great authority on how to solve racism. 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and Lainey is apologising for the hideous shit she used to write on her blog in the early 2000s where her takes were often racist, homophobic, and/or misogynistic. In her apology post, she wrote:

Many people object to cancel culture. My personal opinion on it is that while cancel culture is not always judiciously applied, it does have value. Sometimes people should be cancelled. And if you visit this website often, you might be thinking about whether or not to cancel me. That’s fair.

...I have been conditioned in white supremacy, and I have enabled white privilege, even as a person of colour myself, because we too, given that white supremacy is so dominant, can have bias... When I started this site back in 2003/2004, I wrote misogynist things and slut shaming things, and racist things. And as the site grew in popularity, it served as confirmation bias, that there was an appetite out there for this kind of content, and I wanted to keep delivering it. Over time, I learned and grew, along with many of you who have learned and grown. And through it all, I have talked about my progress, calling out my past mistakes and leaving much of that content on the site instead of deleting it. There are some things, though, that have been deleted because I was embarrassed and I didn’t want to be part of it and obviously didn’t want to perpetuate those thoughts. But in the process of doing that, I realised that that would be erasing history – and for marginalised people, their pain and trauma is constantly being erased and invalidated. My leaving it there to be eventually called out is nothing compared to their experience.

Many gossip blogs were like this in the nascent stage of online journalism. They called it snark - and it was very popular. I think in some ways this was to differentiate blogs from the content and coverage in traditional gossip mags. Most gossip magazines are toothless - because they want celebrity interviews and exclusives. But, in 2006, a website was never going to get an interview with anyone worth interviewing so why bother to be nice - especially because being cynical and mean was more entertaining for the average reader. A lot of the gossip coverage that occurred back then would never fly now: ridiculing Britney for shaving her head, fat shaming, cruel coverage of celebrity eating disorders, slut shaming. The edgelord humour of the early blogs was crushed beneath the wheels of progress.

I don’t care about what Lainey wrote in 2006 - I don’t think it’s nice, I don’t think it’s interesting or funny, I wouldn’t have chosen to read it. But it doesn’t change my view of the site as a whole. What it does do though, is highlight how hollow all the talk of respecting women, honouring Black culture, working to be better, being good allies, etc. is on this site. Because it’s not really about doing that shit - it’s about telling other people off for not doing it. Lainey has weaponised wokeness as her new snark. 

After the fall out around Lainey’s embarrassing old articles, a banner was added to all of the articles on the site which were published before 2013: 

She’s effectively disavowed half of the blog’s history. Lainey Gossip launched in 2004. Is it really fair to say that articles published in 2012 were posted during an early period of the site?

What is Lainey doing when she toys with Alia Shawkat’s fate like Anton Chigurh tossing a coin? She knows in her heart of hearts that she has also said things she regrets, also said unsavory things in public that she didn’t really mean. It’s so weird: can’t you see the parallels between yourself and her? Lainey is pretty clear in her apology that she’s acknowledging the problematic history of the blog because people were exposing her on social media. Were it not for this, she likely would have continued writing about problematic shit other people did 10 years ago without acknowledging that she is no better. 

Again, I want to be really clear: my issue isn’t with the articles she wrote in the early days of the site. It’s the weirdness around publicly criticising people when your own behaviour is comparably bad. What could you gain from doing that beyond reveling in the snark? Destroying someone else before the mob you helped create comes for you?

Let me remind you: THIS USED TO BE A GOSSIP BLOG with analysis of celebrity culture, movie deals, blind items, industry insider stories. Now it’s just been sucked into the culture war vortex. Ruined by the discourse. 

Gossip used to be talking about other people’s business: Speculating about which Victoria’s Secret model DiCaprio would pick up next. Investigating rumours that Jennifer Lawrence faked her tumble on the stairs at the Oscars. Analysing why a celebrity filed their divorce papers in California rather than Texas. Waiting to see which celebrity would be the first to wear Marchesa on a red carpet after the fall of Weinstein.

Gossip is a way of learning what is acceptable in society, a way of observing how others perceive and react to the decisions people make - and how behaviour which violates societal norms attracts backlash. It’s even more interesting when the subject of that gossip is rich and famous. Lainey Gossip is no longer turning out this kind of content - so where can we go for these insights?

The best barometer for conservative public opinion on celebrity movements and the related enforcement of societal norms is the The Daily Mail comments section. The Daily Mail itself seems like something of a journalistic agent of chaos: I would have assumed that they swung right, but they post pro-Trump articles and anti-Trump articles. They do not seem to have a dog in the fight: the world turns, empires rise and fall and The Daily Mail persists. 

In the ‘entertainment news’ articles on the site, no impassioned arguments are made, no particular analysis is shared: the journalists position themselves as impartial observers just reporting the facts. Occasionally a piece is clearly designed to bait the readers - for example, any time they mention the price of someone’s home in the headline... “Celebrity in $13 million mansion reminds fans to appreciate the small things” or that kind of crap. But the article itself is just a list of facts. No analysis, no reflection - just positioning. 

Also interesting to observe is that The Daily Mail comments section is typically quite harmonious. Readers generally have similar take-aways from articles and it’s very rare to see an argument break out in the comments section. It’s as if Daily Mail readers think with one mind:

Stay with wife many years? Very good. Society like this. Daily Mail readers approve.

Stay with wife many years and maybe wife is slightly overweight? Oh yes - this guy is the best. International hero. Daily Mail readers all agree: we love.

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her? Hmm let’s see how this situation develops before we judge...

Stay with wife many years and then divorce her to be with younger woman? You die now.

The Daily Mail comments section is a glance into the void. A pit of human misery where people say exactly what they think. No subtext. No analysis required. 

They like Pierce Brosnan because he is a straight-forward nice male celebrity and he has been with his wife for a long time - his wife is a little overweight so it makes readers feel good to imagine that he might not be repulsed by the average woman.

They do not like Emma Roberts because in 2013 she was arrested for beating her boyfriend in a hotel room. This was a long time ago and not many people think about it now. She has a successful career and is well liked on social media. But that’s because those youngsters forget. 

The Daily Mail comments section does not forget. Their memory is long and their pity is scarce. They are society’s hive mind. The majority. A snapshot of what 95% of the planet’s population would think on any given subject - which actually makes for very interesting reading.

Forget about Lainey Gossip, trawl The Daily Mail comments section with me.

[thisdiabolicalvarnish]

The local trans group I have been forcing myself to attend periodically seems to be on the verge of decline. I went last weekend to the “transmasculine” support group, which ended up being three trans men and the trans women. I stopped by early and brought coffee with me as a gesture to the facilitators, taking out supplies and making a pot as soon as I arrived. None of the ftm facilitators attended; the reins fell to the mtf one who has previously been passively hostile toward. Tldr she steered the conversation around the topics she could speak on and did an awful job of focusing on the people who were actually supposed to be centered that week. She also tried to start a word dialogue about how awful it is for us ftms to be seen as men because we were going to get ourselves into fights from our lack of male socialization. One guy was one his phone the whole time. The other made occasional interjections and at one point broke down and shared personal history as a means of invalidating the experience of people without similar history.

At the end of the meeting, the bored guy mentioned that he’d prefer a heads up if the transmasc sessions were not going to be focused, and the facilitator became very passive aggressive and guilt trippy about how he should have said something and she had better places to be that weekend. I agreed with him that future sessions might be better received asking participants, namely those for whom the session exists, for input into topics and weren’t limited by the facilitators frame of reference. The facilitator left without cleaning up and almost immediately posted on the group wall that she was taking a break from the group.

Today, bored guy sent me a huge screenshot of a message she sent him further guilting him for wasting her time… By calling her out too late in the session. He’s probably never going back, who knows how long she’ll stay away, and the other facilitator is basically going to be stuck doing all the work himself, if he can.

I’m amused by the state of things, but I’m afraid it’s going to mean dissolution or a political shift with more vigilantly pro-spectrum people stepping up. I already had to cap criticism of anything related to the community, from shitty comics and gender philosophers and uplifted cis non-binaries to why trans people’s sex lives might be more negatively affected by dysphoria than stigma.

I think I’m going to stop going at the end of the summer. I’m curious to see what will happen with the group, but previous sessions have been monopolized by non-binaries complaining about being misgendered and calls to political action despite it allegedly being an apolitical group. Although frankly, I don’t believe there is such a thing.

It would also be nice to be in a trans space that, in addition to being an adult crowd, wasn’t predominantly very early in transition. But I think that speaks to why there isn’t one; the further you get, the less you want to be around this, the more everyone relies on you for support they can’t/won’t return.

[mxhki]

I had an abortion.

It's hilarious, how uncertain I felt about writing this. The half of my family aware of my abortion has pressured me so heavily into keeping it a secret, like I should be ashamed. This is my first time speaking out. I do it for people who were in my shoes, seeking comfort from stories. Below, is every detail. I just turned 21 and earned my Associates degree, currently continuing my education. I'm employed with a steady part-time job, and serve within various leadership positions at my college. I live with my family, and I've been invested in a long-term, steady relationship. The stability of this relationship does not invalidate my decision - we just weren't ready. I'm no stranger to pregnancy tests - just positive ones. I took an at-home test one afternoon, my usually irregular period a week late, experiencing all the PMS symptoms. It showed one line for negative - and another, very faint line. My friend at the time congratulated me on, "not being pregnant" and said she had gotten a second faint line before as well - that it meant nothing. Rather than relief, I felt confusion. This wasn't a solid answer to me, so I hastily booked an appointment for a same-day blood test. It took two days for the results to come in. Each passing day, my morning sickness strengthened. It became increasingly difficult to get up in the mornings. Each day, I was filled with anxiety, and couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of a life growing inside of me - ending my own, should I choose to keep it. I got the call near the end of my shift on a Friday, congratulating me on a pregnancy I did not plan for, was unprepared for. The nurse was chattering about prenatal appointments for a baby I knew I could not keep. It took everything I had to keep myself together at work that day. Before my shift was even over, I called Planned Parenthood and booked an appointment almost a week and a half out, on a Tuesday. It was the hardest decision I ever made. For days, I thought, "this happens to people, but not me,". Although I made the decision quickly, it wasn't easy. But after years of unprotected intercourse, and unreliable birth control, I had to know what I would do in this situation, and stick to it. The next 13 days were difficult. I was increasingly tired all the time, nauseous after every meal. My breasts were sore and swollen. Worst of all, I had a very limited support system throughout the entire process. My mother was the first person I told in my direct family, and she did everything to make me feel comfortable. My grandmother was the second person, who I told several days later. She responded with a hug, saying, "we're all here for you,". The final two people I told - my boyfriend and my sister. They were both supportive, my boyfriend offering a shoulder to cry on, and my sister sharing her experience with me. Nobody tried to force their opinions on me. I refused to eat anything other than fruits. I couldn't eat dinners, as I'd throw them up. After a week of hardly any food, I began drinking meal replacement shakes. I almost couldn't wait for the appointment to come, so I'd feel like myself again. The closest Planned Parenthood which performed abortions was an hour away from me, and my appointment was early in the morning. No protestors stood outside, and the lobby inside was full of women there for various reasons. The staff was kind, and the wait wasn't long. I was led into an ultrasound room, where they layered cold jelly on my stomach. The lady gently asked me if I wanted to look at the ultrasound, and if I wanted a copy. I said yes to both. She confirmed I was exactly 6 weeks pregnant, and I could see the little jellybean attached to me. She asked me if I still felt confident in my decision, because it wasn't too late to go back and most women change their minds after seeing the fetus developing. I told her I was. I was then led into a smaller room with a nurse sitting across from me. She asked me about my relationship history. "Have you been using protection? Are you currently in a sexual relationship? Is the person you're in a sexual relationship with here today? Do they support your choice? Do you have a support system? Are you being pressured in any way into this?" So many questions. After I answered, she explained the medical abortion process (the pill) to me. One pill - Mifepristone - is taken at the clinic to end the pregnancy. Within 48 hours afterwards, I'd take 4 Misoprostol pills, which would force my uterus to contract and expel the contents. They tested my blood, gave me an exam, and I was then siting in front of a doctor. He handed me an antibiotic and the Mifepristone, before saying, "once you take these, you are committing to the full abortion process,". I took a second, then swallowed them down with water. I was given a paper bag with four pills I'd take 32 hours later after work the next evening, anti-nausea pills, a prescription for Vicodin, condoms, and a pack of birth control pills. Grief began setting in. Ever since I found out about the pregnancy, I had stopped smoking marijuana, and cut out alcohol entirely. Despite knowing I would go through the abortion process, I was going to respect the growing life inside of me while it was there. And soon, it wouldn't be. I threw up in a brown paper bag 30 minutes later on the car ride to fill my prescription, and spent the rest of the day in bed. I didn't feel ill - but sad. It took all my strength to go to work the next day like nothing happened, despite that being what I'd been doing all along. I followed the doctor's instructions to a T, and began the process at 8:30pm. I took the next two days off work, but would be traveling for college representative meetings on those days instead. At 9pm, I placed the four Misoprostol tablets on the insides of my cheeks and let them dissolve for 45 minutes before swallowing. 30 minutes in, I had felt twinges of pain in my abdomen. Everything began to happen so fast. Within 30 minutes of swallowing the pills, I vomited and dry-heaved for 20 minutes straight, holding the trash can to my chest as I sit in bed. In the midst of vomiting, I experienced contractions roughly 10 seconds apart. I had taken 400mg of ibuprofen beforehand, but it was obvious I needed the Vicodin. Luckily, it made me very tired. I had begun bleeding onto the pad I wore, and took this as a sign things were working. The Vicodin eased my cramps down to a dull ache, and allowed me to pass out for two hours. I awoke with cramps similar to a period, and had a craving for sweets immediately. After eating a couple of cookies, I felt the need to go to the bathroom. When I did - and despite all my readings - I wasn't prepared for what happened. Three large clots fell out of me and into the toilet. Two slid out, and one I had to push. I couldn't see what it was through the bloody water, but the empty feeling told me I expelled the pregnancy. After this, my cramps eased considerably and I slept through the night. My bleeding remained constant and heavy afterwards. The next couple of days were bearable. From the time I took the abortion pills on Wednesday night, until that Sunday, I felt great. Albeit the bleeding was very heavy, I had next to no cramping. My appetite had returned with a vengeance, and my breasts were no longer tender. On the fourth and fifth days, my cramps were awful and my bleeding was no better. Despite passing large clots every day, I remember standing in the shower one of those evenings and suddenly feeling very ill. I looked down, only to see the shower water red and clots just falling out of me. Totally unprepared for this, I fell to my knees in the shower and sobbed, more blood running out in clots. It took 10 minutes for me to stand. I was helped out of the shower and into bed, given ice water and felt better after an hour. That was probably the scariest part for me. I didn't expect to see so much coming out at once. It's now been around two weeks since my abortion. My follow-up was yesterday, and they told me it was successful via transvaginal ultrasound (also that I had a large ovarian cyst). The past month has been beyond challenging, and I'm proud of myself for sticking through my studies and my employment. I continue to bleed, some days heavier than others, and I'm expected to bleed another two weeks or so. They gave me plenty of information on the patch method of BC, which I'm now considering instead of the pill. Overall, the cost of everything was $550, which my insurance did not cover. I do cry about it every other day. I mourn. It's hard for me to look at the ultrasound picture, and has been even harder to keep my unplanned pregnancy a, "dirty little secret,". I'm not ashamed, but proud I went through it and this experience has strengthened my relationships. Planned Parenthood stood for me when I needed it, and I have always stood for them.

[heroine-alternative]

A christian was verbally attacking my best friend, a muslim, online. This is my response.

My best friend was bullied online because she openly declared Islam as her religion and this guy we have never seen or heard of, an american with a ‘christian mindset’ I would say, verbally attacked her. He was clearly crossing the line telling my BF, a 3rd generation UK citizen, to f*ck off to where she belongs (Hell), asking her if she’s defending the Islam because her rapists (??) told her to do so? How she even dares to speak up as a women. If she’s ugly because she hasn’t been married off yet? 

‘’ Mohammed has never been triggering war, tho?! Jihad is not a violent concept. It is not a declaration of war against other religions Jihad means to walk the path of Allah during the search for truth. It refers to the internal and external effort of being a good muslim or believer. Allah was telling Mohammed to stay wise during his actions and told him to spread his word. Mohammed wasn't a prophet who was supporting war and slaughtering thousands of  innocent people. He was merely protecting himself, his honour and his possessions. Mohammed might have only lived to be 23 years old, but in that short period of time he ONLY FOUGHT FOR 2 MONTHS. So, where exactly do you base your claim of ''Mohammed being the most hateful prophet on earth'' on?

And yes, the koran allows the use of force. But there are so many boundaries to it as well?? If military jihad is required to protect the faith against others, it can mean legally, diplomatically and socially. if the religion and the people practicing said religion are under threat and violence is imperative and If there is no peaceful alternative, then yes, declared by AUTHORITIES, Islam also allows the use of force, but there are strict rules. No harming of children, women and invalids. Plus, if there are any peaceful overtures from the enemy, they must be accepted. Mohammed told his followers : "This day we have returned from the minor jihad to the major jihad," which he said meaning returning from an armed battle to the peaceful battle for SELF-CONTROL and BETTERMENT! The concept of jihad has been twisted and turned by many political and religious groups over a long period of time in a order to justify themselves for various forms of violence. But, the misuse of jihad contradicts the islam. So don't you blame it on a religion you clearly know nothing about. Those people you refer to as ''Muslims'' are extremists who are bad people hiding behind a peaceful and calm religion, not your neighbour or your son's playdate's mum who you stopped saying hello to.

Any why I, a declared christian defend the Islam you ask? the Koran specifically refers to Jews and Christians as "people of the book" who should be protected and respected, as well.  I personally think all three faiths worship the same God. Allah is just the Arabic word for God, and is used by Christian Arabs as well as Muslims. But that, of course, is my personal opinion and my personal definition of the religion i practice, this is not a fact (unlike all the other statemtens, which- try and prove me wrong, bet my life you can't- are justifiable)

oh, and by the way, Military action in the name of Islam has not been common in the history of Islam and Other faiths throughout the world have waged wars with religious justifications. just so you know.

Next time, before you open your mouth and preach hatred in the name of CHRISTIANITY against ISLAM make sure to inform yourself before you open your mouth. thanks ‘’

I am honestly hurt by people avoiding the Islam, devoting it and attacking their religion based on what little knowledge they have on jihad, the holy war. A good christian should most definitely NOT preach hatred, not in the slightest. a good christian, in my opinion should spread love, the word of god. It is ok to have different opinion and interpretations and it is ok to state them, but it is not ok to be rude because you have different mindsets. Please, please, please, i beg all of you: READ BEFORE YOU PREACH! make sure you know what you’re talking about. if not, you can seriously hurt someone like my best friend, who is by far the nicest and most loving and trustworthy person i’ve met. 

- heroine-alternative 

[maria-marsden]

“No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof”. – William James, (1890),The Principles of Psychology.

“I is for Intersex, not Invisible!” – a popular LGBTQIA+ Pride slogan.

I am intersex, but I have not always identified as such. An intersex person is someone who is born with variations in their biological sex characteristics that do not conform to what is biologically or culturally considered typically male or female.

Sex characteristics are genitals, reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormone patterns.

In my case I was born with Mullerian Aplasia (aka MRKH or Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser Syndrome) and unilateral gonadal agenesis. MRKH affects about 1 in 9000 of the world population. Intersex people as a whole number >1.7%. We are more common than autistic people. We are more common than people born with natural red hair.

Like many intersex people, l was born with more than one intersex variation. My uterus was not formed properly, I was born without a cervix and 3/4 of my vagina canal has been absent since birth. I ovulate and have very bad period pains, but have never “started my periods” in the typical understanding of the term.

At birth, I was presumed to be female. I had a vulva that appeared typically female. At puberty, I developed breast tissue, pubic hair ET cetera. However, by the age of 18, l had still not started my periods. I was very thin then and at first, doctors thought this was due to me being underweight.

In 1989, I had a laparoscopy. The female doctor informed me that I was born without a uterus and with a very short vagina [ about 2 centimetres ]. She said that I would never be able to have sex without surgery and also suggested that I might find it very difficult to find a partner who would accept me.

“But there are a few nice men out there,” she said. I was told that I should come back and have surgery when I was about to get married. The surgery would involve cutting skin off my arm and grafting it into a vagina. It’s a lot to take in when you are 18.

I was actually just about turn 18 at the time....traditionally the age of reaching adulthood. I reached a state of something, but I couldn’t articulate what it was. I couldn’t articulate what I was.

Of course, there was a part of me that really wanted to challenge the doctors. I wanted to say things like, “what do you mean I can’t have sex? I can already have orgasms.” I wanted to say, “How do you know that I am heterosexual? I might be a lesbian for all you know.” (I hadn’t answered the question of my sexuality then. This medical trauma always intruded on my attraction to women.) I wanted to shout, “How do you even know that I want to be a female? I might want to have a penis!” [ I didn’t, but l certainly considered this option] I wanted to ask, “but what about anal?” But I didn’t dare. [ I was a shy, withdrawn 18 year old. ]

I did have sex and healthy relationships, including penetrative sex without dilation or surgery. I’m happily married, but for a long time I thought that by having sex without medical treatment, I was doing something wrong. This is one of the perils being diagnosed a malformed female.

Whatever you do misdiagnosed as a malformed female, you're always going to think that you're doing something wrong... that you are wrong or inadequate in some way.

When I tell people that I am intersex, a lot of folk assume that being intersex is a term that medics diagnosed me with. The truth is that since the beginning of gynaecological medicine, doctors and surgeons have hardly ever diagnosed anyone as intersex.

When medics first became interested in what they termed “hermaphroditism” or “people of doubtful sex”, their interest was not in diagnosing intersex, but just the opposite. Medics were then (and still are) only interested in finding intersex patients so that they can diagnose our true sex as female or male and force treatments or surgery that will make us less queer in the minds of those around us. Politically and throughout Western history, this is to maintain white cis heteronormative male privilege.

At the age of nearly 18, I wasn’t diagnosed as being intersex. I was diagnosed as a malformed female who hadn’t formed properly and would never do so without intersex genital mutilation [surgery] or prescribed self harm [ dilation with a glass dildo/test tube].

Medics suggested that as much as possible I keep what little information they have given me about my body to myself. For the most part I did. I spent the next 30 years of my life living in shame and secrecy. This shame and secrecy was compounded when my female friends talked about their periods or sex life. I was different. I didn’t have a language for describing my experiences.

I didn’t have the exact same experiences in terms of rights of passage assumed to be common to all women. I felt included in the category of female, only in as much as I was excluded by a body that didn’t conform and the lack of language for my experiences. I felt invalid as a female and invisible.

I didn’t have intersex genital mutilation. I was almost persuaded to, but I became traumatised by the pre op dilation and the thought of having to continue to do this.

Being diagnosed a malformed female destroyed all sense of my personal and body integrity. The only way that I could keep myself together, was to tear myself apart. I was ending up in A and E every other day with severe self harm. The only way to make myself visible, was to visibly disappear. I became anorexic. I had been starved of the opportunity to grow up knowing other intersex people. I was in my own prison of shame and secrecy and on a hunger strike.

I ended up spending two years as an inpatient in various institutions in the psychiatric system. I was further pathologized and invalidated by the psychiatric system in the UK . In addition to my diagnosis as malformed female, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

BPD is basically the mark of Cain of the DSM. When a BPD diagnosis is put on a person, whole heap of assumptions are made about that persons personality. These assumptions include, manipulative, attention seeking, passive aggressive, incapable of healthy personal relationships, emotionally immature, unable to grow up, promiscuous, reckless, impulsive ET cetera

Indeed a number of studies and critiques have shown that sexual minorities, trans, non binary and gender non conforming people are more likely to be diagnosed with BPD. Some psychologists and mental health professionals even have the audacity to suggest that what psychiatrists now term “gender dysphoria” is caused by having a borderline personality disorder. One psychiatrist had me fill out a questionnaire to see how much my gender conformed to what is considered typical for women. (To this day, l don’t know why).

I certainly did not come out to psychiatrists as being agender/non binary. I did acknowledge identifying as a lesbian and experienced some psychiatrists trying to tell me otherwise. Despite never having had surgery, one psychiatrist felt it necessary to put in my medical notes that l had a vaginoplasty (even though l had no such thing)! He even asked me if l hung around dark alley ways late at night so that l could get raped. (WTF??????)

Not all the psychiatrists l saw agreed that l had “borderline personality disorder”. The psychiatrist whom l did get along with and who was my main psychiatrist diagnosed PTSD and depression. He said that “borderline personality disorder” was just psychiatric speak for “bugger off and die!”

At that time under the 1983 mental health act in the UK, BPD was deemed “untreatable”. This meant that if a psychiatrist diagnosed a patient with BPD and they committed suicide, the psychiatric team would not legally be held accountable. Indeed, in one hospital a psychiatrist who had insisted that l had BPD said that if l were to leave the hospital and jump off a multi storey car park, he wouldn’t try and stop me!

I did not have a borderline personality disorder. If l was guilty of anything, it was a kind of “trauma re-enactment”. Traumatised by medical violence and psychic mutilation at age 18, I turned to mutilating myself and seeking help from the very same people who had traumatised me in the first place, [the medical system].

Self mutilation led to more psychic mutilation at the hands of the psychiatric system. Now, not only was my body and sex malformed, I was told that my personality was malformed too.

With the help of some good friends who were also psychiatric survivors, I eventually managed to recover and distance myself from the psychiatric profession, challenging their assumptions about me. It took me a long time after that to feel brave enough to reach out and find other intersex people like me.

In 2020 during the first Covid 19 lockdown, I reached out to MRKH groups and found others with the same variations in sex characteristics as myself. I wasn’t alone anymore but I was still a female with missing pieces.

I found the missing pieces in Esther Leidolf’s “The Missing Vagina Monologue and Beyond”, the documentary “InterseXion”and Hida Valoria’s book “The Spectrum of Sex”.

I learned that I wasn’t a female with missing pieces, but an intersex person who had been mistreated, misunderstood and misdiagnosed as a malformed female. I found my community, my anger, my grief and I found myself.

I admit, that when l first learned that MRKH is considered an intersex variation by intersex activists, l had a huge fear of reaching out to those communities. In many ways, l was afraid to become the person that l am today. I was afraid of being someone who could talk just as easily about being intersex as l could about being autistic.

I was also afraid that if l were to come out as intersex, people might make assumptions about my genitals. To be honest, l got so much support from the intersex community that l very quickly realised that other people’s assumptions were not my problem.

It’s much easier now that l am comfortable being intersex to chat with my female friends when they talk about their periods or sex life. As an intersex person, l am not incomplete, invalid or inadequate, l am just different from the majority.

The main benefit of connecting mostly with intersex groups (as opposed to MRKH “syndrome”) groups is that l no longer have to focus on what is supposedly “wrong with me”. I don’t have to see myself as broken. I have had trauma certainly, but I am no longer broken.

I still connect with the MRKH community. As an intersex activist, it’s important that l understand the issues faced by those who identify MRKH as a female variation or condition. I certainly would not have found my way to the intersex community had it not have been for some of my MRKH Sisters and Siblings.

I spent the first thirty years after my laparoscopy, diagnosed as a malformed female, forced into a space where I would be alone with my difference, silenced and invisible and unable to grow.

Finally, having found the intersex community, I feel like I have found an environment to nourish me, to enable me to grow my way and become my myself. I am unlearning and learning continuously about myself. I have some new language and l am beginning to create my own words and terms.

I am nearly 50 now and have come to the conclusion that life is too short not to be myself and l don't give a shit about what other people might think or gossip about me.

I use identity first language. The natural variations in my body and mind are not disorders. I am an autistic intersex person, rather than a person born with autism and an intersex variation. I mean how many people say that they were born with maleness or femaleness?

And just because l describe myself this way l am not saying that being intersex and autistic are the only things about me. Yet to me, they are important things about me because l would much rather have been born with a very fertile mind than a fertile reproductive system.

Many intersex people are autistic or neuro diverse. I feel that l am "inter" in many ways other than just biological sex characteristics. I travel between worlds and have had visitations since childhood from other worlds. The indigenous people of America understood this. Intersex autistic people were seen as the "bridges between worlds" and had important roles in the healing of their communities and as peacemakers. Perhaps this is why l have developmental topographical disorientation. (l can read physical maps well, but get lost in familiar places). I am not broken, just different. Where l lack development in one area, l excel and am evolved in others. Nature does not make mistakes.

XOXY

[melissawalker01]

Did Divorce Exist In The Middle Ages?

I recently read a story of a woman called Rebecca, a middle aged woman who is recently divorced. She had been married and lived with her husband for 25 years. Rebecca had actually been unhappy in her marriage for the past few years but did not expect anything like a divorce.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her husband told her that she was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. She had already gotten used to her unhappy life and its routine. She was really surprised by the divorce announcement and had no idea that her husband had been cheating on her.

She is currently living all alone and uncertain of what will become of her life. It is good that her family and friends are giving her support with her children living close to her. 

Rebecca is working as a part time employee at the same job which she has being doing for seven years. She is financially stable but not as happy or comfortable as when she was married.

Putting the story aside, I would like to major on divorce in the middle ages.

In the middle ages, Church courts dealt with all matters concerning religion including marriage, divorce and the punishment of extramarital affairs.  Even after the Reformation, whereby protestants were leaving the roman Catholic teachings, Church authority over marital conflicts continued until 1857. The current divorce which is in our modern world did not exist in middle age.

The term divorce is used here to mean nullification which is marriage being declared invalid. The number of divorce cases were very small  during this period. Under middle age Church law, there were only a few reasons which allowed a couple to divorce. They included:

a.) If one of the parties had an agreement of marriage with another person.

b.) If there was a blood or spiritual relation between the individuals, for example cousins who do not know each other or even god parents.

c.) Impotence – whereby the man is not able to have an erection or reach orgasm.

d.) If fear or force was used to get permission for marriage.

e.) Crimes such as infidelity.

f.) Marrying a person who is underage.

g.) Marriages that were done secretly – mostly if couples elope.

h.) Marriages in which individuals enter into with behavior intended to deceive others, maybe for personal gain.

Many people did not take their case to church court during the middle age due to lack of sufficient evidence. Without evidence it is difficult to prove that the other party is guilty. In addition to that, insufficient funds was also a hinderance.

Without money you could not be considered. The marital issues among the people belonging to aristocracy were mostly well filed or documented since they had enough money to go through the whole process of divorce which was costly.

It is good to see how much divorce cost during the middle age. For instance, in 1531, the divorce between Elizabeth and Henry Savill accrued fees of £20. In today’s money, this would amount to about £7,000. Since this money was too much for people from humble backgrounds, they would just solve marital conflicts on their own by even choosing to live separately.

Women rights in the middle ages

Lower-class women were bakers, brewers, milkmaids, barmaids, artisans, weavers and, primarily, tenant farmers. They worked alongside their husbands and children in the fields during the middle ages.. The feudal system dictated that the land belonged to the lord. The lord could rent it to his tenants the serfs who had the lowest social class.

After renting land they were bound to that land. The lord controlled every aspect of the serf’s life. He would also control a man’s wife and daughters.

Decisions of who the Lord would marry were decided by the lord, not the girl’s father, because it was assumed that the daughter of a serf basically belonged to the lord, just as her parents were.

Once the girl was married, her husband controlled her interests and was responsible for her actions and, for this reason, women are not mentioned as often as men in legal matters in the Early Middle Ages.

The woman’s husband would be sued if a woman went beyond limits, not the woman herself. The woman’s job was to take care of the home, help her husband at his work, and produce children.

Some research has been done recently on divorce in later adulthood considering the fact that the divorce rate for people aged 50 and above has increased between 1990 and 2010. In 2010 a quarter of the divorces in the United States were among couples who have 50 plus years. Divorce among these people with older age may have implications such as:

a.) Struggling financially

This mostly affects women. It is unfortunate that some of them may be retired or had always been housewives. In addition to this, their education may not be up to date to enable them to get a job quickly. This may really lead to a lot of stress in the lives of these women which is really not good.

b.) Change in the relationship between the parents and their adult- children.

The relationship may change and interaction may decrease especially between fathers and their children. In most cases, children tend to side with the mother after divorce, especially if she is old.

Children may give more support and attention to the mother as compared to the father. Another thing is that children may rely on their children for support in terms of helping them financially and have an extra burden of taking care of them.

One of the parents may have been relying on the ex-spouse for support in walking or when doing his or her regular activities, but since he or she is not there the children will have to find another person to take care of the parent or even do it themselves, which really takes a lot of sacrifice. 

To add up, couples from long term marriages may also have other psychological problems which may affect their social life such as:

1. Depression

This mostly affects those with past histories of depression. Depression may come as a result of fear of the unknown considering the fact that this is an old person. He or she may not be able to acquire employment and probably does not even have the strength to work on their own. If such a person starts over thinking, he or she may be stressed, leading to depression, which is really not a good sign.

2. Hopelessness

A person who is old and divorced may feel like giving up since he or she may feel like they have wasted their life by making the wrong decision, which may not be the case. Life does not always give us what we expect. Even if there is no other chance for you to remarry or even regain energy to work, it is good to psyche yourself that you can make it and focus on yourself since losing hope may lead to a lot of complaining which is unnecessary.

3. Anger

After divorce it is common that the spouses are usually angry at each other and often times blaming each other for what happened. The spouses may be angry for wasting each other’s life or time or even making each other make the wrong decisions. Anger will be there but controlling the anger is really important.

4. Mourning

Divorce may affect one of the ex spouse to the extent that he or she may look as if he or she is not himself or herself. Some may cry continuously for weeks, others may not eat while others just don’t speak to anyone after the divorce.

Many thoughts are crossing their minds at that time and they feel like they cannot bear the pain of being left by their spouse considering the fact that they have spent the better part of their lives together. Most of them feel like they are doomed but at the end of it all there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite the fact that there are many challenges that come as a result of  divorce especially after long term marriages, there are also solutions to those challenges. It is good to first work on yourself by using the tips below:

1. Develop your personality by being open and extroverted

The more you talk about the divorce the faster you let go and the quicker you get over the divorce. Keeping the issue to yourself will not assist – it will in fact kill you from the inside. You should of course be careful on the people who you tell your information but do not keep it to yourself.

Share it with concerned friends and family who will encourage you and make you feel loved. In addition to this they may give you other people’s experiences which may be worse than yours which will enable you to see your divorce as a minor issues and you will be able to get over it. Healing is a process, you should not expect to heal immediately but give yourself time and you will eventually see the results.

2. Engage in activities that encourage personal growth

This is the time to get up from your comfort zone and realize your worth. You may be old but that does not mean that you cannot build yourself. You can join clubs of the elderly where they socialize and empower each other not forgetting engaging in any of the constructive activities that they have.

You can also visit places with your children or friends, exercise more, Buy better clothes to enhance your look and do anything  that you have ever longed to do during this time. This will give you more strength and courage to face this cruel world, not forgetting that it will help build yourself. If you take this into consideration it will work wonders in your life.

3. Be resilient

After a divorce, it is good to cry and do anything that will help you feel better about yourself but it is also good to encourage yourself that you can make it through this situation. It may not be easy to make life changes but try to have a mental attitude, telling you that you are tough and strong.

Look back and see all that you overcame alone and tell yourself that you will also be able to make it through this divorce. It is always said that it all begins with our mindset. Psyche yourself, have a positive mindset and press on.

4. If you blame yourself or have negative thoughts forgive yourself

Your actions may have contributed to the divorce or you may have reacted quickly by initiating the divorce after your ex did something wrong. This is the time to really avoid negative thoughts. Keep yourself occupied so as to be able to overcome the negative thoughts and also forgive yourself if you feel any condemnation within you. With this you will be able to move on.

5. Self- Compassion will assist you

This is the act of extending compassion to yourself especially after failing. This will really help you to cope with the stressful life events. It all begins with loving and accepting who you are. You should accept your past and all your mistakes and tell yourself that you did your level best to make things work out. This is a good remedy for the pain after divorce.

The fact that your marriage ended is not that easy it actually is significant. Divorce can be very stressing regardless of age or the period which you were married. Personal and social interactions are critical as they not only provide support, but also offer an opportunity for others to observe the divorced person’s mental and physical health. If the individual is experiencing weaknesses that are not declining, professional treatment, medical or mental health should be sought with immediate effect.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need help with a divorce or child custody issues, please call Ascent Law LLC at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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Real Estate Lawyer Orem Utah

How Can I Stop My Home From Foreclosure?

How To Be The Personal Representative Of An Estate

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from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages/ from Divorce Lawyer Nelson Farms Utah https://divorcelawyernelsonfarmsutah.tumblr.com/post/188035133300

[mayarosa47]

Did Divorce Exist In The Middle Ages?

I recently read a story of a woman called Rebecca, a middle aged woman who is recently divorced. She had been married and lived with her husband for 25 years. Rebecca had actually been unhappy in her marriage for the past few years but did not expect anything like a divorce.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her husband told her that she was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. She had already gotten used to her unhappy life and its routine. She was really surprised by the divorce announcement and had no idea that her husband had been cheating on her.

She is currently living all alone and uncertain of what will become of her life. It is good that her family and friends are giving her support with her children living close to her. 

Rebecca is working as a part time employee at the same job which she has being doing for seven years. She is financially stable but not as happy or comfortable as when she was married.

Putting the story aside, I would like to major on divorce in the middle ages.

In the middle ages, Church courts dealt with all matters concerning religion including marriage, divorce and the punishment of extramarital affairs.  Even after the Reformation, whereby protestants were leaving the roman Catholic teachings, Church authority over marital conflicts continued until 1857. The current divorce which is in our modern world did not exist in middle age.

The term divorce is used here to mean nullification which is marriage being declared invalid. The number of divorce cases were very small  during this period. Under middle age Church law, there were only a few reasons which allowed a couple to divorce. They included:

a.) If one of the parties had an agreement of marriage with another person.

b.) If there was a blood or spiritual relation between the individuals, for example cousins who do not know each other or even god parents.

c.) Impotence – whereby the man is not able to have an erection or reach orgasm.

d.) If fear or force was used to get permission for marriage.

e.) Crimes such as infidelity.

f.) Marrying a person who is underage.

g.) Marriages that were done secretly – mostly if couples elope.

h.) Marriages in which individuals enter into with behavior intended to deceive others, maybe for personal gain.

Many people did not take their case to church court during the middle age due to lack of sufficient evidence. Without evidence it is difficult to prove that the other party is guilty. In addition to that, insufficient funds was also a hinderance.

Without money you could not be considered. The marital issues among the people belonging to aristocracy were mostly well filed or documented since they had enough money to go through the whole process of divorce which was costly.

It is good to see how much divorce cost during the middle age. For instance, in 1531, the divorce between Elizabeth and Henry Savill accrued fees of £20. In today’s money, this would amount to about £7,000. Since this money was too much for people from humble backgrounds, they would just solve marital conflicts on their own by even choosing to live separately.

Women rights in the middle ages

Lower-class women were bakers, brewers, milkmaids, barmaids, artisans, weavers and, primarily, tenant farmers. They worked alongside their husbands and children in the fields during the middle ages.. The feudal system dictated that the land belonged to the lord. The lord could rent it to his tenants the serfs who had the lowest social class.

After renting land they were bound to that land. The lord controlled every aspect of the serf’s life. He would also control a man’s wife and daughters.

Decisions of who the Lord would marry were decided by the lord, not the girl’s father, because it was assumed that the daughter of a serf basically belonged to the lord, just as her parents were.

Once the girl was married, her husband controlled her interests and was responsible for her actions and, for this reason, women are not mentioned as often as men in legal matters in the Early Middle Ages.

The woman’s husband would be sued if a woman went beyond limits, not the woman herself. The woman’s job was to take care of the home, help her husband at his work, and produce children.

Some research has been done recently on divorce in later adulthood considering the fact that the divorce rate for people aged 50 and above has increased between 1990 and 2010. In 2010 a quarter of the divorces in the United States were among couples who have 50 plus years. Divorce among these people with older age may have implications such as:

a.) Struggling financially

This mostly affects women. It is unfortunate that some of them may be retired or had always been housewives. In addition to this, their education may not be up to date to enable them to get a job quickly. This may really lead to a lot of stress in the lives of these women which is really not good.

b.) Change in the relationship between the parents and their adult- children.

The relationship may change and interaction may decrease especially between fathers and their children. In most cases, children tend to side with the mother after divorce, especially if she is old.

Children may give more support and attention to the mother as compared to the father. Another thing is that children may rely on their children for support in terms of helping them financially and have an extra burden of taking care of them.

One of the parents may have been relying on the ex-spouse for support in walking or when doing his or her regular activities, but since he or she is not there the children will have to find another person to take care of the parent or even do it themselves, which really takes a lot of sacrifice. 

To add up, couples from long term marriages may also have other psychological problems which may affect their social life such as:

1. Depression

This mostly affects those with past histories of depression. Depression may come as a result of fear of the unknown considering the fact that this is an old person. He or she may not be able to acquire employment and probably does not even have the strength to work on their own. If such a person starts over thinking, he or she may be stressed, leading to depression, which is really not a good sign.

2. Hopelessness

A person who is old and divorced may feel like giving up since he or she may feel like they have wasted their life by making the wrong decision, which may not be the case. Life does not always give us what we expect. Even if there is no other chance for you to remarry or even regain energy to work, it is good to psyche yourself that you can make it and focus on yourself since losing hope may lead to a lot of complaining which is unnecessary.

3. Anger

After divorce it is common that the spouses are usually angry at each other and often times blaming each other for what happened. The spouses may be angry for wasting each other’s life or time or even making each other make the wrong decisions. Anger will be there but controlling the anger is really important.

4. Mourning

Divorce may affect one of the ex spouse to the extent that he or she may look as if he or she is not himself or herself. Some may cry continuously for weeks, others may not eat while others just don’t speak to anyone after the divorce.

Many thoughts are crossing their minds at that time and they feel like they cannot bear the pain of being left by their spouse considering the fact that they have spent the better part of their lives together. Most of them feel like they are doomed but at the end of it all there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite the fact that there are many challenges that come as a result of  divorce especially after long term marriages, there are also solutions to those challenges. It is good to first work on yourself by using the tips below:

1. Develop your personality by being open and extroverted

The more you talk about the divorce the faster you let go and the quicker you get over the divorce. Keeping the issue to yourself will not assist – it will in fact kill you from the inside. You should of course be careful on the people who you tell your information but do not keep it to yourself.

Share it with concerned friends and family who will encourage you and make you feel loved. In addition to this they may give you other people’s experiences which may be worse than yours which will enable you to see your divorce as a minor issues and you will be able to get over it. Healing is a process, you should not expect to heal immediately but give yourself time and you will eventually see the results.

2. Engage in activities that encourage personal growth

This is the time to get up from your comfort zone and realize your worth. You may be old but that does not mean that you cannot build yourself. You can join clubs of the elderly where they socialize and empower each other not forgetting engaging in any of the constructive activities that they have.

You can also visit places with your children or friends, exercise more, Buy better clothes to enhance your look and do anything  that you have ever longed to do during this time. This will give you more strength and courage to face this cruel world, not forgetting that it will help build yourself. If you take this into consideration it will work wonders in your life.

3. Be resilient

After a divorce, it is good to cry and do anything that will help you feel better about yourself but it is also good to encourage yourself that you can make it through this situation. It may not be easy to make life changes but try to have a mental attitude, telling you that you are tough and strong.

Look back and see all that you overcame alone and tell yourself that you will also be able to make it through this divorce. It is always said that it all begins with our mindset. Psyche yourself, have a positive mindset and press on.

4. If you blame yourself or have negative thoughts forgive yourself

Your actions may have contributed to the divorce or you may have reacted quickly by initiating the divorce after your ex did something wrong. This is the time to really avoid negative thoughts. Keep yourself occupied so as to be able to overcome the negative thoughts and also forgive yourself if you feel any condemnation within you. With this you will be able to move on.

5. Self- Compassion will assist you

This is the act of extending compassion to yourself especially after failing. This will really help you to cope with the stressful life events. It all begins with loving and accepting who you are. You should accept your past and all your mistakes and tell yourself that you did your level best to make things work out. This is a good remedy for the pain after divorce.

The fact that your marriage ended is not that easy it actually is significant. Divorce can be very stressing regardless of age or the period which you were married. Personal and social interactions are critical as they not only provide support, but also offer an opportunity for others to observe the divorced person’s mental and physical health. If the individual is experiencing weaknesses that are not declining, professional treatment, medical or mental health should be sought with immediate effect.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need help with a divorce or child custody issues, please call Ascent Law LLC at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Real Estate Lawyer Orem Utah

How Can I Stop My Home From Foreclosure?

How To Be The Personal Representative Of An Estate

Irrevocable Living Trust

Contested And Uncontested Divorce Lawyer

Probate Lawyer Ogden Utah

from https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages/

from Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah - Blog http://criminaldefenselawyerwestjordanutah.weebly.com/blog/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages

[michaeljames1221]

Did Divorce Exist In The Middle Ages?

I recently read a story of a woman called Rebecca, a middle aged woman who is recently divorced. She had been married and lived with her husband for 25 years. Rebecca had actually been unhappy in her marriage for the past few years but did not expect anything like a divorce.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her husband told her that she was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. She had already gotten used to her unhappy life and its routine. She was really surprised by the divorce announcement and had no idea that her husband had been cheating on her.

She is currently living all alone and uncertain of what will become of her life. It is good that her family and friends are giving her support with her children living close to her. 

Rebecca is working as a part time employee at the same job which she has being doing for seven years. She is financially stable but not as happy or comfortable as when she was married.

Putting the story aside, I would like to major on divorce in the middle ages.

In the middle ages, Church courts dealt with all matters concerning religion including marriage, divorce and the punishment of extramarital affairs.  Even after the Reformation, whereby protestants were leaving the roman Catholic teachings, Church authority over marital conflicts continued until 1857. The current divorce which is in our modern world did not exist in middle age.

The term divorce is used here to mean nullification which is marriage being declared invalid. The number of divorce cases were very small  during this period. Under middle age Church law, there were only a few reasons which allowed a couple to divorce. They included:

a.) If one of the parties had an agreement of marriage with another person.

b.) If there was a blood or spiritual relation between the individuals, for example cousins who do not know each other or even god parents.

c.) Impotence – whereby the man is not able to have an erection or reach orgasm.

d.) If fear or force was used to get permission for marriage.

e.) Crimes such as infidelity.

f.) Marrying a person who is underage.

g.) Marriages that were done secretly – mostly if couples elope.

h.) Marriages in which individuals enter into with behavior intended to deceive others, maybe for personal gain.

Many people did not take their case to church court during the middle age due to lack of sufficient evidence. Without evidence it is difficult to prove that the other party is guilty. In addition to that, insufficient funds was also a hinderance.

Without money you could not be considered. The marital issues among the people belonging to aristocracy were mostly well filed or documented since they had enough money to go through the whole process of divorce which was costly.

It is good to see how much divorce cost during the middle age. For instance, in 1531, the divorce between Elizabeth and Henry Savill accrued fees of £20. In today’s money, this would amount to about £7,000. Since this money was too much for people from humble backgrounds, they would just solve marital conflicts on their own by even choosing to live separately.

Women rights in the middle ages

Lower-class women were bakers, brewers, milkmaids, barmaids, artisans, weavers and, primarily, tenant farmers. They worked alongside their husbands and children in the fields during the middle ages.. The feudal system dictated that the land belonged to the lord. The lord could rent it to his tenants the serfs who had the lowest social class.

After renting land they were bound to that land. The lord controlled every aspect of the serf’s life. He would also control a man’s wife and daughters.

Decisions of who the Lord would marry were decided by the lord, not the girl’s father, because it was assumed that the daughter of a serf basically belonged to the lord, just as her parents were.

Once the girl was married, her husband controlled her interests and was responsible for her actions and, for this reason, women are not mentioned as often as men in legal matters in the Early Middle Ages.

The woman’s husband would be sued if a woman went beyond limits, not the woman herself. The woman’s job was to take care of the home, help her husband at his work, and produce children.

Some research has been done recently on divorce in later adulthood considering the fact that the divorce rate for people aged 50 and above has increased between 1990 and 2010. In 2010 a quarter of the divorces in the United States were among couples who have 50 plus years. Divorce among these people with older age may have implications such as:

a.) Struggling financially

This mostly affects women. It is unfortunate that some of them may be retired or had always been housewives. In addition to this, their education may not be up to date to enable them to get a job quickly. This may really lead to a lot of stress in the lives of these women which is really not good.

b.) Change in the relationship between the parents and their adult- children.

The relationship may change and interaction may decrease especially between fathers and their children. In most cases, children tend to side with the mother after divorce, especially if she is old.

Children may give more support and attention to the mother as compared to the father. Another thing is that children may rely on their children for support in terms of helping them financially and have an extra burden of taking care of them.

One of the parents may have been relying on the ex-spouse for support in walking or when doing his or her regular activities, but since he or she is not there the children will have to find another person to take care of the parent or even do it themselves, which really takes a lot of sacrifice. 

To add up, couples from long term marriages may also have other psychological problems which may affect their social life such as:

1. Depression

This mostly affects those with past histories of depression. Depression may come as a result of fear of the unknown considering the fact that this is an old person. He or she may not be able to acquire employment and probably does not even have the strength to work on their own. If such a person starts over thinking, he or she may be stressed, leading to depression, which is really not a good sign.

2. Hopelessness

A person who is old and divorced may feel like giving up since he or she may feel like they have wasted their life by making the wrong decision, which may not be the case. Life does not always give us what we expect. Even if there is no other chance for you to remarry or even regain energy to work, it is good to psyche yourself that you can make it and focus on yourself since losing hope may lead to a lot of complaining which is unnecessary.

3. Anger

After divorce it is common that the spouses are usually angry at each other and often times blaming each other for what happened. The spouses may be angry for wasting each other’s life or time or even making each other make the wrong decisions. Anger will be there but controlling the anger is really important.

4. Mourning

Divorce may affect one of the ex spouse to the extent that he or she may look as if he or she is not himself or herself. Some may cry continuously for weeks, others may not eat while others just don’t speak to anyone after the divorce.

Many thoughts are crossing their minds at that time and they feel like they cannot bear the pain of being left by their spouse considering the fact that they have spent the better part of their lives together. Most of them feel like they are doomed but at the end of it all there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite the fact that there are many challenges that come as a result of  divorce especially after long term marriages, there are also solutions to those challenges. It is good to first work on yourself by using the tips below:

1. Develop your personality by being open and extroverted

The more you talk about the divorce the faster you let go and the quicker you get over the divorce. Keeping the issue to yourself will not assist – it will in fact kill you from the inside. You should of course be careful on the people who you tell your information but do not keep it to yourself.

Share it with concerned friends and family who will encourage you and make you feel loved. In addition to this they may give you other people’s experiences which may be worse than yours which will enable you to see your divorce as a minor issues and you will be able to get over it. Healing is a process, you should not expect to heal immediately but give yourself time and you will eventually see the results.

2. Engage in activities that encourage personal growth

This is the time to get up from your comfort zone and realize your worth. You may be old but that does not mean that you cannot build yourself. You can join clubs of the elderly where they socialize and empower each other not forgetting engaging in any of the constructive activities that they have.

You can also visit places with your children or friends, exercise more, Buy better clothes to enhance your look and do anything  that you have ever longed to do during this time. This will give you more strength and courage to face this cruel world, not forgetting that it will help build yourself. If you take this into consideration it will work wonders in your life.

3. Be resilient

After a divorce, it is good to cry and do anything that will help you feel better about yourself but it is also good to encourage yourself that you can make it through this situation. It may not be easy to make life changes but try to have a mental attitude, telling you that you are tough and strong.

Look back and see all that you overcame alone and tell yourself that you will also be able to make it through this divorce. It is always said that it all begins with our mindset. Psyche yourself, have a positive mindset and press on.

4. If you blame yourself or have negative thoughts forgive yourself

Your actions may have contributed to the divorce or you may have reacted quickly by initiating the divorce after your ex did something wrong. This is the time to really avoid negative thoughts. Keep yourself occupied so as to be able to overcome the negative thoughts and also forgive yourself if you feel any condemnation within you. With this you will be able to move on.

5. Self- Compassion will assist you

This is the act of extending compassion to yourself especially after failing. This will really help you to cope with the stressful life events. It all begins with loving and accepting who you are. You should accept your past and all your mistakes and tell yourself that you did your level best to make things work out. This is a good remedy for the pain after divorce.

The fact that your marriage ended is not that easy it actually is significant. Divorce can be very stressing regardless of age or the period which you were married. Personal and social interactions are critical as they not only provide support, but also offer an opportunity for others to observe the divorced person’s mental and physical health. If the individual is experiencing weaknesses that are not declining, professional treatment, medical or mental health should be sought with immediate effect.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need help with a divorce or child custody issues, please call Ascent Law LLC at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Real Estate Lawyer Orem Utah

How Can I Stop My Home From Foreclosure?

How To Be The Personal Representative Of An Estate

Irrevocable Living Trust

Contested And Uncontested Divorce Lawyer

Probate Lawyer Ogden Utah

from Michael Anderson https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages/

from Criminal Defense Lawyer West Jordan Utah https://criminaldefenselawyerwestjordanutah.wordpress.com/2019/09/30/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages/

[aretia]

Did Divorce Exist In The Middle Ages?

I recently read a story of a woman called Rebecca, a middle aged woman who is recently divorced. She had been married and lived with her husband for 25 years. Rebecca had actually been unhappy in her marriage for the past few years but did not expect anything like a divorce.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her husband told her that she was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. She had already gotten used to her unhappy life and its routine. She was really surprised by the divorce announcement and had no idea that her husband had been cheating on her.

She is currently living all alone and uncertain of what will become of her life. It is good that her family and friends are giving her support with her children living close to her. 

Rebecca is working as a part time employee at the same job which she has being doing for seven years. She is financially stable but not as happy or comfortable as when she was married.

Putting the story aside, I would like to major on divorce in the middle ages.

In the middle ages, Church courts dealt with all matters concerning religion including marriage, divorce and the punishment of extramarital affairs.  Even after the Reformation, whereby protestants were leaving the roman Catholic teachings, Church authority over marital conflicts continued until 1857. The current divorce which is in our modern world did not exist in middle age.

The term divorce is used here to mean nullification which is marriage being declared invalid. The number of divorce cases were very small  during this period. Under middle age Church law, there were only a few reasons which allowed a couple to divorce. They included:

a.) If one of the parties had an agreement of marriage with another person.

b.) If there was a blood or spiritual relation between the individuals, for example cousins who do not know each other or even god parents.

c.) Impotence – whereby the man is not able to have an erection or reach orgasm.

d.) If fear or force was used to get permission for marriage.

e.) Crimes such as infidelity.

f.) Marrying a person who is underage.

g.) Marriages that were done secretly – mostly if couples elope.

h.) Marriages in which individuals enter into with behavior intended to deceive others, maybe for personal gain.

Many people did not take their case to church court during the middle age due to lack of sufficient evidence. Without evidence it is difficult to prove that the other party is guilty. In addition to that, insufficient funds was also a hinderance.

Without money you could not be considered. The marital issues among the people belonging to aristocracy were mostly well filed or documented since they had enough money to go through the whole process of divorce which was costly.

It is good to see how much divorce cost during the middle age. For instance, in 1531, the divorce between Elizabeth and Henry Savill accrued fees of £20. In today’s money, this would amount to about £7,000. Since this money was too much for people from humble backgrounds, they would just solve marital conflicts on their own by even choosing to live separately.

Women rights in the middle ages

Lower-class women were bakers, brewers, milkmaids, barmaids, artisans, weavers and, primarily, tenant farmers. They worked alongside their husbands and children in the fields during the middle ages.. The feudal system dictated that the land belonged to the lord. The lord could rent it to his tenants the serfs who had the lowest social class.

After renting land they were bound to that land. The lord controlled every aspect of the serf’s life. He would also control a man’s wife and daughters.

Decisions of who the Lord would marry were decided by the lord, not the girl’s father, because it was assumed that the daughter of a serf basically belonged to the lord, just as her parents were.

Once the girl was married, her husband controlled her interests and was responsible for her actions and, for this reason, women are not mentioned as often as men in legal matters in the Early Middle Ages.

The woman’s husband would be sued if a woman went beyond limits, not the woman herself. The woman’s job was to take care of the home, help her husband at his work, and produce children.

Some research has been done recently on divorce in later adulthood considering the fact that the divorce rate for people aged 50 and above has increased between 1990 and 2010. In 2010 a quarter of the divorces in the United States were among couples who have 50 plus years. Divorce among these people with older age may have implications such as:

a.) Struggling financially

This mostly affects women. It is unfortunate that some of them may be retired or had always been housewives. In addition to this, their education may not be up to date to enable them to get a job quickly. This may really lead to a lot of stress in the lives of these women which is really not good.

b.) Change in the relationship between the parents and their adult- children.

The relationship may change and interaction may decrease especially between fathers and their children. In most cases, children tend to side with the mother after divorce, especially if she is old.

Children may give more support and attention to the mother as compared to the father. Another thing is that children may rely on their children for support in terms of helping them financially and have an extra burden of taking care of them.

One of the parents may have been relying on the ex-spouse for support in walking or when doing his or her regular activities, but since he or she is not there the children will have to find another person to take care of the parent or even do it themselves, which really takes a lot of sacrifice. 

To add up, couples from long term marriages may also have other psychological problems which may affect their social life such as:

1. Depression

This mostly affects those with past histories of depression. Depression may come as a result of fear of the unknown considering the fact that this is an old person. He or she may not be able to acquire employment and probably does not even have the strength to work on their own. If such a person starts over thinking, he or she may be stressed, leading to depression, which is really not a good sign.

2. Hopelessness

A person who is old and divorced may feel like giving up since he or she may feel like they have wasted their life by making the wrong decision, which may not be the case. Life does not always give us what we expect. Even if there is no other chance for you to remarry or even regain energy to work, it is good to psyche yourself that you can make it and focus on yourself since losing hope may lead to a lot of complaining which is unnecessary.

3. Anger

After divorce it is common that the spouses are usually angry at each other and often times blaming each other for what happened. The spouses may be angry for wasting each other’s life or time or even making each other make the wrong decisions. Anger will be there but controlling the anger is really important.

4. Mourning

Divorce may affect one of the ex spouse to the extent that he or she may look as if he or she is not himself or herself. Some may cry continuously for weeks, others may not eat while others just don’t speak to anyone after the divorce.

Many thoughts are crossing their minds at that time and they feel like they cannot bear the pain of being left by their spouse considering the fact that they have spent the better part of their lives together. Most of them feel like they are doomed but at the end of it all there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite the fact that there are many challenges that come as a result of  divorce especially after long term marriages, there are also solutions to those challenges. It is good to first work on yourself by using the tips below:

1. Develop your personality by being open and extroverted

The more you talk about the divorce the faster you let go and the quicker you get over the divorce. Keeping the issue to yourself will not assist – it will in fact kill you from the inside. You should of course be careful on the people who you tell your information but do not keep it to yourself.

Share it with concerned friends and family who will encourage you and make you feel loved. In addition to this they may give you other people’s experiences which may be worse than yours which will enable you to see your divorce as a minor issues and you will be able to get over it. Healing is a process, you should not expect to heal immediately but give yourself time and you will eventually see the results.

2. Engage in activities that encourage personal growth

This is the time to get up from your comfort zone and realize your worth. You may be old but that does not mean that you cannot build yourself. You can join clubs of the elderly where they socialize and empower each other not forgetting engaging in any of the constructive activities that they have.

You can also visit places with your children or friends, exercise more, Buy better clothes to enhance your look and do anything  that you have ever longed to do during this time. This will give you more strength and courage to face this cruel world, not forgetting that it will help build yourself. If you take this into consideration it will work wonders in your life.

3. Be resilient

After a divorce, it is good to cry and do anything that will help you feel better about yourself but it is also good to encourage yourself that you can make it through this situation. It may not be easy to make life changes but try to have a mental attitude, telling you that you are tough and strong.

Look back and see all that you overcame alone and tell yourself that you will also be able to make it through this divorce. It is always said that it all begins with our mindset. Psyche yourself, have a positive mindset and press on.

4. If you blame yourself or have negative thoughts forgive yourself

Your actions may have contributed to the divorce or you may have reacted quickly by initiating the divorce after your ex did something wrong. This is the time to really avoid negative thoughts. Keep yourself occupied so as to be able to overcome the negative thoughts and also forgive yourself if you feel any condemnation within you. With this you will be able to move on.

5. Self- Compassion will assist you

This is the act of extending compassion to yourself especially after failing. This will really help you to cope with the stressful life events. It all begins with loving and accepting who you are. You should accept your past and all your mistakes and tell yourself that you did your level best to make things work out. This is a good remedy for the pain after divorce.

The fact that your marriage ended is not that easy it actually is significant. Divorce can be very stressing regardless of age or the period which you were married. Personal and social interactions are critical as they not only provide support, but also offer an opportunity for others to observe the divorced person’s mental and physical health. If the individual is experiencing weaknesses that are not declining, professional treatment, medical or mental health should be sought with immediate effect.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need help with a divorce or child custody issues, please call Ascent Law LLC at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Real Estate Lawyer Orem Utah

How Can I Stop My Home From Foreclosure?

How To Be The Personal Representative Of An Estate

Irrevocable Living Trust

Contested And Uncontested Divorce Lawyer

Probate Lawyer Ogden Utah

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages/

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Did Divorce Exist In The Middle Ages?

I recently read a story of a woman called Rebecca, a middle aged woman who is recently divorced. She had been married and lived with her husband for 25 years. Rebecca had actually been unhappy in her marriage for the past few years but did not expect anything like a divorce.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her husband told her that she was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. She had already gotten used to her unhappy life and its routine. She was really surprised by the divorce announcement and had no idea that her husband had been cheating on her.

She is currently living all alone and uncertain of what will become of her life. It is good that her family and friends are giving her support with her children living close to her. 

Rebecca is working as a part time employee at the same job which she has being doing for seven years. She is financially stable but not as happy or comfortable as when she was married.

Putting the story aside, I would like to major on divorce in the middle ages.

In the middle ages, Church courts dealt with all matters concerning religion including marriage, divorce and the punishment of extramarital affairs.  Even after the Reformation, whereby protestants were leaving the roman Catholic teachings, Church authority over marital conflicts continued until 1857. The current divorce which is in our modern world did not exist in middle age.

The term divorce is used here to mean nullification which is marriage being declared invalid. The number of divorce cases were very small  during this period. Under middle age Church law, there were only a few reasons which allowed a couple to divorce. They included:

a.) If one of the parties had an agreement of marriage with another person.

b.) If there was a blood or spiritual relation between the individuals, for example cousins who do not know each other or even god parents.

c.) Impotence – whereby the man is not able to have an erection or reach orgasm.

d.) If fear or force was used to get permission for marriage.

e.) Crimes such as infidelity.

f.) Marrying a person who is underage.

g.) Marriages that were done secretly – mostly if couples elope.

h.) Marriages in which individuals enter into with behavior intended to deceive others, maybe for personal gain.

Many people did not take their case to church court during the middle age due to lack of sufficient evidence. Without evidence it is difficult to prove that the other party is guilty. In addition to that, insufficient funds was also a hinderance.

Without money you could not be considered. The marital issues among the people belonging to aristocracy were mostly well filed or documented since they had enough money to go through the whole process of divorce which was costly.

It is good to see how much divorce cost during the middle age. For instance, in 1531, the divorce between Elizabeth and Henry Savill accrued fees of £20. In today’s money, this would amount to about £7,000. Since this money was too much for people from humble backgrounds, they would just solve marital conflicts on their own by even choosing to live separately.

Women rights in the middle ages

Lower-class women were bakers, brewers, milkmaids, barmaids, artisans, weavers and, primarily, tenant farmers. They worked alongside their husbands and children in the fields during the middle ages.. The feudal system dictated that the land belonged to the lord. The lord could rent it to his tenants the serfs who had the lowest social class.

After renting land they were bound to that land. The lord controlled every aspect of the serf’s life. He would also control a man’s wife and daughters.

Decisions of who the Lord would marry were decided by the lord, not the girl’s father, because it was assumed that the daughter of a serf basically belonged to the lord, just as her parents were.

Once the girl was married, her husband controlled her interests and was responsible for her actions and, for this reason, women are not mentioned as often as men in legal matters in the Early Middle Ages.

The woman’s husband would be sued if a woman went beyond limits, not the woman herself. The woman’s job was to take care of the home, help her husband at his work, and produce children.

Some research has been done recently on divorce in later adulthood considering the fact that the divorce rate for people aged 50 and above has increased between 1990 and 2010. In 2010 a quarter of the divorces in the United States were among couples who have 50 plus years. Divorce among these people with older age may have implications such as:

a.) Struggling financially

This mostly affects women. It is unfortunate that some of them may be retired or had always been housewives. In addition to this, their education may not be up to date to enable them to get a job quickly. This may really lead to a lot of stress in the lives of these women which is really not good.

b.) Change in the relationship between the parents and their adult- children.

The relationship may change and interaction may decrease especially between fathers and their children. In most cases, children tend to side with the mother after divorce, especially if she is old.

Children may give more support and attention to the mother as compared to the father. Another thing is that children may rely on their children for support in terms of helping them financially and have an extra burden of taking care of them.

One of the parents may have been relying on the ex-spouse for support in walking or when doing his or her regular activities, but since he or she is not there the children will have to find another person to take care of the parent or even do it themselves, which really takes a lot of sacrifice. 

To add up, couples from long term marriages may also have other psychological problems which may affect their social life such as:

1. Depression

This mostly affects those with past histories of depression. Depression may come as a result of fear of the unknown considering the fact that this is an old person. He or she may not be able to acquire employment and probably does not even have the strength to work on their own. If such a person starts over thinking, he or she may be stressed, leading to depression, which is really not a good sign.

2. Hopelessness

A person who is old and divorced may feel like giving up since he or she may feel like they have wasted their life by making the wrong decision, which may not be the case. Life does not always give us what we expect. Even if there is no other chance for you to remarry or even regain energy to work, it is good to psyche yourself that you can make it and focus on yourself since losing hope may lead to a lot of complaining which is unnecessary.

3. Anger

After divorce it is common that the spouses are usually angry at each other and often times blaming each other for what happened. The spouses may be angry for wasting each other’s life or time or even making each other make the wrong decisions. Anger will be there but controlling the anger is really important.

4. Mourning

Divorce may affect one of the ex spouse to the extent that he or she may look as if he or she is not himself or herself. Some may cry continuously for weeks, others may not eat while others just don’t speak to anyone after the divorce.

Many thoughts are crossing their minds at that time and they feel like they cannot bear the pain of being left by their spouse considering the fact that they have spent the better part of their lives together. Most of them feel like they are doomed but at the end of it all there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite the fact that there are many challenges that come as a result of  divorce especially after long term marriages, there are also solutions to those challenges. It is good to first work on yourself by using the tips below:

1. Develop your personality by being open and extroverted

The more you talk about the divorce the faster you let go and the quicker you get over the divorce. Keeping the issue to yourself will not assist – it will in fact kill you from the inside. You should of course be careful on the people who you tell your information but do not keep it to yourself.

Share it with concerned friends and family who will encourage you and make you feel loved. In addition to this they may give you other people’s experiences which may be worse than yours which will enable you to see your divorce as a minor issues and you will be able to get over it. Healing is a process, you should not expect to heal immediately but give yourself time and you will eventually see the results.

2. Engage in activities that encourage personal growth

This is the time to get up from your comfort zone and realize your worth. You may be old but that does not mean that you cannot build yourself. You can join clubs of the elderly where they socialize and empower each other not forgetting engaging in any of the constructive activities that they have.

You can also visit places with your children or friends, exercise more, Buy better clothes to enhance your look and do anything  that you have ever longed to do during this time. This will give you more strength and courage to face this cruel world, not forgetting that it will help build yourself. If you take this into consideration it will work wonders in your life.

3. Be resilient

After a divorce, it is good to cry and do anything that will help you feel better about yourself but it is also good to encourage yourself that you can make it through this situation. It may not be easy to make life changes but try to have a mental attitude, telling you that you are tough and strong.

Look back and see all that you overcame alone and tell yourself that you will also be able to make it through this divorce. It is always said that it all begins with our mindset. Psyche yourself, have a positive mindset and press on.

4. If you blame yourself or have negative thoughts forgive yourself

Your actions may have contributed to the divorce or you may have reacted quickly by initiating the divorce after your ex did something wrong. This is the time to really avoid negative thoughts. Keep yourself occupied so as to be able to overcome the negative thoughts and also forgive yourself if you feel any condemnation within you. With this you will be able to move on.

5. Self- Compassion will assist you

This is the act of extending compassion to yourself especially after failing. This will really help you to cope with the stressful life events. It all begins with loving and accepting who you are. You should accept your past and all your mistakes and tell yourself that you did your level best to make things work out. This is a good remedy for the pain after divorce.

The fact that your marriage ended is not that easy it actually is significant. Divorce can be very stressing regardless of age or the period which you were married. Personal and social interactions are critical as they not only provide support, but also offer an opportunity for others to observe the divorced person’s mental and physical health. If the individual is experiencing weaknesses that are not declining, professional treatment, medical or mental health should be sought with immediate effect.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need help with a divorce or child custody issues, please call Ascent Law LLC at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages/

[asafeatherwould]

Did Divorce Exist In The Middle Ages?

I recently read a story of a woman called Rebecca, a middle aged woman who is recently divorced. She had been married and lived with her husband for 25 years. Rebecca had actually been unhappy in her marriage for the past few years but did not expect anything like a divorce.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her husband told her that she was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. She had already gotten used to her unhappy life and its routine. She was really surprised by the divorce announcement and had no idea that her husband had been cheating on her.

She is currently living all alone and uncertain of what will become of her life. It is good that her family and friends are giving her support with her children living close to her. 

Rebecca is working as a part time employee at the same job which she has being doing for seven years. She is financially stable but not as happy or comfortable as when she was married.

Putting the story aside, I would like to major on divorce in the middle ages.

In the middle ages, Church courts dealt with all matters concerning religion including marriage, divorce and the punishment of extramarital affairs.  Even after the Reformation, whereby protestants were leaving the roman Catholic teachings, Church authority over marital conflicts continued until 1857. The current divorce which is in our modern world did not exist in middle age.

The term divorce is used here to mean nullification which is marriage being declared invalid. The number of divorce cases were very small  during this period. Under middle age Church law, there were only a few reasons which allowed a couple to divorce. They included:

a.) If one of the parties had an agreement of marriage with another person.

b.) If there was a blood or spiritual relation between the individuals, for example cousins who do not know each other or even god parents.

c.) Impotence – whereby the man is not able to have an erection or reach orgasm.

d.) If fear or force was used to get permission for marriage.

e.) Crimes such as infidelity.

f.) Marrying a person who is underage.

g.) Marriages that were done secretly – mostly if couples elope.

h.) Marriages in which individuals enter into with behavior intended to deceive others, maybe for personal gain.

Many people did not take their case to church court during the middle age due to lack of sufficient evidence. Without evidence it is difficult to prove that the other party is guilty. In addition to that, insufficient funds was also a hinderance.

Without money you could not be considered. The marital issues among the people belonging to aristocracy were mostly well filed or documented since they had enough money to go through the whole process of divorce which was costly.

It is good to see how much divorce cost during the middle age. For instance, in 1531, the divorce between Elizabeth and Henry Savill accrued fees of £20. In today’s money, this would amount to about £7,000. Since this money was too much for people from humble backgrounds, they would just solve marital conflicts on their own by even choosing to live separately.

Women rights in the middle ages

Lower-class women were bakers, brewers, milkmaids, barmaids, artisans, weavers and, primarily, tenant farmers. They worked alongside their husbands and children in the fields during the middle ages.. The feudal system dictated that the land belonged to the lord. The lord could rent it to his tenants the serfs who had the lowest social class.

After renting land they were bound to that land. The lord controlled every aspect of the serf’s life. He would also control a man’s wife and daughters.

Decisions of who the Lord would marry were decided by the lord, not the girl’s father, because it was assumed that the daughter of a serf basically belonged to the lord, just as her parents were.

Once the girl was married, her husband controlled her interests and was responsible for her actions and, for this reason, women are not mentioned as often as men in legal matters in the Early Middle Ages.

The woman’s husband would be sued if a woman went beyond limits, not the woman herself. The woman’s job was to take care of the home, help her husband at his work, and produce children.

Some research has been done recently on divorce in later adulthood considering the fact that the divorce rate for people aged 50 and above has increased between 1990 and 2010. In 2010 a quarter of the divorces in the United States were among couples who have 50 plus years. Divorce among these people with older age may have implications such as:

a.) Struggling financially

This mostly affects women. It is unfortunate that some of them may be retired or had always been housewives. In addition to this, their education may not be up to date to enable them to get a job quickly. This may really lead to a lot of stress in the lives of these women which is really not good.

b.) Change in the relationship between the parents and their adult- children.

The relationship may change and interaction may decrease especially between fathers and their children. In most cases, children tend to side with the mother after divorce, especially if she is old.

Children may give more support and attention to the mother as compared to the father. Another thing is that children may rely on their children for support in terms of helping them financially and have an extra burden of taking care of them.

One of the parents may have been relying on the ex-spouse for support in walking or when doing his or her regular activities, but since he or she is not there the children will have to find another person to take care of the parent or even do it themselves, which really takes a lot of sacrifice. 

To add up, couples from long term marriages may also have other psychological problems which may affect their social life such as:

1. Depression

This mostly affects those with past histories of depression. Depression may come as a result of fear of the unknown considering the fact that this is an old person. He or she may not be able to acquire employment and probably does not even have the strength to work on their own. If such a person starts over thinking, he or she may be stressed, leading to depression, which is really not a good sign.

2. Hopelessness

A person who is old and divorced may feel like giving up since he or she may feel like they have wasted their life by making the wrong decision, which may not be the case. Life does not always give us what we expect. Even if there is no other chance for you to remarry or even regain energy to work, it is good to psyche yourself that you can make it and focus on yourself since losing hope may lead to a lot of complaining which is unnecessary.

3. Anger

After divorce it is common that the spouses are usually angry at each other and often times blaming each other for what happened. The spouses may be angry for wasting each other’s life or time or even making each other make the wrong decisions. Anger will be there but controlling the anger is really important.

4. Mourning

Divorce may affect one of the ex spouse to the extent that he or she may look as if he or she is not himself or herself. Some may cry continuously for weeks, others may not eat while others just don’t speak to anyone after the divorce.

Many thoughts are crossing their minds at that time and they feel like they cannot bear the pain of being left by their spouse considering the fact that they have spent the better part of their lives together. Most of them feel like they are doomed but at the end of it all there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite the fact that there are many challenges that come as a result of  divorce especially after long term marriages, there are also solutions to those challenges. It is good to first work on yourself by using the tips below:

1. Develop your personality by being open and extroverted

The more you talk about the divorce the faster you let go and the quicker you get over the divorce. Keeping the issue to yourself will not assist – it will in fact kill you from the inside. You should of course be careful on the people who you tell your information but do not keep it to yourself.

Share it with concerned friends and family who will encourage you and make you feel loved. In addition to this they may give you other people’s experiences which may be worse than yours which will enable you to see your divorce as a minor issues and you will be able to get over it. Healing is a process, you should not expect to heal immediately but give yourself time and you will eventually see the results.

2. Engage in activities that encourage personal growth

This is the time to get up from your comfort zone and realize your worth. You may be old but that does not mean that you cannot build yourself. You can join clubs of the elderly where they socialize and empower each other not forgetting engaging in any of the constructive activities that they have.

You can also visit places with your children or friends, exercise more, Buy better clothes to enhance your look and do anything  that you have ever longed to do during this time. This will give you more strength and courage to face this cruel world, not forgetting that it will help build yourself. If you take this into consideration it will work wonders in your life.

3. Be resilient

After a divorce, it is good to cry and do anything that will help you feel better about yourself but it is also good to encourage yourself that you can make it through this situation. It may not be easy to make life changes but try to have a mental attitude, telling you that you are tough and strong.

Look back and see all that you overcame alone and tell yourself that you will also be able to make it through this divorce. It is always said that it all begins with our mindset. Psyche yourself, have a positive mindset and press on.

4. If you blame yourself or have negative thoughts forgive yourself

Your actions may have contributed to the divorce or you may have reacted quickly by initiating the divorce after your ex did something wrong. This is the time to really avoid negative thoughts. Keep yourself occupied so as to be able to overcome the negative thoughts and also forgive yourself if you feel any condemnation within you. With this you will be able to move on.

5. Self- Compassion will assist you

This is the act of extending compassion to yourself especially after failing. This will really help you to cope with the stressful life events. It all begins with loving and accepting who you are. You should accept your past and all your mistakes and tell yourself that you did your level best to make things work out. This is a good remedy for the pain after divorce.

The fact that your marriage ended is not that easy it actually is significant. Divorce can be very stressing regardless of age or the period which you were married. Personal and social interactions are critical as they not only provide support, but also offer an opportunity for others to observe the divorced person’s mental and physical health. If the individual is experiencing weaknesses that are not declining, professional treatment, medical or mental health should be sought with immediate effect.

Divorce Attorney Free Consultation

When you need help with a divorce or child custody issues, please call Ascent Law LLC at (801) 676-5506 for your Free Consultation. We want to help you.

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Real Estate Lawyer Orem Utah

How Can I Stop My Home From Foreclosure?

How To Be The Personal Representative Of An Estate

Irrevocable Living Trust

Contested And Uncontested Divorce Lawyer

Probate Lawyer Ogden Utah

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/did-divorce-exist-in-the-middle-ages/