For the longest while 'feminism' was one of those tragic words and if you described yourself as such it was like saying "I'm a spinster" a word that says un-marriageable because that's all us girls want, is to be married.

Everyone wants intimacy and that's why we women want to get married. We want tenderness, someone who apparently wants to be dedicated to making us women happy, and that's what is the worst thing about not being married, we women have to take care of ourselves.

Not so bad really, if we can and we are allowed too.

Feminist came pre-loaded with hairy legs and armpits, unsexy footwear and over-alls, dowdy and unglamourous. At university, the women's department was populated exclusively by women who wore dull clothes often saying things that frankly sounded illogical and psycho. I tried reading the Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir.

And for the longest time I saw no need for feminism - I was the queen of the department where I worked or when I was a student. Men treated me very well. It didn't occur to me to wonder why there were no female managers in engineering, I just assumed that none of us had made the grade and the ratio of 200 men to about 3 women was nothing to worry about.

Then one day I was asked by a female academic, why women don't become alchemists. I was shocked. Wasn't the very question kinda sexist? Why should I know, just because I am a woman, why should I have to be an expert on what women choose to do and don't do. The question annoyed me and I would rail at my friends at the sexism of the question.

It wasn't until the 2008 primaries that I realized feminism is just as relevant today as it ever was.

I’ve cured the problem of ‘feminism’ having a dirty name by tagging myself as ‘a feminist who loves men’. This has men drooling all over the internet supporting my rights to equality. Feminism should never be about whether we shave our armpits or legs or stop wearing nice shoes or clothes we like… the best way to advance our rights is *with* men's support. Feminism should not be about what you wear. I don't care what women choose to wear so long as they choose to wear it rather than have the choice forced upon them by society.

At the same time I don’t want to give the impression we are going to become ‘easy’ just because we love men. But I find its worth getting them onside before telling them: no we have sex only when and if I agree.

A woman gave birth to you. A woman fed you, cleaned you, entertained you when you cried all night, washed you, burped you, spent hours of her life, night and day, taking care of you when you were sick.

She then taught you have to talk - can you imagine not being able to talk?

She stopped you from killing yourself as you crawled about the house. She fed you, taught you how to act like a civilized being.

She did this for years and without pay.

And all of this costs money.

Men seem to think women shouldn't be paid to be mothers, in fact society thinks women should do this for love and her husband should support her while she is being a mother. Under this model, children must be born in wedlock and wives and children were the property of a man.

That's just fine if the woman is married. That's just fine if the husband keeps his job while she is raising her children. That's just fine if she's independently wealthy. But the bottom-line is that shit happens. Husbands die, husbands leave and husbands lose their jobs. Some men are just irresponsible. Some people think its then up to relatives to step in. Sometimes relatives do step in; and sometimes relatives do NOT.

The raising of the next generation is that society's problem. The whole point of society is the perpetuation of society and that society fails if it refuses to care about the well being of the next generation. It is not acceptable to not support mothers while they are raising their kids.

I might seem kinda flakey to some. Its not out of malice or bad intentions. I am the scientific equivalent of an artist - I'll be eating dinner with someone and we'll be discussing something and I'll suddenly have a eureka moment and say out loud: oh that might just work! at random about some problem I've been thinking about for a few days. Or I'll be swimming and I'll be debugging code in my head. I can't tell the difference between left and right and I was one of those kids at school who never learned how to do calculus - I just knew, it was easy. I really wouldn't characterize myself as a 'mad' scientist, I just need a Pepper Potts.

In this universe, I don't assign blame. It seems to me that circumstances may be beyond our control especially when there is no intention to do bad. I believe out of pretty much anything some good can come of it. I pretty much believe it'll always work out in the end and even then I think there are worse things than death.

I started reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead and got half way through, thought, yes I understand this is the truth.

Therefore I have lived my life thinking no action performed by a person was ever so bad that no good could come of it, that there are worse things than death, and that means I am less afraid of dying than somethings; and necessarily there is life after death.

Because I believe in a no blame universe, I believe we shouldn't go out of our way to hurt anyone. Do unto others... seems to be enlightened self-interest. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, love is the law, love under will. Milarepa is one of Tibet's favorite saints. He went on a revenge rampage killing people with his black magic.
Despite his misdeeds after serving his karma he achieved enlightenment.

Milarepa 'intended' to hurt people. I guess I have intended to hurt people too, when I have felt hurt. But did Wall St intend to hurt thousands/millions of people when they were doing their subprime loaning? Probably not, they just didn't care. Don't get me wrong, those crooks deserve all they get. But the system was set up to let them get away with it and while it is set up that way we can only expect it to happen again because they have no incentive to behave better.

Some people are big on assigning blame. And I am sure my flakiness drives people insane. Could I be a lot less flakey? Definitely but then I'd be a lot less like me and there are many things beyond my control. Things don't always turn out the way they were expected too. I try to plan as best as I can.

Recently a friend was given some rope he could've leveraged to my benefit but he didn't and now I realize he didn't see the opportunity. I guess I should've pointed it out to him but I assumed he would see it. I was furious. I blamed him for everything. I wrote the nastiest emails to him. But it didn't make me feel better. My long suffering friend started blaming me. In the end the opportunity was lost and no one feels better for it and the assigning of blame turns out to be futile, although perhaps it clarified for me I should never assume what another person realizes.

I was once offered a job on Wall St. I didn't take the job for a number of reasons, including the application is boring. It doesn't help anyone but the gamblers on Wall St. Its one of the most futile things I can think of. Money is nice, but in itself its really uninteresting. What interests me is learning about the universe, being with people I love and care about.

When do we assign blame - when people don't care that they've hurt people and will likely to it again. When people hurt others but really don't want to - they probably need love or help. When people make mistakes based on what was beyond their control - do we blame them, did they want to make the mistake? Could they help it? Then they still just need your love and help.

This is me writing notes about women and gender. I don't think anyone else is doing research on this kind of stuff but this is fundemental to our society, the raising of the next generation, far more important than pretty much any other activity we engage upon. For most species its hardwired and takes only a season or up to a year for most mammals. But for humans it takes 20+ years to raise your kids.

something I have approached before, but the variation we look for in women is genetic, how she cares for herself is an indication of how well she will care for her children, perhaps. Because a woman largely raises her children without intervention, her husband sometimes acting as a backup to ensure she is doing an adequate job, we pressure women to make sure we get children out the other end that will operate within socially acceptable norms.

Unemployment is a serious problem for society although a lot of people dismiss it as the individuals problem and tend to blame the people who lost their jobs. Yes some people lose their jobs because they cause problems in the workplace, most people lose their jobs because corporations want to increase their share prices. Employees are an optimization problem for middle management where bosses have to weigh getting the job done while minimizing the expense, verses the morale of the people who get to keep their job and the additional stress those staff will endure.

The unemployed person will have debts they'll be responsible for, mortgages, credit cards, student loans... insurance payments, a quality of lifestyle for possibly kids and a spouse, yet people begrudge these people even a meagre payment from the government. Hopefully the person will find satisfying work quickly.

Most people have been conditioned to be a slave to what life should be about, getting a good house in a good neighbourhood, buying lots of stuff and the start of this treadmill of slavery is get an education that comes with huge student loans. But of course, education means you can get a better more interesting job, hopefully, where you'll be paid more and hence be able to pay back your debts quicker and money is freedom.

And this is where we go back to unemployment, the biggest problem with unemployment is boredom and loneliness. What can you do when you are unemployed? Go to the library is about the only thing the unemployed can do for entertainment for free, and even that is not very engaging. The other problem with unemployment is loneliness, low engagement with other people.

Much of what is wrong with unemployment can be summarized by Maslow's hierarchy. What I think is missing though in the list is meaningfulness and general human contact. Human contact isn't limited to family and meaningfulness can over-rule things like sex and food some. Sometimes family can provide meaningfulness but meaningfulness may replace family. Love also make life meaningful and so does success.

However meaningfulness can be essential in making life worth living.

The unemployed generally suffer from a low quality of life because they may have to go without many necessities, like food. They may not have all the things 'successful' people have, such as the latest technology toys. They lose contact with others and many people get their meaningfulness from their job. They are a necessary member of a team achieving something useful for others.

Some people turn to drugs to make extra money or to pass the time, which can turn them into criminals if they are caught, or they may resort to crime just to make ends meet when if we had paid for them to return to college or university they individuals would get social contact, be engaged in something possibly meaningful while at least allaying boredom.

In extreme cases people will get suicide by rampage, killing many people with their guns because there is a lack of mental healthcare available.

We had been anticipating there would come a time where there wouldn't be full employment because of advances in technology and outsourcing peoples jobs to other countries, yet our 1% begrudge paying the unemployed a pittance to live on and wash their hands of the unemployed person's quality of life.

One size does not fit all. Not everyone can be an entrepreneur, not everyone is capable of starting their own business. Not all of us want the same things.

I've listened to a lot of arguments about corporations especially from those libertarian types. Government is entirely bad and corporations or private ownership is okay.

I suspect this is the result of propaganda by corporations. In the past corporations had to do what government told them too, but now government has been so weakened that corporations now control governments.

I am utterly puzzled by the vehemence of these pro-gun supporters, don't they know they are just doing advertising for the gun manufacturers? Gun manufacturers don't even have to advertise - I wish I could get free advertising like that. I've even heard people say all gun laws are bad, Chicago has the worst murder rates cos they have the strongest gun laws. Could it be that Chicago has the strongest gun laws because of the number of murders caused by guns? If I lived in Chicago I'd want a gun too, merely because of its mob links. How cool. You guys advocating for the relaxation of gun laws as a second amendment remedy, don't you know you are going against the most powerful army in the world that ever was? Our government has at its disposal the most powerful military in the history of the planet and it is so mainly at your behest. Go against our government even with your best weapons, and you will go down.

Some of my friends argue that government creates corporations. Well government creates citizens too. Its government that confers rights to both corporations and citizens. Government should control corporations on behalf of the people. Corporations are meant to help the people of the country by providing the people with jobs, to enrich the country by trading in other countries and bringing money back from abroad to pay tax to the government of the country they were formed in.

Corporations weakened government by spruiking that government is much more inefficient than corporations. This is clearly not true. Government doesn't have the overheads corporations have - corporations must make a profit, corporations have to pay dividends, corporations must duplicate services each corporation has, like a HR, pay CEO salaries and advertise, compete... Government can normally bulk purchase, doesn't have CEO salaries, has one HR, compete, pay dividends... Inefficiency creeps in because government isn't permitted to use its bulk purchasing power. Corporations spend a lot of money on psychologists who are employed by advertising agencies, so they are vastly more efficient at manipulating us, and corporations manipulate us very efficiently.

I think this is why we give corporations a pass because they run these glossy ads which make them look warm and friendly when in fact corporations only purpose is to make money. We are lured into believing First State has your best friend working for them, Progressive has a doofy girl - just like you - working for them... Geiko has a loveable gecko with a cute (educated) british accent. Go on, insurance is your friend, yeah right. My war on TV continues.

The progressive weakening of government has resulted in the prison system being outsourced which now dictates how many prisoners it requires. The government is obliged now to finance these prison corporation(s). Are they more efficient, its unlikely. Its ust a corporation dictating to government and sucking on the socialist nipple of the government.

Lets work an example to prove my point. If we each had to pay for the side-walk in front of our house, let say our neighbors can't afford to put side-walk in yet, so when i walk in front of their house i have to walk through mud. Their other neighbors got their brother-in-law to do it and their side-walk is nasty, but they paid $500 for it. The brother-in-law did such a bad job none of the rest of us in the street will employ him to build our side-walk, so brother-in-law still has to find a job to support his family. The guys who did my other neighbors sidewalk was expensive and did a nice job. They charged $2k because they used quality cement, but the neighborhood looks a mess, with everyone's sidewalk looking different. We decide to get the well-off neighbors sidewalk - if we'd done it at the same time we'd have both got a discount and it would have been more convenient for the quality guys cos the they don't want to come back besides the side-walks don't line up now and they have to set up again and schedule...

When the government does it , it probably wouldve cost everyone $500, the look of the neighborhood would look better, aligned, quality cement...

Nevertheless, people will continue to make snide remarks like: everything government does is wrong. No, actually. Corporations working on government are bad. First control the corporations. But first, we must take back control of our government and we do that by contacting our congress people.