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Oct. 1st, 2009 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogAs I told ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moiracoon last night, being with her has made me into a solid feminist. Or at the very least, it's made me aware of a lot of the issues women deal with on a regular basis and of the inherent gender biases and power imbalances that are pervasive in our society. It's not that I didn't care about equality prior to having her in my life; there were just a lot of issues that I'd never been in the position of experiencing or being made aware of. I'm grateful to her for that.
I don't believe it's possible to see the world from too many different perspectives. The more ways you know of to look at something, the more chance you have at understanding how someone else might be looking at things. And the more you can do that, the more chance there is to promote peace, understanding, and dialog. Awesome.
That's another reason I want to do a lot of travelling and seeing new places. I never spent much time in Chicago, despite growing up in the area. Working in the heart of downtown twice a week has changed my perspective a lot.
Then, when I was trying to decide whether to visit New York, I wasn't sure if there'd be anything there that would be all that different from Chicago. Just two big cities; how different could they be? I was totally blown away when I got there and found out.
Chicago and New York have such unique atmospheres, flavours, experiences. And I can't help but think that that must be true of other cities, and other places. And I want those experiences. I want to see through everyone's eyes. I want to see first hand how big the world is and how vastly different the experiences of those who live in it can be. I want a deeper sense of perspective to deepen my sense of wonder. And I want to try to share them with others, just a little bit, by bringing pictures home with me.
---
Speaking of feminism (not to mention visiting big cities), here is the bronze larger-than-life statue of J. Marion Sims that stands on the east side of Central Park, just across the street from the New York Academy of Medicine. Sims is widely remembered as a brilliant physician and the father of modern gynecology.
He is less well remembered for having done much of his experimental work on slave women, with whom he didn't use any anesthesia since he believed (as did our culture of the time as a whole) that Africans could tolerate pain and did not require any.
How selectively we can view the past. Not to mention the present and future.
This is another picture that would really benefit from better light. Ah well; I didn't have the luxury of choosing the time for my visit.
moiracoon last night, being with her has made me into a solid feminist. Or at the very least, it's made me aware of a lot of the issues women deal with on a regular basis and of the inherent gender biases and power imbalances that are pervasive in our society. It's not that I didn't care about equality prior to having her in my life; there were just a lot of issues that I'd never been in the position of experiencing or being made aware of. I'm grateful to her for that. I don't believe it's possible to see the world from too many different perspectives. The more ways you know of to look at something, the more chance you have at understanding how someone else might be looking at things. And the more you can do that, the more chance there is to promote peace, understanding, and dialog. Awesome.
That's another reason I want to do a lot of travelling and seeing new places. I never spent much time in Chicago, despite growing up in the area. Working in the heart of downtown twice a week has changed my perspective a lot.
Then, when I was trying to decide whether to visit New York, I wasn't sure if there'd be anything there that would be all that different from Chicago. Just two big cities; how different could they be? I was totally blown away when I got there and found out.
Chicago and New York have such unique atmospheres, flavours, experiences. And I can't help but think that that must be true of other cities, and other places. And I want those experiences. I want to see through everyone's eyes. I want to see first hand how big the world is and how vastly different the experiences of those who live in it can be. I want a deeper sense of perspective to deepen my sense of wonder. And I want to try to share them with others, just a little bit, by bringing pictures home with me.
---
Speaking of feminism (not to mention visiting big cities), here is the bronze larger-than-life statue of J. Marion Sims that stands on the east side of Central Park, just across the street from the New York Academy of Medicine. Sims is widely remembered as a brilliant physician and the father of modern gynecology.
He is less well remembered for having done much of his experimental work on slave women, with whom he didn't use any anesthesia since he believed (as did our culture of the time as a whole) that Africans could tolerate pain and did not require any.
How selectively we can view the past. Not to mention the present and future.
This is another picture that would really benefit from better light. Ah well; I didn't have the luxury of choosing the time for my visit.
