The Goddess Professor Speaks

The post below was my comment to the petition to repeal Amendment 1 (with some adjustments for this blog post). Amendment 1 is the recent addition to the Tennessee Constitution that allows legislators to insert whatever laws they can get passed into women in Tennessee's lives and uteri. If you'd like to sign the petition, please go here: Bill Haslam: Repeal Amendment One . Women are intelligent beings. We are capable of making medical decisions that affect our lives. The decision to terminate a pregnancy should only be affected by the woman seeking the termination and the doctor performing it, and if the woman is married or with the father, perhaps her mate. No one should be forced to carry a fetus to term if that isn't what is best for their life.  Women are human beings. In this day and age, balls of cells are given more rights than a living, breathing, functioning, working person.  Nowadays, deceased bodies have more rights than a pregnant woman. If a person has not

I just had an interesting conversation with a colleague from another department. Through this conversation, I uttered the phrase: "they're the app generation." His reply: "I think you just coined a phrase." Well, while I realize I didn't actually coin this phrase (there's already a book out with that phrase as the title), this conversation did  make me think about what this means. So, what is  the App Generation? We are so busy calling the current age of people the Millennial Generation, but how long will that phrase last? Is it more apropos to call them the App Generation? Is it fair to label only the Millennials the App Generation or does this label fit to many more people than that? We're so tied to our mobile devices and the latest app and what it can do for us, to us, with us. We're so tethered to the electronic leashes and those little icons that connect us to various things. Apps rule our lives. They help us connect to content, f

Warning: This post contains spoilers about the show Vikings .   Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an info junkie, TV addict, and a feminist. A few months back, I was fortunate to watch the History Channel show called Vikings . I'd seen advertisements for it, but largely ignored them. Friends encouraged me to watch the show, and I'm so glad I did. Watching Vikings, I was instantly impressed by the main female character Lagertha . But more importantly, I was intrigued by this slightly more accurate portrayal of the Viking culture; it is after all, a TV show.  As an info junkie, I frequently paused the episodes to fact check things the show portrayed. I'm happy to learn more about any culture, but I'm especially appreciative to see that not only were the Vikings NOT a horned helmet wearing , beer guzzling, raping, pillaging, killing, maiming, destroying people who treated women like shite, women actually had prominent places in their society and what's mor

This morning I awoke to news that not only does the GOP now control the Senate (that had been predicted for months) and many GOP governors maintained their seats (include Florida's Scott, Wisconsin's Walker, and Kansas' Brownback) but also, now in Tennessee, women may completely lose access to abortions--regardless of the circumstances. Last night (as on many previous Election Nights), I purposely distracted myself until well after polls had closed. Being a mom with a kid in school means around the time polls close, I have little people to bathe, clothes to prep, backpacks to check, etc.  I'm thankful for that distraction because it means I no longer have the leisure time to sit in front of a TV and watch as the results roll in.  And even after everyone was put to bed, I purposely  resisted the urge to check election results every 30 minutes before going to bed.  I checked once or twice, so I knew GOP had gained the Senate. That was enough upset for last night, so, I

Yesterday, I took Little Dude to the park before picking up Baby Dude from day care. I was hoping for a day in the park for the two of us to have a mom and son day. Play on the swings together, chase each other, laugh, etc. (I love both my little dudes, but it's so important to show each one of them their own attention as much as possible.) When we arrived, there were already a few kids there, which of course meant he'd want to play with them, and I'd be relegated to watching him and pushing him on the swings. I was cool with it as long as he was happy. He happily went to the slides/play set; I hung back a bit and let him do his thing. The other kids were on the swings, but as soon as they saw him, they called out to him and asked his name. He replied, and they started to come over.  I stepped back further to merely watch their interactions. What I witnessed for the next 20 or so minutes gave me thousands of thoughts and took me on a roller coaster of emotions. There we

I am at a loss for words.  How and when  do I explain any of this to my sons? As the mother of black males, who will one day grow up to be viewed as aggressive by someone who doesn't share their same skin complexion, I have hugged them a bit tighter lately, begun telling them the rules to live by so that their actions don't get misinterpreted and they end up suspended from day care or kinder , and begun to worry how to explain the fuckedupness of this world to such young people.  Of course, the baby is too young to understand (and too young to be mistaken for being aggressive), but the older kid is getting old enough to start learning these hard lessons of life. I see the way they are treated when we are out together.  Little old (white) ladies and young (white)  moms with other kids in tow goo, gah, and gush all over the baby.  No one hardly says a peep to the older one.  And he's at that age where he's SO damn friendly to everyone he sees, yet doesn't underst

As a black female and mother of two young black males, I can’t help but watch what’s unfolding in Ferguson since the Michael Brown shooting on Aug. 9.  This shooting death went from an event that sadly, most people of color are no longer shocked by to a situation of unrest as people protest, police over-react to attempt to control crowds, journalists are arrested, citizens are tear-gassed, people (believed to be outsiders) loot and agitate, and AG Eric Holder arrives. We’re horrified that these things keep happening and nothing ever seems to change.  There are more names of black males (and females) beaten and/or killed by police in the last several years than anyone could remember or count.  But their families remember.   And though we can’t remember each name, we know that they happened and again, sadly, we’re no longer surprised. The protests, occasional looting, overly excessive response by the police, and overall unrest in Ferguson following the shooting death make me r

Problem : I don't want to add the Facebook Messenger app to my mobile device.  I only occasionally use Facebook Messenger on my mobile device. Even before all of the articles and complaints about the now required Facebook Messenger app, I'd already decided that I was NOT going to add it to my phone.  I still haven't installed the latest update of the Facebook app, so I certainly wasn't going to add another, separate Facebook Messenger app to my phone. I use Facebook just as much as the next person, but I'm mostly a computer Facebook user.  I check the Facebook app on my phone occasionally, and I certainly don't use the messenger often enough on my phone that I need to add another app.  It's not worth it. I've ignored the "install the Messenger app" suggestions  for months, but the other day I was banned from accessing a message on my phone.  It ticked me off ( like many others ), but then I wondered: "if I open Facebook on the phon

When pregnant with my first child, I realized that the television and movie versions of pregnancy and labor and delivery (L&D) are mythologized and have warped our views of what pregnancy actually is. There is a reason pregnancy knowledge books and websites are so popular--women need books and websites with real, medically accurate, scientifically supported information on what happens in pregnancy, what to expect, things to avoid, things to do, etc. so that we don't float along basing all we know on pregnancy on what has been handed down through the family for generations or what we've seen in films or on TV. During my first pregnancy, armed with medically accurate information, I would attempt to inform people who offered unsolicited (and often erroneous) advice about what to do or not do during pregnancy or what to do to get the baby to come out or whatever.  I'm an information junkie, so I spent my entire pregnancy all over Babycenter.com, Kelly'sMom.com, Pare