On being nice and stuff...

I just saw a meme about how women can't afford to be nice or some such wording. 

That rather depends on your definition of "nice" I guess.

Women need to avoid behaving like men do – i.e., swallowing the line that compassion, empathy, cooperation, and mutuality are somehow lesser emotions and ways of being and organising than their opposites.

Women need to protect already stressed female collectives, which sometimes means shelving differences, i.e., remembering that life always involves degrees of compromise.

Whilst I do understand visceral anger – it's an old companion and the multi-faceted chip on my shoulder sometimes still dictates my responses to people and situations – I also know that women cannot afford to waste precious time and energy on misdirected anger and aggression. 

We need to be strategic.

And we need to be consistent. We can't rail against state enabled violence against women on the one hand, and on the other, call for the death penalty for men we disapprove of.

Well, not in my ethical universe.

Sometimes kicking in a door that remains stubbornly closed against us is the only way to gain entry. But sometimes picking the lock might work, or climbing in through a window ... or better still, saying "sod you" to gaining entry to the structure with the closed doors, and create a whole new structure which we control.

Sorry, I'm in an analogy mindset; must be the drugs.

Speaking of which – anyone who is opposed to the Covid vaccine and doesn't also take a stand against the makers of the chemical soup we are forced to live in, is being foolish. 

And that's being kind.

If you take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs regularly or longterm without understanding their mechanism of action; If you go to the doctor with a cold and expect antibiotics; if you swallow paracetamol as if it's completely benign; if you never check the additives in the food you eat ....you have no business pontificating on the safety of vaccines.

We all know, or should, that modern medicine is bound by its symptomatic and pharmaco-surgical paradigms. If we want holistic, less drug-centred, high quality health care, we need to be aiming at changing the entire edifice -– not just tidying up the waiting room.