Friday 4 July 2008

"We Cannot Direct The Wind, But We Can Adjust The Sails"

This is my first post, as is probably obvious if you are reading it: hang in there! I decided to start a blog for a number of reasons. One, I assume I will find some sort of enjoyment in it. Having spent three years studying English only to find myself working in marketing, scrutinising spreadsheets and crunching numbers, I feel like this could be my private emancipation from the constraints of my two least favourite things: capitalism and basic maths. Secondly, I've reached the age where I no longer feel I have tailor my opinions to suit those who I may be talking to at one particular time. This is a liberating notion indeed, but I've found it has its draw-backs. I now find that sometimes people (shock, horror) disagree with my views - thats OK I suppose, I'm only really looking for validation in small doses. What's not so OK is when people don't want to hear my opinions. The laws of probability dictate that there must be at least a small proportion of the population of the world wide web that will hear what I'm saying, in all senses of the phrase. It would be good to find these people. The last reason is the one which is perhaps the most important and the one which I feel will compell most of you to either continue or stop reading. I don't know yet what form the blog will assume, I'm just intending to write about things that interest me, what I've learned and what I hope to learn but I will mainly be writing about feminist issues. The name of this blog comes from a quote by that ubiquitous creature and country music legend, Dolly Parton. She once said: "We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails". This sums up my general feeling on what I would hope (although would never presume) this blog could be for myself and the few who may stumble upon it. Despite society's relative progress and the fact that a lot of us think that women have "got it pretty good now", I think there is still work to be done. Whether or not I can contribute is another matter, but if I do I look on it as a tiny adjustment of the sails of a vessell, one which represents for me an opinion, individual or collective. Here goes!

2 comments:

josietj said...

I have really enjoyed reading all of your posts so far, I couldn't agree more with your points on that article about John Leslie. I think it's depicable that this sort of attitude is everywhere, claiming that discrimination against women is over and feminism isn't necessary any more. I quite frequently get lambasted by my friends (male and female) for my opinions, and labelled a "raging feminist" etc. I don't happen to think that's an awful label though - far better than "indifferent"

Keep up the good work!

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Excellent title, I think that it is a great beginning. I wish you luck in your new blog and success.