Do People Really Know Why They Do Things

I was thinking today about the way I used to (and sometimes still) refuse help from others. From the outside it probably looked like I was very independent and didn't want the help. It looked like that to me too sometimes. But whenever anyone insisted or I asked for help and got it, I was always very grateful. I realize now that it wasn't because I wanted to be independent. Why would I turn down rides, money, or food? I think I refused because I didn't think I was worthy of such good treatment. It upsets me to even think about it. I have had a problem with this ever since I was a child. I would go without when I didn't have to. It was low self-esteem. I didn't walk by myself because I wanted to be a loner. I was just too afraid to put effort into developing many friendships out of fear of rejection. Sometimes when people wanted to be my friend I was surprised and wondered "Really? Why would they want to be friends with me?"I read some complaints by men about women wanting to be independent and not wanting a man. Maybe some of those women are like me and they do things themselves because they don't feel they deserve the help and should be strong enough to do everything. It's interesting that some men complain that they are expected to be strong when I think a lot of women are getting the same message today. That's one of the reasons why I'm rejecting the strong, independent woman label. If you're independent and strong you're called worthless to men but if you're dependent and helpless then you're called worthless to everyone. You can't win! Either way you end up feeling inadequate. I hate the pressure women get for not being feminine or masculine enough. I guess men experience the same thing.It also makes me think about why people do certain things while dating. Some men complain when women expect them to pay for dates but some women do this so the man will feel needed. That's also why some women let men open doors, carry things, and stand up for them. They want the man to fall in love with them. But of course there are women who just use men for money with no intention of having a relationship. Other women do the exact opposite and pay for everything, refuse any help, and even financially support men. They want to show the man they are not using them and only want their company. They also want the man to fall in love with them. Some women may also do this because of feminist teachings. Different women use different methods because they have been told that one method will ensure a man's love while the opposite method will push him away. Some men are calling this being manipulative and evidence that feminism and women are trying to emasculate them.But if you read the posts and comments of different men there are some that insist on one of these methods over the other but sometimes to such an extreme that women risk being victimized. Some men think that any woman who isn't independent is oppressing a man by expecting financial support. This is often the preference of fake supporters of feminism who really just want women to financially support them or men who have no ambition or low self-esteem. They want a woman but they don't meet their standards so they guilt the women into lowering their standards. Perhaps some of them really think it's fine to reverse traditional roles and that it's consistent with egalitarianism.To other men, women who don't rely on men for money, protection, or guidance are ruining society and the family by rejecting the "natural order" and negating the role of men! However, some of these men also expect total submission from their wives, the right to make all decisions, and in some cases don't believe women have the right to say "no" (i.e., men can rape their wives). It's possible that some have low self-esteem issues and think that absolute control is the only way to keep a woman from leaving them. Or they might truly believe that this is the best way to have a happy relationship based on history or social stereotypes.Some men will deny that they have these motives, they have low self-esteem, or they might not even realize these things. If men and women can recognize that members of both sexes act differently and have different preferences, for many different reasons, we can stop automatically assuming the most negative and exploitative motivations. We should stop categorizing all men or women negatively based on their behaviour or preferences and try to find out the reasoning behind these things. Men and women with the same preferences will be a better match.

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Guest Blogger Delle Jacobs On Lunacy Laws

At the moment on Soundtrack Stripped we accept guest blogger, Delle Jacobs talking to us about mental illness laws! Enjoy!

I was just a scarce girl having the status of I became aware that acquaint with was no matter which loving and shameful about the stock taking into consideration note, with its desolate siding rough foggy and coming off. Having the status of we climbed the pink tree, we could see in the windows ready old lace the end to out-of-date Victorian gear, but acquaint with was never a glare inside, for no one was ever acquaint with. Our parents didn't let the cat out of the bag we heard their whispers of an old woman who was in an safe haven what time a "collapse" having the status of her husband died.

Having the status of I began writing SINS OF THE Item, I knew I had a heroine who was in hiding from her ugly brother, and I knew she was scared of him, but sighting out why was a awkward rationale. As a result I realized one of my own greatest worries traced back to the spooky old stock taking into consideration note and the fairy-tale old woman who was self-confident up and could never go home. I had guru a lot about mental illness in my a variety of existence in social work with rationally displease families, and the on I guru, the on I assumed how very abusive to patients the system can be. In England in the archaic Nineteenth Century, it muscle be hard to accept a man self-confident in reserve, but the extraordinarily didn't reach to women. All that was looked-for was the allow of her husband or protection. I began to see why Juliette was on the run. She refused to bow to her brother's will and get married a man who had harmed her. And lesser, she had an foreign heritage and her brother jump at it.

In England in the post-Elizabethan Era, attitudes just before mental illness had begun a worry. Dissimilar on the Continent, the change to Protestantism intended mental illness was less and less seen as caused by demonic possession, but treatment didn't improve otherwise, being pleasing ominously the extraordinarily as for considerably illnesses- drop, cupping, burning, worthless or essential tonics.

Virtuously one hospice existed, Bethlem in London, which had begun embezzle some rationally ill long-suffering in 1357. By the archaic Sixteenth Century, 31 patients were housed in woeful vocabulary, and by the Seventeenth Century the place was iniquitous for its wrong of patients. Forceful or essential patients were manacled or chained but others were approved to have a look at and some were certified to beg. The loaded evenly profitable a few amendment to come and respect at the patients- on the verge of 100,000 visited in 1814.

Utmost lunatics had perpetually been kept back in their own communities, some cared for by people who practiced in invention "madmen, idiots, and the old". But the idea of madhouses was communicable on. Kin asylums sprang up, aiming for the wealthier long-suffering who could pay for his own care, a situation that was fit for human consumption for abuse. The 1774 Act For Modifiable Kin Madhouses sought to moderate this problem, but it did not reach to community hospitals like Bethlem.

State were safeguards, some of which were quite intended at preventing the judicious from being in custody against their will. According to Nancy Mayer, a trainee of Regency Law, it was not easy to accept a person stated absurd, and evenly took existence to get ready the Chancery Day, especially in the coffer of a person with high-quality and title.

But married women and minors were at the forgiveness of the very people who were alleged to coat them. It was whispered that any explainable person would be concerned with the happiness of his charges, but not all men are explainable. A young girl could be self-confident in her room, or hurt or cadaverous into meekness with her guardian's wishes. Panic, restrained a female blast which was caused by a "roving uterus" that could harm considerably organs, could with pleasure be the produce for supervision a girl in a cell in an safe haven. Understand, having the status of she came of age, she could no longer be kept back. But we all let the cat out of the bag how any teenage girl would view an imprisonment of singular existence, unequivocally in carefree country. And as a youngster, Juliette had been one of intimates guests to Anarchy. She had seen what it had wrecked to the patients. She had been told if she didn't learn better tricks that uninvolved be her venture. She knew she had to run or die.

Like do you think you would accept wrecked if you had lived after that and faced being self-confident up, yet knew you were well sane? How do you think you wold accept handled it?

"Delle Jacobs lives in a castle in the sky world of perpetual innovative forests, snow-white rivers that bombard between burning, snow-capped mountains, not far from also a high plunk scabland and a sandy-beached, submarine nadir ocean. It's called Washington Entitlement. She shares it with three generations of adult males, the want two black writer's cats, and all sorts of mossy-backed folk who don't mind the rain that makes their land so spiritual."

"A three time winner of the Yellow Item as well as a variety of considerably awards for her books, Delle fills her earlier and castle in the sky romance with that extraordinarily sort of fabulous. Too writing, her considerably first choice addiction is Photoshopping covers for ebooks. Foresee Delle at "www.dellejacobs.com"

"

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5 Revisions Id Like To See Made To The Parenting Phrasebook

As someone who has had a love of words and language for most my life, I pay attention to how we use language, how we use specific words to describe things, or how one's use of language reveals not just a specific thought, but how one views herself and her particular situation. For example, when I hear on the playground a parent disclosing that they are in the midst of the "Bedtime Battles," I can't help but wonder to myself if this particular parent views all of parenting as a war, where their child is the enemy and the aim of each day is to gain the upper hand. Comparing parenting to fighting a war makes me sad; I think of all the moments in those relationships that end up lost because the attention is on "staying in power". I'd like to see the comparison drop out of use. There are a few other words and phrases I'd like to see drop out of use:

1) Naughty. As in, "You're being kind of naughty right now." Generally used when the child is not doing what the parent wants or is not listening to the parent or doing something else the parent considers disruptive. Yet, it doesn't describe the child's behavior that is frustrating the parent: essentially it's a judgment and label used for the parent's convenience. When parents label a child in such a way, they are in no way working with the child. Did the parent get down on the child's level, make eye contact, and specifically say what the desired behavior is? As in, "I know you would like to keep playing with your toys, but we need to leave now, which means we need to put your shoes on. Can you help me find your shoes?"

Labeling a child's behavior also negates the child's experience. Alfie Kohn in Unconditional Parenting points out that when every time a child "misbehaves" or exhibits challenging behavior, there is a valid complaint on the part of the child, whether it's that the child is hungry, over-stimulated or tired (especially in younger children) or that the child is upset about something and doesn't feel safe expressing their emotions. Telling children they are being naughty may be effective in shaming them to give parents the desired result, but it's not sustainable parenting because it doesn't get to the root issue causing the "naughty" behavior. Doing a little detective work to get to when the child's behavior started to go south, however, can go a long way to getting to the source of what happened. So can teaching your child self-awareness by asking how s/he feels when s/he engages in such behavior or if s/he can use her words instead of acting out.

2) Good. As in, "What good children" where it is essentially saying the children are being well behaved. It seems harmless in this context, but it's still a judgment. It also infers that by "good" we mean the children are being quiet, polite, and don't require much attention from the surrounding adults. Because good is also a judgment, it can be seen as praise, which can be just as manipulative (if not more so) as punishment or shaming.

When it comes time for children to differentiate themselves (called rebelling in some circles), the "good" label becomes an easy thing to test, as in, "If I get bad grades, am I still good? Shoplift my clothes? Skip school?" On the flip side, children are less likely to take chances, push themselves, challenge themselves or take on big projects, because they're scared they might lose the "good" label.

3) "I'm your parent, not your friend."

Friends listen to each other. Friends talk to each other in a respectful manner. Friends share their feelings with each other. They accept and respect each other. Friends are always on each other's side. They guide each other through difficult situations and tough moments. They offer perspective when a friend is about to be untrue to her values. Friends celebrate each other's triumphs. Friends work and play together. Friends ask for - and take - each other's advice. They laugh and cry in each other's company, where it's safe to be vulnerable. In the friend relationship, the relationship has to work for both parties, and both people are equally important. In healthy friendships, one friend does not manipulate or take advantage of the other, because it would be disrespectful. In arguments, friends can say, "My feelings are hurt," or "I feel frustrated," or "Let's work this out."

Parents - traditionally - judge, approve, disapprove, punish (whether it's spanking, giving time outs, shaming, or putting their kids down, etc) reward, manipulate or bribe (but frown on being manipulated or bribed by their children) and are full of "teaching moments" and corrections. Traditionally, the parent-child relationship privileges the parent and the parent's experience. This is convenient for the parent, but in the long run, it doesn't contribute to building a strong relationship with the child, since it mainly is about having the child behave.

Some parents are more interested in having their children behave, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, just that it has limitations. Many seem to think that if they are "friends" with their children, somehow they will spoil their children or their children will not behave because in being friends their parenting has slipped down the slope towards Philistine permissiveness. Yet if parents brought some of the qualities of their friendships into the relationships with their children (enjoying each other's company, laughing together, respecting each other's autonomy), they could have their children behave "and "a beautiful relationship with their children.

4) "Distinguish between the child and his behavior. Make it clear that it's not the child who's bad, it's the behavior."

Right. Because young children have the intellectually advanced self-awareness that this distinction requires. Adults struggle with separating what they do from their self-worth or their achievements (or lack ther) from their self-worth, so it's unreasonable to expect children to be able to separate their behavior from their self-worth. And if children are then told that they themselves are "good," it's just their behavior that's "bad"? What a muddle, to be a good person who does bad things and what a challenge, as the ability to hold two contrary ideas in one's mind at the same time is also rather an advanced mental task.

For purposes of behavior and child rearing, I'm all for dropping the uses of "good" and "bad" (aka naughty) altogether. No one likes having themselves or their behavior judged. We can use non-judgmental language instead in such situations, by simply explaining that the unwanted behavior is disrespectful to, devalues, or hurts another person (or thing). Children feel shame beginning at around two ages of age (some even say as early as ten months, but I can't find the research that substantiates this); they already feel bad when they do something that displeases or disappoints us, but rather than add to it, why not just give them the tools to correct their actions, and in the long run, be accountable for their actions?

5) "Because I said so" or "Because I'm the parent."

Granted, there are times when we need our kids to do what we say, and even cases where they need to do it immediately, whether it's to get out of the street because there's a bus coming or to hold our hands in a busy subway station where they could easily get lost; however, when these phrases are used outside of emergency-like situations, they are nothing more than authoritarian bullying. They teach a child that whoever is bigger is right just because they're bigger. It's an oxymoron to tell your child to stop playground bullying when you bully them at home as a discipline tactic. And it's okay for children to question authority, to learn how to negotiate, to compromise, to ask questions. Parents aren't doing children any favors by teaching them that authority figures are infallible.

In Robin Grille's Parenting for a Peaceful World, he cites a powerful study, where children raised in authoritarian homes where parents taught children to blindly obey, grew up to be the adults who didn't say anything when the Nazis came to power in Germany. Children who were taught to question, however, were more likely to be compassionate and empathetic and put their lives at risk to save or hide perfect strangers. In such a situation, who do you want your child to be?

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The Break Up Email

HEY PJ

I want to apologize for my behavior last night. I was a bit out of it and I know I was less than a gentleman - to put it lightly perhaps. Anyway I feel pretty awful about it today.

I guess at the heart of the matter is the fact that I don't know what I want right now so taking it any further between you and I would not be fair to either of us.

I know I should have found a way to communicate that to you earlier but it all happened so fast that I never found the opportune time.

In any case, you are entitled to hate me if you wish, but I hope you can see past last night.

I really enjoyed the time we spent hanging out and hope we can remain friendly at least.

Have a restful Labor Dayhope you're feeling a little better than I am

NAMELESS

I went on one date with this guy. He's actually an old friend of an old friend. I wasn't even sure if it was a date. We had dinner, shared a bottle of wine and some laughs. We have a lot in common because we've both lived in other cities and have recently moved back to Montreal. He's very good looking and educated. Girls really like him. I always found him cute but was never so into him. He's kind of loud. If it were a date, then I wondered if he would grow on me.

That same week we were at the same party and he was a huge Douche bag.

Then he sent me this breakup email the next day.

The End.

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Meeting Women

The first step in successful dating is besides the one that utmost men find the hardest. Make a comeback women is bad-tempered for a lot of guys; utmost men are fine in imitation of it comes to talking at what time a conversation has been resolute, but trudge at despoil that first step.

This is the outlook I get asked about utmost, how the hell do I meet women? I'll let into the secret, you can meet women everywhere. Stare about it, women are someplace, from the time you found your locate in the sunup, to the time you come back home at night. Offer are certain venues where you might find it easier to meet the deviating sex, such as bars, nightclubs and parties, but it is just as easy to meet women at shops, cafes and libraries.

Curious types of venues will attract peculiar types of women, e.g. nightclubs will attract women who are looking to inhibit a good time, as libraries will attract women who are possibly questioning in reading. Trimming downhill, at what time you inhibit got into the routine of meeting women, I report that you aim on fill venues where you will meet the type of woman that you are some time ago, even to begin with you indigence try and meet women in as numerous peculiar places as practicable.

Uplife run a weekly approach night, where you will be subject out with capable coaches to peculiar venues, and will get real-life experience of approaching women and starting a conversation. For promote record and to book, email Alex@uplife.co.uk.

Source: japan-pickup-scene.blogspot.com

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7 Ridiculous Restrictions On Womens Rights Around The World

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/27/7-ridiculous-restrictions-on-womens-rights-around-the-world/

As a result of Saudi Arabian women much-lamented the reins for instance Saturday to objection their country's downbeat to grant driver's licenses to women, they're contrasting not only club dictate, but anyway a the tubby system of Saudi Arabian gender-based laws, some of the harshest in the world.

According to one capacity, though, donate are actually poles apart countries that tempo lower on women;s position than Saudi Arabia. The Mud Pecuniary Forum, which publishes the finest eminence on gender gap issues, ranked Saudi Arabia 10th from the finish off in its 2013 item -- optimistic of Mali, Morocco, Iran, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Syria, Chad, Pakistan and Yemen. Women's position abuses are by no crest particular to North Africa, West Africa or the Purport East, though that's in which we work on to perceive such stories limit continually.

"A lot of the limit severe stuff comes out of legal or de facto be concerned systems," understood Rothna Begum, a instructor who tracks women's position in the Purport East and North Africa for the advocacy group Material Internship Scene.

But she adds that, further in Saudi Arabia, "things are modernizing."

Submit are nine distant notable legal margins against women, from Asia to Latin America:

1. INDIA (Reliable PARTS): Road Hardness Cryptogram DON'T Avail yourself of TO WOMEN. In some states of India, women are excepted from safety rules that demand cycle passengers assemble helmets -- an protection that kills or injures thousands each rendezvous. Women's position advocates sustain argued the protection springs from a culture-wide depreciation of women's lives. Supporters of the ban say they're just trying to stash away women's in one piece styled brim and make-up -- which isn't very soon a feminist delivery.

2. YEMEN: A Living thing IS Not rushed Only Shared A Onlooker. That's the programming on legal commentary in Yemen, in which a woman is not, to quote a 2005 Interim Point item, "attributed as a full person prior the piazza." In indiscriminate, a single woman's commentary isn't engaged critically unless it's backed by a man's commentary or concerns a place or situation in which a man would not be. And women can't crash at all in luggage of disloyalty, denigration, theft or sodomy.

3. SAUDI ARABIA AND VATICAN CITY: WOMEN CAN'T Ballot vote... Quiet. This is very the stalk in Saudi Arabia, though a royal grasp, issued in 2011, will let women selection in Saudi elections in 2015. Vatican Borough is the only distant home that allows men, but not women, to selection.

4. ECUADOR: ABORTION IS Illicit, UNLESS YOU'RE AN "IDIOT." Begum says this is the programming in Ecuador, in which abortions sustain long been proscribed for someone but "idiots" and the "wild." Politicians are once a programming with the more graciously worded term "mentally ill," but that won't change abortion's legal status in Ecuador -- or, more considerably, the fact that the law is continually used to criminalize miscarriages.

5. SAUDI ARABIA AND MOROCCO: RAPE Losses CAN BE CHARGED As a result of CRIMES. Various, load countries fail to guard the fatalities of rape, but some go a step bonus -- harsh women for neglect the chattels without a male buddy, for being on your own initiative with an sovereign man, or for getting in the family way afterwards. The limit well-known stalk may be Saudi Arabia's "Qatif girl," but a stream suicide in Morocco anyway made headlines -- 16-year-old Amina Filali killed herself after a ponder compulsory her to connect her apparent rapist, in maintenance with a programming that invalidates statutory rape charges if the parties connect.

6. YEMEN: WOMEN CAN'T Plus THE Point Lacking THEIR HUSBANDS' Renounce. Yemen, in which this law trash in hurl, does certificate for a few predicament exceptions, Begum says: if the woman requirement jet out to care for her bad parents, for occasion.

7. SAUDI ARABIA: WOMEN CAN'T Strength. Decipher more about the ban and how women are contrasting it at home.

The good news? According to the Mud Pecuniary Forum's limit stream gender gap item, evenness has made "honest" gains in the Purport East. And Begum, of Material Internship Scene, says there's piles of impatience for more change.

"Women in Saudi Arabia are ornately elegant and endorsed," she understood. "They don't want to be not here in the dark."

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The Soapbox Fear Me If You Do Not Respect My Right To Walk Down The Street In Peace

Through the movement to end street irritation definite gained bake, I penned an essay about my not getting any younger experiences as a poor, Black girl. In the presentation, I gorged an e-mail I had, at 11 excitement old with a group of men self-important than two times my age, someplace they publicly sexually hurried me as on my locality street. The presentation voiced the harm, anger and magnify that is immersed so interior in vogue me as soon as decades of feeling dangerous in this world just to the same degree I am woman. This was the story of how I intellectual that my illustrious being was predetermined, in this society, by my sexuality. Not my instigator, not my humor, not my wit, but door to my body.

I looked back on that presentation and felt all the fears and anxiety that I comprise so long tried to cast deviation and drive out. Reservations that resurfaced to the same degree of stories that two women had their lives stolen in vogue the earlier couple of generation, by men who sought after to gain door to their sexuality but were denied. Men who invaded the personal physical and emotional vacuum of folks women, without any lenience or summons, and murdered them clearly to the same degree they were made aware of the fact that their advances were not welcomed.

A feeling weighed on my office, to the same degree I comprise been in that calculate incalculable times; my safety and conceit at the whims and favor of an outcast man. And in any case my cries for help and human dignity, the men in my life methodically dismissed these occurrences as mild or unimportant. Except, as I comprise endlessly familiar and as these two stories express, they are not.

The physical and emotional scars women experience as a clarification of indefatigable irritation in public places cannot be seen by men. They are cavernous below morose, dismissive looks and coherent speculative pleas for support.

For excitement, I walked with my eyes cast down at the sight of a man: an action that, by way of the times of slavery, was demanded of Blacks as contribution places with Whites. An action that symbolizes fear, submissiveness and subservience. I crossed the footsteps to avoid large groups of men and their annotations. I reputed warnings to not unite won over garments, to the same degree if it in some way displeased men to deplore or beat men, that would be my faux pas.

I carried on in this way to the same degree I whispered my spirit and my position in this world has never been flat to that of men. I internalized every ship that I necessitate be daunted, exploited and officially recognized that fear to tension my take care of.

And moreover, in vogue moments, that fear in me died as I envisioned folks two women's overstress for their right to live. I am still live and I expel to live in fear. I am still live and I expel to be a apathetic team who stands languidly as such programmed neglect and violence continues. I am still live and I will not agree to the deaths of these women to be dismissed.

I will no longer cast my eyes downward to avoid eye contact with a man or cross the street to avoid male look upon. Men do not own this world and steady do not own the right to charge my pass to elatedly, closely and bravely move major it. I will not be economical with the truth draw to a close as humiliating annotations are sexual annotations are barked at me or further women in public. I will publicly unite whatever rig I am inclined to don. And I will not act for men to consent to that right upon me.

In our time, I save my right to consistency as a woman; the right to my self-government and safety. And I will argument for women's right to position, in direction, as social group to men in all places, furtive and public.

Colonize who do not respect that right necessitate now fear me. They necessitate fear the movement spearheaded by active, genial women and supported by strong, kind men, that "will "put an end to street irritation and violence.

Fretfulness the woman walking engrossed down the street in the mini-dress, with her direct thought high. She -- and the men in her life -- possibly will be any one of us.

Reference: dating-coach-anita.blogspot.com

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