Who Run the World?

I've recently had an epiphany (not to be confused with an Epiph-a-party, which can be enjoyed on or around January 6) about the role of women in Detroit and probably the whole world. Actually epiphany is probably not the right word, but I'm trying to make Epiph-a-party happen so I had to throw that in there. Anyway, in another post that will not be focused on the bachelor, I'm just gonna ramble to you about some feminist thoughts and complaints. I apologize for the rambling, but not for the feminism.

Beyoncé knows the answer to this blog title

I'll start with last weekend, when I made the decision to depress myself by watching the 2-part-4-hour documentary Half the Sky (available on Netflix, in case you also want to be really sad). The reason that this was so depressing was because the movie is about a book that is about gender inequality and the abuse and suffering of women around the world. It's actually a pretty well done documentary, although I won't pretend to be as much of an expert as Taylor and Rachael who frequently study this genre of film. They take 6 actresses to 6 different African and Asian countries where they focus on 6 issues like maternal mortality, human trafficking, prostitution, and other cheerful facets of the human experience. Basically me and George Clooney got our feminist on together and I cried periodically with my chocolate milk in a freezing basement.

The movie is a little uplifting, see they are smiling

So I started my week with these gender issues in my head, and I started to put together some things that I've realized over the past 22 (almost 23!!) years of my life. We shall begin with Detroit: there are a lot of women here. Seriously, I feel confused by where all the men are, because theoretically there should be equal male/female births but everywhere I go it seems like a bunch of ladies. My house is all women, and actually most of the service corps that we have met here are most/all female. My office is like 90% women, which is pretty typical for a social service agency and social work profession. When I go to do outreach visits at Head Start or other pre-schools, the teachers are all women. At foster care agencies when I go to talk to staff meetings, there might be one man in the room, and he's usually a supervisor. I have literally never seen a male receptionist or nurse at the doctors' offices when I go to talk to them about referring patients to us for mental health services (look, as a bonus I just explained 75% of what I do at my job!). I think the only place in Detroit where I see men are at gas stations and hanging out on the side walk where they usually ask for my name/number or make lewd comments to me that start with "Hey white girl!" Because who doesn't want a little sexual harassment while she's pumping gas?

This is how I feel about that.

So there's all these women around me basically running the city by working in all these service positions and then going home and taking care of their children. Here are some statistics I looked up: 61.7% of Detroit households are run by a single parent, with about 16,000 single dads and over 125,000 single moms. Still, every mayor Detroit's ever had has been a man, just like every president of the US and every CEO of a major auto company until now. What's up with that?

Probably how Mary Barra feels about that

So I change my mind pretty regularly on which diseases I am going to study (and probably cure) once I go back to school next fall, but lately I've been thinking I should probably focus on women's health, maybe maternal/infant health, because women are the best and I hate men. Not really, but women are really great and I think we should all just celebrate how much they do for our communities and our world. Like, besides bringing life into this world, we also get shit done.

I also should mention that I am reading Bossypants (finally after I got it a year ago for my birthday), and Tina Fey, besides being a hilarious woman and strong feminist, doesn't care for dogs. So take that all you people who think I'm heartless. Really, I'm just the next Tina Fey.

Here's one lady I'd like to brunch with