On the Movie "I don't know how she does it" - working mothers and all

I recently watched the movie "I Don't Know How She Does It" with Sarah Jessica Parker, who I still prefer to call Carrie from her "Sex and the City" series.

The story is about a working mother who has to travel for work once a month, initially, and then almost once every week. We get to hear what everyone else, especially her co-workers, think of her, and how they evaluate her working style, her motherhood, her wifehood, and so on. For the most part, everyone except a close friend of hers, is very judgmental and very harsh on the way she raises her children and the little time she has to spend with her husband and family. At one point, her close friend says something that resonates withing me: She says something like, "When a woman has to announce she needs time off from work to be with a sick child, she takes a risk, a risk of losing her whole job. A man announces the same thing, all's well - people think he's a hero, a wonderful, loving father. And everyone judges her, judges her unfairly, wrongly, accusing her of being a bad mother, etc. When a man has to do it, no one worries at all."

On What Happens When Afghan, Muslim Homosexuals Come Out

A good friend informed me earlier that Nemat Sadat, former professor at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), has recently "come out" and that the kinds of things people are saying on his Facebook page are really disturbing, discouraging, and mean. I take harassment and abuse of homosexuals and other sexual/gendered minorities very seriously; I take it very personally--it personally hurts me. It disturbs me. So I immediately set out to write to him in support. I asked him if he'd okay with my sharing the letter on my blog, and he said, yes, he's okay with that. He is such a good person! How can we anything but love and respect another human of such character? We're pitiful. 

When People Say "She Wanted It": The Difference Between Rape and Sex

In Law & Order SVU, in one of my favorite episodes,  Detective Elliot Stabler (character played by Christopher Meloni; he's no longer on the show, though, unfortunately) is questioning a  suspect in a rape case, and the suspect goes, "What? I have a girlfriend. I don't need to rape anyone! Why would I rape anyone?" And Stablers' response? "Rape isn't the same thing as sex."

So I'm writing this post to talk about the difference between "rape" and "sex" and about the too disturbingly common claim that "she wanted it" or "she was asking for it" (where "it" = rape, unfortunately, but people constantly confuse it with sex!).