International Women's Day - reversal of gender in images

Warning! This post is going to be more sexual than normal. This being International Women's Day though, I thought it'd be fun to post a pic from a blog I came across the other day. The blog is malesubmissionart.com, and features men in generally artistic (NSFW) submissive poses. The reason I think this is fitting for International Women's Day? We're so used to seeing these images with women in them that we'd not even glance twice.

As you look at these pics I've chosen, picture a woman with the same expressions and body posturing. We've seen it in Abercrombie & Fitch, Levis, Axe commercials, tequila commercials, that Charlize Theron movie... everywhere. We see it at Urban Outfitters and the halls of high schools. It's just that they're girls. Why is it so strange for us to see women in traditionally male genderized roles of control and gratification, and so shocking to see men in positions of vulnerability, comfort, or aroused fear?

We can do better to honor our women by realizing how ingrained our expectations of gender are.

A treehouse on the coast of West Africa

Today, I found out my uncle died. I know before his kids know - my aunt and uncle have been on a cruise in Mexico, and she's trying to come back into the country and having a hard time working through the legalities. As I'd hate to have to do, at a time like that. His kids don't know yet, because my aunt is waiting to get back into the country tonight and tell them in person.

He was pretty young. I remember a lot about him from when I was a kid. He made clocks; really pretty ones, with custom rings, and wrote letters to Santa with his kids. My mom hired him almost 30 years ago, and he married into the family shortly thereafter. I was mostly close to his two daughters. Who are mostly ok in their lives. But anway.

My mom and I met for lunch today, just to sit and remember him. We sat inside a coffee and ice cream parlor and hugged and looked out at the rain and read an article about adults building treehouses. So we just decided to buy property on the Ghanaian coast in Ada where she has close friends, and build a treehouse home to live in and come back to. The kicker? We're serious.

Love you Uncle Danny. Come see our treehouse when we're building it?