It's like I've been transported through time

If y'all would care to look at the photo album to the right entitled "My Digs," you will see the charming view of my backyard. You will also see that my laundry is hanging from the line out there. That's right. There is no dryer. There is just this tiny washer that takes 1 hour to wash clothes, and then you hang them up, much as the pioneers did. I understand that it saves on lots and lots of energy and money this way, though, and I'm extremely lucky not to have to try to do this in a laundromat or dorm room. So please understand that the following is not a complaint, but a cultural observation.

This morning found me crouched in front of the washer with my eyes squinted and my mouth agape. It's one of those front-loading kinds so I could see exactly what it was doing. This machine was not washing my clothes so much as it was tossing them, gingerly, the way you or I might toss a Cobb salad if we thought it was going to explode at any second. The little hamster wheel turned for exactly 3 seconds, then stopped for 10, as if afraid that if it went any further the laundry might think it was trying to get fresh. I watched this process in disbelief for about 7 cycles, then figured I'd better just go get dressed or I'd be late for school. I guess the clothes got clean somehow, though, even though I wasn't around to see it.

Turns out I wasn't around to hang them up, either, because when I got back from class they were already up on the line. So it wasn't so much that I was being a pioneer, on account of I didn't even hang the stuff up myself. Only you know what? It was kind of good that someone else did it first, because otherwise I would have had no earthly clue how to do it. And all the English people would have looked over from their yards and laughed. And then I would have yelled something nasty about how in America we have machines to do this for us, so who's laughing now???

Then I would've been asked to leave.

As promised, though, here are the stories I said I would tell:

1. I went into this shop called Primark and found a great brown dress that didn't have any tags on it, so it rang up for 4 pounds. It's a stretchy cotton wrap dress with 3/4-length sleeves and these cool Grecian-looking rope things around the waist, and it comes down to just below the knee. And as long as an errant wind never blows it completely open while I'm walking to Church on Sunday, I should be good to go. Did I mention it was only 4 quid?

2. The new exercise policy--Turns out I lied and you'll have to wait for this one.

3. Becoming a Feminist Goddess of Doooom--First class was today, and it turns out that it's actually an undergraduate class and that there's only one other postgrad in there. We get our own assignments and everything, but still. That kind of kills some of the joy. I knew something was off, though, when I started seeing hot-pink lace thongs everywhere. The other way you know it's an undergrad class is that no one will speak up, even though it's about really really cool stuff like gender socialization and ways that parents & others consciously (and unconsciously) reinforce the ways they think boys and girls are supposed to behave.

Most of my grade will be from a 2,000 word essay I have to write. I get to pick from these topics (these are my own shorter summaries of the topics, btw):

1. Discuss the arguments for & against women working in libraries in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. How did the library profession develop into the female-dominated one that it is today?
2. What happens in IT and computing industries to contribute to its being a male-dominated industry & one that has a reputation for being "chilly" for women?
3. If pornography is about domination and violence against women, shouldn't it be banned?
4. Explore and analyze the viewpoint that advertisements present limited and often demeaning stereotypes of men and women.
5. How and to what extent do magazines send out messages about bodily appearance and acceptable social roles/behavior for men and women?
6. Discuss the establishment of women's presses in the 1970s, and how they have promoted women writers.

So much fun! I don't know which one to pick yet, but so far 3-5 look the most interesting to me. The other postgrad is looking at #3, and I'm interested to see what she comes up with. Even though I hate pornography, I don't know how you would go about trying to ban it. I mean, where would you start? And what would be included--would pictures and films made at home count? What about books? Who decides which books are pornographic? Would any book containing sex count? What about art? Where do you draw the line?

And even if the stores stopped selling magazines like Playboy, you would still have the Internet to deal with. How could you possibly traffic the Internet for all porn, when law enforcement officers can't keep up with child pornography as it is? Plus, like drugs, enough people are addicted to it that the demand for pornography won't suddenly go away once it's illegal. People will just find illegal ways of producing and distributing it. So sad, but I think these are true points.

Posted in: England