Women Veterans: The Federal Government Wants You To Knit!

Are you a veteran? Have a vagina? Live in the Asheville and Boncombe County in North Carolina? You're in luck! The Federal Government has funded a completely useless program just for you and your womanly veteranly needs!

Yay!

I'm sure the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry meant well. And to be fair, the male veterans are offered job training, so this program isn't completely useless. The female veterans? Well...

For all that spare time you're going to have what with being unemployed and all.
Maybe you can knit yourself a house.

According to Thinkprogress.org the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a sex discrimination complaint against the Ashevill Buncombe Cummunity Christian Ministry (ABCCM), for excluding female veterans from job training programs offered to men.

The programs offered to male veterans? Truck driving, culinary arts, and training for "green" jobs.

The programs that are offered to women veterans? Knitting, art therapy, yoga, meditation, how to de-clutter your room, self estreem, and Bible study. 

I can only assume that other programs include "Indigent Decorating: How Any Cardboard Box or Shopping Cart Can Be Transformed Into A Broken Dreams Home With Just Some String And Bottle Caps" and "How To Dumpster Dive Like A Lady.". 

I'm sure the ABCCM meant well, but they may want to update their information. Female veterans are four times more likely to be homeless than male veterans, and a big part of the problem is that there are less resources for them than male veterans. As more women joined the armed forces, the programs for them just couldn't or wouldn't catch up with modern times. 


Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against knitting. I also have no issues with art therapy or de-cluttering. I may be an atheist, but if someone finds comfort in Bible study, then I will defend your right to seek such programs even if I don't understand why a Christian Ministry is receiving federal funding. Yoga and meditation? In my house that's called "Homicide Prevention" and I am all for it.


But this I do take issue with: 

'The Law Center also noted that while “male veterans are provided 24 different job training programs at their Veterans Restoration Quarters, while female veterans are offered 16 different “personal skill-building” programs at the Steadfast House, the organization’s housing facility for women.”'

Is "personal skill building" code for "We are completely oblivious to the issue at hand"?

Female veterans are still veterans. The needs of female veterans are the needs of veterans. Maybe the issue isn't completely ABCCM's fault. Perhaps they don't have the resources to fully meet these needs. Segregating them from job training programs offered to men sure as hell ain't helping though.

The Obligatory Introduction So That I Can Get On With This Damn Thing

So I set up this blog. I gave it a name. I even set up a Twitter account even though I fucking hate Twitter so that I can shamelessly promote it. If I'm going to post here, I might as well let people know it's here.

I created two posts, saved them as drafts, then deleted them the next day. After that I proceeded to ignore this entire thing for a few more days, wondering what I was thinking. 

I am not a blogging kind of gal. I'm barely a "leave the house and interact with the human race" kind of gal. I am obsessed with controlling my privacy to the point that it borders on insanity. I'm not good with taking a stand on things because confrontation makes me want to hide under the bed like a house cat during a thunderstorm. A place where everybody knows my name is just a place where too many people are going to bother me when I just want to read my book in peace. 

And yet, here I am, choosing to blog about feminism, because I am tired. I am tired because we should not have to fight for equality in the 21st fucking century. 

A lot of people have funny ideas about feminism, and what it represents, and what the people who consider themselves feminists are really like. 

Hint: This is not what a feminist looks like. This isn't even a real thing.

I'm still trying to navigate what feminism means to me. It took me awhile to even admit that I am one, and I still don't say the f-word in certain company. By most standards, I am a disgrace to the movement. I belong to the slacker movement more so than anything else. Laziness is my true calling in life, and if I could find someone to pay me to get drunk while watching BBC TV shows on Netflix three days a week and nap the other four, I'd be pretty damn happy with my life.

Pictured above: Me smashing the patriarchy and breaking through the glass ceiling.

Yes, I am the lazy feminist. I read things on the internet that make me angry, I scream at my computer screen, take a nap, then look at pictures of cats when I wake up to calm me down. I've only been to one rally to let people know that I'm just a little bit upset about things.

What I need more than anything is a coping mechanism to deal with all the things that make me angry. At the end of the day this is what this blog is really for. It's an exercise in letting my views be known. It's also a spot where I can hope to find people like me who need to use sarcastic commentary on the internet to keep from going mad when people say dumb things about womens' issues. I can't be the only one.

This is what a feminist starts to look like after reading the comment section in  an article about anything that is remotely related to women or the word vagina. 

This is the best I can do to contribute to the feminist movement. The Carrie Nation of gender equality, I ain't. But I can sit, I can type, and I can fume. I know my skills, and now it's time for me to finally use them. 

Besides, I ran out of vodka. And even though I live in a neighborhood where liquor stores deliver, I'm too lazy to put on pants and answer the door.