Something I'm Tired of (and Maybe You Are Too)

Whenever the comments after an article about certain women's issues reach a critical mass, there is invariably some comment (or several) about how 'it happens to men too!'. It seems to be most common on articles about rape, intimate partner violence, and emotional abuse. (for those with trigger concerns, this post does not deal with those issues other than referring to them by name several times)
The gist of these comments seems to be 'you talked about this issue as it relates to women, but it happens to men too and you didn't address that, which is a major flaw of your article'. Sometimes they veer in to 'it's not fair' or 'you're perpetuating the male victims' marginalization', but often it's 'your article is lacking/less valid because you focused only on the women'. I'm not looking to wrestle with whom whatever issue happens to more, my point is that these criticisms are insisting that all types of people who experience that issue be included in all articles about it. That is not a standard that is generally applied to writing, and does not suddenly become a reasonable expectation in the context of crime or adverse events.
For instance, if an article was about the dangers of being pick pocketed and it addressed the issues particular to having one's wallet stolen while traveling abroad, someone who said the article was bad because it didn't address getting your wallet stolen in your home town is complaining about the scope of the article. The limited scope doesn't invalidate the contents of the article, it just means that the part of the article about passport safety may not apply to the situation the commenter is talking about.
Similarly, if you read an article about skin cancer, and someone criticized the article because 'stomachs get cancer too!' that critique would be completely irrelevant. Yes, there are other organs that get cancer, but this article is about cancer of the skin. Similarly, rape, intimate partner violence, and emotional abuse can be any combination of male or female, cis or trans, but a particular article can specifically address one set of variables (male on female sexual assault, emotional abuse of trans individuals, etc.) without being invalidated by the existence of other possible combinations. Similarly, writing about an issue that gets more funding and publicity, be it breast cancer or intimate partner violence against women, than a similar issue, such as ovarian cancer or intimate partner violence against men, doesn't necessarily indicate that the author agrees with the disparities in awareness, merely that they had something to say about the issue their article addressed.
The author and the other commenters don't automatically not care about that other set of circumstances either, even when they respond in a somewhat hostile manner. The hostility of the responses to the "it happens to men too" comments can stem from 1) the fact that the men-too-ers are trying to redirect the discussion 2) the fact that the men-too-ers' change of direction would make a discussion that was about women dealing with an issue into a discussion about men- plenty of discussions are already explicitly about men, add to that the ones which are on the surface about "people" but assume or default to those people being men, and you can see where someone who wants to talk about something as it relates to women might get a little possessive of their discussion and try to defend against making men's experiences part of the topic, and 3) in the case of rape, intimate partner violence, and emotional abuse, it is and has been an uphill battle to get these problems recognized and taken seriously, and some of the backlash can come at the men-too-ers because it seems like they are still trying to dismiss the female experiences of these difficult issues by making it about those similarly suffering men, as if the trauma of such experiences isn't valid unless it's been confirmed by a male victim.
Any men-too-ers who have read this far may be saying "that's not my intent!", or "I care about all survivors of rape/intimate partner violence/emotional abuse regardless of sex", or "I just want to raise awareness of the male side of the issue". I'm not questioning you there, but I am asking you to consider, if you were discussing the effects on men of one of those types of assault/abuse, and someone criticized your discussion as incomplete because "it happens to women too", how would that strike you?

Co- Status Goes from Minor Indignity to Actual Inconvenience

When my husband and I bought our house, the mortgage papers listed him as "borrower" and me as "co-borrower", and I was really annoyed by that. Not just because I was working full time while he was earning his degree, I was able to produce my W-2s as far back as they needed and he only had his tax documents from the last tax season, and the downpayment was in an account in solely my name, but also because we are partners and equals, not partner and co-partner, person and co-person. At the time I did comment on it and defiantly listed myself first on the rest of the forms we had to fill out, but while my husband understood that automatically putting the man as the primary owner/borrower is sexist, he pointed out that the Latin root of "co-" is "with" and that we will own the property (and debt) equally, so it's not really something important.
I disagreed about the importance, but also didn't know of any problem that would be caused by being the co-owner of our property.
Recently, my car died (transmission) and since the repair costs were more than the car was worth and it just kept needing more and more repairs, we decided to sell it. Even though I was the one who had all contact with the dealership, was the one there in-person signing papers, and was the one whose driver's license they photocopied, I realized when I was about to take the check in to the bank that it was not made out to me, but to my husband, so I couldn't cash it. I couldn't even deposit it because he hadn't signed it yet. I was steamed, because I had rearranged my work day so I could take care of all the "car stuff", but apparently being the one who does all the legwork doesn't make anyone at the dealership think they should even make the check out to both registered owners, let alone specifically to the registered owner in front of them.

What are your tips?

While I have not heard back on my grad school applications yet, my husband has received a few out-of-state acceptances, so we've gotten to talking about our very possible move, which would have to take place before the next academic year. I thought I'd invite all of you to share your tips and tricks for getting packed up and for moving.
For my part, the best tips I have are
1) START EARLY! I always try to do this, but I tend to still run up against the deadline of loading up while I am packing.
2) Make a to do list to keep track of everything that you need to take care of so you don't forget to call a utility company or change your address with your bank.
3) Keep track of what kind of things are in each box. Just because it's too much stuff to have an exhaustive list of every item in every container doesn't mean that you can't label a cardboard box "baking stuff", or note down somewhere that the grey plastic bins are clothes and the blue plastic bins are linens, or even have a complete list of what you packed in a few specific containers because those are the things you know you'll want first.
So those are my helpful hints, how about yours?

Capitalism and Stealing

I have previously admitted here my fondness for advice columns. A while ago I read a letter from a teen whose friends got arrested for shoplifting, who wanted advice on how to persuade her parents to let her see them again. She said that " All they did was swipe a few things from a company that makes millions of dollars by overcharging customers for their stuff" as if the company's profits make it ok to steal from them. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about capitalism going around. How capitalism works is:
I have something I want to sell, and I set the price. If you think the item is worth the price, you buy it, and if you think the thing is not worth the price I've set, you don't buy it. Yes, there can be haggling in capitalism, and the seller can change the price in response to the market, but the fundamental principle is that everyone buys and sells at prices they find acceptable.
This company making "millions" is selling there product at prices their customers are willing to pay. They don't somehow not deserve the money they get for their goods or services because someone thinks the company could charge less.
I'll put it another way: at my job, I'm compensated at an hourly rate that is above minimum wage. There are some other positions at my company that get paid less than I do per hour. That does not make it ok for a fellow employee earning a lower rate to steal from me because I'm "overcharging" for my time.
Your gut may tell you "Hey! That's different!"- but why? Because I'm an individual rather than a faceless corporation? Corporations are made up of individuals whose wages are paid out of the corporation's earnings. Maybe you think it's different because my time is being spent in a more valuable way than the hypothetical other employee and I am earning my higher hourly rate; a store that successfully sells t-shirts at three times the price of the shop next door similarly is creating more valuable shirts and earning their higher price. (A shirt's value, here, is determined by customers and demonstrated by what they are willing to pay for the different stores' shirts, not based on any intrinsic qualities of the shirt; identical shirts sold by the two stores for different prices would have different values) Just because you think customers are overvaluing a store's products, you aren't suddenly exempt you from the market and entitled to a freebie.
My point is: "they have so much"/"they have more than I do" is not a justification for stealing, it is a facet of the free market. If more people learned that as kids, we'd have fewer adults wandering around who think it's ok to steal from and cheat businesses and the government.

Pancake Experiment

I was going to whip up a batch of regular pancakes, but found that I only had 1 1/3 cups Bisquick, and the recipe calls for 2 cups, so I got creative.
1 1/3 cup Bisquick (I had the "heart smart" type)
1/3 cup coconut flour
A pinch of salt
1 1/3 cup milk
4 oz. jar of pear baby food (Little Girl is well past the purée stage now, so she sure won't miss it)
I mixed them up in to a normal-looking batter, and cooked them in a pan with olive oil. Result? Ugly lumps that stuck to the pan, but tasted delicious.

Home Made Mac and Cheese

My sister-in-law made a very tasty macaroni and cheese at Christmas, and since then I watched an episode of Bones where they made a fuss about mac and cheese with panchetta and leeks, and I decided to make my own.
I boiled up about 2 1/2 dry cups of elbow macaroni and fried up a couple strips of bacon. Then I sautéed most of a leek in the rendered bacon fat and (because I'm the only leek-eater around here) set the leek aside. I cubed up about half a pound of feta and melted it, along with some shredded mozzarella and Colby jack, in the same pan that still had the leek-infused bacon fat. I added some skim milk, a little white pepper, and a heaping 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg. I stirred it up, tossed it with the noodles and chopped bacon in a lightly greased casserole dish, and put it in the over on 200 while I cooked up the polish sausage and made the salad. When I dished it all up, I mixed some of the leek in to mine. It was quite good if I say so my self.

Winter Tips

1. Flipping your windshield wipers up when you park your car will ensure that the blades don't get frozen to your windshield. (Be advised that it's very visible, and most people don't do this, so you may get strange looks or have people asking what happened to your car.)
2. Make sure to knock the snow out of your scraper brush after you use it so the bristles don't get frozen in to a block.
3. When clearing snow off your car,
- make sure you clear you headlights, taillights, and indicator lights so that they can serve their respective functions
- brushing off your hood will keep snow from blowing distractingly across your windshield while you're driving
- clearing off your car's roof will prevent the snow from sliding on to either the front or back windshield while you are driving