Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

I couldn't wait to hear about the first female president of the United States. I could picture Clinton's inauguration speech: with tears in her eyes, she would promise to be a flaming beacon of hope for women and minorities in North America and around the world. But then, things got crazy. I didn't want to believe that Clinton's bigoted contender, Donald J. Trump, had any chance of winning the election. I was in denial yesterday night, but the results are official today: Trump is Mr. President, and Melania our First Lady. What an unimaginable downgrade from Barack and Michelle Obama. As an ESL-teacher-in-training, Trump's morals (or lack of) and stereotypes about immigrants, women, and visible minorities offend me immensely. His promise of "extreme vetting" of Muslim migrants, his plan of building a higher wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and his utter disrespect for the Black Lives Matter movement all unfortunately reflect the beliefs of the majori...

Murder is not an accident It is premeditated, filled with cruel intent Not a clumsy tumble down the stairs Murder is not guilty until proven innocent You are not jailed for being at the scene of the crime Murder is not an error in judgment: it is malicious It is not the innocent mess-up of forgetting to take your pill Or using a condom that is defective Murder is forcing women to use coat-hangers Or to seek an unlicensed doctor in the back alleys In order to rid themselves of something they never asked for Murder is silencing the voices of coherent adults Who have the right to vote To work To run for president Murder is telling them that they do not have the right To their own wombs Due to out-of-context words written in an old book And the bloody and destructive need to keep up traditions Traditionally, murder can be an accident When a woman goes to work, does sports, when she is pregnant And has a miscarriage by accident Traditionally, murder can be guilty until...

Rape culture: a term that is flung around to explain everything from teen suicides to summer hit songs. But what does rape culture really entail? I've been doing a good amount of research on this topic for one of my ethics courses, but I have much more to say than the assignment's word limit allows. Why am I sharing my thoughts about this topic with the web universe? Because I want to purge myself of my strong minded opinions, and hopefully inspire some of my blog readers to have counter-arguments, agreements, and opinions of their own. What is so fundamentally wrong with the portrayal of men and women in society is that we have categorized 7 billion people into two categories, based on nothing else but biological sex. One half of the population, the women, have a "profile" and the men have a different profile. This is troubling because each person is a unique individual, and there are very few people who match their profile in the least. Here are some of the mo...