The Kitchen Rebellion

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” -
Abigail Adams, Former US First Lady

In the book “The Animal Farm,” George Orwell wrote about the peculiar human phenomenon of rebellion. The animals led by the pigs rebelled against the Manor Farm and their human master, Mr. Jones. These animals rebelled because they wanted equality, or more appropriately, equality with human beings. In the end, they were able to attain victory and decided to run the farm all by themselves.
Today, there is a rebellion that is heating up much like what the animal characters conspired to do in the said book. This uprising is the “rebellion of women” in society. Today's sexist society has limited women by confining them within the bounds of the kitchen, beauty pageants, and prostitution. These women are often abused physically and are often the butt of many jokes. Society, men in particular, have had their share of nasty jokes pertaining to women.
The society that is dominated by men practices double-standards when it comes to women. For example, if a woman gets drunk and gets raped, she is to be blamed because she asked for it. The women is to be blamed and not the man who cannot and did not even try to control his libido. A wrong deed is wrong no matter how beautiful we present it. In culture, the self-esteem of the typical male is defined by his trophies—the women he has gone to bed with. The females, on the other hand, are defined by their virginal virtues. Perhaps, calling for equality between men and women is not too much to ask.
According to reports, violence against young girls and women is a major human rights and health concern. Physical, sexual, and psychological abuse takes place in the family, and in the general community. These may include battering, sexual abuse of children, rape and other practices degrading to women. It added that domestic violence is the most common form of violence that is linked to gender. Studies reveal that rape of women, whether attempted or consummated, is mostly perpetrated by a male intimate partner or former-partner. This form of sexual crime and abuse leads to stress and anxiety in the lives of women. The epidemic of sexual abuse had become so alarming that even celebrities had to take a stand to protect the rights of women. One such celebrity was the late Princess Diana, who as some would say, had become an advocate for women's rights and an inspiration to many abused women..including the the sick, the discriminated, and the homeless. She left a legacy that will be remembered for a lifetime. Her life became a channel through which coping with anxiety for women had become easier. Her compassion and good heart made her more beautiful in the eyes of the world. Sadly, she died almost ten years ago without seeing the wide acceptance of women's rights as a cause.
In George Orwell's book, the death of “Old Major” was used to convey the lesson about the perils of rebellion. He was well-respected by the farm animals because of his knowledge and wisdom. In the story, Old Major died three days after sharing his vision and teaching to the farm animal. His death became an inspiration to the farm revolution where the animals won.
Maybe the death of Princess Diana will be the spark of this revolution of women. The revolution that would free them of bounds of the kitchen, beauty pageants, prostitution, and abuse. The true essence of a woman will not be measured by her virginal values, her beautiful face, or the physique she displays. The true essence of a woman is her ability to share her love to others and the society she lives in. Women need not to be conformed to beauty contests or the kitchen. The kitchen rebellion will take place. And it will succeed.

Dealing with anxiety before it turns to violence

Coping with anxiety is something that most people have probably dealt with at some point in their lives. Being nervous and twitchy about something is a natural reaction, particularly in a world of lawsuits, divorce papers, terrorist threats, and Orwellian paranoia. To top those off, there are also concerns about one's social status and place in the social hierarchy, which can sometimes compound social anxiety on top of regular anxiety. This multitude of factors makes coping with anxiety that much harder in modern society. While most people inevitably learn how to adapt, for others, coping with anxiety and having to deal with social anxiety can become a less than productive activity.

People with subtle mental issues, such as malignant narcissism, are hard to spot, though most experts agree that stressing out an already unstable mind can be a disastrous activity. Social anxiety is already seen as a common denominator among the psychological profiles of modern serial killers, with some people in the field believing it to be one of the root causes of the deviant behavior exhibited by such individuals. Others similarly theorize that the behavior of a serial killer is a way of coping with anxiety, albeit one that is affected by other psychological conditions.

Interestingly, people coping with anxiety and social anxiety do so in different ways, particularly in different cultures. For example, some Japanese people, buckling under the pressures of Japanese society and social duties, have found an unusual way of coping with anxiety. While the hikikomori tactic, which involves withdrawing from all social activity and interpersonal interaction for extended periods, is more accurately seen as running away from social anxiety, it is nonetheless their means of coping with the societal pressures in their lives.

Other Japanese people, generally males, have become drawn into otaku behavior as a means of dealing with social anxiety. In Japanese culture, an otaku is an obsessive fan of a particular show or series that ends up collecting each and every piece of merchandise of that specific obsession. While not as completely cut off from the rest of society as a hikikomori, an otaku is nonetheless a person that has little in the field of social skills, or at least perceives himself to lack such skills. To a degree, the otaku is using his obsession to substitute for human social interaction, though it also promotes meeting with similar individuals to locate potential buyers when the otaku eventually sells his collection in favor of starting a new one.

In Western culture, particularly in the US, social anxiety is seen as a weakness and something that is “not entirely normal.” Society has a tendency to push people that are socially withdrawn into the social arena, without any regard for their psychological capacity to adapt to such circumstances. In rare cases, when in conjunction with other mental disorders, these people can lash out at society, generally by openly rebelling against the social norm of their particular community. An example of this would be the “Goth” culture that crops up in some schools, which stand in direct defiance of the homogeneous social policies of most high school student bodies.

However, it is the ones that strike back covertly that one should be wary of. These people may not necessarily turn into serial killers along the lines of Dennis Rader, the infamous BTK strangler or Ted Bundy, they can potentially turn into another Dylan Klebold or Seng Hui Cho. The difficulty here lies in the fact that people tend to ignore the signs of this sort of backlash until the guns have already started blazing.