When I grow up...

... well, I am already grown up, and became a corporate attorney, but next time... I want to be a rich-man's mistress!!!
Don't laugh, I am not drunk, neither did I completely loose my mind. I will prove you, that I actually became much more reasonable than ever.
Here is what happened that brought me to my wisdom:
After my kitchen project, I realized that my husband kept coming home, complained about work, money and about life in general. If I showed him proudly the everyday progress of the work I had done, he would answer: "Looks good!", which would bring him back to his favorite topic: $$$, and how much HE had to pay for MY work. Talk about unthankful male.
I thought, if I were a mistress, the guy would leave all his world hatred at home with his wife. That's for sure, I would get the good times. He would look at my bloody hands, kiss them and say: "Oh, baby, I am so sorry that you had to work so much." He would take out his wallet with the platinum cards, hand be a couple and say:" Go and have a nice day for yourself. You deserved it."
Imagine being a rich-man's mistress and he comes to late to one of your "meetings". If you call him or are waiting impatiently and get worried, he thinks that this is so sweet and cute of you being worried. As a wife.. you are spying after him.
One more advantage: You don't have to deal with his family.
And, as we all know: by the time the relation-ship comes to an end, he might see the ex-wife somewhere and would immediately start: " That B...., took half my money, she did this... she did that...". You know what he would say if he saw his ex-mistress somewhere??? "This woman was worth every sin!"

Nothing is impossible...

... there are only things you have never tried before! This is the Motto I have in my life, and probably this thinking comes from my parents. I grew up with an older sister, and in my family I had 4 male cousins, who were also much older than me. Oh man, you can not imagine the feeling of inferiority... well, but I talk fast, have a fast comeback and hence was able to stay alive ;).
Anyways, my parents always told me that I should try out everything. Even to this day when I am not feeling secure about myself, they push me (actually I decided that Madonna's song: You push me, should have been dedicated from me to my Mom).
And last week I did have one of those moments. The result: I ripped my whole kitchen floor out and started remodeling my kitchen! Now, this might seems like nothing extraordinary to some 5'10" 220 lbs woman, but I am barely 5'6" and might bring 105 lbs on the scale. Oh man, after the old floor was out, I had pain in parts of my body I was not even aware that I had those parts. I am telling you, I got muscles at spots, that any medical student would love to examine me as their new target for the anatomy classes.
Nearly done, and here I go again: anything is possible, there are only things you have never tried before!

What do women want?

A couple of days ago I was asked the exact question: what do women want? And no, it was not regarding houses, clothes or jobs, but regarding the opposite sex. Basically what do women want when looking for a partner.
I always think I am very fast on comebacks and that I always know what I want. But, I could not immediately answer this question... What happened??? Well, if you really think about it, it is a very tough question. Stop reading for a second, and really think about it. Ask yourself!
O.K., sure, looks is important. But honsetly looks alone is not enough for me. I can take the picture of a very hot looking guy and stare at it. After a while the "live" hot guy and the picture have the same effect: you get used to their looks.
O.K., intelligence? Sure, also very important, but I am very honest: I would not want to be with an ugly guy who is very intelligent. Besides, looks always wins the game, since it gets the attention.
Money? Probably for a lot of women. For me it does not work. I absoluetly hate men, who want to tell me how much they inherited or how much they made. It makes me feel as if they want to get me as their next trophy!
So, what makes a "dream man"? I don't know, I think for me it's the combination of all of the above, except the bragging part and the most important ingredient: Humor.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that love does not mean when two people look at eachother, but rather when they look into the same direction. And it is absolutely true, when you and someone else expect the same things in life, this is your dreamman/ dreamwoman. Sure, having someone who always agrees with you would be pretty boring, but that not what he means. at least I don't understand it this way. In my opinion it means that oldfashioned, kitschig word: soulmate.
So, in conclusion: That's what women want, someone who understands them, loves them the way they are, is there for them, a shoulder to cry on, someone to cuddle with, someone who warms up your cold feet in winter nights. Is that too much?

Is Rape a War crime?

Before focusing on the question, I have to admit that I got goose bumps when I read the victims’ stories within Mac Kannon’s article “Crimes”. Suddenly I remembered watching the news at the time of the Yugoslavian war and hearing the stories of women who were able to escape. I heard the stories of the rape/sex camps, their fear of being the “chosen one” for the night, their forced pregnancies and hating the child from the moment it was conceived. At that time I was 19 and while I understood how terrifying the experience of being raped and impregnated for the women must have been, I never thought of defining rape as a war crime. I only thought that it was rape, like the ones you read in the police reports; such as those happening next door.

Rape is a war crime, if the terms rape and war crime have an overlapping area. The dictionary defines rape as involuntarily sexual act through violence, force, threat of injury or duress, which is considered as a serious crime. War crimes are defined as violations of the laws of war in an inter-state conflict. In this context war crime is a criminal act that occurs during an armed dispute between nations. If for example state A and state B are in war any actions against The Hague Conventions of 1907 would be seen as a war crime. Hence, they would have international character and international jurisprudence would be applied in their judgment. Questionable is how violations within a state should be understood. Is rape a war crime within a civil war? International law would not be applicable, since it does not involve two different nations fighting against each other. It is unclear, whether a war based on religious or ethnic differences would be considered as war under the International Law.

I believe if rape is localized within a country it should be treated under the local jurisprudence of that country, which in most nations will be considered a crime. But, if it is used as a weapon of war between two nations or two different groups it should be regarded as an international crime. If men were the only target of a criminal action during war, it would be regarded as a war crime. If all humans were targeted, it would be regarded as a war crime. What difference does it make if a gun, a knife, or in this case body parts are used to humiliate, harm, and kill others? The problem usually does not occur when the rape victims are killed, since at that time the rape action becomes the lesser criminal action. But most often, like in former Yugoslavia, rape victims are used as “toys” for repeated abuse and as Mac Kinnon states “…make the victims wish they were dead.” While The Hague Convention allows holding prisoners of war in camps and explicitly states that they are allowed to work, it does not mention women-only camps, where their work involves forced sex.

While it could be argued that in every war, regardless of the fact if it is international or civil, rape could happen, and that not all of those incidents could be regarded as war crimes, we have to differentiate an important fact: Not only does it matter how many rapes have occurred, but it matters as well, if a certain identifiable group of women have been victims. Sudan-rape demonstrates that rape is not being discussed publicly. This might be because of being ashamed, maybe because of denial, or maybe because the target group are women. Mac Kannon states that in the early days of slavery in the United States some white farmers raped their female black slaves. The question arises if those rapes should also be seen as war crimes. The answer is No. To classify a rape as a war crime it needs to fulfill two requirements:
1) It has to be within a war, while it does not matter if it is an international or a civil war, and
2) It can not be only one or two incidents, but has to be against a group of women.

Nazi Germany was guilty of war crime by trying to erase Jewish Germans. They all had the same nationality, but the actions were targeting a certain group within their country. What difference would it be to have a group of women? The argument that women should not have explicit rights and that their protection should be included in the human rights, does not address the issue. It is not about excluding women from their natural protection within human rights, neither do women want to have “extra” rights. It just happens that in the case of rape they have to be seen as a certain group of humans. In the case of former Yugoslavia rape was used as a tool for ethnic cleansing, to “purify” the state and to ensure a pure Serbian state. Therefore rape was used not only as a sexual crime, but moreover as a method of spreading the Serbian genes by targeting the woman group. Those women were not “only” raped, but they were “brand marked”. They were not only used as sex objects, but as “birth machines”. Unlike the Sudan rapes, this tried to exterminate black women. In Sudan rape was one of the many crimes against humanity. The main objective was to target certain ethnic groups by torturing and killing regardless of gender.

Unfortunately what Mac Kannon states is still true: Women's rape becomes men's liberty, gang rape their fraternity, prostitution their property, forced pregnancy their family and their privacy, pornography their speech.”

Many people, mostly male lawmakers treat women differently based on natural differences between the genders. But on the other hand the problem becomes exactly the same as Mac Kannon notices with the German Jews: equality tests become the differentiation method and reason at the same time. However, what these people do not understand is the fact that because of the gender differences, human beings exist; therefore the term “human being” has to include men and women. This would result in treating any kind of crime against one of the subcategories as a crime against human race.

In conclusion I believe that rape is a war crime, which is used mostly used as a weapon against women of certain ethnicity and should be punished according to international criminal law.