In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: January 2007

Goddammit.

Zuzu scooped me on the passing of Molly Ivins, Bush’s personal political Alecto, past mistress of righteous verbal asskicking.

This is from a column that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle just a few weeks ago:

This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it’s doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.

What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn’t supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny? Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?

It’s a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people with what they are charged if they’re arrested. This administration has done away with rights first enshrined in the Magna Carta nearly 800 years ago, and we’ve let them do it.

This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old-fashioned newspaper campaign. Every column, I’ll write about this war until we find some way to end it. STOP IT NOW. BAM! Every day, we will review some factor we should have gotten right.

That’s one way to discredit feminist bloggers

Attribute the words of their commenters to the bloggers themselves.

Fox News lies about Feministing

I just found this and I’m pissed the fuck off.

“iFeminist” Wendy McElroy has written a piece for Fox News, Continuing to Defame the ‘Duke 3’ as Rapists, where we’re misquoted:

Even the popular gender feminist site Feministing had conceded “it probably isn’t appropriate to continue calling this the ‘Duke rape case’.”

That’s funny, because I’m pretty sure it was a commenter that wrote this–not us. Congrats, noname: Fox News loves you!

I’d like to think this was a mistake (despite the fact that it’s pretty damn clear who is blogging and who is commenting) so I’ve emailed McElroy about a retraction. But still–ugh.

I’d sure be thrilled if N.’s comments about race or the latest Robert troll’s comments about the need to keep one’s legs shut to prevent abortion were attributed to any of the bloggers here.

And I don’t think for one hot second that it was any kind of “mistake” on McElroy’s part.

While you’re emailing McElroy, might as well cc Fox News online.

Feminist Bloggers Continue to Take Over the World

Big congrats are in order for Amanda, who is heading up the website for the Edwards for President campaign. As regular readers know, I am a huge Amanda enthusiast, and I think she’s a brilliant person and a fabulous blogger. The Edwards campaign is lucky to have her.

The only negative is that she’ll be cutting down her blog time at Pandagon. Luckily, though, she’s enrolled an all-star cast to fill in: Roxanne, Auguste, Sheezlebub, Chris Clarke, and Ilyka. I can’t wait to read their posts.

Amanda’s first post over at her new digs is here. Check it out.

One Horse

This editorial made me tear up. Horse racing can be an incredibly cruel sport, and the horses are often used until they’re injured and then killed. There are some programs which offer these animals a second chance, but the horses who get rescued are often the lucky exceptions. I haven’t been following the Barbaro story, but I hope that at the very least, it’s woken some more Americans up to the many ways in which we abuse and mistreat animals for our own entertainment.

De-coding anti-choice propaganda

dudes
Thumbs up for womb control! Hell yeah!

Via Feministing I came across this gem of an article, wonderfully titled, “Democrats Plans for Dividing and Demonizing Pro-Lifers: Plan to promote more contraception and thereby make pro-lifers look like hypocritical extremists.”

Ha.

The rest of the article is just as good, except not as honest about the whole “anti-choicers are hypocritical extremists” thing. Actually, not honest at all. And by “not honest at all,” I mean “packed full of more lies that your average statement by Dick Cheney.” Below the fold, the article itself, and my translations bolded in brackets.

Read More…Read More…

Feeding the Crocodiles

Scott Lemieux, among many many other bloggers, has written reams about the inconsistent way in which pro-lifers equate fetuses with babies. Another example jumped out at me from this pandagon thread about the trend towards equating “fetal abuse,” the mistreatment of your pregnant body, with child abuse, the mistreatment of a child.

Read More…Read More…

Rape survivor jailed, denied EC

rape

A woman was raped by a stranger, went to the police to report it, and was thrown in jail when a paperwork error showed there was a warrant out for her arrest — from when she was a juvenile. Whoops.

The woman had a prescription for emergency contraception from a local hospital, but the medical supervisor at the jail refused to give it to her because it was against her religion. The woman was arrested on Saturday, and sat in jail until Monday afternoon. After being raped, and then denied protection against pregnancy.

Red Stapler sends on this news article, which gives more details about the story.

This happened in Florida, but it’s worth noting that EC access is generally abysmal. Forty percent of rape survivors in Connecticut, for example, aren’t offered EC in hospital emergency rooms. And it’s not just Catholic hospitals that are refusing or not even offering EC — secular hospitals are doing their part, too. All with the backing of “Democrat” Joe Lieberman.