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

Month: April 2007

Feministing Party TONIGHT!

feministing

Tonight (Friday April 27th), 9pm, in the back room of The Black Door in Manhattan.
127 W 26th (btwn 6th and 7th)

I will be there, and so should you!

Ace of Spades fears the vagina*

But because he’s totally heterosexual and stuff, he loves pussy, he swears. Except for the whole, you know, “pussy” part of it:

Best friend gay — okay, I can see that one going either way; one of my best buds is a homo. Turned off by cunninglingus? Eh, a lot of guys don’t dig that. Who the hell knows what’s going on down there. It’s like H.R. Geiger giving up ink and canvas to work in the avant-garde medium of Play-Doh and bacon.

Bacon? Play-Doh?

Either Ace is not much of a vulvular connoisseur or there’s more than just ideology separating me from Republican chicks. (Seriously, bacon?) There are about three square inches to navigate down there, Magellan, so let’s cut the shit about women’s bodies being so crazy and confusing. And if we’re going to make art comparisons, I’d go for the more obvious Georgia O’Keefe. Or Gustav Courbet (NSFW).

Or Geiger. Whatevs.

Also, while the idea of “cunninglingus” sounds appealing (if tricky), I don’t think that’s how Ace meant to spell it.

Am I the only one who thoroughly fascinated by the Manly-Man’s relationship to the vulva? He’s supposed to fucking love it (or at least love fucking it), and simultaneously be disgusted by it. All while asserting his dominance over its owner. So make sure you point out how much you just can’t get enough pussy, and then reiterate the fact that girlie-bits are nasty. Don’t forget to promote abstinence-only coolness with the kids by setting a good example and telling them that lady-parts are icky and sex is for fags.

Below the fold, an educational (though totally NOT safe for work) illustration to assist our friend Ace in his future totally manly and heterosexual endeavors. The illustration, unfortunately, is bacon and Play-Doh-free.

Thanks to Matt for the Sadly, No link.

*Oookay, apparently some people didn’t get the joke. Yes, I know Ace was just joking when he compared giney-town to bacon and Play-Doh. I am sure that Ace has seen his fair share of vaginas, and is well aware that they more closely resemble tacos and shellfish than any other food product. I am also kidding when I say that Ace hates pussy and that sex is for fags. Ace loves pussy and everyone knows that gay men shouldn’t have sex (and lesbians don’t really have sex since there’s no cock involved). See? Funny all around!

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The terrorism that dare not speak its name

Why is it that the media and the government never calls the “pro-life” groups who plant bombs at women’s clinics what they are: terrorists?

From the AP article, entitled “Explosive found at Austin women’s clinic”:

AUSTIN — A package left at a women’s clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today.

“It was in fact an explosive device,” said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department. “It was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death.”

The package was found Wednesday in a parking lot outside the Austin Women’s Health Center, south of downtown Austin.

Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device.

Actually, I shouldn’t say “from” the AP article. Because that was the whole thing.

Had that bomb been found outside a post office or a school, the headlines would have been hysterically running on about ZOMG TERRORISM TERRORISM IS AL QAEDA INVOLVED? And the right-wing warbloggers would be pissing their pants and hyperventilating about profiling Arabs and banning Muslims from public life and dhimmitude and how if they had been there, they’d have stopped it with their concealed carry and their extra-super special powers of righteousness, just like they saw in a movie once and BOMB IRAN! and 9/11 CHANGED EVERYTHING!!! but they still have better things to do than join the military, but they’ll be happy to go into the woods and hunt Russians and shout WOLVERINES!!

But it’s an abortion clinic, so. Ho-hum.

For some reason, terrorism doesn’t count if it’s directed against women and their health care providers. It’s just not news, and the fact that it goes unremarked in the national media — and hell, even in the local media, as in the case of the Austin bomb — contributes to the idea that women are not important and that violence directed at women is not only to be expected, but to be dismissed. As Keely Savoie noted on WIMN’s Voices,

The national press? Aside from 97 words from the AP and a brief mention from CNN — nothing (according to a Nexis search at 5:15 pm today). In that lone CNN mention, we’re told that “Officials from the Homeland Defense Team, which includes police officers, also other Austin officers, the Department of Emergency Ordnance Disposal unit and the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives” were on the scene. Yet still, not a peep from the national press. Now, imagine if this clinic had been a bank, or a high school, or a sports arena. I bet we would have heard something about it then.

The media’s silence surrounding issues of violence against women is not only emblematic of a fundamentally dismissive attitude, it ultimately harms all feminist causes, and lends to the perception that feminists are all just knee-jerk alarmists railing against imaginary enemies. It’s easier to dismiss the need to constitutionally protect women from violence and discrimination if you erase all evidence that such things exist.

We saw something similar with the Virginia Tech shooting — the campus police initially dismissed the idea that the gunman would be a danger to anyone else — even though they hadn’t identified or caught him at the time — because they saw a dead woman and just assumed that it was a “domestic incident” and there would be no further violence. Clinic bombings are treated as the equivalent of shrugged-off “domestic incidents” — hey, it’s just violence against women. It’s not like it’s going to affect real people or anything.

And they never call it by its name: terrorism.

Friday Random Ten

The “J’adore MJ, mais je n’aime pas etudier” edition.

I have a French exam tomorrow (actually, I guess it’s technically today), so wish me bonne chance — because I really suck at French and I get all the languages that I kind-of-but-don’t-really-know-that-well confused, which means that I end up speaking some weird French/Italian/Spanish hybrid with a really thick Spanish accent. So tomorrow I’ll be wishing myself buena suerte or buona fortuna or in bocca al lupo or God knows what else (bonne fortuna? buena chance?). Cross your fingers for me — or do whatever it is that French people do for good luck (smoke cigarettes and scoff at lesser cultures?).

Now, onto the FRT:

1. Des Ark – No More Fighting Cats, Ok?
2. Death Cab for Cutie – For What Reason
3. Tom Waits – House Where Nobody Lives
4. Jay-Z – Threat
5. The Cramps – I Can’t Hardly Stand It
6. The Cure – Pictures of You
7. David Gray – Hospital Food
8. Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue
9. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Black Hair
10. Justin Timberlake – Senorita

And a Friday video for you. I don’t know why it’s subtitled. But what I wouldn’t give for those sparkly socks…

Secret: I love me some MJ. This song is even my cell phone ring.

And if anyone can find me a video of him performing PYT, I might just die happy.

Posted in Uncategorized

Sacrificing Women at the Altar of Fetus Fetishism

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Pro-lifers are watching you.*

Wherein the “pro-life” perspective on lives that matter (fetuses) vs. lives that don’t (stupid illogical whores who think they are people) is clearly demonstrated:

I’m glad your wife is doing well and I’m sorry for the loss of your baby.
As a father of a 1 yr old baby girl, I value the life of my baby more than anything else on Earth. She is the most important thing there is, I would have to say equal to my own wife.. my baby is a part of me, she is my own blood, my offspring, she is genetically closer to me than my own wife. My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will.. the love between a daughter and father is, in my opinion, greater than between a husband and wife. Agree with me or not, that is my opinion.. and my baby girl is only 1 yr old. All she can say is “da da”, but I know she loves me and I love her infinitely so.. my wife, I love also infinitely so, but sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes it’s up and down and we aren’t always as close as we’d like to be, but I will always love my baby girl infinitely. When my wife found out she was pregnant, which was an accident, her instant reaction was that she wanted an abortion. There we were in the bathroom with the home pregnancy test kit in hand reading positive for pregnancy and she gets all histerical, crying and raving on and on about how her life is now ruined and how she can’t go through with being pregnant, etc.. I told her it’s her choice, but if she kills my baby (has an abortion) that I would divorce her in a heartbeat and I would never speak to her again. I thank God that I was able to sway her foolish and immature, emotional and illogical thinking, and she decided not to kill our baby girl. We are still married to this day and my wife and I both love our baby girl more than anything. In fact, if we did not have our baby (if my wife never got pregnant), I am pretty sure we would not still be married… having the baby has brought my wife and I closer in our marriage and has given us something greater than our love for each other (which is very strong), but now we are a family and we mutually love our daughter. If I had allowed my wife to abort our baby or I had not cared enough to take a firm moral stand based on what I believe is right, then today (1 yr and 9 months later) I would have been robbed of the single greatest joy I have ever known in my entire life. My baby girl is the most beautiful gift God has ever given me and the one thing I am most thankful for. I would give my life in a heartbeat to save my baby girl and how any mother would hesitate to even think otherwise is beyond me. I would not only give my own life to save my baby girl but I would kill or spend the rest of my life in prison if I had to, or pay any price no matter how high, to protect the life and safety of my innocent child.

I strongly disagree with your view that the loss of your unborn baby is any different than your already born baby. I don’t see the difference. It’s just a matter of a time shift. What if someone had gone back in time and killed your baby girl while she was still in the womb, knowing what you know today? Knowing the joy of your born child? Why is it any different for one child than another? You are just trying to make an excuse so you don’t have to suffer as badly emotionally, you are trying to rationalize it. I don’t mean to be rude or harsh, but I think you are bending your thinking in your own favor just to make it easier to get over this loss. The fact is that born or unborn, you still lost a child and I don’t believe that it should be viewed as any less of a loss either way.

Fortunately you still have your wife and one child. It’s probably too risky for you and your wife to ever try having another child naturally, but there are so many children you can adopt, so there is no shortage of that option.

I am strongly pro-life (of the baby). I would always choose the life of my child over my own life or anyone else’s life, including my wife. Harsh? Think about it. What’s more precious, an innocent life of a child who has their entire life ahead of them or a grown adult who has had a fair opportunity to live their life and have whatever experiences they have been blessed to have?

In your case there was no way to save the baby, they tried, they did everything they could but because of the dilation it was an inevitable loss and I’m terribly sorry for that. But I congratulate you on your efforts to do everything within your power to at least try to save your baby, even to the point of losing your wife. And I applaud you for hesitating as to whether or not to abort.

I am not against aborting if there is no possible alternative to saving the mother.. but if the child can be saved at the loss of the mother then I would choose the child. There is no logic to losing both, but it’s a risk worth taking, to take it as far as you took it should happen in every case, in my opinion.

What I am strongly against is pro-choice people arguing that a woman can get pregnant (accidentally, by being careless and irresponsible) and have the simple option of going down to the abortion clinic and in essence, “making the problem go away.” This is murder in my belief. I feel that once there is a heartbeat, then that is a life. Killing a fetus with a heartbeat is murder, plain and simple. It should not be a choice any girl or woman can simply make without a very good reason (their own life is in danger). Even in the case of rape. Two wrongs don’t make a right. In fact, adding the killing of a baby (abortion) in addition to the horror of a raped woman only makes the overall tragedy even worse.

I don’t see your connection between the laws and being pro-choice. If the law says “every effort must be made in every case to save the life of the unborn fetus, and only in the case of the certain death of the mother would an abortion be permissible.” Then what is wrong with such a law? It would hopefully prevent at least some portion of the constant murder of unborn babies in this country.

It’s not a choice to murder an unborn baby for no reason at all, it’s a crime.

via DDay in the comments.

Note that his child is valuable because she loves him unconditionally and because she is genetically close to him. In other words, her value as a human being is contingent on him. And that’s exactly why his wife doesn’t matter as much.

This is so thoroughly fucked up that I’m not sure where to start. All I can think of is the scene from Pan’s Labyrinth (spoiler alert!) where Capitan Vidal (the villain) tells doctors that if it’s a choice between his wife’s life and his son’s (who his wife is in the process of birthing), that they should choose his son. They do, and she dies. And in the movie, his sacrificing of his wife is used to demonstrate how thoroughly evil he is.

I guess this particular commenter didn’t get the memo that while using your wife as an incubator and then letting her die may be in line with the mainstream “pro-life” perspective, it’s not actually life-affirming, good or moral by any stretch. In fact, it makes you kind of a questionable human being, and it makes me think that your wife should run in the other direction and never look back. It makes me think that your lack of empathy and humanity — and your stunning narcissism — should automatically disqualify you from forging relationships with actual human beings.

And is anyone else a little worried about how he’s going to feel about the baby girl he supposedly loves so much when she grows up to be one of those selfish whores whose lives aren’t worth shit?

*Yes, it’s a joke; no, I don’t think pro-lifers are actually Hell-dwelling demons with eyeballs on their hands.

Body Politic

Via Shakesville I find this incredibly powerful post about one man having to make a decision that most men will never face: Whether or not to end a very wanted pregnancy.

Obviously his wife was the pregnant one, but she was unconscious when the decision had to be made — and so it was on him. And it’s what shook him out of being passively pro-choice to standing strongly for a woman’s right to make her own private reproductive decisions.

Nothing is stopping the bleeding. There seems to be nothing they can do. They talk about trying some drugs, but then they decide things are going too fast to give time to let them work. So that leaves only surgery as a possibility. Surgery means hosing her out. It means killing the baby. So obviously, we look into other options. Only now, my wife is so out of it, from blood loss, from the painkillers, that the doctor said she is no longer able to legally consent. Now I’m handed a clipboard. On it is consent to basically give my wife an abortion and kill our future child. And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I’d ever face, ever have to deal with. Made worse by being a decision of either kill the baby or potentially watch both my wife and the baby die. The doctors did not say at this point that it was absolutely necessary. Maybe more blood could be transfused in. Maybe she wasn’t dilated – they hadn’t figured it out yet. Still too much blood. So then there I was, facing the sort of choice that you usually see only in hypotheticals in ethics and philosophy classes. Only it was real. It was my wife. And I didn’t have exactly a lot of time to think about it. It was just me and the clipboard. An empty line there, marked for my signature. My wife bleeding right next to me. The ultrasound of my baby, and its heartbeat, fresh in my mind from minutes before. I cannot begin to describe how I felt at that moment. One cannot know until you are in it. I won’t even try. I hope I never feel that way again.

Read the whole thing. It’s incredibly raw and powerful, and I can’t recommend it enough.

By all means, let’s use the fear of fat to justify feeding (patented!) hormones to infants

Yet another example of the fear of fat leading to ridiculous outcomes: Catherine Price of Broadsheet has a piece from the Guardian about British scientists working on an infant formula designed to prevent obesity later in life:

British scientists are working on a baby formula which would chemically restructure the metabolic system of children to ensure they never became obese.

Studies in mice have found that large doses of the appetite-controlling hormone leptin during infancy permanently prevent excess weight gain and reduce the chances of type 2 diabetes.

Now researchers at the University of Buckingham say a leptin-enriched baby milk which does exactly the same is less than 10 years away, raising a plethora of medical, legal and ethical questions.

To say the least.

For one thing, as Price points out, who’s going to offer up their infants for experimental research? And then, how do control for the diets these kids will eat later in life, or for factors that have nothing to do with appetite, like stress eating and the fucked-up relationship a lot of us have with food?

Leptin turns off appetite throughout life, but the scientists last year proved that high doses in mice through pregnancy and early life permanently reduced weight. They now believe it plays a role in hard-wiring the brain’s appetite response in infancy.

Mike Cawthorne, who led the researchers, said: “The supplemented milks are simply adding back something that was originally present: breast milk contains leptin and formula feeds don’t.

So, um, why not, say, make it much easier for women to breast-feed if it’s so vitally important to deal with the “obesity epidemic”?

Well, I guess that would be because nobody profits from breast milk. But a leptin-based formula would probably be patentable, and certainly profitable if you could convince people that it will keep their kids from getting fat in adulthood, no matter what they eat after being weaned.

Which of course is bullshit. People are fat for a variety of reasons, many of which are difficult to change because of structural issues like lack of funding for physical education, more busing to school and less walking, ginormous portion sizes at restaurants, godawful food served at school, food programs like WIC being geared more toward the needs of the dairy industry rather than good nutrition, the simple lack of availability of fresh, affordable foods in many neighborhoods and the time to cook them, and a car culture that encourages a sedentary existence.

Science keeps offering magic bullets for weight loss that promise to help us with our weight problems without us having to do anything else to change either our individual lifestyles or take a hard look at changing the way society is set up and doing the hard work to make lasting changes that will benefit everyone. And what do we get for all these breakthroughs? Heart damage and oily anal leakage — and not a whole lot of pounds lost to show for it.

And now they want people to put all kinds of hormones into their infants — hormones which will have lord-knows-what kinds of effects in the long term. And there will be people who will break down and give this stuff to their kids, because the cost of being fat is so great in terms of social disapproval and blame and shame. They’ll put down the money and hope that the formula won’t have any weird effects, all the while hoping that this will be just the thing to keep their kids from being the objects of disgust and ridicule. And they probably won’t do anything else to change their habits, and if the kid winds up fat anyhow, they’ll blame the kid.

UPDATE: Just to nip any mommy drive-bys in the bud here, this is not about breast vs. bottle and what’s better for kids and whether good mothers use formula.

Buy Jessica’s Book

Jessica Valenti of Feministing has a book out: Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide To Why Feminism Matters. Check it out!

Jessica’s assault on the media continues as she’s interviewed by a weirdly-obsessed-with-boob-flashing Rebecca Traister in Salon, as well as Laura Barcella in Alternet, and has a feature in the Guardian summing up her book.

The comments at Salon are just as you’d expect, even after they instituted a registration process. Cut down on the ad hominems, perhaps, but not the antifeminism. If ever there were an argument that feminism is still necessary…