June 2008 – Page 11

Good work, Clinton

This is a great speech. I imagine it must have been painful to concede, but she took the opportunity to push important issues like health care and to give her former opponent her full-fledged support. It’s a beautiful endorsement. Good for her.

Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

Have at it.

(The Rules: Post a link — or several — to a post or posts you’ve written recently, and give a short description of the post. Don’t just link to your entire blog — make it specific).

Does this make me “abstiniphobic”?

One of the things I always find humorous about the anti-sex crowd is that they try to frame their regressive worldview as “radical” or “counterculture” — as in, the teevee sez everyone is having sex, and so they’re going totally against the grain by telling you you’re a huge whore if you open your legs. The argument that there have always been large groups of anti-sex control freaks telling women what to do with our lady-parts seems to fall on deaf ears.

But at least now we have some tangible proof: They’re borrowing their talking points directly from early-50s chastity manuals.

Dispatches from The Patriarchy

Your manhood and the elections:

“Sometimes the best woman for the job is actually a man”

Yeah, no.

But with a Democratic house divided, now is the time for healing, and this can only happen if Hillary’s staunch female supporters let go of the reverse-sexist ideology that women are inherently better, wiser, and more compassionate leaders.

They will have to acknowledge that sometimes the best woman for the job is actually a man — if it’s the right man. Obama’s vote against the war, marriage to his female mentor, outstanding record on reproductive choice and a host of other progressive issues, and his uncanny ability to inspire people all over the world suggest he’s just that.

It is time to turn the page on myopic gender-based Feminism and concede that while patriarchy is real, so is female greed, dishonesty and corruptibility. It’s time to empower the feminisms embodied by millions of women and men who care about everyone, including, but not limited to, women.

This article by Rebecca Walker manages to prove only one thing: The best way to get feminist voices into major publications is to have those feminists beat up feminist straw-women. I mean, “reverse-sexist”? Really?

I don’t see a lot of feminists arguing that women are inherently more compassionate, caring, intelligent or good than men. Yeah, there are certainly a few who make that point, but they’re few and far between — I hear the “women are superior at being x,y, or z” meme more often from non-feminist-identified men and women, and from conservatives when they’re trying to make particular arguments about how women should stay home because it’s better for us. Most feminists I know are well aware that women can be assholes, too. And the feminist movement, as far as I can tell, has never been about arguing that women are morally superior; it’s been about securing equal rights and dismantling the structures that make it more difficult for some groups of people to get ahead.

I voted for Barack Obama. I like him a lot. He is very good on women’s issues. But that doesn’t make him the best “woman” for the job, any more than Bill Clinton was “the first Black president.” It erases the realities of being female to argue that a man can be a good enough “woman president;” it erases the fact that “good on women’s issues” is not the same as “woman;” it erases the importance of having women in positions of power. And it discounts just how huge of a milestone it will be when a woman is elected to the Presidency. We can applaud Obama on his progressive stances and keep him accountable on his less progressive ones without attributing to him a characteristic that he simply does not have. We can celebrate the practical and symbolic importance of his run for President without having to make him everything to everyone. And if we want to be as “post-gender” as Walker suggests, then perhaps we should really shift the paradigm and expect that issues of gender, racial and social justice be fundamental in any political system, and not the providence of “special interest groups” like women.

Friday Random Ten – the Friday Nights Are So Much Less Fun In The Library edition

Although in other news, I have taken up boxing as my new way of relieving the Bar-studying stress. Yoga was the original plan, but sadly none of the classes fit into my schedule, so boxing it is. Everyone else in the class is really good. I am inept, but learning. I have never sweated (sweat? swat?) so much in my life. And it’s lots of fun.

Did you do anything interesting this week?

Now, the FRT — done this week my new iPod that I got for graduation from a very lovely friend. (Am I the last person ever to own an iPod? Even my mom has one).

1. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Little Ghost Song
2. Roots – You Don’t See Us
3. Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine
4. The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra – Jelly, Jelly
5. Janis Joplin – Try
6. Hi-Tek Feat. Big D and Piakhan – No One Knows Her Name
7. Radiohead – Backdrifts
8. Guided by Voices – Things I Will Keep
9. The Capstan Shafts – Oil Over Greenland! (Morsels of Fortitude)
10. Ryan Adams – I See Monsters

Friday video: The song I’ve had stuck in my head all week long.

Chris Matthews Racism Watch

Like I’m sure you did, as it became more and more likely that Obama would be the Democratic nominee, I started to worry about Chris Matthews. After all, the man makes his living from misogyny. More specifically, I’m pretty convinced that he actually lives off of it — saying horrible things about women is his equivalent of air. If Hillary Clinton is out of the picture . . . now what?

Fear not, dear readers. Chris Matthews, impressive journalist that he is, is adaptable. I’m sure that he had a few teary nights when he realized that his gravy-train may soon be coming to a halt — and that it’s possible he had some small part in applying the brakes. But what did Matthews do? Pulled himself up by his bootstraps, of course! Wannabe kings of hardball, take note: when life takes away your female punching bag, you make racist lemonade.

Matthews has eagerly jumped on the “elitism” train. In fact, as far as I can tell, he’s the conductor. Obama, Matthews says, is an “elitist.” He can’t connect with most Americans. He’s different — not like you and I. Matthews made this most clear when he said this last month:

MATTHEWS: OK. Let me ask you about how he — how’s he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?

I hope that anyone with any comprehension of racial relations can see the problem with suggesting that “working class white Americans” are undeniably “regular” people, while African-American people are, well, black. Not “regular.” Not like “us.”

This is also what the accusations of elitism do — try to position Obama as “not one of us,” and therefore (more subtly than above) position “us” as “not black.” Sure, John Kerry got the same “elitist” crap — but in the same way that picking on Hillary Clinton’s looks took on an entirely different meaning from making fun of male politician’s looks, positioning Obama as “elitist” in this context also morphs into a racist trick.

“Pro-Life” Concern for Life Really Does End at Birth

I know we’ve said it over and over: “Pro-lifers” don’t seem to care much for “life” once people actually enter the world. They oppose contraception access, which could prevent millions of abortions; their political allies take no steps to assist low-income women; they oppose universal health-care; and they generally stand against any social program that would actually help women and children. In fact, 100% of the worst legislators for children are “pro-life.”

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when anti-choicers oppose programs that help born people secure shelter. And yet, even I was stunned at this:

An anti-abortion group has broken up a deal between Planned Parenthood and Habitat for Humanity by blasting out 10,000 e-mails to Habitat supporters.

Planned Parenthood is building a 23,000-square-foot regional headquarters on Central Avenue, and planned to sell Habitat the land next door for a token $10 to build three below-market-cost houses. The deal benefited Planned Parenthood because the city required the clinic to put up buildings as a buffer between its parking lot and Cohen Way.

“We could have put up any building we wanted,” said Barbara Zdravecky, president of Planned Parenthood. “We wanted to donate the land so Habitat could build more attainable housing.”

So Planned Parenthood sold a large piece of land to Habitat for Humanity for $10 — PP needed buildings to go up in the space, and they figured that they would use the requirement for good. But “pro-life” groups were so outraged that they shut down the project — a project that had nothing to do with abortion, and only meant that there would be more attainable multi-family housing in Sarasota. According to the American Life League, the problem is any “association” with Planned Parenthood. Even when Planned Parenthood is essentially giving them a gift. Even when the “association” has nothing to do with any of Planned Parenthood’s activities, and simply amounts to more housing for low-income families.

Take action to counter anti-choicers’ stranglehold on the “life” issue: Go here to tell national Habitat for Humanity that they shouldn’t let themselves be bullied by anti-choice, anti-life asshats. And go here to donate to Habitat — and let them know that pro-choicers are their base.

Thanks to Thomas for the link.

The Pill Kills 9-day-old children

…and being anti-choice apparently kills braincells.

Tampon guns don’t kill people. Uppity bitches kill blastocyst-people.

Just when you thought you’d heard it all…

Neanderthals like me think women should know the pill can kill their 5- to 9-day-old children. Informed consent and all that.

So the American Life League is launching Protest the Pill Day ’08: The Pill Kills Babies this Saturday, June 7, on the 43rd anniversary of the Griswold vs. Connecticut Supreme Court decision.

ALL is calling on pro-lifers nationwide to peacefully protest in front of Planned Parenthoods and other facilities that distribute birth control pills.

Yes, you read that right: Women should be “informed” that the Pill kills nine-day-old babies. Which is a little confusing, until you realize that anti-choicers apparently track your age from what time your daddy’s sperm fertilized your mama’s egg. (The fact that the Pill is totally incapable of killing such a fertilized egg is apparently even further beside the point).

All of which leaves me very confused. Did I already turn 25? I thought my birthday was in August, but if my clock started to tick upon insemination, I need to recalibrate. I couldn’t have been six days old twice, right? How am I supposed to start my quarter-life crisis when I didn’t know that I had already hit quarter life? Should I start celebrating inseminationdays instead of birthdays? Given the importance of knowing our own ages and not letting babies die, is it worth forcing women to undergo a daily insemination exam, just to make sure we don’t miss the presence of a teeny tiny one-celled baby (the cutest kind)? Did I just drown a baby when I flushed my last tampon? Am I a murderer? Do my serial tampon-baby-murder-flushings mean I’m barred from getting a license to practice law? Should I tell my future kids that they have potentially dozens of “siblings” that sloughed right out of my uterus, unbeknownst to me? Do you think I should get a little cemetery plot for my feminine hygiene products and used panties? How old am I? Who am I? Where am I? Where’s my mom?

Lesson learned: Even reading anti-choice columns will turn you into a moron.

Refusing to Provide Medical Care

We’ve all heard the stories about the nutbag pharmacists, nurses and doctors who refuse to provide women with adequate health care because of their “religion.” Women are refused emergency contraception, and even standard birth control pills and devices, with alarming regularity. Anti-choice groups have pushed for “conscience clauses” in state law, allowing medical professionals to refuse to do their jobs.

But it’s not just about contraception any more: It’s also about the right to have children. Pamela reports that a woman in California was refused IVF treatment by a doctor who said that treating her would be against his religion.

Now why in the world would a doctor who disagrees with IVF be working at a fertility clinic, you ask? Because he doesn’t oppose IVF, exactly — he just doesn’t like lesbians, and this woman happened to be one.