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

Month: September 2008

First-Time Voters and Voter Suppression, Oh My!

Early voting has started in Ohio, and already there’s voter registration problems brewing, one of which conveniently surrounds registered voters in urban, low-income areas.

One of the lawsuits deals with a law adopted in 2005 that requires election officials to send out notices to voters 60 days before an election. As many as 600,000 of the notices were returned as undeliverable.

Michael Slater, with the nonprofit group Project Vote, says: “Mail delivery in urban areas, primarily urban low-income areas, is unreliable. So that we can’t be sure that just because someone has a piece of mail returned to them, it doesn’t mean that they don’t live at that address.”

That’s why Brunner has decided that a returned notice isn’t enough to sustain a challenge against a voter.

In 2004, Republicans challenged 35,000 voters based on returned mail. John McClelland of the Ohio GOP declined to be interviewed for this story, saying they don’t discuss political strategy.

Of course not. We wouldn’t want to show our cards, would we?

Meanwhile, similar lawsuits are being filed elsewhere in Ohio and in battleground states like Michigan, Florida, Colorado and New Mexico. See a list of other reported incidents at the Voter Suppression Wiki.

In happier news, Meredith writes in about voting issues in her family:

As a 21-year-old, this is my first presidential election. I grew up in a household with a conservative Democrat and a moderate Republican. All that changed, however, when the Terri Schaivo debacle unfolded in 2005. It drew uncomfortable comparisons for my family; my grandfather
was in a similar vegetative state, and my grandmother disobeyed his living will and kept him on life support years past his body’s capability to remain alive. It was a watershed moment for my mother, a
lifelong Republican, who had already been appalled at my grandmother’s disrespect for my grandfather.

Today, I am pleased to report that my household is full of budding Democrats. I expect to receive my ballot in the mail soon; my little sister who is a freshman in college registered to vote the moment she arrived on campus and is a proud member of her College Democrats group. (I’d like to think that my decision to lend her Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism might have helped, as all of a sudden
she’s pro-choice and pro-feminism!) My mom (a former McCain lover) now changes the channel every time he opens his mouth. My dad for some reason had announced that he didn’t like Obama; with the selection of Palin, however, I think he’s back in the fold. Even if he’s not, we still outnumber him three votes to one, and in the swing region of the Sunshine State, all our votes are critical.

Send your stories to fauxrealtho at gmail dot com with “VOTE” in the title, including your name and a link to your website, and we will publish your stories as they come in along with additional information about voting registration, disenfranchisement, and election news. Send us what you’ve got.

Meanwhile, most states still have through early October to get registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election. Some states allow voters to register through the end of October. You can find out your state’s deadline here. If you haven’t registered to vote yet, DO IT NOW.

Posted in Uncategorized

Just…wow

I thought that perhaps the Russia/foreign policy section of Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric was just particularly bad. But:

Nope.

Unfair!

Asking our potential Vice President questions about foreign policy? Totes not fair!

Seriously, since when is a debate “stacked against” a Vice Presidential candidate by asking foreign policy questions? And does anyone think that Palin would all of a sudden morph into a Rhodes scholar if she were asked about the economy?

Maybe the McCain camp should just have Tina Fey sub in:

via Pam.

Happy Banned Book Week!

I think this week should be dedicated to Sarah Palin, censorship advocate and vice presidential nominee. One thing I find particularly interesting about the Most Frequently Challenged Books/Authors list is that it’s one of the only “Top 10/Top 100” literary lists I’ve ever read where almost half the authors are women.

What’s your favorite banned book? Personally, I’m a little pissed that Harry Potter kicked the crap out of Heather Has Two Mommies.

Paying Poor Women for Sterilization

This is absolutely disgusting.

Louisiana State Representative John LaBruzzo is considering proposing a plan that would pay poor women $1,000 to be sterilized. He has said the program would be voluntary, could involve sterilization of both women and men, could encourage other forms of birth control, and could include tax incentives that would encourage people in higher socio-economic classes to have more children.

LaBruzzo told the The Times-Picayune that what he is “really studying is any and all possibilities that we can [use to] reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare.” After witnessing the evacuations from hurricanes Katrina and Gustav, he told the New Orleans City Business that he “realized that all these people were in Louisiana’s care and what a massive financial responsibility that is to the state…I said, ‘I wonder if it might be a good idea to pay some of these people to get sterilized.”

Yeah, you read that right: A politician is creating economic incentives for poor people to have fewer children, and for rich people to have more. I support making sterilization and all other form of birth control free and accessible, so that they truly are voluntary — but paying poor women $1,000 to tie their tubes doesn’t sound like “voluntary” birth control to me. It sounds like coercion.

And it sounds like racist coercion. There’s an established history of targeting poor women and women of color for sterilization and long-term birth control in an effort to stem the birth rate among “undeserving” mothers, and prevent more “unwanted” children. There’s also a history of coercing and sometimes forcing “fit” women (that is, white, rich women) to reproduce against their will, for the good of the country/the white race/the culture.

So this isn’t surprising, and it fits pretty well into the right-wing framework — but it’s still horrendous and appalling policy. And while I’m all about starting conversations, the idea that poor people shouldn’t reproduce — and should in fact be bribed into undergoing surgery that will prevent them from doing so — isn’t one that should have any place in an enlightened society.

BFP, posting at Elle PhD, has much, much more about eugenics, reproductive violence, and what women, families and communities actually need. Head over and read her post for a more thorough explanation of why this matters.

PETA does it again

Other feminist bloggers have covered the PETA breast-milk campaign, and you should read their thoughts. And yes, it is obvious that PETA is doing its usual over-the-top schtick, and the campaign — which encourages Ben & Jerry’s to use human breast milk instead of cow milk to make their ice cream — is not meant to be taken literally.

…but so what? PETA’s point, unfortunately, is not to highlight cruelty to animals by pointing out the fact that it would be cruel to force women to produce milk for mass consumption, and that it’s just as cruel to use cows for their milk. No, as usual, PETA is going for sensationalism. And in this case, for the gross-out factor (coupled with the titty factor).

Because the reaction to PETA’s breast milk suggestion hasn’t been, “Hmm, I guess making cows produce milk for us is kind of cruel;” it’s been, “Breast milk in ice cream?! Gross!”

Read More…Read More…

The Mortgage Crisis: Blame the Brown and Black People

Ann Coulter says that the mortgage crisis is caused by “affirmative action.” That is, efforts by the Clinton administration to prevent racial discrimination in lending led to a situation where:

Instead of looking at “outdated criteria,” such as the mortgage applicant’s credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named Caylee.”

Michelle Malkin blames “illegal immigrants,” a term she uses interchangeably with “Hispanics.”

And this is why we have the “assholes” tag.