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

Month: January 2013

Apparently it’s National Sanctimommy Week on the internet

Did you know that All Moms judge you if you’re a mom and consider abortion? Or that All Moms think you’re a whiny selfish narcissist who reminds them of their kindergartner if you haven’t had babies yet? No? Well, these moms, who speak for All Moms On The Internet, would like you to know that they’re judging you. Especially if you’re one of their “close friends” who confides in them, and especially if they are so selfless (being MOMS) that they naturally hear about 1/2 of what you’re saying and then make everything else about them.

“He might be on the spectrum.” But what about me?

It’s like the sun rising in the east: Whenever the subject of harassment or stalking comes up, you invariably get a bunch of dudes barging in, insisting that the guy who followed you and screamed at you for not paying attention to him, the guy who groped you, the guy who tried to follow you home, the guy who kept looking you up and down when you were wearing a turtleneck at brunch with your friend, the guy who refused to accept the “no” and the “I’m not interested,” the guy who waited for you outside of your place, the guy who told you how the way you look gave him a boner, might have had Asperger’s or was somehow autistic. He just had problems understanding social cues/rules.

The Personal Lives of Men

I’m not often a fan of the “if this had been a woman….” line of argument because it’s nearly impossible to prove, but: If this article about Benjamin Millepied being made the new director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet had been about a female choreographer landing such a role, and that female choreographer was married to an Oscar-winning Hollywood star that she met while choreographing one of his movies, that would have been mentioned in the first two paragraphs. And the fact that they have a kid together would have been mentioned as more than an aside.

When is a fetus-person not a fetus-person? When it’s a lawsuit.

If a woman voluntarily gets an abortion, it’s murder, the Catholic church says. Because a fetus is an unborn person. If a woman uses hormonal birth control that might endanger a zygote, she’s a murderer, the Catholic church says. Because a zygote is an unimplanted person. If a slack-ass obstetrician can’t answer his damn pages and a woman and two potentially viable fetuses die, it’s a crying shame, says Catholic Health Initiatives, but there’s not much that can be done about it because fetuses aren’t people.

Courtship is dead; dating has never been better

My latest in the Guardian about those Women Today trend pieces, and how courtship hasn’t existed for several decades but dating is perhaps better than ever. A bit:

Change is always scary, and I am sure plenty of commentators throughout history whined that the warmth of fire wasn’t as satisfying as body heat, the flushing toilet less authentic than the chamber pot, the buggy not nearly as charming as the covered wagon. But alas, things change; humanity moves forward and adjusts. Young college students “pinning” their girlfriends in the 1950s was not exactly a centuries-old tradition. A more authentic marriage proposal – being sold into matrimony by your father, and taking few rights with you – is one that I’m sure most women are happy to leave behind.

Wading in Uncomfortable Waters: Abortion and the Politics of Experience

Forty years after abortion became legal in the United States we are still wading in waters that run deep.

Arguably, abortion runs as deep in our modern human history as pregnancy does. Our ancestors had ways of terminating pregnancies long before the U.S. Supreme Court existed. And while we commemorate and celebrate the 40th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, we know that it does not mark an anniversary of the beginning of this family planning method. Abortion has been, and will continue to be, part of a wide array of methods that we use to control our bodies and fertility, regardless of its legality.

Roe at 40

Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the United States Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion for American women. I wrote about it in the Guardian, emphasizing the fact that abortion, birth control and bodily autonomy are crucial for women’s survival and our freedom. Without the right to determine the number and spacing of our children, we lose the ability to drive our own lives and to live fully freely, happily and healthily. Outlawing abortion doesn’t decrease the abortion rate; it just drives women to use a more dangerous methods and put their lives and their health at risk. Forty years on, Roe is as important as ever. And American society is, sadly, as misogynist as ever — evidenced by the very fact that abortion is still a fight.

Inauguration Open Thread

Who’s watching? (I am watching from Paris, drinking tea and eating maracrons — it beats the hell out of four years ago when I was watching in freezing cold weather on the mall). What do you think? My thoughts are here, at the Guardian.

What would King learn from us?

An elementary school teacher told a story to me once. I was still struggling to learn English, so over the course of the year I asked her often to retell the story.

Years ago in Alabama, the wife of a young preacher received a delivery of red carnations from her husband. They were beautiful, but as she touched them, she noticed they were artificial. When her husband came home, she asked about the flowers. He said, “I wanted to give you something that you could always keep.”