Bits and Pieces

34 thoughts on Bits and Pieces

1. If that asshole wants to deny citizenship to people born in this country, I think he should leave. His ancestors almost certainly didn’t take a citizenship test or obtain any legal documents establishing residency.

   Most of the loudest anti-immigration idiots are descended from people who just showed up. I’m third generation in this country, and the extent of my great grandfather’s ‘citizenship test’ was “Well, did he get on a boat and show up at one of our ports? Great. We’ll take him. Welcome to America!”

   I guess that makes my grandfather an “anchor baby,” which means I’m here illegally, too.

2. Oh man, it’s awesome to have a foil as motivated by mean-spiritedness and rank affinity for ignorance like Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce.

   Someone needs to forward him a copy of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) and a version of the Constitution of the United States he undoubtedly professes his undying love of that more recent than July 8, 1868.

3. Sen. Pierce can’t do shit unless he passes a Constitutional amendment; that’s not going to happen. What is more likely is that he will push for changes in the immigration laws which will do what he wants through other means.

   For example, the law is fairly clear that if you’re born here, you’re a citizen. Pierce can’t touch that easily. (It’s true that the specific application of the birthright clause to illegal immigrants has not been considered by the USSC. But I’ve not seen any serious scholars who think that argument would winl.) But the Constitution says nothing about whether we should grant preferential immigration status to relatives of citizens, or parents of citizens, etc. Pierce could go after that if he chose.

   But re this:

   Is the Tea Party feminist just because there are a few women in positions of power? (Answer: No).

   Well, according to the article it’s a majority-women movement (55% female) in which most of the important leadership is also dominated by women: “If the Tea Party has any legitimate national leadership, it is dominated by women. Of the eight board members of the Tea Party Patriots who serve as national coordinators for the movement, six are women. Fifteen of the 25 state coordinators are women. ”

   That doesn’t mean it has feminist goals, or that it’s a good movement. But the fact is that on its face the movement is controlled by women more than are many other political groups. Summarizing it as “a few women in positions of power” seems like a pretty major misstatement.

4. I agree that the answer to your last question is “no,” but I’m not crazy about the phrasing of it – just because there are a few women in positions of power. The premise of the article is that there are women in positions of relative power and women at the grassroots level actively organizing, taking initiative, actively pushing their message, and getting fired up in a productive direction. To me, that has some significance, because that’s where revolutionary change has historically started, particularly within the feminist movement. The Tea Party movement is ridiculously antifeminist because just about every position they take is actively detrimental to women, and because those grassroots women taking such initiative are so exploited by the men at the top. But we don’t need to minimize the contributions of those women to “a few women in positions of power.” Hell, I think we need to recruit them.

5. Those Latina women are just so selfish and evil, having the nerve to miraculously conceive and give birth to babies on American soil. Clearly they are doing it just to save themselves, and don’t care at all about giving their children a better life by having them here. The men, not being involved in anchor baby making in any way, are just dirty Mexicans trying to take American jobs because they feel like it. Not like they have families or anything. Coming to America, having your children here, working undesirable low paying jobs and trying to create a better life for your children? That’s plain unamerican! Completely contrary to the American dream.

6. My first thought on the article about the environment was “IUDs for everyone! Hooray!”

   I do think it’s smart for doctors to educate women about ALL of their birth control options, including those which have a smaller environmental impact. The Paragard IUD is fantastic for me, since I can’t tolerate synthetic hormones and suck at taking pills. But my guess is these anti-choicers aren’t particular interested in funding this sort of education.

7. ACG: Why should feminists try to recruit a bunch of self-hating women? Especially ones who have violated the first rule of ‘Politics for Women’: Do not be stupid in front of the men.’ That’s like saying we ought to recruit cheerleaders and beauty queens. Or that the Civil Rights leaders ought to have recruited Civil War reenactors. Not a good idea.

8. Anti-choice groups are feigning concern for the environment in their latest activism against the birth control pill.

   They are feigning indeed. Needless to say, this has nothing to do with why we oppose it.

9. Politicalguineapig: Why shouldn’t feminist movements try to recruit cheerleaders and beauty queens? I really don’t see what’s so ridiculous about that idea – surely the more women (and indeed men) who are talked to about feminism and convinced to give some support to at least some of its goals the better?

10. White, there are so many things that pollute waterways much more than the pill ever could. Fertilizers, chemicals from manufacturing, coal, OIL.

    Also, you know what type of person pees more estrogen than a woman on the pill? Pregnant women. Do you want to ban them, too?

11. Politicalguineapig, you’re right. Why should we look for common ground with these motivated, organized, productive women – who already feel marginalized by both major parties – in the hope of opening dialogue and sharing a new perspective about the issues and turning them to a truly feminist viewpoint? They’re stupid and self-hating because they disagree with us, and talking to them could cut into our valuable time feeling morally superior because we hate kids and men and don’t shave our legs. We don’t need any more allies, thank you very much.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write “I must not subvert the feminist superagenda” one hundred times.

12. ACG: Most of the women in the tea party are Palin groupies. Very very few of them are pro-choice, most are extremely religious and none of them are interested in the progressive agenda.
    Cim: Being a cheerleader or a beauty queen tends to mean that one’s bought into the idea of ‘woman as object.” Once someone’s had that idea planted in their heads, it’s very difficult to convince them that they and other women are, in fact people. Plus cheerleaders and beauty queens make life unsafe for women by encouraging the rape culture.
    As for men: any male who identifies as a feminist usually has a ulterior motive, and men aren’t really keen on chipping off their privilege. People are welcome to try to recruit any of the above for the feminist movement, but I can’t see that the effort would yield any positive results.

    1. Being a cheerleader or a beauty queen tends to mean that one’s bought into the idea of ‘woman as object.” Once someone’s had that idea planted in their heads, it’s very difficult to convince them that they and other women are, in fact people. Plus cheerleaders and beauty queens make life unsafe for women by encouraging the rape culture.

       Yeah, wait, WHAT? How do beauty queens and cheerleaders encourage rape culture, exactly?

       1. Oh, by the way, I did some cheerleader-esque things in high school. Yes, it involved performing in tiny skirts and sweaters. I also kind of enjoy fashion and beauty culture, which I agree can be anti-feminist, but does not have to be anti-feminist. So, that said, should feminism not have “recruited” me? Should I turn over my Feministe login info?

13. Politicalguineapig: “Once someone’s had that idea planted in their heads, it’s very difficult to convince them that they and other women are, in fact people”

    That doesn’t strike me as a good reason not to try. Male privilege is embedded throughout society to the extent that there is probably not one person who does not do something that reinforces it either because they like the effect, because they haven’t realised the effect, or because it helps them cope with being on the unprivileged side.

    If you write off all those people as not worth the effort, who do you try to recruit?

    Even accepting for the sake of argument that cheerleading is so bad that no-one who does it could ever be(come) a feminist (and I don’t believe that), surely it’s better to have pro-choice, pro-equal-pay cheerleaders, for instance, than the alternative.

14. Plus cheerleaders and beauty queens make life unsafe for women by encouraging the rape culture.

    THAT is unfeminist.

15. Shoshie – just what I came here to post! If they’re so concerned about pollution caused by the Pill, then why are the FDA, Govt. and healthcare ‘professionals’ so hell-bent on lying to women about their choices? If I had a quid for every American who’s told me “I’d love a Mirena or Paragard but they’re not safe/not tested/unsuitable for nulliparous women” I could’ve retired years ago. Sadly the FDA specifically prohibits the makers of either device targeting it at unmarried women. If you’re not married then they don’t want you to have sex. If you do have sex, then you have to reap the ‘consequences’.

    Meanwhile, here in the civilised world we have more than a dozen intra-uterine contraceptive options available to choose from, including a few specifically designed for *gasp* adolescent (or small) uteri! We have no lying Govt. or doctors telling us that if we use these terrible devices we’ll surely die or become infertile, or that we’re “Guinea pigs” (one woman I know was told by her doctor that Mirena was new, and was never tested in np women, and that her side-effects were because she was an ‘experimental’ candidate). We’ve been using progestogen-releasing devices in Europe since the 70s, and Mirena’s been available since the early 90s, and SURPRISE! We’re not exploding, or bearing horribly deformed offspring, or dying in droves.

    So, enviro-pretender anti-choicers, whaddya say about that? One piece of copper and plastic, or with a tiny hormonal insert, good fr between 5-10 years. No box every moth, no thick booklet, problem solved! Hell, you could even lobby the FDA to allow the use of the adolescent models made for smaller wombs, so that EVERY WOMAN can have one!

16. I’ve actually been reading this blog for awhile. So it seems that history is repeating itself when people start whining that Jill isn’t their Perfect Feminist for some inane reason.

    Oh, by the way, I did some cheerleader-esque things in high school.

    Yes, hand over your login information immediately. Ex-high-school-cheerleaders are worthless to liberal feminists. You may as well become a pro-lifer. They won’t miss you…….

    I’m totally serious about becoming pro-life though.

17. “Being a cheerleader or a beauty queen tends to mean that one’s bought into the idea of ‘woman as object.”

    One could say the same thing about sex workers, yet there are plenty of those who identify as feminist.

    “Plus cheerleaders and beauty queens make life unsafe for women by encouraging the rape culture.”

    I’m not fond of cheerleaders and beauty queens in general, but for the life of me I haven’t got a clue as to how they encourage rape culture. Care to elaborate?

18. “I’m totally serious about becoming pro-life though.”

    White,

    You have about as much hope of recruiting the people who read this blog for the pro-life movement as I have of recruiting Pat Robertson into the feminist movement.

19. Being a cheerleader or a beauty queen tends to mean that one’s bought into the idea of ‘woman as object.” Once someone’s had that idea planted in their heads, it’s very difficult to convince them that they and other women are, in fact people.

    Why is it so difficult for you to accept the fact that cheerleaders & such are, in fact, people who’re capable of making their own decisions without having been duped into it?

    Although beauty pageants and cheerleading don’t personally appeal to me, I happen to like showing off my body in some contexts; and I’m fully aware that most of the men who stare at me aren’t admiring my rapier wit – they’re ‘objectifying’ me.

    Plus cheerleaders and beauty queens make life unsafe for women by encouraging the rape culture.

    Um, ‘cheerleaders and beauty queens’ don’t make life unsafe for women. Rapists make life unsafe for women; and many ‘cheerleaders and beauty queens’ are rape victims, as well – did they ‘encourage’ their own rape?

    Much like the old radfem arguments that porn compels men to harm women, your comments foist some of the blame for sexual violence onto women for being ‘too slutty’. How is this any different than a typical rape apologist’s quibbles over “What was she wearing?”, “Was she drunk?”, and so on?

20. Plus cheerleaders and beauty queens make life unsafe for women by encouraging the rape culture.

    How exactly do they do that? Is it because a woman in a short skirt or a tight dress is just asking to be raped? Believe it or not, evidence seems to indicate that women who adhere to patriarchal beauty ideals don’t have as much influence on rape as rapists do. Unless all of those young girls, grandmothers, and men who get raped were somehow channeling the Laker Girls.

    As for men: any male who identifies as a feminist usually has a ulterior motive, and men aren’t really keen on chipping off their privilege.

    How on earth could anyone get the idea that feminists are all about hating men?

    I’m not exactly sure how you think the feminist cause is going to progress if our main priority is demonizing other women for making choices we disagree with. Unless feminists, as a statistical minority, manage to arm ourselves and hold the entire world at nukepoint until they agree to change entire thought processes and antiquated archetypes, we’re going to have to have faith in the women around us to be capable of meaningful dialogue and coming around to our way of thinking. “I’m the only smart person in the room, and all those pretty girls are sluts and airheads” doesn’t register as a feminist statement.

21. Point 1:Cheerleaders and beauty queens encourage the idea that women are available for sex all the time, thus feeding into the culture that encourages rape.
    Point 2: I do not hate men. I’m merely pointing out that it’s difficult to get people to support a movement that will not benefit them directly or is perceived to work against their interests. Feminism will not directly benefit most men, and therefore, they tend to be disinterested in it (at best) or will work against it actively. If the tables were turned, and men were the oppressed party, I’m not sure many women would care either. People are selfish, that’s just the way the world works.

    1. Point 1:Cheerleaders and beauty queens encourage the idea that women are available for sex all the time, thus feeding into the culture that encourages rape.

       …but how do they do that? By cheering for male athletes? By… standing on stage in dresses and bathing suits?

22. Jill – God, are Politicalguineapig and I the only ones who’ve watched Clueless lately?

    Sometimes you have to show a little skin. This reminds boys of being naked, and then they think of sex.

    QED.

23. Being a cheerleader or a beauty queen tends to mean that one’s bought into the idea of ‘woman as object.”

    I would agree with your general thesis that rape culture is born out of the spirit of high school football games. However, I would disagree with you when you say

    Cheerleaders and beauty queens encourage the idea that women are available for sex all the time, thus feeding into the culture that encourages rape.

    There is far, far more to it than this. Take your average high school football game. There are two basic elements to it. The first element is the actual football game, with all of the male football players attacking each other. The second element is the female cheerleading section. The cheerleading section is the Dionysian element of the football game. The cheerleaders represent the aspect of the football game that the audience is supposed to relate to directly and “blend in” with, if you will. The cheering and especially the skimpy outfits represent a sort of breaking down of norms; in other words, the cheering section is used to represent a sort of reckless inhibition, and this role is played exclusively by women.

    The football game itself is the Apollonian aspect of the event. The Apollonian element typically represents self-restraint and discipline. The double standard begins to emerge already. It is portrayed as recklessly inhibitive for women to wear skimpy clothing and express themselves, but disciplined and exemplary of self-restraint for men to wear tight pants and attack each other at the blow of a whistle! Thus, high school football games portray women who wear skimpy clothing and take interest in male sports (and consequently men) as lacking inhibition and modesty, whereas men who wear tight pants and tackle each other are simply well-trained and normal.

    High school football games therefore normalize male violence, while at the same time portraying female assertiveness as nothing more than a lack of self-control. The social construct of high school football games achieves this by associating assertive, aggressive male behavior with an Apollonian discipline (i.e. compliance with social norms), whereas similar behavior on the part of females is associated with a sort of Dionysian transgression of those norms.

    Since the audience is supposed to directly associate itself with the cheering section, and the cheering section is seen as transgressing social norms, the audience associates itself with the defiance of social expectations and a complete lack of self-control. The same audience that is now associating itself with a lack of inhibition is seeing men protrayed as by nature violent and reckless, and is also seeing assertive female behavior as misbehavior.

    How, then, is this supposed misbehavior on the part of assertive women to be dealt with? This role is presumably left to men, who are both violent by nature and more or less incapable of transgressing social norms by definition. Men assert themselves, women do the same, and then men respond. Thus, rape culture is born out of a sort of dialectic or tension between the Apollonian and Dionysiac (male and female) elements of high school football games.

    But how is this dialectic to be resolved? We must find a way of dissociating the Dionysiac perception of assertive female behavior. This can only occur when all- (or mostly) female cheerleading squads are removed from high school football games, and when women play football at the same rates as men. We must interpret Title IX as liberally as is humanly possible; only then can rape culture be abolished.

24. Cheerleaders and beauty queens encourage the idea that women are available for sex all the time, thus feeding into the culture that encourages rape.

    Cheerleaders and beauty queens are not available for sex at all times. Men (and women) who promote that view contribute to rape culture, NOT women who just dress attractively.

    Unless all of those young girls, grandmothers, and men who get raped were somehow channeling the Laker Girls.

    Don’t matter if they were. Laker Girls don’t deserve to get raped.

25. Yep, those beauty queens sure have no place in the feminist movement.
    Seriously PGP?

26. Miss D.C and Miss Michigan are exceptions, as they are intelligent women who managed to cut through the haze of hormones that surround beauty pageants. But the vast majority of pageant participants are women who I’d rather not have represent my gender in public.

27. “But the vast majority of pageant participants are women who I’d rather not have represent my gender in public.”

    **blink blink**

    Sometimes there just are no words.

28. Because you’re talked to all beauty queens, Politicalguineapig, and not just watched the funniest youtube vids of the stupidest things they’ve ever said, so you can judge the vast majority of them.

    Ever hear “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Let’s not judge all beauty queens (or any group) by one stereotype, let’s look at them as individuals.

29. Politicalguineapig – I’m finding it hard to keep track of who gets to represent our gender in public and who doesn’t. From what I can gather: Cheerleaders are out, beauty queens are out, but beauty queens who promote women’s self-defense are an exception. What other exceptions would you make? Would a doctor be okay? Because Deidre Downs doesn’t have her M.D. yet, but she will in a week. And please let me know if my friend’s study partner from law school can still be a feminist even though she’s a Tennessee Titans cheerleader. (Also: rulings, please, on her teammates the forensic chemist and the domestic abuse victims’ advocate for the district attorney.) (Also also, my cousin has a crush on one of the Washington Redskins cheerleaders, so please let me know if it’ll be okay once she finishes her Ph.D.)

    Also also also, you might want to shoot an e-mail to the Science Cheerleader, because she seems to think that being intelligent and discerning and being a cheerleader aren’t mutually exclusive, and I’m sure you can set her straight.

    Actually, if you could just come up with some sort of written standard for feminists that I could print out and put in my wallet, that’d be great.

30. Point 1:Cheerleaders and beauty queens encourage the idea that women are available for sex all the time, thus feeding into the culture that encourages rape.

    Again, many of these women are rape victims, too. Do you feel as though they’re contributed to their own rape in some way? That’s what your comments suggest.

31. I know I’m so late to this but I hope White comes back! Can you explain this? portraying female assertiveness as nothing more than a lack of self-control

    I’m not disagreeing or anything, I’m just not seeing the connection to lack of self control. Your explanation is interesting and I never thought about it like that. (Former cheerleader here)

    Also, could we one day have a post on rape langauge? I read an essay in Feminist Theory Reader last semester and it was one of the most powerful things I have ever read. Fighting Bodies Fighting Words by Sharon Marcus.

    It discusses the language of rape as a tool for prevention. It refers to rape as a script; men take the aggressive role; women take the passive one. It highlights the instances where women have ‘flipped the script’ so to speak and prevented rape. Most importantly, it highlights that men don’t rape women b/c they are pretty; dressed provocatively; wearing a short skirt; etc. Rapists rely on a perceived masculine power for him and a perceived feminine (weak) power. Basically it’s about control not sex itself.

    Until everyone understands that, people are going to stay stupid stuff like “Cheerleaders and beauty queens encourage the idea that women are available for sex all the time”

    Just..no.

Comments are currently closed.