How come sexually active teen girls who appear on Maury are punished with bootcamp and solitary confinement for three days, while husbands and boyfriends who admit to beating and raping their wives and girlfriends go to a funeral home to see their wives pretending to be dead in a coffin?
That this blog is rated NC-17 for saying words like "abortion", "sex", "fuck", and "shoot".
Mingle2 - Online Dating
The new Ask Jeeves ad assures you that you can find half naked women licking swords, if you must. Thank goodness!
This article made me laugh so hard.
The breast-feeding debate in the Western world seems to be more over where it's done. The Philippine Health Department went as far as to ban baby formula commercials that advertise products for babies under 1 year old, and they want to extend the law to include formulas for babies up to age 2.
"Labels already include messages that breast milk is best for babies, but health officials want additional statements saying there is no substitute for breast milk and that formula should only be used under advice from a health worker . . .
"The World Health Organization recommends mothers breast-feed exclusively for the first six months and continue providing breast milk along with complementary foods until age 2. Research has shown that babies given breast milk develop fewer respiratory and intestinal diseases, and those given formula have a greater chance of developing asthma or allergies, along with obesity. WHO estimates up to 1.45 million children die annually in poor countries because of low breast-feeding rates.
"Exclusive breast-feeding rates during the first four to five months have dipped from 20 percent in 1998 to 16 percent in 2003 in the Philippines, where more women are working full time and juggling busy lifestyles like many women in the West."
Two words, Philippines: Breast. Pump.
The thing I have a problem with is that this issue has gone to the legislature. Is breastfeeding healthier? Yes. Must there be laws that will keep women from making the choice? No. That's not going to help anything. If women are too busy to breastfeed, let them bottle feed. It's better than not feeding the kid at all, correct?
CBS and FOX have recently decided not to show a certain condom commercial. The reason given by FOX is that "Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy." I guess since unwanted pregnancy, and pregnancy in general, doesn't effect women's health at all (Right? Right?!), the message of preventing pregnancies through condom use isn't a health-related one. CBS simply said that the commercial was not appropriate for it's network.
This is a troubling proclamation from CBS, considering that during the Superbowl, which was carried by CBS, commercials for both Levitra and Cialis (both erectile dysfunction medications) were shown.
Not only that, but other sexual commercials were shown at this year's Superbowl. One was a GoDaddy.com ad that featured a woman having beer poured on her tight white tanktop while men looked on. CBS showed this ad, and FOX has also shown commercials for GoDaddy.com in the past.
However, when it comes to something that can be helpful to society but might make people a little uncomfortable (which is, in itself, stupid) suddenly it's inappropriate. Using women and sex to sell something is worse than selling something used to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies and keep sex safe.
Right. Thanks, FOX and CBS, for keeping all of us moral.
There's more over at Feministing, and go here to contact the networks to tell them that unwanted pregnancy IS a health issue and that safe sex doesn't gross you out.
There's something that has been absent in the abortion debate! While Barack Obama wasn't talking about reproductive freedom in this case, he knows that it's important for daddies to be a part of their kids' lives. Who knew!
"Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child."
I don't know all of what was in Obama's speech, but it doesn't look like "partriarchy," "the feminization of poverty," or "pay inequity" made it in.
Warning: Long bitch fest.
The 2008 campaign for president is pretty exciting for us minorities, especially if you're a liberal. Watching the Republican presidential debates (which I believe happen every other week simply to give Romney and Giuliani a chance to get their positions on abortion straight) bores the shit out of me. All you need is a black and white television, and you can admire all the White old male candidates and their neatly pressed black suits (although it might be more difficult to find Tommy Thompson's neck this way). However, when you watch the Democratic debates, you see a more varied lot. You got Hillary Clinton to empower women, you got Barack Obama to empower African Americans, you got Bill Richardson to empower Latinos, and you got Dennis Kucinich to empower the Lollipop Guild (a surprisingly firey base, mind you). Obviously, not everyone belongs to only one of these minority groups. I can say that three of the four aforementioned candidates represent parts of my identity that I hold dear. The pundits, however, don't seem to think minority voters are all that complex.
Hardball's Chris Matthews talked about the polls stating that Hillary Clinton is more favored by women with needs (low-income and less formerly educated) and Barack Obama is a favorite of women with college educations.
Chris Matthews: ... Apparently, according to the national polling we just got today, her advantage in the polls over Barack Obama and the other Democratic wannabes is women. And this shouldn‘t surprise us. Women are so proud to have a first woman candidate who has a real shot at winning that they‘re overwhelming supporting Hillary over the other candidates, especially women who have needs. It‘s called “women with needs,” is the category, women who haven‘t gotten a college degree, are working hard there to provide for families or living alone, and they really like Hillary. Could this be the decisive factor in this campaign, women with needs voting for Hillary?
Ron Reagan: ... I‘m not sure that it‘s going to hold or do her so much good in the general election, should she win the primaries. There are other polls out that show that Republican women, 40-some-odd percent of Republican women, would refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances. So she still remains a terribly divisive candidate, when you talk about the general population, and still remains the candidate that most Republicans say they would like to run against.
This exchange tells us a lot. First, Chris Matthews seems to think that women will vote for Hillary Clinton for the same reason I preferred Midge over Barbie when I was little: She looks like me, sort of! But Ron Reagan comes to the rescue and assures us that there's still enough sexism in this world that makes Republicans comfortable about running against a woman, because the obviously not sexist Republican women are voting based on policy and not gender. Right? Right?!
Chris Matthews: ... But isn‘t [this] so eventful for women to have to vote for a woman, just so they can say to their daughters, Hey, look, you got a chance to be president, as well as your brother?
*explodes* In my perfect world, Dennis Kucinich would be the nominee, a man who represents my opinions and is (more importantly?) vertically challenged -- like me! I'll only vote for Hillary Clinton if she's the nominee, because I don't trust any of those Republicans! Okay. I must regain my composure. The conversation continues with Todd Harris, former campaign guy for John McCain. This outta be good.
Todd Harris: Well, Chris, I first have to say you talked about changing the terminology with immigration—I love this “woman of needs” term. We used to call them, you know, lower-income, lower-educated, uneducated, but now it‘s “women of needs.” But let me tell you...
Todd, in the words of Kelly, "Oh, by the way, betch . . . FUCK YOU!!!!" Admittedly, every woman has social needs. Some of them are, unfortunately, uniquely women for the most part, like being a single working parent whose partner doesn't pay child support. Or getting payed less than men for more than 180 days.
Thankfully, Chris Matthews redeems himself, as every man with the face of a 12-year-old boy eventually does.
Chris Matthews: [A]re you talking down to women? Let me tell you... I wouldn‘t do that. First of all, it‘s not fair. Secondly, you‘re going to get in trouble by nightfall. ...
Todd Harris: This early in the cycle ... voters—voters tend to look for commonalities. Is the candidate Republican, Democrat, white, black? Very superficial indicators ... and superficial levers—levels. So, it is not surprising to me that she is doing well ... among women. ... But as the campaign develops, that could really change.
*explodes again* When was the last time any voter had to ask themselves "Are they Black/female/whatever?" in a presidential election. Oh, that's right. Never, because this is the first time that two frontrunners aren't White guys! Chris, zing 'im.
Chris Matthews: Todd, you won‘t know. You will never know, Todd, because women don‘t have to tell us who they are going to vote for. It‘s a secret ballot.
*sigh of relief*
Back to my original point that might be somewhere in this long post. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have made this presidential race pretty exciting, because one of them will most likely become the Democratic nominee. But it also gets pundits in this useless discussion that pigeon-holes us and insults our intelligence. I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a woman and so am I? What the fuck? This is never considered with men voters or even conservative voters. Men have been voting for men for centuries, and women having been voting for men for 87 years. Do people think that women vote for men, not because they want to, but because that's all who's available? Have women been wandering to the polls for 8 and a half decades to find that there aren't any women on the ballot, just to say "Aw, shucks, I guess I'll vote Democrat. Better luck next time"? Ron Reagan implies that Republican women aren't going to vote for Hillary Clinton because Republican women care about issues, not gender.
So my question is, why the fuck do political pundits have to ruin an imminent historic event of either a woman or an African American having a strong chance of becoming president by reducing minority voters to easily distracted simpletons? Not every voter may be formerly educated, but we do know what we want, even us ladies.
This week's Sunday Secrets showcases a secret from a woman who subscribes to the "Abortion for me, but not for thee" ideal. It's not a secret that many women subscribe to this notion.
You know, I have no problem with women who regret their abortions. I have no problems with women who never want to abort. I have no problem with women who get abortions and don't regret them.
What I do have a problem with is the blatant hypocrisy that's displayed in a viewpoint like this one, and it's common with pro-life women. That's why there's so much slut-shaming that goes on in that camp. Pro-life women have to Other the women who do abort, so that even when they themselves need to access abortion, they can pretend that they're not like those Other Women. They don't take this lightly, they used protection, they're married, they already have 3 kids, they can't afford another baby. All the other women in the waiting room are just there because abortions tickle, I guess.
Seriously, women that have that kind of mentality (and this kind, complete with "Men Hurt Too!") piss me off almost as much as pro-life men.
"Rags to Riches" won the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first filly to do so since 1905. Part of me wants to say, "Why are people saying this is a battle of the sexes? They're horses, for crying out loud." But the feminist in me knows that so many people point to the less evolved of the animal kingdom to make some sort of, usually misogynistic or heterosexist, point about human nature ("What if Rag to Rich's mother had an abortion?" "What if Rag to Rich's father was gay?"), so I'm quite happy about this.
