Flirting Kills?

I just heard about the murder of Larry King, the out 8th-grader who wasn't afraid to be himself, from a commercial that I saw on MTV. Then, I found this article about it. Here's how it opened:

Larry King was a gay eighth-grader who used to come to school in makeup, high heels and earrings. And when the other boys made fun of him, he would boldly tease them right back by flirting with them.

That may have been what got him killed.

Really? Some bold flirting is what got him killed? Because I thought he got shot twice in the head by a homophobe. Maybe it's the lack of tolerance and downright hate of gay people that got him killed. But I could be wrong.

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

The Feminist Majority Foundation has this informational video about who and what feminists are. It features both celebrities and regular people (Megan and I are noticeably absent!).

Morning Quickie: Take Action

Hold Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao accountable for her general lack of care about worker's rights.

Congress is trying to cut payments to Medicare doctors. Tell them not to.

Support the Fair Elections Now Act for public financing of congressional elections.

Demand equal rights for the spouses of gay and lesbian federal employees.

Blog for EC on March 25.

Kick-Ass Old Lady of the Day

Bernie Garcia, an 83-year-old woman in Santa Fe, New Mexico, fought off three guys who were trying to steal her purse. The three men planned to rob an old woman at a gas station, but they probably didn't plan on getting beat up with the pump.

Reporter: You weren't going to let him get it.
Garcia: No, hell no.

Man, that lady needs to be on television all the time.

Geraldine Ferraro Resigns After Racist Remark

Yes, and I'm calling them racist because they were racist. Here is the comment she made (and stood by) that caused her to resign:

If Obama were a White man, he would not be in this position. And if he were a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught in the concept.

He's lucky to be what? Black? Being a Black guy is better than being any color woman? Because White privilege doesn't exist? Because the only discrimination that can affect a person is sexism? Because it's OK to call Obama a Muslim and that terrorists will dance in the streets if he's elected, but it's much, much worse to call Hillary Clinton a monster?

It's pretty upsetting when the feminists of the second wave continue to be racist, but we as third wave feminists have to still kiss their asses. That seems to be the sentiment of way too many people who comment at Feministing. It's either that, or it's just more "sexism is worse than racism" or "But Obama does benefit from being Black!" I thought feminists were better than that.

Word, Colbert

Instead of reading this article from The Atlantic that tells women to settle for any man who'll have them (unless you want to know what it's like to have your head packed in ice while a rabid raccoon chomps at your ankles without actually, you know, doing that), watch the above clip from last night's Colbert and laugh.

Good Ol' Fashioned Clinton and Obama Hate

Can people be a little bit more creative with the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama bashing? Above is a segment of Real Time with Bill Maher about Hillary Clinton's response to her biggest crisis as she describes in her book (about 5 minutes in):

Bill Maher: Now I don't want to bash Hillary too much, but I just want to add this because we went back and looked at her book. She wrote a book called "Living History," which is her biog- sounds like my sixth grade social studies book, by the way. "Living History," I think was the book I had to study. But we wanted to find out, because she raised this topic of crisis -- what was her biggest crisis? And in her own words she said, "My biggest crisis was Monica Lewinsky," and here's the audio version. This is what she said was her reaction at the moment of her biggest crisis.

Hillary Clinton's audiobook: I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him.

Before Bill Maher could even get another sexist word in, Joe Scarborough of all people came to the defense. Seriously, though, this isn't an uncommon "Gotcha!" moment in the media. Maher's talking about the Republican Scarborough sticking up for Hillary, Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes (who always accuses Jon Stewart of stealing her jokes, even though her show airs and The Daily Show is taped at the same time) tried making the same point yesterday: If this is how Hillary Clinton reacts to her biggest crisis, she's obviously not fit to be president. Give me a break. That's how Clinton reacted to that crisis. More importantly, she reacted appropriately to that crisis. George W. Bush reacted to his biggest crisis (and I don't mean the tap going dry at the local tavern) by continuing to read My Pet Goat. Who's unfit to run the country now?


Now on to the Obama hate. Via the Huffington Post, Republican representative Steve King (IA) believes the following will happen if Obama becomes the next president:

The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida ... would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror . . . His middle name does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that.

"Hillary Clinton's weak. Barack HUSSEIN! Obama is a Muslim!" Please. It's getting old. Really old.

Women's Only Gym on Harvard Campus

To accommodate Harvard's devout Muslim women, the university has decided to have women-only hours at one of the campus's gyms. The hours have been set up so that Muslim women can work out without having to worry about men looking at them. One student columnist suggests that men-only hours be provided at the same time as the women-only hours in a different gym. That way, everybody has equal gym time and the Muslim women can still practice their faith freely. Problem solved, right? Well, not so much. A Harvard spokesperson said the general response has been "You're in America. Assimilate or get out." I know, because it's not like religious freedom is in the Constitution or anything.

Michael Smerconish has a problem with the hours too. He says that majority rules, and since only 6 Muslim women have complained, there's no point in inconveniencing other people out of their gym time. But what would be the general response from those male students who have to go to another gym on campus at that time? "Why should I have to walk to a different side of campus just to appease these Muslim women? Poo!" So which is more important? Preserving religious freedom or preserving some guy's usual walking distance between point A and the gym?

Help Save the USF Women's Studies Department!

So I've been M.I.A. from Feminists to the Rescue for a while. I've been a little busy with putting on the Vagina Monologues and counter-protesting the Genocide Awareness Project and now, trying to save my major's department from being the victim of state budget cuts.

Apparently, the state of Florida has cut the funding for education very severely, and this has had a huge impact on the University of South Florida. Due to these budget cuts, some university bigwigs decided that the Women's Studies Department here at USF no longer deserved to be an autonomous entity, despite the fact that it is the second oldest women's studies department in the nation, having just celebrated it's 35th birthday. They also propose cutting out the Africana Studies department as well, or possibly merging the two disciplines to create what those who oppose the idea lovingly call "The Office of Marginalized Studies" .

Apparently, the provost is going to be making the final decision as far as the budget and the fate of the Women's and Africana Studies departments are concerned. His website is here. The information regarding the budget as well as his contact information is all there.

It would be great to get some e-mails sent to the provost in support of Women's Studies and Africana Studies. We have a petition circling around, but it's a printed document. If we get an online version, I will post it here for others to sign. We are trying to get as many signatures and as much support as possible, of course. Gloria Steinem was actually the first to sign our petition, and Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards also added their names to the list. So please, send an e-mail of support for the USF Women's Studies Department.

Abstinence-Only . . . Dental Hygiene?

Some abstinence nut was on Dr. Phil on Monday to discuss why abstinence-only education is better than, you know, telling teens the truth. He uses this bizarre toothbrush analogy to emphasize his point:

"Nobody would stick one of these in their mouth. The reason they wouldn’t stick them in their mouth is because they don’t know where they’ve been, what they’ve been doing, or who they’ve been doing it with,” he says. He adds an untainted brush to his illustration. “I have a virgin toothbrush right here. Can you get back in your box and start over? Absolutely. Can you get your dignity back, your reputation back, your innocence back, your self-esteem back? Absolutely. A person can start over.”

So I guess we should change our sexual partners every six months?

Bush Vetos Torture Bill

President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

Let's just get this straight right out of the gate: Waterboarding is torture. It is not a "harsh interrogation practice", it is torture.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush often warns against ignoring the advice of U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq. Yet the president has rejected the Army Field Manual, which recognizes that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information, said Reid, D-Nev.

So we're going to torture people in order to obtain information that may or may not be reliable, yet Bush still wants to make statements like this:

"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," the president said.

Sorry, sir, but I don't believe that demolishing our moral authority in the world is going to do much to keep Americans safe. It certainly wouldn't keep any captured troops of ours safe when we can't denounce any torture practices that those who have captured them might use to obtain information due to our own use of such tactics. If we authorize the use of torture tactics in order to obtain information, how do we have the moral authority to make sure other countries do the same? And if we don't have that authority, how can we make sure that our troops won't be tortured as well? In that sense, I don't see how we can claim that we're keeping Americans safe, unless we don't count our troops as Americans that need protection, which wouldn't surprise me.

But the administration has refused to rule definitively on whether it is torture. Bush has said many times that his administration does not torture.

The White House says waterboarding remains among the interrogation methods potentially available to the CIA.

"Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," Bush said.

So apparently Bush won't torture you unless he feels like he needs to. Awesome. I feel so much better now. Here's the link to the full article.

Doggie Racism

Did you know that black dogs are less likely to get adopted from shelters than dogs of other colors? I know, looking at that picture of my beautiful Black Lab, Diesel, who is black from nose to tail, you'd think everyone would want a big black dog. The weird thing is, I wasn't very surprised to learn that. I've noticed that people are kind of frightened of Diesel when I walk him. I don't know. I guess there's just something about a big black dog that scares people. Wait until my dog hears about this! He'll be outraged.

Was this post just an excuse to talk about my dog? Yes. Yes, it was.

Mike Huckabee Ends His Campaign

From The Boiling Point!



Boo! We're going to have to wait at least another 4 years for this to happen! Oh, Mike Huckabee. We hardly knew ye.

Actually, I think we knew too much of ye.

Celebrity Feminist of the Day: Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon promotes Avon's new empowerment bracelet on The Today Show. Up to $1 million of the proceeds from the bracelets will go to the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Why stop at a million? I don't know, but it's better than nothin'.

Afternoon Quickie: Revirginization

Is it "quicky" or "quickie?" My spell check just told me "quickie," so I guess that answers that question. A much more philosophical question that has been asked lately is "What does it mean to be a virgin?" What with hymen reattachment surgery and revirginization ceremonies (there's a word that'll keep the spell check busy) that allow people to undo their sexual past, it's becoming more difficult to define virginity and what it means to "lose" it.

Author Brian Alexander discusses the issue of virginity in an article for MSNBC. It's very informative and thought-provoking. There was this one part that nearly made me puke, though. Guess which part, and if you're right, you'll get a cookie. Hint: It's on page 2.

Compromise and Anti-Choice Legislation

This is a uterus, and she doesn't haggle.

Yesterday, Eric Alterman was talking to Sam Seder about his upcoming book Why We're Liberals. He said that the majority of the country takes the liberal position on almost every issue. One of the issues that the majority of the country doesn't take the liberal position on: Abortion. He said that because women's organizations take a you're with us or against us stance on reproductive rights and put pressure on liberal politicians to do the same, the liberal position on abortion has become "abortion under any circumstances." Alterman says this hurts liberals, because most Americans support some sort of restriction on abortion and vote on this issue, and liberals aren't relating to them. Alterman's solution?

Compromise! Liberal politicians should compromise on this issue to pander to people who only believe in women's reproductive rights sometimes. It doesn't really matter if women's human rights are compromised in the process. Just as long as our Democratic majority lets us have a choice sometimes, it's all good. Of course, there is no pro-life organization that supports abortion under certain circumstances, nor do they support contraception. So, they don't reflect the mainstream, but that's okay.

But what about the ban on so-called partial-birth abortion, you ask? How can anybody not support that, you wonder? And what about parental notification and consent laws for pregnant minors? What's wrong with that? I'll tell you.

First, a lot of people think partial-birth abortion is the name given to an abortion performed during the third trimester and that the ban prohibits abortions during this time because, at this time, the fetus is viable. This is untrue. It's the name given to the procedure of extracting the fetus (intact dilation and extraction), and this procedure can be done in the second trimester as well. And it's the procedure, not third trimester abortions, that are illegal for almost any reason. What does this mean? Viability of the fetus has nothing to do with the ban on partial-birth abortion. I repeat, Viability of the fetus has nothing to do with the ban on partial-birth abortion. Viability begins at around 7 months gestation, but the procedure can't be done at any time.

Second, nowhere in the ban on partial-birth abortion does it say the frequency at which this procedure was ever done. "A moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion . . . is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited." Actually, if there's a consensus among medical professionals that the procedure is never medically necessary, then there is no need make a special law to ban it. Performing an unnecessary operation on someone is grounds for a malpractice lawsuit, so there was never a reason to pass a separate ban. Also, the ban states that "there are currently no medical schools that provide instruction on abortions that include the instruction in partial-birth abortions in their curriculum." That means that any doctor who has ever performed the procedure did so outside the scope of their expertise, which is malpractice. All of the evidence provided to support a ban is also evidence as to why a ban isn't necessary.

One might argue that, because this procedure is considered unnecessary, banning it is a preventative measure. As we know from the upholding of the ban, however, preventative legislation is not exactly the Supreme Court's thing. Last April, the original ban was upheld, even though it didn't contain a health exception. The reason was because none of the experts could testify that the procedure was ever necessary to preserve the woman's health. If preventing harm was the Supreme Court's number one priority, they would have passed the health exception, just in case.

I was almost not going to say anything about parental notification or consent laws, because the problems with such laws are quite obvious. But because I think a lot of people are in favor of such laws, it's a good idea to share with you why I think these laws are wrong. Since notification and consent are the same in my view, I believe both laws are abortion bans disguised as laws to protect parental rights. However, if preserving parental rights were the objective of these laws, a pregnant minor would need to gain parental notification or consent to remain pregnant and, consequently, give birth. No such law exists anywhere. My smell test for laws like this (e.g., parental consent/notification laws, laws requiring women to see an ultrasound if they're considering abortion) goes something like this: "Would anyone ever consider making a similar law for women who consider pregnancy?" If the answer is no, which it always is, then it's anti-choice legislation.

There are plenty of laws regarding abortion that are designed to protect women and their families. I can sit here all day researching them and telling you why they protect no one. I don't think people realize the implication of these laws. Would those in the "pro-choice middle," those people who believe in choice under certain circumstances, support laws restricting abortion if they realized, like I do, that these laws are leading to a ban on abortion entirely? If they truly want women to have the choice, I seriously don't think so. So I think this idea that most Americans are pro-choice-to-a-certain-extent is kind of misleading. I think it means that most Americans have yet to come around.

Kids? No Thanks

Because my post about how I can't make t-shirts sparked a discussion about choosing not to have children, I just had to link up to this Reason Magazine article by Ronald Bailey about why people are having fewer (or no) children. I think the subheading says it all.

via Feministing

Afternoon Quicky: Urge Your Senators to Co-Sponsor IVAWA

You can urge your Senators to co-sponsor the International Violence Against Women Act or thank your Senator(s) for co-sponsoring the bill. NOW makes it so easy!

Today I Learned . . . .

That I can't make t-shirts for my life. Poo.

Coming Out Feminist

Sometimes I think it would sit better with people if I came out as a lesbian than if I came out as a feminist. People at least know it's impolite to ask questions or judge when you come out as a lesbian. If you come out as a feminist, you need to do a lot of explaining.

Today in my Counseling and Community Agencies class, one of my classmates came out as gay, and another male classmate came out as bisexual. I, however, felt that the enviornment was too hostile for me to come out as a feminist. My professor mentioned feminist theory, quickly said that the word "feminism" scares her, had one person agree, and rushed to another topic before I could interject. We talked at great length about LGBT issues, and everyone who participated was very nice and honest about their thoughts and how their opinions have changed as they've grown up. So I was wondering why we were talking so much about LGBT issues, about which no one seemed to need a clarification*, but feminism in counseling wasn't talked about at all. Wouldn't it have made more sense to spend more time on the topic that people didn't seem to understand, especially since the topic was quickly dismissed as scary?


So I'm thinking about making a t-shirt this week and wearing it to class next Monday. I'm thinking it's going to say "feminist." on the front and "scared?" on the back. Or maybe "I'm a feminist, and I carry nunchucks." That may or may not be true, but would you risk saying something sexist to me just to find out? I don't think so.




*Someone did need clarification, but didn't ask for it. I just overheard the person in front of me saying this to the person next to her, and it amused me greatly to know that she would rather remain confused than to simply turn around and ask me to elaborate. I asked the professor if it was unethical to not diagnose someone with Gender Identity Disorder, even though they meet all the criteria, just because they have an impairment in social or occupational functioning, but they aren't experiencing clinically significant distress. I gave an example of someone who comes in for depression, is diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, and then comes out as trangendered. Must I diagnose them with Gender Identity Disorder, even though it wasn't the presenting problem? Does it make a difference if the person is depressed because of the way they are treated for being transgendered? Personally, I wouldn't diagnose someone with Gender Identity Disorder if the only reason they meet the full criteria is because other people ridicule them to the point that it impairs important areas of functioning. People shouldn't be diagnosed simply because someone else thinks they're weird. During the break in class, the person in front of me said, "It would be like not diagnosing someone with Schizophrenia just because that wasn't the presenting problem." I would accuse her of comparing Gender Identity Disorder with a psychotic disorder, but I think my point went way too far over her head for her to make any sort of rational counterargument. So I'll let that one slide.