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This is a delightful video. Nothing illustrates the absurdity of a bigoted position like keeping the content and switching the roles. Kudos to youtuber healthyaddict for posting this vid and especially for introducing me to Greta Christina’s Blog. I highly recommend checking the blog out for some truly thorough and well written debunking of theistic skulduggery.
I don't do "women's rights".
Steven Harper does not believe in female autonomy. If his mendacious crew of ethically challenged social conservatives ever took power women across the country would have to mobilize and shut this country down to protect our reproductive freedoms. Evidence of the Conservative disregard for women is writ large as the Conservative government has decided, as a part of its’ G8 platform on women’s issues, not to fund abortions as a part of maternal reproductive care in the third world.
You would think that outright crazy crank-batshittery would take a holiday at least once in awhile. Unfortunately for us Canadians we are still given the pleasure of living under the yoke of religious-inspired delusional conservative ‘morals’ . Rule one in their insipid handbook of perfidious ass-hattery is this: If ye be woman, ye shall not have rights – especially when the holy fetus is involved. Let us examine what the Canadian government stance is, from the CBC report on our G8 position:
“International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said the government would consider funding family planning measures such as contraception, but not abortion under any circumstances.
“We’re saying that we’re using the definition in our discussions of family planning, which does not include abortion,” Oda told reporters on Monday in Halifax, where she was meeting with her G8 counterparts.
“We’re not debating abortion; we’re clarifying family planning.”
Which is akin to making a garden salad without any allowing the use of any lettuce. Thank you Bev Oda for your wonderfully refreshing anti-woman stance. It is always hearting to see government policy based on fatuous religious beliefs, because the the frak needs evidence?
The Lancet has called the Canadian Conservative Government on its mendacity:
Canada’s position against funding abortions abroad is ‘hypocritical and unjust,’ a medical journal editorial says (via the CBC).
“The Canadian Government does not deprive women living in Canada from access to safe abortions; it is therefore hypocritical and unjust that it tries to do so abroad,” the Lancet says in an editorial Saturday.
The conservatives hypocritical? Not this bunch, the very same that want to abolish the gun registry despite the fact that police forces across the nation are strongly in favour of the gun registry. This is the same group of politicians who gleefully brought down the Martin minority government on charges of corruption that are now currently wallowing in the Jafer/Afghan Detainee accountability scandals of their own (not to mention the unwarranted prorogation of parliament). I digress. The Lancet editorial brings us back on track though:
“Although the country’s decision only affects a small number of developing countries where abortion is legal, bans on the procedure, which are detrimental to public health, should be challenged by the G8, not tacitly supported. Canada and the other G8 nations could show real leadership with a final maternal health plan that is based on sound scientific evidence and not prejudice.”
Decisions based on evidence? What is this crazy talk about ‘evidence’ you leftard crypto-fascist Lancet editors?!
“The Lancet said the plan’s omission of improved access to safe abortion services “is no accident, but a conscious decision by Canada’s Conservative Government not to support groups that undertake abortions in developing countries.”
“This stance must change,” the editorial said, noting 70,000 women die from unsafe abortions worldwide each year.”
Ah, but it is only 70,000 women who die per year. Come on they are just people women after all.
Rona Ambrose, who I would not trust to successfully rub two dimes together, spouts the following tom foolery as a ‘reply’:
Rona Ambrose, the status of women minister, defended Canada’s G8 initiative, citing a statement by World Vision Canada that the abortion debate was clouding the issue while 8.8 million children die every year from causes that would cost pennies to prevent. World Vision, one of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations, opposes abortion as a family planning method.
Ah, yes those damn womenz and their bodies. They just need to shut the f*ck up and die quietly.
Ambrose said the government wants to save the lives of women and children, Ambrose said.
“We ask the opposition to stop playing politics with this issue.”
Ah, yes I am guessing ‘Playing politics’ actually means: Stop debating our irrational faith based position with real world evidence and fact. You are just not playing fair; being all evidence based and supported by fact and what not. Let us leave reason firmly outside the political playpen.
Playing politics indeed. The buffoonery that passes for reasonable arguments from conservatives is shocking. How many clown cars need to be called in before Canada squares its position on abortion with reality?
I’m guessing not until the Conservatives are out of power and once again bidden to the background, where they belong.
Personal Expression or repression?
Al Jazeera reports: “In the Canadian province of Quebec a furious public debate has erupted over Muslim women who wear the niqab – face veil.
Out of over 200,000 Muslims in Montreal in Quebec, only a few dozen women wear the niqab, but under a proposed new legislation they could be barred from receiving public services.”
When I think about this issue I get a headache. The complexity and intersectionality of issues regarding women’s rights, religious freedom and society is staggering. Watch the video for a little background.
Canada is a secular democracy. I hesitate to fully endorse a law that prohibits anyone from wearing what they deem to be culturally important to them. Conversely, the Niqab and the Burka are both symbols of the oppression of women by the patriarchal rules of a delusional following known as Islam.
Modesty? Can men be immodest? Why is there not a male version of the Burka?
“No no no” you see the Burka protects women from men and their uncontrollable rape-happy urges. So says the Mullah, so says the Patriarchy. ‘Bullshit’ I say. Stripping women of their identities does not make them safer, nor does it prevent rape as the commodification and objectification happens by default in any patriarchal society.
The rub comes when people bring their cultural traditions to a secular society and then expect them to be accepted without a hitch. Whoa! Cultural relativism warning! Where do we draw the line when people bring potentially repressive traditions to our society? How much respect should we accord them? *gnash teeth*
The thing is that women choose to do repressive objectifying things to themselves all the time. Is it enough to leave the argument at if women ‘choose’ (aka obeying repressive cultural dictates) to wear the Niqab, so be it despite all the negative baggage associated with it?
To be honest, I really cannot say for sure one way or the other. What do you think?
As I was assiduously avoiding planning my lessons for my upcoming classes, I happened to redirect myself to this list from the Blog Mistress Mom.
It is a simple post really, just a list of reasons as to why her son is wearing pink. I stopped at this particular point:
“Because even if pink is for girls, what’s wrong with being (like) a girl?”
What a brilliant question. What brilliantly loaded question!
Just what exactly is wrong with being like a girl? I mean, women represent more than half of our population and are prominent role models in the majority of our lives (for better or worse).
So what is wrong with being like a girl?
When I deal with problems I rely on my critical thinking skills and rationality; they are the first responders to the majority of situations. Even when I need to produce a response with a emotional basis there is that precursor thought of ‘oh…this requires my emotional intelligence…lets spin up the empathy/feelings centers and put them to work’…(I realize this is quite “meta” and is certainly not 100% accurate, but necessary for where I am going.) So my first response to this question was of course what I’ve learned of feminist/gender theory:
The hetronormative values of our Patriarchal society implicitly and explicitly diminish, dismiss and marginalize females and the idea of femininity. The assumption: To be female or associated with femininity is to be inferior.
This underling assumption is appallingly prevalent in our society, it permeates every facet, every interaction, every assumption we base our reality on.
What this question did was prompt one of those delicious “Ah-Ha!” moments when a deeper understanding of a theory or notion finally sinks in. Where does rape culture come from? How can women still be oppressed when they have, in theory, equal rights? Why are the standards we live by so permeated by hetronormative values?
“To be female or associated with femininity is to be inferior.”
I am usually quite a fan of gaining knowledge and expanding my horizons and what not, but sometimes I wish I could claim the protection of ignorance, to shield myself from the profound sense of injustice and sadness that accompany such melancholy revelations.
Studying history brings similar moments; for instance discovering that we in the West are not the ‘good guys’ and more often than not are just as ruthless and inhumane as our official ‘evil’ enemies. What is worse (of course it gets worse) is that most of the people refuse to accept their unhappy role in this oppressive, exploitive, blood-drenched narrative we as a race have written. It is the same with the patriarchal nature of our culture, people refuse to see the superstructure because they have internalized the values the patriarchal structure presents. They are not defending “oppression” they are defending what is “right”. And what is “right” is rape culture and the oppression of half the human species…how dare you challenge those assumptions?
I challenge those patriarchal assumptions because they are fundamentally unjust and irrational. By default that makes my opinion an outlier…*sigh*… but given my political and historical views of history, this is nothing new under the sun.
All I can say now is thanks for the “Ah-Ha” moment Mistress Mom, I owe you one.
I try and start my Saturdays on a positive note. I look at the CBC, a few Science Blogs usually something upbeat is going on. Not today though.
With a hat-tap to Shakesville, I excerpt from the linked article:
“Acid attacks and wife burnings are common in parts of Asia because the victims are the most voiceless in these societies: They are poor and female. The first step is simply for the world to take note, to give voice to these women.” Since 1994, a Pakistani activist who founded the Progressive Women’s Association (www.pwaisbd.org) to help such women “has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.”
I post one of 12 pictures representative of thousands of women who have been permanently disfigured by acid attacks by men. When women are not people, when they cannot speak or be heard, when they have no rights…
Saira Liaqat, 26, poses for the camera as she holds a portrait of herself before being burned, at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. When she was fifteen, Saira was married to a relative who would later attack her with acid after insistently demanding her to live with him, although the families had agreed she wouldn't join him until she finished school. Saira has undergone plastic surgery 9 times to try to recover from her scars.
They get male centric justice.
Michal Coren gets it wrong even at the best of times. I can always count on the Sun Newspaper to annoy me enough to blog about the inanity that fills its pages.
I really want to agree at least once with Coren before I die and with the opening sentence of his article I though today would be the day.
“These are sad days for the American right.” intones Coren.
My eyebrow twitched, would this be the day? Naa… It would be easier to smash an atom with my shoe then agree with Mr.Coren. Case in point – next sentence (italics mine):
“The Republicans have no credible leader, Rush Limbaugh has conquered the art of perennial outrage and the men in smart suits and women in shrinking skirts at Fox try to outdo each other in their use of hyperbole.”
Very nice ass-hat. ‘Smart’ men and sexualized women. Isn’t institutionalized misogyny great?
“The tragedy is that all this comes at a time when we have one of the most worrying presidents in American history. Then, just as we think it can’t get any worse, comes the dream ticket of Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean, both former beauty queens and both proving that jokes about beauty queens are somewhat justified.”
Ah, yes. Beauty queens are always stupid. Check. Throwing a “somewhat justified” does not fix the message. Just like after punching someone in the face then saying ‘sorry’ does not mitigate the initial transgression.
“Actually she is an ordinary, nice woman blessed with beauty, a devoted husband and a good family. It really should end with that. But no.”
Bra-vo! She should be constantly pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen too. Sex class! Back to the galley with you and make me a sam’ich bitch.
“Palin wants power and is willing to close her eyes to the facts as she marches forward in glorious denial. Perhaps most chilling is how so many conservatives refuse to accept the obvious and twist into awful shapes trying to justify the woman’s failings.”
The ‘facts’: You are a woman and should never ever aspire to power. The public sphere is not your domain and how dare you even contemplate running for the highest office in the land. How could the Right even think of backing a female candidate? Patriarchally speaking, we have not gotten past the archetypal feminine “built in” flaws! The horror.
“Her daughter Bristol’s pregnancy,[…] Yet, where was your relationship with your daughter, one that would have indicated to you in numerous ways that the girl was hiding and doing something that was wrong?”
Because mother daughter relationships are always open and communicative, if only you’d just play your role and tend to the children. I guess Mr.Palin does not get the whole ‘girl’ thing and could not spend the extra time strengthening his role and bond with her daughter, his culpability is never questioned, while hers is immediately put front and center.
Awesome. Could this patriarchal values 101 lesson get any worse? Of course it does, the ass hattery kicks into overdrive as Coren trashes Carrie Prejean. What follows is his cogent response against her arguments(insipid as they my be). Hmmm…calculating the possibility my previous sentence being true…err… did I mention the smashing atom thing with my shoe… ?
“Carrie Prejean is an even more frightening example of right-wing hypocrisy. Her now famous defence of genuine marriage — only between a man and a woman [Wow, parroting the hetronormative standard. You go girl!]. […] she has posed almost-naked for photographs and that she made at least one graphic sex tape for a former boyfriend. We’re also supposed to believe that her recent relationships with young athletes have all been entirely celibate.”
What?! Pose nekkid for pictures? How dare you, whore! You are a public figure and you go off parading your sluty-slut-slut-lifestyle for all to see? No, no. You keep your sexuality ensconced in terms of patriarchal expectations or it will be a extra slut-shaming lightning round for the likes of you, after-all it isn’t your sex life for heavens sake.
“What she does on her own time is her business, but a moral position demands consistency and so should the response of social conservatives. This woman has even less right to speak for the American right than does Sarah Palin. And that, I’m afraid, is something I thought I’d never say.”
If only the italicized phrase applied to women…
So the calculus is in. If you have taken nekkid photos of yourself, and/or had sex with more than one partner (outside of marraige…ohhh the vapours take me now) as a woman that is an automatic disqualification from being in the ‘moral’ category.
The burning nuclear stupid burns! No Mr.Coren the morality of women is not intrinsically tied to their ranking in the Sex class. Women are autonomous beings capable of thinking outside of their imposed gender roles.
You should try it sometime.
I do not endorse what Mrs.Palin or Ms.Prejean represent, it is social conservatism of the most repugnant variety. Would it be too much to ask that we tackle their arguments as opposed to their gender?
**Update: You know what absolutely tickles me frakking pink? This post is getting hits from people searching for rape pictures and pictures of pornography depicting rape. If you’re here that reason, welcome to exactly what you do not what to see. Women being treated as people instead of objects for your distortedly pervtacular fantasy world. I savour the sweet irony of you being directed to a feminist blog while looking for rape pictures. Your kind is pathetic.
But, hey if you are not here looking to reinforce mindless observance to patriarchal norms, be welcome and read on!
Andrea Dworkin was a brilliant feminist theorist, activist and writer. The question you should be asking yourself is why does this sound radical? Dworkin makes many brilliant points in her speech entitled “I Want A Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There is No Rape”.
Dworkin pulls no punches:
“We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us. We use statistics not to try to quantify the injuries, but to convince the world that those injuries even exist. Those statistics are not abstractions. It is easy to say, “Ah, the statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them up another way.” That’s true. But I hear about the rapes one by one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen. Those statistics are not abstract to me. Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking.”
On the Patriarchy:
“The power exercised by men day to day in life is power that is institutionalized. It is protected by law. It is protected by religion and religious practice. It is protected by universities, which are strongholds of male supremacy. It is protected by a police force. It is protected by those whom Shelley called “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”: the poets, the artists. Against that power, we have silence.”
On Male Privilege:
“That is the way the power of men is manifest in real life. That is what theory about male supremacy means. It means you can rape. It means you can hit. It means you can hurt. It means you can buy and sell women. It means that there is a class of people there to provide you with what you need. You stay richer than they are, so that they have to sell you sex. Not just on street corners, but in the workplace. That’s another right that you can presume to have: sexual access to any woman in your environment, when you want. Now, the men’s movement suggests that men don’t want the kind of power I have just described. I’ve actually heard explicit whole sentences to that effect. And yet, everything is a reason not to do something about changing the fact that you do have that power.”
On the Politics of the Right Wing:
“Some of you are very concerned about the rise of the Right in this country, as if that is something separate from the issues of feminism or the men’s movement. There is a cartoon I saw that brought it all together nicely. It was a big picture of Ronald Reagan as a cowboy with a big hat and a gun. And it said: “A gun in every holster; a pregnant woman in every home. Make America a man again.” Those are the politics of the Right.
If you are afraid of the ascendancy of fascism in this country–and you would be very foolish not to be right now–then you had better understand that the root issue here has to do with male supremacy and the control of women; sexual access to women; women as reproductive slaves; private ownership of women. That is the program of the Right. That is the morality they talk about. That is what they mean. That is what they want. And the only opposition to them that matters is an opposition to men owning women.”
Why if Freedom is to be had, Rape must stop:
“And on that day, that day of truce, that day when not one woman is raped, we will begin the real practice of equality,
because we can’t begin it before that day. Before that day it means nothing because it is nothing: it is not real; it is not true. But on that day it becomes real. And then, instead of rape we will for the first time in our lives–both men and women–begin to experience freedom. If you have a conception of freedom that includes the existence of rape, you are wrong. You cannot change what you say you want to change. For myself, I want to experience just one day of real freedom before I die. I leave you here to do that for me and for the women whom you say you love.”
You want to know where to start to fight the Rape Culture? Start here. One teaspoon, one hour, one woman at a time.
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