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Twisty, from the blog I Blame the Patriarchy opines on the recent passage of the healthcare bill in the US with the Stupack amendment:
“What I’m getting at is this: my lack of surprise at this Stupak shit proceeds from irrefutable evidence that state ownership of women is among the most beloved of our violent culture’s violent traditions. Social conservatives appear to believe that God made patriarchy in his own image, and that he will withdraw his complimentary concierge services and cancel Christmas, NASCAR, and life everlasting if the state stops oppressing women for even one second. So-called progressives just want uninterrupted access to pussy.”
I lack the the colourful verbiage that Twisty uses, but in this quote she deftly describes the atrocious nature of this particular amendment.
Abortion is not a crime in Canada. Abortion is under siege by anti-choice zealots, par for the course, but a good portion Canadian women have access to reproductive health services.
A woman’s right to make reproductive decisions is foundational in women being recognized as autonomous beings. It is paramount that we keep abortion, safe, legal, and accessible in Canada.
As far as I am concerned the Stupak Amendment is one compromise too far.
A hat tip to Womanist Musings for the redirect to this article entitled The Growing Power of the Men’s Rights Movement.
The article itself was well written and brought attention to the radical agenda that certain MRA groups have going. They are becoming cohesive and organized enough to start making judicial and legal differences.
The MRA movement is an expected backlash to the idea that women can be people too. I know this is a radical idea, but it is vigorously opposed by these fundamentalist misogynists. But what is appalling are the comments left by the so called representatives of the MRA. Let’s take a small sample:
(trigger warning)
“ONCE AGAIN, feminist c*nts CONTINUE TO LIE to promote their man-hating campaign.”
“Oh, no kidding. You mean when you refuse to count anything a woman may do to a man as domestic violence, and when you include men who hold up their hands to prevent women from striking them in the head (again) as abusers, your data show that men are more violent than women? Wow.”
“But this faulty rationale fails to recognize the difference between unjust oppression and healthy restriction; limiting a gender’s job responsibilities based on natural capacity is not the same as limiting a racial group’s opportunities based on appearance.”
“delusional c*nts are so funny when they are trying to make sense. this is why women belong in the kitchen and not online. they are too f*cking DUMB to make a coherent, rational point without resorting to hysterics. LAWL :D men need to learn how to protect themselves from these violent, dangerous, man-hating c*nts”
“In the last two weeks, both sex trafficking AND unequal pay have been officially exposed as myths created by feminists and based upon deliberate lies spread by those feminists in order to further the selfish interests of women (and esp. feminists themselves)”
I am saddened by the sheer burning stupidity left on the comments section. The vitriol expressed not only toward women but the rights they are fighting for is shameful.
I thought debating religious people was frustrating. I would not want to even go there and attempt *any* sort of rational debate with this people. They really seem to be without redemption.
One finds a good fantastic post every so often. This one really helps for driving home the point of our patriarchal culture. The blog in question is called Kate Hardings’s Shapely Prose and the article is a primer directed toward men on the dynamics involved in approaching a woman. I intend this to be a reference post because I often come up against individuals who have no clue about how the constructs of the rape culture or the patriarchy or Feminism work.
Access the entire post here, with many thanks to the blog KHSP and Sweet Machine for her important words.
Sweet Machine says: […]
“To begin with, you must accept that I set my own risk tolerance. When you approach me, I will begin to evaluate the possibility you will do me harm. That possibility is never 0%. For some women, particularly women who have been victims of violent assaults, any level of risk is unacceptable. Those women do not want to be approached, no matter how nice you are or how much you’d like to date them. Okay? That’s their right. Don’t get pissy about it. Women are under no obligation to hear the sales pitch before deciding they are not in the market to buy.
The second important point: you must be aware of what signals you are sending by your appearance and the environment. We are going to be paying close attention to your appearance and behavior and matching those signs to our idea of a threat.
This means that some men should never approach strange women in public. Specifically, if you have truly unusual standards of personal cleanliness, if you are the prophet of your own religion, or if you have tattoos of gang symbols or Technicolor cockroaches all over your face and neck, you are just never going to get a good response approaching a woman cold. That doesn’t mean you’re doomed to a life of solitude, but I suggest you start with internet dating, where you can put your unusual traits out there and find a woman who will appreciate them.
Are you wearing a tee-shirt making a rape joke? NOT A GOOD CHOICE—not in general, and definitely not when approaching a strange woman.
Pay attention to the environment. Look around. Are you in a dark alley? Then probably you ought not approach a woman and try to strike up a conversation. The same applies if you are alone with a woman in most public places. If the public place is a closed area (a subway car, an elevator, a bus), even a crowded one, you may not realize that the woman’s ability to flee in case of threat is limited. Ask yourself, “If I were dangerous, would this woman be safe in this space with me?” If the answer is no, then it isn’t appropriate to approach her.
On the other hand, if you are both at church accompanied by your mothers, who are lifelong best friends, the woman is as close as it comes to safe. That is to say, still not 100% safe. But the odds are pretty good.
This blog started off with Abortion. It certainly won’t end with the same topic, but I found a nice summary from ‘Screaming into the Void‘ a feminist blog. Read the whole post here, but here is the excerpt which nicely encapsulates the feelings around at DWR about Abortion.
Men and women are THE SAME SPECIES. Homo sapiens, otherwise known as HUMANS. This means that women are HUMAN. This means that if something is degrading, insulting or criminal to do to a man it is also degrading, insulting or criminal to do to a woman. The implications of this are staggering when you apply this principle correctly and realize how deeply woman-hate and denial of woman’s humanity is built into the culture.
I saw someone today say the whole debate on abortion was about whether or not the fetus is seen as human. This is incorrect. The whole debate on abortion is about whether or not the pregnant woman is a human being with a right to life, liberty, and happiness or an incubator who must be made to behave. If you don’t believe women are human, of course abortion is a travesty. It’s some subhuman interfering with the life of a potential new human. But if you realize that WOMEN ARE HUMAN, you cannot possibly place the interest of a fetal human over that of one already born and alive. It makes not the slightest amount of sense.
It is a cross-posting extravaganza. (Many thanks Intransigentia) But no, really, if you ever need to explain to your friends about Patriarchy or white male privilege or hetronormativitiy or any of the diverse topics along those lines, these two posts are not bad places to start.
The first is a post from Shakesville. It is long for a blog post but well worth the read. Check out the article here.
The second is a post from the Pursuit of Harpyness, it is a personal anecdote, but a good look into the hetronormative standards which pervade our society. The comment section is also quite informative for this article. Find it here.
I am regularly humbled by the brilliance that is out there on the ‘Net but the eloquence of this post deserves a repost. The article in question is about Palin and her somewhat unjust treatment. The section on the pro-life movement was particularly interesting to me and I will quote that section.
The entire article can be found at madamab’s the Widdershins blog.
Thank you madamab. She says:
[…] “Legislatively speaking, the pro-life movement has done its very best to make it impossible for women to control their own reproductive organs, and they continue to do so at every opportunity. From attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade and return us to the days of the coathangers and back-alley abortions, to their latest crusade against contraception (falsely conflating it with abortion) and pushing abstinence-only education (which, ironically, has led to more unwanted pregnancies and STD’s), to the heartless lies the Pope recently told about condoms and AIDs, to the senseless murder of Dr. Tiller (which the lovely Ann Coulter has characterized as “termination in the 203rd trimester“), the pro-life community has been utterly consistent in its refusal to see the massive amounts of harm it is doing to its own sisters and brothers; real, fully adult sisters and brothers who have to live with the consequences of their moral myopia.
I honestly do not see how in the world a woman can call herself a feminist, and still reserve the right to meddle in and ruin the lives of other women (and the men who love and support them). Bearing an unwanted child can be immeasurably harmful to a woman, especially if it is a child of rape. (One in every six women will be raped in her lifetime in America, so please do not tell me this is a rare occurrence.) By contrast, despite the pro-life community’s attempts to “prove” that abortion causes mental and physical harm to women, no scientific study has actually done so. I am very sorry that the pro-life movement sees abortion as murder, but it’s not. I am very sorry that the pro-life movement values the potential life of the baby over the life of the mother; however, to say I think this is ethically wrong would be an understatement.”
I am humbled by the concision of the article and particulary this passage. The internal links will be jumping off points for further discussion I am sure.
Joyce Arthur on her post from the Pro Choice Action Network made quite few relevant observations about the abortion debate. Here she frames the issue in terms of a woman’s rights and the prevalence of abortion.
“Anti-choicers insist that the key question in the abortion debate is whether a fetus is a person or not. If so, abortion is murder, they say, and therefore obviously immoral and illegal. That is not the key question at all, of course – anti-choicers are committing the “fetus focus fallacy.” The practice of abortion is unrelated to the status of the fetus – it hinges totally on the aspirations and needs of women. Women have abortions regardless of the law, regardless of the risk to their lives or health, regardless of the morality of abortion, and regardless of what the fetus may or may not be. On average, abortion rates do not differ substantially between countries where it’s legal and countries where it’s illegal.[2] Which reveals a more pertinent question: Do we provide women with safe legal abortions, or do we let them suffer and die from dangerous illegal abortions?
Some anti-choicers argue that even though women will have abortions regardless, that doesn’t mean we should make abortion legal, since we don’t legalize murder just because some people will commit murder anyway. This analogy fails because everyone in society agrees that murder is wrong and must be punished, but there is no such consensus on abortion. Second, very few people commit murder, but a majority of women will either have an abortion, or would have one if they experienced an unwanted pregnancy. As we learned from Prohibition (of alcohol), criminalizing behavior that large numbers of people engage in has disastrous consequences for public health and law and order.”
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Mystro
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