Tag: women

September Rambling: unlikely friendships, and NYC songs

cat.paws

Infrastructure, Suburbs, and the Long Descent to Ferguson. Also, Pantheon Songs on the singing group The Impressions, featuring Curtis Mayfield, which is also about Ferguson.

Next Time Someone Says Women Aren’t Victims Of Harassment, Show Them This. Plus, These Are The Things Men Say To Women On The Street. Oy: Woman Discovers ‘Rape Room’ in Comic Book Store; Is Promptly Fired. Also, Ray Rice, a Broken NFL Culture, and How to Fix It and ‘The Burning Bed,’ 30 years later. And Ray Rice, now.

John Oliver’s investigation reveals Miss America scholarship claims are made of lies.

This month, the 7th circuit struck down gay marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin. “The three judge panel was unanimous and the opinion was written by [conservative] Judge Richard Posner.” After listening to his oral arguments and reading the opinion, what kind of rebuttal could someone could possibly make? Continue reading “September Rambling: unlikely friendships, and NYC songs”

Post-Hobby Lobby, expect these cases in the courts

The Hobby Lobby decision actually hurts most people of faith.

personhoodThe Supreme Court agreed that some companies can refuse to cover contraception. Bestowing more personhood on entities devised to mitigate personal liability than on actual women baffles me, but there it is.

The next challenges to Obamacare coverage on religious grounds are listed right in the dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

“Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”

“Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”

The floodgate of cases is already opening.

I tend to agree with the notion that the Hobby Lobby decision actually hurts most people of faith.

Moreover, I find it disingenuous when I discover Hobby Lobby invested in numerous abortion and contraception products while claiming religious objection.

The root of this mess, of course, is health insurance, therefore health care, tied to employment. As Charles Turecek correctly noted:

Health care should be managed by the government, as it is in almost every advanced country in the world except the U.S. People shouldn’t be forced to take or keep lousy, low paid jobs because they are afraid of losing health benefits. Get corporations out of the health insurance business and force them to pay a fair share of taxes. That’s fair, isn’t it?

There are people, notably George Takei, who have suggested a boycott of the 500 stores of Hobby Lobby, which I would support. Though in fact, I’ve never been to a Hobby Lobby and didn’t realize until the day the decision was announced on June 30 that there one in Albany County. The argument against boycotting, that the employees of HL would be economically harmed, while theoretically true, is unconvincing. I imagine there will be some people who will actually seek out the stores because of the stance of the owners, the Greens, who I am fairly sure are unrelated to me.

Now as a result of the ruling, I DON’T really expect to see this, which is an obvious parody: SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LITTLE CAESAR’S RIGHT TO FEED CHRISTIAN EMPLOYEES TO LIONS. Sometimes, the absurdist makes the point in the best way.

The War on Women, redux

As the father of a daughter, I feel that the war on women in the US is detrimental, and not only to my girl’s future.

New-Soft-War-on-WomenOne of the problems with the term War on Women is that it all seems to be about sex. And talking about sex seems to make some people uncomfortable.

And it’s even not all about sex, though having access to birth control is part of the issue. I’m still mortified by what happened to Sandra Fluke in 2012 after she testified about the need for contraceptives in the context of overall women’s health. Part of her testimony:

In the worst cases, women who need this medication for other medical reasons suffer very dire consequences. A friend of mine, for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and she has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetown’s insurance, because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy. Unfortunately, under many religious institutions’ insurance plans, it wouldn’t be.

And some bullies, one in particular, publicly called her a “slut”, asking why should the government pay for her to have sex, that, therefore she was a prostitute. Which means that federally-funded insurance programs that allow guys to take a blue pill, to help them have sex, is what, precisely?

It’s also about a rape culture that makes the responsibility for men’s bad impulses largely the responsibility of women. Read this account about a religious college. Watch this satiric video. And rape has been a HUGE issue in the military, with the junior US Senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, making sexual assault there her signature issue, though her legislative efforts suffered a defeat this week. Now, military sexual assault victims are stepping out of the shadows.

This actively creeps into the political arena: According to Watchdog.net:

Starting this November, Texans must show a photo ID with their up-to-date legal name instead of IDs like a birth certificate. That’s not a problem for single or married men — but it leaves a third of Texas women scrambling in a state with just 81 DMVs in its 254 counties.

And Ken Buck is running for US Senate from Colorado, again, with policies no less backward than when he ran four years ago.

Some Maine dimwad has to apologize for saying men should have rape rights if women have abortion rights.

Casual sexism is quite pervasive, in the gaming industry, in science, just to note a couple of recent examples. And in addressing these types of issues, women are often viewed as “oversensitive” or “shrill” or “don’t have a sense of humor” or the C-word.

Income inequality, in which the poor get poorer, affects female-headed households even more than male-headed households.

As the father of a daughter, I feel that the war on women in the US – and do believe a war on women exists, for reasons better stated by others – is detrimental, not only to my girl’s future, not only to women’s future but to men’s as well. There’s some quote that notes that when we limit some of our people, all of our people suffer.

Equality, rape culture, and the war on women

So, is there a “war on women” when women at war are being raped?

I’ve been thinking about the rights of women a LOT lately. There are so many examples of what’s wrong – and to be sure a couple that are right – that it’s overwhelmed me. (And it’s taken at least a couple of weeks to write this piece.)

In New York State, “The Women’s Equality Agenda will safeguard women’s health, extend protections against sexual harassment in the workplace, help to achieve pay equity, and increase protections against discrimination in employment, housing, credit, and lending.” Sounds wonderful, of course. The big hangup for some is over abortion rights, a huge issue.

But I think the conversation about whether there is a “war on women” had been framed too much on abortion and birth control – sometimes reframed by the talking heads, to be sure.

Though there does seem to be a sexual component in all of this. In his review about Fiona Apple’s song Criminal, MDS writes: “Let’s just admit something upfront right now: as a society, we are all pretty much terrified of girls and young women having sex. Terrified. Been that way since the beginning of time, I guess. Which is why for a while there we bottled up virginity in exchange for land before the wedding ceremony. Chastity belts and dowries are mostly archaic things that no society really trades in anymore, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t figured out new ways of badly dealing with girls and young women and their sex-having. We slut-shame. A lot.”

You’ll find gender issues in comics and other entertainment, including the suggestion that the woman of a married couple in the comic business got where she was because of him when she in fact had several credits before they even dated. Someone complains about the lack of female protagonists in video games is savaged on Twitter.

So, is there a “war on women” when women at war are being raped? Recently, and I’m quoting Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) here: “The Senate Armed Services Committee held its first full hearing on sexual assault in the military in a decade. Of the twenty witnesses, only two were there as victim advocates. The other 18 were representing the top ranks of the military and uniformly opposed our efforts to reform the military justice system.”

Meanwhile, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) suggested that the “hormone level created by nature” was to blame for rapes in the military and that all pregnant servicewomen should be investigated to make sure their condition was the result of consensual sex.

Former baseball star Jose Canseco’s defense of a rape allegation against him is that he doesn’t HAVE to rape to get women to bed, showing his sheer ignorance. Then he makes his situation worse by going on Twitter and attacks his accuser by name.

What caught my attention more recently was comedian Patton Oswalt’s reversal about rape as a source of humor. “I was secure in thinking my point of view was right. That ‘rape culture’ was an illusion, that the examples of comedians telling ‘rape jokes’ in which the victim was the punchline were exceptions that proved the rule. I’ve never wanted to rape anyone. No one I know has ever expressed a desire to rape anyone. My viewpoint must be right. Right?” It’s long (addresses two other topics) and rambling, but makes an interesting point.

A report on working moms came out. It showed that 40% of the households have moms that are either sole breadwinners or making more than their husbands; BTW, that latter category would include MY household. The men at FOX News were so histrionic: “Society dissolv[ing] around us,” said Lou Dobbs. A sign of “something going terribly wrong in American society,” said Juan Williams. Erick Erickson chimed in and said having moms as breadwinners were against “biology” and said people who defend moms are “anti-science.”

Happily, they got slammed by their female colleagues on FOX, including Megan Kelly. This particular article also disses some of the MSNBC women for not calling to task the men on their network, notably Chris Matthews, over the stupid, hateful things THEY have said. Don’t know if it’s Rachel Maddow’s job to do so, but I agree that Matthews, for one, has made vile, sexist comments, especially about Hillary Clinton.

I haven’t even scratched the surface: e.g., Texas governor Rick Perry recently vetoed an equal pay bill. Instead, I’ll hang on my great hope from the words of Jean Luc Picard himself, Patrick Stewart, which you should just watch. He speaks, among other things, about the role men must play in curbing violence against women.

WTF? Cavemen in America

It’s baffling that some folks seem to have gone all retrograde in America, with particular men deciding when women should get pregnant.

I try not to write about politics too much, I really do, mostly so that I don’t make myself crazy. But a series of related events, which I would not have imagined would be part of the public discourse in the USA in 2012, ARE front-page news.

First, the Republican-led Congress convened a panel of “experts”, most of whom railed against employer insurance plans covering birth control. Interestingly, they happened to be mostly a bunch of guys. The odd thing is that many of these same insurance plans with contraceptive coverage that the panel was railing against will cover Viagra and similar products that will be a sexual aid, even for (gasp!) unmarried men.

So some Democrats allowed Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke to testify from a different perspective, e.g., a woman’s, regarding women’s reproductive health care; LISTEN to her opening statement. Note that Fluke’s comments were primarily about the use of contraceptives for other purposes, such as to avoid ovarian cysts. A windbag named Rush Limbaugh slandered Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute,” then, in response to the outrage of his remarks, exclaimed that he would “buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want.” (It would be off-topic, I suppose, to note that Limbaugh has been married four times and has no children, suggesting at least the possibility of contraception use.) The talk radio guy eventually offered a limp apology after sponsors left his show.

Limbaugh’s comments echoed those of Foster Friess, Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s billionaire supporter: “And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s [so] inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

Santorum, who apparently has distanced himself from Limbaugh’s “slut” comment in an “oh, but he’s an entertainer” remark, talks about “the dangers of contraception”: “Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘… contraception’s okay.’ It’s not okay… because…[things in the sexual realm are] supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal … but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that’s not for purposes of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can’t you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure. And that’s certainly a part of it—and it’s an important part of it, don’t get me wrong—but there’s a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.” I think Santorum has the perfect right to express his opinion, but my concern is that these issues would likely dominate his policies if he were elected.

If that weren’t enough, the Girl Scouts of America are under attack by some shady group because the GSA has “liberal progressive troop leaders [who] will indoctrinate the girls in their troop according to the principles of Planned Parenthood.” Oy.

It’s baffling that some folks seem to have gone all retrograde in America, with particular men deciding when women should get pregnant, while railing against the number of children born out of wedlock, and wanting to cut funds to them. Or maybe it’s just that these dudes want women to shut the hell up, particularly about issues that primarily impact women. I have to check my calendar. Nope, it’s not 1952. In fact, I don’t think the country was as backward 60 years ago as these folks are today.

The Pregnant Woman, La Donna Gravida by Raphael, 1507

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial