Attitude toward women sliding backward?

[Guest Recluse]

Now, for most of my life, I haven't considered myself a feminist in the truest sense. I've always really felt that in the United States, in most things, women and men are equal. I realize that some of these things are a bone of contention, and that this might start a few fights, but I've got to get this off my chest, whether or not I end up duking it out with some of the commenters that follow.

What the fuck is this shit? Seriously?

Manditory Transvaginal Ultrasound for Aborting Women? This measure isn't created out of a desire to help women. This is created for the sole purpose of shaming vulnerable women against aborting, make it a lengthier process, and what goes unsaid too much of the time, make it a much more expensive process. I'm sorry, but whether or not you like it or agree with it, is their goddamn right, and their right is being taken away, not because it's somehow physically good for them, but because of religious values encroaching on the state.

Opposition to birth control for all women no matter what faith? I realize that freedom of religion entitles people to believe whatever they like, but the reality of the situation is that those beliefs end where the law and where the state begin. That's what separation of church and state was meant to protect. By law, all women, no matter what religion they profess to be, should be entitled to the choice of receiving birth control for whatever goddamn reason they want. If they are true believers of an anti-contraception faith, they don't have to accept it, but the choice to have free and unfettered access to it should be given to them anyway, even if they choose not to use it on the basis of religion...also, it's no one's goddamn business but their own if they do.

I'm sure the sizable percentage of Catholic, Evangelical, and Mormon women who's personal views on contraception differ from their church of choice would agree. Those women deserve the same rights as the rest of us godless heathens.

Moralistic insult of women who use birth control for it's intended purpose? The fact that anyone agrees with this fuckwit is beyond me. I'm really glad that there was a massive uprising of people who disagreed and acted on that opposition, but at the same time, the Sandra Fluke situation didn't start with Rush. It started with an all-male panel including five male religious leaders who spoke against the contraception measure...read that again if it didn't anger you enough. All Male Panel.

Suddenly, moralistic crazies are coming out of the woodwork. What the fuck, America? I realize that some of this is isolated to the especially crazypants states, but that still doesn't make it okay. Anywhere.

Georgian Republican Compares Women to Livestock? <- Also forbids abortion to remove dead fetal tissue.

Arizona Wants to Use Contraceptive Use as Cause to Fire Women? <- Yes, Arizona is 'at will', but there has to be a limit.

Wants to Demand Proof of Non-Sexual Contraception Usage? <- In violation of every health privacy law in the books.

Failure to Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. <- Because they totally don't need the help.

Lawmaker Suggests Beaten Ladies 'Remember the Good Times' <- If this doesn't enrage you, you aren't fucking human.

I keep waiting to see something to the effect of, 'New Law Requires Women in Public to Have a Related Male Chaperone At All Times.'

This is fucking horrifying. Even more horrifying than the McCain/Palin ticket was. I feel like I'm taking crazypills. Oh...wait...

[Guest]

What makes me giggle and laugh is that you can make any headline you want, and it will seem reasonable for these people.

Someone should invade America 'Because they have WMDs' and perform a cleansing of the idiots.

[malachite]

All this sliding backward reminds me of Margaret Atwood's book, "The Handmaid's Tale." The more I see what is going on, the more I can envision her dystopia.

[crtclms]

Malachite, every now and then I wonder about how dependent on my ATM card I am. Remember, that was the first restriction replaced on women, and they enforced it by deactivating all the women's ATM cards.

I have always looked at A Handsmaid's Tale as a warning, more than just a story.

[bpladybug]

I think somehow the very existence of the Tea Party as 'legitimate' creates an environment

where we are sliding backwards. It is true. Your observation is accurate.

And it started with the racism that the Palin/McCain rallies ignited.

[jt07]

What's upsetting to me and what I don't understand is why Americans continue to elect politicians who pander to these ultra-right religious nuts which are in fact in the minority. Why do people vote against their own best interests? It's time for politicians and their parties to grow up and join the 21st Century.

[malachite]

That's right, crtclms. They did deactivate all the atm cards with an "F" for female on them. I would have no money since I always use my card.

[december_brigette]

As some others have said I, too, very much fear a life of _A Handmaid's Tale_. The book, not the movie, please!!!

To the point where i think my child will be taken away from me because she was not born in wedlock. And that she will be forced to be a child bride.

I might get preggers but i don't think the embryo (or "baby" as republicans prefer) would stick because of my past history and then having to do it with an old guy whose sperm is old and doesn't swim very fast.

I don't have anywhere to escape to. I know canada has me on a list. And mexico is iffy.

THEY will probably throw me out in the nuclear sludge.

***********************

Back to real life - my congresswoman is democrat and I sent her an email a few weeks ago about the war on women and she responded. She kicks ass!! Her email is the one bit of sunshine hope I see in this horrible mess.

db

[olga]

If the moderate (and silent) majority in this country doesn't get off its butt and take a stand, we will go back to being chattel like we were in the 19th century.

I remember the days when women couldn't go to Harvard and Yale, and the other Ivy League schools. I remember having to put up with sexual harassment at work because there was no Equal Opportunity commission and that behavior was considered normal in the workplace. I was told in high school that women could be teachers, nurses or secretaries. I remember when women teachers started at a lower salary than men because the men had "a family to support."

I remember the abject terror of thinking I was pregnant back when abortion was illegal. They had birth control pills, but only women who were married or over 21 could get them. Condoms were kept below the counter in the drug store and you had to ask a clerk for them. We could go back there. We're headed that way right now. It's goddamn scary.

olga

[WinterRosie]

This is precisely why I consider myself a feminist: because without us standing up, using our voices, our actions, and our bodies, we will come to a place where we need feminists more than ever but have lost the skills and the knowledge and the drive to fight for what is ours.

My grandmother fought (sometimes literally) for us to have those rights and my mother carried it on. It would be tragic if I didn't carry that forward.

[fantod]

Good post, Recluse. The shit does not cease to fly.

I am afraid that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house", and how this can be when the US population is 155+ million women to 152-something-million men hurts my brain.

Will read Dworkin's "Right-wing Women" again if I really want to spiral down.

Twitter's tales of sexism

[psychsteph22]

Things like this are also one reason I consider myself a feminist. I personally don't believe these attitudes are only just now popping up. I think they have been embedded in our society for a very long time.

I know this is only a personal anecdote, but I grew up out in the rural Bible Belt, with a family background that still believes that the woman should be the first one up cooking, and the last one in bed cooking and cleaning. She can't go to bed too late though! That just proves she's the lazy deadbeat everyone told her husband she was. Also, housework doesn't count as "real" work. A woman deserves no credit for it as she is just fulfilling her natural role. Everyone knows cooking and cleaning all day is easy anyway! She should be out working too, and bringing in money for her husband. She should have as many children as her husband wants, and be ecstatic for every one. She cannot go out for a good time with her friends, because everyone knows that's just code for "having lots of affairs". She should be satisfied only going out for errands, and occasionally going out "with the family".

Can you tell I'm slightly bitter? I grew up with this crap.

[crtclms]

I am afraid that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house", and how this can be when the US population is 155+ million women to 152-something-million men hurts my brain.

OMG, that is one of my favorite quotations, seriously. I think I am going to change the words on my avatar, I'm feeling kinda militant these days. This is such an elemental point, but it makes me so disappointed in us as human beings.

Do you know anything about Critical Race Theory? That quotation is practically a mantra for the scholars involved in the study of Critical Race Theory. And if you do know anything about Critical Race Theory, could you please explain it to me? I can only understand the most basic theory, I can't elaborate on it *at all.*

Actually, if ANYONE on the board understands Critical Race Theory, PLEASE pm me. On CBs, you never know who might happen to know about a particular topic.

[fantod]

Crtclms, no, I dropped out my first year as a WS minor and am no use re: CRT. On re-reading Sister Outsider (or trying, through my brain fuzz), using the quote the way I did is mis-interpreting Lorde, taking the "master's tools" out of its context regarding internal struggles in feminism and using it instead to refer to the larger oppressive patriarchal-kyriarchal systems in which sexist and misogynist men want to control women, and women are complicit in their own oppression/vicimization (through fear, religious brainwashing, cultural brainwashing). I think I was confusing some of Right Wing Women with The Master's Tools. Sorry, my brain is mush and I can't express myself worth crap right now.

[Guest]

It's happening here in the UK too, power regarding abortion is being given to anti abortion religious groups, albeit a lot less obviously with a lot less news about it. It scares me.

[confused]

This all makes me so angry. Thanks for putting my thoughts into words.

Totally, totally off-topic, but why don't these guys have to worry?

Porn titans not worried about Rick Santorum banning their business

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/porn-titans-not-worried-rick-santorum-banning-business-192050828.html

"Fortunately, we become a more tolerant society over time. We're increasingly accepting of others engaging in activities that we, ourselves, might not do because we don't want others telling us what we can and can't do."

Not casting judgement, but I want to be able to be able to say that and mean it

[Kodos]

What the fuck is this shit? Seriously?

Opposition to birth control for all women no matter what faith? I realize that freedom of religion entitles people to believe whatever they like, but the reality of the situation is that those beliefs end where the law and where the state begin. That's what separation of church and state was meant to protect.

The 1st Amendment was designed to protect the church from the state, not the state from the church. Although your larger point is that the government is secular, with laws created through a democratic process - not through church authorities or whatever.

By law, all women, no matter what religion they profess to be, should be entitled to the choice of receiving birth control for whatever goddamn reason they want. If they are true believers of an anti-contraception faith, they don't have to accept it, but the choice to have free and unfettered access to it should be given to them anyway, even if they choose not to use it on the basis of religion...also, it's no one's goddamn business but their own if they do.

I'm sure the sizable percentage of Catholic, Evangelical, and Mormon women who's personal views on contraception differ from their church of choice would agree. Those women deserve the same rights as the rest of us godless heathens.

Agree with this 100%. Women can choose whatever form of birth control they like - or choose not to use it. Just as anyone else is free to eat a Big Mac, drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco - or not. Personal choice - the state needs to butt out.

But that's not the issue. That's the spin that has been successfully applied to it. Nor is there a War Against Women. Complete fabrication and a political strategy by the democrats. It all started Jan. 7, 2012 with George Stephanopoulos asking Mitt Romney an unexpected question about contraception at the Republican debate. Mitt replied, correctly, that no one was talking about that, there are no policy proposals on that, and it hasn't been an issue in the campaign. No Republican candidate, then or now, is advancing any policy proposals on contraception. George was just prepping the field for Obama's actions later in the month.

So what is the issue? Consider - you have the right to use birth control. Fine. But can the government require someone else to pay for your birth control - even if it violates that person's deeply held religious beliefs? The issue is one of religious freedom - as provided for in the 1st amendment. The department of Health and Human Services issued rules that will require Catholic employers to offer, free of charge, health coverage the includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraceptives -- all three of which the Catholic Church considers a grave sin! Does the federal government have the power to set aside Catholic teachings and impose it's own moral code on the Catholic Church? I hope we can agree that the federal government does not have that power and should not have that power.

Wants to Demand Proof of Non-Sexual Contraception Usage? <- In violation of every health privacy law in the books.

Ha, health privacy. Your insurance company knows every medical service you're receiving and every drug you're taking. In addition, you're required to supply any and all information needed to process benefit claims - or have those claims rejected.

It's not at all unusual to have benefit plans that restrict drugs for certain approved diagnoses. For example, some plans will restrict when they'll pay for the drug Retin-A: ok for acne, rejected for wrinkle reduction. They may withhold benefits if they don't get a diagnosis code from your doctor. You want Provigil? OK for shift sleep disorder, excessive daytime sleepiness, and narcolepsy -- don't have those? Then no Provigil for you! [depends on your benefit plan]

So the women in question wouldn't have to notify their employer of anything. Their doctor would have to provide a diagnosis code to the insurance company, though.