Post-election, Still a Feminist

America-hating liberal here.  Anyone up for a terrorist bump?

I’m having post-election musings about feminism post-Palin.  Oh, those conservatives—to borrow a line from Stephen King—hypocrisy so transparent you could read a newspaper through it.   They’ve been rallying round the subjugation of women, discrimination against women, hypocritical double standards in sexual conduct for women, and they’ve been demanding submission from women.  Then, when their female crusader for all of the above was called out not on her clothing, but on her lavish spending on clothing while hard-working, decent Americans are losing all but the clothes on their backs, they screamed sexism.  That is truly rich—the rest of us show outrage at this calloused display of greed, and we turn Republicans into feminists.  Who would have thought, through all these years, that that’s all it would take?  And now that we’ve got them boasting about their feminist hearts and souls, maybe we can convince them to support reproductive rights, pay equity, and all the rest. 

Anyway.  As to their smear of feminists as “man-hating.”  Just some anecdotal insights into this: I’m acquainted with feminists and women who hate feminists.  No doubt, I’m sure there are women calling themselves feminists who hate men.  I’ve never met one.  I’m not one.  Hatred for half the human race based on how they were born, gee, don’t feminists fight that?  I wouldn’t call a woman who hates men a feminist.  But when I hear feminist-hating women let fly, wow. 

This is how it goes: they view feminists as naive in the sense that we give men credit for too much.  As they tell it to me, men are rats, bums, no good, and always will be.  We feminists need to face up to that.  We are foolish to try to appeal to decency and honor in men when we insist on our rights because men aren’t capable of showing decency or honor toward women.  We should resign ourselves to that.   We should face the facts according to feminist-haters.  They say men can’t be trusted not to cheat on us, lie to us, demean and abuse us, so we should be real, tough women.  We should suck it up and deal with it.  Curious, this last part, given that the conservative take on women is that we’re inherently too weak and timid to hold public office. 

This from an ideology that produced a woman brazen enough to parade around in designer duds someone else paid for, when she isn’t shooting moose from a helicopter that isn’t hers.

A Man’s Pro-Choice Matter

This is the only bind I can think of that a man would face, that compares to that of a woman facing a crisis pregnancy and the specter of abortion:

A man—I’ll call him John—has a rare type of body chemistry, like a blood type or some other raw body material or organ.  An ailing person—I’ll call her Mary—never having committed any offense or crime in her life, needs some of this raw body material of John’s because it’s the only compatible type accessible to Mary’s health care system.  If John’s raw body material isn’t donated to Mary, she will die.

The process of getting John’s raw body material from his body to Mary’s is arduous.  John will be increasingly less mobile and more confined over several months in preparation for making the transfer of his body material to Mary.  He will face restrictions in diet and in medication he can take, so as not to taint the body material, making it useless for Mary.  This process will culminate in an unfathomably painful, hours-long process.  Doctors will not give him any pain medication for fear that it might harm Mary and render his body material useless.  This process is so rigorous as to cause possible trauma to John, leaving him altered forever afterward.  He will face a long recovery period.  Mary is totally, utterly dependent on John for her life.  If John does not go through this process and donate his raw body material to her, she will die.

I cannot think of any anti-legalized-abortion leaders who have called for a man in this situation to be forced by law to donate to a recipient who will die without the donation. 

A double standard?

Just One Sarah Palin Issue

My head is spinning.  Contemplating where to begin about Sarah Palin’s nomination by John McCain as his running mate, it’s enough to make anyone grab for the nearest wall. 

I’m going to make myself stick to just one of her utterances, one I heard often from Phyllis Schlafly, on the issue of job discrimination.  She and John McCain oppose legislation enforcing equal pay for equal work, and conservatives in general oppose action against discrimination against women.  Palin’s rationale went this way:  instead of we women “whining” about discrimination—dismissing us as weak and sniveling if we insist that discrimination cease—she urges us to “go the extra mile” (I’m paraphrasing).  She tells us we should just strive to achieve even greater excellence.  She says we should be willing to have to show much greater merit than men working alongside us to achieve close to the same pay.  She—and conservatives—claim that all it takes is for women to become qualified and to prove ourselves for discrimination to cease.

If that were true, discrimination would have ceased at the latest, in the 19th Century.

I can’t wrap my brain around this—an enlightened people actively, vigilantly watches for injustice, and when finding it, seeks to end it.  An enlightened people doesn’t tolerate injustice or make excuses for it. 

We’re supposed to vote for people whose ideology holds them to standards this low?  Palin holds herself and her Republican peers to standards of decency and honor this low while she preaches to women to fight discrimination with high standards of job performance? 

How anyone affords people of this persuasion any credibility boggles my mind.

Why I will vote Republican

Way too funny not to share. Thanks to Bust.

Can She Get A Witness?

This morning I was listening to NPR as usual during my morning routine, and I have to say I am pretty disappointed because of their lack of coverage on how misogynist the media has been towards Hillary.

A woman was speaking when I first woke up to the radio alarm, a reporter for NPR reflecting on how the first female candidate for president has made some kind of impact on her as a woman and probably the rest of the world too, regardless that Hillary may not have even gotten her vote. Well that’s awesome, really it is.It’s just that the piece was just…well, it was weak. The reporter looks back to when she covered Geraldine Ferraro’s selection to the Democratic vice presidential position in 1984, the first woman to get to that spot, and ends the piece with a description of another female colleague and herself tearing up, still all well and good. But the impact of that short piece was less a tribute to how incredibly remarkable this even is, it came off with the taste of letting the girls have some fun for a while–oh look, a lady tearing up, how cute…

I was also left with this feeling of . . . but . . . but that’s it? What about all of the sexism and misogyny in the reporting around her? What about all of the really sickly pessimistic way so many people are predicting there won’t be another female candidate for president in a generation or more? Why are you still not covering this NPR?

How can we just kiss Hillary off with a “Well you did good, and we won’t forgetchya gal”? I’m not talking about political platforms and who is a better candidate, I’m talking about the mistreatment Hillary has been getting, and all women have been getting by extension.

Next, NPR’s David Greene is on with a a few interviews and close ups he’d done with Hillary earlier on in the race up through a few weeks ago. NPR’s aim was obviously to leave listeners with the feeling that Hillary did a good job, had supporters who told her NOT to give up (while pundits and commentators yelled that she is a sore loser for not quitting earlier), but still, I was left hurt and unfulfilled by it. First of all, why hadn’t NPR aired Greene’s interviews two months ago when almost nothing positive about her was being aired?

And secondly, why no in-depth discussion on the sexism in this race, the misogyny? I’m deeply disappointed with NPR.

The blatant hate that people spewed at Hillary this campaign needs to be accounted for, and the hate messages that came from middle-class liberals and others’ tacit support of it especially needs to be accounted for.

And if you’re still saying to yourself, what more do you want? Here is example the likes of which I wish NPR would cover so brilliantly so that more people would be exposed to it. It’s a post by a brilliant blogger, Melissa McEwan, that does more justice to the issue: For the Record.

And if you liked that, here’s her response to all of the misogynist responses she got to that post.

PS–If any of you have heard NPR cover this issue better, please let us know in the comments section.

I Have to Vent: It’s the Conservatives, Stupid!

Okay, that isn’t a very civil title, but the stakes are high and I can’t contain myself.

I’m a 55-year-old white woman. Our greatest matter of urgency is to be sure a Democrat becomes President in November, and to get as many Democrats as possible elected to both houses of Congress. We’ve also got to do that at the local, grassroots levels. When we’re finished doing that, we’ve got to hold the Democrats accountable for what they do or don’t do. We’ve got to demand representation, respect, and results. If they descend to the depths of the Republicans—or even come close—, we need to fire them all and hire new elected officials. We need to repeat the process until they get the message that we mean business. We need to be uppity women and citizens.

I’ve never supported any political candidate enough to campaign or canvass for them. I’ve observed them all, and none of them inspires my impassioned belief in them. And until now I’ve been able to keep a respectful silence while others with very strong feelings for either Democratic Presidential candidate have public melt-downs when their candidate has a political setback.

I can’t keep quiet now. I’ve just been watching a white woman in my age group on CNN going radioactive about how she’s going to vote for John McCain if HIllary Rodham Clinton doesn’t get the Democratic nomination. She gave as her rationale for this chop-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face tactic that the Democratic party has turned on its women supporters.

To this woman, if you and others like you are reading this: Im sure you aren’t in the majority of Clinton supporters. But you’d like the proven record of Republican conservatives for their all-out war on women’s rights? We’re now paying the price for three decades of conservative domination in America—what it’s done to the American character; the fact of American commerce now as morally bankrupt as it is; the abuses of Wall Street; the abuse of the environment; the poisonous cynicism and corruption of this administration; the use of torture, illegal wiretaps—I could go on for pages.

Back to the issue of women’s rights. You, Screaming Woman: you are old enough to remember the pre-Roe v. Wade days in America. Remember coat hangers, Drano, women hurtling themselves down stairs, illegal abortions performed on garage floors without anesthesia? Remember women dying and left unable to bear children from illegal botched abortions? Remember birth control—even birth control information—outlawed? Remember the early 1970s, when a woman could not get a credit card or a bank loan in her own name—when a woman needed an adult male co-signer’s permission for them because we were deemed incompetent to manage our own financial affairs? Remember gender-segregated “Help Wanted” ads, with the best-paying jobs always in the “MALE HELP WANTED” column? Remember when sexual harassment and sex discrimination were legal? Remember when a woman being used as a punching bag by her husband had no recourse—no earning power, no options, and when the police she turned to often were abusers themselves and sympathized with the husband? Remember when we had no rape shield laws and when marital rape was legal? Remember when domestic violence shelters weren’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye?

If I remember all of that—and I do—then you do, too, Screaming Woman. Republicans fought the changes that spare today’s women the horrors and humiliations they endured then, and too often still do. Give the Republican Party platform a close reading. They want to return us to those days, want it so bad they can taste it. And because the Democratic Party enacts a decision you (and maybe I) don’t agree with, you’re really going to show them, aren’t you, and vote for McCain? The same McCain who, in front of a group of people and in a fit of mouth-frothing rage, called his wife a cunt? The same McCain who mocked Chelsea Clinton—a child at the time—as ugly? The same McCain who vows to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? The same McCain who laughed when a Republican woman asked him, on camera, “How do we beat the bitch?”—referring to Clinton, your candidate of choice? The Democratic Party’s decision is worse than this?

Please. Get things in perspective. I do not consent to watching Republicans—the American Taliban—imposing their misogynistic agenda on my nieces. Grow up. I seldom use language this strong, and I understand your anger. No one wants to see a woman President more than I do. But remember who our adversaries are. Remember what theyr’e made of, remember the damage they’ve done already and the worse damage they will surely do if we vote them back into power. Truly, Screaming Woman, I cannot wrap my brain around any woman willing to hand all American’s women over to these American Taliban if Clinton doesn’t get the nomination.

You implied in your meltdown that the Democratic Party is making a calculated effort to prevent a woman from winning the nomination because she’s a woman. News flash: it’s possible to support Obama and not be a misogynistic goon.

I had to get that out of my system. Now please, calm down and do this. Think critically, interpret accurately what the candidates say and do, reach informed decisions based on their judgment, character, track record, and positions on the issues, and don’t abuse the vote—a precious right—that women fought so courageously to win.

“Sexism Sells But We’re Not Buying It”

Hearing all of these opinions in one video is sickening. Head over to the Women’s Media Center to sign the petition.

The Painful Matter of Women Against Women

Recently I time traveled to a place in the past I never wanted to revisit.

Washington University, in St. Louis, awarded anti-women’s-rights activist Phyllis Schlafly an honorary degree at its May 16 Commencement ceremony, amid protests. The next day Schlafly appeared on TV to react to the protests. What a sorry blast from the past. She was in her usual form; with mirth and glee she kicks people who are already down, and she displayed her usual gloating and taunting, offensive to any viewer with even a nominal sense of decency. Indeed, age has not endowed Schlafly with any decency. She is too lacking in that attribute to be ranked among public figures deserving of respect. With her remarks about marital rape in particular (that a woman consents carte blanche to sex on demand once she marries), she spoke volumes about herself. By contrast, the feminists who fought hard to outlaw marital rape merit the status of sheroes.

Undeserving as she was of the attention she drew, Schlafly revived a matter of anguish to feminists we need urgently to address, namely, that of women who reject the idea of women’s—-their own—-equality. Seeing her sorry behavior made me ponder the painful matter of women who tolerate, even demand, women’s subjugation.

I struggle to understand women’s resistance to equality, to explain its whys and wherefores, and to discern how to overcome it. The issue is fraught with painful conflict and complexity. This isn’t about a bald-faced opportunist like Schlafy, who has profited handsomely from grinding her heel into the necks of other women. It’s about patriarchy subjecting women to powerful pressure, manipulation, and coercion through the millennia. Not surprisingly, many women give in to the pressure to sit down and be quiet. Daunting forces are at work: raw fear and a lack of informed consent. We face not only male adversaries in overcoming these forces. We must also rise to the task of instilling in all women the resolve to defy our oppressors. The latter is the greater challenge.

The task of understanding and overcoming women’s resistance to equality is fraught with pitfalls. We must resist the impulse to lash out in anger at women who reject equality. Nothing justifies patronizing, condescending, demeaning treatment; nothing justifies name-calling. We need to fix our sights on our true adversary, namely, the patriarchy that has subjugated women through time immemorial by dividing us.

Fear—-sometimes conscious and palpable, sometimes unconscious, but always justified—-keeps women subjugated. This can be fear of retaliation from powerful men, which women have good reason to fear. Men do retaliate, sometimes savagely and lethally, when women defy them. Counselors at domestic violence centers and shelters can attest to this; a woman is at her greatest risk of being murdered by her abuser once she has escaped him, gone to the authorities, and obtained a court order requiring him to end all contact with her. And scholars attribute the global rise in fundamentalism—-and its oppression—- to a resistance to “modernization,” read, advances in women’s rights. Many women fear equality for fear of incurring the wrath of male supremacists. They feel it wisest to quietly settle with what men “allow” them because they see how harshly men brutalize women in other parts of the world.

Fear in other forms can also keep women down. For example, fear of the responsibility that comes with freedom can work against women. If you’re emancipated enough to act of your own volition, to earn and manage your own finances, to have finances to manage, to make your own life’s choices, then you’re also emancipated enough to bear the responsibility for bad judgment and unwise decisions. And none of us is perfect. No one goes through life without slipping up. And we are responsible for decisions we make out of informed consent. That’s as it should be. Fearfulness isn’t a problem as long as we’ve learned to overcome our fears. But many women grow up in families and communities that instill fearfulness in girls and women instead of teaching them the skills to overcome fear, instead of building confidence in them—-instead of teaching them that life’s inevitable mistakes are opportunities for learning and growing. Such girls and women are taught to believe in their own inferiority, weakness, and lack of intelligence. Once that goal is met, patriarchy has what it wants: fearful women who are easy to control. Patriarchy spares women the responsibility that comes with freedom—-the responsibility they fear—-and those women learn to prefer that, even at the expense of their freedom. I once spoke with a woman who said of her subjugation, “I feel safe this way.”

But that feeling is illusory and it comes at a staggering price. The false sense of security grows from a lack of informed consent. Oppressors know that the crucial part of keeping a people subjugated isn’t strong shackles or bars with heavy keys; it’s control of the psyche, and once oppressors have that they can hand the keys to their captives without fear of their fleeing. Fear goes a long way in gaining the upper hand, but controlling knowledge matters more. Scholars estimate that during the slavery era in America, about 100,000 slaves tried to escape. Escape attempts were suppressed in newspapers and not widely discussed, for fear of slaves in captivity taking courage from that knowledge and trying to escape themselves. Lacking informed consent, slaves stayed put.

The status quo uses the same tactic against women. Until recent decades, the writings of women and their courageous, solitary acts of defiance were suppressed. Only recently have they begun to reach contemporary women; only now can we read first- and second-hand accounts of their valor and endurance. Consider: The Diary of Lady Murasaki, which she recorded in Japan in the late 10th Century; As I Crossed A Bridge of Dreams, attributed to Lady Sarashina of the Heian period in Japan, born in a.d. 1008; Anne Askew, burned at the stake in 1546 for daring to challenge the roles of women and the dynamics between women and men; Anna Comnena, author of Alexiad , written in the 12th Century about the reign of her father, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I; Aphra Behn, the 17th Century English poet, playwright, novelist, and political satirist; and countless women who defied convention just by writing. We take courage from the defiance of these women, from their singular acts of escape. Indeed, many women tried to escape, more than we will ever know. Contemporary women who never hear of these women do not give informed consent to their subjugation. That doesn’t make it any less painless to witness, but it explains their hostility to equality.

The distant defiance of these brave women validates the feminist movement. Under the constant threat of violence, abandonment, even death, women still fought back. The fact that a feminist movement even exists today, given the legacy of terror used to keep us down, lends the movement unquestioned higher moral ground. No one can deny us that. Incredibly, despite this we face the formidable task of winning over women. But our anger, justified as it is, should not grow from the resistance of women affected by thousands of years of powerful conditioning. It should take the form of resolve to get past patriarchy’s guard dogs, vicious as they are. And we can expect to confront them anywhere—-even, sadly, in institutions of higher learning.

Go Ellen!

I know it’s everywhere, but just wanted to make sure you see it!!

John McCain and Ellen DeGeneres talk about same-sex marriage.

Holy Shit, C’mon People

I’m reeling at this. And at how people are reacting to it, and how Clinton was forced to react to it.

First of all: God forbid Hillary Clinton get upset about something that she deserves to be damned angry about. She calmly and with some humor, stated: “Oh the remnants of sexism, alive and well tonight.” The woman can’t move an inch without someone speculating on whether she’ll break down as president or is too aggressive about her politics. She is maneuvering through a field full of tightly rigged land mines ready to go off about how incapable she is because of this or that expression of humanity.

Second, as I drop my jaw, there are people speculating now that the Clinton camp planted these guys. WTF? Are we really going to sit back and watch as men and women who claim to to be enlightened belch out the sentiments of chastity belts and head coverings for woman because women are guilty of their own mistreatments?

The NYT’s journalist called the men “Yahoos” and followed them outside to find out “what the heck they were thinking”? This is ridiculous. The tone here is of chastising a naughty school boy, not a serious confrontation with someone who JUST BROKE THE LAW..

Why is it that people don’t see sexism as clearly as they do racism? It’s not rocket science–If someone in the audience of an Obama gathering had shouted out “Pick my cotton, pick my cotton,” I doubt the NYT would call him a Yahoo or “a couple of jokesters,” and let it be at that.

Obama still inspires me more, and I’m having a hard time not contributing that to the fact that I am supposed to think Clinton looks out of place in a position of power, and that I am supposed to be likening Obama with MLK.

With every sexist remark or look a woman has to repell, she is fighting for her share of power that she has barely been able to touch yet.