Archives for Category "Civil Rights & Feminism"
April 4, 2008
Whose Bodily Integrity Now, Mister?
Apart from the personal fun and unfun (mostly unfun) of pregnancy, there are of course huge politics associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. I have lots of opinions about most aspects (and did even before I was pregnant), and those aspects I don't have opinions about yet, I'm sure I will soon. But the biggie, when it comes to pregnancy in the United States, is of course the question of a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. For the record, my own pregnancy (approaching 31 weeks) has only reinforced my views on this:No one should be forced or coerced by the state to be pregnant against their will.
I don't usually bother to read discussions about reproductive rights online much anymore - there is really nothing new under the sun, there. But, I was idly skimming this thread for some reason and was amused at one response to a guy (surely a guy) claiming that he's all about the pwecious babeeez...
Whatever works — as long as there are fewer abortions, I’m happy. If anyone’s “rights” get trampled on as a result of preventing that abortion, I really am not bothered by it. Now cry and moan.I thought the 'cry and moan' attempt at a coup de grace was telling, too, regarding this jerk's views on women who dare to assert their personhood. Anyway, the response was:
OK, here’s a suggestion. Every man could be forced to have a vasectomy. There could be a policy of storing several sperm samples before the procedure, or perhaps a system whereby one could apply for a temporary reversal in order to have a child. I think adopting such a policy would bring the abortion rate down to virtually zero, don’t you? So, given your insistence that it doesn’t matter whose rights get trampled on as long as the number of abortions is reduced, can we assume that you’d be entirely in favour of this?As we see over and over again, the promoted policies of the forced childbirth brigades are often in stark contrast to their supposed goals.
<=> | Comments: 1 | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Parenting / Religion & Politics
March 25, 2008
Virginia for the Haters
There is a lot TheGuy and I like about living in Virginia, but sometimes some of the idiot haters down in Richmond remind me of some of the things we really don't. The latest "conservative" display of bigotry and hate here in the great Commonwealth is rightwing Attorney General McDonnell claiming that state universities in Virginia do not have to offer in-state tuition to U.S.-born students whose parents happen to be undocumented immigrants. The ACLU of VA's Executive Director says:Under the AG’s line of reasoning, a U.S. citizen born in Virginia and who has spent his entire life here could be denied in-state tuition because his parents are not lawfully present. That’s patently unfair and a bit preposterous, if you think about it. At the very least it violates a fundamental tenet of U.S law -- that you do not punish children for the actions of their parents.It's not only bigoted, it's anti-American, and anti-education. But, I'm not really surprised.
These days, of course, stuff about education is starting to become personal for us. If we still happen to be in Virginia when it's time for TheLittleGuy to go to college, I will certainly encourage him to consider some of Virginia's fine colleges and universities to help save his poor parents some money. (I'll be suggesting options outside of VA too, I'm sure.) Hopefully, whatever wingnut Taliban-types are in office at the time won't be trying to deny access to education to my kid simply because his mother has some trait(s) they find undesirable. But, you know they would if they could.
<=> | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Parenting / Religion & Politics / Republicans / State & Local
January 24, 2008
My Outrage Meter is Pegged to Numb
Just when you think the misogyny can't get much worse, you find out how much lower they will go. ACM put it succinctly:Hillary faces an uphill battle against unconscious misogyny (where even those who "wouldn't mind a female President" don't realize how much their filters for evaluating her include sexist standards of comportment), but this attack genuinely leaves me wordless.Of course, one can't expect much outrage or support from most so-called "liberal" men who have a hate on for her for allegedly non-sexist reasons, because they can't seem to separate the sexist treatment she's receiving (and what that means for all women, in the political sphere and elsewhere) from their own personal dislike of her and her candidacy.
<=> | Comments: 55 | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Democrats
January 10, 2008
Tom Toles, Yesterday
<=> | Comments: 11 | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Democrats / Federal Politics / Media Dysfunction
November 14, 2007
Reagan's Racist Pandering
Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman at the New York Times have done a good job pushing back at those (like that idiot shill David Brooks) trying to whitewash Ronald Reagan's racist pandering during his candidacy and presidency.Krugman mocks the notion that bleating about "states rights" in a town where three civil rights workers were murdered was just an "innocent mistake":
Similarly, when Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South,” he didn’t mean to signal sympathy with segregationists. It was all an innocent mistake.Herbert:
In 1982, when Reagan intervened on the side of Bob Jones University, which was on the verge of losing its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating, he had no idea that the issue was so racially charged. It was all an innocent mistake.
And the next year, when Reagan fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission, it wasn’t intended as a gesture of support to Southern whites. It was all an innocent mistake.
Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.On a related note, Orcinus has a useful collection of strategies to use when people say bigoted or racist things right in front of you. Fortunately, I don't come up against that very often -- but there are certainly circumstances where I need to brace myself and be prepared for it, so it's good to have a few more handy tactics in my back pocket. Some of my favorites (not always applicable in all situations):
He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.
And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.
After the umpteenth spew of racial slurs at a family gathering, I informed my husband that the next time it happened I would gather our sons and he had five minutes to join me in the car or he was walking home. After doing this the in-laws got the hint and at least I don't have to hear it as often any more.I can't document my best comeback here but trust me, it was a good one. And funny. Ask me in person sometime.
I straight laugh at people, call them "Strom Thurmond" and "David Duke", tell them to go down to city hall and have a fruity-ass white pride parade in front until they feel good enough about themselves to not spout 150-year old stereotypes. [tho then there's the "fruity-ass" issue -- I probably wouldn't use that term!]
Gotta say, the best comeback of this thread is..."You are proud to have that opinion? Please explain." Racists, while not self-aware in general, are generally conscious enough to know when they have been called an asshole and yet have no reasonable recourse to violence in the face of a normal and polite question.
<=> | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Republicans
November 3, 2007
The Problem with "Illegal"
Dave over at Orcinus talks about the problem with the term "illegal" when referring to people who've immigrated to this country without proper documentation. He quotes Lawrence Downes from the NYT:Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.and then adds:
The biggest problem with insisting on labeling other people as "illegals" is that it utterly begs the question -- which, with 12 million people now fitting the description, becomes acute -- just how appropriate and workable are the laws that make them so in the first place.
<=> | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Federal Politics
November 2, 2007
Books on Fire
The Economist had a short but compelling review of "Books on Fire", in translation from the French -- it's a look at centuries of deliberate or careless destruction of books. I thought this paragraph sums up so well a dangerous, authoritarian, and theocratically-minded subset of American society that we've become all too familiar with in recent years:Books educate people and educated people ask awkward questions of those who govern them. The educated, in short, are considered ungovernable. Better to keep people ignorant of the past and to concentrate their minds upon the fanciful utopia that lies ahead.The Economist, in its usual wry way, had an amusing title for this review: Libraries: Nasty, Dangerous Things.
<=> | in: Books / Civil Rights & Feminism
September 21, 2007
Finis.
A majority of the United States Senate, including a significant number of "Democrats" has voted to condemn freedom of speech.And with that revolting display of utter capitulation, I have canceled my nominal recurring contribution to the DNC -- I'd set it up to show support for Howard Dean's efforts, but truly, I am finished. Everyone's got their breaking point.
Avedon sums it up very well. Some snippets:
Have you ever seen the Senate condemn Saxby Chambless for morphing his Democratic opponent with Osama bin Laden?And, really, they're probably all totally compromised by Dubya's 'warrantless surveillance' and being blackmailed. As Avedon also wrote:
Have you ever seen the Senate condemn Ann Coulter for calling for the assassination of a Supreme Court justice?
Have you ever seen the Senate condemn Fred Phelps?
And what about the attacks on General Wesley Clark, or the treatment of General Shinseki? Did they condemn that? Did they even manage to muster up a little outrage over the full-scale attack on anyone who'd ever been awarded a Purple Heart during the 2004 campaign?
No.
But the Republicans call on you to condemn a mainstream organization that tells the truth about Petreaus disgracing the uniform to act as Bush's personal political shill and you fall right in line. How dare you?.
I think I can speak for every Maryland voter when I say we did not vote for you to go to Washington just to condemn your own supporters.
We sent you there to hold this administration accountable, to restore the Constitution, and to end the occupation.
When are you going to start doing that?
I want open discussion of the fact that the Democrats have been voting in ways that are indefensible and that maybe this has something to do with Bush's little program to spy on American citizens. It's not as if there's any reason to think this administration is above doing things we know the Nixon administration did, after all. Maybe what I ought to be asking Mikulski and Cardin is, "What do they have on you?"See also here.
Spineless, gutless, principle-less Democrats. Anyone got an explanation other than complicity, gutlessness, or blackmail?
What a total joke.
I'm really going to be hard-pressed to vote again any time soon.
<=> | Comments: 1 | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Democrats
July 30, 2007
More Ways Women Get the Shaft
Not only are women paid less than men, but when they try to say it's our fault because we "don't ask", then we find out that women who do ask to be paid fairly, are perceived negatively, too!The traditional explanation for the gender differences that Babcock found is that men are simply more aggressive than women, perhaps because of a combination of genetics and upbringing. The solution to gender disparities, this school of thought suggests, is to train women to be more assertive and to ask for more.Got that? Can't win for trying.
[However..]
men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".
"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not."
"This isn't about fixing the women," Bowles said. "It isn't about telling women, 'You need self-confidence or training.' They are responding to incentives within the social environment."My advice is still to never accept the first offer. Negotiate. And hope like hell you're dealing with someone who doesn't subconsciously look down on women who stand up for themselves. And if you're not, do you want to work for them anyway?
It's still a really tough bind to be in, though.
<=> | Comments: 2 | in: Civil Rights & Feminism
