Reasons Why

Tags

choices, feminism, lifestyle, Women's issues

This appeared on Facebook and I put it up on my wall with the caption: “Is this what parenthood does to a person! If so, I’m glad I escaped!”

While there weren’t many replies, one caught my interest and got me to thinking about what might lie behind the statement.

While it may have been meant innocently enough, the comment was “no this is not your normal situation and you did miss a lot.”

I took that, however meant, as a defensive lob, one meant to suggest that parenting is a great thing and I was much the poorer for having “missed” it.

Of course, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

I chalked it up as another of those, subtle or not so subtle put-downs by those with children of those of us without. The other one that I remembered vividly was a discussion about corporal punishment by parents (or caregivers) and the suggestion that I was unfit to comment, “since as I recall, you didn’t have children did you?”

I think I know where the defensiveness and consequent “I’m really better than you because you don’t have children” comes from

Dial back the time machine to the late 60’s when I graduated from high school. The sexes were still pretty much set in stone. I knew that a number of my classmates would probably be married within a year or so, but I was off to college. It was the beginning of that “sweet spot” in time–the convergence of the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the hippie movement, and the feminist movement. The Vietnam anti-war movement began in the mid-sixties and continued and escalated during the late 60’s and early 70’s. We marched on campuses, got tear-gassed, shut down campuses. Some campuses were more volatile than others, yet we all found ourselves involved in “teach-ins”  (where I first learned of the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes). 

Women were a big part of the movement but often relegated to second-class status behind the men. This mimicked that of the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks did not suddenly pop up one day on a bus in Montgomery Alabama, but had long been a worker in the field. She was of course kept much in the background in terms of leadership as were other African-American women of the day.

The Hippie movement, also a product of the 60’s was most renowned  for Haight-Asbury and Woodstock, but it signaled the advent of free-love, birth-control, and a defining break with the past and all it’s traditional values. The Hippies were also vehemently anti-war. The Beatles, most notably John Lennon became a major force for peace with “Imagine”.

Women in this movement two were pushed to the rear, often treated as secretaries and much needed lovers for the important work being done by the men in the “awakening”.  Angela Davis and others fought back.

Women looked to each other during this period and Betty Freidan, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem,  Kate Millet, Shirley Chisholm, and Bella Abzug were the emerging role models for women like myself who were just starting to look higher than the secretarial typewriter for our future. We read with relish The Feminine Mystique, and Sexual Politics. Later, immersed in the Church, I would cling to In Memory of Her and She Who Is, as the patriarchal stereotypes of the bible began to be dismantled by women of faith but also biblical expertise. Women like  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Elizabeth Johnson became household names.

I was in that first wave of women admitted in law school in large numbers. We leaned on each other, we learned, and we excelled. Because we were steeped in the injustices of the past, we were angry, defensive, and could spot a “sexist pig” at twenty paces. Offering to hold a door for us was likely to be met with a angry look, and a statement like, “I am more than capable of opening my own door, thank you.”

Plenty of men retreated before us “ball-busting bitches” and sought more traditional women to welcome them home at night and bear their children.

That is the world out of which I emerged into my late 20’s, a time when most women start to realize that if parenthood is on their agenda, one best get busy.

As a look back at the cadre of young women I worked along side of I can recall what we talked about and how we felt quite vividly. We were in our late twenties, still working more often with men than with other women. Most judges were still male, most prosecutors, most defense attorneys, most cops. We were not insignificant, but we were far from a majority. Mostly we were treated with fairness, although there was a lot of what today would be unacceptable sexual harassment. To us it was business as usual. We slipped the grasp of unwanted advances (mostly from judges who somehow thought that being a judge’s mistress must be our dream????), and commanded salaries the likes of which our hardworking fathers (mothers of course didn’t even come close) had never attained in their working lifetimes.

Among those of us who were single, (most of us) the issue of children inevitably comes up. And of course it came up more regularly for single women than married, since we were single mostly by choice. Men were wonderful, but unnecessary as a financial crutch so mostly we were looking to take our time. I don’t count myself as being usual in having had good half dozen serious affairs, and my share of brief flings. There was no reason not to.

As best I can tell, we split about 50-50 on the child thing. About half arranged by any number of methods to get pregnant and have a child with no intent to have the father play any significant role in the raising of the child. The other half, myself included, opted out.

I can say that during my now more than sixty-four years, I spent roughly eight months considering the idea seriously, but I have to say it probably had more to do with the man I was seeing at the time than on the biological clock ticking. I cannot say what was the key reason I chose not to have children, only that it was a combination of over-population around the globe, the desire not to have my own free-wheeling lifestyle disrupted, a serious question whether I would be a “good” parent–having no real role model, and some lack of “mothering” instincts, that I felt should be stronger than they were.

Looking back, I recognize that children bring a certain joy, apparently some sense of accomplishment (though again why escapes me pretty much), and I think some security? about the future that is perceived rather than necessarily experienced. It seems to feed some egos, though not all from what I have seen. I think children are marvelous creatures, and I think being good at parenting is a very hard thing, a thing most people take for granted and therefore don’t do a very good job at. I’m glad I didn’t do it, but I am in awe of some people I know who have.

I definitely think it ought to be way harder to qualify to be a parent. It’s amazing to me that so many people turn out as well as they do given their crummy experience with parents. I wonder how amazing this world might be if so many people didn’t have to spend so much time overcoming their poor upbringing.

At one time, we in the feminist movement disliked our sisters who chose the traditional roles. We thought they made it hard for those of us who wanted to be treated equally in jobs, advancement and pay. I think that time has long past. We, or at least I, recognize that the ultimate freedom is to chose the life you wish, and it is certainly an honorable and important choice to choose parenting.

The opposite is also true. To not choose parenting can be smart, noble, and a recognition that it is a special profession, one not suited to everyone, and not simple the thing “most everyone can do”. It is not an accomplishment, but a sacred responsibility one should take on with eyes wide open.

I think it all points to the fact, that while all of us may have had the same “historical” background, we responded to it differently. It imprinted on us quite dis similarly and we apparently made different judgements about it. That is what makes us human I suspect and why we thrive overall. If Aristotle was right that there is a set of absolute moral precepts, we will, it seems, go on arguing forever about just what they are.

Wish I’d Said That Thursday

Tags

abortion, contraception, Health care, Hobby Lobby, Women's issues

I truly wish I had said it.

Reblogged from BrainSpank

 

I am a woman. I gave birth. It was painful.  Excruciating.  Agony.  No one knows.  I do.

My child knows no one other purview until it gulps air outside of me. Until it leaves my womb it belongs to me and no one else. No other body, governmental or even judicial matters at all to me.

Not as far as I’m concerned anyway.

I really don’t care what you have to say.

I cannot stand five catholic men in black robes who would decide anything for me or the child in my body.  I loathe you for trying.  Your ignorance.  Your arrogance.  Your hubris.  When the day comes I want to relinquish control of my life, my child’s life, to the likes of you, I’ll let you know.  It will have a big fancy seal.  It will be on parchment.  Sheepskin.  You’ll know.  Champagne and caviar.

Until then, shut the fuck up.

We all know you think it’s your religious privilege.  We all know you think you’re somehow entitled to a voice here.  A heavy legislative hand.  A right.  But you are wrong.  You don’t.  You can’t.  You won’t.  You can’t tell me what contraception to use anymore than you can tell me what to do with my womb.  My body.  You stand there, collecting your filthy lucre from the dirtier angels of our filthiest nature and presume to define sin for me.

Fuck you.

You took a stand on the side of a company that wears its hypocrisy on its goddamn face.  They invest in and make money off of the manufacture of contraceptive products.  They willingly paid for the objectionable products for their employees for years.  Decades.  What changed besides Obamacare?  They say their mission is to prevent abortion but the only net gain from this will be more abortion.

By the way, they say the contraceptive products the won’t pay for kill babies.  Wrong.  Completely wrong.  What they do is prevent fertilization.  No beings.  No babies.  How did we get to a place where the Supreme Court is guilty of science denial while listening to and valuing the opinions of clerics and wizards?

Five Roman Catholic men who wear black robes to work.

In this process you would willingly consign me to a coat hanger.

I am a man and I do not accept this jurisprudence.  It is the antithesis of jurisprudence.

But I am a woman too.

It’s like your whole reason is to make sure it’s born.

After that, it’s nobodies business but mine.  Ironic how you grab responsibility before it’s born and surrender it completely the second after.  How do adult white men entertain the notion that they somehow get to champion the fetus and forgo the child?

Jackasses.

They are the last people.

Then, some sonafabitching congressman comes along to make my last stand.

To pretend to speak for me and all the unborn.

I am a woman and I have given birth and if I begin to understand that delivery might mean my death, I get to decide what to do.  If that child will be born inside out?  My problem.  If that child is born with whatever disability?  My problem.

Not yours.

Fuck off.

The same goes for my contraception.  Sometimes it’s to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. 56% of the women in this country that avail themselves of contraceptive medication have it prescribed to them by doctors for reasons other than preventing pregnancy.  Sometimes it’s to prevent my spending days in bed writhing in the kind of pain that makes botulism or ebola look Fischer Price.  Sometimes it’s to reduce my risk of certain cancers.  Viruses.  You don’t know.  You can’t you bastards.  I am a woman and you are not.

I can no longer countenance five greasy old academic males deciding any of this shit.  It’s none of their business.

None at all.

I am a woman.

I would make each of you pregnant tomorrow morning if I could.

Or, I would visit the menstrual cycle upon each of you if I could.

Then we would see who the women are.

That would be awesome.

Bitches.

I am a man speaking for women.

Drinks for my friends.

It Wasn’t THAT Long Ago. . . .

Tags

abortion, contraception, fundamentalism, GOP, Hobby Lobby, Women's issues

A little history seems in order.

Okay, so before we start, let’s get this straight. This is not an anti-male diatribe, much as you may think it is. There are damn well plenty of stupid women out there who have drunk the kool-aid and think women’s place is in the home, tending the kitchen, children and pets, in that order. The trouble is, the women who tell you that are ANYTHING BUT stay-at-homers themselves and even if they are, they are writing blogs, books, and preachin’ on social media that YOU should not be like them, but rather like the fantasy women they envision–pampered, protected, cared for, and wiper of runny noses all wearing that crisp peter pan-collared cotton frock and perfectly shined respectable two-inch pumps and pushing the vacuum with a free hand.

Whew. . . .

No this is against paternalism and all its ugly underbelly of psychological signals that tell the female gender that they are all they can be just by primping in front of the mirror and making very sure that that eyeliner is on straight and that lipstick is the latest fashion color of the season.

Ya see, I grew up in that tween place, on the cusp, able to see both shores as it were.

Women got the vote in 1920. My mother was born in ’26, so she grew up having it, though I must say, she pretty much used is as far as I can tell, as her husbands explained to her was right and good. But her mother came into her adulthood without it, my grandmother was born in ’01, so it impacted her most. I knew these women for whom the vote was a “new” thing,  but grew up knowing that voting was no different for me than for any guy I knew.

It was not until the 60’s, during the general period of awakening that lots of minorities were going through, least of all white males who were being conscripted to be the fodder in another war, but one this time that seemed to merit no one’s patriotic fervor, that we women began to learn of our own deeper oppression. We began to learn that it was not okay that our bodies were not our own to control, that we were not by “nature” relegated to certain types of jobs, and paid less in others simply because we were women.

We learned that there was much more to do in this journey to equality.

And we secured our right to control our bodies–in other words–to make mistakes just like men do with theirs.

And we worked hard to break through glass ceilings that prevented us from being fighter pilots, (if that’s what we wanted), neurosurgeons, police officers, firefighters,  and corporate CEO’s. And then we discovered that even when we got the jobs we didn’t get the pay, and we began that fight too.

Always with a certain segment of scared men and the women they controlled telling us that we were going against God, country, and well, nature itself.

Always with those who believed that as we gained our power to control our lives, theirs would somehow be diminished. Sharing is a hard lesson to learn.

They argued of course that women would become “just like men”, or worse, punish men in some Amazonian-driven lust for power themselves.

They argued that we would cry during tense negotiations with a Khrushchev and rain down upon America the nuclear holocaust that permeated the Cold War era.

They called us atheistic feminists and the spittle trickled down their chins, catching and rerouting through grizzled stubble, that they wiped away with grubby fingers still clutching ragged signs with misspelled words echoing their hate: Back to the kitchen you sluts!

But while these battles went on quietly across America with thousands of dedicated women, all the clamor died down, and life didn’t change a whole lot. We figured we were still on the journey, but life as we know it hadn’t stopped, and someday we would reach our goal of full integration and equality in America. Most of us thrived in a world that seemed increasingly equal to us.

And then along came the “IMMORAL MINORITY”  waving their bibles, and explaining to middle-aged white men who had failed in the great American dream to be great achievers, that women were the problem and not corporate greed. Women were and always were the problem ever since that bitch picked that apple off that tree and seduced God’s great creation Adam into sinning. Women were the problem.

And as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the great middle started to age and find that damn they weren’t much better off than their parents, some thing had to give. Corporate America became adept at focusing the blame on minorities, takers all. Suddenly, feminism became a dirty word again. Our enemies are mostly aging white men who feel left behind (damn that Rapture, where are you?). The feel and it’s certainly palpable at this point, emasculated by articulate, educated women.

Ask me about it. I belong to a forum of my old high school, and my wars always end up being against these male types (one of which actually said that he ended up calling me names because “I drove him to it.”), and women who believe that women were created to serve me according to their fine uneducated reading of certain pseudo-Pauline texts.  And invariably they block me, so I can read the their comments and they don’t have to respond to mine. Except that there are men on the forum who are just as liberal as I am, just as knowledgeable, and just as “in-your-face”, and they don’t get blocked. Why? Because men can argue with men, but women must be very careful to be properly respectful lest they be branded as “stupid” and “a troll” and “self-defined intellectual”. (I was once told that educated people were “pissants” all, by one tiny-penised patriarchal dope.)

So along comes Hobby Lobby and it’s claim that its corporate religiosity is being assaulted by requiring it “pay” for certain contraceptive methods it in its utter stupidity deems abortifacients, and the Feds have no right to make them offer same to their employees. There is so much wrong here that it’s sick. First, HL provided all these methods before they were picked as the “plaintiff” and then told, “damn, guys, you offer this stuff already!” Hobby Lobby owner Green claims “shit, I have no idea”. Hobby Lobby gets I would guess 80% of its inventory from China, a nation that makes abortion a national policy and until recently required it after one child. Hobby Lobby has a 401K retirement benefits package which includes owning shares of various big pharma companies which, you guessed it, manufacture all the abortifacients that HL moans about.

So the SCROTUS decided that corporate religious well-being trumps women’s rights to good health. Along with that, they decided that there can be no buffer zone between women trying to enter clinics that offer contraceptive care along with abortions and those who want to scream at them demanding that they “think again”.  Women seeking treatment at a PPH clinic must be within “spittin’ distance” of those who seek to turn them away.

Across America, Republican led legislatures make it hard if not impossible for poor women to get reproductive care of any kind by loading down clinics with regulations (aren’t Republicans against business regulation as a matter of principle?) that are so burdensome that they have to close.

And all this in the name of NOT ABORTING. When all of these restrictions do exactly the opposite.

Republicans in Congress vote down equal pay for women.

There is a line.

It has now been crossed.

We will not go back.

Vote in 2014 as if you life depends on it, because control of it is surely at stake.

 

 

 

 

The Quest Continues

Tags

brains, Christie, fundamentalists, GOP, high school, Huckabee, Politics, psychology, Women's issues

You’d think that I’d know pretty much all I need to know at my age.

I mean seriously folks, shouldn’t I just sit and chortle at all the younglings’ who are still running into things, unable to fathom that pace of life yet? Shouldn’t I know the BIG issues of life?

Why am I always surprised and puzzled?

Having just finished reading Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, I should get that we are all just playing out the story of humanity in infinite forms, no? Can’t I leave it at that?

NO, apparently I’m forced to admit at my refined age, that I may be just a tad, just a tiny bit, miniscule actually, ANAL.

Case in point.

Or in several, but in POINT now.

Michael Huckabee, once governor of Arkansas, a state lost between Noah’s ark and Kansas. Now our Huck as he is fondly called by many, was once upon a time (not a fairy tale) a preacher. A southern Baptist one, to be exact, and that means literally, literal, insofar as a fundamentalist can be literal, which is way a lot when they need to and way not all when it would be inconvenient to be so. Which makes him really a Christianist, one of those rather duplicitous individuals who sorta uses Jesus when needed and ignores him when not, although pretending to NEVER forget Jesus, i.e., sprinkling all talk with plenty of “thanks be to God” and Thank the Lord” .

So, Mikey as he is not fondly called, figured he would jump into the fray of the “war on women” being continuously waged by the GOP.

That that is clear to every human being save the GOP itself who continue to remain with head firmly inside butt is also clear.

And the trend has continued as we all know in 2012, 2013 and so on.

It is Republicans who are trying to restrict abortions and are, through phony laws, forcing PPH offices to close all over the country. Women are being denied reproductive care quite simply and that results in more women dying from reproductive disease, and more unwanted pregnancies, the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Republicans claim they are introducing such legislation for.

In pops the Huckster, who is starting to think that running for President might be a good thing, and off he goes with the mouth part:

“If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it,. . .”

So, old Mikey thinks that Democrats believe that women’s insatiable libido requires contraceptive care in the guise of Uncle Sugar?

Seriously, explain how he came to that conclusion, or is just simply the way dead-below-the-waist-Mike feels? Is his wife dragging him to bed every night and telling him to Viagra up or something? Is the old man tired of “gettin’ it up” and gettin’ going?

This after some dip wad in Virginia by the name of Black, who is running for Congress, suggests that there should probably be no laws against marital rape.

“How on earth you could validly get a conviction of a husband-wife rape when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie, and so forth, there’s no injury, there’s no separation or anything.”

Seriously, it’s just a he said, she said kinda thing, right? Boys will be boys. . . .or, I bet he’s the one in the nightie.

Are Republican men this utterly clueless. Is there no Republican woman around who can just tell them to SHUT THE F**K UP?

≠

Explain to me how any person can go to college for four years and become educated sufficiently to teach math, and still denies the truth of evolution?  How does a brain do that?

≠

By all accounts Chris Christie is a reasonably intelligent human being. I have learned that he was darned good at running for stuff in college and in organizing so that his “team” would win across the board in student elections. And we are most aware of his spectacular rise in New Jersey, a definitely blue state.

So, in looking forward to someday running for President, (and surely you know he’s always had that in his mind since he was 12 or so), wouldn’t you sorta know that thugs and others who did your dirty work and the people you intimidated all your life, would literally flood the plains of Jersey should they even SMELL a leak in the dike?

Is it just me or is this just the beginning of an avalanche of charges, and victims parading forth telling their story of how Christie thugs forced them to throw Grandma off the train? The Bridge and Hoboken are just the tip of the iceberg I suspect.

Why do people who don’t play by the rules always think nobody will find out?

Do the really believe in perfect crimes?

≠

Here’s one for ya.

I went to a typical high school. Maybe not so much as I thought.

A whole bunch of us started in kindergarten and graduated together. Over the years, cliques changed. Our group splintered into a good five groups or so. Some of us got hurt by being dumped. Some never aspired to group 1, probably most. We all dissed those below us, more or less. We gave what we got.

I’ve been to college, three times. I’ve worked for people and for myself. I’ve been in a ton of relationships, all of which obviously went sour for one reason or another, due to one thing or other, until the last one, which has lasted nearly 14 years. I’ve been screwed over by the best and worst of them, regarding all sorts of things. In that regard I am no different from any other human.

As my friend Jean said, all humans are flawed. We get to accept that about each other, and how our flaws blend enough to get along.

But, when I reconnected with high school classmates, I found this:

A friendliness that turned out to be all too superficial. Most of the lines remained drawn. A rather stunning realignment based on who agrees with who. Fundies gather together and chat like great friends when way back then, they never spoke and one would not be caught “dead” with the other. All the liberals now, however, were my friends back then. People I thought were smart turned out to be dumb, or as uninformed as a person could be and still walk. A whole slew are angry, very angry people, mostly those who stayed in the factory town that went belly up.  And although raised in a working class environment where the UAW was the norm in most households, most are conservative, hating folks, who blame unions, and the poor for being takers. And kids should be slapped around because “it was good enough for me”. They are “patriotic” as they define it, meaning they love “the troops” and the flag, but hate the President, and income redistribution, although surely they would benefit from that.

And I don’t get most of ’em. A few who were a year or two behind me or ahead, I get. They escaped the hate thing somehow. They are good people, who have worked hard, but avoided blaming those who have less for what they don’t have.

And the real point here, is that, all those people from college and work situations and relationships that didn’t do unto me as I think they should? I have long ago forgotten them and their transgressions because, hey, we are all flawed. But the angers from those old high-school slights still linger and still seem rawer than they should.  And I have a couple of those classmates who don’t participate in group discussions and I think they are  so much smarter than I. They are not wasting their time on stupid.

Which all goes to say that I delight a bit too much in telling old X and Y what utterly stupid people they became. Ain’t that funny? Or sad in a funny sort of way?

The first cut is the deepest. Thank you Rod Stewart for reminding me.

Franken-Women! Run For Your Lives!

Tags

equal pay, Rape, Women's issues

During the run up to the 2012 election, the GOP became rather famous for sticking their foot into their collective mouths, up to the knee. Nothing was more famous than their “war on women” an attack they assured us was both unfair and unwarranted.

After all, as countless state legislatures populated mostly by white men, continued to introduce bill after bill that limited the availability of reproductive health care for women, inserted medical instruments into their lady parts, and otherwise suggested that they didn’t really know what was best for themselves, how can that be considered unwomanly?

To say nothing of the strange and mind-shattering medical opinions from men like Todd Aiken on rape. On and on it went, yet, there was no war on women, but in the minds of Democrats who were just playing on the (shh) paternal concerns of husbands and fathers for political benefit. And on and on they went. On election night, 55% of women in America decided that Democrats best served their interests.

That still leaves an amazing 44% of women who voted for the other side, the side doing all the woman-basing.  What can we say about these women? I think we are learning that in the months since the election. In fact, we have always known it, but we grant some leeway that in the heat of battle, some women may in fact grip their thighs and support that which rankles for the “greater good.” So a fairer assessment can be given now.

And it suggests, that what we have is a hybrid creature I have dubbed the Franken-woman. She is in appearance a woman,  but resembles her sisters in very little else. I’m afraid if you look under the skirt, you may well find balls instead of a vagina.

Recently there was some polling by Pew which I believe backs up studies on the subject, that women are increasingly the breadwinners in their families. This of course caused quite a stir. There has been a four-fold increase in the numbers since the 1960’s.

How is this received by the media you ask?

Well Fox News contributor, Erick Erickson cried foul. This is bad stuff he claimed. Everywhere in the animal kingdom (watch out your creationists), males dominate (actually they don’t but he’s from Fox, what can you expect). Why this flood of women breadwinners is destroying marriage and the children! Stop it now!

Of course women are used to this sort of thing.

Soon the topic turned to education and why we are falling farther and farther behind when compared to a whole list of other countries. Once the greatest school system in the world, the US educational system is by many estimations, dismal at best. Mississippi Governor, Phil Bryant (need I add the R?), gave us his assessment of the cause:

I think both parents started working. And the mom is in the work place.

Women are so used to this sort of thing. I hardly matters the topic, somehow it’s the fault of women.

I can attest to this personally.

A while back on Facebook I became engaged in rather heated debate on climate change with a man who was regularly condescending and arrogant in his assertions that there was no such thing as human-made climate change. While both of us threw some nasty ad hominens, he often retorted to my facts with  claims that I had a big mouth, and was a whack job. When I replied that apparently he had no facts, just personal assaults, I was greeted with this gem:

You provoke me!

Indeed, and women who dress in trashy clothes provoke otherwise decent men to rape them! Yes, we’ve heard that excuse.

Well my dismay was not at his remark, which was expected, but rather from the Franken-woman who came to his defense, saying that X was such a nice person, and I was always attacking, and basically, I was up against a brilliant man and was clearly no match.

Now said Franken-woman had already told me that:

1. If you count all the “crab nebula” historically, it amounts to just the number one would expect if the earth was some 6,000 plus years old and,
2. If evolution were true then why are monkeys still having monkey babies?

So you see I’m already dealing with a “woman” who if chosen randomly by an alien visitation would have answered the question, “is there intelligent life here?” with a resounding NO. What hurt however was that a supposedly a fellow woman was unable to see the misogyny in such a statement and agreed that women “cause” men to do bad things.

But as I listened to what moves through the Internet vapor, I discovered that there were indeed plenty of these Franken-women.

That gadfly Phyllis Schafley, attorney, book writer, and speaker, you know, the one who tells OTHER women to stay home and make hubby happy with good cookin’ and good sex? THAT “woman?” Well she weighed in on women in combat, telling us that women in combat would unfairly “entice” men, and the poor men would be blamed for the ensuing rape and harassments that would be inevitable! I kid you not.

Marsha Blackburn, perennial talking points maven for the GOP, had the audacity to tell Meet the Press, roundtable participants that “women don’t want equal pay laws.”  Seriously? We don’t?

“I think that more important than that is making certain that women are recognized by those companies. You know, I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be given a job because I was a female, I wanted it because I was the most well-qualified person for the job. And making certain that companies are going to move forward in that vein, that is what women want. They don’t want the decisions made in Washington. They want to be able to have the power and the control and the ability to make those decisions for themselves.”

Um, dear, how exactly are we to make that happen? By baking them some cookies? Or perhaps, forcing them to address their inequality by MAKING THEM PAY WOMEN THE SAME WAGES? And dear, don’t you EVER presume to speak for me, okay?

Not to be outdone, Ms. Schafley weighed in on this as well:

The Obama feminists recite the tiresome mantra that women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. That’s completely false because it doesn’t take into account that men take many high-risk and unpleasant jobs, suffering 90 percent of occupational fatalities, so they should earn more.

Does that even make sense? She then claims (without a source) that men work longer hours and so deserve more. In the end, only employers can really know who does the “most” work.

She ends by taking a swipe at Hispanics. Stop courting them, she advises. After all, “they don’t share American values“.

I say congratulations to the GOP who has apparently successfully transplanted a Republican male brain into a woman. These aren’t women. These are freaks of nature, created to pat the poor man on the head and continue to tell him he is the center of their universe.

Save me from such women.

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• Mississippi’s Bryant laments when ‘mom got in the workplace’ (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• Why Erick Erickson Is Wrong About Women Breadwinners (usnews.com)
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The Chronically Stupid Aways Find an Obtuse Angle

Tags

abortion rights, education, gay rights, GOP, gun control, Media, rightwing idiots, teabaggers, Women's issues

So much stupid, so little time to expose it all.

First there is the Daily Caller. The Daily Caller is a piece of stupid run by Tucker Carlson, from Fox Noise. The Daily Collection of Stupid leaves no stone unturned in its attempt to be irrelevant, stupidly funny, and masterful in its invention of new ways to be stupid every day.

You no doubt have always known that the Reactionary Right, of which the Daily Curd attempts to be the voice for, is a huge supporter of gay rights? You’re not aware of that? Well, slap yourself silly dumb person and listen up.

You see, it’s a crying shame, that compromise bill worked out by Senators Manchin and Toomey. Those darn Democrats, always seeking to betray and abuse their gay brothers and sisters.

The bill, Daily Crap points out, will discriminate against gay gun owners. See if you can figure out why?

Figured it out yet?

Well, you see, in states that don’t recognize gay marriage, said gay gun owner will be forced to submit his or her partner to a background check before selling them or giving them a gun for Christmas. That’s because the “family exception” to the proposed new law would not be recognized in non-same-sex marriage recognizing states.

Yes, indeed. I kid you not as they say.

I guess they forgot the provision about neighbor-to-neighbor transfers. I mean what can be more neighborly than actually living in the same house? Seems about as friendly as neighbors can get doncha think?

I gave you the link, lest you think I was pulling your leg, or attempting a frontal lobotomy with a rusty butter knife.

Next on our hit parade of stupid is the ever growing legend of another of those Texas wonders, Steve Stockman.

You remember Steve right? The Texan Representative who decided it was a great idea to invite Ted Nugent, aging rocker with like two old hits over 30 years old, who loves guns more than he loves his kids, and all around crazy conspiracy-laden anti-Obama screamer, to the State of the Union speech? THAT Steve Stockman?

Well this is his new way of attracting the marvelous people who contribute to his campaign to continue being a public nuisance.

This is his newly designed bumper sticker which you can attach to the bumper of your car, horse, or forehead, proclaiming you too are stupid as hell.

Is there anything left to say here? Stockman is offensive on just about all of Dante’s levels of hell.

But my favorite this week? Oh that was easy. You probably heard about the kerfuffle about Melissa Harris Perry’s promo for her show on MSNBC? Where she talks about the education of our children and suggests that children just don’t belong to their parents, but in fact belong to the entire community?

The Really Really Ridiculous Right started fainting and running for smelling salts on that one. One heard the immediate refrain, “COMMUNISM” expounded by the likes of Rush, the Drudge, Daily Caller, and Newsbusters.

Newsbusters said this: “. . .the notion of collective responsibility for children was a philosophy that undergirded the Cultural Revolution in Communist China under Chairman Mao. I bring that up because, as you may recall, another Harris-Perry “Lean Forward” spot contains a reference to a “great leap forward,” which calls to mind the disastrous agricultural reform plan which starved millions of Chinese to death in the 1950s.”

Sarah, “HEY, remember me?” Palin tweeted: Apparently MSNBC doesn’t think your children belong to you. Unflippingbelievable.

Rush ME MORE DRUGS Limbaugh said: So how does this manifest itself? So you need your yard mowed, what do you do?” he continued. “You go knock on the door down the street — your kid that you don’t own. I do today. For the next hour, your kid is going to mow my yard. And then after that, my trash needs taking out and after that I need somebody to go to the grocery store for me and my kid’s tied up, so I’m claiming your kid. How does this work?”

From the Lonely Conservative (who decries a new promo declaring that people have basic human rights to education, food, housing and so forth): Maybe in her next promo she can just come out and quote directly from the Communist Manifesto.

Okay folks, settle down. Let’s recall a few things. There is a rather famous saying, “it takes a village to raise a child.” That is in fact the title of one of Hillary Clinton’s books. Let’s not forget that we all pay property taxes wherever we live, and part of that money goes directly to support local school systems. Guess what? Those who are not parents pay them as well, on the theory that EVERYONE  has a stake in children being educated.

Has everyone on the Right forgotten the “good old days”? You remember when extended families lived together and everyone thought that all children were so much better off having more people busy raising them? Remember the Waltons? Remember when we were children and the teacher as “loco parentis” was considered “always right” if we were disciplined? Remember when any neighbor had a perfect right to correct your behavior if not physically, at least verbally?

Do we not all have a stake in the future of our next generation of teachers, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and seamstresses? These are the folks who will govern the country when we are using our walkers in the hallways of senior facilities.

I mean how stupid can you be to see something sinister in what Ms Harris-Perry said? How much must you twist and distort it to make it look dangerous and “otherly”?

Do you not see that it is exactly this utterly over-the-top reaction to something so innocent and benign and TRUE, that makes even the fairly non-interested middle of America think the far Right has more than a few screws loose? The GOP and it’s cadre of stupid are swirling into the sinkhole of oblivion and pretty much nobody cares.

Next: RED Jello is a Commie plot with nanobots invading your body and indoctrination in each red sugary gelatin grain.

Related articles

• Rep. Steve Stockman, super genius (dailykos.com)
• MSNBC host thinks your kids are her kids & vice versa (theblaze.com)
• Because Melissa Harris-Perry is That Good, Limbaugh and Palin Are Attacking Her (thisblksistaspage.wordpress.com)
• Glenn Beck: Harris-Perry’s Public Education Promo Part of UN Conspiracy to Collectivize Children (crooksandliars.com)

 

North Dakota Votes Fred Flintstone as Women’s Rights Spokesperson

Tags

abortion rights, gay rights, Insane Republicans, Women's issues

Dino named Secretary of Education.

This is one state to steer way way clear of. If you even see the letters, DAK, start backing away.

The folks there have returned to living in caves. The signs say brake for Brontosaurus.

Seriously.

In what can only be the happiest marriage between fundamentalism and unscience, the legislature (really four old white dudes sitting around a campfire), have determined that women shall bear all children put upon them by any many who gets a hankering to “get a little.” And the governor, one Dalrymple, really the owner of the local stone quarry, has signed the dang thing into law, or laws as the case may be, because there are several.

Now of course there will be lawsuits since this is just about the opposite of the law of the land. And the good Dalrymple has decided in his rubbing of two brain cells together, that the fair cave citizens of said cave state should pay for that. After all, it’s for their own good.

They have managed to reduce the clinics in the realm to one, and they are determined to put that one out of business by loading it down with so many odious regulations that nobody but God himself could comply.

Now these cave men purport to be Republicans, who last time I checked, were for small government and getting off the backs of business operators. Except of course when they aren’t for that because they are more interested in controlling the lives of women in their cave realm.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to conk them over the head like usual?

As I said, avoid at all costs. Ken Ham is said to be scoping out the area for another of his fun times with science “museums”.

HINT: you know guys, one day women will get a majority in these legislative bodies. You might think about that before you keep screwing with us.

Ä

California, by and large, is a crazy state, but at least half the time, it’s good crazy. That’s a pretty good track record if you throw totally insane places like Alabama into the mix.

Yet, following the Peyton rule that each state is required by law to maintain at least two certifiable simpletons in its band of state or federal legislative arenas, California no doubt counts Rep. Jack Kimble as one of their (hide him in the closet when company comes) boneheads.

Seems that Mr. Kimble is pretty worried about what might happen should the SCOTUS decided that California must allow marriage between people who love each other, without checking under skirts and peeking inside trousers to determine the gender of said love birds.

Kimble in a last gasp of intellectual showmanship, tweeted this:

Jack? Are you worried, or just a wee bit excited by that prospect?

Ä

Fearful that the gay will be just popping up everywhere, Tony Perkins, that nice hateful man who runs the Family Research Council and knows God better than most people know their own toes, suggests that if the SCOTUS makes that fateful decision legalizing all that “nasty stuff”, why people might just rise up and start a revolution.

Yeah, I figure that people are aching to destroy their families, neighborhood, businesses, and such just to make sure that some stranger is not doing the nasty with someone who shares plumbing equipment with them.

But no doubt, it will be a good enough excuse for the survivalists to go out and purchase another half-dozen big guns.

La PeePee Lapierre certainly hopes so anyway.

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There is a group called Concerned Women for America. As best as I can tell, they are women who are concerned about a certain kind of America, one that they control and which they feel comfortable in. They are really mad at Starbucks.

Starbucks, as you may already know, is in favor of marriage equality. So it stands to reason that somebody would make the leaping logical conclusion, that that means that Starbucks will probably soon start discriminating against straight people. Or at least discriminate against straight people who want to (just cuz) discriminate against gay people. I mean, old habits are hard to break.

Oh I do love a dose of stupid with my coffee.

Ä

We understand that Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker is writing a book.

I know.

You can’t wait to go stand in line to get it autographed  can you?

Reports are that it will be written in crayon and Walker promised it would be in his own words, at least the ones he can spell.

Everyone is delighted that there will be plenty of pictures to color throughout.

There is still a debate as to what category it will fall under for you librarians wanting to dust off a special shelf. Suggestions range from Sci-fi fantasy to Abnormal psychology.

I am putting in my Amazon pre-order.

Yeah, I believe in unicorns too.

 

Related articles

• N.D. lawmakers define start of life, outlaw abortion (usatoday.com)
• North Dakota governor approves 6-week abortion ban (kfwbam.com)