Women’s rights

’til My Uterus Falls Out

(because) The moon is always female (also the title of an excellent book of poetry by Marge Piercy)

The title of this post was my standard answer when I was pregnant with Art Child and people would inevitably ask, “Again?! How many babies are you going to have?”

It was none of anybody’s business how many children Husband and I chose to have. You know what else is nobody’s business? How many babies a woman chooses not to have, or why she and her partner, or she alone makes that choice.

Women have never been equal in this country (note that the ERA was never actually passed, though it was first introduced in Congress in 1923). We’ve been closer and further, but never equal. Now, after years of steady progress, we’re about to be manacled to the nursery as we haven’t been since the 1970s. This week the House passed a ban on abortions at/after 20 weeks. Will it pass in the Senate? Who knows? I’ll tell you what I do know, no woman chooses to have an abortion for the hell of it at any point in a pregnancy, and certainly not after growing a baby for 20 weeks. The vast majority of abortions performed beyond that point are done because of fatal fetal defects. Fatal. Not learning disabilities, not a fixable heart defect, or the “wrong” sex, or blue eyes instead of brown, not because a woman decided it was an inconvenient time after all. Included in this bill is the criminalization of doctors who choose to perform late term abortions.

Today I saw this gem. The White House is set to repeal the federal requirement that employers cover birth control (without copays) in their offered health insurance plans. In order to keep this post under a gazillion words, I won’t even start on the fact that easier, affordable access to birth control has contributed to abortion rates being lower than at any point since the passage of Roe v Wade.

Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with being pro-life, this is about being anti-women. This is about further blurring the separation between church and state. This is about control, misogyny, and living under an administration that condones violence against women. If it was about pro-life, we wouldn’t have a White House and a GOP doing everything possible (which is a lot) to take away health care from women and children. They already let CHIP lapse, which means 9 million children are about to lose health insurance. They’re doing everything possible to reduce with an eye towards eliminating Medicaid, which is the gov’t sponsored health insurance that covers the very poorest children and the disabled. Also today, reporting that 45 and the White House have given directives to do everything possible to have the ACA fail. This isn’t a political strategy, this is an inhumane, callous and calculated attack on the most vulnerable members of our society, to go along with the attack on women. If any of these pompous, hypocritical blowhards in the White House and GOP cared about life they’d care about tending to the lives of those who are here and suffering now.

It may take a village, but that isn’t what most of us have. This isn’t going to end. It won’t stop until women have no access to birth control or safe and legal abortions, because Big Daddy’s gonna take care of us. He’s gonna take care of us right into our mass graves.

What? You aren’t a member of the White House or GOP but feel so strongly against abortion that it shouldn’t be legal? Congratulations on the adoption of your 15th unwanted and/or medically needy child. Congratulations too, on raising your sons not to objectify women, not to ever have sex (married or not) if they don’t want a child, not to keep knocking up their wimmenz until their brains and their uteruses leak, not to rape, letting them know the responsibility of rape is on the rapist, always, never the victim, and of course, that they need to do a full 50% of the diaper changing, child rearing, school meetings and function attending, doctor visits, and of course, the laundry. What? You haven’t seen fit to adopt as many children as you can stuff into your home, whether you can afford them or not, whether you’ve got the time to give each one of those children the attention they need, and are just fine with their health insurance being stripped away, and without raising them with the weight of being told how lucky they are that you rescued them like a wormy, emaciated puppy found in the parking lot? You haven’t explained to your sons that what she was wearing doesn’t matter? Did you explain to those oh-so-wanted-and-valued children that it was ok to vote for a man who thinks it’s his right to grab women by the pussy because he’s rich? No? You didn’t/don’t do all of these things? Then maybe, just maybe, you should live your life the way you see fit without stripping away anyone else’s rights, and everyone else can do the same.

Let’s Make a Deal

Publicity photo of Carol Merrill, Monty Hall and Jay Stewart from the television program Let’s Make a Deal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You don’t call me a Feminazi, and I won’t call you a misogynistic asshole, okay?

If you absolutely can’t give up the term, just know you’re aligning yourself with Rush Limbaugh. I’m not certain that he is the originator of the term, but he is the one who popularized it in the ’90’s. I know, I know, you’re really in favor of equality, might even be someone who self-identifies as liberal, it’s just “those women” who you’re referring to. I understand, it’s only the emasculating ones; who have the audacity to want equal pay, respect, control over their bodies, and access to quality, affordable childcare. The right to not be strip searched and molested on the side of a highway. The right to not be under continual assault for appearance, or choices in love, work, or dress.

Lest I be accused of a man bashing post, let me stop and be clear. I’m also speaking to women who use this term. I know, I know, there’s nothing wrong with being a woman who embraces being a woman, meets Daddy at the door with a martini and a smile, ready to make that deal…blow job and meatloaf in exchange for an allowance. Because, yanno, if you’re an at home mom, taking care of the house and children isn’t really work. And if you work outside the home, you’re still the one primarily responsible for the house and children. Because, yanno, wimmenz work. What? That isn’t what you meant?

I wonder what you did mean, then. You, a modern American woman. Perhaps you don’t enjoy the right to own property, a right secured by earlier generations of feminists. How about the right to not be property? Or the right to vote. That must be it. Maybe you should share that info with the other women in the world who are still trying to secure those rights. Or the right to call the police if you’re assaulted, regardless of what length your skirt was, or if your assailant was your husband, your father, brother, or uncle.

I have a daughter, I’d like her to be safe. I have two sons, I’d like them to be safe. Silly me, I’d like to be safe. No one should have to live within a “rape culture,” yet we still do. Tremendous strides have been made, but no, it isn’t finished. Our society is a work in progress, and will be until every individual’s humanity is recognized and respected.

Feminazi. Really? Fighting for women’s rights is on par with the slaughter of sixteen million people. How silly of me not to make the connection myself.

Sorry Fringelings. This rant was brought to you by some disturbing comments seen on Facebook today. Not on my page, so I didn’t want to rant there. Now Mrs Fringe will go back to her thoroughly subversive, militant feminist crochet work.

Tangled up in Blue (Photo credit: chickeninthewoods)

Scared Titless

oral surgery stuff (Photo credit: Newbirth35)

I know, I know, I’ve been an exceptionally bad blogger. My tooth pain didn’t go away no matter how much I tried to pretend it wasn’t there, resulting in much misery, three trips to the dentist, and oral surgery. I’m on the mend now, not all better but much better than I was.

Have I ever mentioned that I have a dentist phobia? I do. The pain, the sounds, and most of all, the someone is in my frickin’ mouth!!! If you’re now tempted to explain how illogical this all is, save your breath and your fingers. Phobia. Irrational fear, I get it.

And now for what I don’t get, but I’m even more afraid of. What’s happening for and to women in this country.

You Say I’m a BITCH … SlutWalk in Miami: FIU Students March to Reclaim the Term “Slut” (Tue., Apr. 2 2013) …item 2.. Woman bit her live-in boyfriend’s penis (16 May 2013) … (Photo credit: marsmet532)

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, started making notes for a post about what ever happened to feminism, pushed it to the back burner. Well, it’s now so front and center my eyelashes are singed, my bra has burned off, and my ovaries are experiencing shrinkage.

Some say the War On Women is a myth, fabricated by those stinky, left leaning, unshaven and leftover hippies. I don’t think so. I think it’s real. Never in my life have I heard so many ignorant, threatening comments made by those in positions of power (yanno, those “service” positions– politics), never have I seen and heard about so many attempts to repeal women’s rights, as I have over the last 18-24 months. I can’t help but wonder if I’ve been naive. If it’s so widespread across the US, if there is so much support for those making these statements, I suspect it’s been there, this war, all along. I just didn’t hear about it because there weren’t cameras everywhere catching these speeches, these comments, there was no twitter, no internet, and a limited number of channels and news (?!) shows on tv. I think it’s been a Cold War, and now the heat’s been turned up using the fuel of electronic eyes and the internet.

I’m upset, I’m nauseated, I’m afraid. Why? Well, because of this. How the fuck is this ok? Down what black hole have I fallen to find myself in this alternate history where it’s systemically acceptable for police officers to sexually assault women, and do it in public while putting their health at risk too? Yes, I said it, systemic. One lone or occasional psycho I understand. Still horrible and scary, but I understand. But this wasn’t one renegade mama hating small weiner syndrome sociopath.

Whether it’s written in the manual or not, obviously this is an issue that goes beyond one evil trooper. In the first instance, the male state trooper called for a female trooper to come perform this cavity search. On the side of the road. And don’t forget to recycle, use the same glove for both women. Yeah, these troopers were all about caring for Mother Earth, after all, these cavity searches were prompted by a cigarette butt being tossed out a car window. littering. Another by speeding (waste of gas) And they might have smelled marijuana in the car during one of those stops. Cause every pot smoking woman I’ve ever known would have the instinct to shove a joint up her hoo haa and or butt. And nothing poses a bigger threat to the public, necessitating an immediate public and unsanitary cavity search than a skunk weed tampon.

A beaver pair (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Number One Threat to Public Safety. Oh, why be coy? We all know Public Enemy Number One is

Seated Female Nude, ca. 1937-1940 (Photo credit: americanartmuseum)

So no, it wasn’t this one evil female state trooper, it was a process that involved multiple officers all thinking this is acceptable. And it turns out this isn’t limited to one instance, there have been others in other parts of Texas. And don’t think of blowing this off as a crazy Texas thing, because there have been documented instances in other states. For the record, the female (and only the female) trooper was fired. I’m guessing she’s cursing the fates, smoking women, and the (I assume) unwritten policy that caused her to assault these women in the first place.

Another no, I don’t feel smug and secure because I live in left leaning, blue voting New York. If you’re a New Yorker, you shouldn’t either. Remember, we’re the country’s capitol of Stop-and-Frisk. Not such a big leap from Walking While Black being a crime to Walking While Female.

I think of the Holocaust Survivors I’ve met over the years, the history we haven’t learned well enough. In the beginning, it was all about well they’re only coming for them. Only “them” came to include many. The psychology we KNOW and have studied. “How could the individual SS officers commit these atrocities?” Pretty damned easily. They were broke, unemployed, hungry and afraid. They were given purpose, respect, food, commands, and fear. Told by their superiors, those holding the food and safety of their families, “You have to do this. For your safety. For your family. For your country. Do it. They aren’t really people. They’re a threat to us all. They’re JewsGaysMentally/PhysicallyDefectiveNotUs.” And from post war experiments conducted, we learned that most humans are sheep. We don’t actually need to be hungry or threatened. Just told to do it. Cause another person pain, suffering. Too easy.

Maybe this is the last roar of a dying breed, those who pine for the good ole days. Except the good ole days weren’t really so good, unless you were wealthy, white, and male. I hate to be the one to break the news, but “Leave it to Beaver” was fiction. Being poor sucks, being hungry sucks. Nothing new, it wasn’t fun to be poor and/or hungry 50, 100, 150 years ago either. Being a person of color continues to involve multiple indignities that too many pretend don’t exist. But our President is black has replaced But my best friend is black. Does anyone really believe there’s a significant difference between those statements?

I get it. It’s all about fear, and I understand fear. I’m afraid for me, afraid for my daughter, afraid for my women friends, my goddaughter, my sons’ female friends, the women of America today. WHY aren’t we continuing to move forward instead of sliding backwards? I don’t believe our rights to own property will be revoked, our consumerist society will never give up consumers. The right to vote? I don’t know. Perhaps full body searches will be required before women can cast a ballot. You know, for everyone’s safety.