desertvixen | Entries tagged with choice

Since I need to get the human-beings-are-depressing-me vibe out of my head (yes, maybe I am too sensitive sometimes), allow me to present some of the WTF-y links that have been collecting in my Bookmarks folder.

These mock one or more of the following topics: anti-feminist views, anti-choice views, religious right-wing whack jobs, people who think Single Mothers are unmaking existence.

1. Contraception harms people, society, and civilization
Brought to you by the good people at ProNatal.org, this article features the following gem :
Millions of women feel they are goddesses, they control a man through his contraceptive penis. What a shame. What a low down shame people have gone today. Men submitting to women and thanking them for sex? Give me a break.
Top grade males are always in high demand. Top grade males do not submit to contraceptive slavery. A woman who partners with top grade males want their sperm, they demand it, top material to make their babies with.

I have no issue with people who don't want to use contraceptives, for whatever their personal reason - but why must people try to use bad pseudo-evo-psych BS to make their "point". Also, "contraceptive penis"? Is this some kind of add-on we could buy?

2. The prologue to #1
The gist of this one: REAL men don't sleep with "contraceptive women".

3. Jack Chick tracts
I don't really need to say anything else here, do I? The general message of the tracts is that if you aren't a born-again, evangelical Christian, when you die, you're going to HELL.

Catholic? Going to Hell. (After you get done worshipping Mary and believing in your false religion)
Mormon? Going to Hell.
Muslim? Going to Hell.
Mason? Going to Hell.
Atheist? Going to Hell.
Pagan? Going to Hell.

Unless, of course, after reading one of these, you accept that you must give up your life to Jesus. All you have to do is believe (and pass these out at Halloween instead of candy).

Allow me to present one of my favorites, Why is Mary Crying? (Maybe because she's badly drawn and being used to scare people?)

Far too many of the links I have are dead, which should actually NOT be too surprising.

However, because I promised

garpu , I present a recap of the experience

tepintzin and I had with Resa LaRu Kirkland, who calls herself "America's War Chick", is a military historian, but doesn't believe women should be in the military, unless we're WACs or WAVEs.

The original article (from September 2006) is here.

This is the climax of the article:
Society has paid a dear price for women choosing to listen to these wretched individuals. Women are now in a far worse position than they were 100 years ago; back then, they didn't have many other choices than to be a wife and mother. Today, if they want to be a wife and mother, they can't unless they marry a very rich man. Feminism has enslaved us into the "SuperWoman" role-an impossible place to live. But I have a sick feeling that that is exactly their goal. You see, being pro-abortion isn't enough. They want motherhood and wife-dom to be so difficult, so back-breaking, so agonizing in modern living that women will choose not to marry and have children. For those who still don't grasp it, let me say it in plain speech: Feminism is the party of the "anti-child."

"Female Empowerment" was the shameful fantasy. Now for the harsh reality. Sisters, your babies are killing each other. They are having babies at younger ages and in record numbers in a desperate search for that unconditional love they couldn't find in the myriad of minimum wage babysitters and daycares they had growing up. They are turning to gangs and drugs to ease the pain of loneliness and the longing for Mommy-a longing which is innate, necessary, and good-and it is our fault. Our children are suffering; their tender feelings have waxed cold and all signs of humanity are dying off in agonizing death throes, and we women are the cause. Women. The givers of life have turned against their own offspring in a vain quest for self-fulfillment. It is madness.

Translation: You selfish bitches can't even take care of your own children. It's all your fault for not devoting your entire life to your children, for daring to have a job outside the home (because yes, motherhood is definitely WORK).

Here's what you're gonna do. Women, go home. Get rid of the huge mortgage and move into a trailer. It's not the neighborhood-or village, idiot!-that raises a good child. Have two cars? Get rid of one and deal with the annoyance of having to drive more. It's not the car that makes the family. Fancy clothes and vacations? Trivial and silly... those won't be what your child remembers. Be the one who drops him off and picks him up from school. Those precious moments laughing and talking will always be remembered, I guarantee it. Be in the kitchen, filling a warm home with delicious smells, sounds, and memories, and bring the whole family in to make dinner again, cleaning up together afterwards and bonding over pot roast. It is simple, it is time tested, it is true. The hand that rocks the cradle did-at one time-rule the world. The cradle is silent because the hand is at work and the baby at an institution. Sisters, go home-too much is at stake. Your babies are dying and killing, and the only one who can stop this infanticide is you. The power is-and always has been-yours. Take it back now... it's almost too late.

Yes, because it's completely impossible to raise children and work. Not to mention the fact that this article overlooks many women - women who work because they are the sole support of their children (yes, the dreaded Single Mothers who are Unmaking Existence), women who work because their husband's income is not enough to support a family on. I do believe there are women working who would rather stay home, or who would rather work less hours/more flexible schedule - but for some women, not working is not an option.

Here's what we had to say in my journal the first time around. Response to Ms. Kirkland are in the comments.

When I wrote that response, I was a new mother (the MV was still somewhat of a MicroVixen), home on maternity leave from the Army. I was a happily married woman, with a husband who respected me and treated me as an equal.

I still stand by what I said - Don't force your beliefs down my throat. I have no problems with women deciding to arrange their life and family so that they can stay home - depending on the number/age/special needs of children, it may be the best choice for that woman and her family. Maybe it's the man who stays home, because he has a job that allows flexibility, or because she is the "breadwinner". Maybe she just wants to. It's not my place to judge anyone for that decision.

It's not my decision to stay home. I don't deny there are times when I don't want to go to work, times when I fantasize about just staying home all day, taking care of Adrianna - but then I realize that it would likely drive me crazy. I like to work. I like my job. I like my uniform. I like having money to do what I want.

I just don't buy the whole "working moms/single moms are destroying America" thing.

I didn't ask to be a single mother, but that's what I am right now. My former husband, the father of my child, has decided that he no longer loves me, that I'm too pushy, too argumentative, and not for him. I'm in no hurry to replace him just so my daughter has a father figure.

DV

The link below is to her column for the back of Newsweek.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/157543/page/1

Hypocrisy is only bad when it is improperly used.
-George Bernard Shaw

I never thought I would live long enough to see the day when the
Republican presidential candidate would cite membership in the PTA as
evidence of executive experience, when the far right would laud the
full-time working mothers of newborns, when social conservatives would
stare down teenage pregnancy and replace their pursed-lip accusations of
promiscuity with hosannas about choosing life.

The Republican Party has undergone a surprising metamorphosis since
Sarah Palin was chosen as its vice presidential candidate. In Palin I
recognize a fellow traveler, a woman whose life would have been
impossible just a few decades ago. If she had been born 30 years
earlier, the PTA would likely have been her last stop, not her first.
Her political ascendancy is a direct result of the women's movement,
which has changed the world utterly for women of all persuasions. It is
therefore notable that Palin has found her home in a party, and in a
wing of that party, that for many years has reviled, repelled and sought
to roll back the very changes that led her to the Alaska Statehouse.

This.

But expediency is an astonishing thing, and conservative Republicans
have suddenly embraced the assertion that women can do it all, even
those conservative Republicans who have made careers out of trashing
that notion. James Dobson of Focus on the Family once had staffers on
his hot line saying, "Dr. Dobson recommends that mothers of young
children stay at home as much as possible." He now applauds a woman who
was back at work three days after her son, who has Down syndrome, was
born.

Even to state that simple fact resulted in outrage among those at the
convention, who screamed double standard. But the double standard was
mainly theirs. The governor was aggressively marketed in terms of her
maternity, yet questions about how she managed to mother five and lead
the state were dismissed as sexist.

This as well. They're playing this issue well.

The governor's two years leading
Alaska, which in terms of citizens served is the equivalent of being
mayor of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., was said to be the linchpin of her
appointment, but questions about her breadth of experience were
dismissed as sexist. Her surrogates wanted the press to write about
mooseburgers and ignore how the governor had once pursued the kind of
earmarked federal funds she now insists are anathema to her.
Conservatives have probably used the word "sexist" more in the past week
than they have in the past 50 years.

This as well.

This would all have been entertaining if it were not such rank
hypocrisy. These are people who have inveighed against affirmative
action, a version of which undoubtedly played a part in this selection.
These are people who inveighed against personal attacks on their new
nominee when the wingnuts of their own party elevated such attacks to a
fine art by accusing Hillary Rodham Clinton of fictitious misdeeds
ranging from treason to murder. To try to suggest Sarah Palin might
garner the Hillary Clinton vote, that one woman is just the same as
another, that biology trumps ideology, is the ultimate evidence of true
sexism, and I hope Senator Clinton will travel the country and say so.

Amid the drumbeat of female Amazonian competence occasioned by the Palin
nomination ran one deeply discordant assumption, the assumption that
women are strong and smart and sure and yet neither sentient nor moral
enough to decide what to do if they are pregnant under difficult
circumstances.

The governor has talked about the choice she and her
pregnant teenage daughter have made, but would deny other women the right to make their own choices.

This is my biggest problem, right here. I know there are other issues, but for me this is the important one. It's great that they made the choice that is right for them, for their beliefs, for their situation.

But Sarah Palin is not me. I would not want my daughter to decide to marry someone at 17, whether she was pregnant or not. I would want my daughter to be able to make the choice that is right for her. Abortion might be that choice.

She talks about fighting the old boys'
network and corrupt politicians, but would turn over the private
reproductive decisions of American women to both. This is not choosing
life. It is choosing unwarranted intrusion into the family lives of
women.

This is an interesting way of making the argument. I like it.

Which, ironically, is exactly what the Republicans accused the
press of doing in the case of Governor Palin.

When Democrat James Carville said he found the choice of Palin
perplexing on the merits, Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said
she found that "offensive to American women." I found her offense
offensive to American women, since at its core was the notion that
Governor Palin should not and could not be judged by the same standards
as her male counterparts. In fact, all the cries of sexism suggested
that, yet again, the Republicans had underestimated the ability of women
to lead; when the governor finally took center stage, it was clear that
she needed no protections or excuses. If she is as sharp and
self-assured as her convention speech, the first thing she will do, in
the parlance of the sport she played under the nickname "Sarah
Barracuda," is to slam-dunk the notion that she can't take an elbow. She
certainly knows how to give one.

John McCain has been no advocate for women; when asked during the
primaries, on the subject of Senator Clinton, "How do we beat the
bitch?" he responded, "Excellent question." (Note to the GOP: that IS
sexist.) He has been either hostile or clueless on issues like
contraceptive funding, workplace protections and aid to poor mothers.
And his running mate will likely walk in lock step with him on all those
things. But she could certainly help move the inevitable tide of women's
rights, the tide that has floated her own boat, by demanding that she be
honored with the same tough scrutiny the guys in this race get. Which
was, in case these improbable born-again friends of feminism missed it,
the entire point of the exercise in the first place.

*** *** ***

I know choice is not the only issue, but for me it is a major one. A candidate who is not pro-choice would have to have A LOT to make up for that flaw (in my eyes). Choice is important for me, for my daughter.

Also, it's really great that Sarah Palin had a job where she could mesh work and family. I mean that, absolutely, without sarcasm. I think it is wonderful that she can manage to fit her kids in her schedule, that she has a support network she can depend on, that she understands that family is important. So this is what I'd like to know:

What would Sarah Palin do to ensure that all mothers, not just mothers able to tailor their own job, are able to mesh the commitments of work and family without making one suffer unduly?

(Since Sarah Palin is unlikely to drop by here, please feel free to contribute your own suggestions.)

DV

Lot of discussion about this at work, but I think at this point we need to stay off it.

Obama has called to leave the families and kids out of it, which agree with.

And I think the guy at MSNBC.com's Sexploration (Brian Alexander) said pretty much what I think about the subject, so I link to it here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26501011/

This is the best part of the article, and the part that made me sit up and go, "Thank you!"

War in Iraq, economy imploding, energy transformation finally on America’s agenda, income disparity threatening the social order, cynicism infecting every corner of American life, a tectonic shift to a multi-polar world, a collapsing educational system, and you want to make the pregnancy of a 17-year-old a political issue?

Stop it. Unmarried 17-year-old girls get pregnant every day in this country — too many of them — and they come from strong, healthy families, and broken, dysfunctional families, and conservative families and liberal families. Bristol’s pregnancy says nothing about Sarah Palin’s suitability to be the next vice-president just as Obama’s youthful cocaine use, or his middle name, says nothing about his suitability to be the next president.

But this country is stuck in junior high when it comes to sex. We either want to condemn it and say it shouldn’t be discussed in any realistic way, or we want to drench ourselves in it.

So we hear all about Palin’s hotness quotient or her local beauty queen victory, all of which is about as relevant as the fact that she has hunted moose. (I’ve spent some time in Alaska, fell in love with my wife in Alaska, and hung out with a lot of Alaskans and can tell you that hunting moose is to Alaskans what lunching at Barney’s wine bar is to New Yorkers. No big deal.)

If we want to talk about sex and politics, how about talking about whether or not the candidates defend comprehensive sex education, or favor abstinence-only sex education? Data has debunked the abstinence-only approach as wishful thinking. Texas, for example, which strongly endorses abstinence-only, and demands parental consent before teenagers can get contraception, leads the nation in its rate of teen pregnancies, dropping only by 19 percent from 1991 to 2004 while the rest of country dropped by over 30 percent .

Meanwhile in California, where comprehensive sex-education is mandatory in public schools, the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 47 percent.

That’s what matters. It is none of my business that Bristol Palin is pregnant or what sexual prescriptions Sarah Palin chooses in her own household. It is my business what prescriptions McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden want to give me.

You see, they are making a choice. I would like to see that their choice is one of many options that remains open to women, so again - I'm not voting for McCain/Palin.

But I think being a seventeen year old and pregnant is hard enough, so how about we get off this story and onto something else... like Sarah Palin's stand on the issues.

DV