Respectability vs RESPECT: Part One

R•E•S•P•E•C•T  is of course:

Respectability is a different kettle of fish, however.  The very foundation of patriarchy is cemented with the premise that only some women are respectable - that is, worthy and deserving of respect - and others are NOT.

My co-blogger fern hill recently addressed the *stigma* of abortion. And we have many more blogposts at DJ! that challenge the notion that respectable women should grieve, do penance, and wear ashes on their head when a pregnancy - their OWN, in fact - is terminated. By choice.  Or when it's forcibly rejected by the body, an occurrence that happens regularly.

By way of an example, Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis' disclosure of how and why she had two abortions, illustrates the division between what is considered a 'respectable' abortion and what is not. 

"For a woman to reveal she has had an abortion because she wanted one, because she couldn't emotionally sacrifice for another child, because she was remiss in her use of contraception, and, further, to declare she has only felt happiness towards her decision is truly groundbreaking. Davis' abortion narrative has helped diminish the social stigma surrounding abortion. But until the “bad” abortion stories are just as acceptable, pro-choice advocates have a long way to go."

From must-read: _Wendy Davis and the 'Good Abortion' Myth_ found here.

Respectability is at issue with regard to abortion because when women have sex, consensually or not, that can produce a pregnancy - unwanted or planned.

Sex as procreative versus sex as a recreative activity.  Also, sex as gender bigotry.

Yesterday some hack writer, compensating for whatever pathetic sense of inadequacy seized him, dismissed Naomi Klein and her recent publication in calculated, malevolent, gendered, barnyard animal terms.  

Not even bothering to address or refute her arguments, he deems her stupid. 

There you have it. But wait, here is more to consider.

As observed: "...the word cow is a put down to women but the term bull is considered a compliment for men." 

Note also in the exchange cited above, the comparison used when vilifying mayoral candidate Olivia Chow.  Her competitor John Tory said that she had "more positions than Masters and Johnson".  

"Respectability" is a toxic judgement passed on women and the last remaining double standard for judging women's choices and behaviours as indecent.  Feminists of African, Indigenous and Asian ancestry have identified the use of "respectability" politics as a weapon specifically used to target women of colour (WoC) for social opprobrium.

An incident that unfolded in Los Angeles last week gained publicity when Danièle Watts, intimidated and humiliated by police who profiled her as prostitute, spoke up.  

Her experience is not unusual. As evident from the insult slung at Ms Chow by her opponent, these assumptions of impropriety about racialized women are claimed by men who reduce them to female beings unworthy of respect, with little or no resources other than the unbridled hyper-sexuality that others project upon their bodies.

Next: Part Two will examine how respectability politics reinforce whorephobia as a partisan neo-conservative tactic to divide women and destroy solidarity among feminists. Read the blogpost from @kwetoday that I've linked to, above.

C36 = CONtempt for women and CONtempt for the law.

Last week Justice Minister Peter MacKay, channeling all the prurient lunacy of General Jack D. Ripper and the worst pearl-clutching clichés of a Victorian schoolmarm, presented Bill C36 in the House of Commons.

The language Petey used and repeated for emphasis was quite revealing.

Harper and MacKay's new bill - C36 The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, the latest CPC government crap legislation and named the opposite of what it actually does - offers in one venal and meretricious piece of legal flimflam the worst of Con bias, prejudice and hatred.

It is a loathsome pottage of spitefulness (directed at the Supreme Court of Canada), class prejudice, racism, misogyny and fundamentalist religiosity.

The reaction on Twitter ranged from pithy excoriations by sex workers, lawyers, non-abolitionist feminists, charter experts and human rights advocates, to PMO-issued speaking points barked by CPC trained seals and fatuous accolades by anti-prostitution organizations.

This perspective was odd and interesting, with a focus on the utilitarian and economic aspects of sex work which allows a detached evaluation of the Nordic and New Zealand models. However its breezy conclusion: 
«..because the government regulates the activities of industries in which workers are put at risk, but also because machines have replaced much of the dangerous work that was previously done by workers the current state of technology is such that machines will soon be capable of providing the same services currently provided by sex workers. You don’t have to be an economist to predict that while governments have failed to reduce participation in the sex trades, technology is very likely to succeed» 
doesn't address the very basic human needs this service industry meets - and that machinery would likely not.

The last decades have seen an expanded commercial development of dolls that replicate some aspect of human bodies; though some are crafted to resemble in minute details all physical details of known porn actors, they are essentially very expensive, static silicone sex toys.  There's a niche market for (mostly) men whose sexual proclivities are geared towards the forcible penetration of beautifully crafted, inert objets d'art with compliant orifices.  It's worth glancing at the NSFW websites of Real Doll, Doll Story and Fantasy Sex Dolls to get a sense of which traits are valued and deemed desirable.

This segues aptly into the most lucid, trenchant and fierce deconstruction of sex work that I have read.

«What is prostitution? Are women selling a service, or are they selling themselves, as a commodity?

Many supporters of the Nordic model, both in feminist and family-values circles, say it’s the latter. Prostitution, they say, is a commodity sale. It is inherently objectifying and exploitative, they argue. It is itself a harm, even if all the associated harms can be eliminated. A woman who believes she is freely choosing her job has to be wrong about that, they argue. She is a victim whether she knows it or not.

Conservative MP Joy Smith is one of the strongest voices on this side of the debate, who says she recognizes “prostitution as an industry that is inherently harmful to women and girls and therefore must be eliminated.” She favours the Nordic model.

If you believe that selling sex means selling women, you believe that a woman’s value equals her capacity to have sex.

Framing this as a gender-equality argument is ironic, because that same notion underpins many of the world’s most sexist ideas — including the idea, still in place in some parts of the world, that rape is a property crime.

We in Canada don’t generally talk about rape that way any more, but we still use that language when we talk about prostitution. We use phrases like “selling her body” or even “selling herself” — rather than “selling sex.”

To assume that prostitution commodifies women, we have to also think a certain way about heterosexual sex. We have to think of it as male access to a woman’s body — not as something a woman does with her body. This is the "why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free" way of seeing women’s sexuality. Again, not exactly a gender-equality argument.»

(I interrupt Kate Heartfield's thoughtful prose with a crude example that illustrates how a married woman, in this case a politician's wife, is subjected to that very degradation that so incensed MacKay. Juxtapose this with the passage here in which Rob Ford attempts to traffick Renata. Also, if sex-workers were to publish clients' names, all would see that putative "family-values" rightwing Con men make up the majority of their lists.) 

«There is another way of looking at sex: that a woman’s value as a human being has nothing to do with whom she chooses to have sex with or how often or what conditions she imposes on that choice. If this is our assumption, then a woman who sells sex is not selling herself. She isn’t turning herself into a commodity, and neither is anyone else. Sex is merely the service she sells.»

Registered and practical nurses, athletes, child care workers, lawyers, therapists, morticians: all provide professional services that sometimes require that they engage in a particular activity that some people might find repellant and disgusting. The specific *ickiness* of a task does not detract from the knowledge, respect and dignity they bring to their jobs

What is most disappointing to me in this whole debate is the participation of abolitionist feminists who give credence to Andrea Dworkin's pragmatic and ideological analysis of women's bodies as pornographed and fetishized commodities.  Believing this construct to be so deeply embedded in all institutions that it cannot be uprooted, they think that in order to limit the horrific harm that's done to women who are trafficked or trapped by poverty and many vulnerabilities in the "sex trade", they are obliged to align themselves with punitive and sex-phobic Reformatory Evangelical conservative legislation.

Whatever their expertise, critics of C36 agree that it will NOT keep women safe; it will probably endanger them MORE than the old law did.

And, just in case you know people who still don't get why C36 is so MASSIVELY WRONG, direct them to Tabatha Southey's splendid slam dunk.

ADDED: Money for sex, sex for money is a personal reflection on sex work that I posted in March this year.

MORE: Joyce Arthur deconstructs the toxic misogynist religious ideology at the core of C36.

And in Other Weird Sculpture News Today

That's NOT funny.

The Davis Museum at Wellesley College is holding an exhibit of the work of sculptor Tony Matelli, and to help advertise the exhibit, the museum placed one of Matelli's statues outside. Titled The Sleepwalker, the realistic-looking statue shows a bald man in his tighty-whities lumbering forward with his arms outstretched, his eyes closed, and his head lolling around in deep sleep. It's funny and is, unsurprisingly, a big hit on Instagram. It's also creating controversy, as reported by the Boston Globe, as many students object to the statue on the grounds that it's scary. Zoe Magid, a junior at the university, started a Change.org petition demanding that the statue be moved inside the museum. "Within just a few hours of its outdoor installation, the highly lifelike sculpture by Tony Matelli, entitled 'Sleepwalker,' has become a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for some members of our campus community," she writes, adding variations of the word trigger two more times.

The museum director responded but. . .

This email did not placate the critics of the statue, who left dozens of comments, mostly written in feminist jargon.

Amanda Marcotte quotes some dandy examples -- go read.

I'm sure this story is on its way to a conservative media outlet near you, where some white, privileged man in tighty-whities will roll his eyes about the hysterical feminists, which, in this case, well—good call.

Seriously, and I say that SERIOUSLY because I am a feminist, what the hell kind of feminists are we raising these days?

Lady Bits Lady Bits

The title is cheerfully free-associated from the Ladybug charm most anglo kids get taught when they're just old enough to toddle. The traditional charm's still used to magically send a ladybug on its way when it's landed on you, with the not-so-subliminal idea that mom shouldn't go out alone or dreadful things will happen to the kids left behind in the woman-empty (and therefore adult-empty apparently) home.

The witty ditty's message fits quite well with the magical concern many in authority express when presented with women out of "the home", for women's own good of course, usually when 'good' is defined as procreative functionality. We here in Canada usually see these handwringing declarations of Revealed Medical Wisdom Feelings attached to Dire WarningsTM about the horrors of legal abortion, but it's a global game.

The latest Very Worried cultural counselor shouldering the heavy burden of keeping women from harming themselves in shameless pursuit of being considered human beings is in Saudi Arabia. He's waxing scientifictionish on the topic of women being harmed by driving motor vehicles. He's not bothering with actual vision hazards of wearing full hijab/niqab affecting collision statistics, he's bemoaning the sliding of a Lady Bits owner behind the wheel at all.

"If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards," he told Sabq. "That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees."

Oddly, women are just selfish, wild things, unwilling to put "reason ahead of their hearts, emotions and passions".(where have we heard this before?...where haven't we heard this one before?)

These 'common sense' expoundings about women's internal organs tendencies to go walkabout have always been a go-to when denying women full participation in society. I especially like the one that circulated in the 'women can't be educated because think of the children!' hey day. Apparently, women could procreate or think, but not both because the blood supply available in a woman was a zero sum game. If she thought too much, her Lady Bits would shrivel. Medical certainty!

But with biological sciences slowly turning attention on how Lady Bits actually function, the "Glurge of the Gaps" is being reduced to even less coherent sputtering that often now receives the media respect it is due.

Why, even the International Olympic Committee has tired of looking like Saudi Muslim clerics. The Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 will be the first time women are allowed to compete in Ski Jumping.

2014.
First.
Time.
Ever.

Why? Finally struggling past Lady Bits and the gender expression expectations foisted upon those that have'm? Nahhhh, can't be that...can it?

PS: Just as an aside for how talking about woman's sexual reproductive organs is twisted into our taboos and gender expectations, has anyone else ever met someone who found Regina uncomfortably close to Vagina in pronunciation and how it somehow made Regina sound even more feminine and unworthy of a capital city? Especially when trying to indirectly haw-haw insult the Roughriders? No? Just me?

This is Why Authentic Men's Issues Activists Can't Have Nice Things

An Albertan offshoot of the American MRA ('men's rights activists' and yes, the scare quotes are intentional) whinefest and hate groups has decided the Edmonton Police Department's "Don't Be That Guy" Campaign was talking about *all* men  and decided to be brave heroes with a counter-campaign of their own, speaking truthiness to power.

"Don't Be That Girl"

Bonus CTV videos

The "Men's Rights Edmonton" website has the bingo card of straw arguments that are mainstays of the MRA seething resentmentarians.

"…Except, feminism has had over 40 years to do something about mens issues, and they have done jack diddly about them. In fact, feminism has been directly responsible for exacerbating existing issues, while brining about new ones. So your pro-feminist camp can CLAIM to covet open-mindedness and open discourse, but you already have a great deal to answer for before you have a hope in hell of being taken seriously. If you call yourself a feminist, you have to own this shit."

Eeeeyah.  It's possible they are actively working on actual men's issues but when it quacks 'whataboutthemenz you feminazis' like a duck... Anyway, I invite readers to visit the website and decide for themselves.

If you want a more detailed taste of the American seething from which this Edmonton group appears to draw its rotes, an excellent watchdog site focused on them is "Manboobz" (run by a man...or mangina as his MRA opponents spit at him.  They loathe feminist men almost as much as they do feminist women).

As an example, at present, Manboobz has highlighted the usual suspects discussing the celebrity assault/divorce of Saatchi vs Lawson, where apologizing for Saatchi is tricky but doable if you ignore reality.

The fact that the Edmonton-based MRA group has a woman out front 'unofficially' speaking to the press, shows no matter the size or organization of a group women are not homogenous in their empowerment goals and women are just as socially conditioned into being misogynists as men are.

Some women are quite fervent about being misogynists, although ironically, they tend to make a very public, independent, financially rewarding career for themselves telling women to remain in domestic roles submissive to men's authority.

"Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men" a men's issues blog working on the sufferings of men under patriarchal systems (you know, where an elite caste of authoritarian male patriarchs have historically exploited *all* sexes of lower social caste for continued power), has recently had a run-in with the American MRA resentmentarian Paul Elam of "A Voice for Men" and taken him to task.  The blog has links to other men's issues groups, many international.

To end this on a light note, here's a great Emmy-winning video from Soomo Publishing, where they filk Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" into the story of American women's suffrage.  It takes all sexes and genders to improve society.  Some people are authentically getting on with it.  MRA misogynists howling menz are the real victims and women have run a global conspiracy to kick men around are not them.

Don't be That Guy or Gal*.

*No, I don't find 'girl' to be literately equivalent to 'guy' for meaning. In modern informal usage, guy can be any age.  Girl is still a juvenilizing term, especially when attaching it to the subject of false rape accusations.  Also, did the counter-campaign include a same-sex consent poster ala the original campaign? Or was it all about casting doubt on sexual assault reports by women against men?

Update:  The woman in the CTV video linked above, identified as Karen Straughan, the 'unofficial spokesperson' for the Edmonton group, is better known to the intertubes by the 'nym "GirlWritesWhat" a voluble token woman MRA.

A Canadian, she's a contributing editor to the notorious "A Voice for Men" website and its spinoffs.  AVFM's  head is Paul Elam, taken to task above.  AVFM is crowing about the press the Edmonton event has garnered.

exerpted from the piece because I don't really want to link there.

"...Editorial note:  These events are, by far, the most widely covered men’s rights efforts by the media to date.  For the next several days members of Men’s Rights Edmonton and by extension the broader MHRM will have exposure they have never had before.  It is important that those reading this post contact the above mentioned news sources and educate them about our movement in order to strike the iron while hot.  Below are links to other articles concerning this issue and their numbers are growing by the hour.  Lets keep it going, shall we!!!!...." 

...strike the iron while hot?....oookay then.  So, no, I don't think the Edmonton group nuts fell far from the MRA woman-hating tree.

/edited for update and to see if I could work the quote code

Definitely NOT a Couple of Farm Boys

I just watched this again. Cracked me up just as much as when I first saw it this morning.

Pay attention to the guy on the left around the 2:30 mark.





If it's faked, these guys are genius actors.

Thanks to our very funny Twitter pal, SherryBGood.

Dear Anti-Feminists

Another tragic victim of Woodworth's Wank is @roseblue's Twitter account. (@roseblue may be better known to DJ! readers as SUZY ALLCAPSLOCK.)

Mid- final frothing frenzy of fetus fetishizing, SHE disappeared. Her account had been suspended and no one knows why. Though there's been some fun speculation. . .

JJ found this record of her tweets.

SHE's blogging still, venting her venom at -- who else? -- feminists. (No link for the usual reason.)

http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2012/09/its-not-only-talk-about-unborn-that-has.html

Other CONNED women and at least one patronizing male are also screeching about 'feminist orthodoxy'.

She's the Minister for Status of Women, not the Minister for Enforcing Feminist Orthodoxy.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) September 28, 2012

I got to thinking about feminism.

If you are an anti-feminist woman and you vote -- even for candidates who'd stop that nonsense in a nanosecond -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman and you enjoy the rights of contract and property law -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman but sadly divorced yet benefitting from family law reforms (allowing you to have custody of your children, for example) -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman who practices safe, legal family planning including contraception and abortion (we won't tell anyone) -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman who wants to or needs to work 'outside the home' -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman who works and is paid the same as the man in the next cubicle -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman who has achieved higher education -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman in a profession formerly seen as 'male' -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman with recourse to sexual harassment/discrimination remedies in the workplace -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman who needs daycare for her children -- you didn't build that.

If you are an anti-feminist woman who took maternity leave to have those children -- you didn't build that.

And if you are an anti-feminist man whose mother, sister, daughter, wife, girlfriend, and female friends benefit from any of those things -- you CERTAINLY didn't build that.

Anti-feminist women love to SHRIEEEK: 'Feminists don't speak for me!'

No. We don't.

But our accomplishments -- and ongoing struggles -- benefit ALL of you.

You're welcome.

Thanks

So, DAMMIT JANET! had a bit of a problem with a couple of bloggers' take on Woodworth's Wank.

Instead of seeing the ploy for what it is -- 'an ignorant affront to global human rights standards' -- two bloggers saw it as a dandy opportunity to sharpen their middle-school debating tactics.

But, see, the thing is -- both are fellow members of the blog aggregator called Progressive Bloggers.

It takes some pretzelly thinking to reconcile 'progressive' with 'affront to global human rights standards', yes?

We shouldn't be too surprised though. Feminists have never been all that welcome at ProgBlogs or the annual Blogger Bunfest, Canadian Blog Awards.

In fact, deBeauxOs and I started blogging centuries ago at a new feminist blog. We wanted the exposure that belonging to an aggregator would bring, so we applied to ProgBlogs. We were accepted, but the mods at the time felt the need to tell us that their approval was NOT unanimous.

Classy, eh?

(Or just typical boyo-behaviour. 'We'll let you into our treehouse, but you'd better watch your step, ladies.')

What with the War on Women raging in the Excited States in the background to this new assault on women's rights in Canada, I got a little snippy on Twitter with ProgBlogs' site administrator Scott Tribe and alter-ego @Prog_Blog.

@Prog_Blog I'm thinking about a strike by actual progressive bloggers until misogynists are booted. #blogging #cdnprog #cdnpoli

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 3, 2012

Here's the reply.

@fernhilldammit @jjhippie That's your decision of course. I won't be blackmailed into making a decision however.

— Progressive Bloggers (@Prog_Blog) April 3, 2012

Well, as you can imagine, twit-spat erupted. Various real progressive bloggers on one side, the usual suspects on the other. Fave old chestnuts like 'circular firing squad' and 'purity test' were aired.

And so on.

Fun.

Scott said he had put the matter to his six moderators for judgement. (Of those six, one is said to be uterusful and one a Dipper. It is not clear if they are in separate bodies.)

The verdict is in.

Those blogpost/sites have been looked at, and it was unanimous amongst the moderators & the site admin (7-0) - we see no grounds for action.

— Progressive Bloggers (@Prog_Blog) April 6, 2012

Again, not surprising.

But this time, we've had it.

It is simply not OK to disrespect and dismiss one's supposed allies.

So, if you usually get here from PB, you'll have to make other arrangements, because as soon as my co-bloggers here have taken the opportunity to say good-bye, we will be gone from there.



Image source.

Yes, it's New Year's, but this is DJ, so...

...this year's inaugural post is about something!

What is that something? That something is an excellent comment by sooey at DrDawg's place:

Their argument against Muslims seems to come down to a fear of their numbers and is refueled every time any vaguely/possibly Muslim person commits a crime (thereby expanding their numbers exponentially). But "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" is only prong one of a two-pronged strategy against Muslim demographics. Prong two is an attack on Feminism. The goal is to discredit Feminism and roll back progress on abortion rights for women - here. Mark Steyn/David Warren, even Ezra Levant in his marketing strategy for tarsands development, ultimately blame western Feminists for what they claim is a Muslim threat to civilization. To them, I'm a traitor because I support the right of Canadian women to terminate pregnancy. Their real war is against Feminism.

That's right. Islamophobia is joined at the hip with white natalist paranoia. Natalism is always and everywhere the obverse of the racist coin (including---especially!---racism with a communalistic flavour like Islamophobia). It is both the origin and the conclusion of racist thinking.

Natalism is one of feminism's ultimate enemies. That's why it's so unintentionally funny when racists of the LevantSibleyWarrenSteyn human centipede chain claim that "The Left" is endangering women's rights by not being full-throated supporters of anti-Muslim wars. Because their logical solution, the sine qua non of their entire ideology, is that women must be more pregnant, and are not doing enough because feminism has given them the opportunity to choose otherwise. The only solution is to reduce those gains---which was what they claimed, with crocodile tears, was the reason to fear Muslims...

If racism and natalism are two sides of the same coin, then natalism's polishing agent is glurge. That, incidentally, is why DJ has such a strict anti-glurge policy.

And, on that note, Happy New Year's. May the world's 2012 suck less than 2011 did. Don't hold your breath, though.

It's No Band Camp

Oh those eeevil Girl Scouts and their perverse manifestos of liberalism. Or so goes the American Townhall version of the Church Lady , Rebecca Hegelin, who seems to have made a personal cause of exposing the dangers of feminism. Thankfully, she has a solution for all good Christian parents horrified that their daughters might be exposed to the deadly virus of getting along with the Other. The American Heritage Girls.

No, not these although that's where I free-associated first, courtesy of a bland tv movie stuck in my mental rolodex. The live version (although how much livelier I can't say) of these.

I am a bad, *bad* person, because I pretty much instantaneously Godwinned on the name. It gives off such a comfy, Frauenschaft aura, although the badges are likely less impressive. Trying to be less mean spirited, I have to say that socially conservative Christians certainly have the right to form social organizations where they would enjoy the activities in an environment uncluttered by rampant inclusion. But this one paragraph in Hegelin's enthusiastic advertisement stopped me from believing they intend anything in the way of minding their own children's business.

"The AHG walk in the company of good friends. In 2009, AHG and the Boy Scouts of America created an historic partnership between the two groups—the first alliance between the Boy Scouts and any young women’s organization." (emphasis mine) "As a practical matter, this means that sponsoring churches or schools can offer an appealing combination to families--aligned programs for both boys and girls. Check out the list of additional AHG partners here. It’s a wholesome and dynamic selection."

That means in all the mutual decades of existence, the Boy Scouts of America have never-ever had a partnership with the Girl Scouts of America? But they're now partnered with this preeningly overt Christian organization for the 'proper' socializing of girls? I know the Boy Scouts are a Christian organization as well, but I'm also aware the defense excusing the manifesto is the BSA's religious monoculture will bounce off kids like water off a duck's back. Until it doesn't because Christian morals are good for everyone. What could possibly go wrong?

When I was young, an eon or so ago, the only sort of kids' camp available fell into two categories. Scouts or a separate permanent holiday spot located near Outlook, Saskatchewan. Scouts of either sex not being a steady presence in every community, my parents managed to scrape up enough money one year so I could attend one of the sessions at Outlook.

Wowzers, a real camp. Just like on tv. When I arrived is when it dawned on me the place was overtly Christian and activities were threaded through with religion. I didn't have a bad time, albeit disappointed in lack of 'me and this pen knife' fire-starting and the like, but I was a stubborn little poop pile uninterested in the 'message' being fed to us. Every meal, song sessions, fireside activities; even symbols in crafts classes were Christian-themed.

I went along to get along but also discovered that kids around me were a lot more serious about the believing. Which, ahem, led to enriching an atmosphere of supernatural gullibility so that several of them thought Satan was messing with campers by being the cause of accident-injuries among the camp population. What? It's not my fault so many got upset enough an all-camp 'exercise' class on the common was cancelled after the latest fall and serious sprain occurred.

I was glad to go home to the back forty of the farm and didn't go to camp again. Ever since, I've harboured a dislike of the fact that in many rural and economically challenging situations, the only outlets for such social kid activities all too often comes with the hidden hook of religion and all its socially strictured intersections.

And then those religiously-based organizations whine and complain about groups like the Girl Scouts putting girls first, not their religion, thus *ruining* the unchallenged mores that scooped in so many with nowhere else to go.


h/t Whiskeyfire

Blogging Ignorance

In comparing two recent books on the influence of the religious right in Canada, Big City Lib has this to say (emphasis, of course, mine):

Nevertheless, their ability to do real harm to the nation is limited; Puplit [sic] and Politics readers will note that almost all the bones throne[sic] to Religuous Right voters over the past several years have involved relatively minor foreign policy issues. Efforts to promote family planning in the 3rd world, for example, have been eliminated or scaled back or order to appease Pro-Lifers. No attempt, on the other hand, has been made to defund or eliminate abortions services here in Canada.

Ah yes. What's a mere 20 million unsafe abortions among the duskier-hued peoples a year matter?

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that each year nearly 42 million women faced with unintended pregnancies have abortions, of which 20 million are unsafe, mostly in countries where abortion is illegal. According to WHO and Guttmacher, approximately 68,000 women die annually as a result of complications of unsafe abortion; and between two million and seven million women each year survive unsafe abortion but sustain long-term damage or disease (incomplete abortion, infection (sepsis), haemorrhage, and injury to the internal organs, such as puncturing or tearing of the uterus). They also concluded abortion is safe in countries where it's legal, but dangerous in countries where it's outlawed and performed clandestinely*. The WHO reports that in developed regions, nearly all abortions (92%) are safe, whereas in developing countries, more than half (55%) are unsafe. According to WHO statistics, the risk rate for unsafe abortion is 1/270; according to other sources, unsafe abortion is responsible for one in eight maternal deaths. Worldwide, 48% of all induced abortions are unsafe.

An article from the World Health Organization calls safe, legal abortion a "fundamental right of women, irrespective of where they live" and unsafe abortion a "silent pandemic".The article states "ending the silent pandemic of unsafe abortion is an urgent public-health and human-rights imperative." It also states "access to safe abortion improves women’s health, and vice versa, as documented in Romania during the regime of President Nicolae Ceausescu" and "legalisation of abortion on request is a necessary but insufficient step toward improving women’s health" citing that in some countries, such as India where abortion has been legal for decades, access to competent care remains restricted because of other barriers.

With 'progressive' bloggers like this, is it any wonder how hard people who care about such 'relatively minor' issues had to fight to get a feminist category in the Canadian Blog Awards?

Oh. Look. This year's competition has been delayed on account of scarcity of nominations.

Well, if blogging is dying, maybe it's time to say good riddance to the ignorance so prominently on display in blogs like BCL.

*Canada, under the Theo-Neo-Cons, now funds International Planned Parenthood ONLY in countries where abortion is illegal, where women experience the most dangerous abortion conditions. Isn't that 'pro-life' of us?

Game On!

Woo. We almost missed this. Nominations for the 2011 Canadian Blog Awards are now open.

And still with a seemingly uncontroversial Best Feminist Blog category.

Go nominate your faves. And no, this isn't a hint. DJ! and a bunch of other good bloggers fought long and hard for a feminist category. We want to support the new and improved Canadian Blog Awards.

And thanks again to Support Bro Jonathan Kleiman.

Ourselves

Hands up. Who remembers her (or his) first encounter with 'Our Bodies, Ourselves'?

It is 40 years old this year. (Eeek.)

It was described by evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell as "obscene trash."

High schools and public libraries banned it, while teenagers -- male and female -- hid it under their beds like a dirty magazine.

Women across the country passed it to their friends, their sisters, their neighbors. They read chapters about rape in closets with flashlights. They gaped in dorm rooms at the photos of childbirth.

The landmark women's health handbook was filled with sometimes graphic information about the most intimate aspects of women's lives. It was revolutionary in its candid discussions -- and depictions -- of the specifics of sex, birth control, childbirth, lesbianism and other formerly taboo topics.

In 1971, the first "Our Bodies, Ourselves" book sold 250,000 copies. Today, it is available in 25 languages and has sold more than 4 million copies.

It's hard to believe it all began in Boston with just 12 women.

The CNN piece continues with an interview with Judy Norsigian, one of the founders and now executive director of 'Our Bodies, Ourselves'.

What I remember most vividly were the anatomy drawings. Who knew there were so many varieties of vagina?

I referred to it often over the years. The information was always clear, direct, and helpful. I imagine it still is.

Hard to imagine the women's movement without it.

Congrats again to the Boston Women's Health Book Collective.

Image source.

Whose Affray: Of Naomi Wolf and other horrors.

For someone so enamoured of anecdotal mythologies and cultural archetypes, Naomi seems unfamiliar with the fable of the child who cried "Wolf!" once too often.

Though she attempted to walk back from her impetuous condemnation of the two women who stated that Julian Assange had non-consensual unprotected sex with them, Wolf demonstrates once more that, whatever her purported political orientation, her inerrant allegiance is to Naomi and to unrelenting self-promotion.

DrDawg at his Blawg deconstructs Wolf's screed, neatly using the tendentious hyperbole she exploits in The End of America.

The Revolution Will Not Be Gender-Specific

When the Arab Spring began, I started following on Twitter several reporters and journalists -- many of them Arabs of various nations -- covering the news.

I've continued following most of them, including the wonderful Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy. She retweets a lot and today she is retweeting a series from Leil-Zahra Mortada, who witnessed an outrageous act of, sadly, not at all unusual sexual street harassment of women in Egypt. Here's the story from another source.

The outrage stems from the occasion and the victim's identity. She is iconic actress Sherihan, who has been a part of the uprising all along. (Photos here if you're curious.)

The occasion was another demonstration in Tahrir Square yesterday. Islamists had said they would not participate, so people were anticipating a secular, progressive event.

Ha.

If you haven't been following events in Egypt, you might think things are all rosy there. They're not. The army has turned out to be not such great fans of revolution. People are being arrested and detained for demonstrating and speaking up. 'Thugs' beat and harass people.

Progressives and the young people who started all this are pissed. Women in particular are pissed.

Hence, further demonstrations. Which the authorities are obviously trying to quell.

The assault did not happen in Tahrir Square but after Sherihan left. Leil-Zahra:

@monaeltahawy Plz spread, most Egyptian media is trying to taint Tahrir saying all happened in the square during the protest.

Tweeps are saying it was not the 'usual' sexual street harassment. Sherihan says she doesn't know who the men were, but calls them 'thugs'.

When Lara Logan was assaulted, the western media was alllll over it. And, of course, the usual nutbars got all shrieeky with their knee-jerk Muslim bashing and simultaneous 'Where are the feminists?' schtick. With the added frisson of victim-blaming, as in 'Well, what did a good looking blonde broad expect?'

I just searched for 'Sherihan' at Google News. This is what I got: *crickets*. (BTW, Sherihan is a pretty stunning looking brunette, i.e. media fodder.)

So, I'm a feminist and I'm here and I'm pissed. This reminds me of my young feminist/anti-war activist self. Just as now in Egypt and elsewhere, women were being told: 'Let's just get this war stopped/democracy going and then we'll get to your [teensy] concerns.'

Egyptian women are being targetted and used. They bloody well know it and are not going to stand for it. Here's Eltahawy again in a recent interview with Amy Goodman discussing Logan's experience.

You know, myself and every Egyptian woman I know have been subjected to groping or other kinds of street sexual harassment.
. . .
And, you know, what happened when Tahrir Square was opened was, those who didn’t join the revolution came out to Tahrir Square. So this kind of utopian atmosphere we had in Tahrir Square, you know, was ruined by people who came either from the Mubarak regime supporters or others who were not part of the revolution. So, women in Egypt and their male allies recognize that the revolution must continue not just politically, but also culturally and socially, as a way of ensuring that women’s rights do not disappear just because the Mubarak regime has been toppled and that women must continue this fight, along with their male allies.

Gonna be a long fight. But I'm counting on the courage and persistence of the people of the Arab Spring to get it done.

ADDED: Info (mostly Arabic) is being pooled on this Facebook page.

Feminist Sarah Palin

This is fun.

Remember when women in general and feminists in particular were being taken to task for not automatically supporting Sarah Palin because she has a uterus?

Remember all those tedious opinion pieces about whether Sarah should/could call herself a feminist?

Well, it seems that she has gone too far with this fake feminism meme for her base base.

Last week on Fox News, Palin praised Geraldine Ferraro for "breaking the glass ceiling," saying that ”Neanderthals” focus on issues like whether mothers should work outside the home, which Palin says is “petty, little, superficial, meaningless." Ferraro, who ran for U.S. vice president alongside Walter Mondale in 1984, was criticized at the time by Catholic bishops for her pro-choice stance.
. . .
Over at the blog Thinking Housewife, Laura Wood isn't too pleased:

Palin says she cheered Ferraro when she ran for vice president, as if every female candidate feels automatic solidarity with any other female candidate. How “great for our nation” it was that Ferraro ran. Golly gee willickers. The supposedly pro-life, small-government Palin applauds the efforts of someone with an entirely different political philosophy simply because she is a woman.

Golly gee willickers. Sarah supporting a woman 'simply because she's a woman' is WRONG but that's exactly what her supporters demanded of progressive women and feminazis.

IOKIYAR.

Feminist Blogggers WIN!

For the first time ever, there is a Feminist Category in the Canadian Blog Awards!

This year's organizer, Jonathan Kleiman, starts out with a bit of an understatement:

In the past, there has been some disagreement about whether there should be a special category for Feminist blogs.

Boy howdy.

Just like that, feminist bloggers are through to the second and final round.

You can find links to the blogs here. And, of course, discover new and fun blogs.

Vote here. And vote for the other categories here.

You can vote once every 24 hours.

Vote and promote our WIN.

Aside to the boyos: See how easy that was?

The Boyos Will Let Us Play! UPDATED AGAIN

In the comments to my snark about the ongoing lack of a Feminism category in the Canadian Blog Awards, this year's organizer offered to put Feminism right into round two, if someone would provide him with a list of Canadian feminist bloggers.

I sent him to last year's F-Word Awards but those are just the winners, not all the nominees which would constitute a pretty good list of Canadian feminazis.

So, anybody got a list of nominees from last year? (I've emailed pale to ask.)

Failing that, we could make the list here.

I'll start:
A Creative Revolution, who, by hosting the F-Word Awards, put themselves out of the running for awards.

Unrepentent Old Hippie, who was deemed insufficiently feminist by last year's Special Expert.

Sister Sage.

Sabina at News of the Restless.

I'm on a borrowed computer and might get kicked off it, so that's all for now.

Please continue.

And many thanks to Jonathan Kleiman, obviously a peach of a fellow and our kind of guy.

UPDATE: Time being of the essence, I combined the finalists from the last F-Word Awards -- thanks, pale -- with the nominations here and sent it to Jonathan. There were 26 blogs altogether. THEN I read the rulz. Maximum 12 nominations. Uh-oh. Emailed him back and apologized. I don't know what will happen next, but I'll let you know when I do.

We feminazis are pains in the butt, aren't we. :D

MORE UPPITY-DATE: That Jonathan is fast! Here we go -- Feminist Blog Awards.

Who Knew? Canadian Blog Awards Are On Now

I totally missed it, but via Wise Law Blog I just found out that not only is the annual clusterfuck known as the Canadian Blog Awards on right now, it's in the second-round voting stage.

Drat! I was so looking forward to it -- especially the announcement of the categories. We at DAMMIT JANET always have so much fun with that.

So, here are the categories this year:

Best Overall

Best Blog Post

Chronic Illness

Collaborative/Multi-Author Blogs

Art, Crafts, Cooking and Other Creative Activities

Culture and Literature

Family

Food and Drink

French Language (Francais)

GBLT

Health

Humour

Law Blogs

Music

New Blogs

Personal

Political

Popular Culture

Professional Life

Religion and Philosophy

Science and Technology

Sports

Notice anything?

Yup. Yet again the progress of the Canadian Blog Awards towards anything remotely relevant has been retarded.

And I've gotta ask -- where was this publicized? I'm a pretty dedicated blog-reader and I haven't run across anything about it until today.

Compare and contrast: idiocy and reason.

Two support bro's alert us to the deliciousness of public displays of Con job and ReformaTory cognitive dissonance.

First, Buckdog points us towards the odiously obsequious Christie Blatchford.

Is there a double standard at work in the story of Rahim Jaffer, the former Conservative MP who this week saw two serious criminal charges dropped against him as he pleaded guilty instead to a lesser one of careless driving? Oh, you bet there is, but it's not what you've heard.

The real double standard is that Mr. Jaffer has been painted as being every bit as guilty of the charges (excessive blood alcohol while driving and possession of cocaine) as if he'd been convicted of them.

Gee, Christie - are you insinuating that one of your shining knights in uniform fabricated those charges against Jaffer?

Oh wait. The officer who stopped Helena Guergis' consort was female, which makes her a fair target, it seems.

Then, Big City Lib has us spurting coffee at our 'puter screens with his shorter version of Deborah Grey. It appears that the wannabe Honourable Member for Holt-Renfrew Helena Guergis stiffed a captive audience out of their opportunity to see her in action.

If beleaguered Conservative minister Helena Guergis was hoping for sympathy from her political sisters, former party matriarch Deborah Grey was fresh out.
Guergis, minister of state for the status of women, was a no-show Friday at a panel on women in politics at the Manning Centre's annual conference for small-c conservatives. Her office did not respond to a question about her absence. [...]

Grey did attend the panel discussion, as did moderator and junior minister Diane Ablonczy, MP Lois Brown and Andrea Mrozek of the Institute for Marriage and Family Canada. When a member of the audience asked about women in politics being treated differently, Grey responded that even so, it didn't give them licence to "throw hissy fits at airports."

Shout it, sistah!