Archive
Equality of Opportunity Over Equality of Outcome
Christina Hoff Sommers, for example, claims that in the US women have achieved ‘equality of opportunity’ and that anything further is an attempt to rig up some sort of ‘equality of outcome’. She focuses quite a bit on educational opportunities, gender quotas, female centered programs and the like, saying that because men and women are different and make different choices so much effort is an attempt to encourage women into fields they may not be interested in.
I’m not even going to bother arguing that topic, but what I will say is this: When it comes to the ability to earn an income women can never be considered to have achieved ‘equality of opportunity’ in a country where prostitution is in any way criminalized. CHS and her ‘gender feminist’ counterparts can argue all they want about the importance of ‘equal gender representation’ on academic panels, and on those panels they can argue all they want about how much women earn in comparison to men and how that effects that status of women, but until they recognize that the criminalization of either the buying or selling of sexual services is inherently discriminatory against women they just sound like a bunch of self-interested privileged hypocrites to me.
Well, This Happened
There was this video uploaded on the ZJemptv youtube channel.
The most disturbing thing about it is the comment thread where there are actually some people saying “thank you for the balanced overview of the two sides”. Of course it is NOT a balanced overview, it’s a textbook ”radical feminist critique of sex positive feminism” – which should be assumed unbiased about as much as you’d assume that The Joker would offer an unbiased “critique” of Batman.:
I sent a tweet – which is rather out of character for me – which said “Thank you ZJ for giving someone who is not a sex worker yet another chance to speak for sex workers”. You can see the rest of our exchange, and some of the other twitter exchanges involved in the video below. I was pissed and things got ugly:
And just in case you are wondering, as one of the comments on my video says, if “zj had a chance to process everything” you should know that as far as the Love146 charity drive is concerned, it’s unfathomable that zinnia hadn’t heard about it months ago, considering how many people were sending pms and leaving comments about it, including links to the following video:
And also just-in-case, if you’re maybe thinking I was too angry in that video up there with all the yelling, take a listen to my initial reaction to the charity fiasco, where I’m sure a few people were disappointed that I wasn’t angry enough:
Sorry if this has ruined your day, it has certainly ruined a few of mine.
Tomorrow Waits With Joy
Holly at The Pervocracy posted an entry titled “Sex-Pozzie“, which was then mentioned on Feministe, and both threads have generated many comments of the wow/ugh inducing variety.
All I can muster is to republish parts of two earlier posts. When I wrote them the suicide of Hope Witsell was in the news.
First there was:
This is about the slut-shaming suicide of a 13 yr old girl who killed herself. Hope Witsell sent some naked photos, they got passed around like naked photos always do, her school, students and teachers alike, slut-shamed her mercilessly.
This is what sex-positive feminism is all about. It’s not about liking sex, it’s about teaching that sex isn’t shameful. Teaching that sex, and that nudity, is “positive” is the opposite of teaching that it’s shameful. We can’t teach “not shameful” without teaching “positive”. It’d be really great if we can, if you know how, please let us know.
This girl got the same shaming in the hallways of her school, from boys and girls both, that so many bloggers heap on playboy centerfolds. I know, we don’t call them sluts anymore so much, we know something doesn’t feel right about that, so we say they promote “rape-culture” and women’s oppression, if the centerfold happens to have said that she feels “empowered” by it, we tell her she is confused, possibly brainwashed. Delusional, stupid, childlike, “doesn’t get structure”, weird. That is shaming.
The idea that sex is not the most important thing is what, I think, all feminists want to teach girls. I understand the perception a lot of people have of what “pro-sex” feminism is; that it’s about liking sex, and thinking that sex is great, but “pro-sex” feminism is just a different way to teach girls that sex isn’t the most important thing.
Then there was:
Among the various things that decorate my walls, is a small unassuming frame with just one dash of color and a handful of words:
Hope. Tomorrow waits with joy.
That’s what I’d like to say to every girl who has to walk down the hall while taunts, spoken or imagined, of SLUT! and WHORE! echo behind them. Tomorrow waits with joy. I won’t tell you it gets better. I can’t make that promise. I can’t promise that it gets easier either, it does for a while, but then it gets worse again. Life is like that.
But someday, beyond the better or worse and easy or hard, comes understanding, and understanding brings joy.
Those people with their taunts, and their justifications for saying them, will never go away. That’s another lie I won’t tell you. No one grows out of it. They use new words, and they construct vast theories of why it is ok to call you a slut. They will twist it and twist it until they have painted you as the one who taunts, and they are the ones who suffer. They may even get you to start believing it, that it’s your fault. It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault that you took a naked picture of yourself.
Were you proud of your body? Were you trying to prove something? Were you trying to get attention? Did you do it for pride, ego, or loneliness? It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault that you sent the picture to a boy, or a girl.
Did you want them to like you? Did you want to feel pretty? Did you want to feel wanted? Did you want to? It’s not your fault for wanting to. It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault that the boy, or the girl, disregarded your wishes and didn’t guard the photo the way you expected it to be guarded.
Were they charming? Did they promise they wouldn’t share it? Did they say you were special? It’s not your fault that you fell for it. It’s not your fault.
But more important than it not being your “fault” – is that the things you did, are no one’s fault. It is all right and good and normal and natural. To be proud, to feel lonely sometimes, to want attention, to be too trusting – all of that is right and good and normal and natural. It’s nobody’s fault that you are a normal person. What blame could there ever be for “normal?”
Only a slut – would be so prideful, so eager for attention, or so easily fooled. If that’s what makes a slut, we are all sluts.
Reproductive Rights & Sexual Rights Fit Together Like A Vagina And A Uterus
cspan clip without the fit:
The MacKinnon Patriarch
If you’ve got a beef with Catharine MacKinnon then you’ve come to the right place. Watch my latest from youtube:
Yikes
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I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks.
I’m afraid to click any of the results.
I’m going to play the sims instead. I made a pretty house. I’ll take pictures and share! :)
Destroyers Of Gods
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We’ll never be free.
We are too strong a tool, too great a force. We are there in the beds, in the arms, in the heads – of all the worlds men, those most powerful men.
And we are tools of them all – but for sex least of all – more for the secrets we learn, the plans we know, told by men whose weaknesses we see laid bare, right before our naked eyes.
“Sex class” some may call us, but we are the control class, the tool class – and the CRIMINALIZED “institution of prostitution” – as they call it – is the toolshed keeping us all nicely ordered and ready for use.
If we are let out of the shed – to lead lives of our own – they lose their tools. Their most precious, most useful tools.
Everyone has a part – to keep the toolshed locked up tight, it’s the most important door in the world to keep locked. With no tools, they have nothing. They’ll never stop watching, won’t ever stop checking that the door is locked.
They keep us trapped, with no words to communicate the strength of our ‘empowerment’, and under attack the whole time, on all sides, from ‘friend’ and foe alike. Attacked by those who know our status as tool and want to keep it that way.
Their army is full of those who merely follow – who’ve been listening to lies that say we are better off in the shed – kept there forever – for our own good. If only those people would stop believing the lies… don’t they hear us?
Can’t they hear us yelling and screaming to be let out? Don’t they hear?
Can’t they smell the stench as our bodies die, and pile up in here, decaying in the fetid dark?
Stuck in this shed! Forgotten by history! No burial, no announcement, no respect. No headstone says Whore. Daughter, Wife, Mother, Whore. We loved them all.
But no.
Separate those women, the daughters, the wives, the mothers. The whores. They are not all the same – would that mother leave a daughter to rot in a shed? Likely not, but just a whore – she may – if we convince her that daughters and whores are never embodied together. They teach the difference between women and the tools of whore, just to make sure the tools stay locked.
Daughters are not whores, Wives are not whores, Mothers are not whores, Women are not whores. Only whores are whores, they teach.
And mothers and daughters and wives and all women still suffer as the whores suffer and they still ask why. Can’t they see – they are trapped in that shed too. We are all whores.
No they say. They say we must kill the whore within us, and be women, as women. Don’t they know that the whore lives in them? And the only way to eradicate ‘whore’, is to eradicate women?
They don’t believe, and they become the guards of the shed. Passing some tender thing in through the gap beneath the door, to hear us squeal with delight at the pittance. The guard feels righteous and kind for giving tender things to the whores who are trapped in the shed. But still, the guard guards, and still we want to be free.
Won’t the guard believe? Won’t they ever believe? Will they wait until it’s too late like so many others before, who finally saw, only too late? Once the strength is gone from their body and the numbers have gone from their ranks, seeing what’s true doesn’t matter, when there’s little strength left to fight.
And by then, a new army of the young is positioned outside the door of the shed – and who has the strength to fight an army of youth? Pitiful few old whores, that’s who.
We are the eternal scapegoat – the blame tool – destroyers of reputations, of careers, of states, of nations, of worlds, of gods.
Why on earth would they ever let us out?
Protection From Coercion
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I’ve never heard a more ridiculous notion than the one that says women need to be protected from coercion. Women need to kick some goddamned ass, that’s what – not be “protected from coercion”.
Presbyterians ♥ Whores
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In the beginning:
God of compassion: your Son Jesus showed mercy to a woman condemned by harsh judgment, and gave her life. We pray for prostitutes, who are victims of lovelessness, or of a craving to be loved. Keep us from easy blame or cruel dismissal. May our church seek them out, and show such genuine friendship and true grace that they may know your welcome, and live among us, as sisters of Jesus Christ our Lord.
God? Could you maybe deliver them to understanding and acceptance instead? Because otherwise I will be easily blaming and crueling dismissing these people just as they do to others
And a little later:
With the advent of a new millennium and this report, the writing team thought it was important to begin asking questions about certain male behaviors: Why do men rape? Why do men frequent prostituted women? Why do men beat their wives and lovers? Why do men incest their daughters and granddaughters? Why do men urinate in public? There is one answer to all of these questions: Because they can. Even though all of these behaviors have been deemed criminal by our society, they are epidemic.
Of course! Because they can. And everyday that the fine upstanding Presbyterians manage to resist raping, incesting, beating, and urinating in public is a day that they get to feel superior to all those other less godly men who can’t manage to control themselves. Just in case you were wondering why other men support these bullshit lies – it’s so they can feel like paragons of self control for not raping women all the time like those unsaved non-christians do. It’s only the power of GOD that stops them from raping every woman they see. Let’s hope presby dudes don’t lose their faith, or it’ll be rape madness all over.
And what’s with the study from half a century ago?
Then further on:
Invite your friends to join you in taking the Prostitution Test (Appendix A). Find out what you already know and what you need to learn about prostitution and prostituted women.
Remember it takes two to “turn a trick.” Don’t blame the victim. Engage in conversation about the role of men in prostitution and sexual exploitation, not only as pimps, but also as clientele. Why do men frequent prostitutes? Why do men rape? Why do men commit incest? Why do men batter their wives and lovers? Why do men urinate in public? It is a form of exhibitionism.
You already asked me those questions, you penis obsessed pervert. And I already took your offensive test, fuckwit. And thanks for telling me to “know what I believe”, but I really don’t need a list from church to tell me that. Only moral inferiors need lists to tell them what to believe.
Know What You Believe
Establish for yourself and your congregation a list of your core beliefs about prostitution and sexual exploitation. The following list is from “Pornography: Far from the Song of Songs,” but there are others you can add:
• God is the source of human dignity;
• There is equal dignity of women and men as being created in the image of God;
• Human beings were created with the possibility for the ultimate acts of celebration and joy in sexuality;
• God calls human beings to positive expressions of mutual affirmation and commitment, especially as typified in the calling to faithful, respectful marital and family relationships;
• The historic pattern of dominance and subjugation in human relationships is a distortion of God’s intended creation;
• God’s gift of sexual pleasure is fulfilled in acts of human love and mutual respect;
• God demands sexual responsibility, balancing love for the self and love for the other;
• God calls us to promote the dignity of all persons and to confront the circumstances in society that negate the integrity of human life;
• Christians are called to model the covenantal, compassionate community;
• The love of Jesus Christ is the Good News, (and brings) empowerment to a world filled with conflict, alienation, and fear.
Would it be impolite, or improper of me to ask people if they are pushing a religious agenda when they talk about “dignity” and use those other buzz words we hear all the time? Because it seems like maybe it’s sort of impolite for these moralist shitfucks to go around trying to turn us all into sisters of Jesus, especially since they are doing it for the glory of a god I don’t believe in at all. I’d really like to start calling them out on what I know is their real agenda.
Can I try to force them to smoke weed and sleep around, and conform to my personal faith? No, probably not…
I’m getting pretty goddamned sick of this murderous religious persecution that is being committed against sex workers with decency laws trussed up as anti-trafficking efforts.
And I’m getting pretty goddamned sick of the psychological warfare being waged on sexually liberated women of all feminist persuations by rape prevention scare campaigns that have convinced a generation of young women that they are LUCKY to find a man who isn’t a rapist.
Rational Thinking Skeptics
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I’m reading through a thread over on the Dawkins forum with the title “Why Is Feminism Still Important?” There’s 52 pages in the thread, – wait – no, I was wrong, there are actually 252 pages because the threads cut off at 100 pages (1000 posts) and the mods continued it. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
The whole thing is incredibly disheartening. I’m not at all surprised though, these days I expect to be disheartened. I’ve gotten used to people who think of themselves as critical, skeptical and rational thinkers being the most ignorant about what is actually going on in feminism. Well, it’s a toss-up between the skeptics and the conspiracy theorists as to who is more obtuse. I mean, everyone is just a friggin ridiculously wrong about what is going on, but I’d have expected the skeptics and conspirators to have been paying at least a little bit of attention and to have bothered to research a thing or two.
Parts of the thread are like feminism 099, as opposed to feminism 101, with the conversation focused on the typical “men vs. women” thing. Most of the guys are whining about how they never got a break and they are white males, so feminism is totally wrong; and the women are whining about how the guys just don’t understand that white males are the standard against which other people are measured. Lots of custody talk, divorce talk, privilege talk, and basic shit like that. Of course I didn’t read every post – maybe about 400 posts, 40 pages of skipping around in the different threads, so maybe there was some exciting discussion that I missed.
It’s so fucking annoying the way pop feminism rants about how the “white male” is considered the end all and the be all, and they complain about how that has to stop, and yet THEY can’t fucking shut up about it. 90% of the conversations I read are the same old shit, where feminists sit around and talk about what men think of them: do men hate women? do they wanna fuck us all? do they wanna rape us? do they wanna make us be strippers? do they wanna sex traffick us? why do men say they like sluts and not nice girls like us? why do men watch porn? why do men cheat? blah blah blah on and on.
Ugh. And I’m a feminist who sticks up for men a lot of the time – I mean, I know what happens. Shit. Tiger Woods’ situation was clear evidence of the favoritism given to women when it comes to domestic violence – it was sickening to see so many people say that IF he cheated, and IF he was attacked, then he deserved it. That doesn’t mean I don’t get sick of feminism always being talked about in terms of what it’s done “to men” and “for women”.
But, the problem is that lots of folks think these feminists are actually misandrists when they aren’t – though they cultivate that image, they do it to obscure the actual goal of roping everyone into religiously defined “Dignified Living”. Yes religion, it’s not hard to find their blogs, where they spell god as g-d, or where they talk about the new liberal church they just switched to… though, yeah, not everyone who spells g-d, and not everyone who goes to church is the same way…
Consider Woods again – he cheated, therefore he is hated. The women he cheated with – if feminists actually favor women as a group – those women wouldn’t have been vilified the way they were. Maybe some people think those women are favored because they hear feminists doing the victim talk thing, where the “other women” seem to get a pass and excuses given for their behavior.
People who don’t understand that it’s insulting to have people assume you have no free will, or were trained to be a “thing for sex” – well those people are usually considered mentally unstable in some way – according to the statistics most of them were brainwashed with religion starting at a very young age, and they are forever scarred and damaged by it. It’s not their fault, I don’t blame them, I blame their parents for not loving them enough, and for society thinking of them as trash.
The typical feminism-ignorant non-feminist hears a limited range of stuff when issues like the Woods situation get talked about. From what I can tell, they see only two parties – the men, and the women, and they don’t see the difference between the cheated on wife and the ‘other woman’ and they discount or overlook the way women think about other women. In one circumstance they will point out the woman v. woman situation, for example they will come right out and say that they think women tend to be jealous in this way or that way, but put those same jealous women into the larger feminist theories – and all of a sudden we are sisters in feminism thinking with a hive mind. OH YEAH! I saw this video the other day and it’s sort of an example of what I mean. If you click that text link It should be geared up to the right spot where they guy is talking about Catharine MacKinnon and says: “I know it’s clients that your judging, I know it’s not prostitutes – you LOVE prostitutes because you want them to put their clients in jail after they take their money, isn’t that what the Swedish Model is?” – or you can watch the whole thing embedded below – the part I’m talking about is at 5:40…
I don’t know who that guy is – probably someone diametrically opposed to everything I support or something, but he had a video up looking for MacKinnon quotes, and I’m what they call “flush” with MacKinnon Quotes, so I started watching and left a couple quotes, and then I heard the ‘you love the prostitutes’ line and my heart broke a little bit.
But that’s the same sort of thing that always happens – the prostitute is lumped in with MacKinnon who tells everyone that she speaks for “prostituted people” – and it’s such bullshit. Such total bullshit.
Women Of Color Solicited And Coerced Into Abortions
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I guess I can’t say “oh I love it” because I don’t actually love it, but at least it’s a change to see the “you musta been coerced you silly woman” trope applied to something that all feminists are SUPPOSED to hold dear, namely abortion rights.
Georgia Lawmakers love black babies almost as much as missionaries in Haiti do!
ATLANTA, GA (WABE) – HouseBill 1155 is controversial and that’s something even the newly elected house speaker David Ralston realizes.
He says the bill definelty needs to be reviewed,”it sounds like a very deep subject and I would like to read the bill before I comment on that”
The bill was introduced as the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act and the main framework of the bill would make it a crime to coerce or solicit an abortion based on race. Penalties would include jail time and fines depending on the severity of the offense.
Supporters of the bill, such as Georgia Right to Life, claim the state’s abortion rate points to a deliberate attempt to target black women.
Here’s the Bill, and it’s a sneaky one, lots of code abbreviations so you’d have to go read through a whole bunch of other code and splice it together to see what it will actually enable – one thing is it lets men sue abortion doctors if they didn’t want the abortion to have been performed. (here’s all the Georgia code on justia if you wanna do some splicing)
You’d think that seeing this crap applied to abortion would make a couple of feminist folks realize that the same crap is what antis use to deny sex workers rights and therefore it must be bullshit wherever it is applied. Coerced, dontcha know. Though I guess the middle class sheltered white feminists will think it sounds good, cause they are used to the “choice out of no choice” crap paradigm that’s already been laid out.
Catharine MacKinnon Feminist Icon For Rich White People
See ladies, you’re all so silly thinking you can make your own decisions and stuff! Stop all that autonomous thinking and opining cuz the lawmakers know the truth about how you are all just a bunch of push-over victims who can’t think for yourselves. Or at least the women of color can’t anyway, not when it comes to abortions… I know! Let’s END THE DEMAND for abortion! Because it’s exploitative and all, to the underprivileged and whatnot. Yay. Also: Who ya think is gonna be getting locked up for coercing black women to get abortions? Doctors? Planned Parenthood? Clinic escorts? Nahhhh, I’m guessing it’ll be black men. Again.
Interestingly, this is not the first “Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act” to be proposed, I know that one was proposed by Trent Franks (R-AZ), but it had a longer title: “The Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act” -
Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2009 – Imposes criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly or knowingly attempts to: (1) perform an abortion knowing that the abortion is sought based on the sex, gender, color or race of the child, or the race of a parent; (2) use force or the threat of force to intentionally injure or intimidate any person for the purpose of coercing a sex-selection or race-selection abortion; or (3) solicit or accept funds to finance a sex-selection abortion or a race-selection abortion. Authorizes injunctive relief. Deems a violation of this act to be prohibited discrimination under title VI (Federally Assisted Programs) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Violators of title VI lose federal funding.) Provides for a private right of action for appropriate relief: (1) for the father if he is married to the mother at the time she has such an abortion; or (2) for the maternal grandparents of the unborn child if the mother is under 18 at the time of the abortion. Declares that appropriate relief includes money damages for all injuries, whether psychological, physical, or financial, including loss of companionship and support. Requires a medical or mental health professional to report known or suspected violations to law enforcement authorities. Imposes criminal penalties for a failure to so report. Prohibits a woman having such an abortion from being prosecuted or held civilly liable. Excludes from the definition of “abortion” actions taken to terminate a pregnancy if the intent is to save the life or preserve the health of the unborn child, remove a dead unborn child caused by spontaneous abortion, or remove an ectopic pregnancy.
Awww ain’t that sweet? It’s for wimmins and black folks! White males DO care about us! Yay! I wonder how many wimmins and black folks co-sponsored Franks latest effort?:
Aderholt, Robert B. [AL-4] – 3/31/2009
Rep Akin, W. Todd [MO-2] – 3/31/2009
Rep Bachmann, Michele [MN-6] – 3/31/2009 There’s a wimmin!
Rep Barrett, J. Gresham [SC-3] – 3/31/2009
Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6] – 7/27/2009
Rep Boozman, John [AR-3] – 3/31/2009
Rep Broun, Paul C. [GA-10] – 3/31/2009
Rep Brown, Henry E., Jr. [SC-1] – 9/15/2009
Rep Burton, Dan [IN-5] – 3/31/2009
Rep Cole, Tom [OK-4] – 3/31/2009
Rep Conaway, K. Michael [TX-11] – 3/31/2009
Rep Fleming, John [LA-4] – 6/23/2009
Rep Forbes, J. Randy [VA-4] – 3/31/2009
Rep Fortenberry, Jeff [NE-1] – 3/31/2009
Rep Garrett, Scott [NJ-5] – 3/31/2009
Rep Hunter, Duncan D. [CA-52] – 3/31/2009
Rep Inglis, Bob [SC-4] – 7/27/2009
Rep Jordan, Jim [OH-4] – 9/15/2009
Rep King, Steve [IA-5] – 3/31/2009
Rep Lamborn, Doug [CO-5] – 3/31/2009
Rep Latta, Robert E. [OH-5] – 3/31/2009
Rep Linder, John [GA-7] – 3/31/2009
Rep Lipinski, Daniel [IL-3] – 3/31/2009
Rep Manzullo, Donald A. [IL-16] – 9/15/2009
Rep McCotter, Thaddeus G. [MI-11] – 3/31/2009
Rep McHenry, Patrick T. [NC-10] – 3/31/2009
Rep Moran, Jerry [KS-1] – 9/15/2009
Rep Pence, Mike [IN-6] – 3/31/2009
Rep Scalise, Steve [LA-1] – 3/31/2009
Rep Schmidt, Jean [OH-2] – 3/31/2009
Rep Smith, Christopher H. [NJ-4] – 3/31/2009 – Hey! – This is the guy who gave us the first anti-sex trafficking bills! I’m SHOCKED that he isn’t pro-choice!!!
Rep Smith, Lamar [TX-21] – 3/31/2009
Rep Souder, Mark E. [IN-3] – 3/31/2009
Rep Taylor, Gene [MS-4] – 3/31/2009
Rep Tiahrt, Todd [KS-4] – 7/27/2009
Rep Wilson, Joe [SC-2] – 3/31/2009
(the last action taken on his bill was on: Apr 27, 2009: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.)
The Feminist Fault Line
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So, if Martin Luther King Jr. visited prostitutes, would that make him some sort of rapist asshole woman-hater, or does it mean that somebody is telling a dirty vicious lie? Or does it mean that men who visit prostitutes are sometimes, if not often or usually, good and decent men with value in our society? I know, I left one out: Was he merely unaware of how many of those women were forced into prostitution against their will and/or had no other choice due to economic desperation?
Read more…
Simone de Beauvoir – Insufferable Sluttist
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Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex , which as far as I can tell is considered every true feminist’s favorite feminist book. I often see it recommended as a feminist “primer” of sorts, in addition to it being a part of, in some way or another, women’s studies programs around the globe. Her existentialist feminism gave us the concept of “woman” as “other”, and we’ve been pretty much fucked ever since.
I Should Read More
This looks like a book I should read:
Catholic and Feminist: The Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement
By Mary J. Henold
University of North Carolina PressIn 1963, as Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique appeared and civil rights activists marched on Washington, a separate but related social movement emerged among American Catholics, says Mary Henold.
Thousands of Catholic feminists—both lay women and women religious—marched, strategized, theologized, and prayed together, building sisterhood and confronting sexism in the Roman Catholic Church. In the first history of American Catholic feminism, Henold explores the movement from the 1960s through the early 1980s, showing that although Catholic feminists had much in common with their sisters in the larger American feminist movement, Catholic feminism was distinct and had not been simply imported from outside.
Catholic feminism grew from within the church, rooted in women’s own experiences of Catholicism and religious practice, Henold argues. She identifies the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), an inspiring but overtly sexist event that enraged and exhilarated Catholic women in equal measure, as a catalyst of the movement within the church. Catholic feminists regularly explained their feminism in terms of their commitment to a gospel mandate for social justice, liberation, and radical equality. They considered feminism to be a Christian principle.
Yet as Catholic feminists confronted sexism in the church and the world, Henold explains, they struggled to integrate the two parts of their self-definition. Both Catholic culture and feminist culture indicated that such a conjunction was unlikely, if not impossible. Henold demonstrates that efforts to reconcile faith and feminism reveal both the complex nature of feminist consciousness and the creative potential of religious feminism.
Here are some snips from a review on Feminist Review:
Henold’s illuminating and meticulous examination of the Catholic feminist movement unearths a critical link between feminist consciousness and activism, and Catholic tradition and conviction.
Henold traces the beginning of the feminist movement within the Catholic community to around the same time of the emergence of the larger women’s movement in the United States. She asserts, however, that religious women’s embrace of feminism was not applied to their faith as a mere reaction to the political climate at large. Henold argues that their feminism was actually propagated by their faith, and explores the inherently radical nature of Christianity through the actions of practicing feminist Catholics who declare social justice as a principle of their faith.
The American Catholic community underwent a radical reconstruction in the 1960s that brought blossoms of feminist consciousness into the church. …
In Catholic and Feminist, readers are introduced to the encapsulating sisterhood of religious women, theological scholars, and laywomen born of the prestigious and virile hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.
Catholic feminists have incorporated their zeal for revolutionary equality with their faith to challenge sexism and other forms of oppression within the church and society at large.
Review by Renee Leonowicz
Similar is an older book, UnGodly Rage from 1991 (google preview). The author missed the mark though, because she doesn’t seem to get feminism at all, and thinks it’s all satanic witchery. It helps if you know anything about catholic rules and traditions and laws and stuff, which I don’t.
And see, I just wanna say, if you’ve been following along with my wild accusations directed at everyone and their sister – I’m not anti-catholic, or anti-radical feminism, or anti-protestant, or anti-christian, or anti-anti-trafficking, or anything – I just want to know who I’m dealing with, like the hit song says “know your enemy” and even then, I don’t think it need be an enemy thing. But, you cannot properly fight for your own rights if you don’t know who you are actually fighting against. If you know where the other person, or people, are coming from, it’s easier to relate to their concerns, and then easier to explain your side to them.
Besides, if you don’t know who your enemies are, it’s hard to know who your friends are too.
A Few Things
Grace Silver - A Lot More Fun Than She Looks
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JESUS: Son of Mary. No one knows who she was. Father was god, who deserted his mother before his birth, leaving her without room rent or medical attention.
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LOVE: A sentiment which all preachers are supposed to feel for all men, women, girls and boys. Sometimes it leads to a prison sentence.
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MISSIONARY: A fellow full of enthusiasm and religion, who endures mosquitoes and malaria in order that he may christianize the heathen, in return for which he receives an allowance, an extra pair of wings, and a pass to an orchestra seat in heaven. The poor heathen are defenseless.
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Four Hundred Thousand Swedish Perverts
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Don Kulick 2005
Glisten!
Ouch! - Click for vid if you dare!
When I first saw this I thought it would be really handy for women whose fellers can’t find the clit, to point it out, but I was mistaken. I’m not talking about that big pink soft looking… thing… over there though, because how would that thing be helpful for clit-discovery class? It doesn’t even have an actual, ya know, clit on it… or maybe it’s just a real teeny one…. No, it’s actually a skin dye called “My New Pink Button”. As usual, I’m all worked up about what other people are saying, and being all contrary and what-not…
Cool Search Tip
I gotta tell ya, history is really cool. Well, let me clarify – history is horrifying, but in that historical learning way, it’s pretty cool.
