FeminismIsFree!

Obama reverses abortion-funding policy

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama signed an executive order Friday striking down a rule prohibiting U.S. money from funding international family planning groups that promote abortion or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion services.

The order comes the day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.

It reverses the “Mexico City policy,” initiated by President Reagan in 1984, canceled by President Clinton and reinstated by President George W. Bush in 2001.

Obama signs order to close Guantanamo Bay facility

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Promising to return America to the “moral high ground” in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.

During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inauguration pledge that the United States does not have “to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.”

US Senate passes wage discrimination bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — A wage discrimination bill that heralds the pro-labor policies of the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House cleared the Senate Thursday and could be on President Barack Obama’s desk within days.

The legislation reverses a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that narrowly defines the time period during which a worker can file a claim of wage discrimination, even if the worker is unaware for months or years that he or she is getting less than colleagues doing the same job. It has been a priority for women’s groups seeking to narrow the wage gap between men and women.

The House is expected to act quickly to again approve the measure, sending it to Obama for his signature. The House passed a nearly identical version two weeks ago but then combined it with another bill that the Senate didn’t consider.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid predicted that “the first bill that President Obama will sign will be this piece of legislation.” He said the bill would send an important message because “this administration stands for equality and fairness.”

Obama strongly backs the measure and invited Lilly Ledbetter, the retired Alabama tire company worker whose lawsuit inspired the legislation, to accompany him on the train trip bringing him to Washington for the inauguration.

It’s hard to take seriously, but I’m doing my best. I couldn’t stop myself from doing a Google search on it; one of the first hits was this blog quote:

“Yes, there really is a Journal of Happiness Studies — which could either be wonderful news or yet another sign of our imminent demise.”

I’ll buy that.

So anyway, apparently they have just published a study that proves that just like we all knew it would, feminism has destroyed the future happiness of all womankind!!! Naturally, I am paraphrasing–the actual abstract goes like this–

Aspirations, along with attainments, play an important role in shaping well-being. Early in adult life women are more likely than men to fulfill their material goods and family life aspirations; their satisfaction in these domains is correspondingly higher; and so too is their overall happiness. Material goods aspirations refer here to desires for a number of big-ticket consumer goods, such as a home, car, travel abroad and vacation home. In later life these gender differences turn around. Men come closer than women to fulfilling their material goods and family life aspirations, are more satisfied with their financial situation and family life, and are the happier of the two genders. An important factor underlying the turnaround in fulfillment of aspirations for material goods and family life is probably the shift over the course of the life cycle in the relative proportion of women and men in marital and non-marital unions.

Delaying childbearing til the less-fertile years. No-fault divorce. The War Against Boys! Just like all those wise folks have predicted, oh, you may be having fun NOW slutting it up, affirmative-actioning great jobs right out from under the noses of more deserving men, and failing to stick out your marriage because you want to “find yourself,” but just wait til you get old!! Then all those fine young men you screwed over will be sailing their yachts and living in McMansions with their 25-year-old mail-order brides while you sit alone in your assisted living condo bitterly feeding your cats.

Now, I do only have access to the abstract, so perhaps I’m mistaken, but it appears that the authors of this study seem to think that the only thing that changes as people age is the people; as in, the culture and society surrounding said people has been static and identical from the day they were born til the day they reached old age. If that were the case, then certainly you would have a leg to stand on if you attempted to explain all happiness imbalances in simplistic terms of who is married and who isn’t, for instance. However, I think it’s really safe to say that the world of my grandmother’s birth was excruciatingly different than the world that existed when she was a young woman in her twenties in terms of what was offered to women and men respectively, and also from the world that a young woman in her twenties today was born in, and also the world of today, this moment, when my grandmother would be in her seventies.

My grandmother was born in 1933. Actually, that was quite a year as far as world events went–Franklin Roosevelt took office, the first concentration camp was opened in Germany, and the original King Kong movie was released starring Fay Wray, among other things. However, I want to look at this from the perspective of how the world has changed for women, so:

When my grandmother was born, women had only been allowed to vote in the United States for thirteen years. There was no Planned Parenthood; birth control information was legally considered “obscenity.” Many states had laws mandating that if men were available, women couldn’t legally work, or if a woman’s husband worked, she couldn’t, which meant that she either lived at home, unemployed, or she married, period. If she did work, it was almost always at a very poorly paid job with little to no hope of advancement. Less than ten percent of women held college degrees and the vast majority of colleges, especially the most prestigious, forbade women to apply for admittance.

My grandmother’s twenties were spent primarily in the 1950’s. The FDA still had not approved birth control pills for sale in the United States, to any woman, married or not. Many jobs were still restricted or outright banned for women to hold. Many colleges, especially Ivy League and other prestigious universities, still forbade women to apply for admittance.

A woman in her twenties, now, was likely born in the 1980’s. At the time of her birth, the Civil Rights Act forbidding discrimination based on sex in job hiring and pay was nearly twenty years old. Abortion had been legal and Title IX had been around for over ten years and there were no legal restrictions on birth control pills. By 1985 every state had adopted no-fault divorce. Marital rape had been legally acknowledged to exist and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act had been passed.

And now, in the new millenium, when she is actually in her twenties–31% of women her age have at least a bachelor’s degree, more than the number of men with degrees. Over 60% of women are in the job force, only 13% less than the number of men. Nearly half of all women of childbearing years are childless, the majority by choice.

So–a woman near the end of her life, today, was given virtually no opportunities for higher education or a career, choice in how many children she had or when–marriage was clearly the best choice for her, rather than any particular man being presented as the best choice for her. A man her age, however, had many more options. The chances of him finding himself, at the end of his life, in the situation he wants to be in is going to be correspondingly higher; hers are going to be overwhelmingly much more a matter of chance.

But a woman in her twenties today–a woman who will have financial means and choices both now and near the end of her life, who if she married and stayed married, likely did so because of the man, not because of a lack of choice, who was able to choose how many or if any children she had? I suspect that there will be a strong shift upward in terms of the level of happiness these women display near the end of their lives. Hopefully the Journal will still be around and studying away, and maybe will have lost its rather unfortunately obvious agenda in terms of interpreting study results in the process.

For anyone who thinks that “feminism” as a practiced theory is narrow in either scope or defintion and that “feminists” are pretty much six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other—not even clooooose. F’rinstance, recently on another feminist blog, one of the posters told off Yours Truly during a discussion about the disapproval I was expressing towards a woman who had had an affair with a prominent married politician:

…I don’t think in the context of feminist blogging and critique that shaming these individuals is either valuable or appropriate…I also tend to believe there isn’t a lot of room for shaming in feminist ethical critique in general, particularly when we’re talking about women who are already shamed by society. It’s just incredibly easy for that sort of criticism to support the patriarchal narrative, even unintentionally.

Hmm…

What is feminism, anyway? Most simply, it’s the dictionary definition of the word: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes . I take this very much to heart, especially the equality part. I believe that women are just as “good” as men…and just as “bad.” They’re just as smart, and caring, and responsible, and mentally and emotionally capable as men; there is absolutely no difference whatsoever between the innate and inborn capacity of all the preceding adjectives and adverbs in any average, random sampling of men and women all around the world.

Now, unfortunately, it is a man’s world. If you don’t believe me, look at the numbers; see who has the overwhelming lion’s share of the power, money and influence worldwide. What that means literally is that while we are all born with the same moral and mental capacities, the expression and the suppression of selected traits is quite different depending on the gender of the person being born. Both the expression and suppression are implemented at birth and continue throughout the individual’s entire lifetime, exacerbated even more by physical impositions. For example, if you are a single woman who has an affair with a married man, the impositions range from the unpleasant (say, having to listen to social gossip painting you as a loser for being a woman who had an affair with a married man) to the fatal (say, a court-imposed death sentence for being a woman who had an affair with a married man). If you are a single man having an affair with a married woman, very little is said about you or to you at all; your sexual morals are shrugged off with a “boys will be boys! whenever those women give ‘em the chance!” and in countries where such behavior is technically just as illegal for men as it is for women, somehow the men just aren’t the ones getting stoned to death, though presumably somebody had to be committing adultery with all those women who are.

And this, of course, was the other poster’s whole point–because there is a strong patriarchal bias against women who behave immorally while men are getting a free pass in much the same situation, it should be the desire, nay, the duty, to cut women the same amount of slack that men have been traditionally cut. I could certainly agree that this is a form of implementing equality between the sexes…holding EVERYONE to the same low standards! Because people basically suck! YEAH! (This is very bad for my incipient misanthropy. Down, Fido!)

However, I prefer to implement my feminism in terms of holding everyone to the same high standards, and I prefer to believe that the spirit of feminism is such an uplifting, best-of-humanity ideal, rather than a lowest-common-denominator one. Therefore, I reject attempts to enable women to behave like pieces of crap because men have historically gotten to…and I really, really reject attempts to excuse women who actively harm other women for the benefit of men. Of course, the fact that it is, as I said, a man’s world (and an adult’s world, and a white person’s world, and a rich person’s world) must be taken into account–this is where that finely honed moral judgement, the kind that, yes, women are just as capable as men of making regardless of what Lawrence Kohlberg thinks, comes in. Let’s have an exercise of this kind of judgement right now!

Situation A: Jane lives in a country where girls are routinely sold off as wives to other men by their fathers long before the age of eighteen with full legal and societal consent. She herself was sold to a man thirty-five years her senior at age fifteen and was regularly beaten and impregnated by him until he mercifully kicked the bucket five years later. However, he left her with no money and three children under the age of five to feed and clothe, and neither his family nor hers is willing or able to help her out. She is approached by a friend of her late husband’s, a married man, and told that he will give her some money every week if she will have sex with him on a regular basis. She agrees.

Situation B: Jane lives in a country where girls marry on average in their late teens to early twenties and the amount of parental involvement is varied, though it’s accepted that your parents will have at least some say in who you marry if they don’t outright arrange it for you, and they usually won’t beat you or kick you out for refusing someone. Jane is twenty-five and single because she is not very pretty and her family is poor; she has a menial job, the only one she can really get, as unemployment is endemic in her country, and the job has no real future. Jane meets a man, a married man, who tells her she’s beautiful and charming and intelligent. He then tells her he will help her find a better job and that he really likes her and then suggests that they start having sex on a regular basis. She agrees.

Situation C: Jane lives in a country where women don’t marry on average til their mid-twenties and selling your daughter to anyone for any reason whatsoever is generally considered outrageous, not to mention being highly illegal. She is a single, good-looking, well-educated woman of forty with a successful career. She is approached by a married man, who tells her how attractive she is and offers her an even nicer job than the one she has now and suggests that they start having sex on a regular basis. She agrees.

Now, feminism as defined as the pussy pass would suggest that you immediately excuse all three women from any real expectation of moral behavior, as they are all living in societies with some degree of embedded patriarchy and to do otherwise is to support said patriarchal narrative,, and places any blame only on the man. The patriarchal societies each woman lives in, on the other hand, demands that you immediately castigate each woman for having sex with a married man and either somewhat exonerates the man (”boys will be boys, you know, bad as it is, they’re just wired that way”) or completely exonerates him, depending on the degree of patriarchy that society supports.

I reject both options equally. True morality, I believe, involves first having a set of firm principles, and second being able to apply them in a proportional fashion to any number of wildly varying situations. Feminism as defined by some appears to be trying to skip step one and the patriarchy outright skips step two, but both steps are absolutely vital to the process. Women are both just as capable of men of abstract reasoning and just as capable of rising above a reasonable amount of handicaps and hardships to sometimes choose to take the harder path because it’s the right one–it is incredibly demeaning to even suggest that women can and should do the easiest thing as if they’re not capable of anything better. And it’s inexcusable to exonerate a woman who hurts another woman in the interests of pleasing a man when she has no real physical or financial pressure to do so in the name of feminism, of all things. And since when are feminists, especially ones such as ourselves who have absolutely zip influence or power to worry about, supposed to start censoring themselves out of fear of what the patriarchy might think, for good or for ill?

So: Compassion, understanding, a realistic view of the lives of women both in our own country and in others abroad, yes PLEASE! Proceeding from the assumption that all women, regardless of socioeconomic status, cultural opportunity and age are mental and emotional children in terms of what moral expectations can be set for them..? No thank you. Believing that monogamy in of itself is a zero-sum game that human beings regardless of gender are simply psychologically incapable of consistently practicing..? Sure, why not. It’s got a lot more evidence in its favor than some of the notions about human sexuality and psyche that are currently in popular circulation. Believing that engaging in completely consensual behavior in a narcissistic and self-delusional fashion that ends up hurting any number of other people probably including oneself is really excusable based on the fact that the one happens to be female? NO thank you. Unless I see it in Teh Feminist Blogger Rulebook, I ain’t never buyin’ it.

My World of Warcraft girl Aogail.

From Hugo Schwyzer’s blog–“Escape, Entitlement, and Empowerment: Young Men and the ‘Four Ps’” pretty much says it all (the “Four Ps” being pot, Playstation, porn and poker). Focusing in on the “Playstation” P, he quotes a few paragraphs of the Kimmel book he is analyzing–as a “Playstation P” woman, I was fascinated to try and analyze where I coincided with the “guys” and where (if anywhere) I took off on my own, and what meaning that might have in terms of gendered arguments such as the one below. Let’s examine it!

Because, as it turns out, the fantasy world of media is both an escape from reality and an escape to reality — the reality that many of these guys would secretly like to inhabit. Video games, in particular, provide a way for guys to feel empowered. In their daily lives guys often feel that they don’t measure up to the standards of the Guy Code — always be in control, never show weakness, neediness, vulnerability — and so they create ideal versions of themselves in fantasy. The thinking is simple: if somebody messes with your avatar, you blow him away. It’s a fantasy world of Manichean good and evil, a world in which violence is restorative and actions have no consequences whatsoever.

This doesn’t resonate with me at all. It isn’t that I don’t feel I always have to be in control and never show weakness, neediness and vulnerability–quite the opposite! As a woman in a heavily male-dominated profession, I must show more control and far less weakness/neediness/vulnerability than even your average guy can get away with, if I want to be taken at all seriously. In my personal life, as a single mother raising two sons, again, the pressure to provide such an invulnerable role model is constant and unrelenting. However, I have no urge to physical violence–I rarely ever have such an urge, except in situations where I am directly physically attacked by another person. Therefore, I find no psychological freedom or release in the knowledge that oh hey, I CAN kick that sumbitch’s ass here! Woot! As a matter of fact, the need to suppress weakness, neediness and vulnerability is no different in the virtual world of Warcraft than it is in the real world on Earth, not for me. I am a woman in a MMORPG (for all you noobs, that’s a “massively multiplayer online role-playing game”); I’d better not act like some kind of wuss if I’m in a group. The lack of consequences does not appeal to me either, again, as there are certainly game consequences for acting like a dumbass–the only “consequences” that could be said to be escaped are, if you choose to massacre other players or computer-generated characters, you won’t go to jail. Since I have no urge to do so, there is no relief of any suppressed feelings for me.

They’re getting a parallel education to the formal curriculum — complete with its own Three Rs: Relaxation from the weight of adult demands and of the rules of social decorum (also now known as political correctness); Revenge, against those who have usurped what you thought was yours; and, Restoration to your rightful entitled position in the world.

Oh now, Relaxation I understand! World of Warcraft is most definitely an escape from the real world, with its stupid obsession with minutae and social interaction–it’s puzzle-solving and ass-kicking fun, pure and simple and wholly engrossing. Revenge…again, that does not resonate. Revenge against whom? Those I might possibly want revenge against are still quite in power in the mythical World–there are kings, commanders, wealthy merchants, etc–the World is just as hierarchical and biased in favor of those with money and power as the real world. Now, WoW does offer you a far more straighforward path to success than the real world does–it is the most basic and pure distillation of the highest ideals of capitalism and the Protestant work ethic–as long as you are willing to buckle down and spend lots of time and effort at the earning, you will guaranteed rise to a position of great power and wealth, without the unfairnesses of pre-existing family and coinage and irrational prejudices that beset us in reality. I do quite appreciate that…but there really is no revenge factor there. It’s much more along the lines of the first R, relaxation–not having to navigate pitfalls to success that are a function of the real world and none of my personal making.

Restoration–oh yes, that DOES resonate with me, though after reading the next paragraph, I realize that I have finally hit upon the strange dichotomy that is the real gendered difference, at least in terms of female me and the males Kimmel is discussing in his book, in the “Playstation P.”

They spend so much of their lives being bossed around by other people– teachers, parents, bosses–it’s really a relief to be the meanest, most violent, and vengeful SOB around. And they spend so much of their lives in a world that is, if not dominated by women, at least is characterized by women’s presumed equality, that it’s nice to turn back the clock and return to a time when men ruled — and no one questioned it.

This is almost funny.

Here is how it would look if it were rewritten for me.

She spends so much of her life being bossed around by men–bosses, politicians, religious leaders–it’s really a relief to be in a place where her gender is only a matter of aesthetic choice; it in no way affects her career, her autonomy or her physical abilities both real and perceived by others. No matter what others in the World say or think or even try to do, they cannot discriminate against her on the basis of her gender–she can be and do anything she wants, finally and incontrovertibly–the most anyone can do is spit a few obscenities, and that is easily remedied by simply placing them on Ignore.

Whereas the “guys” Kimmel describes apparently want to be conscienceless reavers, motivated by and answering sheerly and only to their grossest whim at the moment and are therefore freed by that state, what I want to be, as it turns out, is a hero. Women aren’t heroes, you know. There is one form of “heroism” and one only that women are encouraged (we might even say “forced,” betimes) to pursue, and that is the “heroism” of complete self-immolation. Women are lauded for sacrificing every personal inclination to further the ambitions of their husbands and devoting themselves to raising children. The “heroic” woman is one who lives in a permanent and driven state of personal servitude to men and children. The ultimate sacrifice, of giving your life for your freedom, the freedom of others, an ideal–women are actively discouraged from any form of that heroism except that of dying in the name of pregnancy. A woman’s heroism is never exciting, never results in great power or prestige or personal gain or adulation–a woman’s heroism is by definition hidden behind those surrounding her, done in as much silence and humility as possible, and usually in the channel of her reproductive and family-running function.

In the World, I can be a hero in all the ways men are encouraged and lauded to be heroes–I can use my force of arms to defend the weak; I can choose any number of professions to further my defense of the weak; I can gain great fame and riches in pursuit of my heroism and my name will be known throughout the realms. (Seriously!) My reproductive function, in fact, does not exist at all.

So, interestingly enough, in an unregulated fantasy environment, I aspire to the ideal of heroic manhood–that is what I find so freeing and liberating–and “guys” aspire to the ideal of amoral piracy–that is what they find so freeing and liberating–apparently no one aspires to the ideal of self-sacrificing womanhood–er, surprise surprise..? Probably the most intriguing (and distressing) aspect of this is how said guys can perceive themselves as living in a society where women control them so strongly while I perceive myself living in a society where men control me so strongly…the SAME SOCIETY..? A puzzle. I expect I will give that a lot more thought. Stay tuned!

After having spent my adult life variously not being a mom, being a married mom, being a single mom, being a mom who stayed at home and being a mom who worked outside the home, I have come to the conclusion that if you are a fertile woman of childbearing years, no matter what you’re doing in terms of marriage and motherhood and career, you’re wrong. To wit:

1. You’re married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to stay at home with the baby.

Lazy! Self-indulgent! and just GIVING away all the advances women have made in terms of career equality! Get a job!

2. You’re married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to work outside the home without the baby.

Selfish! It isn’t all about YOU and YOUR fulfillment anymore, you have a child to think of now! you just don’t want to have to live within your means! You need to raise your OWN child!

3. You’re married, you get pregnant and choose to have an abortion.

Murderer! If you didn’t want to have kids you should have gotten your tubes tied! If you have a husband and a home, there is no excuse for not stepping up to the plate and carrying that life you created to term!

4. You’re married and you choose not to get pregnant.

Immature! Self-centered! Look at Europe–do you want to see our culture crash too? It isn’t all about you, you have a duty to society! It’s time to GROW UP and take on your responsibilities!

5. You’re not married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to stay at home with the baby.

Leech! It isn’t society’s responsibility to care for your child conceived due to your irresponsible behavior! Get out there and get a job!

6. You’re not married, you get pregnant, choose to give birth, and decide to work outside the home without the baby.

Slut! Our culture is collapsing because of the explosion of all you single mothers! Why didn’t you give that baby to a real family that could raise it properly instead of shoving it off onto strangers!

7. You’re not married, you get pregnant and choose to have an abortion.

Slut! And now you think it’s okay to take another human life so you can just erase your careless, selfish behavior! You spread your legs, now you need to step up the the plate and take your medicine like an adult!

8. You’re not married and you choose not to get pregnant.

What’s wrong with you? Are you that ugly and unpleasant that no man wants to commit to you, or are you just a selfish whore?

Continue Reading »

Question: Are magazine ads going too far with excessive PhotoShopping of their already-unachievable standards of anorexic beauty?

Answer:

(Via.)

Cute little devils, aren’t they.

So I was talking to my ex-husband…well, one of my ex-husbands, the one I actually reproduced with…the other day, and I was asking him how his new baby was doing (he just got remarried about a year ago) and he said she was fine, and then he said, “You know, she’s so sweet.”

“Aww,” I said, ’cause it was expected of me, and also, she really is cute–I ran into her (and her mom, of course) at the grocery store the other day.

“Girls really are different,” he continued on enthusiastically. (He and I have two boys together.) “I mean, right from the beginning. They’re just so much, you know–”

“Girlier?” I suggested.

Some dryness may have been apparent in my tone, because he immediately began elaborating–”Just, gentler. And just daintier. And calmer, you know?”

I had no interest in debating his assertions–she’s his new baby, I’m not going to argue with that kind of infatuation. And I don’t know the specific kid beyond a few brief encounters. But after we exchanged a few more pleasantries and hung up, the conversation returned to me and got me thinking…is there really a perceptible difference, on any level other than genital, between girl and boy babies? Especially girl and boy babies that young?

Continue Reading »

Continued from Part One.

My last major business trip was to Sweden. See, if I just left it at that, it would sound like, really c-o-o-l but in fact, what it was was really freaking C-O-L-D (February!) and yo, it was also really freaking b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s. The trip consisted of twelve-hour days in a mostly unheated test lab putting the brand-new centrifuges we bought for the large-scale plant we’re building through their paces. The highlight of the trip was the weekend between the two work-weeks I spent there, when in an attempt to hop on the Swedish public transit system for some sightseeing Saturday morning I managed instead to accidentally attend a big-ass anti-US rally in the Stockholm central train station. “Surreal” is probably the best one-word description I can use to capture that event (though I couldn’t stop myself from forking out a mere 10 kronor for an awesome souvenir button!):

Admit you want one.

Continue Reading »

Via.

The freedom to say ‘no’

Why aren’t there more women in science and engineering? Controversial new research suggests: They just aren’t interested.

Really, we’d much rather be changing poopy diapers, scrubbing toilets and providing “companionship” for room, board and an allowance. And that’s what choice feminism is all about!

…no, I’m not being fair. It’s just that the endless quest of total strangers to prove that I personally am either (a) some kind of genetic mutant freak or (b) living in a silent hell of self-suppression for the sake of the Feminist Agenda sometimes makes my teeth hurt.

Continue Reading »