Women Who Value Political Party Over Their Own Rights and Knowing History

I was cruising along through my morning, coffee, Facebook, games, news, when this article grabbed my attention.

Some Women are Happy to Let the March Pass Them By

And while I was willing to listen to what they had to say as a viewpoint that has some validity even if I don’t agree with it, these women demonstrated that this viewpoint has no validity.

“They would criticize me more,” she says. “Even if I’d win a race, they would say, ‘Why did you do this? Why did you drive that method?’ I would answer, ‘Well, I won, didn’t I?’” When it became clear that “most owners won’t search out a woman driver,” she says she didn’t “complain about it, I just drove my own horses and showed them.”

O.K., how can one claim say that “women are equal” in the workplace after experiencing that?

I mean, both my Grandmothers worked and they just got on with it and did it, but I doubt either one would claim there was equality in the workplace. My father’s mother worked “solo” jobs. As an encyclopedia salesman and then as a real estate agent. (And she and Grampa opened a restaurant together.) My mother’s mother was a lawyer, but that was an unusual profession where women started entering in the mid 1800’s. But even today women are under-represented in trial law.

“All this moaning that people need to change their thinking, or that the government needs to intervene, that’s just people with too much time on their hands and they’re too far away from reality,” she says.”

Then….

“Arnett goes further still. “I do not believe a woman should be president of this country,” she says. “If a woman is president, even runs for president, then we are now a weaker country in the eyes of North Korea and those kinds of places and they are going to attack.”

Excuse me?

So you want women to stop whining about equality while trying to make sure that equality never exists.

And in terms of foreign policy we have the weakest President since Carter, weaker actually since Carter did not spend his time licking the boots of aggressive, murderous tyrants (Putin, the Saudi Royal Family, Kim Jong Un) like Trump does. She’s worried about North Korea if a woman becomes President? We currently have a President that saluted Korean Generals, said he and Kim Jong Un were “in love,” and has done jack shit to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, despite them firing a missile at our ally, Japan. In fact, he wants the U.S. to pull out of South Korea, leaving it undefended against attack from a rogue nation.

And she thinks a woman is going to be “weaker” than that?

“I don’t think women should be in the Senate or the House either,” Arnett continues, rejecting mention of studies showing that the more women in a governing body, the more collegial and bipartisan it can be. “The more women in the room the more drama,” she counters. “If there’s less women in the room, men can get the job done quicker.”

Really, because it was all men that took 85 years, a violent assault on the floor of Congress, and one a war that claimed more American lives than any other we have been in to get rid of slavery which everyone knew was a problem since the First Constitutional Convention.

No, men don’t get things done faster, and they don’t do it with less drama.

So this woman does not actually think she is equal or else she would want equal representation in her government. She likes being lesser than men and has no desire for women to have any power. She sexist against her own sex.

“I am sick of Hollywood running the world,” says Ruman. “It might hit closer to home if these were hard-working women that I can relate to.”

I don’t know how they think “Hollywood runs the world.” I don’t get that. Why? Because James Woods has three Twitter followers? Because Tim Allen’s show was cancelled?

Hey, Firefly was cancelled after 13 episodes. Joss Whedon did not whine about it being a political hit job.

You know what rules Hollywood?

Money.

Not politics.

$$$$$

It’s a freaking Industry folks, what do you expect? Do you really think they would skip out on a highly profitable venture if it has a conservative theme? Hell no. Would they have made a film about Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep if Hollywood was a liberal totalitarian society? Hell no.

But they did because $$$$$.

Here’s a list of films that conservatives have claimed to contain conservative themes.

Though some of the claims are ridiculous, based solely on imagining liberalism as everything bad in the world therefore a film that shows “bravery” is “conservative.” ***But it’s obvious that their complaints about Hollywood being “ruled by liberals” is a hypocrisy to be trotted out when it’s convenient.***

And working as a professional actor is hard, and they do portray hard working women.

Her problem is when they portray hardworking women in equal terms with men.

I mean, how can one call the Hunger Games “liberal,” when it’s main character is a hard working girl from a coal mining town fighting against tyranny?

Or do women like her see fighting tyranny as a “liberal” activity?

“I was a truck driver, I worked in factories, I have done sexual harassment to men just like it’s been done to me,” Arnett recalls. “I would say, ‘Ooh, I’d like to try him on for size.’ Women do it too.”

Well, sexist twit, not every woman is you. Perhaps they are married and do not feel comfortable being hit on. Perhaps they just want to work and not feel like their job is a meat market. Maybe they don’t want to feel their career depends on them silently taking sexual comments or even “servicing” their boss.

“Women are more bleeding hearts about issues where that’s dangerous,” says Ruman. “For instance, I know all about the meat industry and how regulations have gone too far.”

I’ve seen multiple videos from several journalists and Humane Society investigators and activists going undercover at several meat processing plants in the meat industry and it’s horrific. There is no other word for it, whether you are a man or a woman. It’s shocking. You would have to be a sociopath to think that kind of cruelty is o.k.. (You can go look for them if you want your day completely ruined and have nightmares.) I’d say regulations have not gone far enough. We don’t have to end meat production, but the regulations need to be in place to make it a more humane practice because right now it’s a horror show. Such as lambs are sometimes cut up alive. After their throats are slit, sometimes the workers don’t wait for the lambs to die before they are carved up. And being distressed by this is being a “bleeding heart” who has made “regulations go too far?”

Hey Ruman, did it ever occur to you that you’re a sociopathic cunt?

And if she is referring to regulations about keeping meat safe for sale, does she not care about the public?

The testimony by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accusing then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault while in high school?

“Innocent until proven guilty,” Fisher said. “I didn’t see them prove the guilt.”

“Don’t come out 20 years after the incident, don’t wait 20 years to grow some balls,” said Arnett. “Come out when it happens.”

Given how badly the Justice System handles rape, with rape kits sitting for a over decade so the trial can come and go without the most important physical evidence being presented. And still in this day and age, the victims are on trial more than the attackers (sometimes driving them to suicide). Judges condemn them. And after going through all that hell, rapists walk free or are given ridiculously lenient sentences, even if they are caught in the act.

And that is in this day and age, and she’s wondering why women didn’t come forward 20 years ago? Women have second thoughts about coming forward now.

I was raped in 1989 before there was even the concept of “date rape.” I thought because I was in his apartment willingly, no one would believe that I had been forcibly sodomized. So I never went to the cops.

Does that make me a liar?

The Women’s March?

“What I saw was women disgustedly showing off their vaginas, going braless, showing their breasts,” said Fisher. “They were not marching for me.”

The march took place in January, so I don’t think many women were running around flashing people. In fact, I can’t find any reports of them doing so.

NYC has a “Go Topless” march in August, but that is not the Women’s March in Washington.

So where does she even get such information? Where did she supposedly “see” something that did not happen?

Or was she told that it “happened” by a heavily biased news outlet that tells their viewers what to believe?

“When asked about the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump was heard boasting that because he was a star he could touch women in intimate ways, all of the half-dozen women interviewed did not immediately recognize the reference.

“I’m not sure I saw that one,” says Arnett.

“‘Access Hollywood’? I don’t know enough about that to give you an answer,” says Darlene Fisher, 64, who runs an antique mall near the border of Minnesota and South Dakota. “I am not at all familiar with the tape.”

An American would have had to have their head deliberately stuck under a rock to not have seen that tape. It was everywhere and discussed right up until the election.

Once reminded, she replied, “I am more suspicious of Bill Clinton than I am of Trump. I saw pictures of Joe Biden having his hand on women’s parts that he had no right to have. What about Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton? Those facts are being ignored.”

First of all:

Only y’know, Bill Clinton instead of Hillary.

And no. It was never ignored. In fact, it turned Bill Clinton into a lame duck President that last two years of his presidency. Bill Clinton lost his license to practice law for committing perjury about his affair with Lewinsky.

AND HE IS NOT PRESIDENT RIGHT NOW!

The newly elected women sitting together and celebrating at the State of the Union address last month?

“I watched because I am very interested in history and government and always have been,” Fariello says. “Not to watch some women act disrespectful.”

Wearing white is now “disrespectful?” That’s sort of like “When did kneeling become ‘disrespectful?'”

When the Alt Right needed it to be for their “liberals or anyone who rocks the WASP boat are anti-American” narrative.

And the tribute to the suffragette movement, that swath of women wearing white?

“That’s rude after Labor Day, it’s not fashionable,” Arnett quipped.

So? Is fashion (old fashion that most millennials don’t even know about) supposed to dictate what a woman is allowed to say?

“So what, the KKK dressed in white,” said Fisher. “They are tearing the nation apart. That’s what I saw, and I can’t understand how anyone else didn’t see it.”

Maybe because that was not what was happening. Maybe only you saw it because you are so scared of women being in power, you think of it as “tearing this nation apart,” So scared that you equate suffragists, the women who fought for YOUR right to vote, to the KKK.

Now these appalling women are a minority, but they are a frightening minority of self hating misogynists that frankly are shocking that they exist in a developed nation in this day and age. I can see not agreeing that pay equity is a problem or being “pro-life,” but this is outright hatred of their own sex based on a ill informed political factionalism.

 

Catching Up, Probably a Bit TL;DR

One of the reasons I departed reality for Discworld was the tremendous amount of hatred floating around the internet and our society in general. Now that I have to leave Discworld and the wonderful characters of Sir Terry’s creation behind (*sniff*sniff*), I shall catch up on current events.

(With one quick addendum to my last post. I had forgotten that while the Rincewind novels are not particularly deep, but they are fall-out-of-your-bed-laughing funny.)

Anyway, on to more serious subjects:

Xenophobia

I have been completely disgusted by the virulent racism and xenophobia displayed by American citizens during the Syrian refugee crisis. They are not even coming to our shores yet and Americans are going completely ape-shit. Going beyond the sheer ignorance many display in having no understanding of the situation in Syria, (which is these people are trying to escape being caught between two groups, the Syrian Government and ISIS, who are completing for “The Worst Human Rights Abuses of the Decade” award), the constant refrains of “They’re  all terrorists! They all hate Western society and want to destroy it. They’re all freeloaders,” basically everything I observed a year ago only worse, proves that the United States is seriously at risk of become the new Nazi state, complete with a violent hatred towards a particular religious/ethnic group.

9/11

It’s funny how we never mark the anniversaries of the Oklahoma City Bombing, or the destruction of the affluent African American community in Tulsa to the point it was bombed by the military, or the massacres of Sandy Creek or Wounded Knee, or the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

But we have a national celebration of victimization every September 11th while the media constantly builds up the image of Muslims as a constant threat to America, whether they be nations like Iran, terrorist groups or even school kids.

3,000 people died in a horrific attack. But in the face of that assault on American ideals, American ideals failed. We fell to the devils of our nature, giving up our civil liberties in fear and falling into the most hysterical xenophobia I have ever seen in this nation. If 20 years ago you had asked me if I would ever see Americans talking with such venomous hatred about 1.6 billion people. I would have said no. America is a nation of immigrants. It has was part of what makes is strong and helped us rise to become a world power in a relatively short period of time.

And now we have become this.

So I can’t “celebrate” 9/11. I can only mourn it with shame.

Iran Deal

No, it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good deal. People would know that if they bothered to read anything about it rather than listening right wing propaganda. And no, the Iranians will not be “inspecting themselves.” *rolls eyes*

Kim Davis

Constitution, Amendment 14, Section 1:  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That is why all the gay marriage bans are being overturned: They are unConstitutional. SCOTUS is not “making law.” It’s just pointing at that Amendment.

(Proud to be a Maine Native, which was one of three states in the U.S. that gained marriage equality by popular vote.)

Davis was also in violation of Kentucky statue 11a.020.

So Kim, this has nothing to do with your personal beliefs. You are free to worship as you please on your own time. You are free to protest whatever causes you want on our own time. But in that office as a representative of the state, you *must* uphold the law. Especially after being ordered to by four courts.

So do your obscenely overpaid job you bigoted attention whore.

And that is another thing that struck me: Kim Davis worked in the Country Clerks office under her mother for 24 years. And then Kim, after barely winning an election, took over her mother’s post. Now Kim’s son is working in the same office, probably being groomed to take over from her. The Rowan County Clerks office has become the Family’s personal fiefdom.

Part of the problem that Kentucky voters should consider are the detrimental effects of nepotism on their government. And how the salaries are set. It’s ridiculous a county clerk is making twice the county sheriff and justice are.

But what was really troubling were the Tea Party politicians, including elected officials, that flocked to Davis’ cause, displaying their ignorance of the Constitution and how our government works.

The Republican Party Clown Car

Trump is a joke. No matter how popular he is, Republican National Committee is never going to put him up as a presidential candidate. In alienating Latinos, he has put the typically Republican electoral strongholds of Texas and Arizona at risk. He has alienated women. He has alienated Veterans. (At least the ones that are not involved in a shady “charity” and can’t afford $1,000.00 a plate dinners.)

Plus the multiple bankruptcies, lies about his income and the repeated insinuations that he would like to fuck his daughter. And he’s a freakin’ reality TV star for chrissakes! No. It’s not going to happen.

So he speaks his mind? So does the schizophrenic drunk on the bus. BFD.

Trump is the sideshow. The misdirection.

So is Carson, a man with no political experience (in fact the majority of the current GOP field do not have any political experience, they’re business owners and ministers) who repeatedly makes himself look like a fool pandering to the far right base and displaying no knowledge of how the government works. He’s there so the Republicans can say, “Look, we’re not racists. We have an utterly unqualified and ridiculous black candidate we can lead around by the nose.”

Ditto Carly Fionna. Really GOP? All the women you could have chose, and you stick *her* in the line up?

Jeb Bush also has not made a great show of things by choosing family loyalty over hindsight, or even history. A lot of people have also not forgotten how he used the Florida government to attempt to override the courts and interfere in a family medical choice in the Terri Shiavo case. That abuse of government power is a terrifying precedent.

No, the real GOP threat is one of the candidates currently in the background and who it will be depends on the RNC breaking the Tea Party’s hold over them.

With Perry and Walker gone (thank the Gods), if the Tea Party retains control, it’s going to come down to Rand Paul or Ted Cruz. Cruz is more popular among the far right, but he scares the crap out of the middle because he is not afraid to use the entire government as his personal ball to take home when he doesn’t get his way. But while Paul is a Tea Party candidate, his intelligence (and he is smart) and cohesive ideology makes him more likely to cross the boundary to pick up some of the moderate vote.

If the GOP can break the Tea Party hold and wants to strike at the Middle then I would guess Chris Christie. “Bridge-gate” aside, Christie has shown himself able to work with the Democrats rather than throwing a tantrum and kicking people out of his party just because they dared cross the aisle to keep the government running (see: Eric Cantor).

However, Cantor’s recent reception when he came out in favor of Jeb Bush suggests the Tea Party’s claws are in deep. They view bipartisanship and working with the other side as weakness. They don’t want governance, they want rulership.

On the Democrat side, I am an active Bernie Sanders supporter. I am an actual liberal (when I lived in California, I belonged to the Green Party which is not an option here in NC) and Sanders is a candidate that represents my ideology and interests rather than forcing me to vote for the “lesser of two evils” of the Democrats, who are actually slightly right of center (look at Obama and Clinton’s ties to big business).

If we end up with a Bush vs. Clinton, we get four to eight more years of the same. If we end up with a Paul vs. Sanders, it will open the dialog of who America is going to be moving forward into the 21st century. Both candidates have a very cohesive and diametrically opposed set of political and social ideals that actually fit within Constitutional framework of this nation. They are both experienced and actually know what they are talking about. That is a culturally necessary discussion that has to take place beyond social media and media soundbites.

The risk is that it could further polarize this country, pushing it towards the rupture I can see coming within the next 20 years. The U.S. has not been this polarized since the Civil War, and I can see some sort of upheaval on the horizon.

Not a full blown secession. Frankly the states that want to secede (the South again) are too poor to support themselves and rely on federal money. They think that because there are so many military bases down there, and much of the military is conservative, they will automatically have the military. The military swears to uphold the Constitution, not the Republican party. While they may get some, I think a lot of personnel would have serious doubts about becoming traitors. Also those bases and all their equipment is Federally owned. So secessionists could kiss all that good bye. Nor do they have the organized and well-trained militia the antebellum South had.

So they would be seriously screwed if they tried to secede.

But on the course we are now, we are heading for a major upheaval along both idealistic and class lines as the middle class vanishes into the “working poor” exploited by the large corporations and the uber-wealthy in order to become even more obscenely rich than they are now.

We can’t keep going like this. Something has to change or something has to break.

Speaking of the Clown Car and the Constitution

Article VI, Paragraph 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

So not only was Dr. Carson wrong (“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation“), so was bobby Jindal (“If you can find me a Muslim candidate who is a Republican, who will fight hard to protect religious liberty, who will respect the Judeo-Christian heritage of America, who will be committed to destroying ISIS and radical Islam, who will condemn cultures that treat women as second class citizens and who will place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution.”)

The cognitive dissonance in Jindal’s statement (uphold “religious freedom,” so long as it is christian religious freedom) would be astounding if it was not so common. It’s doesn’t even freaking make sense to ask someone of one religion to take an oath on the holy book of another religion.

Did Jindal think a lobotomy was required to run for the presidency or something?

But as observed by others, there is no law that demands any elected official swear on a Bible. In fact members of Congress are not sworn in any holy book but simply raise their right hands. At the federal level, only the President is sworn on in a Bible. But that is simply custom, not law as it would be unConstitutional. As someone once observed, “You can be sworn on the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit issue if you wanted.”

A Woman’s Right to Choose…Anything

Woman Refused Medically-Recommended Tubal Ligation At Catholic Hospital

When she became pregnant three years ago, hers was treated as a high-risk pregnancy. The tumor required that she deliver via Caesarean section while fully anesthetized, rather than under partial anesthesia that numbs the lower body, which is more common.

When she became pregnant with her third child, a girl, she and her husband were elated, she said. But a maternal-fetal-medicine specialist told them earlier this spring that Mann should undergo tubal ligation to ensure that this would be her last child.

“You know, it’s never easy to hear that. But I have accepted it,” said Mann, who has two other children. “I talked it over with my husband. We want me to be around. That’s the biggest thing.”

Mann had heard that Genesys had changed its policies last year and that the tubal ligation would have to be specially requested. Indeed, an Oct. 1, 2014, memo to staff, provided to The Washington Post by the ACLU, said the hospital would halt all planned sterilizations to “strengthen our alignment with the Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives.”

The hospital had indicated it would make some exceptions to the policy for medical reasons, so Mann requested one in May. But early this month, her doctor informed her that the hospital had said no.

I think I have told this story before, but this is similar to what my mother went through. My sister was an “Oops” of failed birth control. My mother was 40. The delivery was dangerous for both of them, requiring a C-setion. As they were waitin for dad to arrive and discussing the surgery, my mother asked, “While you are in there, could you *snip*snip.*

“I’m sorry, I will need your husbands approval for that.”

My mother said she damn near climbed off the bed and throttled him.

My father arrived in time and of course signed off on it. He was not going to put Mom through that again and four was plenty of mouths to feed.

But here is a woman, 40 years old, having her fourth child, and she is still not allowed to make choices about her own body.

This was in 1979.

This is what the Religious Right wants to drag us back to. That’s why they want to defund Planned parenthood. It’s not just about abortions, which is a minor part of the services they provide. It’s about limiting access to birth control. (As seen by the attacks on Sandra Fluke when she spoke out about the need for insurance to cover birth control and the Hobby Lobby case.) It’s about controlling women’s bodies.

And finally…

The Douchebags of Asheville, North Carolina

A friend of mine from overseas is considering visiting me. I thought Asheville would be a nice place to take her. Asheville is North Carolina’s version of Austin, TX: It’s the artistic, “hippy” city in a sea of conservatism.

Then this broke: Coffee and Misogyny.

*headdesk*

If you have the stomach for it, the actual podcasts (if they are still up) and tweets are vile. The way they discuss women borders of sociopathic. Just a complete disregard for them as humans worthy of basic human respect. And a laughing over what is legally rape with a hospitalized, drugged up woman?

Are you fucking kidding me?

And given the violence claimed in some of the sexual encounters, I worry if it was something that was escalating.

If you go to the “Red Pill” reddit page you find the same MRA culture that helped to  produce Elliot Rodgers. I have run into these individuals in many places. Especially where there is a thread about a rape story in the news. They are the first ones pulling the “Bitches be lyin!” accusation. MRA types refuse to acknowledge any type of rape exists accept stranger assault rape. (That is the minority of rape cases.) Basically, if a complete stranger doesn’t leap out at you from the bushes, you were never raped. You just had sex and “changed your mind.” To them the vast majority of rape accusations are false and a way to victimize men.

Also not true.

(When presented with these statistics, it’s amazing how many MRAs are suddenly greater experts on the issue than the FBI and Department of Justice.)

And while they bitch about how women “abuse” the accusations of rape, many of them like to get women so hammered or drugged up they can’t possibly legally consent.

But I digress.

To the “Red Pill”/Pick Up Artist/MRA worms:

First of all, the “Alpha/beta male” thing? Women don’t think on those terms. Sure we go through our “Bad Boy stage,” which is usually done by the time we leave college (and have dated one). The “Alpha/beta male” is a guy thing whereby men judge and elevate their ego by degrading other men for acting like decent people.

Know why so many American women find British men hot? It’s not that their cultural gentility makes them seem “beta” or easily controlled. It’s because they project a quietly assured masculinity. They (or at least most of them) don’t need to walk around chest thumping to prove they’re a man.

I met Hugh Laurie, who was the perfect definition of a “gentleman;” a gentle man. But not for one second did I sense he was a pushover.

Secondly, the most successful promiscuous men I have found are the ones that enjoy women as human beings. They like talking with them and spending time with them beyond just having sex with them. They actually *like* women as people. Women tend to respond better to being approached that way rather than as “fuck socks.”

Women who will not sleep with you are not evil or a “bitch” or whatever childishly disgusting names you call them while you are rage-pouting about being rejected. Women who will sleep with you are not suddenly subhuman and the act of having sex with them does not make you a superior human being. Almost every animal on the planet has sex. Why would you think that suddenly makes you so great? (Because given your crap attitude toward women, you idea that sex is about your ego, I doubt you care enough make it fun for them.)  In fact, the fact that you require a woman’s sexual acquiescence to shore up your fragile self worth is a sure sign that the problem isn’t women: It’s you.

Finally (in general), these two felt no inherent regret. They only apologized because they were embarrassed they got caught. While one hopes they will get the intensive therapy obviously required to cure such an ingrained hatred and disregard for half of the human race, I do not hold out much hope.

But the community of Asheville’s outraged response to this shows that twats like these are not what Asheville is about.

…I think that’s everything.

Oh, Welcome Pope Francis. You rock dude.

What is Up with the Trophy Hunting Attention Whores?

Granted, the vast majority of big game trophy “hunters” are men with obvious issues.

And I have absolutely no trouble with women going out in the field hunting.

It’s just the ones who actually hunt using skill tend to look like this:

Or competitively, like this:

Not like this:

She worked so hard tracking this animal that her make up is perfect and her hair freshly curled, no less.

But over the last year a number of women have not only appeared in the in the big game trophy hunting field, they made damn sure they got noticed by the greater public.

First we had the cheerleader who loved to kill animals with her Barbie-Pink accented bow and arrows. (I always loved how she “tracked” those animals so hard her makeup was perfect for all these pictures of her and the animals she killed.)

Then there was “I wanna be a Playboy model, but in skin-tight fake camouflage with blood stains.” (My favorite pic is her using a chainsaw with her long flowing hair hanging right next to it while she implies what a pro she is at using chainsaws.)

And now, only a week after the public outcry over the poaching of Cecil, yet another female trophy hunter thrust herself into the spotlight.

Once again, don’t you love how hard she worked to track this animal that her clothes are clean, her hair is nice and flowing, and her make-up is perfect?

And not merely through taunting people outraged over trophy hunting on her Facebook page, but by going on the Today Show to talk about how “right” trophy hunting is, using the usual disproven “conservation” argument, swearing she had “great respect” for the animals she killed (I guess she is trying to have some sort of pseudo-“Native American” vibe that rationalizes that it’s totally o.k. to needlessly kill animals for your ego so long as you say you “respect” them). And, my personal favorite since it is so desperately pathetic, that “giraffes are really dangerous.”

Otherwise known as the Uncle Jimbo defense:

Giraffes are only dangerous if you deliberately provoke them (especially a mother and calf). They are not randomly rampaging through villages stomping on people. In fact, millennia of dealing with real hunters have made most in the wild human-avoidant. They are not flying over to the U.S. and breaking into your home. You are not “fighting them over there so you don’t have to fight them here”

You obnoxious, bloodthirsty fuckwit.

What is interesting is that I found in the course of researching this post is the biggest direct problem locals encounter with wildlife are elephants and hippos eating their crops, which can result in major income loss. However, there are non-lethal ways of dealing with that. It’s at very advanced technique called: Chilli powder.

But we got off track. I don’t want to shame any women about hunting. I think it’s cool that women get out there and hunt (non-Vulnerable or Endangered species for food) and shoot competitively. They are, after all, better shots. But these trophy hunting women, at least the ones trying so desperately to get noticed, are doing something else entirely. What is disturbing is while the trophy hunting men have a macho element to their pictures, many of these trophy hunting women have a sexual element to theirs. It’s not just that they want to be proven “Great White Hunters,” they want to be “Great White Sexy Hunters.”

I mean, I don’t wear make up unless it’s a special occasion anyway, but when I am camping or sailing, I sure as hell am not wasting space by taking along make up, a curling iron and gel/hairspray. I do not make sure my clothes are clean and immaculate while I am engaging in my outdoor activity.

(But then I am not being driven around by guides who are doing all the real work for me. )

But why do these women feel the need to do this? They obviously feel they have something to prove beyond their “prowess” as a hunter/how much they pay their guides to find animals for them to shoot at. What is it? Do they feel hunting is “too masculine” that they need to offset the activity by appearing overtly feminine? Are they trying to attract what they perceive to be “alpha males?” I don’t get it.

On the good side, Zimbabwe has begun to take steps to ban hunting near their National Parks.

Some American airlines have banned carrying animal trophies on their flights.

And the report that came out last week that Cecil’s “brother” Jericho had been killed turned out to be false. Not only is he alive, he has taken over Cecil’s pride and not killed Cecil’s cubs.

And if you would like some up close and person interaction with those “dangerous,” viscous giraffes, you can always visit Giraffe Manor. Eco-tourism, after all, provides more job locally and keep more money in the local economy than hunting does. (Though it can be hit or miss. One area cited that shutting down commercial logging in an area in China lost the area a lot of jobs that Eco-tourism could not replace. Eco-Tourism is a new “industry.” They’re working out the kinks for what suits each country/area’s needs. But it’s certainly better for conservation and local economies than big game trophy hunting. Even international pro-hunting groups have been forced to admit the claim that hunting brings in millions to the economy is not true.)

In the end what it boils down to is if trophy hunters actually cared about conservation, they would give most of the money they throw around trying to kill something to national parks so they can hire more wardens (more jobs!) to protect the park from poachers. If they cared about the local people/economy, instead of throwing a carcass at the local village on the way to the airport, they can buy them a herd of cows or goats that the people can use, slaughter or sell as they need. If they actually respected the animal, they would be tracking and taking pictures of them (which given light, distance, movement, dust, etc. can actually be more of a challenge than shooting them with rifle).

Or if you are really attached to firing guns, get involved in competitive shooting.

We are Greater Than the Sum of Our Racks

So this is the latest bit of feminist outrage, and while it may seem humorless nitpicking to some, I have to say I agree.

Jezebel and several other outlets have condemned groups like “Save the Tatas” for sexualizing a deadly disease.

O.K. First thing I do when a charity hits the news is go check it out on Charity Navigator, a great site that monitors the financial integrity of charities. Save the Tatas weren’t on there. (Though Save the Boobies was with a warning that they and their associated “charities” were for For-Profit entities that had engaged in fraud.) So on to Wikipedia.

“Save the tatas, also written as save the ta-tas, refers to both a non-profit breast cancer awareness foundation and a for-profit company founded in 2004^[1] by Julia Fikse and currently has 12 employees.^[1] Their motto is that laughter heals.^[2] Founder Julia Fikse, attributes her idea to seeing people close to her die of breast cancer.^[1] Liz Vassey and Hannah Cornett have both publicly supported the group.^[3]

Over the course of 2008 and 2009, they have pledged at least $50,000 toward The Concern Foundation^[4] and donated 5% of sales,^[1] about $802,000, to breast cancer research since its start. They are currently supporting four researchers.^[5]”

Well, O.k.. Their intentions are good. Sorta (5%?). And I see what they are trying to do.

Though unfortunately, that devolves into things like this:

You little shits.

Why does breast cancer get this kind of attention, and so much attention, when the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. is heart disease. Cancer (in general) comes in a close second and of the cancers, breast cancer is the most common, and the second deadliest.  So it does deserves a great deal of attention, but more than heart disease? I mean, I only learned this year that women can have different symptoms of a heart attack than men do and that they are more likely to ignore them.

But O.k., breast cancer is serious business. (Nor are women the only ones who get it.)

And I understand humor to get a message across, like the recent wave of the (innocent!) ALS Challenge, but instead of raising awareness, which is pretty high already, this approach trivializes it by reducing a woman’s life to what’s in her bra. It frames it not in terms of saving women’s lives, but of saving men’s playthings. Breast cancer is not merely a matter of “Oh God, please don’t take the warm, soft, squooshy toys away.”

It kills.

As in dead.

What is more important? The woman, or her tits?

If a double mastectomy is going to save a woman’s life, then who fucking cares about her breasts?

Society unfortunately.

When I was 25, they I found a lump in my breast. For those of you who have not found one, I will tell you that I have very cystic breast tissues and it still stood out. It was a lump that felt to be the size of my pinky tip, hard as a rock. It felt like there was a pebble in there. So that is what you are looking for. The doctor confirmed with a mammogram and I had a lumpectomy within a week of diagnosis. (What felt to be the size of a pinky-tip was in fact the size of a whole pecan in the shell. So if you find a lump, RUN, don’t walk, to your doctor.)

And they only gave me a local, so it was really weird. It felt like someone was tugging at my shirt rather than cutting into me and pulling something out.

It was benign, thank the Gods.

In the interim between diagnosis and surgery, I went through about 15 minutes of “I’m going to die” before reason reasserted itself and it downgraded to “I’m going to lose my right breast.” Somehow, that prospect was almost as frightening. I had not realized how much of our social identity as women is defined by what is sitting on our chest.  It is literally as socially vital to our identity as women as testicles are to men, perhaps even more so given how much attention they are given in our media. It was a terrifying prospect.

But I came to my senses, as most women facing this do, and realized my life matters more than my blouse bunnies. And, just as important, that my body does not define me as a woman to society or to myself (to a medical professional, yes, but otherwise, no). What is in my head and my (metaphorical) heart is the most important part of what makes me a woman and a valid human being.

And I redefined what being feminine meant to me. I’m not going to preach it because what being feminine means to me may not be the same as what being feminine means to another woman (cys or trans). Society doesn’t get to tell us what being a woman means. We tell them. We define that.

And it doesn’t have to have anything to do with breasts.

Our heads.

Our hearts.

Women.

Girls, Girls, Girls: Women in Comics, Part I: Films

Well finally.

I apologize in advance for the formatting. For some reason, WordPress hates MSWord.

When I was 14 years old, someone handed me a copy of this comic:

(That is Chris Claremont’s autograph across the title. That is the only autograph I own of any famous person. *That* is how much that story meant to me.)

It defied everything I thought I knew comics to be. The art was not clean lines and bright colors. The story was less superpowers than it was brooding, almost Hitchcock-ian suspense. (And in reading back I found the lead up to this confrontation *was* very Hitchcock in that people around her thought she was crazy to the point she began to fear she was crazy.) The hero lost. Most importantly, the focus of the story was a young woman. A young woman wading out into the snow with little more than a down jacket and a bow and arrow to do battle with her inner and outer demons.

I was hooked forever.

The portrayal of women in traditional superhero comics was a HUGE part of why I started to read them, and why many other women started to read them. Reading the first Marvel comics of the 1960’s is torturous exercise in chauvinism (you would shocked at how many female superheroes were models in their spare time *chuckle*), but superhero comics grew quickly and by the time I started reading them in the 1980’s, they were ahead of their time in how complex and powerfully women were portrayed, in both outer and inner strength. (Especially Claremont women.)

So having recently seen and heard many “feminists” bitching about how sexist comic books are, I’m going to tackle this in four parts:

The Films

The Characters

The Art
The Women Behind the Women of Comics

So let’s begin…

The Films
Many people love to criticize the portrayal of women in comic books, but many of these people have not actually read them. Most of those people are making their judgment from the films which are not representative of female heroes and superheroes in their source material.

DC
Batman, Batman, Superman, Batman, Batman, Batman, Superman, Batman, Batman. Dear Gods guys. Move ON already!

Catwoman was a prop in the last Nolan Batman film, and frankly one that was not terribly necessary. The Halle Berry Catwoman film does not exist in my universe.

People really have no idea how many awesome female characters in the DC Universe that are being ignored. Wonder Women and Catwoman are only the tippiest tip of the iceberg.

Or my personal favorites:

Don’t you love a super-heroine that shows up dressed for the occasion?

And…

But more on Big Barda and Lady Blackhawk later.

The Marvel Entertainment Franchise:

The Avengers

Notice how Thor, the Hulk, Captain America and Iron Man all have film series of their own, but the Black Widow does not? Sure, neither does Hawkeye, but as long as Natasha Romanoff had been involved in the movie M.U. (Marvel Universe) in both the comic books and the films, she deserves some individual development of her own.

Granted, BW is not a favorite character of mine. She’s rather clichéd. But if you are going to use her, if she is going to be the LONE female heroine in the landscape, put her on equal footing with her male peers.

Joss Whedon himself missed a step when he chose to not use the Wasp in the Avengers. Janet Van Dyne is one of the first female characters in Marvel Comics and, like Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and Thor, a founding member of the Avengers.

But then, she would have needed an establishing film to set her character up…

…which she still is not getting in favor of Ant Man. *head desk*

The next girl to be shown in the films will be the Scarlet Witch who is crazy powerful, and also very emotionally unstable and easily manipulated. Quite often, bat-shit crazy.

Yeah, thanks guys. Love the way we’re being portrayed.

Captain America
Cap’s films have actually done o.k. with female characters. Granted, Betty Ross, Sharon Carter and the Black Widow are all in supporting roles, but they are all strong women. They just weren’t featured enough.

Thor
Sif. We need to see more Sif.

Some more development from “bad ass chick” would be welcome.

Frigga actually got an upgrade from her comic book self which was more of the traditional mother goddess. The movie Frigga was wise, maternal and when she had to, kicked ass.

Iron Man
Pepper Potts is another one that is ignored and was actually decent, I think. I don’t read Iron Man regularly, but my impression is Pepper of the comic book is not quite so damsel-in-distress-y. However both the print and film versions are smart, strong, common sense women. I liked that Pepper of the film did something very sensible and so rare to action movies: She went to the authorities when they were in trouble.

What was nice is that in Iron Man 3 they put her in the suit, which is a nod to Pepper’s eventual development into becoming Rescue in the comic book.

Sony: Spider-Man
Sure, let’s just focus on Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy, girlfriends who need to be saved on a regular basis. Why would Sony Pictures ever use his other girlfriend, the one with her own life who doesn’t need to be rescued all the time: the Black Cat? Or Ms. Marvel, a friend that Peter Parker actually has no romantic interest in?

20th Century Fox: X-Men and Daredevil.
O.K. they Got Elektra right in the first Daredevil film (the Elektra solo film does not exist in my universe).

But the X-Men films have some of the most egregious devaluations of female characters.

First of all, can we PLEASE stop putting Wolverine at the center of every goddamn story?

*ahem* Moving on.

Mystique is o.k.. Compared to the strength of her comic book counterpart, she is a let down. She was a leader in her own right, she was not Magneto’s Girl Friday. In the comics she is also frequently armed because shapeshifting is not an offensive ability and she is not stupid. I also do not know why a shapeshifter who can mimic clothing has to be naked the majority of the time except to serve as eye candy.

She is also one of the first bisexual characters in traditional superhero comics, sharing a decades-long deep love affair with a pre-cognitive named Irene Adler/Destiny.

Jean Grey/Phoenix was good (though again, the Brett Ratner disaster of X3 does not exist in my universe).

Kitty Pryde’s portrayal is just lame. I think Ellen Page is perfect and if given Kitty’s full personality she would have a lot more fun with the role, but in the films Kitty is written as a mechanism, not a character. As I pointed out her use in X-Men: Days of Future Past was disappointing (she was the main character who went back in time in the comic) and made no sense (her powers have nothing to do with telepathy or time travel). More importantly she has been a mainstay of the X-Men for 34 years. We have watched her grow from smart, naive young teen into a smart, idealistic, kick ass woman. She needs to be more involved and prominent in their stories.

And then, there’s Lockheed.

But the two portrayals which were epic failures, devaluing the characters and pissing off fans to no end, were Storm and Emma Frost.

Storm is one of Marvel’s personifications of feminine strength. She often takes a motherly role towards the rest of the team (Kitty especially in the beginning), but she is not a woman you want to mess with.

She can even get Wolverine to back down from a killing rage, just by the force of her personality and leadership.

And Logan’s respect for Ororo grew to be mountains more than it has ever been for Scott/Cyclops. Logan would walk into hell if she told him too. Not because of any romantic feelings, but because he respects and cares about her that much.

In the comic Storm took over leading the X-Men when Scott took time off. And when his heart wasn’t in it anymore but he would not step aside, Storm kicked his ass in a Danger Room duel. And she was depowered at the time!

Halle Berry was woefully miscast (Angela Bassett would have been my choice, just to give you an idea of the kind of energy the character should have had), and in the scripts Storm was relegated to being an almost faceless supporting character.

Emma Frost’s portrayal was downright insulting. Emma Frost is a former member of the Hellfire club and associate of Sebastian Shaw, true. But she was never Shaw’s moll. She had her own agenda and schemes. Emma’s focus has always been the kids. In her earlier portrayals she was exploiting them for the Hellfire Club. But as she was developed and became a hero and her past was revealed (and as her entire team of kids died at the hands of another, future, member of the Hellfire Club) her interest became that of a protecting lioness, teaching the next generation of mutants how to survive in a rough world.

X-23 was one of her students who was still being controlled by clandestine Weapon X program. You do NOT fuck with the children under Emma’s care.

Born to the economic purple, when her telepathy emerged her severely dysfunctional family put her, the little girl hearing voices in her head, in an insane asylum. Emma escaped to make her own way in the world, using her telepathy to create her own corporate empire. (Imagine the insider trading potential if you could read minds.) Her teaching methods are hard because she sees the world as a brutal place that kids need to protect themselves against. And yes, Emma uses her sexuality as part and parcel of how she manipulates and guards against that world, but she is by no means arm candy. (Or she should not be.)  Her past and protective motivations do not excuse her actions, which as seen above can sometimes be quite cruel, but she is much more than Hollywood allowed her to be on screen.

So comic books have not given female characters the short end of the stick, Hollywood has. But as I pointed out before, since 2000 the Entertainment Industry has been pretty dismissive of the ladies in general.

Next, who women in comics are and what they say about us.

And speaking of the third chapter, here is a perfect example of the real problem with how women in comics are protrayed these days: The Art

Girls, Girls, Girls: Preview III

Wonder Woman as you HAVE NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE!

In jeans and a t-shirt.

After a breaking up with Green Arrrow and a snipe fest with her teammate Huntress, Black Canary looks to blow off some steam.

Birds of Prey #68, by Gail Simone

O.K. I really should start posting my own content now…

Bare Midriff Battle Armor Explained

Now You Know by Nebezial

Preview II: Girls Girls Girls

Both Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde were introduced in X-Men #129 in 1980. In the 1990’s, Emma was developed into a “hero.” In 2004, 24 years after they met, Emma and Kitty found themselves on the same team.

(I hope this is not too small. I loaned my TPBs, Trade Paperbacks, out of a friend never to be seen again and it was either wait until tonight when I can fish this issue out of the longboxes or pull it from online.)

Astonishing X-Men #2, by Joss Whedon.

Preview: Girls Girls Girls

It Really Cannot Be Denied Anymore

Being on vacation last week and part of the week prior, I have gotten behind in the news. I have two half-finished posts on Israel/Palestine (yup, I will go there) and the Open Carry Fuckwits, but I saw this article this morning and simply….AAAAIGH!

The article the revealed that one of the convicted Steubenville rapists had rejoined his high school (American) football team.

The public reaction to the Steubenville rape case and the fact that a convicted felon was allowed back on the team reveal two major problems haunting America and American schools today:

1. We have a rape culture.

I really hate sweeping, sensationalist generalizations like this, but over the last couple years, it simply has become inescapable.

When the Steubenville case first hit the major news outlets, it was NOT a small number of voices placing blame squarely on the head of the unconscious victim. It was a large number.

She was a slut, she was a whore, she was just trying to “get” the players, she was trying to avoid responsibility, she should not have been drinking, women should know better than to drink around men, she had poor morals and bad parenting.

Even after the video tape was released of the rapists bragging and laughing about it, they were still not at fault. The attitude seemed to be “Boys will be boys and she should have known better.”

The victim was even sent death threats.

The recent case of the cosplayer at SD ComicCon brought the apologists out again. Before the investigation revealed it was an accident, while sexual assault was suspected, “If she dresses like a whore, she can expect to be treated like a whore,” was one of the many victim-blaming opinions I saw on Facebook.

I did not know wearing the equivilant of a one piece bathing suit was “dressing like a whore.”

(And even prostitutes don’t deserve to be raped.)

And let’s not even get into the “Men’s Rights” twats who assume every accusation of rape is a lie, which happens only a minute percentage of the time. (And by “Men’s Rights,” I am not talking about the groups who fight for equal custody and divorce rulings, I’m talking about the misogynist extremists who inspire people like Elliot Rodger.)

So many people think every time woman, or even a girl, dresses in a way that expresses her sexuality or is even trendy or attractive, she should expect to be raped.

The ones that really irk me are those who try to mask it under “friendly advice.” “I will waffle for a paragraph or two, but what I mean is that women should not go out dressed attractively. They should not go out and drink where there are men. If they do that, they are partly to blame if this happens to them. It’s just common sense.” Again, the attitude is that men can’t be held responsible for their actions and it is up to women to be in charge of men’s self-control.

Well hell, let’s just break out the burquas and chaperone laws already.

(The other rationalization that comes up in this context and the conversations about the double standard of woman “slut” vs. man “sowing his wild oats” that drives me batty is, “It’s just alpha-male, animal instinct baby, spreading the genes around. It’s totally natural. Deal with it..” Animal instinct, huh? Fine. Hand over your car keys, your house/apartment keys, your phone, your computer, your health insurance/NIH card and go hunt deer with your bare hands. O.K., I’ll let you have a rock. You want to enjoy the benefits of a civilized society, you have to act like a civilized human being.)

Nor were the apologists a small group of extreme outliers, or even a small minority. This was the huge, loud, group of people who roll out the victim blaming every time a story of a sexual assault comes up in the news. In the comments on every article about the Steubenville case, and every succeeding case of sexual assault on a school campus, could be found a significant number of people blaming the victim for their rape.

And campus administrations eager to make it go away, colleges especially.

And this with the appalling rate of sexual assault on college campuses.

And before you think that is a lot, remember this is not a one rape victim to one rapist ratio. Recent studies have found rapists to be serial offenders, predators stalking easy targets.

The murderer is the blame for the murder. Thief is to blame for the theft.

I don’t care if you left your car or place unlocked. No one was holding a gun to head of the thief to make them open the door of a car or a domicile that does not belong to them. Every morning I walk by two gardens filled with fresh vegetables that I would love to eat. They are right there, out in the open. But stealing from them is still stealing and the fault is mine if I chose to do it. In a court of law, thieves get the book thrown at them whether the car or home was locked or no. In a case of murder or theft, the court would NOT find the victim at fault in the ruling.

Yet judges have repeatedly found the victim at least partially at fault in rape.

Repeatedly.

Shall I keep going?

Rape is the only crime where the victim is on trial as much, or perhaps even more, than the accused, and the courts put them through hell.

And repeatedly is only the minimum sentence given to the convicted rapist. (In the rare instance the rapist is convicted.) In the Steubenville case, they received a minimum sentence and the judge recommended they be remanded to a minimum security…what sounded like essentially a psychiatric treatment center where they would be treated with warm fuzzies by the staff.

Even the press sympathized with the poor young men whose “promising futures” had been “ruined.”

“Promising futures” of what? Sexually assaulting women?

Though with Richmond rejoining the Steubenville team, it appears that raping someone does not, in fact, ruin your life. Rape is O.K.. The Steubenville school administration has shown all the boys in the area that if you play well and rape someone, your life will go on and fans will love you no matter what you do.

And if you are a rich rapist, well hey. You don’t even have to do jail time.

And let’s not forget our politicians and “legitimate rape.”

(Days Since GOP Rape Mention : 33)

So at every legal level of our society, we have people who think rape is excusable, the victim’s fault and/or a just punishment for not acting “like a good girl.”

(Which, again, for women who preach victim-blaming it is a fallacy they tell themselves to feel safer, “If I act like a good girl and dress like a good girl, this will never happen to me.”

It doesn’t matter how you dress or act. You do not even have to leave your house.)

Or a “good boy.” The prevalence of male-victim rape is just becoming known as men come out of the shadows to admit what has happened to them.

Women and men suffer the same trauma from rape, but men have to cope with the added inhibitor of society’s definition of masculinity that makes it difficult for them to confront and deal with being sexually assaulted, especially openly. In society’s view “real men” are not victimized in that way. Unless they choose to be and then we’re back to the victim blaming. In one famous case, a homosexual male rape victim was told by the LAPD, “Gay men can’t be raped.”

Nor are men the only rapists. If a man gropes a woman, it’s considered creepy at least, sexual assault at worst. But if a woman gropes a man, she’s just coming on to him. *wink, wink*nudge, nudge* You lucky bastard. If he doesn’t want to be groped and feels uncomfortable, “What’s the matter with you? Are you gay?” The entire definition of their sexual identity is attacked because a woman did not respect their personal space. And being raped by a woman? They have to fight the public perception that it is not physically possible and that there is something wrong with them.

It is physically possible.

Respecting personal space is the same whether the person is a woman or a man.

I’m glad there are more men coming forward and that they are finding the help they need.

But the acceptance of rape in our society in this day and age is simply, appallingly, wrong. It simply should not be. We should have gotten over this decades ago.

And yet, we have not. In fact in the last couple years, it seems to have gotten worse. I don’t know if it is *just* indicative of a long, silently held prejudice roiling under the surface, and it has to be in part, or if the sudden large eruption into the public discussion has been prompted by something else.

2. The second cultural disease is the worship of sports in American society has gone too far and the damage it is doing to our schools.

More on that later.