A little political pontification

I like to keep my blog focused on feminism, particularly the theoretical parts of the movement, simply because current events depress me too much.

As time goes on, and the economy worsens, I'm full of this rage. It makes no sense, generally, and it's completely directionless. But it's there. And I catch myself, frequently, wanting to hit someone who bemoans how much it costs to fill up their new Accord.

I guess it is related to feminism, in a way, because I have little pity for those unwilling to look past their own privilege. Sometimes, I think that my anger with gender relations is so tied up with my rage at classism that I have a hard time pinpointing exactly why I am angry.

With more and more people falling out of the middle class, I'm filled with anything but pity. Perhaps it's because I've always been here, in the lower classes, ever since that day my father walked out and fought tooth and nail over every last penny with my ex-homemaker mother. So when someone remarks how much their life sucks because they cannot take their kids to Disneyland this year, I just want to say, "so what? I haven't been out of state since the 90s" But I keep my mouth shut.

That's what we do, the working classes, we keep our mouths shut. We're told that it can always be worse. That tomorrow we might not have a house. And it's true, really.  My family has lived beyond it's means for years, and something as simple as me losing my scholarships, loans, or job would make my mother unable to pay the mortgage.

But please, don't talk to me about new cars and gas mileage. I just don't give a flying fuck. I've had the same car since I was 16 (which I bought to get to work on time, to be able to drive myself to my out-of-district school I tested into, and to be able to go for tutoring that I paid for myself) and it's never had good gas mileage. The first thing I look at when I buy something is price. It always comes down to money. Everything in my life is ruled by the dollar, simply because I don't have enough and I never really did.

And so when others, the middle class families that come to my cash register, make small talk about how it's hard to "make ends meet" with keys in their hands for Hondas and Cadillacs and Lexus, I want to sneer.But I keep it inside, and I smile.

As the economy worsens, I take some sort of sick glee in the fact that maybe those with agency, the middle classes and above, will finally know what's its like to have to budget. Maybe they'll think about how it feels to grow up without piano lessons, gated neighborhoods, and labeled clothing. Maybe they'll just stop being so fucking smug about how the lower classes are poor and stupid and bigots, and that's why we never get ahead.

Because, you see, it's never enough. I'll never be the top of my class in so long as I have to work and live in a house that is more like a boxing ring. I'm not always on time to job interviews and things because my car is ten years old. I don't have nice shoes and straight creases in my pants and I can't gush about my new Coach purse.

And the lack of such things makes me bad, makes me wrong, makes me stupid. Nobody really gives a shit about how and why the girl who sits in the front and gets the highest grades on tests gets B+s because she can't get the points for regular attendance. Nobody thinks that maybe my shirts don't fit well because I can't afford ones that do. Nobody cares that the reason my health is bad, I'm out of shape, and I eat greasy shit is because I can't afford doctor's fees, gym memberships and fresh produce. Nobody thinks that when I can't make it to so and so's party it's because I don't have the time for anything but survival some days. Nobody thinks that anything I do and say and think is rational, because I'm just another faceless member of the lower class, and I've always been like this.

When the politicians take their pulpit, and preach about change, I'm the spoilsport. They say that I should be happy for compromise. Bullshit. I know good and well that when compromise happens, it's always me and mine that are left behind. I never had power, and if I ever do, it will be because I've worked fifteen times harder than anyone else to get it.

Then those same politicians sell out. Their slogans are empty, like always, but nobody looks at me and mine and says that we were right. They bemoan that they should have known things that we knew all along. We've always known that our purpose in life is to be used and discarded. Empty faces on cash registers, in cubicles, shuffling from job to job (never a career) in the futile search for someone that gives a shit about the children we have to go home to watch, the doctors we have to see for our stress-induced ulcers, and the houses we clean ourselves.

And the middle-class campaigners on campus will ask me to vote for their beloved Democrat. They'll call me stupid when I say I won't. I was told never to settle for second best, so I'm not going to. And if McCain wins, well, that's your politician's damn fault. You have all the time in the world to understand the lower class, to reach out to us, to comprehend this repressed rage, and you won't. You haven't for decades, so it's not like you're doing anything other than what I expect of you, which is nothing.

We, well, we just live. We don't have time for politics and campaigns and taking off time to vote. I'm thankful for mail-in ballots, otherwise I'd miss my next deadline for a paper, I'd arrive late to work, or I'd have to drag myself away from the couple of times a month I have enough money and time to act like I have a life.

Yeah, it could be a lot worse. It could also be a lot better. Don't expect me to kiss your fucking righteous ass when you begin to understand the conditions that I've lived my entire life in.

Failing at Irony and Alienating Your Allies: The Liberal Dude's Guide to Satire

So I open my blog reader and the Huffington Post. What do I have the pleasure to find?

Oh Christ, who's the genius behind this?

I know this might be rocket science to liberal dudez who think things like rape are funny, but this really tasteless and poor excuse for satire is not inducing anything but my gag reflex. You know you fail at irony when your art work is indecipherable from the message of those you intend to mock. While I was sleeping, someone decided that mocking the Republicans by depicting the Obamas with racist stereotypes was effective and funny. I can imagine a bunch of balding upper-class white dudes giving each other congratulatory back slaps around some editor's desk at The New Yorker, engaging in mutual masturbation inflation of their over large egos as their wit goes to press.

You know what's really funny? Mocking Nazis by walking around in public, in places where there may or may not be Jews, and acting and dressing in such a manner completely identical to Nazis. So what if you offend a few Jews along the way? Your completely nonsensical message must be conveyed in the manner you see fit, even if you offend a demographic that would otherwise be allies. I might be white, but even I know that the picturing of an afro-sporting woman in military fatigues is probably a dig at her deviant blackness and her radical opposition to white culture. Also, if you think drawing racist depictions of prominent political figures is funny, you might be racist.

The purpose of satire is to shock and inflame your opposition. If your illustration could be used as a poster for the far right and you are offending your political allies, then it's about time someone fired you.

Then again, I am not really surprised. Anyone remember this? :

That was a "liberal" blog, the DailyKos, really failing to understand the nuances of irony.

Heads up to white dudez: if you think the appropriate manner to object to bigots on the right is to be a leftist racist, on the name of "humor", kindly get the fuck out of my political party.

Americanism and Thought-Crime

Stop saying bad things about the world! Seriously. I mean, nothing's more American than being happy and loving everyone. Which means that me and the CEO of the company dumping toxic waste into the town lake are totally on the same page, man. We love each other, we're good neighbors. We both want some good old harmony.

Let's play the analogy game! Force is to Authoritarianism as what is to Democracy? If you guessed Propaganda you win the grand prize! It's called thinking. Sometimes it sucks. May cause feelings of intense hopelessness and pessimism. Use with caution.

Unhappiness, dude, that's not American. If the state of the world sucks, then don't think about it! In fact, ignore and alienate agitators. Like the government told you to. Or your boss, he's pro-American just like you. You ever hear of the Mohawk Valley Formula? No? That's good. Ignorance and bliss is the American way.

My slogan man, it's totally vacuous. Nobody's against it, because not supporting X, Y, and Z is bad news. Nobody really knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. All it does is keep me from asking, "do I support this policy?". But I'm not allowed to talk about it. Keep moving guys, there's no racism, sexism, classism, starvation, and disenfranchised here. It's a post-Feminist, post-Racist, post-classist society. Somebody told me so, and they must be right. I'm happier if I agree with them anyway.

So, do you support our troops? Well, you say, it's not like I don't support them. I've won. It's all Americanism and Harmony. We're all together, empty slogans, blank faces, corporate uniforms, daily grind. Join me, and together we can make sure that nobody ever talks about that nasty class struggle, racist, homophobic, sexist, exploitive, corrupt "issues" ever again.

Don't Call it War

Stop calling the Iraqi Conflict "war". If you have to call it anything, it's a Military Occupation. The war was over when the Iraqi military surrendered years ago. It might sound like I'm harping on a stupid and pointless question of semantics that does nothing to alter the framework of the debate. However, the use of the word "war" is very important if you happen to be a Republican.

"War" implies a grave threat. When the American public thinks of the usual war, we think of a conflict between two nations, or many nations, in which the losing party's surrender will result in the massive loss of human life and the potential shifting of borders. Even as recent as the Cold War, the consequences of war have moved borders and made the inhabitants of one nation suddenly citizens of another. The term "war" as it applies to Iraq is therefore, inappropriate. "Failure" would result in the rise of a new dictator--a powerless dictator, given that the infrastructure of Iraq is still in shambles and its population is impoverished and unlikely to support continued warfare. The price of "failure" in Iraq, for the Western world, is nothing compared to the price that Iraqis have paid, and will continue to pay for generations. Between a dismantled infrastructure, the leveling and loss of historic monuments, massive loss of life, and the poison of depleted uranium missiles, the occupation of Iraq has taken a very hefty toll from the innocent civilians of an already poor country. No such horrible fate would befall Americans if the occupation "failed". The use of the word war implies a somewhat equitable consequence resulting from the struggle of two or more equally powerful entities. Thus, the use of "war" is inappropriate to describe a situation in which a wealthy Western nation occupies a Middle Eastern country suffering from poverty and persistent civil violence.

Furthermore, "war" is a romantic term, attracting patriots and idealistic high school graduates who want to serve their country, and the political leaders that cloak their stock gains in nationalistic pride. Republican supporters call President Bush the "war president", would this title be as romantic if Bush was a "military occupation president"?

In a "war", we can justify autocratic leadership. We can sit idly by while liberties are sacrificed and foreigners are brutally tortured in our military prisons. We can excuse economic woes at home because of the "war" which "must be fought". Our "war" justifies airplanes loaded with hundreds of coffins of the Americans who never will make it out of their twenties. Can anyone say that a military occupation merits the same sacrifices?

"War" fashions heroic tales of valor. "War" creates glorious myths of an underdog fighting to protect itself and its freedom. A "war" illustrates nefarious villains would would stop at nothing to see the the destruction of our homes, and who have the means to accomplish this diabolical scheme if it was not for the brave actions of our military. In a military occupation, our heroes are overstressed youths raping each other, throwing puppies over cliffs, and committing suicide en masse. In a military occupation, the underdog is a nation run by oil barons, mercenaries, religious nuts, and construction contractors. In a military occupation, nefarious villains are farmers selling their daughters into marriage at younger and younger ages to support their families after their opium fields were burned, urban youths allying themselves with others sick of the war and prepared to fight back, and many other nobodies with no hope of posing a real threat to those on American soil.

In sum, "war" is what the neo-cons want every American to call the situation in Iraq, because just a single word justifies atrocities that the true situation cannot.

Stop calling it a "war", and start calling it what it is: the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. This isn't just semantics, this is a matter of global importance.

Life and Blogging: Incompatible, accompanied by comic and video

Planning my grandparent's 50th anniversary luncheon with my mother was such a time-suck that I've been completely absent from the internets for the past week or so. I didn't even read any of my blog subscriptions which was a blasphemy of the highest degree. My very small audience will be happy to note that I'm currently sitting on a rant on the pornification of bisexuality.

In other news, I totally caught that interview with Jessica Valenti, writer and founder of the popular Feministing.com, on Moblogic:

Nothing particularly hard-hitting there, but we feminists tend to be a bit stand-offish in wider forums with our views. Probably because of trolls on comments like this:

Jessica Valenti is a bigot, she just happens to back what is currently a politically correct and popular form of bigotry.

The way they talk on her website you'd think women were living in some kind of planet of the apes scenario and yet she seems to manage to live a rather privileged life of celebrity, book deals and socialising.

She's not even an intelligent bigot, or she's highly intellectually dishonest, but then again her career is based on this notion that women are horribly oppressed - it's in her interests to keep perpetuating this idea.

No, I will not link to the comment. Trolls don't get free audiences here.

First of all, since when is feminism popular? I think our dear troll is confusing feminism with Suicide Girls or the various teenie-bopper fads that confuse titillation with empowerment and equality.

It's really obvious that Jessica is "privileged". I mean, she has to put up with asinine trolls and their sophomoric logic day in and day out! I do that too, although on a much smaller scale, and I can tell you how much fun it is, and how much money I make. Jessica's "socializing" is called activism. Instead of getting drunk and shooting the breeze with buddies, which is fun in moderation, try something more productive like writing books.

Finally, our dear troll punctuates his sentiment with the tired-and-true, "shuttup opportunistic man-hating whore!" sentiment. Any feminist knows she's doing something right when she gets this gem thrown at her. From trolls in my very personal rape thread whining about teh poor menz to anonymous emails about how I alienate people from feminism with my awful, terrible book reviews and pop-culture sociology, there seems to be no shortage of men, and the occasional woman, who seem to think that the people pointing out discrimination are somehow more to blame for society's ills than the people that perpetuate those attitudes with the defense of their willful ignorance.

In more colloquial terms, via Penny Arcade:

(Cross-posted)

Shit That Makes It Hard For Me to be Proud and Jewish

What the fuck? From Khalid Amayreh's blog:

Last week, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released video clips showing masked Jewish settlers ganging up on and severely beating elderly Palestinian peasants near the town of Yatta, southwest of Hebron. At least three Palestinians were wounded in the unprovoked assault, including a man and his wife, both in their early sixties.

The latest act of settler terror was not an isolated incident, as official Israeli spokespersons would often claim. It represents a disturbing and persistent phenomenon as young and usually heavily armed settlers continue to attack Palestinian farmers, peasants and shepherds and vandalize their property in an effort to drive them away from their lands and villages.

Holy hell. What the fuck is wrong with Israelis? Also, what the fuck is wrong with American media that they aren't all over this shit like white on rice? The unspoken rah-rah-Israel sentiments here in America are nauseating. Every single Israeli goes through the military upon becoming an adult, where the prejudices against Palestinians are further cemented in a hierarchical structure where armed angry youths learn that everyone that is confined to the other side of their wall is The Enemy. I sincerely hope that not all Israelis are that brainwashed. Unfortunately, the Israelis I had the misfortune to encounter through working for a Jewish summer camp all were the most militaristic pro-American anti-Muslim devotees. Not a single free-thinker in that bunch.

Although, I really don't expect anything but horse shit to spew from the fellow Jew's mouth when it comes to Israel. My mother's side―the Jewish side―all are so unquestionably pro-Israel that any attempt to point out the gross human rights violations is met with incredibility. I might as well hand in my Jew-Card at the Passover Sedar for not being a Good Jew(TM) and hating all brown people. What the fuck, man? I really think we stopped being the oppressed when we started acquiring nukes, building walls, and forcing the native population into ghettos in an eerie parody of Nazi Germany. Racial cleansing is not fucking cool, even if you are Jewish.

People wonder why I avoid mixing Judaism and politics. Well, this is why. Then again, it's probably a good idea to conclude that any country Fuhrer President Bush supports is probably an oppressive regime that encourages its citizens to play Hitler's Youth with the disenfranchised du jour of the area.

Dear Conservatives, I'm Pro-Abortion! And You Know What That Makes You?

Anti-American!

I really tire of the abortion debate. Even so-called liberals that I have contact with through various political groups always claim to understand the motivations behind the Anti-American clusterfuck that is the conservative party and their holy quest to deprive women of fundamental freedoms.

I'm talking, specifically, about reproductive freedom.

You dudes: us women, well, we don't rape people in the same numbers you do. We can also chalk our violence up to mental deficiencies, rather than the self-perpetuating prophecy of masculinity. If you weren't content with the free pass the justice system has given men to rape women that I detailed exhaustively in my last post, your penis-buddies on Capitol Hill also would like us women to know that they value the "life" of a clump of cells, a fetus, or whatever you want to call it, more than freedom.

Because in case you haven't gotten the message: America's "freedoms" only apply to white men. Also, because I'm having a bad day, I tire of talking points and meaningless posturing.

So here it is, for everyone who cares to know: I'm Pro-Abortion. I don't dress my opinions up with fancy terms like "pro-choice" to distance my stance from the fact that I am supporting the systematic termination of a pregnancy that will result in the "death" of a fetus, embryo, fertilized egg, or a sack of cells that might be a human depending on your political agenda.

So, I admit that I am Pro-Abortion. Which means that if we wish to dispose of loaded phrases and cut to the heart of the issue, we're going to redefine "Pro-Life".

Note: graphic shamelessly lifted from Andy Singer's No Exit

First, you are not pro-life. Most conservatives support the death penalty, and holding enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay until presumably the Apocalypse or nuclear winter. Killing people and torturing them isn't pro-life. Conservatives also shoot down any efforts to expand affordable health care, even to children. That's not pro-life either.

To liberal dudes who sympathize with conservatives: you might be pro-life. Sure, you might oppose the death penalty. You probably think water-boarding sucks. Your trendy liberal sentiments might also require you to admit that reducing the cost of health care is instrumentally important to the thousands of children who go without. However, you do share something fundamental with anti-abortion conservatives:

You're Anti-American.

Nothing is more intrinsic to the idea of Americanism than freedom. Not the hijacked definition of freedom which is used to mount submachine guns on a suburban Hummer, but the kind of freedom to go where I want and do what I please, provided I am not impeding anyone's rights. Probably the best and most basic exercise of freedom is that over your own body. Someone that does not even have the right to control their own body would, obviously, be a slave.

Now we've arrived at a point where sound bites are irrelevant. If I wish to be honest, then I must say that I am firmly and completely Pro-Abortion. If you wish to be "pro-life", you must oppose the unnatural and purposeful death of all of humanity. Your policies, instead encourage or allow war, torture, grueling child poverty, or a complete dismissal of the rulings of the Supreme Court. Anti-abortion activists and sympathizers are firmly and completely Pro-Slavery (of the reproductive variety) and Anti-American.

So let's just cut the bullshit, okay? I admit that I love abortion. Now you admit that you love reproductive slavery, and that you hate freedom. Fair is fair, after all.

(Cross-posted)

Coldplay- Viva La Vida [Full]

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sweep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
Once you go there was never, never an honest word
That was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in.
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter will call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

Am I the only one ridiculously excited by the upcoming Coldplay album? I love me some political rock. Plus, the musicality and the metaphorical lyrics of this hugely popular British band make my inner music and English geek very happy. I, for one, will be definitely purchasing the album in full.

Not For Sale

From the European Women's Lobby, a documentary on prostitution, and why full legalization cannot grant women the agency they deserve in three parts:

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Like I have said before in the comments section of an earlier post, I do not support the legalization of prostitution because I feel that legal systems would not be interested in women's rights over the market demand or the privacy of the pimp or john. From stories like the D.C. Madam to the normalization of violence against sex workers, it is very clear that the American justice system is not as interested in protecting the extremely vulnerable women in the sex industry as they are demonizing them. With statistics coming out of European countries like Britain's deplorably low rape conviction rate, it looks as if my skepticism for any legal institution is well founded. Like this documentary, I think that the only solution is to criminalize buying sex and decriminalize selling sex like Sweden did. There are hundreds of trafficked women and children in Sweden, compared to the thousands elsewhere. While Sweden's solution is hardly ideal, it seems to be doing a lot of good.

So while I believe that the best policy is always legalization, and I shy away from anything that looks like morality legislation, there are simply too many human rights violations in the market of prostitution that legal systems are not equipped, or willing, to handle. The interest of protecting women from the most grievous harms trumps any right to buy sex. I have never yet seen any argument that is capable of convincing me that the sex trade is so demonstrably important that it must be allowed to flourish even if the majority of women meeting the demand for sex are raped, trafficked, abused, or coerced. As long as we live in a patriarchy unwilling to hold our agency over our own bodies above any wrongly perceived right to abuse, neglect, harm, and fuck, it is shamefully irresponsible to legitimize the deplorable conditions in which the sex trade operates.

Animal Cruelty is Not Sexy

Cross-posted at Female Impersonator

"Sex sells". When it is not selling me pants, sunglasses, bikini waxes, and a fat-complex it is now selling me morality. Take away the message and what is the difference between an ad like this and one like this? The answer is absolutely nothing. Naked women have nothing to do with Levi's pants or vegetarianism. The message, "this lifestyle promoted in this ad is sexy", does not vary between the two ads. The only difference is that one lifestyle is that of buying jeans, and the other is the lifestyle of not eating meat.

We humans must be incredibly stupid to fall for such shoddy marketing. I really have no words for a society that buys cheap body-spray en masse when the half-wit marketing experts at the firm have nothing more to say for their product other than it makes women take off their bras. How does it do that? Nobody knows, simply because there is a cognitive dissonance when I try to compute a reality in which people are convinced to buy a product on the promise of sex that it cannot possibly deliver.

Axe Body Spray is hardly the worst offender. Axe promotes no political agenda other than the dudely enjoyment of foul smelling cologne masking the fact that you have not showered in a week, or the simple-minded pursuit of titties. This ad campaign works, I might say, because the people who would use cheap cologne to excuse not taking a shower would be the kind of dupes to connect buying something with getting laid.

Liberals, however, claim to function on a higher level. Empathetic beings concerned with the plight of life everywhere do not need bared breasts and toned asses to buy, or not buy, a lifestyle.

Wrong.

Guess what bikini models have to do with the suffering of chickens? Absolutely nothing. If PETA really wished to highlight the suffering of animals, they would make their protests horrible, frightening, and sickening. With so shortage of horrifying images of animal suffering (five minutes of googling produced this, this, this, and this) why does PETA, among other organizations, feel the need to sell the idea that animals are suffering for our lifestyle with sex?

Melanie B, from the Spice Girls, would also like you to know that Sex Trafficking is hot. "Get your tits out for trafficking!" an activist asks us. We all know that strippers and prostitutes always get the best side of the law, because society as a whole values their opinions and personhood so much. Making our causes into our pimps and baring it all for a liberal cause, of course, wins the respect of many. It is also very relevant to the discussion at hand. Animal abuse and the unwilling trafficking of sexual slaves in our own country is titillating and sexy.

PETA reminds me of a circa-1970s Al Sharpton, who shot himself and his cause in the foot by involking the ire of New York Jews with some insensitive antisemitic remarks. To this day, Sharpton and his pose of goons continue to give activists a really bad name by various other classy shenanigans such as sexism and rape apology. Of course, the average American can tell you that he or she thinks Sharpton is full of shit. He or she will place Sharpton in the "bat-shit crazy" category alongside PETA. The most damaging person to their causes, obviously, is PETA activists and Sharpton themselves. The average American is not convinced. Thus Sharpton and PETA are unsuccessful.

In contrast, anti-abortion activists continue to get considerably more positive press than PETA. The reason why is not rocket science. Perhaps it is because their ad campaign is so blessedly simple and horrifying. I am firmly and absolutely pro-choice. However, I will say that if I had no opinion on eating meat or abortion, the anti-abortion ad would be significantly more morally compelling than a strip-tease for animal rights.

There are only two rules to good advertising: keep it simple and relevant. The anti-abortion ad is a picture of an abortion, thus it is relevant. It just states, "abortion is bad". The PETA ads, however, are convoluted and self-defeating. Alicia Silverstone with no clothes on does not really have anything to do with my greasy hamburger. The PETA ad asks the viewer to make a connection between nakedness, fur, and animal cruelty. The connection is tenuous, and thus, falls apart. The abortion ad achieves its purpose while the PETA ad does not.

Not only does PETA need to fire its marketing executives, the organization itself is probably the only thing on the planet more self-defeating than Al Sharpton. Commenters will poo-poo my critique all they want, but the fact remains that feminists can be agents of their own oppression especially when they sell their bodies for a cause that has nothing to do with sex. Yes, the woman who climbed into a cage while naked and pregnant in the cold to protest animal cruelty did so consensually. Would she, however, have posed nude if female nudity was not the biggest successful seller of unnecessary over-processed shit on the planet?

In conclusion, I hate PETA, and will continue to do so because:
(a) They utterly fail at marketing
(b) They protest the cruelty of animals with the objectification of the female body
(c) They diminish the horror of their cause with meaningless strip teases
(d) They diminish and poo-poo the objections of activists for other causes
(e) They are the most unintentionally self-parodying group on the face of this Earth

I will not continue to suffer any fools, especially sexist fools that sit on their high-horse naked and defeat feminism's basic tenements in order to diminish the real issue of the objectification of women, and to sexualize the suffering of animals.

Note: As the author of this post, I will delete comments that are trolling and offensive, and ask that all contributors to this tread ignore all those who will attempt to hijack the thread.

Fair Pay and the Equal Rights Amendment

Cross-posted on Female Impersonator

On behalf of Blog for Fair Pay Day, I reflected on the considerable resistance to legally prohibiting sexism in the work place. There are several acts and amendments being considered by our legislators, one of which is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act briefly covered in Lindsay's post.

However, when I was first informed of this "Blog for Fair Pay" event, I did not think of the Fair Pay Act; I did not even know it existed. What immediately came to mind is the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which has been introduced in every session of Congress since 1923. If passed, our 28th Amendment would read:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Our 110th Congress (2007-2008) has introduced the amendment as S.J. Res. 10 and H.J. Res. 40.

This amendment, over eighty years in the making, would finally grant women equal rights in all legal matters as guaranteed by the federal government. Currently, various states do grant various legal protections by law, but the fact remains that not only is there no federal amendment barring discrimination by sex and not since 1972 has the amendment passed both houses of Congress.

The federal ERA would prohibit states from restricting state-funded abortions differently from other "medically necessary" procedures sought by men. This interpretation of the ERA was upheld in 1998 when the New Mexico Supreme Court found that the state's ERA required that Medicaid pay for abortions. Justice Minzer ruled:

New Mexico's Equal Rights Amendment requires a searching judicial inquiry to determine whether the Department's rule prohibiting state funding for certain medically necessary abortions denies Medicaid-eligible women equality of rights under law. We conclude from this inquiry that the Department's rule violates New Mexico's Equal Rights Amendment because it results in a program that does not apply the same standard of medical necessity to both men and women, and there is no compelling justification for treating men and women differently with respect to their medical needs in this instance.

Furthermore, opponents have argued that an ERA would require the legal recognition of same-sex marriages because the amendment would prohibit any legislation that bars participation from a legal contract on the basis of gender. Other considerations that have defeated the bill are claims that an ERA would draft women, prohibit same-sex schools, and require that women serve on the front lines of the armed forces.

It is instrumentally important that we urge our legislators to pass the federal ERA, especially if the amendment could finally guarentee women's right to contraceptives and abortion once and for all. Luckily, twenty-one states already have an ERA on the books: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virgina, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Unfortunately, twenty-nine states, despite attempts, do not have an ERA, including my home-state of lovely Arizona (one of the few states that did not ratify the federal ERA when it passed both houses in 1972).

Today, as we reflect on the necessity of Fair Pay, and our outrage that income is still so variable upon gender and race, we should remember that not only have some legislators curtailed our right to object to unequal pay, they have defeated the ratification of an amendment that would grant us equality under law repeatedly for over six centuries.