Rape

There is a cop who is both prowler and father:
he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers,
had certain ideals.
You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge,
on horseback, one hand touching his gun.You hardly know him but you have to get to know him:
he has access to machinery that could kill you.
He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash,
his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloud
from between his unsmiling lips.

And so, when the time comes, you have to turn to him,
the maniac's sperm still greasing your thighs,
your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confess
to him, you are guilty of the crime
of having been forced.And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the family
whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten,
his hand types out the details
and he wants them all
but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best.

You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you:
he has taken down you worst moment
on a machine and filed it in a file.
He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined;
he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted.

He has access to machinery that could get you put away;
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
your details sound like a portrait of your confessor,
will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?

 

- Adrienne Rich

from Diving Into the Wreck

... what does it take to change the system? When I was a teenager, growing up in Centreville, I longed in my body, without words, to leave behind me the hopeless poverty I saw when I rode with my mother, who was a social worker, on her home visits—when I saw other children, white children, Black children, in rags or running naked in the dust beside their houses of weathered or tar-paper pine boards, their homes leaning as if they might blow over in the next big storm. The poverty pierced with me with terrible pain, and I didn't know what to do about it.

The only answer I'd ever been given to that poverty was to hope in another world, to work for the treasure in heaven. So I sat waiting for Mama in the car, reading the Bible, opening the book of Revelations, longing for the place after death where there would be no weeping, nor sorrow.

That was my only answer then. But then I was still alone. I didn't know, as I do now, how other people have struggled to make a different life on earth. I didn't know there was a place for me in that struggle. I, along with so many others before and after me, had to learn exactly where I was located, had to overcome the forcible blanking out of our struggle history in the U.S., the history that was whited out of my education under segregation.

It was ironic, really, to hear my cousin talking of others taking our money, when he and I are both from a family that settled in River Bend, Bibb County, on land seized from the Creek Nation during the so-called Indian Wars under Andrew Jackson. My great-grandfather Williams, whose daughter I'm named for, claimed his acreage on the Cahaba River as a "bonus"—as in for doing something good—for fighting native nations in those wars. And from the time of settling there in the 1830s until the end of the Civil War, our family were slave-owners, holding African American people as property, enslaving them to farm cotton on that river land.

Our history is not unusual in the U.S.—to be white people descended from Scot-Irish, emigrants, fleeing poverty in Europe, moving from the eastern seaports of the U.S. further south and east, looking for cheap land — sometimes unwitting, and sometimes conscious in our complicity with the seizure and occupation of the land from native people, complicity with the racist ideologies propagated to justify colonization, to justify the enslavement of people to work the land. White people offered a parcel of land, a promise of safety, a fantasy of superiority and supremacy, an illusion of security, if we allied ourselves with the big landowning interests, the big money interests, against people of color in the land.

Eddie and I both had graduated from a high school where our sports teams were, and still are, called the Fighting Choctaws—where we'd learned virtually nothing of the history of native people, nor of the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee still living in the South, in the U.S. We came up through segregated schools, and when Brown vs. Board of Education was finally implemented completely in Alabama in the 1970s, much of the equipment and physical assets of the so-called "white" schools were taken by white-controlled school boards and sent into the newly-established "Christian" academies.

And that racist agenda is still in our hometown in its latest twist, like the two columns published side by side recently in the Centreville Press—one announcing Martin Luther King's commemoration on January 19, and right next to it, "General Robert E. Lee Remembered on January 19." On that page, the struggle continues still over our collective history. On a following page was an announcement of a meeting for all those who wanted to learn the "true history" of the state, to counteract the Alabama history taught in the high school now, which was dismissed as "nothing but civil rights"—a meeting for those hanging on to the old racist interpretation of history, re-labeled "white southern heritage."

In Tuscaloosa, just thirty miles from my home, people at the University of Alabama have been going through their own struggle about history and culture. In early 2004 there was a hate crime against the NAACP office, then an action by the Renewed Alliance for Cultural Education to counter that hate and forge solidarity for anti-racist work in the student body, and then the attacks on "multiculturalism" in the letters to the editor of the Tuscaloosa News ("An Office"; Hallman).

It's significant that one of those hate-filled letters linked "multiculturalism" to "globalization"—and complained about the outsourcing of "good" U.S. jobs overseas and the "influx" of immigrants into the country. The writer glorified "white Southern heritage," once again using the racist and divisive tactic of making other working people, here and in other countries, the enemy.

How do we counter this tactic? How do we break through to the understanding that there are more of us working here at the bottom, than there are in the class at the top that enforces inequality and reaps the benefit from our work? If we are divided from each other, the injustices continue—the unequal distribution of wealth, and justice, continues.

You can find video and transcripts of the lecture here:  Part One, Part Two, Part Three

About Rose Gladney:

In establishing the context for the lecture series, Rose Gladney has written: "This great experiment in democratic governance which we call America draws strength from multiple human struggles to create not only a more physically comfortable life, but also a just and equitable society. I am fortunate to have grown into adulthood in the midst of the 20th century's greatest examples of such struggle: the African-American liberation movement, the women's liberation movement, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender liberation movements—all symbols and symptoms of the larger human struggle for justice and social change.

"For thirty-five years, my teaching and research reflected my study of—as well as my participation in—these movements. In establishing this lectureship on justice and social change, my colleagues, students, family, and friends demonstrate their own commitment to the work that gives our lives purpose, meaning, and great hope. I can think of nothing more honorable to be done in my name. I am truly humbled and deeply grateful."

About Minnie Bruce Pratt by Rose Gladney:

Minnie Bruce Pratt was born September 12, 1946, in Selma, Alabama, in the hospital closest to her hometown of Centreville. She graduated from Bibb County High School when it was racially segregated and entered the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa a year after George Wallace "stood in the schoolhouse door." Here in Tuscaloosa, she earned her B.A. in English with membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Chi Omega sorority, married and gave birth to her first son. While completing her Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she also received her education into the great liberation struggles of the 20th century through grass-roots organizing with women in the army-base town of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and through teaching at historically Black universities.For five years she was a member of the editorial collective of Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South, Emphasizing Lesbian Visions. Together with Elly Bulkin and Barbara Smith, she co-authored Yours In Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives On Anti-Semitism and Racism, which has been adopted for classroom use in hundreds of college courses.

She has published five books of poetry, The Sound of One Fork, We Say We Love Each Other, Crime Against Nature, Walking Back Up Depot Street, and The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems, recently issued by Pitt Poetry Series.

Pratt's latest book, The Dirt She Ate is described by the New York Times Book Review as "original, startling," and by Publishers Weekly as "hard-edged and provocative," dealing "directly and explicitly with issues of anger, shame, sexuality, and injustice." Reviewer Joy Parks in Gay Content Link says, "If you read only one book of poetry this year, The Dirt She Ate should be it."

Recently Pratt served as the Jane Watson Irwin Chair in Women's Studies at Hamilton College. She is also a member of the graduate faculty of The Union Institute and University, a non-residential, alternative, Ph.D.-granting university. Her areas of concentration there are Women's Studies, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/ Transgender Studies, and Creative Writing. She lives with her partner, transgender activist and writer Leslie Feinberg, in Jersey City, New Jersey.

For many years when I taught my "Women in the South" class at the University of Alabama, I asked students to write an essay in which they explored the question Pratt addressed in her essays, "Identity: Skin Blood Heart" and "Rebellion": What has been done in my name that I would like to challenge and/or change? Because this lecture series is the first act done in my name that I can truly celebrate, I asked that Minnie Bruce Pratt inaugurate the series. I knew the Inaugural Rose Gladney Lecture on Justice and Social Change would set the tone and the standard for subsequent lectures. In the power and beauty of her writing and in her unfailing commitment to social justice activism in her own life, Pratt exemplifies the standards which this lecture series is designed to encourage. She understands that social justice does not come simply through a change in 'attitudes'; real social justice requires changing "the underlying economic structure of capitalism that constantly re-invents prejudices and stereotypes." She is involved in fighting U.S. imperialism at home and abroad. If you will explore all the links of her webpage - www.mbpratt.org

- you will find more than I can tell you; you will find a place where you can join the action.

I first met Minnie Bruce and heard her read her poetry in the late 1970s in the conference rooms of an Atlanta hotel where we were among those laying the groundwork for the first Women's Studies conference in the Southeast. As I read her newest poems, once again I find her taking us into a new place, demanding that we look with unflinching eyes, that we see in the faces and bodies of our nearest neighbors the stories yet to be written, that we hear in their words, the voices all around us – on the streets where we live, the tongues, the hands, the backs, the language we turn from or choose not to hear; hear the beauty in it, as well as the pain, the anger; see what actions we must take in our own lives, where we live every day, to bring about social justice. In welcoming her tonight, I dare to borrow her metaphors: Come on sister, give us your words; slide the stone from the cave's mouth; take us into the darkness; help us advance toward the oracle of ourselves.

Southern Spaces:

Southern Spaces is a peer-reviewed, online journal exploring the real and imagined places of the American South and their connections with the wider world. We welcome submissions from scholars, photographers, and visual artists in such areas as geography, southern studies, regional studies, African American, Native, and American Studies, women's studies, LGBTQ studies, and public health.

The woman of the story should have done something, anything else to change this situation, not commit premeditated murder then use 'battered women's syndrome' to excuse the fact that she did so.  So I argue that the man should be in jail for abusing a woman, but since the woman murdered him she should get 25 to life.

'But she was afraid for her life, in constant fear.'  Okay consider this hypothetical.  A man owns a small business and has invested all of his money and borrowed heavily to improve it so that he can support his family better and comfortably retire.  His restaurant is in the jurisdiction of an incredibly corrupt and ruthless city water inspector.  One day the inspector tells him that he will hit him with a hefty fine for some made up water usage thing unless the man gives him 2500 bucks.

The man refuses and the Inspector gives him the ticket.  The man challenges it and loses, the courts refuse to believe that the inspector is crooked and has to pay the fine which puts him further into debt.  A couple of months later, the inspector again blackmails the man and the man pays him off this time, borrowing more money.  This goes on for several years until the man is at the end of his rope and when the inspector shows up again shoots him in the face with a shotgun and hides him in the freezer for a year.  When he is finally caught, the man claims that the inspector had him in fear of his life and that he was acting in 'self-defense.'

You can argue that the man was indeed in fear of his life, the restaurant was his livelihood and the inspector was out to ruin him.  Would you argue that the man should walk away or should he go to prison for committing premeditated murder?

At YouTube, this video is labelled, "Sex Talk - For Girls Like Jamie Lynn Spears".

Tana Ganeva at AlterNet:

PETA has always caught flak for its publicity campaigns, which often seem to elevate the wellbeing of animals above the wellbeing of women. In the eighties the organization got tons of media attention by flinging blood at women in fur coats; they also earned criticisms from feminist groups for not dishing out the same treatment to men wearing leather. More recently PETA has earned the ire of feminists for using pornographic images of women to push their agenda as well as for their recurrent and ever-tasteful campaigns comparing women to livestock.

The animal rights group is certain to grab headlines with their new ad, which calls attention to the importance of neutering pets by parodying the parental sex talk. The ad opens with a surly teen girl sighing loudly as her parents plant themselves on her bed wearing "We need to talk about sex" expressions.

Mom: Honey, we need to talk ...

Dad: ... about sex. We think you should be having it sweetie.

Mom: A lot of it.

Dad: Get out there and nail everything you can!

[ ... ]

Teen girl: What if I get pregnant?"

Dad: So what? You should pop out all the kids you want! We can leave them in the shelter, dump them out in the street ... it's really not important.

The ad closes with, "Parents shouldn't act this way. Neither should people with dogs and cats."

The ad is really well-made and funny; it also does a great job skewering our weird, schizophrenic discomfort with teen sexuality. Another plus is that at no point is the girl entrapped, naked, in a cage, a la previous PETA efforts to shed light on animal cruelty. All in all it is not as offensive as it could be: way to go PETA, for putting out an ad that doesn't involve the symbolic slaughter of women.

So I don't think the ad is blatantly or egregiously misogynistic.

But in light of PETA's history and the feminist criticisms leveled at the organization, is it really necessary for them to equate teen girls with animals, even though they do it in a tongue-in-cheek way? The joke still works with a boy, so why did they opt to use a girl?

It's also pretty clear that PETA is capitalizing on the recent media frenzy over teen pregnancy (see Jamie Lynn Spears/Gloucester pregnancy "pact"/ etc.) And part of the reason the ad is funny and effective, is because the sexuality of teen girls is the object of societal freak-outs in a way that male sexuality is not. (In the Gloucester teen pregnancy story, there wasn't too much media discussion about all those boys dumb and fucked-up enough to have unprotected sex with girls who weren't on birth control).  [This is me: if anybody saw any discussion of boys having unprotected sex on that Gloucester story, please drop a link in the comments]

The figure of the pregnant teen elicits all sorts of screwed-up reactions (paternalism, derision, moralizing, to name a few) that are rooted in larger messed-up assumptions about female sexuality. And the PETA ad certainly doesn't contribute much to the very difficult and complex topic of teen pregnancy. Here's a small but telling case-in-point: The top result for the ad on YouTube is titled "PETA sex talk -- For girls like Jamie Lynn Spears." What kind of girls? Slutty girls?

What do you think? Is the ad another example of PETA trafficking in sexist assumptions to push their agenda? Or is it a funny, harmless way to get an important point across?

I think the add is blatantly and egregiously misogynist.  For all the reasons above.  And because the ad moves directly from a discussion with a young woman to the message "Always Spay or Neuter".  I don't think it would be saved if it said "Always Spay or Neuter Your Cats and Dogs".   But it doesn't even say that.  So parents, just spay those girls and everything will work out fine?  Lovely.

I'm sure most of you will already have figured this out, but the ad just wouldn't work if the young woman was replaced with a young man, as Ganeva suggests.  Although some young men and their families accept the responbility of a teen pregnancy, many more do not.  The very fact that young men have a "choice" would suggest an alternative to neutering them (no, I can't believe I said that).

I realize that the ad is trying to create a "ridiculous" analogy.  The problem is, the analogy grabs its power from its misogyny - fear of women's reproductivity, fertility and myths about the general sluttishness of young women who are not controlled by authority.  As YouTubers have clearly figured out - the "Jamie Lynn Spears" tag. 

Just as egregious is the fact that the ad ignores the fact that the use of protective measures is not necessary only to prevent pregnancy, but also, and just as importantly, to prevent  people from getting and spreading sexually transmitted diseases.  Of course, the whole thing wouldn't work if the advertiser took that into account.  See?  Spaying young women just wouldn't ...  really  ... work.  Did I say that?

 So yeah, I find it "blatantly and egregiously" misogynist and I find it difficult to see why Tana Ganeva doesn't, since she gets most of the problems.

Oh yeah, and the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy would be the only reason a parent might not tell a child to go out and "nail everything you can".

Yet, Grampy McCain was shocked when a reporter (a woman reporter) asked him what his opinion was on insurance companies that cover Viagra prescription prices but do not cover female contraceptives.

The Miami Herald reports:

«Then came a pause -- a pregnant pause, if you will excuse the bad pun -- that's been clocked at eight long seconds.

He squinted as if he were trying to multiply 7,935,234 by 3,264,032 in his head.

He rubbed his face in the hope that disappearing ink would magically materialize on his palms.

''I don't know enough about it to give you an informed answer,'' he finally said. ``It is something I haven't thought much about.''»

He is clearly uneasy that anyone would bring up such a naughty topic, but this isn't a 1920s silent film. This is the 21st century. People who don't want babies have sex.  For fun.  And sometimes it's with people who take Viagra.  So it's a valid question. Yet he was too embarrassed and uncomfortable to answer.  Wuss.

Women should be shuddering at this.

Full article HERE.

UPDATE: CNN repoter Jack Cafferty defends McCain by making things worse HERE.

Say what? I'd completely understand finding something like this in a sidebar in Maxim giving dudes advice on how to convince women to swallow, and I know Cosmo is basically the magazine for women who date guys who read Maxim, but I still can't believe that they're selling the practice to other women. I find it odd that in a magazine that is ostensibly written by women for women, one frequently finds pro-swallowing propaganda.

Have we really reached a point where the main thing holding women back from ingesting semen is a diet concern? I hope not, but the existence of these little info tidbit columns points to two pretty weird assumptions. First, the magazine believes that women are all already convinced that, as long as it doesn't cost them a Weight Watchers point, they should be performing fellatio and ingesting semen. Second, there is the assumption that women are all more concerned with staying thin than with whether they ought to be doing something they don't want to do in order to fulfill some asshole's porn fantasy.

And that is, my friends, what men's desire to have their partners swallow is all about. Ask any dude if he wants to power down a tablespoon of semen, and he'll probably tell you to do one: "That shit's fucking sick, dude! What, do you think I'm some kind of fag?" But yet the same dude expects his girlfriend to be all about it. You see, in our pornographized culture, that's what sex is about to most dudes: getting women to do things they don't want to do or are uncomfortable with (swallowing semen, "doing" anal, threesomes, you get the point). When a woman submits to a sex act she isn't that into, the dude she's with gets excited because he's been given proof that he has power over her, and what in the sam hill is sexier to the porn-addled male mind than domination, than seeing a woman "willingly" submit to a sex act she isn't comfortable with in order to further bloat his turgid ego?

A lot of women have bought the package, apparently, if "women's" magazines are operating under the assumption that we're all hanging around waiting for a dick to suck, and that we're wondering whether to swallow, not because we think it isn't cool of men to expect it of us when don't want to do it, but because we are afraid doing so might make us gain six ounces and fall down a notch on the fuckability scale.

What a bunch of goddamn sellouts the Cosmo people are. I know that's not an innovative thought, but seriously, is it published by Bill Maher?

Cosmo sucks. I'm advocating a girlcott, and maybe even a magazine-burning party (with Jager, of course, or maybe BL Lime). But I do have a suggestion for the Cosmo people, should they ever decide they'd like their magazine to have something to offer beyond advice on how to be an Axe-wearer's dream girl. How about putting a sidebar in the next sex column with responses women can use to tell their manipulative douchebag boyfriends how they really feel about swallowing? I've got a few. Feel free to plagiarize these, Cosmo:

• Sure, I'll do that if it turns you on, but you know what I'm into? Seeing dudes drink my piss. Get a cup. Did I mention that it's nutritional as fuck?
• If you're so excited by the thought of seeing someone ingest your bodily fluids, how about I drink some of your blood? I've got a knife right here.
• You down a dose of it first and tell me how you like it, then we'll see.
• I don't want to. Go fuck yourself. Also, get out of my house. I don't date dudes who are into coercing women into doing things they don't want to do.

Ah, what a lovely topic for my hundredth post.

The Keene pub opened at 2 pm Monday through Saturday, closing at midnight; on Sundays, it was open from 2 pm until 10 pm. On this particular Thursday, Tim had claimed first place in line, soon joined by 3 of his housemates.

At a minute after 2, the door lock gave a telltale ‘click,’ a knob turned, and the door sprung outward. The barkeep took a step back into the darkened pub, and then stopped to hold the door open for the thirsty patrons behind him.

Tim, Alex, Bobby, and Dennis had their pick of the pub tables. They chose not to move far beyond the bar, leaving a couple of tables in between in order to avoid beer-fetching congestion. No sooner had they settled to the table, but Bobby sprang back up to buy the first pitcher of beer, along with 2 large bags of Brew Nutz.

While the beer poured, Bobby took a step around the first table, then deftly launched the two bags of Beer Nutz across 8 feet of space, landing them square in the middle of their table. He made an interim trip for four frosted beer mugs, then returned to the bar for the now full pitcher, carrying it quite reverently to their slightly wobbly table.

Tim reached for the amber liquid with his right hand, reaching for his mug with the left. Easily coordinating his motion from a few years of practice, his glass tilted towards and tangentially caught the spillage falling off the spout of the pitcher.

As soon as Tim set the pitcher down and removed his hand, Alex took a turn at displaying his prowess with mug and pitcher. Unfortunately for Alex, the pour left 2 inches of foamy head on his beer; Dennis reached for the excess above the glass rim, pulling the foam now residing on his hand towards his face, where he dabbed it on and pretended to shave.

Everyone laughed as if this was the first time anyone there had ever seen this manoeuvre. In point of fact, every one of them had both been victim and shaver.

The four of them teased and shared stories and laughed while other students filed in to occupy the remaining tables. Within an hour, a line had queued outside the pub door. The drawback to this tiny facility was the presence of the restrooms outside of the locked pub area, necessitating patrons to run the gauntlet of impatient drinkers to be. And one by one, each of the original four took their turn at being teased to leave.

As Tim wandered back towards the pub, his attention was diverted by one in the queue. He tried not to stare, tried not to be seen staring, and so he turned his head away.

Once back inside, he had one part of his mind on the doings at his table, and another on the door to the pub. After 20 minutes or so, the person who caught his interest walked on through, stopping to order a mug of beer before proceeding to the vacated table. Tim was visually with her the whole way, a fact not long lost to his tablemates. He came out of his trance after the third utterance of his name “Tim!”

As he looked up and around, the other 3 were smiling knowingly. Within minutes, a bet was placed – the prize a pitcher of beer – that Tim would not have the courage to go up to the unnamed woman and establish dialogue. Tim refused to bet, though he calmly stood and walked over to where the woman of interest was seated, and said hello.

For Bobby, Alex, and Dennis, they watched with undivided interest, two against one, Alex rooting for Tim. From their vantage point, they saw lots of smiles, some laughter… they fell silent as Tim grabbed an unoccupied chair, and took a seat at the other table.

Alex was a pitcher of beer richer.

Meanwhile, Tim spent the next two hours at the other table. His own group lost interest until they saw the occupants of the other table rise in preparation of leaving. Two of the group left the pub, Tim and the ‘woman of interest’ walking slowly away from their table. She continued onward, Tim veered back to their table.

“Her name is Ronnie, and tomorrow night we are going to come back here for a beer, than watch the movie in the auditorium” his words and smile said it all.

♂$♀  Budgeting comes easily if a couple focuses on building a successful mixture of spousal interaction. Lots of imagination, small bits of will power, negotiable cooperation, and frequent confirmation of mutual trust can all be energized through the budgeting process.

♂$♀  Ignore what’s past. Assume decisions already made were sound at the time. Else, you would not have made them. Hindsight sees too many mistakes; those little buggers trigger spousal disputes. Why pay attention to what can haunt, irritate, and demotivate you or generate distrust for spouse or your budgeting process?

♂$♀   Pay yourself first: Save at least 10% off the top for long term savings for home purchase and retirement. Otherwise, late in life you will limp financially before physically. It’s best the other way around.  

♂$♀  At the start of the year, allocate for church giving and short-term savings to cover Christmas and vacation spending. Then, commit to not overspending on the last two items.

♂$♀  This is ADVICE: Determine the level, develop a plan, and purposely live a lifestyle at considerably less than 100 percent of income. Doing it is critical; the percentage goal is less so.

Evil incardnate comes in next post.

[More about newlyweds appears at posts 257, 254, 247, 242, 230 and 224. Scroll down or search by number with dot and space following it.]

The text of their letter reads:

Secretary Michael O. Leavitt
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201

Dear Mr. Secretary:

It has come to our attention that the Department of Health and Human Services may be preparing draft regulations that would create new obstacles for women seeking contraceptive services.
One of the most troubling aspects of the proposed rules is the overly-broad definition of “abortion.” This definition would allow health-care corporations or individuals to classify many common forms of contraception – including the birth control pill, emergency contraception and IUDs – “abortions” and therefore to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it.

As a consequence, these draft regulations could disrupt state laws securing women's access to birth control. They could jeopardize federal programs like Medicaid and Title X that provide family-planning services to millions of women. They could even undermine state laws that ensure survivors of sexual assault and rape receive emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms.

We strongly urge you to reconsider these regulations before they are released. We are extremely concerned by this proposal’s potential to affect millions of women’s reproductive health.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely yours,
Senator Patty Murray
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi added her voice to the charge:

If the Administration goes through with this draft proposal, it will launch a dangerous assault on women's health.

The majority of Americans oppose this out of touch position that redefines contraception as abortion and represents a sustained pattern of the Bush Administration to reject medical and sound science in favor of a misguided ideology that has no place in our government.

I urge the President to reject this policy and join with Democrats to focus on preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion through increasing access to family planning services and access to affordable birth control.

Bush should make up his mind whether or not he thinks individuals are smart enough to make our own decisions or not. Just last week he said that he wasn't urging Americans to conserve fuel because we're smart enough to make our own decisions. Right. Unless you're a woman and your reproductive health is involved. Then he has no problem interfering.

Getting to this point in life had not been easy. Well on her way to a superb career in entertaining, E’sphara was also somewhat idealistic. And that idealism led to her drawing the wrong attention at the wrong time, leading to the end of her performing career. She wistfully looked down at her hands, which were still of graceful appearance, ending with long, deceivingly delicate in appearance fingers. She fondly but sadly remembered how they once quite supple, capable of lightning quick movement, of the most delicate touch, of finding keys on a piano without ever looking down at the keyboard.

“That was before” she painfully remembered. Before the accident; before Olterian – the one person she most trusted in this world at that time - walked away from her when she was at the lowest point in her life; before she gave up politics and music; before two years of extensive and excruciating daily rehabilitation. This was a new life, built upon the remnant foundation of the old.

Now E’sphara plied her chosen trade and her chosen beliefs in a more subtle way. She watched out for her attendees, saw to it they had a peaceful and pleasant environment within which to create, received sound advice if needed, and pulled strings for them where she was able. It was best to keep a low profile, for this would protect her, and protect the artists who sought out special space with which to create.

Working quietly and not making waves allowed her to be part of a quiet network, to accomplish things she would not have thought possible. Her ties to Aalon of N’rellia had proven to be particularly fruitful over the years.

E’sphara and Aalon chatted quite regularly. Several years ago, he was gushing over a new student, whom he claimed was the best talent he had ever come across - with apologies to E’sphara of course. The memory made her laugh; Aalon was never one to live with insulting another, intentionally or otherwise, and he spent five minutes qualifying and dancing around what they both knew was the truth.

Three months ago she had finally had the great pleasure to meet this ex-student, now professional artist. “Ay yee yee” was the most cogent thought representing her impression of their interaction, the phrase passing through her mind at the same time her faced formed an appreciative smile. Llhaesa made short work of most everyone. “If I were a younger woman…” finished E’sphara’s remembrance of Llhaesa.

And now this young one was pushing the political envelope, already earning an outright ban from a society moving rapidly into the clutches of traditional patriarchy. Llhaesa had gone far beyond what was proprietary and safe given this political climate, prompting a quick end to a mainstream career. E’sphara had no interest in seeing another young and idealistic artist fall to the formidable patriarchal machine.

During llhaesa’s stay at the Artist Colony, E’sphara and llhaesa chatted quite regularly. E’sphara would never dream of calling on artists in residence; it was llhaesa who would softly knock upon her door. They would chat for hours, and if she requested llhaesa to play for her, the young one readily obliged. She was particularly proud of the songs they wrote together, hoping one day to reprise the experience.

E’sphara’s thoughts shifted to more immediate concerns. Aalon had called earlier in the day. She sat unspeaking while he shared his intent to step down as curator of N’rellia. He’d done all he could for the school, and did not wish to watch over its ruination.

Going forth into ‘retirement,’ Aalon was planning to take a page out of E’sphara’s method of operation, spending his now free working time to cover and watch llhaesa’s back. “Would you be willing to assist as needed?” he hesitatingly asked E’sphara. In response, there was no hesitation. “Yes” affirmed E’sphara “I’ll help you with that endeavour.”

Most liberals find this outrageous, but I'm not so sure, because of my own quest for citizenship here in America. My initial outrage over the questions the immigration bureau asks about communist convictions has led to a realization that, well, citizenship is not a right.

Is it wrong to turn someone away based on their beliefs and lifestyle choices? Perhaps morally, from certain people's points of view. But not really. It's certainly legal, and with good reason. Citizens can vote. As a non-citizen, I can still live in the United States (and presumably the Moroccan woman can continue to live in France), but my ability to influence the political and legislative direction the country takes is limited. Why should someone be allowed to influence the political and legislative direction of a country with whose fundamental values they are obviously at odds?

Presumably, the French do not want to have to debate "shariah" courts in France, as has happened in Britain. Giving fundamentalist Muslims voting rights will usher in that very phenomenon. Can't say as I blame them if they want to avoid that.

There is also this angle: "'She has no idea about the secular state or the right to vote. She lives in total submission to her male relatives. She seems to find this normal and the idea of challenging it has never crossed her mind,' Emmanuelle Prada-Bordenave wrote."

I was tested on civics and American history. In other words, if I am to be a citizen of the United States, they expect me to be familiar with my rights and duties as a citizen. It's not clear that the above statement came as a result of such an examination of the Moroccan woman, but it's not unlikely. No one would deny that that's a good reason to exclude someone from citizenship rights.

Brellian was acutely self-confident, but he did not spend his time assuaging his ego, he had to deal with reality. And reality led him to the conclusion he needed to follow this one closely. Not only was there a significant social movement blossoming, that movement was working to find a leader, and the addition of young T’yaeli to this cause could create a perfect storm of uncontrollable events.

Yet to act before or during the concert would be unwise, it would not serve his cause – defence of and perpetuation of the current realm.

Better to have undercover agency staff in the crowd, become part of the movement, and report back on their activities and plans. If things moved to the point where action was needed, he could quickly redirect and come down hard.

For now, his priority was infiltration; let this presumptuous diva meld with this subversive crowd. In the end, their efforts would both be broken and crushed.

Feministing recently posted two examples, here and here.  The poster's focus in showing the first ad, a creepy television spot demonstrating how a new cell phone can be used for stalking your sleeping neighbor, was that stalking/objectification is wrong.  The poster's focus in the second ad, a BMW magazine spread, is again the objectification of the woman pictured.  Both perfectly good points, but I was surprised that neither poster noted that the "women" shown are teenaged girls.  The actresses themselves may be eighteen, but I would pin them both in the 12-15 age range.  What creeps me out is not only that we're objectifying women, but that we're objectifying kids, more or less.  Especially in the second ad, the whole "yeah, you know she's not a virgin" message nearly made my mouth drop open.  Sure, in today's culture perhaps it's not inaccurate to assume that a teenager or preteen has probably been abused in the past, but should we be celebrating it?

This is because of the Islamic rule of the "mahram" - a male "guardian" that all women have, regardless of age, who acts in their stead in public life and is supposed to accompany a woman on long journeys (such as in travel abroad). This is an Islamic rule. Need I put it more clearly? It's an Islamic rule.

Some have argued that this rule should be "updated" now that travel is no longer an endeavor fraught with dangers. We're not riding around on camels through the desert. But that's the fundamental problem with religion - it's not that easy to "update" it. One wonders, if we have common sense to guide us, why we needed religion in the first place, but that's not something religious idiots would get.

Anyway, so Saudi Arabia doesn't allow women to travel alone, or at least without the permission of their male "guardian." That is usually a father, if the woman is single, or a husband if she's married, or a brother or a son if father or husband are dead.

Even if the mahram is younger than she is, she is not allowed to be independent of him. In simpler words, she's chattel. She is never an adult citizen.

The Arab News, Saudi Arabia's first English language daily and the first Saudi newspaper to go online, reports on this issue, because they have decided to "update" their travel rules for women. But they haven't really "updated" anything - they're simply rendering an antiquated rule electronic.

The Kingdom’s Passport Department will soon post an online document that will allow women to travel alone. The document will have to be filled out and cleared by the women’s “mahram” (her guardian under Saudi law). The presentation of this document at the point of embarkation will be enough for women to travel alone.

...

The woman’s mahram will remain the one in authority to issue this online clearance. All the mahram has to do is use the secret code number given to him as a subscriber by the Passport Department to carry out online services, and provide the clearance on the e-document with that number. The woman then has to print the approval and take it with her to the airport before traveling.

They go on to elaborate on the existing law:

Under existing law, in order to travel alone whether for medical treatment, education or leisure, a Saudi woman —whatever her age — needs to present an approval document from her guardian that must be issued months in advance by the Passport Department. ...

Despite the fact that the law permits “older women” to travel on their own, Fowziah, 41, a high school principal, brings her husband to the airport each time to give her permission verbally to leave. She said that her husband was not willing to give her a valid paper for one year that would allow her to travel alone. The law does not specify at what age a woman becomes “older.”

Two sisters Najla’a and Jihan, in their late 20s, related their experience when they went to London for a short course. “My father was out of town and the airport staff refused to accept our 22-year-old brother as guardian who could give us permission to travel,” said Najla’a, who works in the media. “The airport staff insisted that my father go to the nearest police station and send a fax to the airport giving his approval!” she said.

All emphases are mine.

There's more. Read the entire article here.

[Thanks to APG for bringing this to my attention.]

Whither Women in Industry?

The concept that women are disproportionately represented in blue-collar jobs, and the many problems that are present in that socio-economic class with regards to feminism, have been so often repeated that it has become a cliché. Like most clichés, there is truth within these statements. But, why? As a member of this class, both a person skilled in fabrication and a wife of a blue-collar industrial worker, I’ve thought long about this issue and seen little popular writings on the matter by women actually in the class. The lack of present voice troubles me, and so I offer my own perspective, which is supported by no academic weight of authority or statistical analysis, and therefore falls only in the realm of anecdote and editorial. Nonetheless, it is my voice, and thus I offer it to anyone who cares to hear.

I operate my own small fabrication studio, spending most days in it with my torches, solder and cutting wheels, and when I’m working, I don’t give any thought to whether I can or cannot do these things because I am a woman. I use these tools, because they are the only way to fabricate the things I sell, which are pieces of art (usually jewelry). The leap from artistic fabrication to industrial fabrication is not insignificant, but neither is it unrelated, for the materials, methods and tools are very similar (identical in some cases). The underlying physics and chemistry is largely the same. However, the concept of a woman wielding a tool that generates sparks and temperatures high enough to fabricate metal and carbon crystals is tellingly easier to imagine when the context is to make womanly items, such as I do.

However, my husband often calls me from work to get my opinion on a machine that has broken, and I help him troubleshoot problems. He has said that I’m the only one who he can call when things go really wrong in order to think through the problem intelligently. Beyond the fabrication experience that I have, I’ve also independently studied electronics, optics and chemistry, and so when he tells me that he had to crack the BIOS on the Trumpf laser to test the I/O output to the coolant pressure sensors only to find that one of the chips was fried, I reply, “Good thing you had a spare motherboard. I thought the biocide wasn’t necessary in those aluminum tubes.” With a year of training in precision welding or soldering, I could easily do what he does. I don’t for a few reasons.

The most important reason is that I love my art work, and as long as I can make some living from it, it is my profession of choice. A second reason also prevents me: my disease makes me easily exhausted and I can’t work on my feet for long periods of time. The environment that he works in requires being on one’s feet all day, running back and forth around a facility that is thousands of square feet large. I do not have the health to do what he does.

However, a third reason also lurks that is a non-sequitur to my individual ability. Even if I did have the health and training to do his job, I would not want to take it, not even if my artwork stopped making money and I needed it. Not because I am a woman and the work itself intimidates me, but because the industry is overwhelmingly dominated by men who are steeped in patriarchal views of women and this creates a very real, very hostile working environment for a job that is already stressful and hazardous enough. This intimidates me.

When I visit my husband at work, if he isn’t attending me every minute, I am being leered at and ogled. That’s when I’m wearing my jeans and t-shirt that is streaked with a thin film of silicate dust from my lapidary. Before it was commonly known that we are married, several of the workers propositioned me in the break room while I was waiting for him to get off his shift. His boss still has trouble forming whole sentences when he speaks to me, so intently is his focus upon my breasts. Of the two women who work as machinists out of 500 employees, one is referred to as “the dyke bitch” and the other a target for constant blatant sexual harassment, and they are regularly derided by most of their male workers with impunity. Why the hell would I want to spend my time fighting all of that? Why would anyone? Working there isn’t an equal opportunity of choice I’m not making; it’s a choice I don’t equally have.

While the men who run such companies are quick to speak their support of equal opportunity to anyone who might talk to the media and they will point to their legal compliance with such policies, it is not even a guarded secret that this “crazy feminist idealism” falls completely outside of their actual practice. There just aren’t enough trained women demanding the jobs, they say. Women don’t have an interest in the field, they say. Women aren’t as good at hazardous duties, they say.

They say all of this with the straight faced audacity that can only come from a complete lack of care or understanding of the problem. If the CEO of my husband’s company knew that one of his best consultants for maintenance and repair of high-powered laser machines was a woman whose counsel he was getting for free, I would still only be some kind of fluke exception rather than a competent potential hire who their working environment has discouraged.

The problem with blue-collar jobs and women is deeper than merely the girls-don’t-like-heavy-things argument, even though this is as far as most men and even women are willing to consider it. The social pressures against following such professional paths restrict a woman from all sides, such that even when she becomes competent in spite of the discouragement from necessary training, working in these environments is prohibitively difficult for a woman in respect to herself, her family responsibilities, and her potential within the capitalist framework.

The social costs of this endemic sexism are greater than the obvious exclusionary policies of most of the industrial trades. The industry propagates sexism far outside the realm of its own doors, well into the lives of the women who share a family with their employees. These costs are often misunderstood in terms of their root cause, and as such, require a radical feminist perspective perhaps more than many other aspects of our patriarchal society, though it is one of the least-understood contributors to it, largely because women are so absent.

Pneumatic Drills are for Boys, Knitting Needles are for Girls

The concept of a tool is such a basic human element upon which our species’ progress has depended so entirely that sound arguments have been made for this being a main account for much of our distinctive forebrains. When a problem presents itself to a human which cannot be solved with our bodies, we immediately search for a tool. Tools, in themselves, have no gender. They are merely things that we use to maintain our dominance in the hierarchy of the biological ladder.

The cultural pressures that direct women and men toward different tools, symbolically transferring gender upon them, limit our potential to solve problems. When a woman’s car breaks, it is her cultural training that gives her a sense of helplessness to fix it, not a lack of ability for a socket wrench to work properly in her feminine hands. It is the same cultural stigma that causes a man to shy away from a sewing machine when his shirt needs repair, leaving him with a similar helplessness to fix the problem.

This was not always the case in our society, as exemplified by feminism’s brief and perhaps unintentional victory during the World War era, which was quickly surrendered in the post-War western world after men returned from the battlefield and demanded the economic privilege of the jobs that women had filled during their absence, returning us more vigorously to the staid cultural hypocrisy of gender-proscribed tool use.

Consequently, this fabricated co-dependence does not manifest the same for woman and man. Men are socialized to believe that a woman in her entirety is yet another of his available tools, and thus all of her “feminine” talents are at his disposal to solve his problems, preventing him from seeing his inherent helplessness. Conversely, a woman’s socialization teaches her that men are the masters of solutions; they are the mind behind the tools. A woman is taught to rely upon him to decide how best to utilize tools, including herself, making her constantly and acutely aware of her helplessness.

The tools that are relegated to the domain of the female are those whose utility is closely related to the household duties proscribed to the feminine agency. These then become part of the whole of the tool that is woman, like so many attachments on the vacuum she is expected to push. Male ignorance of these tools is easily understood in such a framework, for he has no need to do more than ensure that she has her necessary attachments for her function to be of service to him. He is socialized to only use these tools himself if he lacks a female tool to use them for him, which is the ideal solution. This socialization is so strong that he is made to feel that his very self as a male is threatened by the use of such “feminized” tools.

When women become competent with tools that can solve problems beyond their use as a domestic tool, the dependency upon the judgment of her master is negated, giving her a freedom of independence that threatens her previous agency as a tool for men. Thus, there is a great pressure of discouragement against this education from the patriarchal culture, funneling her away from that which would liberate her.

While men are on average physiologically stronger than women, it is for this very reason that tools are so useful to a woman. Men use a wide variety of tools to buttress and bolster their strength, giving them the ability to lift cars, airplanes and entire buildings, should they wish it. It is no argument at all to say that women cannot manage the physical requirements of tool usage; she can simply use the same tools that a man would, or should these fail to provide her with adequate power, new ones could easily be conceived that would account for the strength differential between the genders, which is, in respect to lifting loads, a slight difference indeed.

Working with tools can present a hazard to human health and life, which is another argument often cited against women learning competence in industrial-grade tool usage. However, this again falls alarmingly flat when one considers the daily risks that a domestically-bound woman takes with tools such as gas and electric range ovens, hot irons, poisonous cleaning agents and sharp cutting utensils, for which she is rarely provided more than the merest protection against. By comparison, the safety regulations and equipment provided to the average blue-collar industrial worker are many orders of magnitude more protective against their present hazards.

Of course, no amount of protection can prevent industrial accidents, which can and do result in the loss of life and limb. Nevertheless, there is no reason why these dangers are increased when those tools are placed in the hands of a woman, and similarly, no reason why a woman’s fingers are less hers to choose to risk in the solving of problems than a man’s. Still, the concept of a woman retaining injury in a high-risk job is nearly unthinkable, though it makes no objective sense. But when we consider the cultural framework already discussed, her fingers are not her own; they belong to men in her context as a tool, and a tool cannot choose to risk itself.

When a woman chooses to resist her cultural proscription as a tool, and becomes full in her own agency as a tool-using human, she presents the most absurd kind of threat to the patriarchy, much like the robot who suddenly gains self-awareness and demands its rights to sovereignty. Men are ever searching for our “off” switch in an attempt to regain control over the independence that threatens the system upon which they so entirely depend, even though that very independence of woman would make them less helpless as they learn to see women as full human beings rather than tools, and all actual tools as equally valid choices in the solution of the problems that occur in the course of a life.

Breaking down such a system to liberate humans from our gender dependency in relation to our use of tools is a daunting proposition, for which feminism is a vital part. Only by teaching young women that they are not tools in their agency will women gain the self-confidence to begin relying upon their own judgment in the solution of problems. It is then that women will begin to more often reach for tools that have been traditionally considered male to solve their problems, releasing both sexes from bondage. Only when more women are using tools competently can industry – a place that has too long been permitted to grow without her voice – have the potential to represent both genders more equally.

I Can Weld. But Then, What?

Nevertheless, being able to utilize tools for problem solving does not remove from woman her fundamental biological obligations to the species. While tools can certainly be used to assist her with this problem – the lowly tampon is one such tool – her body will still betray her as it strives to preserve the species, and in this betrayal lies a large obstacle toward her socio-economic independence, her freedom of choice in profession, and especially her ability to compete in a blue-collar industrial job.

In our current system of naked capitalist greed where they who can sacrifice the most independence wins, the woman is at a disadvantage, for she has less independence to tender. A portion of her physical self has already been claimed by the species, leaving her with a smaller remainder to enter into the fray, where a man’s role in the propagation of our species makes no such egregious demand upon his biological person, and this advantage will always work against the woman in a system that relies upon the sacrifice of one’s independence to compete.

Women are never without their disadvantage, even when they do not elect to have children, for their bodies are ever reminding us of our debt to the species; however this burden becomes prohibitive when a woman does bear a child. While tools exist to assist a woman with this charge and allow for the redistribution of labor regarding children, one cannot give up the work of nine months of gestation and birth which are hers to have uniquely, and which will always remove her from the workplace for a minimum period of time. Neither then do children rear themselves, and few jobs in the industrial industry are paid adequately to provide for a means of childcare that would allow a woman to compete effectively.

In an economy that will always do the least for those who can compete the least effectively, the ability for a woman to perform the skills necessary for a blue-collar job becomes almost immaterial if she cannot meet the labor demands of the industry. The average shift of a blue-collar worker ranges between 10 and 12 hours, not including commute times, which can and usually do add 2 or more hours to a working day. This allows very little time for even the most basic of human needs, such as hygiene and eating, before a worker must sleep to regain the energy expended upon an often exhausting job. It is not uncommon for blue-collar workers to spend one or more weekend days working, as well.

While these shifts common to the industry do provide a worker with overtime, this apparent excess is not in fact excessive at all, but provides the worker with a wage that becomes livable, and without it they would not be able to support their families. With pay ranges for industrial jobs from $7 an hour to $15 an hour on average, the opportunity for overtime becomes a necessity which is quite often taken for granted in the worker’s mandatory schedule, not presented as an option. Because the average 40 hour work week occurs between the first and fourth days, making the fifth working weekday entirely overtime, the loss of one day’s work creates a significant financial shortfall for the worker because companies are not obligated to legally remunerate lost opportunities for overtime. This, in very real effect, obligates the worker to these long hours in order to maintain their livable wage that depends upon the overtime.

These laboring time requirements, far more than the hazardous or physical requirements of the job which have already been demonstrated irrelevant to gender, are prohibitive to a woman’s equal opportunity within the industry. These restrictions are patent if she a single mother. Neither does marriage offer the opportunity for solution to this problem, for the standing general sexism of the patriarchy mandates that husbands refuse the sacrifice of their careers in order to take up more responsibility for domestic duties; and it is this sacrifice that would allow a mother to work an industrial trade. Thus, there is no place in the industrial trade for a woman to pursue a lifetime career, assuming (as most companies do when considering female hires) that at some point she will want to have children.

While gaps in income between the genders are certainly another discouraging element of the industry, one need not reach that far to find economic pressures against women, for as has already been stated, child care is a substantial financial burden which is often outside the reach of a blue-collar worker’s pay. Child care is an essential element of the ability of a woman to continue her career in industry, and in many cases, the hours of availability for such childcare facilities do not exist to accommodate a woman working a 10-12 hour shift, even if she could afford to pay. This also accounts for why so many wives of blue-collar workers confine themselves to jobs with work schedules that allow them to care for the children themselves, or simply do not work at all.

So long as the industry requires the inordinately long hours of labor from their employees in order to effectively compete in the capitalist economic system, and offers pay scales that allow the worker to only maintain themselves enough to work more, the industrial workplace will remain hostile to women and overwhelming populated by men. The company that chooses to hire an equal number of women takes a risk of almost certain loss, for they will not compete as effectively as the company that relies upon men, whose independence can be more fully proffered to the production of labor than a woman’s.

The criticism, therefore, of the lack of women in the industry lies not just in the superficial artifices of culture that psychologically dissuade women from receiving the training in tool usage, but in the greater patriarchal attitudes toward women in relationship to child-rearing responsibilities, and also the capitalist-industrial system whose greed remains indifferent to the potential of women while demanding such a large sacrifice of the independence of its workers.

Moreover, the blue-collar industry furthers sexist roles by rendering those men who work under such demands of time and labor with so little remuneration unable to assist as fully with domestic duties as they might otherwise, often relegating those duties out of necessity to a woman. This accounts for why these environments continue to breed sexist attitudes among the male employees, who, having traded a crippling amount of their independence to the industry, are almost entirely dependent upon their wives for all other domestic responsibilities.

Such a dehumanizing state of co-dependence and lack of agency is, in fact, the naked reality of the lives of these men; a fact which their misogyny and machismo obscures. That these industries often do little to mitigate the rampant sexism among their workers is certainly to their advantage, for it would not profit such a company for their workers to begin examining the high human costs of their sacrifice objectively.

The day that women are more often employed with torches in hand working in industrial environments is the day when many of feminism’s greater goals will have been met, and these environments will no longer demand the ridiculously inhuman costs from their workers. In this way, feminism represents a real threat to the cold greed of capitalism, and a greater respect for the human condition.

The Struggle for Feminism in the Blue-Collar Class

As it stands now, with little exception, women who are involved in the blue-collar class are most often the wives of such workers. Their lot is frequently cited as one of the largest obstacles to the greater goals of feminism, for many wives within such family units take jobs that permit them time to care for children and perform domestic duties, the burdens of which are not equally shared by their husbands despite the fact that the woman’s income is often vital to the economic survival of the household. As stated, it is equally common that these wives will, upon the birth of the children, abandon the job they may have held, and devote their entire agency to domestic labor.

While there are many, many instances of individual husbands in these families openly behaving in a sexist or even misogynist fashion, the system of the blue-collar socio-economic class itself is inherently patriarchal, often cultivating sexist gender roles within both parties whether they would approve of these roles or not. Such an environment makes the adoption of feminist principles a constant matter of struggle for both the wife and husband, even when they enthusiastically and willingly wish to apply the values of feminism to their lives. It is perhaps not unreasonable to state that women who occupy this class as wives are functionally handicapped from making the free choice to become fully realized feminists in large part due to the practices of the industry to which their husband’s are employed.

Companies schedule regular overtime because they know that the production demands will require that much labor from their workers and it is less expensive to pay existing workers overtime than it is to hire additional workers, distribute raises to bring about more livable wages, and demand fewer hours. That these companies take for granted that their employees will have a partner at home to take on the requirements of domestic duties becomes obvious when one realizes that the overwhelming majority of male employees of industrial trades are married. In this way, industrial companies not only foster active sexism within the lives of their employees, but moreover, they depend upon it, thus rendering profit from the subjugation of the wives of their workers.

A woman in this class might eschew bearing children in order to maintain a greater hold on her independence, but this is not a free feminist choice, rather a strategy for survival against the many overwhelming restrictions that her class will bring to bear upon her when she does have children. It is equal to say that only the more privileged classes ought to have children, for women in those classes are better able to maintain their independent agency on balance with the responsibilities of child-rearing, and this will not do. Bearing a child should not forbid a woman from a feminist framework, or else feminism can only be understood by the privileged and the short-lived generation of blue-collar class women who do not breed. We must, instead, look to how women of the blue-collar class are restricted by their socio-economic position, and how feminism can help them to better regain their agency without asking her to sacrifice her ability to have children.

As has already been mentioned, women of families of blue-collar workers are often forced by the demands of her husband’s job to perform more of the domestic work. It is easy to say that she just ought not do it, that she should demand more of her husband, but these principles will not apply in practice. The reasons for this are complex and intertwined within the patriarchal capitalist system itself, and are not merely abstractions that can be reformed in the minds of those who occupy this class to solve the problem.

A common domestic duty that falls to women in these households is that of feeding the family, which can involve two or three meals, often prepared to feed three or more people. While the obvious retort to this duty would be for the workload to be divided and then an equal portion transferred laterally to the man, this is not as simple a solution as it often seems to those who are given to viewing the situation from a more privileged class.

The first obstacle to this solution is the matter of time which, as has already been discussed, the blue-collar worker has significantly less of on average. The typical family might be fed twice a day between 6am-7am and 7pm-8pm, and the worker often returns home around 6pm-7pm, and then needs to go to sleep by 9pm-10pm in order to get enough rest for shifts that can begin as early as 6am. This also does not account for those employees who work “swing” shifts and “graveyard” shifts, entirely destroying the rhythm of a typical American worker’s day, and for which other planning must be made. Due to the polluted environments of most industrial jobs, most workers spend a longer-than-average amount of time on their hygiene upon returning home, as well, further cutting into the time they have to contribute to domestic duties.

One solution often presented is the idea of using convenience foods or dining out to provide means for the workers to prepare a meal for a family quickly, but this is an equally unsatisfactory solution, as most convenience food within their budget contain high amounts of preservatives, fats and high fructose corn syrup, all of which nutritional science suggests have deleterious effects on health. Persons occupying the blue-collar class cannot be expected to choose between health and independence, for again, this is no choice at all. Thus, a healthy meal will require the use of raw, unprocessed foods within their budget and consequently more preparation time.

Given these limits, a household must also decide what kinds of foods they will eat, and which foods they are competent to prepare. Most average meals that provide basic balanced nutrition without dependence upon convenience food will require a minimum preparation time of at least one hour; longer if more portions are required for larger families. While a raw vegetarian diet may offer a solution to a blue-collar family in terms of preparation times, this choice should also not be one that is made under socio-economic pressure. Meat should not be the domain of the privileged, particularly when many lean meats have redeeming nutritional value.

However, this assumes that a given household is aware of the importance of nutrition and the many hazards that are presented by the commercial foods targeted specifically toward their socio-economic class, and furthermore that they have the skills to prepare these foods. Should they lack such an awareness (which is quite common) or skill, the expense of the convenience foods upon which they may rely will hamper their budget and their health, further contributing to the decline of the entire family’s well-being, as more work must be done to replace the excess expenditures by people who often begin suffering serious health complications due to their diet.

Thus, it is often for practical reasons that the woman of the household takes on this responsibility, and the man will only contribute to this duty during his days off. Even if the blue-collar worker wishes to contribute more (rarely the case given the prevalence of sexist attitudes among them), to do so is an active daily struggle against the restrictions placed upon him by the demands of his job – a struggle which can only mitigate, not remove the problem – and it is often far too easy for sexism to take root and linger in a family in this fashion. When one factors in the other responsibilities of domestic stability which are all fraught with similar complexities, it becomes far more obvious why such classes tend toward the gender roles which the industrial capitalist system is constantly pressuring them to oblige.

A radical restructuring of the labor practices and working conditions of the industrial trade with a more feminist framework in place would be the most effective solution provided by the party most responsible for the current destructive bias that now exists. Encouraging the employment of women in these positions would increase the available labor pool by as much as 50% allowing companies to cease the overworking of employees, pay a more livable wage without the need for overtime and discourage the sexist environment which too often translates directly into the lives of women who share families with male employees in the form of repression of her agency. However, for such a strategy to be adopted, all companies in our economic system would be required to comply simultaneously under pressure of law, and such legislation has little current interest or support and many vested interests pitted against it.

Given that it is unlikely that the industrial trade will relent their demands upon the workers voluntarily within the current patriarchal social environment, the solution to the problem of the sexist pressure on such classes may lie with the woman herself, and in this way feminism plays a vital role. Should the woman elevate to a higher economic position, her excess income can provide the ability to utilize services that will relieve the household of such domestic duties and allow her to recapture more agency. However, again, this is not merely a matter of academic concept, but of practical implementation, for both time and money are required of her to advance in the professional choices that are available to her.

The support of the feminist framework for a woman attempting to make such an investment is key, for rendering such an excess of time and money is an epic exertion on her part, which will be discouraged constantly by the daily pressures of her life. A woman must first be aware of the options that are available to her, such as government grants, scholarships and other educational opportunities, and this can be far more prohibitive than it appears at first blush, for the process of obtaining such assistance can be well outside of her range of experience.

The more privileged classes of feminists can provide support for their analogues in the blue-collar class, by reaching out into these communities and taking a more proactive role in providing women with the information that they need to understand their options. It is also important that women of greater privilege understand that the choices a woman in this class makes are not made in the same context of that of a woman of greater privilege; her gender role is as much due to the socio-economics of her position as it is to any psychological and cultural conditioning she may struggle with, giving her a formidable two-part obstacle to overcome. Overcoming the psychological conditioning of the patriarchy only to discover that one is still consigned to functional sexism is a deeply dejecting realization, and so a solution to both one and the other should be explored in tandem.

It is also important that a woman in this class attempting to regain her agency is aware of the support options available to her, such as local feminist groups and online discussions (in some cases, she may not have access to this). However, it should also be understood that she has no copious amount of free time to expend in travel and meetings, and a more privileged feminist would do her a great service by crossing the divide to come to her. Isolation is one of the key reasons that women do not overcome their bondage, as they are often only in the company of those to whom they are responsible.

Radical feminism has not only a place among the blue-collar class, but an absolute necessity, for without it women of this class are too often consigned to spend their lives without realizing even the smallest amount of their potential as an individual, victims in the silent war against the patriarchy whose names will not be recalled, rather than effective participants in it. It is only when a significant number of women of this class are empowered that their voices will be heard, and their perspective upon the many problems of class in our society is one that can only be useful to the overall goals of feminism and, consequently, an increase in the quality of life for all members of this class.

Patriarchy exists solely in order to support the acquisitive male prerogative.  Wherever there is a struggle for dominion over land and resources beyond what is required to support a small agragrian community, you will find a culture of female enslavement.  It is so prevalent that many believe matriarchy to be a myth, but it isn't, as demonstrated by the Mosuo people, an ethnic minority of China.  It is possible for human beings to exist in balance with nature and one another without reducing women to a slave class.   It is simply not desirable to men of the patriarchy, who have long enjoyed ill-gotten gains on the backs of slaves.

Even the lowest ranked man on the patriarchal ladder is entitled to his own personal slave, generally called "wife" in Western culture.  She cooks, cleans, obliges his sexual entitlement, bears children and rears them, and may have a number of other jobs in addition to that core labor requirement, perhaps even including a paying job for which she will not be equally compensated exactly because the demands of her domestic slave status handicaps her ability to achieve.  The entire economy of the patriarchy depends upon the presence of a man's personal slave in his home, especially at the lower-income strata where male employees are exploited for many hours, requiring their dependence upon a woman-slave-wife to tend to all the other requirements of a family.

It has been my observation from this lower level of the socio-economic echelon that this dependence upon female slavery is precisely why the "free market" will not bear equal pay and opportunity for women.  It has for so long benefited wrongly from free labor from women in the homes of their employees that to adjust for a feminist economy wherein no person is required to labor unpaid, where men would carry an equal weight of domestic responsibility, would cause a severe profit loss.

The hypocrisy of many modern-day capitalists who trumpet the nobility of a free market always -- always -- stubbornly and contemptuously overlooks the presence of the slave labor of women.  More often, these same personalities are the first to praise the "traditional values" that keep a woman enslaved to her husband on every level: mentally, physically, socially and economically.  Without it, capitalism as it exists today would not be possible.

The presence of the culture of female subordination is intrinsicly linked -- if not entirely due to -- the economic pressures of an acquisitive economy that rewards exploitation.  In such a culture, male laborers can be statistically relied upon to have an unpaid laborer in his home, enabling the company (or government, military, etc.) to expect and demand longer hours and greater responsibility from men than would be possible without his own slave.

In such a light, the overwhelming social pressures upon women to remain subserviant and fearful of male violence, to devalue their abilities in relation to men's, to dehumanize themselves, becomes entirely comprehensible.  It is the same model that has been employed to control all classes of slaves.  The true emancipation of women will not be possible without the eradication of the slave labor economy that represses them, and this is, in my opinion, the single greatest obstacle to feminism today, and one that has grown more aggressive ever since the backlash revival of "family values" in the form of repressive misogynist religious fundamentalism joined hands with the conservative fiscal right -- a dovetail that was no accident.

However, I was perplexed with how I was to celebrate this birthday that is so colored by the fact that it affords me with the ability to drink legally. Should I go out to a bar? Or should I just order a drink with my birthday dinner? The night before my birthday, a group of us went out to eat and we were carded at the door of the restaurant. (I don't know about the southwest but in Connecticut you only get carded at restaurants if you are drinking. It made me wonder if it was a requirement to drink alcohol once you entered Del Charros) But anyway, of course I had to point out "Everyone, I'm still 20". Party foul of the night: the date I popped out of the womb. Then my friends tried to get me in by pointing out the fact that I would be 21 in 4 1/2 hours. The bouncer apologized and said he couldn't let me in but that I was welcome to "come back at midnight and take a shot." I was as confused as I am at Bates when people throw rager parties on a Thursday night. I live at a zen center. I wake up at 6:30 in the morning to meditate. Needless to say I did not want to come back at midnight to take a shot. So at that point I cursed alcohol and its arbitrary regulations. And so I decided what I wanted to consume on my 21st birthday was not mass amounts of alcohol but mass amounts of meat. I wanted to be carried out of the restaurant not because I was vomiting, incoherent and dehydrated from dancing to Journey all night but because I would have too much protein in my body to function. It's true, I wanted to get wasted on animal protein on my 21st. And as my birthday treat I didn't want cake but I wanted a chocolate covered banana, which were available in the town plaza and which I frequently marveled at when passing by the store window because they are so unbelievably phallic. So, on the eve of my birth three lady friends and I headed out for sushi. Raw meat. It doesn't get more delicious than that for someone who had been eating tofu and quinoa for a month. So after eating the raw flesh we headed to the infamous chocolate covered banana establishment. Here however, I made a mistake. When choosing my banana I chose the one covered in rainbow sprinkles, not the length-wise ones but the little spherical ones. Now the spherical sprinkles are problematic for 2 reasons: they taste terrible and they dye your fingers a brownish purple color. They just looked so good! A decent metaphor for life: the fantastic looking things often taste less than desirable and leave you stained. Read that as you will. Moral of this mini-narrative: steer clear of spherical sprinkles. Next time I will get the chocolate covered banana covered in almonds. And I will get one when my parents are here visiting. And I will ask them if they want a bite. My mom will say no. And maybe my dad will say yes.

Here are pictures of me and my birthday treat, the banana must have been genetically modified as it was huge. But boy, am I happy that I spent my 5 dollars not on a sub-par fruity margarita but a dessert that mirrors the universal signifier (see The Signifier and the Signified)

And now that I'm 21? I have had drinks in public. But holding a gin and tonic in a hipster bar does not feel the same as clutching a banana on a stick in the center on Santa Fe. It's not better... just different.

Shhhh,

Steph

And that includes making as many ashy black babies as she desires with as many rappers as she decides to wrap in her magical vaginal clutch.  Badu can do because she is the dopest.  It's that simple.

roll it.

"How dare you disrespect the Queendom...and my children and my intelligence..."   - E baby.

She had to get up into some fans' ass canals about their mouthing off about her recent pregnancy.  Third baby. Third Baby daddy.

um...what is this? 1965?

If Erykah's guilty for being a fertile human being, let's put on trial the countless numbers of male entertainers guilty of shooting their soldiers up into the birthing trenches of so many women that it may be hard to even count the number of kicking bastard feti.

It has been said that Flavor fucking Flav has like...10 children yet it's somehow still socially acceptable for him to bunk with 15 different women at one time on national television.

What angers me more though, is the fact that the strongest critics of Eyrkah's decision were probably other women.  I have never understood and never think I will understand some women's opposition to female social, and personal liberation. My friend and I were discussing something of this nature waiting in a hair salon on U street today:

Girls who, in the presence of a man, will advocate his sexist male perspective even though it directly contradicts female progressiveness are really fucking annoying and are probably in need of some serious "I love me" time in a corner.

Anyway...

I don't want to hear another m-flicking word about ole girl.  She has the financial means, the functioning ovaries, and wants another fucking baby.  So what's the issue?  The world should be sending Badizle thank yous for all of the unborn potential inherited artistic illness.  In fact...

1800 flowers is the number.

It is going to take a commander like John McCain to get us out of it.

I've been a Democrat since the Reagan years in the 80's.  I wanted Hillary Clinton to be the President.  Imbeciles in the Democratic Party had something else in mind, though.  And look what they have done.  They conveniently dispensed with the candidate 18,000,000 people (to round it off) wanted.  Now it seems we have two choices left.

I'm voting for John McCain.  This wasn't his war, but he will damn well know how to get us out of it, and he will damn well know what to do for all of the people who are now Veterans of this war.  John McCain is a war hero.

He was also a prisoner of war.  He understands the military because that has been his whole life.

My whole life has been as a pacifist.  I'm not for war, any war.  Even after 9/11 I watched in horror as I saw what we were about to do.  Well, guess what?  The new President has to clean up the mess that the old President got us into.  The new President has a hell of a lot on his plate.  It's almost as if he will need eyes in the back of his head and on both sides right now.  We have a tanking economy.  We have a war.  We have people living on the streets in cities everywhere.  We have global climate change.  We have food shortages right here.

It's looking like 1930, revisited.  Anybody who thinks otherwise is a fool.

This is a time when we need to focus on our own Nationalism.  First.

People are not investing in American infrastructure.  Money they have earned here goes "home" elsewhere in the world to help their poor families.  In the meantime, every day another Corporation finds some cheap way to lay off more American workers.  Our roads, levees, bridges, schools, all the things that we take for granted that were built post WWII are beginning to crumble.

Nobody has given thought to that.  As the global warming causes more flooding in the heartland, which it will -- as the global warming causes more Katrinas here, which it will, just like all over the world, we need to pull our focus back to ourselves.  HERE.  Because this is OUR COUNTRY.

Right now, there are veterans living in homeless shelters, or on the streets.  These are human beings.  These are Americans.  Right now soldiers overseas are committing suicide.  Could this be because they see no end, no plan, no leadership?  I don't know.  But I do know this, after having read McCain's book "Faith of my Fathers" -- he is going to put the BEST team in place to solve the mess we are in.  He knows how.

You would ask, but Valentine, you are a Democrat, how could you?

Because the problems right now call for the Biggest Leader we have ever had since the 1930's in this country.  Every time I look at the Guardian in the web and see Mt. Rushmore, I think about American Presidents past.  We need one of those big ones right now.  Hillary Clinton was that, and she had Bill Clinton behind her.  John McCain is that, as well.  He isn't a dandy heading over to Europe to pose for photo ops in front of the Brandenburg Gate, that Germany was kind enough to remind him he didn't deserve in the first place.

We need to place our focus on ourselves, and those kids who are fighting.  McCain will know what to do.  Somebody has to.  We cannot take the insanity of the last eight years, the final capper being what is being snuck through as a last act in terms of birth control.  If you weren't a feminist, I'd consider becoming one pretty soon.  Look at Hillary Clinton!  You Democratic Women I voted in in California should be ashamed of yourselves right now.  Ashamed.  You are less than zero, for what you have done to this political party.  You might have supported Hillary Clinton when you had the chance, but no.  Now look, and look at the only candidate we had who really did care about women.  Well, like the trooper she is, she's fighting for us, like she always has.

John McCain is like Hillary Clinton to me.  In fact, he is considered a Democrat in many circles, because of his ideas.  He's even friends with Hillary Clinton.  They are both Americans who have given their lives over to service for this country.  Their WHOLE LIVES.

Take a look at this comment from the wire this morning, and see how a NON-LEADER speaks:

"...The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters before leaving the United States that he was looking forward during his trip, which will also take him to Iraq, to seeing the si