feminist blogs

A disapproving commenter says:

I see you consider the fetus to not be a human. At what point do you believe it becomes human? Is the partial birth at 9 months considered not human? Frankly I find this hideous! As for me: I believe that the mother does have a reasonable choice. But there comes a time when the child can sustain life outside the mothers womb and be fine...it is at that point that I would consider it not okay to abort, a purely selfish choice, GIVE IT AWAY, don't throw it away.

I'm bumping her comment up because I want to talk about what makes a human being. A lot o people want to take the magical view that a fertilized egg is human and has rights. That's very romantic, but it's just an opinion. In nature, fetuses and embryos are produced in much higher numbers than are intended to survive.Nature doesn't expect every zygote to reach personhood.

Even Judeo-Christian tradition doesn't attribute human status to the unborn. "Ensoulment" was believed to take place at the babies first breath outside the womb. The religious fervor around the issue of Choice has no basis in scripture. It's the opinion of a Pope, and frankly, I haven't seen a pope yet that made the lives of women a priority. Until I do, I recognize no authority for them to influence women's lives. The Protestant objections to choice are purely superstition. Again, there's nothing in the bible that forbids or discourages abortion.

From The Skeptic's Annotated Bible:

What the Bible says about Abortion

Abortion is not murder. A fetus is not considered a human life.

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. -- Exodus 21:22-23

The Bible places no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old.

And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. -- Leviticus 27:6

Fetuses and infants less than one month old are not considered persons.

Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD. -- Numbers 3:15-16

God sometimes approves of killing fetuses.

And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. -- Numbers 31:15-17

(Some of the non-virgin women must have been pregnant. They would have been killed along with their unborn fetuses.)

Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. -- Hosea 9:14
Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. -- Hosea 9:16
Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. -- Hosea 13:16

God sometimes kills newborn babies to punish their parents.

Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. -- 2 Samuel 12:14

God sometimes causes abortions by cursing unfaithful wives.

The priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. ...
And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. -- Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28

God's law sometimes requires the execution (by burning to death) of pregnant women.

Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. -- Genesis 38:24

The Abrahamic deity doesn't give a damn about babies - the only goal is to control women's sexuality by the most brutal means imaginable so that a clear line of patrilineal inheritance can be assured. Now that we've dispensed with the patriarchal nonsense, let's look at science.

When do we consider a person dead, or at the point where we can legally consider ending their life if they are on life support? When brain activity has ceased. I therefore consider a functional brain to be necessary to define a living human. Such a brain doesn't exist in a fetus of less than 5 months, and most states don't allow abortions this late in the term except in cases where the mother's life is threatened. When push comes to shove, the actual life of a living mother MUST take precedence over theoretical life. We can argue whether we define an unborn child as having rights or not, but the mother most certainly has rights, and those must prevail.

Our culture is not oriented to support mothers and children. A woman with an unplanned pregnancy may have no income, no safety net, no child care, no escape from an abusive partner, no way to work and sustain a child. Women in a culture that is designed to control and subjugate them need options, and abortion needs to be one of those options.

It would be great if people always used birth control and birth control always worked. It would be great if a woman could devote 9 months of her life to creating a child to give away without disrupting her own life. I'd love it if every pregnant woman became so by choice, with no violence involved or poverty looming. In my perfect world, every child would be considered a gift and would be wanted and loved. That's not the state of our civilization, however, so our options in an unwanted pregnancy might be imperfect as well.

Women who are raped have no conscious or fair choice. Women dependent on an abusive partner may also have no fair choice. A woman who may, or WILL, die in child birth has no choice if she is to survive. An uwanted child can be born with health problems and or emotional damage inflicted on it because the mother is under stress during the pregnancy. These kids often have attachment disorders that prevent them from bonding with anyone, including adoptive parents. Life isn't ideal or fair.

Ultimately, the greatest burden and responsibility is that of the pregnant woman. Her rights must come first. Her choice must be hers and hers alone. As a civilization, we need to recognize that a woman is an autonomous being, with the right to control her own person, and no man, no government of men, and no "god" invented by men has any business telling her what she can and cannot do with her womb. Any coercion in this respect is a form of rape, and slavery, and these have no place in a democratic society of free citizens.

ETA: OK, Video is not working. You'll have to download until I figure something else out. Somebody let me know if that works.

I have been looking for the digital version of this show for YEARS and I finally got it. I uploaded it to my server. It doesn't seem to work, and I am SO FRUSTRATED.

It's an episode of The Outer Limits in which a post-apocalyptic society of Goddess-worshiping women have to contend with a male soldier who emerges from 40 years of cryogenic suspension. I want every feminist and every Witch in the world to see it!

It's over 40 minutes long, and over 200MB, so I was hoping you could just watch it here or here but if that doesn't work, you can always download it by control-clicking HERE and saving it to your disk. Be warned that this could take a LONG, LONG time but it's totally worth it.

Previous posts I've written that mention LITHIA are here and especially here, where I describe my idea of a feminist Utopia.

I know it takes a lot of time but seriously, if you like what I write about, this is for you.

my ass.

SFPD veteran charged in molest case

Sgt. Donald Forte, 58, was charged by Alameda County prosecutors with committing a lewd and lascivious act with a child of 14 or 15 years of age by someone at least 10 years older. He was released from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on Friday after posting bail.

The girl was a 14-year-old prostitute whom Forte picked up on the 1700 block of International Boulevard in East Oakland on Thursday night, police said. The sergeant alleged agreed to pay her $50 and took her to Calcot Place, a dead-end street near the 23rd Avenue on-ramp to Interstate 880, police said.

I wonder how "empowered" and "independent" and "free" she was to "choose" the glorious life of prostitution, to be raped and molested by those who are paid to protect her.

Totally vomit inducing, especially after reading all the pro-john bullshit over on that feministe thread.

Everyone goes on and on and on about how important it is to listen to sexworkers when it comes to their health and safety, but apparently that only extends to the sexworkers who say what the pro-pornstitution crowd want to hear. When radfems want to discuss the health and safety of the vast majority of sexworkers and what they actually say, the ones who want out immediately, we're accused of disrespecting and derailing.

Well excuse the fuck out of me, but I totally don't respect a bunch of johns defending their right to a ceaseless supply of pussy and I'd like to see every last one of them behind bars.

To be perfectly honest, if I don't think about the war, Darfur, the status of women, the conservatives, the environment, or the puppy mills, I'm personally happier than I've ever been.

And reading this kind of affirmed it.

I've never been especially good at relationships and almost immediately find myself regretting ever getting involved in them in the first place. It's been three years since my last serious relationship and I can tell you, THANK MAUDE THAT SHIT IS BEHIND ME!

That's not to say that I'll never be in another committed relationship, but it certainly won't be with a man. As it stands now, I'm a lot less angry, frustrated, disappointed, bored, bitter, and defeated than I ever was in any relationship. I enjoy my solitude, my cat, the peace and quiet, my friends, the pleasure of my own company, MacGyver*.

This comment by Toonces sums up my feelings perfectly:

I look around my lovely house, and my space is my own. I look in my art studio, and see a painting on the easel I have all my time in the world to finish, because I don’t have to act as caretaker to a man who now assumes I am his personal slave and sexbot. I look into my fridge, and see all the good-for-you organic produce that I make into lovely meals for myself when I am hungry, not when someone else is. I sleep in a big lovely bed that I can sprawl out in, hog all the blankets in, and fart loudly in without some husbandthing giving me looks of horror and disgust.

[...]The older I get, the more I look around me and realize there just aren’t many fabulous, feminist men who really want to be with a woman who has brains, ideas, opinions, and a strong sense of her own self-worth. Once I remind myself of that, suddenly I don’t feel as lonely. I just can’t play the game of settling anymore.

I consider the fact that I get to live my life for myself as a true gift. There is much to be done. To waste my life on being a man’s housekeeper while giving up my dreams and goals just seems kind of nuts. It would be lovely to have a true life partner, but given the sampling of men I have come across over the years, well, let’s just say you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

And the funny thing is, I've always felt this way, but I struggled against it and tried to settle and make my relationships work even at the expense of my own happiness and fulfillment for more than half my life.

I saw all of my friends getting married and settling down and I freaked:

I'm late! I thought. I've got to find "the one" (or someone, anyway) and catch up and settle down and do the "June Cleaver Thing"!

But I never really wanted the "June Cleaver Thing" and the idea of spending THE REST OF MY LIFE UNTIL I DIE with any of the people I was ever involved with was a horrifying prospect. Thank Maude I managed to "sabotage" all of them by being mouthy or demanding or independent or intelligent or feminist or "fat" or whatever else drives "good" men away. Good riddance.

Now obviously I have friends who are happily married or partnered so I'm not trying to diminish or disrespect anyone's relationship. As long as you're happy, I'm happy for you. I'm just saying that marriage isn't necessarily the be all/end all for everybody and it's unfortunate that we're sold that box of rocks from the moment we're born, wasting years and years and years chasing after some dream that isn't even ours.

One can find peace and joy and love and fulfillment without a partner and I'm living proof.

You see, I'm not broken. I'm not anyone's "other half". I'm not "empty" and there is no "hole" in me to fill. I am whole and I belong to me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

*I kid! I've never even seen MacGyver, I just love Patty and Selma.

We've all heard, "hate the sin, love the sinner." But what happens when you hate the sinner, and the sinner is the self? Where does that hatred go? Enmity spills outward. When I imagine the souls of such people, I see clouds of toxic coal dust, leaking from their pores. But I also see wounded children cowering, waiting to be rescued from the darkness. It makes me sad and angry. It makes me wish that I could reach out and have a discussion with that person in which peace would be the result.

But it has ever been so. It has taken me many of my almost 43 years on this planet to quit trying to rescue people. I can feel for them, sympathize with them, but I cannot nurture the proverbial viper in my bosom.
I spend a lot of time thinking about self-hatred. My own, of course, which I cop to on a regular basis. Although I must say, I've done more to learn to love myself in the past five years than I had done previously. I think that it's about a 80/20 split these days (which makes me a good candidate for the Church of 80% Sincerity. That other 20 percent, well, that quasimodal part, she shows up on some days, and I just try to love her. What else can I do? She's part of me. I remember that this is her, too.

All right, some of you may be wondering. When is she going to get to the fucking point? I do have one. It's about self-hating women, especially those who inhabit the conservative think tank known as "Concerned Women for America." I know that I should just stay away from the place. It gives me the heebie-jeebies when I'm there, sort of like wandering around inside those catacombs where the walls are made of bones. A reminder of human frailty, but just macabre and perverse and something faintly sinister about all of it.

The new Carnival of the Feminists is up at I See Invisible People. Go stroll the Midway, ride the roller coaster, eat some cotton candy. You'll feel smarter by the time you're done, I swear.

Last week we finally figured out with the help of the seven African powers, what the heck was going on with this site. Lynn and I thought the craziness was due to lack of memory juice in our server. That was only part of the problem. It's true, this here site is huge and sucks lots of bandwith even with the small community we have. What was really harshing our mellow was the blasted discussion groups (organic groups in Drupalese). So I stripped the site down for the fourth time but this time without that module and, voila! We have a site that is, albeit slowish, definitely not crashing. (Of course, as I type that, you know the server is going to go haywire.)

Much teching has been done, along also with much cup-caking and mothering : my baby turned six this past Thursday. Which is why this is a tweek recap.

After I did my previous recap, things got heated up with news that Cecilia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux nation in South Dakota will open a Planned Parenthood Clinic on their territory since the laws of South Dakota do not apply to them. Mole333 has outline a plan over at The Daily Gotham to help them with their effort. He will be posting here shortly as well. As blog is my witness, I will be smacking some wood with a hammer in the name of every sick pregnacist that thinks reproductive slavery is the new black.

They blame the low income women for ruining the country because they are staying home with their children and not going out to work. They blame the middle income women for ruining the country because they go out to work and do not stay home to take care of their children. 

--Ann Richards

If you're looking for reasoned analysis, read no further.

I'm too fucking tired. I think I'm just going to take to my fainting couch and have a case of the vapors. I'm going to gather my lovely children around me, and instruct them in the gentle, moral arts, so that both my daughters grow up to be fine mothers, who recognize that despite their intellects, their ambitions, and their dreams, when push comes to shove, (and a lady never shoves,) their jobs are about putting their children above all.

The fate of Western, elite, white society depends upon it.

All else is pure selfishness.

You can call me paranoid, but I don't think that it's accidental that at the same time that we have a virtual war going on against women in the United States (and that war is spreading throughout the West) --just one example among many--over the right to privacy, at the same time, another assault has been re-launched. It's all part and parcel of the same meme: women are selfish creatures. We cannot be trusted.

This film will examine the negative impact that the misinterpretation of Islam has created for some of its women by ... all » looking at Muslim women's lives in two different countries -- Afghanistan and Pakistan. The central thesis of the film is that Islam has been politicized and misinterpreted to suit the ends of certain fundamentalist factions within the larger religious group. This misinterpretation resulted in the tragedy of 9/11. It has also resulted in extremely barbaric behavior towards women in some Muslim countries, where political upheavals have drastically and negatively impacted the status of its women.