A writer named Meg White has written this incisive analysis regarding the next act in the fight for healthcare reform that points out a nasty abscess in the whole thing and points out that when our elected officials negotiates deals with the anti-choice right they are, in effect, negotiating with terrorists. But it seems that when it comes to women's healthcare, it's okay, because we don't matter as much as men.

I've included excerpts here, or you can use the link above to read the whole article:

Just when we thought American women would be spared the indecency of the House's Stupak-Pitts Amendment, expected to make abortion functionally unavailable by prohibiting women from using their private plans to pay for their own abortions, the Senate came up with a "compromise" that appears to be nothing but a poison pill.

The compromise would enact a kind of kabuki theater not yet seen in this already stylized drama. Under the proposal, anyone who wanted to enroll in a private insurance plan that would provide healthcare coverage for abortions (be they men, post-menopausal women, etc.) would be required to pay their monthly premiums twice: one check would go to pay the premium itself, and another smaller amount would go to a separate premium account within the plan that would be used to provide for abortion claims.

The "compromise" was billed as a deal with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the man who, along with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) tried and failed to incorporate the Stupak-Pitts language into the Senate bill. Indications are that it may have been more about covering for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's purchase of Nelson's vote with the promise of state subsidies for Nebraska.

. . .

Furthermore, this whole segregation of funds idea only applies to those who are lucky enough to live in a state where officials decide that insurance companies and consumers even get to make that choice. The Senate bill allows any nanny state in the union to outlaw abortion coverage outright. So those of us who "get" to write out those separate checks could end up being few and far between.

And lest you think me an extremist for framing this in the heavy terms of "separate but not equal," know that I am not alone. For example, read this assessment from Lauren Simonds, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington:

If it wasn’t clear before the health care battle of 2009 that women’s reproductive
health care is viewed as separate and unequal to other types of basic health care,
it is now. No other medical procedure is singled out and stigmatized like abortion.
Even a proposed tax on elective cosmetic surgery was eliminated after public outcry.

Simonds' point about the attempt at a so-called "Botax" leads me to another inequality inherent in this argument. Why should I be forced to pay for the continued availability of elective plastic surgery, something I find at times stretches into the realm of moral reprehension, while common reproductive procedures are virtually outlawed?

Not only are women's healthcare needs being "segregated" out of mainstream funding, but there is an inequality of morals here as well. While the desires of pro-life America are being catapulted to the very top of the list in Washington, the rest of us must wait for our concerns over virtue to be heard.

What about those of us who oppose the notion of our money being spent on what we see as unjust wars? One abortion may indeed be a tragic procedure resulting in the termination of potential life, and even perhaps the scarring of another. At the same time, one war kills, maims and psychologically damages untold millions around the world. Oh, and it costs a whole hell of a lot more than any medical procedure. I have a feeling that if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had to be paid for with separate checks, things would look very different abroad.

. . .

And that brings me back to what I was saying last month about negotiating with terrorists on healthcare reform:

The anti-choice lobby is not satisfied to keep the status quo afforded by the Hyde Amendment. Instead, they're willing to sink healthcare reform in the effort to remove any and all coverage, public or private, for the legally-available medical service of abortion...

Yes, it is still wrong to trade women's reproductive rights so that the rest of the population can have decent healthcare. The only new item we've learned is that not only is it wrong, but it doesn't work.

What is far worse than being seen as a bargaining chip worth expending is to be seen as a bargaining chip to be given away for free. Now that the bargaining chip of women's reproductive rights is in the hands of the pro-life community, they plan to use healthcare reform to take away the rights we still have.

So much for negotiating with the choice terrorists.

So, in the interest of again trying to learn something from the mistakes of the false promise of bipartisanship in this Congress, I suppose we can guess why these "choice terrorists" are so eager to sink the average American woman's chances at getting adequate access to healthcare: They see us as second-class citizens.

Would somebody please tell me what the FUCK is wrong with Congress? Since when did the Catholic Bishops dictate new law in this country? Since when has the right to birth control and abortion become the business of anyone but the woman needing it? It's okay to have poison shot into your face, but a raped 12-year-old can't be mercifully relieved of one concrete effect of her experience?

Maybe it's time to get us some guns and take us out some trash.

(and before anyone jumps on me, may I remind you I did not say our guys are squeaky clean in the sexual abuse department)

Today the New York Times published this disturbing report about the lot of the female soldier and of some male soldiers, dealing with harassment, stalking, abuse, and rape from fellow personnel. It's a long piece, and it's unsettling. We like to think, when our women go off to serve, that at least they'll be safe from sexual predation, but these witnesses testify to the contrary.

Okay, with that many people, there has to be a percentage of those with problems, like the man with multiple complaints against him. It's also true that a macho field like the military draws guys who think manliness means the brutalization and ownership of women. But the article clearly states that the percentage of reported incidents is higher than that of our civilian population, and the writers are not certain that all such incidents are being reported. I am certain they aren't. Women are reluctant to rock the boat; they are afraid they will lose their rank and position; they will be run out of the military; they will be harassed even more; they will find no support and even more harassment not just from other soldiers, but from their superiors. And they are all too often right.

But people can learn. The fact that this article has been published is proof of it. There are people in Congress who are putting on the pressure, and there are people in the military who are working for it.

Parents can work on it, too. If you want your children to continue a tradition of family service, then teach your boys to respect girls and women. Teach your girls they are worthy of respect and that they must demand it. Teach all of them the meaning of duty, and keeping their promises, and looking after their fellow soldier.

And those who do not know if they're preparing their kids to fight--these aren't such bad ideas for anyone. To look after those who work with you, to uphold your promises and the things you swear to, to respect the opposite sex and keep your hands to yourselves, those are all good things that get scant coverage in some of our homes.

No one in the article mentioned it, but these men are forgetting something very important. When you shit on a fellow soldier, you're just begging for the opportunity to be killed by friendly fire. It may not come from that soldier. But every soldier has friends.

So even if it's in the orders, the good general isn't really going to throw women and men in jail because the women got pregnant and, occasionally, they'll find out who the man was. He just meant to scare people into thinking. Women are valuable resources he doesn't want to send home if they get pregnant, because it's always on purpose, and not because the condom failed, or the pills, or the soldier was raped*, because that's never known to happen.

He doesn't trust the majority of his women to know their duty. He doesn't trust the majority of his women to do their utmost to serve. He would just rather tar all the women in the service with the licentiousness brush.

And I truly wonder how many women will name the men, apart from the 3 of 4 in this article. If I can recall at least two recent cases in which military men killed their pregnant solider girlfriends* and hid their bodies while their superiors covered it up, I'm sure any female soldier of the line knows of other women who have disappeared or been "killed in action."

Funny. One reason we supposedly sent our people to Iraq was to teach them the values of western style democracy. Who would have thought their religious fundamentalists would have taught our officers the uses of sharia law? What's next--stoning the woman to death after her child is born, and stoning the man right away?



*I never said, please recall, that the men of the military are squeaky clean when it comes to abuse of women. I just think that for a number of really confusing reasons they would take action against Afghani men assaulting women (obeying orders, peer pressure, law enforcement, and bigotry being chief among them).

I don't think anyone is going to like what I'm about to say. Tim suggested I write it here anyway. I have to suspect his motives--does he want me to stop talking about this stuff at home? Not that I do, very often, because it distresses him. He can't bear to hear of people under subjugation when he can't actually do anything to help them. But sometimes the topic comes up, such as when the national dialog goes screeching off into the territory of the Afghani War and Obama's recent announcement that he will be committing 30,000 more troops to the battle, bringing the current total on the ground to 100,000 or so. Everyone's talking about it. Tim's against it, of course. Coming from a military family and having military friends, he's against anything that puts our people at risk. I pointed out that we still don't have jobs and post-war care properly arranged for all of our people who are already in service, and it would be good to bring them home when the Veteran's Administration and the economy are cleaned up enough that veterans to come won't be getting the shit deal they've had so far. (I too have military family and friends.)

He finally noticed, though, that I hadn't said anything about the President's announcement, and asked me flat out what I thought. I reminded him that Obama had said he was going to prosecute the Afghani war more thoroughly when he campaigned, and I disagreed with him then, but I also understood from the way Obama talked about it that he was actually going to do what he promised. I explained to Tim that I didn't understand how people were so shocked by his intentions now when he'd told them that this was his plan a year ago. Tim recognized that, while true, this wasn't an answer, and he leaned on me again.

So I told him.

I am not at all unhappy there will be more Americans on the ground in Afghanistan. The more pairs of non-male-Islamist eyes there are in Afghanistan, the happier I will be. I cannot imagine American soldiers* standing by while (this link not safe for work) women are publicly beaten. It is my hope that the malfeasance in public office will undergo a clean-up with an increased American (and international, with an increase in NATO troops) presence in Afghanistan. With any kind of Western military rule, I hope there will be a cut-down in public whipping and stonings, as well as child rape.

( More follows )
Every day this most extreme interpretation of Islam gains more and more followers throughout the world, and more and more women and girls are brought into its grip. What can we do? How can we help? Funding for shelters and organizations helps, but we're talking about entire nations of women here whose well-being and lives are at risk at the hands of men who claim the rights of ownership, yet will treat their cars better than their female relatives. We'd like for the women to help themselves, but how can you help yourself if you don't even know that you have a right to do so? That you have as much value as your tormentors? That there are opportunities in the greater world for you, if only you can find them?

I know our soldiers can't stay forever. Maybe they can stay long enough to teach the women--and the men--of Afghanistan that women have value and purpose. That women can even hit, and kick, and shoot.

edited to add:
* No, I do not think all American soldiers are good, non-sexist people who would never hit, rape, or kill a woman, or stand by while women or girls are abused. I do believe they are there to do a job--to keep the peace--and to put a halt to enemy activity, of which abuse of women and girls and the suppression of peace work is a part. I also seem to think there are lot more good soldiers, male and female, out there, than some of you seem to believe.

A divorced woman who had an affair was stoned to death in southern Somalia. Her lover will get 100 lashes.

Sharia law as interpreted here says that divorced women who take lovers are committing adultery, as are their lovers.

This is female genocide, taken a life at a time, as Islamicist rule spreads. What next? Plastic bags? They already have distinguishing dress down pat.

edited to add:

And yet, if this information is right, women are particularly vulnerable and placed to effect change as the climate changes.

"women in developing countries did a larger share of farming and had less access to income-earning opportunities.

They also managed households and cared for families, which limited their chances of moving around and increased 'their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural disasters'. "

If women in Islam lose opportunities for education and are kept to their homes, beaten and bullied by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, how will they prepare for change? Who will be blamed when meals run short, and who will go hungry while men eat?

And how do we help them?

Publishers Weekly has issued its list of the ten best adult books for 2009 (they get ARCs, Advanced Readers Copies, so they have seen the "important" books of the year as judged by the important people of publishing). And o my stars and garters, have they raised themselves up a fuss. You see, if you look at that list, the authors are all men.

WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) is claiming bias, as are quite a few other writers and readers. PW is saying they judged fairly and freely, "without political correctness."

The response is coming now just from WILLA. Britain's Guardian reported it; The New York Times is inviting its readers to post their ideas on which books they think should have made the list. Salon, of course, has an edgier take, including this wonderful quote: Comments on P.W.'s Web site likened the list to "a flier tacked to the wall at a men's club".

I actually like Laura Miller's Salon article very much. It's well thought out, intelligent, and rational. And it's informative.

For my own part, my feeling is, why is anyone surprised? Look at the high school and college required reading lists (unless they are for women's literature or world literature or for alternate schools). They are dominated by White Males (except for Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, the rest are dead before the turn of the 20th century). Look at what's considered valuable in literary publications, and who is considered "great" in literary classes. Look at the writers who are given face and page time in journals all over the world, even when it's not about a writing-based issue. The majority are men.

The bias is an old one. Historically women have been relegated to "women's issues" (said Bryon and Shelley, patting Mary Shelley on the head--girls writing "science"!) revolving around relationships, house, church, and community. We don't write about war, the death of the soul, the future of society and the morality of man (yes, it's still said "of man"). We don't write about the Big Issues. We write improving children's books, sweet little books about family, or torrid and hysterical romances. We don't write about war which sweeps over a devastated landscape (take that, Margaret Mitchell!), or the Hero's Journey, or striving for A New Tomorrow. So it has always been in publishing, and so it is in the literary community.

( Read more )

PW did a children's list which I liked better. I'll post about that on my fan journal later today.

I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion, Margeret Atwood, or any of the other highly admired female literary writers referred to as "great."

Al Franken, our newest Senator and legal comedian, introduced a law to the Senate making it illegal for any company contracting with the federal government to require its employees to sign a document agreeing not to sue the company should they be raped while they worked for that company.

No, I'm not joking. He really had to come up with a bill because Halliburton really had this document ready for women to sign before they would employ the women. Tim spent a lot of time last night explaining to me why a woman might look at a document like that, which at the very least implies another woman has been raped while under this company's employment in such a way that she thought it justified to sue the company for complicity in her rape, and still sign the paper and take the job. Since he really worked very hard at his explanation, I'm going to let him continue to believe he showed me how there would be a woman who would look at that document, sign it, and go to work.

Moving on from my mental block, behind which I stand shrieking and beating my fists on it, we come to: Al Franken creates the bill and takes it to the Senate. He says, "Here is this infamous company practice; they are as much as setting up the defense that a woman agreed to rape; they are denying her the right to legal recourse, this is nuts." 68 Senators agreed that this was the right bill to pass.

30 Senators, all Republican, voted to allow companies not just to wink at rape, but to give it a legal shield. Thirty men, most of them husbands and fathers.

It's doubtful you'll have heard about this. As the Buzzflash editors point out, the mainstream media, instead of covering that story, chose instead to go after ACORN. Yeah, you know, the organization that empowers poor people and allows them to take part in their own futures. Because one outstation of the organization fouled up (and because Obama seems pretty much bullet proof), Congress pulled their funding. See, poor people shouldn't have money, because some people (::coughGoldman Sachs AIGcough::) might mishandle it, so you have to defund the entire organization (because you can't attack Obama, so get one of the popular groups that supported him (::coughnotBankofAmericaFreddieMaccough::). Poor people having power in the political ring? Crush them. Crush them like you crush those women who complain about being raped by their fellow employees. Don't they know they're hired as "comfort troops"?

I've been reading a lot about women under Islam. Then I come back to shit like this, and think maybe the biggest differences are our clothes and the lie that we're more free.

Yeah, I know they have it a lot worse. They really do. But reading stories like this, and the back-up information (because really, BuzzFlash is a progressive polemical outfit and should be checked), makes me feel weak and dirty.

Yes, I agree with him when he asks, as he did on Friday the 11th, why President Obama doesn't stand up for the 70% of us who aren't crazy. I wish our president would stop trying to make deals with the small minority who are destructive and insanely oppositional with no intention of ever cooperating, and get to work doing something for the majority, who could really use the help.

But my appreciation of Maher goes straight down the toilet every time he adds a statement like this--and he always does:
"The Democrats just never learn. Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you don't act like pussies," Maher said.

I've got news for you, you mewling media canker-boy. Us pussies are too smart to continually flip off our functionally allies by talking like major league, Numero Uno, USDA Prime asshats. Even when we agree with what the asshat might be saying.

By now I'd assumed everyone in the U.S. and maybe Canada had heard of the events of last Tuesday, when George Sodini walked into a health club gym with a bag full of guns, having selected a gym in which women were working out, turned out the lights, and began shooting. Three dead, nine wounded, and then Sodini killed himself. He was angry, he wrote in his blog, because by his count thirty million women had blown off any chance to date, be friends, or have sex with him. He was counting all women, you see, including those teenagers who had sex three times a day but not with him.

I thought everyone had heard of it, until I mentioned it to my beloved Spouse-Creature this morning. He hadn't.

Okay. It's been a fraught week. Jules was visiting for the weekend, and her and her housemate's three cats stayed until they could move into their new place on Thursday. My post travel cold turned into whooping bronchitis; Tim caught the cold part. My beloved Becca came to visit, except I was still drooping all over the furniture like a Dali clock and hacking my lungs out--not much fun there. But I'd heard about the shooting, even if I'd been too dazed and heartbroken to blog about it.

But it didn't get a lot of coverage, did it? Not like the shooting of Amish women and girls that it's most often compared to. Bob Herbert of the New York Times has some discouraging thoughts about that, the same thoughts we've been debating around the web for a while: women and girls don't matter as much. Amish women and girls at least have the non-violent culture to put their story over, but average white middle class women and girls? Separate these nine, and you have Allegheny's battered women count for a couple of days, perhaps the county's murdered women count for the week. The uniqueness is in that a man came in to kill these women in a group, and none of them were in a relationship with him. (He would have said that was the point.)

I'm too zoned to take this farther, but the first thing I did when I realized I needed to blog about this was go to Cereta's lj,, where I knew discussion would be underway. They give the notion that too many men regard us as tokens they are supposed to acquire as part of their successful lives a good pounding, though I don't think they can pound it out of men. That's where people like feminists and Bob Herbert agree: we've got to train our boys better. We've got to get them to see us as people, not coupons or heads to mount on the den wall.

For more ways to view and discuss, there's the coverage on Jezebel, with links giving us all plenty to consider.

And guys wonder why it's hard for us to trust them.

Here are some added articles from Pandagon, one, and two. (Thanks, redstapler!) The aticles and comments include way more than you ever wanted to know about the subculture (and I do mean subculture) about men taking courses in how to "get" women (pop a balloon animal with your gun and get a prize woman!). I really didn't need to get this close to yarking today (I watched the video with the four sample women giving their views on things men do for--oh, 50 seconds, maybe).

Former President James Earle Carter (Reagan's predecessor), who went from a not-very-successful president (in part because plenty of people fought his liberal agenda tooth and nail) to an absolutely brilliant ex-president and global statesman, has announced his departure from the Southern Baptist Convention (one of the largest, if not the largest, Protestant denominations in the U.S.).

It's his reasoning that has me wanting to rub my butt on the carpet with sheer happiness. The Southern Baptist Convention's brightest star and most famous member has left because of the way that church's interpretations of religious texts places women in inferior positions and justify human rights abuses.

In part this comes as a result of his membership in The Elders, a group of world leaders including Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Kofi Anan, and Desmond Tutu, who are dealing in human rights issues worldwide. The first one they list is the treatment of women and girls. In this, Carter is putting his money where his mouth is by resigning from the church where he has been a leading figure for over sixty years. He says the problems of subjugating women to men are not just those of the Southern Baptists--like the other Elders, he says they are a problem with religions worldwide--but he has matched ideas to action here.

Wow.

P.S. If you follow the first link to the article about Carter's departure, you'll also see a sidebar: Obama's administration has filed a legal brief reversing a Bush policy that forbade battered women from seeking asylum in the U.S.

Obviously the 17th was a very good day for attention to the rights of women.

People are starting to remember the summer of 1969, when the Apollo spacecraft landed on the moon. As a result, bits and pieces of the events of that time are surfacing, some the same-old same-old, and some not-so-well-known.

This is one of the not-so-well-known factoids, published by the BBC: the story of the people who worked on the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC, including one techno geek from Harvard and a number of retired watchmakers and textile workers who wove the copper wires that were its software.

"The astronauts toured the production facilities and got people to realise that it was real and they were real," explained Eldon Hall, designer of the AGC.

"The little old ladies said: 'that could be my son so I am going to do my job as well as I can'."

In the most super-technological field of the time, where women scientists were very scarce and no women were allowed to apply to be astronauts (they weren't even allowed to be in the military except as auxiliaries), the great many experiment still would not have been complete without knitters.

However, the entire computer was not so hi-tech. In order to make sure that the software was robust it was "woven" into so-called "rope core memories".

These used copper wires threaded through or around tiny magnetic cores to produce the ones and zeroes of binary code at the heart of the software.

Pass the copper wire through the core and the computer read it as a one. Pass it around and it was read as a zero.

"Once you get it wired it's not going to change without breaking those wires," said Mr Hall.

The rope core memories would become know as "LOL memory" after the "little old ladies" who knitted together the software at a factory just outside Boston.

These ladies would sit in pairs with a memory unit between them, threading metres and metres of slender copper wires through and around the cores.

"It's an extremely time-consuming process and it meant that the programs had to be finished and fully tested months in advance," said Mr Eyles.

It's only now with the perspective of 40 years that Apollo stands out as a unique event, probably never to be repeated in my lifetime
Don Eyles

"But it is extremely robust - that information probably still exists despite being left on the Moon."

This was such an incredible moment in our history. For once in our space race with Russia, we got there first. (That was a very big deal. When you're worried that the other guy is going to dump some missiles in your lap one day, every event that signals "our tech is way better than your tech is something to celebrate.) Also, by that time I was a pure science fiction head. A moon landing was a magical ;-) event to me.

In time, I would have another connection to the Moon landing. A cousin of mine, a major shutterbug, was in the navy, aboard the Hornet, the ship that retrieved the capsule when it splashed down in the Pacific with the astronauts safe inside. My cousin got some GORGEOUS photos of the splashdown, which I treasure still.

In the middle of the Vietnam War and the riots and assassinations at home, that was something good, something we could celebrate. I know the money for the space program could be spent on so many other causes. But I think of all of the things that have been created as a result of the space program, and I look at the dwindling space and resources of our beautiful planet, and--I'm still a 15-year-old geek looking at the earth through the windows of spaceships. I am grateful to the Harvard beatniks, the knitting ladies, the watchmakers, the school teachers, the technogeeks, the IT folks, and the brave people (of both sexes) on the ground crews, in the ships that picked up those splashdown crafts, and in the air who share that dream.

It's National Blog for Choice today, and the question that NARAL is posing for us is:

What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?

That's easy for me: an instant repeal of Bush's last-minute rule that individual health care-givers be allowed to consult their consciences when it comes to giving care or advice regarding abortion, information regarding any other facility which provides abortion advice or care, and by extension, any form of advice or care regarding birth control if that person's beliefs lead them to see birth control as abortion. Just erase that sucker right off the books. Bush shoved it through (I was too heartbroken to write about it), and I would like to see it gone, please, Mr. President.

I would also like to see funding returned to those world medical care programs that lost it when Bush proclaimed that those programs that used abortion, even in countries where abortion was legal, would no longer receive American funds. That was one of the little bastard's first acts in office.

Those are two places to start. They've been on my mind.

and Mohammed is his Prophet?"

"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance):... "
The Book of Women 4.34, the Koran

Placed against this part of the holy book of Islam, I'm finding it very hard to make sense of this report of the acid-scarred female scholars of Afghanistan, and

a Saudi Arabian court's ruling that puts girls younger than 15 in the marriage beds of older men (though they're really not supposed to fuck their young wives till they reach puberty). Does anyone here care to place odds on how many of those husbands wait?

Where is the faith in the Koran? Where are the "protectors and maintainers of women"?

And yes, I know there are plenty of people in other faiths who don't follow the laws laid down in their holy books. I am making two points here: one, that these men are using the cover of religion to do what they do, and two, what they do is in the face of their faith, and is not endorsed by the bulk of those who follow the terms of their faith. There is good in Islam. But these acid-throwers, and this judge, could read their Koran all their lives and never see it.

I wonder if there was any campaigning done with slogans about how hot the candidate was? In Rwanda, when the count's done, they may well have a female majority in Parliament. Their new, post-genocide constitution already requires that a number of seats be set aside for women, as well as some for youth and the disabled, but in this election, the elections of women candidates look to place the majority with women MPs.

Do you suppose they're talking lipstick and pigs? Or maybe issues and qualifications?

I'm so happy right now. They've had a tough row to hoe, and just the fact that they're having peaceful elections with no one dying would make me happy.

In addition to community organizers, wildlife and ecology preservationists, those who are anti hunting, and pro-choice advocates, apparently she's not speaking for organized feminist women, either. The National Organization of Women just unloaded--or rather, they presented a ladylike version of a "Sarah Palin does not speak for me" picture.

_____________________________________________________

Not Every Woman Supports Women's Rights

August 29, 2008

Statement of NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy on the Selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's Vice Presidential Pick

Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest.

Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.

The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak FOR women? Based on her record and her stated positions, the answer is clearly No.

In a gubernatorial debate, Palin stated emphatically that her opposition to abortion was so great, so total, that even if her teenage daughter was impregnated by a rapist, she would "choose life" -- meaning apparently that she would not permit her daughter to have an abortion.

Palin also had to withdraw her appointment of a top public safety commissioner who had been reprimanded for sexual harassment, although Palin had been warned about his background through letters by the sexual harassment complainant.

What McCain does not understand is that women supported Hillary Clinton not just because she was a woman, but because she was a champion on their issues. They will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for women.

Sen. Joe Biden is the VP candidate who appeals to women, with his authorship and championing of landmark domestic violence legislation, support for pay equity, and advocacy for women around the world.

Finally, as the chair of NOW's Political Action Committee, I am frequently asked whether NOW supports women candidates just because they are women. This gives me an opportunity to once again answer that question with an emphatic 'No.' We recognize the importance of having women's rights supporters at every level but, like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women's rights.

____________________________________________________________________

I particularly like that last paragraph, given that it concerns an accusation hurled at feminists all of the time. We are not robots. We do not all cling to a party line, any more than we take orders from the feminist organizations out there. And here we have one of the biggest organizations in this country admitting it. I'm going to save this article so I can wave it under the nose of the next fuckhead who says it to me.

And they're right. Sarah Palin is one of those women who has used the freedoms won by women to get where she is, but who uses her position to try to turn back the clock. I don't know about you folks, but the more I know about her, the scarier she gets. I don't want this woman one heartbeat away from an old man with health issues in the White House--and I really dislike him, too.

Right before we left for Dragon*Con, Tim shot me a petition from the ACLU, giving us yet another source to use to put the pressure on Health and Human Services. I hope everyone is keeping an eye on this and keeping the pressure on, particularly since, except for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC a while back, no one in the mainstream media is even talking about this.

It's truly scary, how quiet people are being about something with such potentially disastrous consequences. I don't know about you folks, but I'm more worried than ever.

edited to add:
lilithschilde suggests getting in touch with your senators and congresspeople to see if they can bring some pressure to bear, and I think it's a good idea.

Probably everyone knows this by now, but I want to cross-post what Planned Parenthood is saying about Bush's latest attempt to have government take control over women's bodies:

President Bush's regulatory change lets health care providers define abortion, which could threaten access to birth control and broader reproductive health care, and allow federal funding for so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" that refuse to inform patients of or provide patients with a full range of reproductive health care options.

Now that the new rule has been issued officially, we need you to speak out during the official 30-day comment period before the rule can go into effect.

We need as many people as possible to submit comments to the Department of Health and Human Services before the official comment period ends on September 25.

[this part is from the generic letter they are asking people to send]
I am writing to oppose the so-called "conscience" rule recently submitted by Secretary Leavitt. This regulation poses a serious threat to women's health care by limiting the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate health information and services.

At a time when more and more families are uninsured and under economic assault, we find our health care system is in crisis and our president taking steps to deny access to basic care. Women's ability to manage their own health care is at risk of being compromised by politics and ideology.

You can find the mail, edit it and sign it, at the Planned Parenthood site linked above, on the main page, under "Breaking News," the link that says take action today,. The mail goes to the Department of Health & Human Services, which makes the final ruling. If you want more information, click on this link for Planned Parenthood's longer release on the subject.

I don't know if the clown prince has nothing more to lose, so he's jamming every fucktard idea he had out there to see what he can get away with, or he thinks these things are his precious "legacy," or he thinks we're so fixed on the presidential race that we won't notice his sleazy maneuverings, but I hope there are plenty of people who will tell him that once, just bloody maggot-swilling ONCE, he won't get away with it. That he is going to fail in yet another attempt to force his parochial views on this entire country, that we are going to hold to that silly, old-fashioned idea of liberty for all.

It's not Bush's to take. Don't let anyone give it to him. Please.

Edited to add:

If you'd like a structure that doesn't hit you up front with a request for cash before delivering information or a way to protest, you might want to try NARAL's protest. You might also want to look at NARAL's home page--they are lobbying for a strong pro-choice plank at the Democratic National Convention in September.

Cross-posted to my fan live journal

As I keep mentioning, I'm off to Wiscon today, so my replies on this and other things will be spotty till Tuesday, but this article just popped up in my mail (yes, I'm shallow and I have a Google search for myself!), and I had to share. It doesn't just affect me, but writers I respect and love.


When Harry met sexism
Critics just won't accept female fantasy writers, as the latest round of JK Rowling-bashing shows

* Bidisha
o The Guardian,
o Thursday May 22 2008
o Article history

This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday May 22 2008 on p38 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 00:06 on May 22 2008.

It's no revolutionary thing to honour JK Rowling, the brains behind wizard icon Harry Potter and now a globally respected philanthropist. Indeed, she's been invited to give Harvard's graduation day commencement address in June. It's a logical choice: Rowling's story is as epic as any fantasy novel and her lone rise to genius/mogul status suits Harvard's credo of individualistic excellence.

Or maybe she's just a pathetic waste of space. Writing in the university paper, the Harvard Crimson, student Adam Goldenberg rips into Rowling as "a flash in the pan", "a petty pop culture personality" who "tricked parents into letting their kids read books filled with sex, murder, and homosexual role models". Furthermore, "writing bedtime stories is lame".

Goldenberg's attack isn't new. Rowling-bashing has been a feature of the Potter myth from the start. First came academic Harold Bloom, mocking her style with zeal. Then AS Byatt jeered at the infantilism of adult Potter fans. Thus men and women united in putting a gifted woman in her place. Earlier this week children's laureate Michael Rosen gave an interview with the Scottish Sunday Times in which he said, correctly, that the Harry Potter books are hard going for children under six. The media jumped all over it, trumpeting his "denunciation" of Potter as unreadable dross.

Rosen has refuted this mass misquoting, picking up on the acceptability of belittling Rowling. I agree, but the issue doesn't stop with her. It extends to all female fantasy writers, world-creators and myth-makers. According to the backlash, Rowling is swell for dim kiddies, along with Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones (but none are as good as CS Lewis or Roald Dahl, of course), while Philip Pullman and Philip Reeve are worthy of adult analysis. Critics ignore the tough heroines created by Tamora Pierce and Trudi Canavan, but acclaim Lewis Carroll's creepily pliable Alice, who obediently consumes whatever cupcakes and potions she finds in Wonderland. Darren Shan and Garth Nix are rising stars thanks to the Potter-fuelled fantasy bandwagon, but there's no casual namedropping of female speculative authors Robin Hobb, Mary Gentle or Malorie Blackman, whose Noughts and Crosses is a modern classic.

A subtle mechanism is operating here, clanking into gear to restore the dominant man-worshipping default mode while reserving a few token high-priestess places for the ladies. In speculative fiction that would be Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood and Ursula K Le Guin, geniuses all. These women are the real deal, rightly worshipped for their vision, philosophical trenchancy and pertinence. But apart from the hallowed three it's men-only when it comes to casual recommendations of mainstream books.

In terms of which books sell plentifully and are acclaimed among knowledgeable fans, speculative fiction is not male-dominated at all - quite the opposite. It is the critical establishment which marginalises women. Bestselling female contenders remain unacknowledged while their male counterparts are robustly namechecked, absorbed reliably into the official history of the genre.

Readers who rave about the scope of Lord of the Rings, in which a club of white men flee (a) a big burning vagina and (b) some black guys in hoods, are simply unaware of the awesome complexity of Katharine Kerr's Deverry sequence of Celtic fantasy novels. They hail William Gibson's prescience, oblivious to Marge Piercy's prophetic sci-fi masterpieces Body of Glass and Woman on the Edge of Time and Liz Williams's intelligent, knotty novels like Darkland.

Speculative fiction - whether that is historical epic, space psychodrama or telepathic warrior quest - has always been about infinite possibilities. Why is it so hard to imagine a world which acknowledges the importance, multitude and sheer brilliance of its women writers?

· Bidisha is a novelist and critic
bidisha@hotmail.com

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I'm thrilled to death that I am not the only one to notice the vast chorus of crickets I hear when it comes to mainstream writing about fantasy. I do find more writing about women writers in the scholarly books geared to teen librarians and educators, but in the mainstream science fiction and literary communities?

You know, I love the sound of crickets, but not in areas where constructive thinking and talk is supposed to be taking place.

So many of you thanked me for what I said, or for my books. I got caught up in the aspect of the conversation dealing with the treatment women of color have received and my response to it, and now I'm heading off to the first of two conferences within the next week.

Since I probably won't get to say thank you to everyone individually, I'm saying it here. You have no idea how very much what you said--about my thoughts concerning my own feminism, and for some about my books and feminism--meant to me. Or maybe you do.

Thank you so very much.

Tammy

After a hotly debated Wednesday night and a calmer Thursday morning, I responded with erinya's point that I had yet to respond to the most important points she had made. I replied with the following, which she felt answered not only what she wanted to know but what other people were asking of me and were not getting. I am sorry I was obtuse last night: I felt like I was trying to fight a fire with a thimble. I thought if I pulled out what I said to erinya, the other people who thought I'd come down with a case of the stupids would see it, too.
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That organized feminism has failed women of color--I didn't answer it because all the evidence you, unusualmusic, karenhealey, and delux_vivens show, what I saw for myself on Feministe, what I saw in the comics blogosphere when Cheryl Lynn ended up abandoning the feminist segment--I am already convinced that it in fact has.

My own experience has taught me that dealing with organized feminism over long periods of time is like dealing with other groups--a clique will rise to the top which will place its agendas over those of anyone else, and will convince the bulk of the membership that theirs is the only way to go. You are frustrated at getting white feminists to listen? I submit this is why. They are on the same track that brought them to power. They don't see that they need to adapt to changing times and changing memberships. And let's face it, the charges of the WOC have been an issue within organized feminism since its conception. The WOC are right.

I can't order the WOC to call themselves feminists, any more than I can order feminist organizations to stop being idiots and look where the future stands. To stop talking white privilege and ignoring the tremendous issues and needs of our sisters of color. I can and do say the WOC are right. They are not being heard. And I certainly can't blame them for quitting.

How can I ask the WOC to stay in organizations that treat them like shit? I didn't. Why should I ask them to? I don't. I would just hope that they would say, sometimes, that the issues they fight for are feminist ones, because it would be nice to keep the banner flying. But if they are so angry with select groups of people that they don't want the word in their mouths . . . ::shrug:: I can't ask them to do something when they have been ignored so badly, even though I hope they remember the principle and not the idiots who claim to represent all of it.
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I am not perfect. But I really try not to be an asshole. WOC have serious grievances that aren't being addressed. I have also been reminded that in my list, WOC, transgendered, and gays, I entirely overlooked disabled women, so I am feeling like even more of an asshole. But I am an asshole who still believes that ideally feminism should address the concerns of all of these women, and I will keep working toward that end. I hope all of you will, too.