Lindsey Vonn of the USA takes the Overall Downhill World Cup globe during the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Women's Downhill on March 14, 2012 in Schladming, Austria. [Getty Images]Congratulations to Lindsey Vonn!
It was already dark when we pulled into the parking lot of a local strip mall one night last week, and most of the businesses that lease space had already closed for the day. The gaming shop which had prompted our visit was next door to a Chinese buffet, the patrons of which were using all the parking spots for directly in front of both establishments. Iain, who just planned to run in quickly to see if they had a specific game, parked the car down the row, in front of the only other place with its lights still on, casting a golden glow into the dark lot.
It was a karate studio, the primary business of which was teaching beginners' classes to kids during after-school hours. In the evenings, it rented its space to other groups. This night, it was a zumba class.
"Look how much fun they're having," Iain said, with a sweet grin, just before he hopped out of the car.
Through the glass storefront, I saw a room full of women—black women, white women, and Latinas, women of all ages and shapes and sizes. Some of them wore scarves tied around their hips; some of them had long hair loosely tied up into buns; some of them moved like dancers, and others of them were stiff, but they were not self-conscious. They were smiling and laughing, and I could see some of them singing along to the lyrics of the unheard song to which they moved.
They were all having fun, in this room full of women, in this room devoid of men, where they felt safe and unjudged, moving their imperfect bodies in ways that made them feel strong, maybe, or sexy, or just plain old good. Look at how much fun they're having.
I was peering into a room of their own, into one room in a secret world of women that most men don't know, and not known to too many women who fear the woman-centered spaces plethoric narratives convey disincentives to us to avoid. The secret world of affirmative, safe, noncompetitive womanhood in which the makers of pop culture don't venture, save for the occasional tourist, even though rooms like this one are like oxygen in many women's lives, the only place we can really breathe.
I looked. I looked at how much fun they were having. And I wanted to be in there with them, shaking my hips, and suddenly tears were spilling down my cheeks, tears of joy and sisterhood and need, and tears of lamentation and regret for all the reasons I don't need to tell any woman who's reading this space these days.
And then Iain was coming back, so I wiped them away, because how can I communicate to him what it means to be half the world and still somehow how be in it? How can I even begin to describe what it means to be a woman, but not a person, not really, except among other women?
"Republicans have morality upside down. Santorum, Gingrich, and even Romney are barnstorming across the land condemning gay marriage, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, access to contraception, and the wall separating church and state. But America's problem isn't a breakdown in private morality. It's a breakdown in public morality. What Americans do in their bedrooms is their own business. What corporate executives and Wall Street financiers do in boardrooms and executive suites affects all of us."—Robert Reich, explaining where the focus really should be in the morality debate.
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Ten: The number of Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Attacks on Women's Rights compiled by EMILY's List.
Which, of course, are just the tip of an enormous iceberg of misogynist fuckery.
Earlier today, three little beggars followed me into the kitchen to see if they might, perchance, convince me to give them a little reward for being such GOOD GIRLS.
Well! Hasn't this just been a never-ending stream of fuckery? Here's the latest news:
In Arizona, the GOP wants to not only make it so an employer--of any sort--can refuse whatever insurance coverage they want for their employees, the GOP has also removed the clause that protected employees from being fired or otherwise discriminated against if that employee sought out the medication (or service) that the employer had refused to cover:
The Republicans who control the Arizona legislature are pushing through a bill that would make it OK for both religious and secular employers to deny coverage for contraception if the employers object for moral reasons.This bill has already passed the House and has been approved by Senate committee.
But apparently that’s not all.
HB2625 in its current version also eliminates the following protection for employees:
“A religious employer shall not discriminate against an employee who independently chooses to obtain insurance coverage or prescriptions for contraceptives from another source.”
In the most recent version of HB2625 (see it here) that provision is removed (scroll down to the very end).
According to KU, accreditation requirements say that medical residents being trained as obstretrics-gynecologists must gain experience with induced abortion and complications due to abortion, unless they have a religious or moral objection. The residents gain this experience at facilities not owned or operated by the state.Kathy Ostrowski clearly has nothing but contempt for actual life and zero understanding of medical care. As I said when I wrote about Wisconsin:
One part of HB 2598 states: “no health care services provided by any state agency, or any employee of a state agency while acting within the scope of such employee’s employment, shall include abortion.”
When legislators reported that they were working with KU to solve this issue, the influential anti-abortion group, Kansans for Life, sounded the alarm.
"Time to end University of Kansas abortion training," said a call to action by Kansans for Life. Kathy Ostrowski, of Kansans for Life, said, "There is no professional reason that ob/gyn resident physicians have to learn how to destroy unborn children in order to achieve competency in pregnancy management, stillbirth evacuation or treating abortion complications."
by Tami Winfrey Harris, who writes about race, feminism, politics, and pop culture at the blog What Tami Said. Her work has also appeared online at The Guardian's Comment is Free, Ms. Magazine blog, Newsweek, Change.org, Huffington Post and Racialicious. She is a graduate of the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism. She is mom to two awesome stepkids and spends her spare time researching her family history and cultivating a righteous 'fro.
On March 31, Love Isn't Enough is teaming with a few of our Crunk Feminist friends to host a panel discussion about beginning dialogues with black girls about gender equality—Images in the River: Black Girl Dialogues.
Last year, Sheri Davis-Faulkner, Mashadi Matabane, Chanel Craft, and Asha French introduced 10 black teenage girls to feminism, as part of the National Women's Studies Association conference. They recounted the experience in a post on Crunk Feminist Collective.
During our Cover It Live event, Sheri, Mashadi, and Asha will be joined by Bianca Laureano, LIE contributor, to talk about planning, funding, and facilitating feminism 101 discussions for black girls. This is not just a conversation, but a call to action. Following the panel discussion, we encourage participants to host their own workshops and individual discussions with black girls and we invite them to share the process and outcomes on Love Isn't Enough so that others may learn from the efforts. (Details to come.)
This effort may be focused on black girls, but we appreciate the beauty and possibility in all girls. Everyone is welcome to contribute and learn from this conversation.
Read more here.
Will you help us spread the word? Tell everyone you know to help us create a valuable conversation about girls and gender equality.
This blogaround brought to you by PICKLEFINGER!!!
Recommended Reading:
Pam: More Opponents of North Carolina's Amendment One Should Stand Up and Say What Its Bigotry Is Really About
S.E.: Yet Another Preventable Prison Death [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of violence, neglect, and ablism.]
Mannion: On Being Catholic and a Mo [Content Note: The post at this link contains description of homophobic bullying and discussion of religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism.]
Blue Milk: Because Women's Equality Has Not Always Existed Like Grass and Trees...It Had to Be Fought For.
Andy: Jury Deliberations Begin in the Case of Tyler Clementi's Roommate, Dharun Ravi [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of the hate crime against Clementi.]
Michelle: The Denial of Life [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of eating, death, and fat hatred.]
Mike: Pictures From Last Night's Fire in Back Bay (Boston)
Megan: 'Friends with Kids:' Witty & Touching, But Not a Feminist Extravaganza
Melissa: [VIDEO] Walking the Walk and Talking the Talk: Meryl Streep Saluting Hillary Clinton
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
First off, let me apoligize in advance for my face. It's in the post and there is little I can do about it now. So, please keep your complaints about it to yourselves. Or at least direct them toward my father and his DNA.
Anyway... Look what came in the mail recently:
Here comes my usual gang of visitors to dine at the avian salad bar in my front yard.
by Chris Savage, the owner of and primary contributor to Eclectablog. His work has been featured on The Rachel Maddow Show, The Ed Show, and Politics Nation. His writing has appeared in The Nation magazine and he contributes to Angry Black Lady Chronicles, The People's View, and is a front-page writer for Blogging for Michigan. Eclectablog was voted the 2010 "Diarist of the Year" at Daily Kos.
I have been following the outfall from the passage of Michigan's Public Act 4 of 2011—the Emergency Manager law—since it passed in March of last year. Public Act 4 was the third iteration of what used to be called the Emergency Financial Manager law in my state, and this new version went far beyond its predecessors in terms of giving nearly dictatorial control to one unelected individual with the ability to break contracts with unions and service providers, sell off public assets, set educational plans and even do away with local governments entirely.
Because it is seen by many, including me, as anti-democratic, union-busting, and a powerful vehicle for the privatization of as many public services and assets as possible, I have been fearful that this model would be taken to other states.
That time has now come. Last week, the Indiana legislature passed an Emergency Manager law for their state.
The legislation was first voted out of the Senate Committee on Tax and Fiscal Policy in mid-January. At the end of January, it passed the Senate with only a single "no" vote. And, finally, last week, it passed the Indiana House with not a single "no" vote.
Under the bill, (Senate Bill 355), should it be signed into law by Governor Mitch Daniels, Emergency Managers have the power to, among other things, do the following:
And by "worst," I mean LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL THE BEST!!! because never has the irony of sharing the moniker "Shakers" with the eighteenth-century religious sect been more glorious than in this moment:
Chapter 1, page 2: "Eighty-six thousand four hundred nonrefundable seconds every day. Use them or lose them."
Now watch this drive!
What's for dinner?
(Or whatever the next meal is you'll be eating on your part of the rock.)
I dunno yet. Probably tofu and veg in a Thai curry sauce, provided I can be arsed to make the curry sauce. If not: Salad!
