Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Fatwa: The Anti-Vagina Monologues

Fatwa:  A legal pronouncement in Islam, issued by a religious law specialist on a specific issue.

Substitute certain legislators and judges for Islamic law specialists and you may sense that the current right wing agenda includes legal prohibitions with Jesusland evangelical underpinnings targeting any sense of progress and personal control for American women.
 
The one-sided monologue goes like this:

Limbaugh the Loud labels modern women as 'feminazis'   Apparently, the frequent groom has more trouble living with women than lambasting them.  This might have remained a private embarrassment, save for the platform of a radio broadcast deep from the bunker that allows him to act out his issues M-F for a lot of money.  Perhaps that will pay for lessons in achieving success in personal relationships.  The Dittohead Nation absorbs, but does not talk back.


Legislators cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which serves as a primary health care center and educating organization not just for women, but also men.  Apparently, the agenda can't tolerate access to contraception, routine gynecological exams and information about avoiding risky sexual behavior that can lead to sexually transmitted diseases. 


The right promotes and funds female politicians like Sarah Palin.  Some might argue that she, having not come close to holding the second most powerful job in the world, is still a feminist role model.  Although I might argue that the freedom of control and choice and an equitable chance to succeed in whatever path one chooses is a feminist credo, she doesn't make my feminist cut.    I see Palin as a thin-skinned mean girl who winks her way along, causing right wing columnists to see "starbursts" when she speaks on the teevee.  She's gone rogue only because she's a throwback to the days when women were seen as useful window dressing and being attractive was the primary measure of success.  However, she shows no inclination of wanting to master literacy, basic human communication skills or most any job she's won along the way by pretending to know what she's talking about (Governing - It's so hard).  Being a flavor of the month in politics is about as far as she'll get unless the mad rule the earth, but it won't stop her from grifting a hefty nest egg along the way.  Had she wanted to enlarge her limited intelligence, she could have been a contender.  She seems content to be the lipstick on the pig, carefully applied but staying within the ghostwritten party lines.  

The law of the land on abortion rights is being eroded by legislative and court maneuvers that deny not only the spirit but the intent of the ruling by removing funding for programs or supporting prohibitive edicts against siting clinics or citing 'free speech' to organizations that trespass on privacy, use harassment and stalking tactics and generally intimidate clients and providers.


Legislators are trying to redefine rape.  Perhaps they need to be reminded to invoke Reagan - Nancy, that is - and understand the meaning of Just Say No when adult words or behaviors invoke this mantra.  It's pretty easy to understand rape if you can fall into the Reagan vernacular.  Rape of minors should be self-evident as never a matter of choice, but an exercise of power over the most vulnerable.  Seems pretty simple to me - so what am I missing?


Little covered in the move to bust the unions is that they, along with the reforms that produced the civil service, have served to help women in the workplace.  In the public sector, anyone who holds a defined job title is paid equally whether male or female.  There are protections and grievance procedures that have served women struggling for pay equity or access to non-traditional jobs.  From there, it's ability and dealing with the normal workplace politics that may move one ahead, but the female foot got in the door.


Lastly, on the highest court in the land, we have a judge whose idea of a come-on was once cited as mentioning a pubic hair on a coke can.  Clarence Thomas, please use your vote to leave my uterus alone.


There are many men who do not support the above agenda, but there are too many men and, sadly, women who are ideologically opposed to women's strides and would like to impose their religious dogma by nailing their 95 Theses right through our freed reproductive organs.
It's time to misbehave again, cuz "You Don't Own Me" and we've come too far to go back.

courtesy of Leslie Gore - even then we knew better

5 comments:

  1. Girlfriend we’re going to have to go all sixties on these a-holes!

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  2. I love denurd's comment. This blog was awesome. I can still hear the echo of a whip crack. As to all those Christians who are using the name of Jesus as a kind of self-righteous seal on their supposed enlightened opinions, I can just see Jesus shaking his head and saying, "this again? I thought I made it clear with the Pharisees..."

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  3. Kristin - Blessed are those who suffer...
    Lea - Positivity is definitely needed
    Denurd - Let your feminist flag fly...

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  4. Of all of you I may be the only one who was "useful window dressing". Hitting adulthood in the early Fifties. The "useful" women who built airplanes, learned to weld and wore "leathers" in the holds of ships, drove busses, flew cargo planes, were told "go home and shut up"...My recent mantra has been "they want their country back" yes, back to the Fifties.Going "all Sixties" could be a solution, as these cowards fight women and girls they can't see. What began in Wisconsin is spreading to other states; now is the time for women to add their voices in support of the rights of women, which will be lost to silence. BTW Chris, excellent summary of the threats coming from, "Jesusland".....I love that label for the phony right-wing legislatorss and judges.

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  5. WOOOO HOOO, Cris! You just kicked some we-are-women-hear-us-roar ASS!!

    I loved all of it but your take on both Rush and Palin (dubious bookends with a whole lotta crazy in between) is skin-scrapingly correct. He is inexplicable to me - truly...that's all I'll say on that. And she...well, as a woman who believes strongly in the many incarnations of sisterhood, I deem her unsistered. Fluffy. Inconsequential in the long run. Like a bad reality show that needs to be cancelled.

    Sore point among many?: when anyone refers to her as the "former governor." That title should be reserved for governors who actually fulfilled their contract, did their job, stood up to the pressures and demands of a position that thousands of people put their money, their time and their vote toward, not a fluffy Trophy Republican who walked away without a look back. Shameful and why that has been so quickly forgiven and forgotten by her groupies is beyond me. I know a lot of kick-ass, admirable, inspirational women and SHE AIN'T ONE OF THEM!

    I don't know where this anti-woman trend is going, but as long as none of us roll over and allow the steamroll to free passage, they won't get too far.

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