Being Amber Rhea

"Ideally, Flint wouldn't be attractive. Very unfortunately, she is attractive, so the least she could have done was glossed over it in an embarrassed and perhaps even a little flustered manner. But no, she flaunts it in not one, not two, not three but four pictures for the Observer last month. Apparently, these pictures are synonymous with her career. Flint is 'showy'. As the papers and blogland show, the two can't go together. She was defined by her looks from the beginning (even before those pictures, the Press was fixated on her attractiveness). The photoshoot, only done a month ago (whilst she's been in the Cabinet for most of this decade), is an excuse not to take her seriously. It's an excuse for Gordon Brown to keep her on the periphery (if that is, indeed, what he did and what he intended). She can't have an active role in politics, not now. She asked for it. She's window-dressing.

I'm just waiting for the 'but she's not even pretty' bloggers to come out."

"I would give ABC News credit for proper pronouns and gendering (with the exception of including Mr. Quinn's birth name which is fucking skeezy) if this entire article didn't have that subtext of 'See what happens when we hire those minorities? Affirmative action is bad, mm'kay?' and if that subtext wasn't so goddamn subtle. Its the kind of thing that someone who is not the most progressive, or who doesn't think to look for things like this, will see, will skim over and will assimilate without even realizing it.

If someone gets a job they are not qualified for because whoever hired them was afraid of being 'offensive' then blame the person who hired them, but this subtle 'See what happens when we try to level the playing field? See? White, het, cis doods really are just better at everything!' shit is disgusting."

"There is a point in discussions of rape, when the discussion turns from the particular to the systemic, when the idea that, for example, many cultures have a value system that makes men believe they are fundamentally entitled to women's bodies (or time or attention, but mostly bodies), when the exceptionism starts to come out. Say it with me, now: not all men are like that.

And of course, they're not. But you know what? Too damn many of you are, and too damn many of you can be in the right circumstances. And I'm not going to apologize for saying that.

And if that offends you, I would suggest you take it up with the women in Congo. Or the girls in the poorest parts of the rural south. Or the girl passed out at a frat house party. Or the women anywhere that the thin veneer of civilization is disrupted for even the briefest of times."

"They don't broach serious topics with you, out of respect for your tiny lady-brain, but when you raise those topics, they lecture and condescend and talk over you even when it's apparent that you know more than they do. They don't see why they can't talk publicly about whether or not they'd 'hit that'; they know that rape and domestic abuse and stuff like that is bad, but don't see why they can't tell jokes about it; and, you know, it's not that they hate women or anything, but they don't see why they can't call someone a slut or a tease or a cunt or an uptight bitch if she is, you know, acting like one. Also? They know it's not PC? But they think that women, with their emotions and hormones and stuff, are… um… crazy.

They don't hate women, though! They haven't hit any, or raped any! So, if you call them 'misogynist' or 'sexist,' they will check to make sure that they don't remember any hittings or rapings, conclude that they haven't done those very bad things, and dismiss you."

"Violence against women is not a matter that we can take lightly when daily women are murdered in cold blood. When we consider that Sotomayor has largely been constructed as an angry Latina who does not know her place by white males on the right, this image serves as a warning to all women to stay in their place. It suggests that when a woman attempts to step outside of roles that have been traditionally assigned to them by patriarchy that men have the right to resort to violence.

How often have we heard men tell us how good we have it in North America in comparison to women in other countries. This claim can only be made by ignoring the violence that women here live with it. The fact that violence against women has simply become so normalized that it can be reduced to a joke reveals that the liberation and freedom in which we are told that we live is non-existent."

"One of the nicest things about this system is that it allows for easier networking. Girls aren’t so paranoid about meeting each other. Organizations can form to help sex workers without having their hands tied for fear of being charged with felonies. I’ll point out one of the big benefits of this: it reduces harm just by freely allowing community to happen."

"This Act has hardly been a boon to trafficking victims precisely because in reality sex trafficking victims are not treated as victims to be helped, but as criminals under the state laws of other states. The trafficking victim prostitutes are held in custody while awaiting deportation, not turned loose on the streets. And it is particularly untrue that they get so-called T-Visas easily and then green cards. The truth, as any of the immigration lawyers who work with trafficking victims can tell you, is that it is very hard for any trafficking victim to get a T-Visa. Mostly, they are deported to an uncertain future.

Finally, it should be noted that a law prohibiting consensual prostitution, which is after all only consensual sex, is unconstitutional. The state has no constitutionally defensible basis for preventing two consenting adults from having sex under whatever conditions they choose."

"I have friends who have lost children to miscarriages; who learned that their desired baby was a blighted ovum and had to work through the whiplash from 'nurturing life' to 'harboring death'. One of my [legal] husband's coworkers had a baby recently, a baby who lived for two hours after birth.

I have been carrying this life for seven months. It's kicking, right?

But the fear is there, the overwhelming fear, from reading about, thinking about, the women who carried their lives for seven months, eight months, nearly nine, and then learned that no, what they had nurtured, invested in, prepared for, perhaps named, was going to die. Maybe killing them on the way too, bleeding out or rot or toxins poisoning the system or any of the other horrible malfunctions of flesh.

And people write about Tiller, write about the care he gave to these stricken families, and sometimes to do that, they have to write about why his job was necessary."

"Dewds – and they are often dewds — turn it into a massive, ritualized, self-conscious, self-important ego trip that has MASSIVE MEANING that must be reflected upon, blogged about, and turned around and around in their minds and with anyone who’ll listen about how fanfucktabulous it is to grow a patch of garden.

*rolls eyes*

I can’t help but laugh at these people on about gardening. They go on about how its important to grow something, anywhere, even if it’s a teeny plot on the patio — 4×8′ or something. To these jokers have any clue how little yield they are talking?

And when they go out and have massively huge gardens, I always laugh at how they think they plant and wait to harvest, with some bouts of weed pulling.

ha ha ha. meet: woodchuck. meet: grubs. meet: japenese beetles. meet: wabbit and deer. meet all manner of pestiliciousness hell bent on eating your garden before you do.

meet downpours, drought, hail, early / late surprises frosts."

:)

"There's no time to find common ground when so many women are dying from lack of education, resources, and freedom. I believe the access to healthcare, education, and information trumps the rallies and cries for choice. True freedom is full access to the knowledge of health, consequence, givings and sacrifice of our actions. Why are we so damn staunch in our fight for abortion and so up in arms when a physician is murdered? Albeit, it's a tragedy, but LOOK AT WHAT WOMEN IN THIS WORLD ARE ENDURING.

But as so many have reiterated to me, when I speak of vision and freedom in regard to reproductive health and 'choice,' it becomes 'a whole other conversation.'

As long as it remains a whole other conversation, it will never be our reality."

"Well, yes, sharing is nice, and yes, it is good to focus on who people are rather than what they look like. But…

I read that last 'value' as a paean to conformity. You had better look like every one else. Don’t you dare stand out and be in the least flamboyant. Don’t celebrate any special talents and abilities you have – make sure you fit in, Fit In, FIT IN. It’s not a lesson in sharing and caring – it’s a lesson in conformity. I read it this way because the Rainbow Fish must change who he is in order to be accepted by the community. What kind of a message is that to give to small children?"

"And finally, Salon correctly points out that Fox News demagogue Bill O'Reilly has been waging a non-stop verbal war on Dr Tiller for years now. After calling everyone from Michael Moore to the DailyKos bloggers 'terrorist apologists' and worse–I think it's now Bill's turn to wear the title of TERRORIST APOLOGIST, since his incendiary and inflammatory screeds have everything to do with WHY Dr Tiller was in the right-wing cross-hairs.

There were only three doctors in the entire country (and now only two) who did late-term abortions. Why do we only know the name of Dr Tiller? Largely because Bill O'Reilly was obsessed with him, in particular."

"As a libertarian Democrat who’s been known to vote Republican, I have the nerve to still call myself a feminist. I’ve never seen a convincing demonstration that a regulated capitalist economy with a top total tax bracket below fifty percent isn’t in the best interests of women collectively. I think there are very persuasive reasons to believe regulated capitalism is the best way for people of all classes and colors and circumstances to freely move within income and opportunity classes, and that the utopian dreams invoked by a big government model are likely to perpetuate existing stratifications to the detriment of those less fortunate. I believe there are happy mediums which would allow economic helping hands to address unequal privilege, without an unwieldy system which could disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation."

"When survival is at its most uncertain, it’s women’s pragmatism that makes them take whatever means there are to survive. Men give up and become couch-potatoes because the world doesn’t appreciate them, or they shoot themselves. Women get out and get to work. Part of it is low expectations – women’s lives are supposed to suck. When things come to a bad pass, women don’t feel betrayed by the universe. It’s expected. They simply hunker down and try to figure out how to make the best of things. Men, on the other hand, are taught early on that the world is their oyster. When they don’t succeed, it’s a very personal and very ego-bruising blow. When they aren’t the natural masters of everyone around them, they don’t know how to mold their personalities and presence to fit. This is something it was part of feminism to break down, because the ideal of masculinity harms men as well."

A must-read

:(

"And I’m in total shock. This is the first time an abortion provider has been murdered in over a decade. I have friends who work in abortion clinics. This is terrosism. And right now, I just don’t have the words."