Why don’t these ‘Women Against Feminism’ get their sweet asses back in the kitchen? Robyn Pennacchia, Death and Taxes, July 15, 2014
I say, if you’re a woman opposed to feminism, then you should damn well put your money where your mouth is. Stay the hell home and have babies, why don’t you? Don’t vote. Don’t wear pants. Don’t spit in the face of everything feminism has given you and then continue to take advantage of the fruits of that labor. You’re like spoiled children complaining about your parents while living off of a trust fund they gave you.
Women Who are Ambivalent about Women Against Women Against Feminism, Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess, July 21, 2014
Feminism is inherently good. It’s not even close to perfect and still needs lots of work and sometimes it gets all fucked up and backward and awful but that doesn’t mean it’s not still worth fighting for. Now go back and replace “Feminism” with “The human race”. It works, right?. That’s because feminists are made of human. Men and women. In fact, one of my favorite feminists is Sir Patrick Stewart.
I’m not saying you can’t choose to not be a feminist but know what you’re choosing. Don’t make a decision about a group based on the most radical beliefs of a group. Don’t get defensive if you get deeper and are exposed to difficult ideas about intersectionality and race and gender and colonialism and patriarchy and male liberation. Just listen. Some of it will make sense. Some of it won’t. Some of it will later when you’re a different person. Some of it you’ll change your mind about throughout your life and the world will change too. Some of it is bullshit. Some of it is truth. All of it is worth listening to.
I Don’t Care If You Like It, Rebecca Traister, New Republic, July 16, 2014
This comfort with group assessment of femininity in turn reminds me of the ease with which women’s choices regarding their bodies, futures, health, sex, and family life are up for public evaluation. Women are labeled as good or bad, as moral or immoral, by major religions and “closely held corporations,” whose rights to allow those estimations to dictate their corporate obligations are upheld over the rights of the women themselves by high courts.
It has lately been made perfectly clear, for example, that while in many places women should not be allowed—and increasingly are not allowed—to run their own independent calculations about whether or not to get abortions, other people, unspecified people standing outside clinics, should be allowed—are now allowed—to get in those women’s faces and publicly render their judgments and voice their opinions about those women and their circumstances.
These days, law enforcement can comfortably deem a Tennessee mother unfit and jail her for having taken methamphetamine while pregnant. Authorities can condemn—by arrest and the removal of her child to foster care—South Carolina mother Debra Harrell, who allowed her nine-year-old daughter to play at the park while she worked at McDonald’s. It’s such a comfortable pose, gathering around women and deciding what we think of them—hot or not, alluring or tragic, moral or immoral, responsible or irresponsible, capable of consent or incapable of consent, maternal or neglectful.
What Are Mothers to Do? How a New Tennessee Law Criminalizes Pregnancy and Promotes Religion, Merrill Miller, TheHumanist.com, July 21, 2014
Ostensibly, the law should encourage pregnant women who are addicts to seek treatment. However, with the threat of imprisonment if they come forward hanging over their heads, most women are actually deterred from finding addiction help. Tennessee also currently has a shortage of drug treatment facilities. This, coupled with the state’s failure to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act makes treatment difficult to access, especially for poor women living in rural areas. A Google search of counseling centers for drug addiction in the state also reveals that the majority of these facilities are faith-based, which can be alienating to atheist, humanist and other nontheist women who may be seeking help for an addiction. If Tennessee wants to assist pregnant women who are addicted to drugs in finding treatment, the more logical response might be to increase access to healthcare facilities, including secular addiction counseling centers that rely on scientifically-based forms of treatment. Shaming women for suffering from the disease of addiction and frightening them with threats of imprisonment will not help them have healthy pregnancies.
