The “Shut Up” Tactic

I thought I would address why I named this blog “Open Up.”  Very simply, it’s the opposite of  “shut up” which is what many of our oppressors want us to do.  It seems like more than anything, when a woman speaks her mind she is subject to a unique set of character assaults.  These include:

1) She is a slut/whore/prostitute
2) She is undesirable to men.
3) She is ugly.
4) She is masculine.
5) She is stupid.
6) She is nagging or whiney.
7) She uses her sexuality to manipulate men.
8) She is money hungry.
9) She is aggressive and bitchy and hates everyone, especially men.
10) She is uptight.

Despite the fact that some of these are contradictory, they are almost completely exclusive to women.  Interestingly enough, the biggest insult men is to call him a woman in some way or another.

As of late, Sandra Fluke is a perfect example of this.

As it stands right now, the name Sandra Fluke is nationally known not because of anything she has done personally, but because she has been insulted for standing up for an issue she felt strongly about.

Earlier this year, Ms. Fluke addressed a committee in the House regarding the issue Church-run businesses were having with the requirement to mandating coverage of contraception in the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).
I’ll spare rehashing the details because by now, I’m sure we all know them, but as soon as she spoke out, the shit storm against her started.

Most famously, Conservative radio personality, Rush Limbaugh accused her of being a slut and a prostitute because she wants the American people to pay for her to have sex and exhibiting a complete lack of knowledge of how birth control pills work, said that she must be having so much sex it costs $1,000 per year for contraception.

Any woman that has ever taken birth control knows that’s not how it works, but that’s actually not the point.  Limbaugh continues the next day saying that he wants all women on birth control to video tape themselves having sex so he can watch since his tax dollars are going to go to paying for their birth control.

This is also entirely untrue, but I’ll skip rehashing the whole thing once again and continue with my example.

So, this is a perfect example, right?  She spoke her mind and in response was called a prostitute and a slut.

But wait…was she just called a slut and a prostitute because of the topic she was advocating?

That could be true, until you look at a more recent jab by Monica Crowley of Fox News when she learned that Ms. Fluke was engaged.  She tweeted, “To a man? ‘Sandra Fluke Announces Engagement'”

Soooo, she’s a slut and a prostitute, but she’s a lesbian?
Okay, being accused of being a lesbian is offensive if you harbor homophobic ideas or if you realize that the intention of that comment was to associate homosexuality with negativity, which is done far too often.

Either way, it seems we have another “shut up” tactic here.

I know this is scary, but put yourself in Ms. Crowley’s shoes and think about what would have made her post that.  Was it a genuine question?  Had there been previous reports that Sandra Fluke was a lesbian?  Not that I know of, and there has been plenty of insults thrown her way that allude to the contrary (the whole slut, prostitute, having so much sex she needs tons of birth control thing).  So it wasn’t a question…

Crowley claims it was a joke.  Okay, let’s try that.
“Funny story:  I was reading that Sandra Fluke announced her engagement today and I thought, ‘to a man?’  Haha…wait…that’s not really funny.

So either she really sucks at telling jokes, or she was implying that either Sandra Fluke is a lesbian or that she’s surprised she has a boyfriend.

I suppose this isn’t surprising considering these are the types of insults women like to use against other women.  “You’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re not pretty, no man wants you”

Either way, throwing insults at someone is what people do when logic and valid arguments escape them.  It’s their attempt to make us feel bad so we shut up.

So if you’re speaking your mind and people are calling you names like slut, whore, ugly, stupid, you know you’re getting under their skin and they would like nothing more than for you to shut up.

So instead of shutting up and retreating, open up and let your voice be heard!

Resources:

Huffington Post Article about Monica Crowley’s tweet.

Timeline for Limbaugh vs. Fluke Story

 

Chubby Girls Need Love Too

I’m going to talk about something that’s very personal for me that I didn’t realize was a legitimate form of prejudice in our society until recently…

Sizeism against overweight/obese people.

Huh?  Yeah, you read that right.

Clueless Person: But aren’t fat people, like, asking for it?  They like eat too much…it’s unhealthy, and they look disgusting…just because they’re lazy.

That’s probably what most people think because up until a few months ago, that’s what I thought too…and I’m a fat person…how’s that for some good healthy self-hate?

The crazy thing is, I have been overweight for most of my life, which basically means I have been teased just as long.  I remember crying my eyes out in the second grade and being too mortified to tell my teacher that the kids in the class were making fun of me because I was fat.  By the time I got to junior high school and high school, I hated it and I would very rarely go.  The crazy thing is, all this time I was attending a Catholic school.  How’s that for Christian attitude, huh?

I switched schools and eventually learned not to give a shit what anyone thinks about me, but it was after years of toughening up.  I had no choice, right?  People are going to make fun of people, that’s just how it works.  And it continues even today…hating fat people is still considered okay.  Until recently, I thought it was my fault.  I thought, well, they’re right…if I just lost weight, people would stop hating me.  I can’t say I’m experiencing a prejudice when I’m in this situation because I like food and I can’t control myself when I eat, right?

But then I started thinking about just how ridiculous that is.  Am I really saying it’s okay for people to hate fat people just because they’re fat?  Whoa, wait a minute…

Last I checked, the element of choice has nothing to do with whether or not someone is justified in their prejudice.

Look, I know that carrying a whole lot of weight on my body is unhealthy.  My battle with food is ongoing – whether I’m dieting or between diets, I am always thinking about food.  I don’t know if it’s an addiction (the rabid dog cravings for comfort food last night tell me it just might be) or not, but I do know that wherever I am in my journey, I don’t deserve to be insulted, made fun of, looked down on, or criticized.  I do enough of that myself, thanks.

What is the allure anyway?

Is this it?  Do you feel cool because you laughed at a picture of a woman unable to button her pants?  Wow…now I just feel sorry for you…

So this is my basic message:  Prejudice against people for lifestyle choices is still prejudice.  So quit being a hater!

I would much rather people hate me because I’m a bitch.

Wading Through All the B.S.

I came across this article on the NPR website talking about how facts are dead.  Well, shit…

This basically confirmed what I have been afraid of and I think we all really know.  I don’t know about everyone else, but when I debate with someone, I do my research so that what I’m saying has factual basis.  I could say I want to keep my integrity in tact, but mostly I just don’t want to look like an idiot.

Here’s the problem though:  Each time I get into a debate/argument/discussion with someone about anything, I spend so much time fact-checking that it literally takes FOREVER.  It generally goes something like this:

1) I read an article/opinion piece that comes up on my newsfeed on Facebook.
2) I look at the source.  If it’s from a notoriously liberal or conservative publication, I start frantically searching for other news sources that say the same things, then I start searching for news sources that dispute the previous articles.  Then I try Politifact.  If it’s about a Bill in the House or even in an individual state, I try to find an actual copy of the bill and read it for myself.
3) Attempt to understand all the information I have rapidly shoved in my head.

4) Post my opinion with an article that I think is the most factual on my Facebook.

Then, when someone posts an opinion disputing mine, I look a little bit like this:

Especially if they have written a crap ton of stuff from their own visit to the great information genius that is Google…because then the process goes like this:
1) Open up a word document and put ideas there so I won’t lose everything if something screwy happens to my internet.
2) Starting from the beginning, write about each one of their statements and why I disagree or agree with them, then find sources to back me up.  I work for an attorney and I went to college where I was expected to have factual evidence to back up anything I said in a paper or project…and I’m originally from Missouri…you could say I was born to say “Show Me”
3) Write a reply that frequently looks like the abstract to a dissertation…I’m talking two pages, single spaced…HOLY…that’s a long reply!  Uh, yeah.
4) Continue the cycle – reply, read, reply, read until one of us stops.  Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s them…and each argument ends with the realization that we each have our opinions and they aren’t going to change.  So all that crap was for nothing.

Hey, here’s a question…ever been in an argument with someone and no matter what factual information is presented to them, they believe even more strongly in their belief than before?  Yeah, that would be the Backfire Effect.

So the more you argue with someone, the more they are going to continue believing exactly what they want to believe.

Awwwwwesome.

So we all feel much more comfortable being surrounded by viewpoints that feed our current beliefs, a perfect example of another psychological term, Confirmation Bias.

So we have gotten to a point where we don’t really know what the truth is and we’re all surrounded by the propaganda and illusions of the party we generally align ourselves with. We have quite successfully created a matrix of our own making.

Could We Have Some Real Compassion Up In Here?

It seems lately that one doesn’t have to go far to find instances of the government’s “War on Women”.
The one I want to talk about today is the “Personhood” bills that define the beginning of life as either the day of conception or the date of the woman’s last period, or some other date depending on the state in which you live.
We all know that these bills were created for the purpose of criminalizing abortion – for the doctors that perform them and the women that get them, that’s kind of a given, and I’m not really wanting to talk about abortion right now.  I know it’s a heated argument, some people are pro-life, some are pro-choice, no one is pro-abortion – no one is sitting around on Friday night saying things like, “Hey!  Know what would be fun?  An abortion!  That would be fun!”

The thing that is quite frankly terrifying me right now is the idea that it might be possible to criminalize women who have natural miscarriages.  Maybe the left is panic-mongering right now, I don’t know, but honestly, whether intentional or not, I am panicked.

I am terrified that this is looking more and more like a modern-day witch hunt.  I cannot imagine the kind of pain a woman would have to endure if she has to report that she had a miscarriage and then has to go about proving that it wasn’t intentional.  Talk about kicking someone while they’re down.

I have been frantically searching any news source I can and reading the statutes all morning just to try to control my fears, but I haven’t really found much.  I know we always need to be cautious of the slippery slope argument, but I can’t help but worry what might become of all this restriction.

I’ll be honest, I used to be pro-life.  I had a t-shirt, went to a rally, everything, until I really started thinking about it.  If abortion were illegal, it wouldn’t stop them from happening, it would just force women to take unsafe, unsanitary, and possibly deadly measures to discontinue their pregnancies.   I may never choose an abortion for myself, but women that would need medical treatment to do so.  If they don’t, this happens…or this…or this.

See, here’s the thing about the slippery slope argument in this case.  If abortion is illegal or impossible to get, our future will be filled with women that don’t have to die.  I’m not just speaking from a hypothesis standpoint.  It happened before, it will happen again.  True, maybe there will be enough “underground” physicians that will keep some of them safe, and I can only hope.  One of the most eye-opening movies I ever saw on this is If These Walls Could Talk presented as an HBO special in 1996.

It depicted three women from three different decades dealing with the decision of whether or not to have an abortion.  I’m not really sure if the producers came from a pro-life or pro-choice perspective because negative things happened to the women that chose to abort, but either way, I came out of it more pro-choice than not.

One of the big problems I have with women of my generation is that we don’t realize that these are things we need to continue fighting for so we don’t lose them.  We become apathetic over the years and start thinking that an unplanned pregnancy will never happen to us, until of course it does and we’re faced with having to make this decision.  Sad thing is, by then, it might be too late.

Resources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/the-video-every-woman-has_b_1403714.html?ref=politics

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/02/miscarriage-death-penalty-georgia

http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-is-monitored-menstruation-next.html

Yes Sir!

***THIS ENTRY CONTAINS SOME MILD SPOILERS FROM FIFTY SHADES OF GREY BY EL JAMES.  DON’T READ IF YOU ARE WORRIED I MIGHT RUIN SOMETHING FOR YOU***

The whole world is buzzing about this book series…Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James….and let me just say, it is a hot one!  Kids, this is a far cry from the sparkly vampires…

In the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy, EL James weaves the tale of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey and their love story.  How they meet, how they fall in love, and how he likes to tie her up and flog her while they have sex…

 Wait…what?

Yup, that’s it…these two crazy kids engage in some Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM).  It’s all about this guy, a very wealthy and powerful young man with the sexual tastes of a Dominatrix and his sometimes not as willing Submissive girlfriend.   She is just a regular girl…in fact, she has absolutely no sense of what her sexual tastes are because before she meets Christian, she hasn’t had sex…of course, she catches up really quickly…let me just tell y’all this, there are lot of scorchingly hot sex scenes in this series.

Since this series is so wildly popular, everyone has been talking about it.    For example, I just read this article in Newsweek by Katie Roiphe about the series and other pop culture references that talks about women’s secret desires to be dominated and engage in rape fantasies even though they claim to want equality and fight against violence and how feminists must be all kinds of pissed off about this.

Hmmm….in all honestly, I’m not losing sleep…and I really don’t think anyone else is…in fact, I read this pretty kick ass article responding to the article over at Feministing.

Okay, can we just be grown ups for a minute and agree that sex is a physical expression engaged in to bring about pleasure and sometimes intimacy for all parties involved.  As long as it’s consensual, it’s all good if you ask me.  And as far as our sexual tastes reflecting what our personality is outside the bedroom, that’s complete and total crap in my little ole’ humble opinion.  Just because a woman wants to be spanked in the bedroom in the midst of a sexual experience does not mean she wants to be spanked or controlled in every day life.

Further, our fantasy life can be wildly different than our actual sex life and completely alien to our real life.  For example, who hasn’t had the fantasy of being in a bar, catching the eye of a gorgeous stranger, sauntering over to them with a come hither glance, gesturing them to follow you to have hot, sweaty no-strings attached sex up against the bathroom wall?

Anyone…?

Oh come on guys, don’t tell me it’s just me!  😉
Either way, sometimes a fantasy is just a fantasy, and other times it can be a helpful tool to allow us to explore things we wouldn’t normally explore…just as long as we have a safe word….

A War on Women! Being Waged by…Feminists? HTFO*…

*For those interested, HTFO stands for hold the fuck on…clever, right?

Anyway…it seems that the so very in thing to do this year when being accused of something is to say, “I know you are but what am I?”

How very Bart Simpson of you…hmmm….

So the latest following this trend is an editorial by a woman by the name of Phyllis Schlafly, who says that it is not Republicans waging a war on women, but feminists because they don’t think women should stay at home and raise their children even if they want to.
Well, if that isn’t counter-productive, I don’t know what is.

Let’s not even mention the notorious feminist haters like Rush Limbaugh…I think he’s been talking too…but I tend to try to ignore him.
Anyway, here’s my little bitty opinion on the whole thing…
The mommy wars have been going on for ages…ever since…I don’t know, the beginning of time, probably, women have been arguing over each other’s parenting styles and why theirs is the “right” way to do it…so let me ask this then.  Why?  Why ladies, why?

Why do we feel the need to validate our choice by making everyone think that it’s the best one for everyone?  Isn’t it enough be sure that our choice is the right one for us?  Sure, it’s the best one for you, hence the reason you picked it…but why do you need to put your values on someone else?  What works for you as a mother might not work for someone else as a mother.
Maybe I’m missing the whole point because I’m not a mother…maybe it’s a parent thing…everyone wants to be the best parent, and maybe they think their choice has to reflect what is best for their child, and what is best for their child has to be best for everyone’s child…and the whole thing explodes!

Whew…I know I feel better…
Okay, not really…

Let me say something here that a lot of people probably aren’t going to like…
Whether or not mothers work or stay home, breast feed or don’t, make them go to daycare or to grandma’s, etc, etc is a personal decision that has just as much to do with their personal beliefs and comfort levels than it does the “best interest of the child.”
I know we all like to put children first in this culture, but do we honestly think any of those things are going to have long-term negative or positive effects on these kids so much so that there will be no turning back…if we make the wrong decision, they’ll be juvenile delinquents!

…or an anti-social freak, or a fire-starter, or a bully, or a free-thinker!   Ahhhhhh!  Nooooooooo!  We can’t have that!

Actually, interestingly, I ran into this study that says it isn’t harmful to children to have mothers that work outside the home.  I would venture to say that it isn’t harmful to stay home either…except maybe for those kids that get a severe case of over-eye-rolling.

So let’s go back to the whole reason for this article…that feminists are being accused of only wanting women to work.
Well, in this woman’s defense, back in the 60’s and 70’s during the second wave, the message that women should work was a popular one in the movement, but look at it in the context of the time…the purpose of the movement then was to get middle-class women out of the home and in the workforce.  I can’t speak for these women because I am not a woman of that time, but I can imagine that in trying to be a voice for their gender, they wanted to make it clear that it was okay to come out of the house and pursue a career and that women are so much more than only one type of human being.  We haven’t had to fight for the right to be a mother.  They let us have that one.  We have had to fight to be everything else.
I think we needed that initial push, but over the years, our message has been more about the freedom we as women have to make our own choices…so it seems that Ms. Schlafly needs to catch up with the women’s movement since the 60’s and 70’s.  Maybe we can suggest some reading materials for her?  Maybe for Rush Limbaugh too?
After all, knowledge is power…

Fourth Wave Feminism?

What’s with the wave thing?  We’re talking about women, so is this like “surfing the crimson wave”?
Awww shit, I just showed my age…ugh…and so soon!

Confession: Yes, I saw this movie and loved it.  I still do…I watch it occasionally and relive  the hopes and dreams of my youth…being that I was only thirteen when this movie came out…they were my roll models…what can I say?  They were pretty, popular, and rich.  What’s not to like?  Okay, anyway…what is wrong with me?

I chastise myself with this woman giving me a stern look…okay…crap, why did I have to start this blog on a wacky day?  Ugh…sorry friends, you might not learn a whole lot from me today…bleh…

Back to Feminism…
There are three known waves of feminism…let me give you a quick and dirty description of each…

First Wave Feminism (19th to early 20th century)

This is the one that got us the right to vote in the United States.  Woo-hoo!
The first time women hopped up and said, “Our interests aren’t being represented…this is f-ed up.”  Okay, not really, but gaining the right to vote is one of the defining moments of this movement.  First wave heroes include Mary Wollstonecraft (the grandmother of British feminism), Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (Ya’ know, the same chick that has her own dollar?).

There is so much more to first wave feminism, but like I said, this is the quick and dirty version…soooo…on to the next one…

Second Wave Feminism (1950s to 1980s)

When you think about Women’s Lib, equal pay for equal work, and bra-burning (which is a myth – no bras were hurt in the making of this movement!) this is the movement that is on your mind. (Do I hear Willie Nelson singing softly in the background?)
This is the movement that fought for things like equal work rights, reproductive freedoms (including abortion rights), and fought against domestic violence.
The backlash from this movement can still be felt today.  Remember the bra-burning reference?  Oppressors came up with all kinds of stuff:  Feminists don’t shave their legs, they’re whores, they’re ugly, they’re going to hell, they’re baby killers, they need to lighten up – anything to attempt to derail the movement.  Sound familiar?  Yes, those terms are pretty much all used today…*sigh* they could at least be original.
Some Heroes: Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Bell Hooks.

Third Wave Feminism (1980’s – 2000’s?)

This is getting closer to our generation!  Aren’t you excited?  Well, you should be…do you want me to bring back stern-faced lady?  Didn’t think so…
Where the first and second waves laid the foundation, the third wave built and brought in from many different ways of thinking, reexamined previous feminist ideas, and moved away from the white middle-class issues to issues of all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic statuses.
It is thought to have been brought about by Rebecca Walker’s (Her mother is author Alice Walker) article, “Becoming the Third Wave” in response to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill  sexual harassment hearings.
Third wave feminists are “second generation feminists” – they grew up with the effects of the women’s movement from the second wave and this is their contribution.

I will be putting up a link page to information about each of these movements eventually – let us all hope that the beast that is procrastination doesn’t decide to make a meal of me…

Soooo…now that we have a quick and dirty working understanding of the women’s movement, let’s talk about today…

When I was in school, I only learned about the first three waves of feminism (and Pluto was a planet! ;)).  Here lately though, I have started to wonder…are we in the Fourth Wave of Feminism?

According to this, yes.

Wow…do you mean…because someone wrote a blog, all of a sudden, history will know us as Fourth Wave Feminists?  Hmm…well…maybe?
According to this article, the Fourth Wave started in 2008…hmm…the year Hilary Clinton began campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president…that sounds like a pretty damn nifty starting point if you ask me…

Hey look!  It’s another “Fourth Wave” Feminist…

Jessica Valenti is the founder of Feministing…a website for feminists today… and she also wrote a rockin’ book called The Purity Myth…

But, fickle label-hating generation that we are, maybe “fourth wave” feminists don’t want to be labeled as anything in particularly.  I think we all know who is hurt the most by this…

Yup…that’s right…
Label Maker: Why you no like me for?
Fourth Wave Feminists:  Sorry dude…we no like the labels!

Come join the unemployment line with the rest of us, buddy!  Or come visit me…I’ll entertain the idea that I’m going to start labeling stuff…just to abandon the idea in about a month…and you can take your place next to my scrapbooking kit, plastic fish bowl, and ball of yarn and crocheting needle.

Ugh…anyway…so the point of this first entry is…what should we, as the next generation of feminists, hope to accomplish?  Hmm…maybe that’s going to be one of the things I’ll talk about here…so here’s my plan for this blog….

I want a place to share issues mostly pertaining to women, somewhat pertaining to everyone else (read: men), and all pertaining to me….and maybe something will resonate with you…at least we can hope…otherwise, you just read this ramble for nothing…

HERE WE GO…