The Pink Politico: feminism

They've Gone Insane, They've Gone Insane, They've Thrown that (Hobby Lobby) Glitter and Made It Rain: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, The Notorious R.B.G., and the Sub-Human Race

7:15 PM

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) was a means, by the legislative body, disallowing the imposition of burden on persons exercising their religious freedoms by the government. RFRA established a two-tiered standard that mandated: (1) that a burden may be imposed only when furthering a compelling government interest, and (2) such is only applicable when the government uses the least restrictive means possible.

Today, #SCOTUS published their Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (please pronounce as HOB-BAY LOB-BAY, throughout the course of reading this post) decision; it was a decision that rocked faith, feminism, and fertility (too, much? Nah!).

The majority stated that the Affordable Care Act [aka ACA aka Obamacare] mandate that employers cover the cost of contraceptives in their health insurance policies was a violation of RFRA. The majority said that “persons” (we’ll come back to this later) are being burdened by this mandate, and that it doesn’t matter that those “persons” aren’t actually at all persons, nor does it matter that those “persons” are for-profit corporations.

The majority opinion said: “RFRA’s text shows that Congress designed the statute to provide very broad protection for religious liberties… like Congress meant wicked broad, super broad, like so broad it can apply to anything and anything, yes anything - actually, let’s just be clear, Congress only meant it to apply to things.”

Hmm… Okay, you caught me, so maybe I added in that second part (whoops!), but do you see what I’m saying? Are you picking up what I’m putting down people?!

The majority called out the dissent for stating that corporations can’t be considered people because they “cannot exercise…religion” and giving no further explanation… the majority initially said “dem silly ladies i.e. sub-persons with whom we, the majority, i.e. actual persons, i.e. men, share the bench with, doe – are all cute and confused” – Hmmm, actually maybe that line didn’t make the final version of the published decision.

Hmm… wait. What? #WaitWhat I’m confused.

Ah, yes, I remember now. See the majority stated that the definition of “personhood” included people and corporations.

You’ve seen this before – remember that whole Citizens United thing? That time when SCOTUS said that there was such a thing as “corporate personhood.”

(Just to quickly recap: “Corporate Personhood” as identified by the Supreme Court has officially made it easier for businesses to vote and exercise religious freedom than it has persons… as in like people-persons, like person persons….)

By allowing business to take on the morality of persons, they are allowing such personal and moral decisions to be more easily and more readily made by “persons” than by women, i.e., the Supreme Court has made female personhood, less “person-y” than “persons” (aka the inanimate entities once known as businesses).

Gosh, ya stinkin’ Pink Politico this isn’t an attack on women, I mean HELLO! the entire Hobby Lobby legal team was made up of women. This is about religious freedom! (cue U.S.A., U.S.A. chant in the distance).

But you see my dear reader, it is. That is exactly what it is.

By deciding in favor Hobby Lobby, SCOTUS has said that I, in my state of autonomy, as a human being with a beating heart, as a woman, as a person who actually faces the decisions surrounding reproductive health (i.e. as someone with female biology), am not able or capable, nor are my rights worth protecting.

In making this decision the Court reinforced “urban legends” of birth control and contraceptives.

The Court stated that the Christian belief that life begins at the moment of conception is violated by the birth control mandate… Hmmm… that’s weird SCOTUS, because if you’re taking birth control – there is not moment of conception, that’s actually the whole point of birth control. This one sweeping statement affirmed the super-dooper untrue notion that birth control is the same as an abortion, and it simply is not. The Pro-Life Generation movement fails to recognize that taking birth control, in and of itself, is in fact a parenting decision. The decision, NOT TO PARENT, is a decision, and one that demands respect and security.

In making this decision the Court dangerously solidifies that birth control and reproductive health are separate entities than “regular” health. “Health” regards personal decisions, whereas reproductive health decisions are obviously for the entire community. Yet oddly enough, healthy women in their early twenties often utilize their GYN as a PCP because their gynecological health is so closely their “general” health… #GASP

**Please note here that Viagra is still covered by your religiously bound for-profit insurances packages… #PraiseHands #PreachHands

I’d encourage the majority Justices to take a sexual and health education class, but seeing as how sex education, by law, neither has to be scientifically or medically accurate, why on earth would I expect the decisions of the Supreme Court to be?!?! #CanIGetanAMEN

Notorious R.B.G. (Canna get a “what, what” for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and her 35 page dissent), marked the majority decision as a “minefield,” placing the rights and civil liberties of all persons at risk, and challenging the majority with what would be next:

“Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today's decision."

Does Hobby Lobby and those like it, via their “sincere Christian beliefs” reserve the right to exception from accusations and convictions of marital rape or other means of sexual assault (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) or what about discriminate against female employees for working outside of their homes (Titus 2:3-4)?

When will it end? Where does it end? What if these things happen?!

While conservative bodies shout “No, none of those things are possible” from the hilltops, we must ask WHY they are not possible. They are not possible because a group of men said they were not possible. Using dicta they insinuated that such restrictions would only reach as far as up the dress of the nearest lady worker, and not farther or beyond… Oh gee, thanks.

But, we are at risk. We are in danger. In a nation founded on the principles of religious freedom and fair representation – when our highest judicial body used the “SINCERE CHRISTIAN BELIEFS” test as an actual and measureable means, our nation suffers. Suffers because an impactful decision was made by 5 men. 5 men that will never have to make these decisions, 5 men who see birth control as purely sexual, 5 men who don’t want women be at all sexual. 5 men made a choice that would and will never effect them, but one that touched more than half of our national (*cough* and global *cough*) population.

Once again, the majority populace has been marginalized by our minority representation – our representation in Congress and our representation on our nation’s highest court of law.

The notion of “sincere Christian belief” amazes me in this context because Jesus – ya know, ya know, the guy that started this whole thing – may not have had a worldly knowledge of birth control or reproductive health in modern science, he did caution the world with this:

"And Jesus answering unto them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's, and they marveled at Him…" [Mark 12:17, KJV]

Freedom of religion, my friends, includes freedom from it. Jesus himself suggested that the practices and regulations of secular laws should be followed and the pieces of your heart and soul, as so you belong to God, should go to God.

I'm fine if the government doesn’t want to impose a burden on the religious freedoms of others, all I ask is that in the mean time, they do not impose a burden on the status and rank of my personhood.

#AllMenCan

Of Mice and Misogynist: The War on Women

8:34 PM

How do we safely and effectively mobilize women in objecting to the presence and practice of Men’s Rights Associations (MRAs), when the motives and actions being protested are those that place women at risk of physical harm and emotional trauma?

Many that sympathized with Elliot Rodger blamed the “friend zone,” blamed the women in Rodgers’ life for not having sexual relations with him – they blamed women collectively for the tragic events of Memorial Day Weekend shooting, suggesting that it was purely a response to the denied access to their bodies. If women had “done their job,” the sexual frustration, which caused the horrific events that took lives and compromised others, never would have occurred.

I would (and will) assert that misogyny, and not the resounding “no’s” from women in Rodger’s life were to blame.

The men that individually or in their association to others, that act as the performers and perpetuators of misogyny are to blame.

Elliot Rodger is to blame. His sense of entitlement and privilege, specifically to the body of another is to blame.

Instead of challenging the culture or examining the roots of Rodger’s evils, waves of commentary regarding social media activism run rampant. Even discourse of millennial hook-up culture has over shadowed in some instances the horrors of the actual event.

Misogyny is so deeply rooted within our culture, a constant thread in global and American history, that we may not even recognize when we are contributing to its ideologies.

And so, it is with this that I provide my own commentary to the pile:

The “Friend Zone” is a misogynist product living in a feminist ideology.

The innate and natural desires of men to engage sexually with women should be protected and honored – after all, it is the most natural of systems in the world, says they. When women “friend zone” men, they deny the natural progression of male-female dynamics, placing everyone, even themselves at risk.

This is where misogyny lives.

This is of course to say, that all male-female relationships begin with the assumption and presumption that sex is able to happen, and more likely than not will happen.

The “Friend Zone,” by our cultural standards isn’t where society in the masses begins, but instead where individuals seemingly end up.

Speaking from my living-that-twenty-something-kinda-life soapbox, I never hear of anyone “leaving” the “friend zone,” only of the definiteness of individuals being entered into it.

Rodger’s sympathizers blame this mental, emotional, and in relative terms, physical domain for the hurt and harm caused just a few weeks ago.

The Friend Zone is where sexuality goes to die, as one-by-one men are placed there by women (and in this regard we hardly ever hear of men placing women in this undesirable plot). A chosen few are moved from left to right – they are slid down the scale.

This is where misogyny lives.

We are so culturally included to misogyny that we, collectively, have accepted this idea.

We have accepted, on some level, that men are moved into the Friend Zone, and not out of it. In doing so we have acknowledged that sexuality is the only dynamic in which male and female relationships develop.

In essence, the “Friend Zone” was developed out of the reality that women could in fact be friends with their male counterparts without wanting, needing, or exclusively seeking out a sexual relationship.

And it is in this that we must recognize how dangerous misogyny is. The term “friend zone” wasn’t popular identified until the early 2000’s. Coincidentally, language and dialog surrounding female sex and sexuality began to change as college campuses saw the beginning of the uptrend of women.

Misogyny kills. Literally. In the last three decades, all but one (61/62) mass murders have been executed by men. Of those sixty-one? 90% are white.

“What are you trying to say?” you ask.

I’m trying to say: Misogyny kills. Literally.

Most victims of such killings? Women. The most common target of these shootings? A current or former wife or girlfriend.

Misogyny is not a question for red states or blue states.

Misogyny is a culturally institutionalized hatred that has been so deeply integrated into our society that many can’t begin to see it, even when it's surrounding them.

While women make up more than half of the global population, their status as a people, as a body, as a force has still more than not gone unchanged.

Last week a high school in Utah came under attack for photo-shopping images of young women to impose more "modest" clothing on their photos. Shoulders were covered, sleeves were made longer, and any exposed cleavage was covered up.

Misogyny lives here.

For generations women have been told to cover their bodies. Student handbooks indicate that "too low" or "too short" is a dangerous distraction to the educational environment. And while the dialog surround the sexualization of children and related child psychology may validate the utilization of dress codes, misogynistic seeds are planted as one only side of the dynamic is addressed: there is no objection in our student handbooks to the objectification of female bodies by young impressionable high school men.(The “she was asking for it” mentality lives here.)

We fail to address this dangerous institution because more often than not conservative forces are quick to denote feminists as their ideological enemy.

We fail to address this harmful and hurtful status when we impose “traditional” notions of masculinity on young men, identifying sex as a status, and not as a privilege of consent in (or outside) the parameters of a relationship.

MRA leader, Paul Elam said to writer Jaclyn Friedman: “I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.”

This is where misogyny lives.

We fail to address this oppressive manic because while many are willing to say the elevation of ideologies of individuals like Paul Elam or Elliot Rodger are wrong, it is still a vastly radical notion to push for gender parity at home, in the work place, and on our city streets.

Chelsea Clinton

A "Bump" In the Road: Female Politicians and Family Foundations

8:38 PM

Last week Chelsea Clinton announced that she and her husband are expecting their first child later this year. In less than 10 minutes the first tagline began to stream: "How Will Grandchild Affect Presidential Run for Hillary?"

About 15 minutes after that, a much more insightful line began to roll: "How Will Growing Family Affect Presidential Run… and is it Sexist to Ask?"

This is not a political issue. This does not belong to one party or another. This doesn't even belong to one media "wing" or another… CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC… all of 'um, are guilty.

Women and girls have been failed by the media - yet again. This is not new. Unfortunately, it is also not history. Today, right now, in 2014 - women their intelligence, their character, their leadership, their bodies, are still subject to a mockery via all forms of mass media.

I sometimes find myself falling into the trap; I find myself truly believing that "we've come so far" and that unlike the generations of my mother and grandmothers, I will not be limited by my biology.

And then… and then, all of a sudden, the glass ceiling seems all encompassing - it becomes more of a glass room. The walls are moving in and the ceiling dropping lower - the more we push and resist, the more the oppressive fights back. And then, the question that has plagued generations of working women, of educated women comes back to call…

But this time, this question: this is more than selling burgers using women's bodies, more than objectification… this time, the media is trying to send a message, that mothering - that parenting - that being a foundation of one's family is a sign on weakness.

Needless to say such sentiments made me pretty angry… "IS IT SEXIST TO ASK?!" ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME…"

Needless to say, this got my mind spinning… So, I dashed to my computer, and turned on the Google machine… what about my sitting president? What about our nation's presidents of the past? How have their family lives impacted their political run? How many Mr. Presidents had their families grow? How many times had the First Family grown and how many times had it been discussed as a concern by the media?

Well, as it turns out… most forms of mass media give no cares about the First Family's growth or that of the potential First Family… as it turns out… it has never occurred to most people that the addition of a grandchild (or even child) would play a role in the ability or potential for a candidate to perform adequately in their role.

It has never been asked of male candidates how they'll balance their time between family and the campaign trail? Would they leave the White House for the delivery of their grand/child? Would their (grand)child be negatively impacted by the fact that their (grand)parent wouldn't be available to tuck them in every night? Was there no sounding alarm that their missing dinner on a regular basis may place their (grand)child at an increased risk for engaging in risky behavior like drug and alcohol abuse?

I put together this chart to help illustrate how common families (and growing families for that matter) are when it comes to the hallowed halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue… (Actually, growing First Families are even more historic than the White House!)

Turns out, that the media cares a whole lot more about female politicians and political candidates when they're in this position. Democratic or Republican… it doesn't seem to matter… Being a mother… being a grandmother is a sign of weakness. Being a mother and a grandmother makes you seemingly incapable.

And as this is a concern, and as this is an opinion, I just wanted to say this: throughout our history the role of women has shifted, but the role of a mother has been ever endearing. For many years mothers ran the home and many continue to do so today. In one sense Forbes Magazine estimates that the contemporary Stay-at-Home parent has a job inclusive in scale and skill enough to be valued at over $114,000. In another, more and more women are becoming the "head of household" being the high-wage warner in their home, particularly as more and more women graduate from college.

From cooking and cleaning, to balancing the check book and paying the bills: mothers have ensured food has gotten placed on many a table. Mothers, have kept the family budget balanced and families within their means. Mothers have taken on the roles and responsibilities of teachers and tutors. Mothers invest in our education, and encourage our creativity. If "that's all" that these women are capable of, maybe we should be asking why we haven't leaped at the chance to have a (grand)mother in the White House a little sooner.

So maybe, maybe at the end of the day it's time to realize that a little mothering wouldn't be so bad for a country on the tail of an economic crisis. Maybe a little mothering is just what a country beyond a decade of war needs, maybe a little mothering would help the two sides of the aisle get along just a little bit better ("If you can't play nicely you're going to be separated").

Not only are women capable of "taking care" of their children and their families, but they are intelligent and capable enough to "take care" of our country.

These women, these people, deserve the respect and dignity that motherhood as well as personhood has entitled them to.

Cosmopolitan

Dear Cosmo, Woman-to-Woman Belittling Is NEVER Weirdly Worth It, Sorority Life or Not

11:02 AM

Dear Cosmopolitan,

I will begin by saying I am not a subscriber to your magazine. Being the prim and prissy individual that I am, even picking up an issue in line at the grocery store with headlines like “Blah Blah Blah Sex Tricks” or “Blah Blah Blah Eyebrow-Waxing” makes me blush beyond all reason… See I can’t even write a fake headline because I’m so squirmy already.

But, to be fair - I’ll be honest: there is some sacred notion of sitting under the dryer with foils in my hair, chatting with my hairdresser about her ex-boyfriend while flipping the pages of your arguably iconic magazine. The experience is enhanced by the fact that, that particular issue has its mailing label ripped off, and soon thereafter we partake in a traditional reading-aloud of the horoscopes in the back.

I am not a subscriber to your magazine, but I am a sorority woman. A sorority woman that was hurt, and more so offended by your recent article "Confession: Why Getting Hazed By My Sorority Was Weirdly Worth It."

I was never hazed during my time as a collegiate member of a sorority and now as a proud alumnae, and former employee of that very same organization, do everything I can to fight this kind of behavior - and the mentality that the author of the article projects.

I am sick of television shows, movies, and general mass media implying that I was. Implying that I don't have the respect and dignity not to engage in such behavior, or a notion of human dignity as to not act in that way towards others.

To be a self-proclaimed woman of values, to assert myself to the expectations of my chapter and its heritage, how could I have been hazed? How could I have have built my character or grown into my own if I was always worried about others: their hurtful words, their painful actions, or otherwise emotional trauma.

I have never allowed myself to be hazed, nor would I ever haze another woman.

Hazing it never okay. Hazing is never worth it. It is never weirdly worth it.

While many of your (now enraged) readers are members of NPC, NPHC, and local sororities, many are not. What hurts me most about your article by Tess Koman, was that it was and will be read by so many non-members.

The reality is: I know my own truth. I know my experience. I know my value and that of those around me. I know that I will never convince the world of the true value and depth of my experience.

But there are women who may, within the next several years, look to join an organization like mine. There may be women who, because of this story, will never join an organization and have the opportunity to have an experience like mine. And for that, my heart aches.

Women everywhere, on every track and path of life should be taught to lift one another up, how to empower each other, how to engage with one another.

The woman-to-woman mental emotional combat that Koman wrote about is far too common, and not just in college. Clips from Mean Girls flash in my mind as I think of the would-be friends in high school that “would only like you if…” or the teammates that encouraged you to engage in behavior that was less than your best, and less than the best for you.

This mean girl behavior should not and cannot be tolerated. Coming from “friends” or teammates, or sisters, or band-mates, or anyone – and that’s putting totally aside the fact that hazing is a criminal offense, not just a bad habit.

And that’s what you did. That’s what you have subjected women to, Cosmopolitan. You told your readers that for an “end” they should tolerate any means necessary. I think that translates into an awfully dangerous analogy, don’t you?

Your readers, your non-readers, all women of the world deserve to be wanted and valued. They deserve, I deserve, two-way friendships, empathy, compassion, and courage. We deserve to have people in our lives who challenge us to walk taller, speak louder, be more generous, and be more of ourselves, and to be happy with that person; happier than we ever thought possible.

Your stance in publishing this article sends a message that is hurtful to the women who value the trust and bonds of our fraternal relationships, and oppresses the notion of female empowerment in relationships far beyond those of the sorority house.

Fraternally,

Mary

Pages

They've Gone Insane, They've Gone Insane, They've Thrown that (Hobby Lobby) Glitter and Made It Rain: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, The Notorious R.B.G., and the Sub-Human Race

Of Mice and Misogynist: The War on Women

A "Bump" In the Road: Female Politicians and Family Foundations

Dear Cosmo, Woman-to-Woman Belittling Is NEVER Weirdly Worth It, Sorority Life or Not

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