Barbara Lee
speaks for me:
Last week, House Republicans launched their latest assault on what I have been calling a War on Women. The so-called “Protect Life Act,” which passed the House, would harm the lives of women in this country, particularly low-income women and women of color who have become central targets of this shameful agenda. [...]
This offensive assault on women’s health would force coverage to be dropped from the state exchanges, cutting off millions of women from affordable, comprehensive healthcare. In fact, this would make it virtually impossible for any healthcare plan to offer abortion coverage. Unbelievably, it even allows medical professionals to refuse care to any woman who might need an abortion to protect her own life. [...]
Rather than sidelining women, we must give young women and girls the right tools to be safe and healthy and prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place. This is why next month I will introduce legislation to expand comprehensive sex education at elementary and secondary schools and universities to ensure federal funds are spent on effective, age-appropriate, medically accurate programs. [...]
It is shameful that some are threatened by our hard-fought gains. And it is disgraceful that they are actively working to turn the clock back on women, on choice and on our access to healthcare. We must reject this dangerous agenda, and fight to stop this war on women.
The good, the bad and the ugly below the fold.
- This is just so ugh: The Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street. Jill Filipovic at Feministe has an awesome response to that:
So I know I’m all humorless and feministy about this, and why can’t dudes just enjoy the view at a protest without some lady getting all salty about it? It’s nothing against beautiful women — beautiful women are fantastic! It’s the dipshit fratboy vibe of “Ohhh yeah, let’s go to this protest thing because there are hot chicks there, and then we can make a video where we sound kind of, like, deep, you know? Because we can like talk about community and stuff and how even though these hot chicks got us there, we realized that there’s something, like, important happening, you know dude? I’ll wear my favorite Livestrong bracelet.” It’s the idea that women are at OWS to be oggled by dudes, or to inspire some polo-shirted nitwit to Care About Something More [than titties] (TM). It’s that he’s taking pictures of women without their permission or knowledge and posting them on the internet as masturbatory fodder. The one upside is that the Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street tumblr is like Steven Greenstreet’s very own I’m A Creep bat-signal (he may also be a 9/11 truther? Lots of warning signs here). May he never get laid again.
- In case you missed it, Romney's legal adviser Robert Bork says women "aren't discriminated against anymore." So that's a relief, huh?
- Herman Cain describes himself as "pro-life" while perfectly articulating the pro-choice position. Confused? So is Herman.
- Melissa McEwan at Shakesville brings us the latest lame-assed idea of "fun" from the
men boys of America:
Snide, sassy Siri has plenty to say:
By now, early adopters of the iPhone 4S, which has sold more than 4 million units since debuting on Friday, have no doubt taken Siri for a spin.
The voice-activated "personal assistant" is a talkative tool that helps schedule appointments, send and receive messages and perform any number of other routine tasks.
But for iPhone owners presented with the sci-fi dream of a computer that talks back in a robotic female voice, the temptation to test the app's more random -- and existential -- sides has been pretty overwhelming, too.
I don't need to tell you where this is going, do I?
Because I am the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington, I just don't get the same whimsical pleasure from reading about dudes asking their female-voiced phone assistant to make them a sandwich as others do. (How disappointing for them that Hillary won't run in 2016.) Nor do I enjoy the alleged hilarity of getting Siri to acquiesce: "You are my daddy."
- Is Saturday Night Live sexist?
- This new documentary on how the media portrays women looks amazing:
- Here's the new front in the War on women:
Abortion opponents have a new weapon of choice: the “heartbeat bill.” A coalition of anti-abortion groups told the Associated Press last week that it was pushing to enact laws in all 50 states that would make women listen to a fetus’s heart beat before they could abort. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has introduced a similar federal bill, The Heartbeat Informed Consent Act, in Congress.
- You know who has the most abortions in this country? Mothers. Kind of pokes a hole in that whole ridiculous forced birther myth that the only women who obtain abortions are irresponsible sluts who hate children and would rather go to a rock concert than be a mother.
- Lysistrata: Colombia edition:
The women had begged officials to pave the old horse trail to their isolated town and authorities agreed.
But when the project failed to materialise the women of Barbacoas, in south-west Colombia, refused to take it sitting down.
They "crossed their legs" in protest — refusing to sleep with their men until something was done.
The cold front, which began in June, was eventually broken last week when transport minister German Cardona pledged to invest $21million to pave the first 17 miles of the route.
- Tennessee is really confused about the separation of Church and State:
If you want low cost birth control around the Memphis area, you had better be willing to put up with a little proselytizing while you get it. The Shelby County commission has voted 9 to 4 to take their Title X funding away from Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region and instead give it to Christ Community Health Services, a Christian religious health care organization that “will provide high-quality health care to the underserved in the context of distinctively Christian service.”
- Meet the new
and improved Barbie.
- Rick Santorum wants to take away your contraception because it only encourages people to have sex for—brace yourselves—pleasure. And sex for pleasure is, in Santorum's world, icky and wrong.