And Veganrampage, I intend to watch the Seven Samurai this week. Yep, it’s a patriarchal movie. Fuck, I love it anyway. As a woman, I get enough of people telling me what I should do and criticizing my decisions. They can all go stick it in their ear or any other convenient orifice they choose. I just love how some people seem to think that being a feminist means you have to spend every free hour thinking about/working for The Cause, instead of maybe putting the onus on some of the asshats that could use a little enlightenment. Personally, I don’t have the energy. I’ll pick my own fights and respectfully suggest that others on the forum do the same.

Hugs,
Jezebella

Veganrampage, honey, you don’t know a fleck of sandy loam off the left hind hoof of diddlysquat about “so many” of us and/or what we care about or when. Go on into the bathroom and shut the door and holler at the mirror for a awhile, there ya go.

Forty years ago or thereabouts I had one of those blinding late-adolescent insights about a bunch of my generally OK male friends and the stuff they used to almost-lecture me about, and how oddly off-the-mark it seemed. The circumstances haven’t changed much since then. The Guys have an odd tendency to lecture us with what they really need to be telling and hearing themselves. (Back then it was, “Don’t take yourself seriously.” When I stopped taking them seriously, my life improved a lot.)

In short, bucko: Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

And as to the “aren’t you glad your mother was pro-life” meme, I’ve run across this (back in my talk.abortion days) expressed as “Thank you, Mommy, for not aborting me!” I liked to point out that “Thank you, Mommy, for not practicing abstinence!” could be just as valid. As could “Thank you, Daddy, for not ‘pulling out’ after you’d promised you would!” Or “Thank you, Daddy, for offering Mommy the options of putting out or walking home!” Or, “Thank you, Grandpa-Daddy, for what you did every night to my Mommy, YOUR DAUGHTER!”

I’m not sure that that is the case here.
We are not all “modern American”, and so the image raised by the term concentration camp is going to be different. For me, it is the image of the re-education camps, relocation camps, internment centers, the gulag, and the history of incarceration of large populations.
While I can recognize that the term has a narrower meaning for some people, I have trouble with being expected to privilege the narrow American Lexicon meaning over the historical meaning.

However, even if it were vaguely historical, the stories are highly suspect having been written by ancient men LONG after the events would have occurred who also have a motive for changing events to support the religious structures they were incorporating. Thus, no matter what the text tries to imply about what Moses’ mother was trying to do- it is easily portrayed as an act of love and protection after the fact because of course they would want to show how god saved Moses and thus the people- it could also be seen as the act of a woman who is terrified of being caught with her baby and throws him to the elements, not unlike the Celts who put their colicky infants- convinced that they could not be human since they are clearly so miserable– on hilltops so that the fairies would exchange them for the real children they were meant to have. (Mostly they died overnight from overexposure, yet this practice continued for a long time in the Scottish highlands.)

‘Oh fuck me, I wish I didn’t have to write this, the timing is bad after the squabble over the FAQs men can comment/not comment post but life sucks then you die so here goes.
Yes, word are important as this post reiterates and language is constantly used by the patriarchy against women and girls to continue to enslave us, which is why that concentration camp reference, and the mostly silent acquiesce, with a few notable exceptions, by the rest of the commenters here even after Hollywood Marie expressed her distress makes me so angry.

Why do so many of you only care about an issue if it directly affect you? If something is wrong, it is wrong. You don’t have to be Jewish to find that concentration camp reference offensive, or at least you shouldn’t have to be.

I am not gay, but I have sat my ass down on Seventh Avenue and risked arrest to protest for gay rights. I am not black but I have marched and protested and given money to civil rights causes, and continue to do so. I have almost gotten killed for telling people to shut their ugly pie holes because that racist/sexist/homophobic “joke” was no joke at all, and civilized people didn’t care to hear it. For that matter I am not Jewish, I am atheist and anti-theist.

I suggest everyone watch Shoa, a masterwork by Claude Lanzmann, who, as a side note, happened to be a lover of Simone de Beavoir. What’s that you say? A seven hour movie is too long? How much time do you waste in a week watching crappy teevee shows? Or reading inane blogs on the internet? (NOT IBTP) You don’t have to watch all seven hours at once. Shoa focuses on Poland and Auschwitz, and is a good starting point for learning about the Holocaust.( I had call to correct the Holocaust Museum in DC on a glaring error they had in their FAQs, the men in charge wrote me back a very snide email concerning my “question“, but I noticed they took the error down immediately.) Once you have sat through Shoa, I guran-fucking-tee-ya you won’t be taking concentration camp references lightly either. Though technically Auschwitz was a death camp, not a concentration camp, the two are often so conflated as to mean the same thing in modern day American lexicon.

This is what I hate about homosapiens. Yes, I loathe my own species. We really are a bad animal. In theory, I think we deserve to become extinct and let the earth heal. In practice I have too much goddamn empathy to wish real suffering on anyone*.

* Excluding rapists, child molesters, the Pope, and all the usual suspects.”

I haven’t read the details; what caught my eye was the a.k.a. list:

– At-Risk Communities Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Act of 2009
– Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act of 2009
– Emergency Contraception Education Act of 2009
– Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act of 2009
– Responsible Education About Life Act of 2009
– Title X Family Planning Services Act of 2009
– Truth in Contraception Act of 2009
– Unintended Pregnancy Reduction Act of 2009

What a mess.

Quicklink to info: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-463

I think the uberpoint was that it is uberused.