Archive for the 'The megatheocorporatocracy' Category

Komen sucks, Part 47

Published by Twisty on February 2, 2012. 43 Comments

Nothing could heartwarm the spinster aunt–cum–plucky breast cancer survivor more than to see the vile Komen Foundation getting raked over the coals and scrutinized and vilified in the mainstream. It’s about fucking time.

So it is fair to ask: Just what are the scientific and medical standards to which the Susan G. Komen Foundation adheres, if any? Why would a breast cancer organization hire staff and elect board members that misrepresent science and facts?  Can you trust them to give you sound information about breast cancer?  And can you trust them with investing your money in the best possible efforts to end breast cancer? — Jodi Jackson, RH Reality Check.

The answer:

No. Duh.

If you missed it, the story so far:

1. Komen withdraws $600,000 in funding from Planned Parenthood, citing a policy that prohibits Komen’s support of any organization that is the subject of an investigation (Planned Parenthood is currently being harassed by House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who has launched a politically-motivated, trumped-up “inquiry” into whether PP has used federal funds for abortion services).

2. Komen’s Senior Vice President for Policy turns out to be ultraconservative antifeminist Georgia gubernatorial washout Karen Handel, who thinks shocked Planned Parenthood supporters should “cry me a river” (click the thumbnail for a screencap of the offending retweet via @JessicaValenti). Handel is an anti-choice right-winger of the first water. In her gubernatorial campaign she pledged to “eliminate” grants to Planned Parenthood.

3. Outcry is substantial. I just wish it went a little deeper.

Deeper than what, you ask? Well, right now the principle criticism of Komen is that Planned Parenthood used the Komen cash to administer breast cancer screenings, about 170,000 in all, to mostly low-income and marginalized women. Now, nobody is against breast cancer screenings for the poor. But once an indigent or uninsured woman gets the free mammogram, and it comes up positive, what then? Who is going to pay for her treatment? Cute teddy bears? Volunterrorists in pink baseball caps? Consumer philanthropists eating “Crunch for the Cure” junk food? “Early detection” doesn’t mean shit if the early detectee is just left flapping in the breeze.

Listen everyone, Komen doesn’t prevent cancer, and Komen doesn’t pay for breast cancer treatment. It “raises awareness” through “early detection” and funds “research” focused on pharmaceutical cures for cancers that many of Komen’s corporate sponsors might likely have a hand in causing in the first place. Of the 11 Austin-area Komen grant recipients, for example, only one, WINGS, lists “comprehensive no-cost breast cancer treatment” in its list of services. The other 10 focus almost exclusively on diagnostics, “education,” and “patient navigation” (“patient navigation”? What the heck is that, they throw indigent patients in a boat and make’m row for the cure?).

I hasten to point out that WINGS received only $218,000 from Komen-Austin in 2011. That might sound like a lot, and it is, but in terms of cancer treatment it’s a drop in the bucket (for example, my own little foray into the cutthroat world of breast cancer patienthood has cost well over $100,000 so far. Although I have insurance, about $50,000 of that amount was out-of-pocket for designer drugs and genetic testing that insurance wouldn’t cover). So, out of all the women in the Austin area who have breast cancer — a lot, since 1 out of 7 women get it at some point — there’s only enough Komen loot to pay for the treatment of — I’ll be generous — 2.5 of them. And that’s if WINGS doesn’t spend any money on anything else, and that’s if the women go to San Antonio for their free treatment, because WINGS has no affiliation with any health care providers in Austin.

In other words, Komen doesn’t give a shit about poor women, so the hell with those who look to Planned Parenthood for a free breast exam.* With politics clearly a greater priority than women’s health, it’s no surprise that Komen is, quoth Jackson, “allied with those who misrepresent medical and public health evidence, including about causes of breast cancer.”

Nefarious Komen VP Karen Handel is not alone in her misogynist agenda. Board member Jane Abraham is also affiliated with some very nasty groups. You know those crisis pregnancy centers where lying liar godbags lie to pregnant ladies about abortions causing breast cancer and other spurious shit? Jane Abraham is, like, the queen of those things. Meanwhile, says Jackson,

you don’t see too many folks working with the Komen Foundation who are out there pounding the pavement on, say, the possible links between environmental toxins and breast cancer, causal links between which make the corporate partners of Komen very, very nervous.

Komen is the most visible brand in the whole cancer industrial complex. It disguises itself as some big altruistic community effort for women’s health, but it’s really just another conservative, honky organization with a misogynist political agenda. A marketing juggernaut instrumental in raking in piles of cash for and cleansing the tarnished images of its evil corporate sponsors, Komen has successfully brainwashed millions to believe that the “problem” of women’s health can be solved by licking yogurt lids.

_________________
* In fact, the whole Komen-driven breast cancer “movement” is centered around middle-class white women. Drop by any pinkathon on race day if you need corroboration.

Posted in Crazy sexy cancer and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

Blamer exhibits devilish cunning

Published by Twisty on February 1, 2012. 48 Comments

You may have followed a link I recently posted, wherein it was revealed that in the State of Texas it is now considered perfectly awesome to force women seeking abortions to undergo a repellent, rape-like pronging with a vaginal ultrasound probe during which the state-controlled doctor forces them to listen to irrelevant, non-medical blather about the cute baby-like features of the fetus. Well, a similar bill recently turned up in the Virginia State Senate, but with a surprisingly heartwarming amendment.

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax)on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication. [HuffPo]

Ha-ho! Janet Howell! You go girl! Honorary Blamer of the Week!

Tragically, Howell’s amendment was rejected by 3 votes, and the senate went on to give the nod to the fucking misogynist mandatory ultrasound bill. It’s always the way.

But anyway, inspired by Howell’s Do-It-To-The-Men-Instead initiative, blamer Incognotter sent Spinster HQ a nice email expanding on the Do-It-To-The-Men-Instead theme (one of my favorite themes). She says:

I am beginning to think we are fighting for reproductive rights in the wrong way. If the point is to have big-government interventionism that negates bodily sovereignty as a “solution” to a perceived moral problem, then we should neuter all men at puberty and bank their sperm. It could be used consensually for the purpose of reproduction. No more abortion issues, no more birth control issues, much less war on women. If they had to face that they might suddenly reconsider this big invasive bullshit. Can you imagine the reaction to the realization that a woman had to sign her consent to get knocked up?

The caliber of blaming exhibited here is impressive. Neuter all the dudes! It hits the blaming trifecta: elegant, just, and diabolical! Unwanted pregnancies? Gone, daddy, gone! Abortion? Obsolete! Ghastly “Teen Mom” reality shows on the Aberrant Human Behavior Channel? Cancelled! Babies in trash cans? A thing of the past! Compulsory pregnancy as punishment for slutty behavior? Over! Stuck having to make do with the inferior sperm of your partner? Done!

Imagine the shitstorm if one were to take this — merely as a thought experiment — to the Internet for dude review. Ludicrous! Inhuman! Man-hating! Unnatural! Sacreligious! You castrating bitch! I hope you die in a rape fire, feminazi!

All the while women are in actuality expected to endure much higher and more toxic levels of state intervention simply as a consequence of being female.

This glaring double standard should be all the proof you need that men hate you. If you want to know whether Virginia State Senator Jill Vogel hates you, well, she’s the original sponsor of her state’s rape-the-abortion-seekers bill, so you decide.

On a final note, I must point out that Spinster HQ is fundamentally opposed to human reproduction of any kind. But it is a frustrating reality that reproduction is widely regarded as a “right,” or at least some sort of godly duty, despite the undisputed fact that current human population levels are unsustainable. So as long as they’re gonna do it anyway, and as long as the state is gonna interfere with it wherever it can, it might as well place as much of the burden on men as possible, if for no other reason than an elegant poetic justice/reparations for past abuses combo.

Posted in Men Hate You, Politics, The Argument Against Human Reproduction and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

Shoe company to women: “you’re deformed.”

Published by Twisty on January 3, 2012. 134 Comments

Finally, a shoe company is using vagina marketing to leverage women’s UAEW (universally acknowledged essential weirdness) into profits! Behold the little insert I found in the box containing my new pair of Merrell hiking shoes.

Red lines afflict all women's legs

This riveting brochure explains that “women move differently than men.” This differentude, implies the brochure, is because of a deformity afflicting the entire sex class: “wider hips and a lower center of gravity.” Or, in clinical terms, “cooties.” According to Merrell this deformity is measured by “something called a Q-Angle.”

The red lines in the illustration show just how naturally fucked up women are in terms of our godawful Q-angle. This congenital fucked uppedness, says the brochure, causes women to “[alter] the natural pattern of movement” which “ultimately results in discomfort and pain.” That’s right. Women can’t even walk right. We can’t manage a “natural pattern of movement.” We’re debilitated by female physiology. We need help.

The rest of insert explains how Merrell shoes address women’s flagrantly abnormal kinesiology with — what else — scientifically designed red spots in the soles.

So you can’t even buy a pair of ugly-ass unisex hiking shoes without being told how different you are from the default standard human? You’re supposed to be grateful to Merrell for pointing out your freakishness, because after they explain what’s wrong with you, they let you know they got your back? “It’s about time,” says the brochure in a conspiratorial women’s magazine tone, “shoes started conforming to women.” That’ll be $89.95, you freak of nature.

Up top, Merrell!

I’m not saying, by the way, that Q-angle really isn’t a thing, because it is. I looked it up in Wheeless’ Textbook of Orthopaedics, and what a gripping read it was. Q-angle is determined by the angle of the patella relative to the tibial tubercle and anterior superior iliac spine. In other words, it describes how knock-kneed you are.

But get this: a 1983 study found that the normal angle for dudes is 14 degrees, and for women, 17 degrees. Plus or minus 3 degrees. So a normal dude can have a 17 degree Q-angle, and a normal woman can have a 14-degree Q-angle. All this “difference” is only a matter of 3 degrees, and some overlap between the sexes is likely, and it’s all normal. When you consider that there are 360 degrees total, 3 degrees hardly seems worth mentioning, which is probably why Merrell doesn’t. Merrell also neglects to mention that the biomechanics of the knee are further influenced by other stuff, such as the length of the patellar tendon, and whether you blew out your ACL when vaulting off a rearing horse.

All I’m saying is, any claim that a mass-produced, off-the-shelf sport shoe with randomly placed red spots can solve “discomfort” associated with normal physiology is just stupid. And in this case, fucking sexist.

The shoes, incidentally, gave me a blister.

Posted in Oppression Culture and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

LecherWatch ‘11

Published by Jill on August 22, 2011. 140 Comments

What hotel maid wouldn't wannna get pronged by this sexy grandpa?

Well knock me over with a feather. Leering French fuck Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s gonna walk.

The hotel maid’s lawyer had predicted prosecutors would tell her Monday they were dropping the case. The attorney, Kenneth Thompson, told France’s RTL radio on Sunday that the woman, Nafissatou Diallo, “feels abandoned by the Manhattan District Attorney.” The questions raised about her credibility have made her feel “that she’s being investigated more than Strauss-Kahn,” he said. [AP]

That’s right, ladies. In the United States of America, in 2011, if you’re a woman with a “past,” it’s open season. If some old white perv violently attacks you, your bad reputation simply cancels out his criminal behavior.

Oh, and your looks are totally relevant.

“Nafi” Diallo is not glamorous. Her light-brown skin is pitted with what look like faint acne scars, and her dark hair is hennaed, straightened, and worn flat to her head, but she has a womanly, statuesque figure. When her face is in repose, there is an opaque melancholy to it. [Daily Beast]

In other words, a rich white guy wouldn’t have to rape such an unattractive menial, but he might want to fuck your melancholy, statuesque figure. He was merely using you as the toilet you are, which is perfectly legal and consistent with Global Accords Governing Fair Use of Women (under the Bitches Who Aren’t Virgin Saints Are Just Asking For It clause). So he flits back to France to resume his career as a nationally beloved dashing rake, while you get to spend the rest of your life as the gold-digging liar who cried rape, or simply the “DSK Maid.”

__________________
Photo: AP

Posted in Rape Culture and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

Feminist blog saves lives

Published by Jill on June 21, 2011. 31 Comments

Reader testimonials!

I.

Just last week I successfully identified a cluster of stinkhorn mushrooms. All because I read this here blog. I took pictures! I told my friends! Life is better with Heartwarming Nature Crap! — cootie twoshoes

Send the pictures, La Cootie, send the pictures. Stinkhorns are, as the poet said, teh awesome. Obviously, if you hadn’t read here that they are also poisonous, you would have eaten them, right? Another life saved!

UPDATE: cootietwoshoes has generously consented to share a stinkhorn mushroom photo with the group. Quoth Cootie: “Note the dripping ’stink’! Note the salivating fly!” The brown goo is a spore mass that stinks like poo to attract spore-mass-distributing insects. Cootie was lucky to find them in this resolute, stinky state; the spongey pink glory of a stinkhorn shrivels within a day or two.

II.

I have recently dumped a manipulative patriarchal bastard, in which your blog was instrumental (the dumping, that is). I have therefore been finding it necessary to reaffirm my feminist-ity, and my, what a place to do it. It’s so great to find a blog which is so uncompromisingly radical and with such wit and humour. i.e. nice to laugh at the patriarchy as well as blame it.

– another blamer [via email]

You go girl. Whenever a blamer dumps a manipulative patriarchal bastard and has a laugh, a spinster aunt gets her wings frozen margarita machine.

III.

Meanwhile, the Obama presidency gets an anti-testimonial:

An impecunious woman has resorted to selling the handwritten letter from President Obama she received last year after writing to him expressing her fear that “this dreaded economy is going to have my family homeless.” The president magnanimously replied with these meaningful words of encouragement empty platitudes:

“Please know that things will get better for you and your family.”

Obama didn’t add “by selling this letter on eBay for some quick cash!” but luckily “single mom” Ms Mathis was able to read between the lines to take quick online auction action. Because instead of “things” getting “better” for her and her family, she’s about to be evicted. Sadly, unless it’s a letter from Abe Lincoln thanking Mr Ford for the tickets to the play, presidential correspondence isn’t gonna bankroll an impoverished family for long.

Tangentially — and I should probably save this pet peeve for another post, but then again who knows when, if ever, I’ll post again? — notice how the inclusion of the phrase “for you and your family” is ubiquitous in propaganda, whether marketing or politicking. It is always aimed at women (those notorious suckers for anything domestical in nature), and instantly confers wholesome sincerity on the speaker and his/her bullshit message. Whenever you hear “for you and your family” you know you are about to be told some big fucken lie.

Posted in Heartwarming Nature Crap, Not Altogether Depressing and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

Warm jets

Published by Jill on May 11, 2011. 77 Comments

What could be more captivating than toilet paper? Almost everything, it turns out, but for some reason I’m still stuck on advertising for Quilted Northern tee-pee. O happy day, I found a new version of the TV ad I mocked in yesterday’s post. It features “Victoria,” a TV commercial mom — 30-ish, white, able-bodied, ostensibly hetero, casually attired for domestic activity, averagely but not threateningly good-looking in a wholesome, Protestant sort of way — speaking frankly and openly about how she “needs” toilet paper that she can “trust.”

She “trusts” Quilted Northern to keep her — and her family — clean.

Toilet paperJill: Oh, Seventh Generation toilet paper! Your label says you’re 100% recycled, but can I trust you for a confident clean?

Seventh Generation: Tcha! Did you even read my label? Our company isn’t run by a CEO, it’s run by a “Chief Inspired Protagonist”. Buying me means you “care enough to help make the world a healthier and safer place for this and the next seven generations.” What could be more trustworthy than that?

Jill: But Quilted Northern says –

Seventh Generation: That guy! Are you seriously telling me you’re falling for a 3-ply? Do you have any idea what that will do to the planet? You’re practically signing a death warrant for 8,297 polar bear cubs every time you wipe your butt with that shit.

Jill: But are you soft enough, for me AND my family? I need that in a toilet paper.

Seventh Generation: OK, sure. I’m just a 2-ply. I guess I’m a little rough around the edges. I don’t have any of your fancy so-called Plush-Quilts®. But I’m embossed, dammit! See that picture of a puffy cloud on my wrapper? It proves I’ve got improved softness! Can’t you believe that?

Jill: I don’t know what to believe anymore, Seventh Generation! I’m still so worried about breakthrough. For some reason I’ve got a nagging sensation that being clean is sooooo important.

Quilted Northern: Jill’s right, Seventh Generation. “Breakthrough” isn’t just some phony dire condition we made up to sell toilet paper. Every housewife knows that she can’t ever be clean enough down there. I’m just here to help reinforce those admirable though unattainable aspirations to domestic perfection through spotless-butt consciousness-raising. And if you’re concerned about the environment, think of the water you’ll save by not bothering to wash your hands after using our guaranteed breakthrough-free product!

Seventh Generation: Don’t fall for his gratuitous ostentation! Quilted Northern lacks the spiritual substance of Native Wisdom. He couldn’t quote from The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy if it were the last Great Law on Earth, but I can: “In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” Put that in your butt and wipe it!

Jill: Don’t you have anything to say?

Bidet: Who, me? I don’t have to say anything. I know you’ll always come back to me and my warm jets.

Posted in Mass Media and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

Spinster aunt mocks media

Published by Jill on May 10, 2011. 43 Comments

No time to post! It’s Guffaw At Media Day!

1. Here is an excerpt from the May 2011 issue of American Vogue magazine; a Paris fashion designer is using African, rather than Chinese, labor to manufacture her line.

“Too often we think of Africa as a victimized, depressing place, so I’m trying to show the brighter side I knew as a child,” the now Paris-based Eklund says before citing oft-ignored but breathtaking beaches in Zanzibar, Dakar, and Casablanca. “[Eklund's swimwear line] Bantu is about celebrating the beauty of Africa — and what better way to do that than with exuberantly colorful bikinis?”

Not only is Paris-based bikinician Eklund celebrating the beauty of Africa by objectifying women, the model she objectifies also imbues “style” with “ethics”: “I donated an entire season’s earnings to children with cancer in São Paolo!” Is there anything a spray-tanned young hottie in a bikini can’t do?

2. Grudgingly transcribed by my assistant Phil, here’s a TV commercial selling domestic supplies to women. It features the tried and true Dudely Authority Figure managing female test subjects.

Male Announcer: We went around the country asking women to speak frankly about something no one wants to talk about.

Woman 1: It’s time to get real about what happens in the bathroom.

Woman 2: Stop all the cutesy stuff.

Woman 3: And start talking about what you really want from your toilet paper.

Woman 4: It’s time to talk about clean.

Woman 3: Feeling clean is soooo important.

Male Announcer: Quilted Northern Soft-n-Strong is stronger than the leading ripple brand to help protect against breakthrough.

Woman 4: For myself, for my family, it keeps us clean. Quilted Northern Soft-n-Strong.

Male Announcer: Protection for a confident clean or your money back.

What a relief. I’ve been so sick of all the cutesy conversations I’ve been having about what happens in the bathroom.

Stingray: So what happens in your bathroom?

Jill: Unicorns gerbils baby chicks Hello Kitty.

Stingray: Lollipops Justin Bieber?

Jill: And a bunch of chihuahua puppies!

But all I’ve really wanted to do is get real about what I want from my toilet paper. I mean, omigod, can we please start talking about actually wiping the shit off our ass and what to do about breakthrough, already?

Well, yes and no. These courageous, straight-talkin’ toilet paper conversationalists somehow omit the key words “feces” and “cornhole,” but nevertheless give me strength to confront my deepest yearnings for a truly immaculate ass, with a toilet paper that offers protection for my confidence. And there’s a money-back guarantee, which certainly must mean that if I get shit on my hand, they’ll refund my dough. Simply mail the shit-stained hand to Quilted Northern with proof-of-purchase seals, and they’ll refund my $2.98 in 6-to-8 weeks.

Tragically, I am doomed to suffer confidence-busting “breakthrough” forever, as Quilted Northern Safe-n-Strong is not septic-safe.

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Photo: Scan of “Style Ethics.” Vogue May 2011: 180.

Posted in Mass Media and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

Obscene British patriarchy-fest inspires a few auntly words on weddings

Published by Jill on May 1, 2011. 96 Comments

Marriage is the ultimate expression of compliance with the culture of oppression. It is the bedrock of misogyny, the ideal upon which heteronormativity is based, the primary unit with which patriarchy replicates itself. Thus does the spinster aunt die a little inside whenever one of her friends or acquaintances makes with the big announcement that she’s engaged.

Royal broodmare in shuttlecock burqa

“Wwwhyyyyyy?” I always chide the cosmos. I chide with my hands clenched in the air and my face twisted into an expression of agony. Flocks of startled pigeons take flight as my anguished cry echoes into the infinite reaches of space and time. Because not only has the friend or acquaintance basically signed up for the accelerated Tool of the Patriarchy Program (which bums out anybody familiar with special inequities visited upon women who formally merge their identities with patriarchal culture), but I’m lookin’ at months of giddy wedding planning during which unholy interim I will be expected to make girly remarks about gowns and reception halls.

Failure to express sufficient giddiness always puts a strain on the relationship. I know this because I have never once managed to express sufficient giddiness. It is only with the most superhuman of efforts that I manage not to recoil in horror and disgust.

“Can’t you just be happy for me?” is the refrain.

“Sorry,” I say. “The best I can do is hope that he doesn’t beat you, cheat on you, stick you with all the diapering and toilet cleaning, and rob you blind in the divorce.”

Did you know that not being happy for people on demand is some sort of crime? It’s true! The minute you aren’t happy for somebody who is making the worst decision of her life, they absolutely have to take you off their speed-dial and snub you in social situations.

Western women are always so appalled at “third world” traditions of misogyny, but they think nothing of volunteering for duty themselves. I reiterate that Western vs “third world” misogyny is merely a matter of style, and more often than not the twain shall indeed meet. Thus did guffaws of horrification rumble around the bunkhouse when poor, shriveled Kate Middleton, this century’s quintessential Blushing Bride, sailed up to St. Patriarch’s Cathedral for her sale as a broodmare to the British monarchy, encased in a designer chadri.

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Photo: BBC: “Kate Middleton’s Wedding Dress Revealed!”. This video is a hoot, containing the following commentary from the giddy presenter: “I am beside myself! This is such a fashion moment, I can’t tell you!”

Posted in Bloodsport, Oppression Culture and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

Be confident of your daintiness

Published by Jill on April 17, 2011. 40 Comments

A propos of shame- and fear-based advertising: this amusing article in Slate recounts Misogynist Advertising Ploys Through the Ages.

The Massengills would be a pretty good all-lady indie rock band name

You already know all about that megatheocorporatocratic tactic of ladycontrol, the one wherein it invents ladyproblems that can only be fixed by the toxic ladyproducts it sells, so this piece won’t be blowing your mind so much as taking you for a little saunter down Ladymemory Lane. But what could be more entertaining than revisiting the fabled Lysol douche of yore, the invention of halitosis, and the horror of “intimate odor” of your “most girl part”?

The phrase “often a bridesmaid but never a bride” was made famous by Listerine ads. In one 1925 image, a woman reads another woman’s wedding announcement with a troubled expression on her face. “Her case was really a pathetic one,” the copy intones, describing the woman as nowhere near marriage “as her birthdays crept gradually toward that tragic thirty mark.” The culprit? Halitosis, of course.

The article also contains a deeply satisfying indictment of the supremely misogynist, Ditwuss Award-winning Dove company, to which company I raise my glass of All-Purpose Raw Vegetable Slurry and cry “Go fuck yourself!” We hadn’t been made aware of it down at Spinster HQ (too much butt-dancing, I suppose), but apparently Dove has recently invented a brand-new beauty problem. Their brilliant addition to the Canon of Feminine Deficiencies That Can Be Solved By Greasy Ointments? Fugly (quoth Slate) pits.

Dove recently unveiled its latest campaign, and it hinges on the idea that your armpits are ugly. Dove Ultimate Go Sleeveless is supposed to give women “softer, smoother underarms in just five days”—in ads for the product, which Stephen Colbert calls a “breakthrough shame-o-vation,” women cut the sleeves off their tops with joyful expressions, as if they’ve been liberated from a terrible scourge. If it’s news to you that this part of your body is not so hot, Dove says you’re in the minority, citing a survey in which 93 percent of women said they “think their underarms are unattractive.” And if you doubt statistics culled from 534 women in an anonymous online poll, rest assured that Dove’s best advertising efforts will be directed at making those numbers true.

Once your softer, smoother Dove armpits have liberated you from the vile tyranny of sleeves, maybe you can creep out into public again, and maybe say something out loud.

There’s a slideshow, too. From which I swiped the Massengill photo.

Thanks, Bobby and Antoinette

Posted in The Beauty Ultimatum and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.

GOP: “Let us bravely endure the deaths of impregnated women who can’t afford non-misogynist healthcare.”

Published by Jill on February 5, 2011. 40 Comments

Has it been 8 degrees for the past week in your little acre of paradise, causing rolling blackouts and catastrophic bunkhouse infrastructure failures? No? Then perhaps you’ve enjoyed electricity and its lovable sidekick, Internet/cable news access, allowing you to get a load of this bullshit: H.R. 358, the so-called “Protect Life Act.” This vile piece of legislation is astonishing — even for the usual suspects who hate women professionally — in its full-on, unapologetic, violently misogynist rancor. The bill contains a provision that would permit woman-hating hospital staff to withhold life-saving abortions from critically ill patients.

Let us pause for a moment to let that sink in.*

The degree to which motherhood is reviled in our culture is generally unappreciated, thanks to cloaking devices like Mother’s Day and other patronizing practices and sentimental narratives. Putting Mother on a pedestal effectively disguises society’s contempt for her. But beneath the glib and oily layer of saccharine lip-service is an abiding sense of mother’s worthlessness except as a self-sacrificing incubator of domination culture.

Mother’s sacred duty is twofold: give birth, then imbue the offspring with the mores required to replicate patriarchy. She must perform this selfless low-status duty at all costs, including, apparently, that of her own life.

Women who fail to become mothers, as well as mothers who fuck up and deviate from the impossible standards mandated by the official patriarchal narrative,** are always punished in one way or another. With this anti-abortion bill dealio, unless she is fortunate enough to be ill in a hospital that does not receive federal funding, a woman who is insufficiently robust to carry a fetus to term may be punished by death. Just like that.

Mother’s function appears to be child-centric, but in actuality it serves domination culture at the expense of her children. As feminist analysis has shown, society has only two uses for human progeny: as pawns in the ongoing effort to control women, and as drones forced to absorb patriarchal messages that mold them into the obedient adult proles necessary to further the interests of the megatheocorporatocracy.

Fetushood is romanticized by godbags and misogynists, but as we have seen time and again, no real concern for the fetus’ well-being obtains after birth. We know this because what happens after birth is childhood, a hood that can only be described as ghastly. Any personhood conferred upon the former fetus is null and void as soon as it becomes a baby. Childhood is nostalgified by adults who perhaps recollect gaps in their own oppression training, when some little spark of joy might have erupted for a moment or two. However, because children are not recognized as fully human, and are in fact routinely abused and oppressed by nearly every adult who crosses their path, actual childhood is, at best, overwhelmingly a painful period of indoctrination, and at worst, a violent nightmare.

But back to motherhood. Crap like this “Protect Life Act” — named by one of those congressional aides who majored in Doublespeak at Dickhead & Prick University — is useful in exposing mother-hate that is normally hidden. The general public may be unaware, but it is codified in the Global Accords Governing Fair Use of Women, in the Dutiful Mother Provisions, that a woman’s essence consists of her uterus and the contents therein. This clause allows assholes like pink-faced, woman-hating bill sponsor Joe Pitts to seek retribution when a woman exhibits reproductive nonconformity, such as getting sick. Whereupon it naturally follows that hospital personnel may, at their whim, elect to kill an impregnated human rather than disturb any genetic material attached to her personal person.

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* Let us also pause to consider that, on top of every other level of wrong, this bill is just plain crazy. If an impregnated woman dies, so will the fetus, right? If the fetus is gonna die anyway, letting the woman die when an abortion will save her life is nothing but fuckin godbag politics.

** That is, all women.

Posted in Compulsory pregnancy, Men Hate You, Politics and The megatheocorporatocracy. Bite me, Chad.