Three states have ruled that a Federal law banning late-term abortions is unconstitutional, but SCOTUS has decided they need to look at the case as well. Uh oh. That doesn’t bode well.
And Shakes delivers a nice smackdown in response:
The big question, of course, is what is the point of ramming through this legislation [that restricts abortion] without a provision that allows it in cases where the mother
The memory of the righteous is a blessing.
RIP Betty Friedan.
In the racial, political and sexual conflicts of the 1960s and ’70s, Friedan’s was one of the most commanding voices and recognizable presences in the women’s movement.
As a founder and first president of the National Organization for Women in 1966, she staked out positions that seemed extreme at the time on such issues as abortion, sex-neutral help-wanted ads, equal pay, promotion opportunities and maternity leave.
My copy of The Feminine Mystique is about 20 years old now. Its pages are getting discolored and the spine is bent and cracked. And what bothers me most is, when you pick it up and read it some 40+ years after it was written, how little some things have changed since then.
We’ve made tremendous strides in women’s rights since 1963, but there is still a long, long way to go. I’m very grateful to Friedan for the work she did in laying out the path.
UPDATE 2/5: Curious as to what I mean when I talk about how little has changed? Go read chapter 9 of The Feminine Mystique, ‘The Sexual Sell’.
The Goddess Echinde has been on a roll lately despite having had Internet access issues. I found this segment particularly funny:
The third paradox I want to write about is the all-powerfulness and insignificance of feminism. Feminists, those evil, hairy and manless shrews. They are all-powerful. They have destroyed everything that we hold dear: the family, the military, the labor markets, the Western civilization. Their power is felt everywhere, though hidden from sight. Even when conservatives run this country they are really just abject slaves of feminists. Pick any crime you can think of, and feminists are the guilty party. They are even to blame for blow jobs! Scary, scary feminists! Tremble, you poor wingnuts.
But at the same time feminists are nothing! Nobody takes them seriously! They are a sorry lot, manless and ugly and nobody invited them to the prom. And they haven’t gotten laid for centuries.
Besides all that, feminism is deader than the doornail. NO! It’s all over the place, swarming upon us, drowning out the the strong voices of masculinity, weakening and corrupting the culture! Making Men into Mice! NO! Feminists are the laughing-stock everywhere. Nobody takes them seriously. Nature is not a feminist and nature can’t be denied! God is not a feminist and God can’t be denied! The feminist experiment is therefore doomed to failure but never stop fighting it, because if you do they might win!
The Goddess Echinde points this out:
Gilead, the wingnut world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, is also the name of a company which owns the rights to Tamiflu.
I read that book back in college & have no idea where my copy went. Might be worth re-reading again.
“Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” – best. response. ever.
Apparently this has just fallen off the Yahoo ‘Most Emailed” list , so by now the story of the Duggler family and their 16 children has already made the rounds. I couldn’t resist crunching the numbers on Michelle Duggar, though.
According to the AP report, she is 39, just gave birth to her 16th child, and had her first child when she was 21. Two pregnancies resulted in twins.
So over the course of 18 years, she’s had 14 pregnancies. Assuming each pregnancy ran the full 40-week term, she’s spent 560 of the last 936 weeks pregnant. That’s 59.8% of her adult life.
In other words, she’s spent more of her adult life pregnant than not.
Wow.
Scary.