Bringing Back Feminism at its Finest

August 31, 2008 by Holly in Feminism at its Finest

As you may have noticed, Feminism at its Finest was missing for a month. I was thinking of scrapping it all together but decided against it, which I bet makes a few of the dedicated submitters quite happy. I will be accepting submissions for the next Feminism at its Finest roundup which will be posted September 30 so go submit your feminist posts! READ MORE »

Help Teddy Tour Help Survivors

I have written about the amazing work Teddy Tour does and the amount of childhood sexual assault survivors they help here before. Teddy Tour gives childhood sexual assault survivors some much-needed freedom and support by letting them fill out some info about their abuse, attach their info to a teddy bear or other stuffed animal and picturing it for their website giving other survivors and supporters of survivors the chance to read about their experiences and lets the survivor’s voice READ MORE »

And She Did So Much While Pregnant! Right?

I wasn’t going to touch upon this, however, I read a good amount of conservative blogs and talk to a great deal of conservatives. I hold nothing against them, I believe that one must challenge their world views and without doing so, you will never know what you truly believe or how deeply you believe in something until you open your mind to the other side. You truly find yourself when you accept criticism and have in depth conversations with someone whom you may not agree with; it is when you do this that you truly understand who you are and what you stand for. With that being said, quite a few Republicans are rejoicing over McCain’s VP pick of Sarah Palin; moreover, they are repeatedly shoving the phrase “feminist role model” down the throats of their readers and boasting that she is a great advocate for “traditional family values” and pro-life policies as she gave birth to a son last April who was diagnosed with Down Syndrome; not only that, but she stayed in office as a working governor while pregnant and didn’t even announce that she was pregnant until March 6.

First of all, I do not believe that a woman giving birth to a child with Down Syndrome and choosing not to abort said child when she found out about his disability is hardly a focus point on her politics. As an anti-choice candidate, she has created a pro-life record by standing up against a woman’s right to choose by using such phrases as “It’s not a choice, it’s a child,” which many pro-lifers yell, scream and carry on about during protests and harassing women outside of Planned Parenthood clinics. Using her politics, her son is a child and he was not a choice and yet her son is the first (or close second) thing people bring up when defending her as a candidate saying that it was her choice to give birth to a child with Down Syndrome; this point has also come up in the comments in my last post on Palin. People are very quick to throw that her birth to a child with special needs is a choice, but isn’t that what pro-lifers spend their hours trying to convince us is not the case? (Cara at The Curvature has a more in depth post on this specifically that you should check out)

As I stated in what I’m calling my obligatory Sarah Palin post, Palin is against reproductive rights and believes that abortion starts with contraception. Frankly, Palin is a traditional believer in not having sex until you’re married and ready to begin baby-making. That is all well and good and also fool proof in roping the pro-life voters who weren’t going to vote for McCain at first; but perhaps if her abstinence-only values and pro-life policies were concrete they would work, however as the hours tick by, more and more dirty laundry on Palin is surfacing.

We met Palin’s family at the McCain/Palin rally in Dayton Ohio; we were introduced to her children, Piper, 5; Willow, 12; Bristol, 16; Track, 17. Also amongst the clan was the newest member of the family, Trig, born last April.

Palin did not tell anyone outside of her family about her pregnancy until she was 8 months pregnant and even at 8 months, she did not resemble a woman with child; as Palin is a very slim and slender woman, a pregnancy would have been abundantly apparent. Alaskan media did comment on this, yet their speculations went no further.

Months before Palin’s birth announcement, Bristol Palin, 16, became ill with mononucleosis (mono) and had to leave school. Mono typically lasts between 2 weeks and 3 months and that is if it is a particularly horrendous and threatening case, but Bristol was out of school for 5 to 8 months, ironically this took place at the same time Sarah Palin was pregnant with Trig.

A pregnant Palin, wardrobe still fitting, her physique remaining the same in February, went hiking. A video was released where Palin said:

[5 minutes 55 seconds into the video]
…”I like running the hills, it kills me, that’s why I like it, I mean it thrashes your guts and your lungs and your thighs…”

Now I don’t believe that is something that should come from a pregnant woman’s mouth.

Rumors ran rampant through Bristol’s school while several of her classmates accounted that Bristol was gaining a significant amount of weight and appeared to be pregnant when she abruptly left school.

Sarah Palin went into labor while in Dallas, Texas just before she was schedule to deliver a keynote address at the Republican Governors’ Energy Conference. Palin, instead of checking into a hospital, delivered the keynote speech. She said:

“I was not going to miss that speech,” she says.

She rushed so quickly from the podium afterwards that Texas Gov. Rick Perry nervously asked if she was about to deliver the baby then.

Instead of checking into a hospital after supposed hours of leaking amniotic fluid, Palin then made the very bold move of flying while in labor to Alaska so Trig would be born “an Alaskan.” Palin is obviously wonder woman since she was said to be in labor during the entire 8 hour flight and was said to be extremely pleasant to flight attendants who oddly were not even aware that the woman was pregnant, never mind in labor.

As most of you may know, airlines typically have strict rules regarding women who wish to fly while more than 7 months pregnant. Palin said that it was through the birth of her four previous children that she became comfortable with the signs of active labor and did not feel that she or the baby were in any form of danger by boarding the flight.

I find it rather peculiar how a woman can be eight moths pregnant and deliver a 6.2lb child and no one can even notice the woman is pregnant. Palin then returned to work after three days. I understand that middle-class citizens may have no choice but to return to work, not being able to afford to take time off even after a child is born, but obviously Palin and her big oil-working husband are well equipped to take a little time off to enjoy their newborn, right? Why would any woman want to separate from her newborn child who has special needs to be taken care of after just three days?

Well, because Sarah Palin was not pregnant, Bristol Palin, her 16 year old daughter, was. Mono is a common excuse used in “respectable” families and Catholic school systems as to why teenage girls must be taken out of school when they are really pregnant. The same thing is still happening today.

Yes, Trig was born with Down Syndrome and while this occurs with newborn babies of older women, such as Sarah Palin, the same also occurs in cases of very young women, which Bristol is.

Pictures of the family, the Bristol bump and the lack of Sarah bump after the jump.

Read more

Sarah Palin is Not a Feminist

August 30, 2008 by Holly in 2008 election, politics

I woke up yesterday and by the time I was awake for 11 minutes I felt like I had been punched in the gut several times after reading on several conservative blogs how Sarah Palin, McCain’s VP pick, is such a great feminist role model. After doing some research on this woman whom I’ve never even heard of before it became abundantly clear–Not only is Sarah Palin not a feminist, she is as anti-woman as Bush and McCain combined. That is the reason why McCain picked her; not READ MORE »

CodePink Protester Attacked at DNC

I saw this early yesterday morning and am still angry (well, angry doesn’t really cover it; it’s more like seething) disgusted and thoroughly sickened by this. A few days ago at the Democratic National Convention, a CodePink protester was the victim of obscene police brutality as she was shoved to the ground with a baton of a police officer with excessive force while the police officer yelled “back it up, bitch.” While talking to reporters about how she (and other READ MORE »

Mexico Supreme Court Upholds Mexico City Abortion Law

August 30, 2008 by Holly in reproductive rights

In the capital of the world’s second-largest Roman Catholic country, in an 8 to 3 vote, the Mexico Supreme Court upheld the Mexico City abortion law on August 27. Mexico City previously allowed abortion only in cases of rape, if the woman’s life was at risk or if there were signs of severe defects in the fetus; it is now legal for women to seek abortions in the first trimester. (12 weeks) And because we wouldn’t expect any less, especially from the world’s READ MORE »

The 7 Year Old Terrorist

August 28, 2008 by Holly in politics

This apparently is the face of a terrorist, but as you’ve probably guessed already, the FBI and airport security can’t wrap their minds around it, either. When this boy, John Anderson (who goes by Jack), was just two years old, his family was told by airport security that he could not fly on a plane to take a trip to Disney World because he was on the terrorist watch list. Two years later, the family was stopped again by airport security over the exact, same thing. Obviously a READ MORE »

The Word Allegedly…

August 28, 2008 by Holly in sexual assault

Really pisses me off. I don’t know about you, but every time I read an article about sexual assault in one form or another, the word allegedly just pops up like it’s normal. Well I’ve got to tell you–It isn’t. It isn’t normal at all. The word allegedly, specifically in most articles on this topic seem to give me the impression that the entire ordeal is being mocked; that it could have happened, the woman said it happened, but did it really? But now I READ MORE »

No Trespassing & Healing Through Creativity Art Festival

August 26, 2008 by Holly in arts, film

I have been writing creatively since the seventh grade. I have written poetry, prose, vignettes, short stories and have also written two novellas (that I have since lost, thrown out, will never see the light of day) throughout the past nine years. I wrote a vignette in 2007 and let it sit on my hard drive with the rest of my writing–All 100+ pieces that I have chosen to actually keep and let decay on my hard drive. Unlike the rest of my writing, however, one piece in particular, this READ MORE »

The Same Movie Again and Again and Again

August 24, 2008 by Holly in humor

Looking forward to the three new big “chick flick” movies coming out? Me either, but you know as well as I do that we’ll probably watch them, even if we wait until DVD just because there’s something called a guilty pleasure that is lodged in (almost) every woman’s (and some men’s) brains. Sarah Haskins knows this too. And with that…Hooray for a new Target Women! READ MORE »

 1 2 3 Next