The Porn Industry Is Ready To Exploit Nadya Suleman
Nadya Suleman is easily the most vilified mother in recent history. She became famous for giving birth to eight children using invitro fertilization in January. The media have stopped at nothing to portray her as an irresponsible nitwit too crazy to know what is in her own best interests.
It would be far too much to look at the cultural treatment of motherhood or the fact that we have long since socially abdicated responsibility for our children. We are for more focused on forcing women to give birth to children that they do not want, than caring for the current children in existence. Oh dear, someone might have to donate some of their tax dollars to helping a child when they would be so much better spent on fat pensions for bureaucrats who don’t serve the public need, foreign wars of aggression that have left untold numbers dead and damaged, and bailing out companies like AIG who are once again begging for a new handout (private jet anyone?). Let’s not talk about our social responsibilities, or our skewed sense of values, oh no lets persecute a poor woman for choosing to exercise her biological imperatives.
Finally when I thought I could not get anymore disgusted with the news stories surrounding this poor woman, the porn industry has reared its ugly exploitative head. Vivid Entertainment has offered her one million dollars to star in a porn movie. Nadya is in deep financial trouble, the home that she lives in is about to be foreclosed on and the hospital has threatened to refuse to release her children to her. The website that she created to give people the opportunity to help her struggling family has been ridiculed and all avenues of support have been radically slammed in her face.
Well, clearly this woman is in need of some serious need, and the porn industry just loves a vulnerable woman. They have always been there to “extend aid” as long as a woman is willing to take off her clothes and become nothing more than a glory hole for men to fuck with wild abandon. While I agree that some women actively choose this, when there is an issue of clear exploitation, porn and I clearly part ways. How much is this media company going to make on this movie? Already the media is playing with potential titles for a movie that she has not even agreed to star in.
Suleman has never stared in any porn movie and obviously with the pressing state of financial concerns and public rejection, she may have to take this offer to stave off financial ruin for her large family. Should this woman who has been repeatedly judged decide that this is what she needs to do to support her family, one can certainly rest assured that this will be yet another opportunity for society to rip her shreds and shame her for not being the “perfect mommy”. No one wants to help her but if she takes the only avenue available to her, she will be by default a terrible person.
This issue is so much larger than Nadya and her 14 children. This is about the right of women to have autonomy over their bodies and our social obligation to care for all children. This is about women not being forced to make “choices” that are harmful to them to ensure the subsistence of their families. Suleman is a vulnerable woman and if we look closely we can all see a little bit of ourselves reflected in her.
Cross posted at Womanist Musings
Viva la Menstruation!
I came across Viva La Menstruacion a few months ago through some social networking site or another, honestly I cannot remember for the life of me how I found it, but I loved it. I loved the website and even more so, I loved that it was a website selling menstrual calendars.
A woman’s body is something that she should be proud of and love unconditionally. Furthermore, a woman should have a complete understanding of her body. However, this is not always the case, on both accounts. Sure, we can make fun of men about not knowing their way around the body of a woman, but a great deal of women are also kept in the dark about their bodies. The menstrual calendars at Viva La Menstruacion work to demystify the menstrual cycle.
I used to get entirely confused when I would notice that my menstrual cycle bounced around. I thought that because it came on one day one particular month, it should arrive the next month on that same, exact day and when it didn’t, I noticed that I too was in the dark when it came to my body’s behavior. Having a menstrual calendar gives you something you can actually see, making it much easier to understand the behavior of your body. It works like a little diary for your body, if you will, and the calendar also contains the moon phases of the year, for those women who are into Lunaception.
The woman who makes these calendars has been making them for seven years and first started distributing them through a zine.
The first thing you’ll notice about these calendars is that they are truly unique in function as well as in design. The cartoons on these calendars are based on the illustration Menstrual Dreamer by Mari Chan and throughout the past seven years, the calendars have evolved into twelve different doll models to choose from. The cartoons pictured on the calendars are meant to reflect us as strong, happy women who are proud of our bodies and the way they work and the use of blood is meant to eliminate the taboo that keep women ashamed of their nature.
To get your own calendar, visit Viva La Menstruacion. Each calendar is just $3 plus shipping. You can also get a poster of all twelve cartoon dolls standing together for $5.
Women Step Out of the Closet of Shame & Start Talking Openly About Periods
Most women remember their first periods and no matter what emotion or range of emotions they experienced on that day, they can still look back on it many years later and smile–for one reason or another. No matter what a woman thinks about her period, the bottom line is that it is with us for the long haul. It is one of our long-term relationships and even if we love it or hate it, it is with us for the majority of our lives; and if we live with our periods for the majority of our lives, why do women (in general) constantly feel shamed by it?
A great deal of women will give you an odd, ‘what planet are you from’ look if you ask them to tell you about their first periods. Many women (and especially men) will visibly become bothered if you dare speak its name during a conversation. Most men downright refuse to go on late-night or after work runs to the store to pick up a box of pads or tampons and all of these situations deal with the shame that is associated with menstruation. Sure, our lack of openness can be chalked up to menstruation happening to be an awkward subject, but it goes deeper than that, especially considering that it doesn’t have to be and it only is because our society has let itself become a woman-shaming society.
I have always been very open about my body, my sexuality, and the miracles that the body of a woman can perform in her lifetime. I honestly did not know where this openness came from, being raised by a single father, but I always had strong female role models in my life, one of which was my father’s girlfriend who became my mother-figure throughout my childhood. She taught me that the anatomy of a woman is beautiful and despite the abuse I had endured as a child from my mother (and the reason why my mother has not been in my life for more than a decade) there is nothing to feel ashamed about when it comes to your own body because it is yours and no one else’s and no one can tell you that you are not beautiful and that your body is in any way something to be looked at as vulgar or disgusting; including menstruation. For a while I thought that perhaps my natural-born feminism was something instilled in me from my upbringing, but from running this website (and hello, have you noticed the name of this website?) as well as paying special attention to the women who come from my generation, I am noticing that there are a great deal of women who are coming out of the shame closet; who are demanding that the awkwardness associated with the bodies and bodily functions of women are what is truly shameful and that the period is something that should be spoken about openly and honestly. That is exactly what Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, a young woman of 18, did when she started asking women to tell her about their first periods.
Nalebuff realized with her own first period and hearing the story of her Aunt’s first period that she had kept a secret for over 50 years, that people needed to start talking about this and the other events that happen in a young woman’s life that people are simply refusing to talk about openly. Something needs to be done in this society that would let this silence continue for so long and keep so many women captive in its process of women-shaming. And so she started collecting stories from women and girls all over the world about their first periods and now presents us with an absolute gem, My Little Red Book, for women and girls of all ages who are either just about to get their periods, just got it and feel awkward about it, or for women who remember their first periods vividly and celebrate the right of passage that we as women have to talk openly about it.
There are 90 short stories in all and several names we’ve come to know through their own books and activism work make appearances in this book, including Jennifer Baumgardner, Meg Cabot, Megan McCafferty, and Gloria Steinem’s 1978 essay, ‘If Men Could Menstruate’ which originally had appeared in Ms. Magazine also appears in this book. There are stories of how many women thought themselves to be dying when noticing the small stain in their panties, women who “faked” their periods when knowing that their friends had gotten their periods before them, and my favorite is a story about a mother who when her daughter first got her period and felt awkward about it, she had to do something to mark the day and so she bought her daughter a vase full of red roses and in another story, her daughter talks about how special those roses were to here and how she had kept the vase for years after that first period. Another one of my favorite parts of this book is that so many women talk about the Judy Blume book, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret a book that you would think comes with all little girls at birth due to how widely-read and coveted it is, albeit a bit out of date for those of us who have never seen these menstrual pad belts Margaret speaks of.
My Little Red Book is a must for all women who have ever felt shamed or awkward about their period and also for every girl’s first period kit.
All of the proceeds of this book are being donated to charity because there is a lot to be done as far as making the bodily functions of women something that can be widely spoken about. There is also a great need for activism in countries like Africa, where because of the lack of menstrual supplies, a young girl will not receive the education that she is entitled to because one week out of every month will be spent out of school due to her period.
In the back of My Little Red Book, there is a section of books to read about periods including, yes, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and there is also a Do More section where your support for organizations like Planned Parenthood, who are the largest provider of sexual education and health services in the United States, as well as Choice USA, a youth-led organization that seeks to protect women’s reproductive rights, can tremendously help girls receive the sexual education that they too are entitled to. A company that I would like to add, is Lunapads. Lunapads are based in Canada and make reusable, cloth and fleece pads. Not only do they make a transition from disposables to reusable pads easy, their pads are completely harmless, unlike disposables that contain bleach and synthetic fibers. Lunapads also does great work for girls in Africa by giving them their Pads4Girls Kit and each pad has a lifespan of 5 years or more that will help African girls attend school when they have their periods.
You can find out even more about this book and even share your own first period story at MyLittleRedBook.net.
Face-Amish No More!
Did you hear? America is not playing catch-up with the rest of the world when it comes to science and technology. We have tons of science; oodles of science, even. We’re even getting all science-y in our commercials… in a ploy to confuse the normal woman until she runs out to her closest store and buys every single “age-defying” skin care product on the shelves! Soap and moisturizers are out and “skin science” is in! Yes, we are no longer “face-amish” as Sarah Haskins puts it in the newest Target Women:
I Slept Through Some of the Oscars and Missed the Best Part
Ah, the Oscars. The land of celebrities and red carpets, the good, the bad, and the ugly of fashion, and Hugh Jackman’s chance to get drunk, put on a tux, and make a complete ass out of himself in front of present company as well as 30 million live viewers. Whether it was because Hugh Jackman has hosted the Tony Awards or the fact that he has a Marvel comic movie empire under his belt or the fact that he will continue riding on the coattails of Stan Lee’s creation for at least another two years due to his upcoming movie where he plays, surprise, Wolverine, whatever decision-making process led to him hosting last night’s Oscars should be thoroughly evaluated and learned from for upcoming Academy Awards events.
The most acknowledged movies this past year were not musicals, yet Hugh Jackman’s complete and utter fail of a performance brought one word to mind: Lame. And perhaps that is why I missed the part I had actually been looking forward to seeing because I could not help but to fall asleep. And that part would be none other than watching Sean Penn accept the ‘actor in a leading role’ award for his performance in Milk. Luckily, however, I did get to see Dustin Lance Black accept his award for writing Milk and I was able to watch Sean Penn’s absolutely phenomenal speech this afternoon online and yes, I did tear up… during both speeches.
Dustin Lance Black’s speech:
Sean Penn’s speech:
While Dustin Lance Black and Sean Penn are making Academy Award headlines for their equality activism, other moments of note include seeing Sarah Jessica Parker look like a real-life Barbie Princess doll that somehow broke out of the package, tape and twist-ties, escaped Toys R Us, and landed smack dab in the middle of the stage (the what the fuck are you wearing and fire your hair stylist moment,) Tina Fey and Steve Martin (the hilarious and just what we needed in the middle of seemingly nothing moment,) Ben Stiller (the Joaquin Phoenix moment and the you’re going to be here even if we have to make a bad comedian play you moment,) Cuba Gooding Jr. (the oh so very true moment,) and of course, Christopher Walken (the complete definition of pure awesomeness moment.)
Finally, what the Oscars did accomplish (and very well, at that) is send every celebrity in the audience home with an overwhelming sense of pride, whether or not they won an award, because at least they aren’t Hugh Jackman.
Utah Lawmaker Chris Buttars Says LGBT People are America’s “Greatest Threat”
America is currently facing the worst economy in 80 years, widespread layoffs, the crumbling of financial institutions, multiple bailout and stimulus packages for companies and American families, a meltdown in the auto industry and millions of people at risk of losing their homes.
However, none of the crises we face as a country come close to being America’s “greatest threat.” According to Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars, America’s greatest threat is the LGBT community.
Buttars has publicly made several hate-filled, discriminatory remarks against the LGBT community, such as:
- Lesbian and gay relationships are abominations.
- LGBT people lack morals.
- Thanks to them we are, “moving toward a society that has no morals.”
- He refers to LGBT people as “the meanest buggers I’ve ever seen.”
- LGBT people are “destroying the constitution.”
- Their “number one goal is to proselytize to youth” and use schools as “a recruiting station.”
- They will “destroy the foundation of American society… In my mind, it is the beginning of the end.”
Not only has Buttars not apologized for one disgusting remark he has made, he clearly takes pride in his mindset saying that he has “killed” every piece of pro-equality legislation in Utah for eight years.
Buttars is perhaps the worst, if not then the most outspoken and unapologetic in his outrageous hate speech and if you believe that Sen. Buttars should be held accountable for his word vomit, write to Utah’s Senate President and tell him to denounce Buttars’ remarks.
North Dakota has One Foot in the Door to Give Fertilized Eggs Human Rights
Just a few days ago the North Dakota House of Representatives voted 51-41 to pass a fetal personhood bill, HB 1572 that gives fertilized eggs the same rights as a human being.
The following exact wordage of the bill was taken from the Personhood North Dakota website. On a side note, I am very tempted to buy the Personhood Pennsylvania domain just so they can’t. Hmmm… Decisions, decisions.
Legislative Assembly HOUSE BILL NO. 1572
of North Dakota
Introduced by
Representative RubySECTION 1. References to individual, person, or human being – Legislative intent. For purposes of interpretation of the constitution and laws of North Dakota, it is the intent of the legislative assembly that an individual, a person, when the context indicates that a reference to an individual is intended, or a human being includes any organism with the genome of homo sapiens. SECTION 2. STATE TO DEFEND CHALLENGE. The legislative assembly, by concurrent resolution, may appoint one or more of its members, as a matter of right and in the legislative member’s official capacity, to intervene to defend this Act in any case in which this Act’s constitutionality is challenged.”
This bill is sponsored by Rep. Dan Ruby, a Republican man who (for the upteenth time) will never know what it is to be “with child” himself. He has been quoted as saying:
“This is the exact language that’s required by Roe vs. Wade. It stipulated that before a challenge can be made, we have to identify when life begins, and that’s what this does.”
Ruby has sponsored other bills that would ban abortion in the past, but this is the first bill that he has sponsored that has made it as far as being sent to the North Dakota Senate–A tragedy for all free-thinking, pro-choice women and men living in North Dakota.
This bill is not intended to just give fertilized eggs the same rights as humans, it is intended and will be fought continually to outlaw abortion and is specifically designed to pose a legal challenge to Roe v Wade. Also, if this bill succeeds, it will also go on to outlaw birth control and emergency contraception because in a perfect, anti-choice world, we have no choices or control over our own bodies or reproductive freedoms. Period. End of discussion.
This bill now goes to the North Dakota Senate and although I hope that this bill is squashed, given that the North Dakota Senate is anti-choice I am doubtful. Maybe they will prove me wrong, though.
Bill O’Reilly Needs to Go Back to Clown College
Earlier this week Whoopi Goldberg appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show where he proved yet again that he and his show are just one, big joke by bringing up the comment he made about Helen Thomas last week. She said that she found his comment “out of character” and when he backed up his comment (again) by saying that it was meant merely as a joke, Whoopi told him “if you’re gonna do humor, learn how to do it.”
Watch the clip:
The comment Whoopi makes begins at 4 minutes, 30 seconds.
I agree with Whoopi here. If you’re going to do humor, why don’t you be humorous without also being sexist?
Bill O’Reilly has proven to us all that you really can continually beat a dead horse. His comment targeted at Helen Thomas was made early last week and now that we’re closing the following week, we are still hearing about it. The problem I have with this is that while it’s great that O’Reilly’s sexism, ageism and general asshole remarks are being harped on and he is being told again and again by the people he has on how show that he should be ashamed of his remarks and also apologize to Helen Thomas for them, but we know that he is not going to and is simply bringing it up again and again so he has something to glide on by with until his next shameful remark.
Bristol Palin Believes Abstinence is “Not Realistic”
This story broke in the blogosphere big time yesterday, but to be fair, I had this post started yesterday, so it only looks like I’m late with this.
Bristol Palin sat down with Fox News two days ago for an intimate interview on being a new, teenage mother and given what she had to say, she confirmed our suspicions when she divulged that she had just told her mother, Sarah Palin, the day before she did the interview. What Bristol Palin had to say, however, may have surprised Fox News, her family, her family’s devout Republican, anti-choice followers, but most of all, us–The feminist population; but in a good way.
The very last few seconds of this interview may have caught everyone off guard, but between her candid words and amateur, teenage vocabulary, Bristol Palin hit the nail on the head–Abstinence is not realistic.
It’s National Condom Week!
National Condom Week kicked off on Valentine’s Day, the perfect day to start conversations about safe sex! National Condom Week will last until February 21 so use this week to speak your mind about comprehensive sex education and start conversations with whoever you can, whenever you can.
There are so many lies we’ve all heard about condoms, mostly coming from anti-choice advocates, to make sure to get the facts about condoms and make safer sex a priority every time you have sex!
Some Condoms 101:
Latex condoms have been scientifically proven to
- Reduce the risk of pregnancy. Condoms are an effective, inexpensive, over-the-counter form of birth control.
- Reduce the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission. The condom is a highly effective barrier against HIV infection.
- Reduce the risk of other sexually transmitted infections. Condoms significantly reduce the risk of getting or passing many sexually transmitted infections.
Here’s how you can practice safer sex:
- Understand and be honest about the risks you take.
- Keep blood, pre-cum, semen and vaginal fluids out of the bodies of our partners.
- Always use latex or female condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse.
- Don’t engage in sex play or intercourse with a sore caused by a sexually transmitted infection. Also, don’t engage in sex play or intercourse with an open sore or wound of any kind, from anything when it may put ourselves or our partners at risk.
- Find ways to make safer sex as pleasurable as possible.
You can buy condoms over-the-counter at your local pharmacy or drug store. You may also buy them discreetly from feminist-friendly sex shops like Babeland, plus they have a wide variety of lubricants, too! And, as always, you can also get free condoms from your local Planned Parenthood clinic and while you’re there, you may want to get a free HIV/AIDS test, especially if you’re sexually active and have never had one before.
You can also celebrate National Condom Week by sharing some funny (and some serious) skits and public service announcements about condoms and their importance.
Here is a hilarious skit from The Golden Girls:
And here are two public service announcements from MTV:
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Out Campaign
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
