Target Women: You’re Old
Sarah Haskins turned 30 earlier this month, August 3 to be exact, and in celebration of her officially being “old,” she did a special Target Women on what it’s like to be a woman who is old and all of those special little problems that arise as soon as you turn old. Like feeling like a water balloon that’s about to pop and spill very unladylike fluid everywhere or suddenly being made of pipe.
PETA Continues Unethical Treatment of Women
PETA, as an organization who claims to be working to end the unethical treatment of animals has absolutely no problem at all treating women unethically–as we’ve known for a while now. PETA has a very extensive history of using sexist, woman-shaming, fat-shaming, racist, violent, hurtful, and downright disturbing tactics in the way they choose to present their organization and in turn, their message. And their most recent Florida billboard campaign is no different.
PETA has put out numerous ads picturing naked women with taglines like ‘I’d rather go naked than wear fur’ and most notably ‘be comfortable in your own skin.’ However, their most recently Florida billboard campaign that features a woman with “blubber” in a bikini and the tagline ’save the whales’ really drives home another message they’re trying to spread–that you should be comfortable in your own skin as long as you’re an “acceptable” society-approved size.
As if the billboard wasn’t enough, PETA’s press release for the billboard goes on to use even more fat-shaming, degrading, and insulting language:
Jacksonville, Fla. — A new PETA billboard campaign that was just launched in Jacksonville reminds people who are struggling to lose weight — and who want to have enough energy to chase a beach ball — that going vegetarian can be an effective way to shed those extra pounds that keep them from looking good in a bikini. The ad shows a woman whose “blubber” is spilling over the sides of her swimsuit bottom and features the tagline “Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber: Go Vegetarian. PETA.”
Anyone wishing to achieve a hot “beach bod” is reminded that studies show that vegetarians are, on average, about 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters. The meat habit can ruin the fun in other ways too. Consuming meat and dairy products is conclusively linked to heart disease, diabetes, and several kinds of cancer — not to mention higher rates of infertility in women and impotence in men. And not only is following a healthy plant-based diet good for the environment, it is also the best thing that anyone can do to help stop the routine abuse of animals raised and killed for food. Animals on factory farms are subjected to mutilations like debeaking, tail-docking, and branding (without any painkillers) and are often slaughtered and dismembered while still conscious.
“Trying to hide your thunder thighs and balloon belly is no day at the beach,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA has a free ‘Vegetarian Starter Kit’ for people who want to lose pounds while eating as much as they like.
*emphasis mine
One grave mistake that PETA continues to make with every new campaign they launch is that they are unapologetically alienating people who are vegetarian and vegan who they could inspire to become vegetarian and vegan if they weren’t mocked, ridiculed, insulted, and objectified in every other PETA campaign. Case in point: many feminists happen to be vegetarian/vegan and if PETA wasn’t such a fan of attacking and using women, each one of those feminists could be a person who would support PETA and their organization. However, PETA has made it abundantly clear that they aren’t going to stop using misogyny, racism, and violence as a marketing tool so the Portland Feminist Action League organized a peaceful protest at the Powell’s book store in Portland when hearing news that PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk was doing a book signing at the location. They held signs that said things like “PETA can kiss my big fat vegetarian ass!” and “Animals for ethical treatment of women.”
Here’s a video from the protest:
The View Replaces Elisabeth Hasselbeck with…Two Other Blonde Republicans
Elisabeth Hasselback, the notorious right-winger and frequent argument-starter from The View will be out on maternity leave from the beginning of September until mid-October. In her absence, The View will be replacing her with Meghan McCain and former FOX News anchor E.D. Hill. Both McCain and Hill have joined The View panel before; in April McCain responded to Laura Ingraham criticizing her weight, mocking her as being a plus-size model who couldn’t get on the MTV show The Real World, by saying “kiss my fat ass!” Hill had appeared on the panel last October again, to replace Hasselbeck while she was out.
While having Meghan McCain as an anchor really doesn’t surprise me, since Elisabeth Hasselbeck had campaigned for John McCain during the 2008 election, what does surprise me is their choice of E.D. Hill. E.D. Hill has a failed career as a right-wing extremist anchor who was fired by FOX News. FOX News–that same “news” network that continues to let Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck spout out their lies, deceit, and utter hatred for any person, organization, and so on that disagrees with them about anything. That same “news” network that didn’t sack Glenn Beck for claiming that President Obama hates white people and “white culture” (I’m still trying to figure out what, exactly, “white culture” is…) That same “news” network that works more like a circus of idiocy rather than an actual and reputable news source cancelled Hill’s show, America’s Pulse and then, shortly thereafter chose not to renew her contract. There should be a new rule put in place–when a right-wing extremist gets fired from FOX News, their career is officially over.
However, by choosing a right-wing anchor to replace another right-wing anchor who not even FOX News will associate with, it shows the true intentions of The View. Because Elisabeth Hasselbeck can’t be on the show to make a fool of herself (as she does most of the time which you can easily see just by searching on YouTube for ‘Elisabeth Hasselbeck The View’–warning, you may get stuck on there for a while watching and re-watching segments that may contain your brain to explode) they need to dig up people who possess the same jaded view of the world to do it for her and E.D. Hill is just the person to add more close-minded sentiments to the show; although I wonder if she will, like Hasselbeck, try to cover up her sometimes delusional and close-minded comments by saying “other people will be asking that/thinking that…”
Something else that popped out at me immediately is the fact that both anchors to replace Elisabeth Hasselbeck… look like Elisabeth Hasselbeck. I am fairly positive that there are indeed other right-wing extremist anchors who could fit the bill for The View that aren’t blonde.
Meghan McCain will be on the panel starting on September 9th for three episodes, E.D. Hill will come on after McCain’s run.
Summer 2009 Issue of Ms Magazine
The summer 2009 issue of Ms Magazine received a decent amount of attention before the issue even hit newsstands due to the cover of the issue, which features a typical white, middle-class, American woman holding many items meant to signify life as a working woman and mother. Not too bad when you think about it in theory, but a great deal of people said that instead of showing a picture of what it is to be a multi-tasking mother in the age of technology, blogging, tweeting, cleaning, and making dinner, it inappropriately utilized Hindu iconography, mocked the religion, and diffused the imagery of it’s “true meaning.” However, Veronica Arreola of Viva la Feminista disagreed with the sentiment that the Ms cover was offensive by saying:
the image of a multi-armed woman in relation to motherhood is most likely as old as motherhood itself. I imagine this is why women papoosed or slung their infants to them as they worked the fields. As some in the comments of Mandy’s post pointed out, their own mothers use to say “I wish I had another set of arms!” or “I don’t have 8 arms missy!” I’ve always viewed the multi-armed image of motherhood as relating to an octopus. Again, growing up ignorant of Hindu deities, the octopus or spiders, especially in cartoons, were seen as having an ability us humans didn’t have – extreme multi-tasking. And today’s moms are pushing the boundaries of multi-tasking.
However, she also noted that she is in this issue of Ms Magazine (there is a picture of her speaking to an audience with the caption ‘Blogger Veronica Arreola brings feminist mothers to cyberspace’ and she also appears in the cover story ‘Cyberhood is Powerful’) so she could be a bit biased in her assessment.
But after reading this issue of Ms Magazine, I find myself absolutely flabbergasted as to why the ‘Cyberhood is Powerful’ story influenced Ms to put it on the cover, especially considering that there is another story that is far more important than a feminist-skewed story on mommy bloggers. It seems that over the summer, the stories about mommy bloggers have exploded all over the media and while this article is different in the respect that it is primarily about the online activism of feminist others who work hard to ensure that mom-friendly legislation goes through, the cover of the issue is very much off the mark in representing the story as something that is important to read and makes it look as if they are featuring yet another article on the lives of mommy bloggers. In my opinion, Ms Magazine downplayed the importance of their own article with their cover art.
The story that I would have liked to see even mentioned on the front cover of the issue is ‘Baghdad Underground,’ an article about an underground “railroad” that was founded in 2004 by feminist organizer Yanar Mohammed, who is also the head of OWFI (Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq) that provides the only escape for women victims of sexual and domestic violence. You can read a segment from the article here.
‘Baghdad Underground’ is a must-read article because it actually speaks out about the violence that is going on in Iraq right now that is so much worse than it had been under Saddam Hussein. It highlights that while Saddam Hussein’s regime persecuted political dissidents but allowed women personal rights and freedoms and what I enjoyed most about this article is its complete honesty; it shows how the American media has funneled through the facts of the Iraq war and have told us what they think we should know which of course, are only the parts of the story that makes America look like the good people. The fact of the matter however, is that after the US invasion of Iraq, violence was at an all-time high and women became “the easiest targets.” The life of women in Iraq has become unimaginably horrific and in fact, much worse than their lives pre-fall-of-Saddam-Hussein since Iraq now governs with much stricter Islamic Sharia law. Because of this, violence against women is at an all-time high violence against women goes virtually unchecked.
This is an article worthy of the front cover; in my opinion, of course.
The issue also has a great article on late Dr. George Tiller; his life, his work for women, his murder, and other abortion providers in the country who have been threatened and whose clinics have been vandalized by anti-choice extremists and who are at a very high risk of being the victims of domestic terrorism, just as George Tiller was. The article touched very deeply on the life that Dr. Tiller had lived and his commitment to women and their health and well-being. It was incredibly moving and paid an excellent tribute to the man he was; a man who trusted women. It was so moving, in fact, that I had a little tearing up action going on.
And of course, no magazine would be complete without book reviews and now I have to go out and buy Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood and When Gay People Get Married.
Health Care Reform is About People
Updates on Menstrual Poetry have pretty much come to a standstill over the past month. This has happened a few times over the past two years that I have been blogging here, but never quite to this degree. My life pretty much revolves around my online projects–and I have a lot of them–so while I try to spend as much time as possible online, treating my computer as more of a lifeline than anything else, even beating out coffee, that just has not been possible over this past month or so.
As some of you who speak to me on a frequent and personal level may know that I have a dental condition called Periodontal Disease that has given me a great deal of problems. Over the past few years however, my dental condition has worsened and of course, my wisdom teeth have decided that now would be the perfect time to sprout up. Apparently they did not receive the memo that I already have crowded teeth because my mouth has already produced too many teeth to fit so there is no way four additional, massive teeth are going to fit in there. But up they sprouted anyway. My wisdom teeth have been making their way into my mouth, desperate to be my best friends, for over two years now and throughout the entire time, I have spoken, saw, consulted with, and have downright pleaded with dentists to do something to help me, but to no avail. These past few years have been hell for me because my dental condition has continued to worsen, my teeth are beginning to decay regardless of how well I take care of them, and my wisdom teeth (that are coming in already pre-decayed for me) are causing me to be in constant, unrelenting pain. They are forcing pressure against all of the teeth in my mouth, causing my mouth and face to swell up and is also the source of a constant migraine headache. The pressure they are putting on my head has gotten so bad that I have woken up several times barely being able to hear and I woke up just this morning with what I am assuming is an ear infection from hell and a swollen throat.
I hardly get any good sleep where I actually wake up rested; often I wake up after 15 hours of sleeping and I am still tired. But I know that it is not me being tired, it is me being in so much pain that the only thing that my body will do is shut down.
So why, in over two years, have I not had these teeth pulled? Why am I blogging about mind-numbing pain instead of getting something done about it?
I don’t have insurance. No dental insurance, which would have helped with preventative dental work so I wouldn’t be in this position right now. No health insurance, which is what I am in need of now that my dental condition has become so bad that it is directly affecting my health. And because I don’t have insurance, I do not matter.
Dentists are only willing to do work if they know that they are getting paid, so when you call a dentist’s office to inquire about sliding scale fee options or payment plans and realize the kind of money you need in order to even get started on the process is more money than you have seen in quite a while–combined–well then you have a problem. When it comes to the uninsured, money is always the problem. Hell, money is quite often just a problem–to those who don’t have boatloads of it. While on my quest to get the dental work I need done, I have applied for medical assistance–and was promptly denied. I am still flabbergasted as to how I could be denied since my income is hilarious! Nevertheless, I have been wafting in a sea of denial and have realized that there is way too much wiggle room in the system for people, like me, who get denied for medical assistance yet can only dream of being able to afford private health insurance; especially if you work from home, like I do.
Everywhere you look in the media right now you are hearing about health care reform. Right wing extremists have dubbed it “Obamacare” and Republicans have been doing all they can to knock a public option for health care off the table. The message of their efforts is simple–All people do not deserve the right to a healthy life; just the privileged people who can afford it do. This belief has never sat very well with me. As Americans we are told that we must love our country; that we must stand by our country, fight for our country, and die for our country if we must–and we should be proud to do it. So why is it incomprehensible to think that our country should ensure that we are a healthy nation? The health care reform legislation is not trying to change anyone’s existent health insurance programs, it is merely giving people like me, who cannot afford private health insurance yet are denied for medical assistance by their state, a chance at a healthy life. It seems ludicrous to me to discriminate against people who are ill and who are low income, yet the government is allowing that discrimination to occur within the Republican and “Blue Dog” affiliations. This country will inevitably always be comprised of the have’s and the have not’s, but access to health care that people so desperately need should never be lumped into those categories. Health care reform is about people. It isn’t politics; it is something that will make it easier for people to get the care that they need in order to live. And I can attest first hand that living in pain and living with a condition that no one can or wants to help you with is not living, it is existing and barely at that.
As for me, I have finally found a sliding scale clinic that gave me a consultation for the dental work that I need done. They also gave me a referral to an oral surgeon who, of course, does not have a sliding scale option and I’m just going to assume, not very fond of the poor people. On August 25 I will go in for yet another consultation, this time with the oral surgeon to schedule getting five teeth extracted–all 4 wisdom teeth and another tooth that has pretty much decayed and that has been giving me many problems, including not being able to put anything remotely cold into my mouth because it makes it feel like my entire mouth is being attacked by super tiny ninjas with huge, sharp swords.
I am making a tremendous effort to stay up to date with all of my online projects and work that I do but if I go missing for a few days, you now know why. You can also follow me on Twitter because I tend to update that when I have a few seconds to spare and something witty to say or need to get something off my chest. Sometimes I’m entertaining.
California Cuts Millions from Health and Human Services Programs, Leaves DV Shelters with Nothing
$489 million was recently cut from California’s state budget by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bulk of that $489 million was taken directly from health and human services programs, regardless of how important that money was to those programs or how many Californian lives they saved.
Perhaps the most shocking cut affected California domestic violence shelters, which were stripped of its federal funding by these cuts. While the shelters were preparing for the 20% funding cut proposed by the legislature, they were shocked to find out that the governor had cut 100% of its funding, driving shelters to either be forced to close or seek new sources of funding. These clinics keep women and children safe and alive, and as the Executive Director of Catalyst Domestic Services in Butte County, California, Anastacia Snyder has said “If the governor’s budget cuts are allowed to stand, victims will not have a place to turn for help and lives will inevitably be lost.”
Leaving domestic violence shelters with no funding whatsoever is frankly, a death sentence for many women and their children who desperately need the services that these shelters provide. The decision to cut all funding for these life-saving shelters is morally corrupt and downright wrong. It speaks volumes of how Governor Schwarzenegger views women and his lack of commitment to making decisions that should best serve the people of California. This budget cut is also coming at a time where communities in California are seeing a rise in reported cases of domestic violence. Fresno, California alone has seen a 30% rise in cases of domestic violence over the past four months. So while the need of these shelters is rising and will inevitably continue to rise, these shelters will not have the means to help the people who need them.
In addition to domestic violence shelters losing all of their funding, Governor Schwarzenegger is also robbing people in need of several other health and human services programs, including AIDS prevention programs which saw a $52 million cut, $25 million was cut from clinics, and $50 million was cut from Healthy Families, a health initiative that offers health insurance to children in low-income families.
Get Social
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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.
