Friends Don’t Let Friends Fat Talk

Considering my last post, I probably could not have found out about Fat Talk Free Week at a better time!

Check out this awesome video from Tri Delta’s Fat Talk Free Week:

Fat Talk Free Week is an international body activism campaign spanning over five days (October 19th-23rd) that draws attention to the damaging impact of the thin ideal on women in society. It is so easy to look at yourself in the mirror and think that your thighs are fat, that you have fat rolls, that you’re too fat to wear something (even though it may look amazing on you!) and saying things to your friends and family members like ‘You look great have you lost weight?’ is all damaging to yourself and to the women around you.

If you haven’t already, promise to eliminate Fat Talk from conversations with friends, family and also with yourself! Strive for the healthy ideal without focusing on weight or size. Make the promise today!

Fat: Masculinity & Sexist Put-Downs

I probably should have prefaced this post with an earlier one containing a more detailed explanation of where this post originated, but just bear with me for a bit here. Over the past few days I have been marinating on a series of complicated, highly-stressful, mind-boggling, eye-roll-inducing, leave-you-utterly-exacerbated events. I have been compelled more-so now than ever before to get all of these feelings that have stemmed from this series of events out of me but have been hitting a great amount of roadblocks every time I come here to get everything out because sure, day-to-day observations and questions we have that stem from our daily lives in a particular society or culture are often put on public display for open discussion, but when you truly need your blog and need the comfort that comes with blogging, which before I started running Menstrual Poetry more like a news aggregator plus my particular views and input on current events is what I used this website for, well that’s when it’s the hardest to get all of your mental ducks in a row, for lack of a better term. For me, and for I’m sure a lot of other bloggers out there, my personal life has often come up on my blog which is what we agree to when we start blogging in the first place. Personal views on society and politics are often a direct result of our personal lives. Many bloggers refuse to put their family life on display, which until now I have always respected because while I have a blog and while I will write about my own life, my family did not sign on for their personal lives to be on display just because I have a blog. But when does the time come where we simply must nudge that ‘rule of blogging’ aside? For me, that time is now.

I have always had a very unique relationship with my younger sister. Due to our childhood I had been forced to look out for her well-being before my own; I made sure she had enough food to eat even if I did not, I made sure she had clean clothes to wear and that she had a bath as often as possible. That in itself is the life of abused and neglected children. Given this upbringing at the hands of our mother, we grew up relying on each other very much, so when she was 16 years old and had started acting completely erratically and not making the best life choices, I chalked it up to teenage rebellion; hell, me and teenage rebellion had a very strong, one-sided relationship. To say the least, I know it well. But this behavior came to a head when she wound up in a mental hospital for a week after divulging self-harming tendencies and a transfer to a much smaller school that incorporates therapy into their daily curriculum. She was put on medication after being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and for a little while, she was doing perhaps even better than she had been years earlier. My family thought that they had finally seen the end of behavior that wasn’t just hurting her, but also the entire family. They thought this because anyone would and finally she was on the right track. She was getting straight A’s in school, had goals to graduate and then go to college to become a nurse and she had big plans for her impending future, until maybe two months ago when it all picked up again and this time, it was worse.

To make an incredibly long and painful story short, she’s a runaway and all of the services and people who are put into place to help children have stopped trying to help. She has been staying with her boyfriend (of a month and a few days) in a hotel/halfway house where convicted felons and sex offenders reside. Not the best housing arrangement in the least. So I spoke to her on the phone earlier this week and I went to this place she has been staying to pick her up because staying with her sister in an apartment in a place that I can only think to compare to Pleasantville is a lot better than the previous. Me and my partner were greeted by her “boyfriend” who is not a minor and who I had initially suspected was making her stay with him against her will due to the fact that he had met me at the door, the inside door of which locks and needs a key to get past due to the fact that once word gets out to a community about sex offenders cohabiting their space are never too thrilled with the arrangement. So this kid (who is not a minor, but is younger than I am and has no idea what the word ‘respect’ means, which makes him a kid) refused to let me pick my sister up and who thought the best and most logical way of going about getting rid of me was to call me a cunt and crazy.

I did get my sister home to our family with the help of the police and after she adamantly refused to come to my apartment for a few days because it would put her a reasonable distance away from her boyfriend. As it turns out, she was staying there of her own free will, she is just not functioning with a sane mental capacity and is the utter definition of an out of control teen, which is why a day later she was back with her boyfriend and she had signed online with the sole intention of letting her boyfriend harass me via instant message.

So, to the actual point of this entire post (yes, 1200+ words in…) is the word ‘fat.’ Sure, feminists all across the blogosphere as well as anyone who knows the name Kate Harding knows that we are very accepting to body image and also of the word ‘fat’ itself. So why is it in the mass populace of boys and men alike, do they immediately start to hurl the word fat at women who they are trying to piss off? My sister’s boyfriend IM-harassed me for over a half hour, at least, about me being fat and when I stopped typing back (and didn’t block the screen name in case my sister did actually need to get a hold of me at some point when the shades of grey and clouds that Bipolar Disorder infects people’s minds with faded away) actually said that I wasn’t typing back because my 3am pizza had arrived and I was eating since I’m so fat. Now of course this is so ridiculous that all you can do is laugh and brush off your shoulder as an ignorant boy’s banter but it does have something with the initial reason why the word ‘fat’ is used as a slap in the face to women by men who feel they are the epitome of masculinity. It is socially acceptable for women to fear that they are too fat, that their ankles are too big, that their asses are too wide, that they have cellulite and stretch marks and it’s all repulsive because we live in the land of ‘you can never be too thin.’ The more we push back against this social normality, the less we will hear the word fat being used as a put down that is supposed to make women run to their treadmills and starve themselves so they can look like the women on the airbrushed and photoshopped covers of magazines. Masculinity should never be about how bad you can make a woman feel about themselves.

And hey, if he thinks my size 12 figure is fat, what exactly does he think my sister will look like in a few months, since she is now a pregnant, unstable, runaway teen?

Another lesson in why immature teens and young adults who are unable to take care of themselves should be educated in the importance of responsibilities, birth control, condoms and respecting women.

Oklahoma Will Soon Start Publicly Shaming Women Who Have an Abortion

On November 1st, a new Oklahoma law will go into effect that will collect personal details about every abortion performed in the state and post the information collected on a public website for every person with an internet connection to access. The information that will be asked of women who have an abortion includes:

1. Date of abortion

2. County in which abortion was performed

3. Age of [woman] (the law’s wordage is ‘age of mother’ but I find this extremely offensive so I will not be spreading this offensive language)

4. Marital status of [woman] (married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)

5. Race of [woman]

6. Years of education of [woman] (specify highest year completed)

7. State or foreign country of residence of [woman]

8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the [woman] (live births, miscarriages, induced abortions)

While some (meaning the anti-choice) will undeniably argue that the questions asked of women who seek abortions does not identify any single one woman for public prosecution by her peers for having a completely legal procedure, as Feminists For Choice points out, the information collected could easily be used to identify any member of a smaller community, especially if that woman’s race is a minority in a specific county.

Information regarding any person who seeks medical attention for any reason falls under medical records and medical records are, under the law, to be kept confidential. This is nothing but an anti-choice extremist tactic to publicly shame women and put their medical history in the hands of potentially violent extremists; people who are to blame for not-so-peaceful protests, vandalism, death threats and murder. People who will stop at nothing to outlaw a woman’s law-given right to an abortion. People who have obviously pressured Oklahoman law to obtain information that frankly, is no one’s business other than the doctor who performs the abortion. What also troubles me about this law is the fact that women will be forced into divulging the total number of previous pregnancies she has had in the past. Anti-choicers and also those who technically classify themselves as pro-choice but think that women are only entitled to one abortion in their lifetime will undoubtedly begin passing judgment on women who have either had an abortion before, or, as people’s privilege has taught us, begin passing judgment on women who have several children at home. People will begin wondering if the abortion they are reading about online is the abortion had by the 24 year old woman who dropped out of high school living down the street with three children she’s already struggling to take care of; because they have narrowed down the “suspects” and she is the only 24 year old woman who dropped out of high school who has had three previous live births in the community. We know that anti-choicers believe that they have the right to publicly question the morals and principles of those who do not carry around the same belief system as they do and we know that they think nothing of publicly shaming that woman in a community atmosphere; so what’s to stop an angry anti-choicer who is taking stock in how many abortions were performed in their counties and going to pass their judgment and hatred on that woman living down the street from them?

This law is only the beginning of the “final product” anti-choice Oklahomans have in mind–to outlaw abortion and to publicly prosecute any woman who has one, plain and simple.

Luckily, the Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law on the grounds that it “covers more than one subject.” This argument has worked before to strike down an abortion ultrasound law and hopefully will work to the advantage of Oklahoma women again.

Late Memo: When a 43 Year Old Man Drugs and Rapes a 13 Year Old Girl, That’s Called ‘Rape-Rape’

In March of 1977, Roman Polanski, who was 43 at the time, invited a 13 year old girl to pose for pictures in a magazine he was guest-editing. He gave this 13 year old girl champagne and a Quaalude. He knew that she was 13 years old and even called her mother to tell her that they were running late. The man knew very well what he was doing and apparently “running late” means ‘Hey, I gave your 13 year old daughter a roofie cocktail and once I am done violating her in any and every way I can and get what I want, I’ll return her to you.’

Trigger Warning! The following contents of the post may be triggering to some. Please read with caution.

According to the 13 year old girl’s grand jury testimony, Mr. Polanski proceeded to instruct the girl to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged him to leave, he began kissing her, even though she said no and told him to stop. He then proceeded to perform oral sex on her and then vaginally and anally raped her. All the while, she was telling him no and telling him to stop. For the record, this is an unlawful, non-consensual and prosecutable violation of a child. This is rape. ‘Rape-rape,’ if you will, Whoopi Goldberg.

End of Trigger Warning

Since news broke of Roman Polanski’s arrest, many people have come out to defend Polanski; saying that he is an old man now who has lead a rough life and who had a 13 year old girl thrust upon him by her mother, and therefore, he isn’t to blame for what he did. As Kate Harding reported, Joan Z. Shore of the Huffington Post thinks that because she had once met Roman Polanski and was “charmed by [his] sobriety and intelligence,” that obviously puts him above the law; in fact, she claims that he is the victim of this situation. She wrote, “The 13 year old model ’seduced’ by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies. The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It’s probably 13 by now!) Polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence.”

There are many mind-blowing, ‘I can’t believe I just read that’ parts of that small paragraph. So let’s start.

The age of consent in California at the time was 16; not 14, but 16. And it is also worth mentioning that Polanski’s victim was 13 and even if the legal age of consent in California was 14 at the time, which it wasn’t, a few weeks means nothing from a legal standpoint; almost does not count. The legal age of consent currently in California is 18, for anyone wondering. Also, according to grand jury testimony, the girl’s mother did not “thrust” the girl onto Polanski, since testimony says that the mother was unaware of the photo shoot to begin with. As Jeff Fecke points out, regardless of the mother’s actions at that time, no parent can consent to their under-aged child having sex; which is why parents who “sell” their children to their rapists are subject to prosecution, we don’t see the parents in court and their lawyers defending them by saying “But her/his mother/father gave him permission to be raped by that person,” because that’s ludicrous.

Polanski being “demonized” by the press is also laughable. Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a deal was struck in the courts so he did not plead guilty to his actual crime–drugging and raping a child. First of all, money and fame had already put him way above the law and because he fled, that makes him a fugitive and all back-door court deals, as far as I’m concerned, go right out the window. I also love the wordage “managed to flee.” Would we still find this word usage acceptable in any other child rape case? Would we find Roman Polanski’s actions acceptable if this was any other person, or any other crime, for that matter? Again, no. What this comes down to is the fact that Roman Polanski is a wealthy, well-known and somehow respected man and the fact that he had drugged and raped a child has not been the focus of much of the media coverage that has been circulating about him; the media has done their part in protecting a pedophile and a great deal of people have sided with that coverage. So let’s just all say it together and let it sink in–Fame, money and power should never put someone above the law and the fact that Roman Polanski is a pedophile, a rapist and a fugitive, makes him subject to even harsher sentencing than he would have encountered when these charges had first been filed.

Sure, we can continue to use the absolutely astonishing and grotesque buffer that Roman Polanski has had a rough life, but then we would also have to give the same leniency to other people who have been forced to overcome tragedy in their lives. Would we be willing to release any and all criminals currently serving time in prison for crimes they have committed if their childhood or young adult lives were tough? No, because no one cares about criminals currently serving time in prison because they don’t have bottomless pockets and they are not directing movies that people happen to like. While it’s true that Polanski is a survivor of the Holocaust and lost family members and it’s true that his first wife and unborn child were murdered by the Manson Family, but Mr. Polanski also has quite the collection of achievements, including being able to work as a director, owning multiple homes in Europe, getting married and being the father of two children (which I’ll also be the first to say he should not have been able to father children, being a convicted child rapist and all,) and Polanski even won an Oscar. The only privilege Polanski did not have access to is being able to enter the United States. Yeah, poor him.

There are several filmmakers who are demanding, yes demanding Polanski’s release. A petition has even been making the rounds to Hollywood heavy hitters. The petition is backed by France’s Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) and currently has about 138 signatures, including Woody Allen (surprise, surprise,) Pedro Almodovar, Martin Scorsese, Monica Bellucci, Tilda Swinton, David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, John Landis, and many, many others. Harvey Weinstein is also currently trying to recruit more supporters for Polanski. To all of these people attempting to use their power to convince others that a man with a tremendous amount of power on his own should be exempt from the law I have to ask, ‘What are you on?’ This is complete and utter bullshit and it’s interesting to know what proud, petition-signing, rape apologists we have in Hollywood who are so willing to attempt to protect a child rapist.

Happy Blasphemy Day!

As I have stated several times over the years I have blogging on Menstrual Poetry, I am an out-and-proud atheist; Menstrual Poetry also joins nearly 1500 other blogs as part of the Out Campaign’s Blogroll; see very bottom of sidebar for more infomation on that. Being an atheist basically means that I have no belief or faith in any god or higher power whatsoever; I am not spiritual in any way, shape or form and like most other atheists out there, I know very well the discrimination that is bestowed upon those who have no belief in a higher power; and most specifically (if you live in the US) any person who does not identify as either Christian or Catholic.

As some of you may know, any visual depiction of the prophet Muhammad is considered a grave offence under Islamic law. September 30th is the anniversary of the original publication of Danish cartoons in 2005 that depicted Muhammad’s face. Newspapers that published the cartoons were blamed for the outpouring of violence that took over the Islamic community. It is widely believed by those who are religious that all religious beliefs and ideas deserve respect and are beyond criticism or satire. This belief is ignorant and is fueled by fear and it is because of all of this that September 30th has also been deemed International Blasphemy Day.

Description of Blasphemy Day from the Facebook Group:

Blasphemy Day International is a campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a day to promote free speech and stand up in a show of solidarity for the freedom to challenge, criticize, and satirize religion without fear of murder, litigation, and reprisal. Blasphemy Day takes place September 30th to commemorate the publishing of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. The purpose of Blasphemy Day is not to promote hate or violence; it is to support free speech, support the right to criticize and satirize religion, and to oppose any resolutions or laws, binding or otherwise, that discourage or inhibit free speech of any kind. While many perceive blasphemy as insulting and offensive, this event is not about getting enjoyment out of ridiculing and insulting others; rather, it was created as a reaction against those who would seek to take away the right to satirize and criticize a particular set of beliefs given a privileged status over other beliefs. Criticism and dissent towards opposing views is the only way in which any nation with any modicum of freedom can exist. Without this essential liberty, those in power are those best able to manipulate others will suppress and silence dissent by labeling it “defamation” or “blasphemy” or whatever other bogey words they can use to stifle opposition by turning popular sentiment against it. Please, do not let them do this.

International Blasphemy Day is not merely a day, it is a movement and it was created to remind the world that religion should never be beyond open and honest discussion or criticism. Religion has for far too long had such a strong hold of people and of countries, including the US. Religion should be up for debate just as much as anything else and our future, as a society, truly relies on the US amendment to freedom of religion, an amendment that no one who is religious seems to actually acknowledge as a true amendment of the country. Perhaps freedom from religion will be awarded to non-theists soon.

Blasphemy Day has been celebrated on Twitter, which I am happy to say I participated in. Some of the best Blasphemy Day tweets:

• LOL!!! RT @DarlaV: Knock Knock / Who’s there? / God / God who? / I Know, RIGHT?!?! #atheist #atheism #blasphemyday

• RT @scottishstevie: Man created God in his own image : intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent. #blasphemyday

• HA! RT @OmegaWalrus: #blasphemyday Jesus came back from the dead only once – Jason Vorhees does it all the time

You can follow Blasphemy Day tweets by searching #BlasphemyDay. You can also join the Blasphemy Day Facebook group.

Happy International Blasphemy Day, everyone!

Not Even Texas is Willing to Admit Abstinence-Only Works

Texas currently ranks at third place for the highest teen birth rate in the country and they have the highest rate of repeat teen births. Coincidentally, Texas leads the entire country in the amount of government money spent on abstinence-only education. Luckily for the teens of Texas, some school districts in the state are shifting away from abstinence-only, admitting that it isn’t working.

Roy Knight, Lufkin Independent School District superintendent said, “Our data says that what we’re doing isn’t working, and our community is ready for us to do something different.” He also stated that the decision to go a different route as far as sex education goes was “absolutely driven” by a teen pregnancy rate that is higher than the state average.

Currently across the country, one in four teenage girls have a sexually transmitted infection and 30% of US girls become pregnant before the age of 20. Medical experts from the American Public Health Association and US Institution of Medicine have testified that scientific studies have not found that abstinence-only teaching works to cut pregnancy rates, sexually transmitted infection rates or the age when sexual activity begins.

While abstinence-only education tells teens that abstaining from sex and sexual activity is the safest choice for teens, we also know that it includes very little other than that sentiment, including extremely limited information about contraceptives and condoms and downplays their effectiveness. Texas school districts are planning to put an “abstinence-plus” sex education curriculum in place which does include abstinence in the material, but also stresses the importance of using protection if teens are sexually active.

Abstinence-plus education fits the Obama administration’s effort to shift dollars from abstinence promotion to strategies aimed at lowering teen pregnancies. Thankfully the Obama administration has been adamant of ending abstinence-only and we have all seen that abstinence-only robs teens of the information that they have a right to have. The federal abstinence program, known as Title V, expired on June 30 and an even larger program, Community Based Abstinence Education, is expected to cease after 2010. Both of these programs have sent about $14 million every year to Texas, most in the form of federal grants to nonprofit groups that contract with school districts. Because these groups will soon not exist at all (hooray!) it is wise to assume that school districts are putting abstinence-plus in place because their funding has dried up for abstinence-only and the reason why funds have dried up for abstinence-only is because it is an insult to teens everywhere.

Luckily, 17 of the 50 states have refused to accept any federal funding for abstinence-only education and I am so glad that I can report that many Texas school districts have realized that telling teens not to have sex will actually sway teens to abstain.

Hollywood Stands Up for Health Insurance Companies

A new hilarious Funny or Die exclusive features Will Ferrel, Jon Hamm, Donald Faison, Olivia Wilde, Thomas Lennon, Linda Cardellini and other Hollywood stars as they join together to ask “why is Obama trying to reform health care when insurance companies are doing just fine making billions of dollars of profit?”