It IS the Same as Palin’s Head on a Bikini-Clad Body
A picture of Sarah Palin’s head on a bikini-clad body is sexist and this picture, found over at Feministing and made by Ann, of Joe Biden’s head on a set of abs is also sexist.
First, the defense of the posting of this picture:
Indeed, this is a play on words. It’s a joke about Palin’s repeated use of the phrase “Joe Sixpack.” What sets this apart from, say, the photoshopped image of Palin’s head on a bikini-clad body, is that the point of the bikini image was, “Isn’t she HAWT?!” I’m not attempting a sweeping statement about gender here, or trying to take a cheap shot at Biden based on his looks, or trying to “level the playing field.” It’s a play on words. One that I found funny.And when I prefaced it with a note that this explained my feelings on the debate, I meant the absurdity of her “folksy” turns of phrase. And really the absurdity of this entire election. Not that I came away from the evenings festivities thinking I wanted to see Joe Biden shirtless.
All that said, please keep debating this. (Respectfully, of course.)
Firstly, I am glad that Ann is encouraging debate about this image, but the fact that it greeted visitors going to their website to read the thoughts of the Feministing women on the vice presidential debate, because they usually have insightful and thought-provoking things to say, disappoints me.
While it is true that the response to a picture of Palin’s head on a half-naked woman’s body is usually “OMG SHE’S SO HAWT I’M TOTALLY VOTING FOR HER!!!111!!!!!” what if someone were to take this picture of Joe Biden, put it up on their site and say the same thing about him? Would it be sexist then, by Feministing’s standards? Of course it would, but because Ann defends her decision to post this picture by saying that it is a play on words, it is supposed to be accepted when it is simply not funny and indeed sexist behavior.
To point out every sexist picture and remark of Palin, as Feministing and other feminist blogs have been doing, even if we considered that some of the accounts were also defended as being a play on words, and then doing it yourself and claiming it is different is going backwards.
I find it ironic that during the vice presidential debate Biden brought up gender in saying that he knows what it is like to be a single parent yet not a lot of people know that or consider that possibility because he is a man and then finding a picture like this really makes you think about that whole gender equality thing. This picture is sexist and a woman who posts a sexist picture of a man is just as bad as a man posting a sexist picture of a woman.
Via Womanist Musings
John McCain & Sarah Palin: Dangerously Out of Touch
I’m pretty shocked that Sarah Palin had the nerve to bring up “women’s rights” and “equal rights” in the debate last night and so I present you with what Sarah Palin really thinks about women’s rights.
Watch Last Night’s Vice Presidential Debate
Watch Palin read off of her notes the entire time! Fun, right? As for Biden, I was thoroughly impressed with him; he blew me away and hit it right out of the park several times throughout the debate.
And remember, if you haven’t already, make sure you are registered to vote. Your voter registration must be postmarked by October 6th for you to be eligible to vote if you were not registered already. To find out if you are registered and to download your voter registration, go to Vote for Change.
Tina Fey Revists Sarah Palin on SNL
Admittedly not as funny as the first one, but still a great (and eerily spot on) skit.
What the Hell are You Talking About, Lady?
Not only does Sarah Palin not know what the Bush doctrine is, she is proving that she also has no clue whatsoever what’s going on with anything this country is up against and will have to be reformed during the next presidential administration.
Palin was recently interviewed by Katie Couric, who the next day said that Palin is “not always responsive when she’s asked questions.”
I just want to know what the hell this lady is going on about and towards the middle of this video, you can tell that Couric would also like to know what Palin is going on about and if she planned on answering the damn question she was asked in the first place. I just can’t believe you can see her looking at her notes; what did she need notes for? “I know, I’ll make a list of things to talk about when a question comes up that I don’t know how to answer!”
Makes you wonder why Palin just doesn’t go get herself a YouTube account and vlog for all of us about whatever the hell she wants to talk about so she can stop wasting the time of legitimate reporters and the American people who are conned into watching her interviews thinking that she will actually answer a question.
Congratulations, Did You Pray Today?
I went to the Bloomsburg Fair two days ago with my family. (My legs and feet have been healing for the past day after over 8 hours of walking and eating) The fair is something I look forward to every year and it’s also the best place to stock up on religious fliers from Baptist and Catholic churches which you can find tents and booths for every five booths or so. I have made a habit of collecting miscellaneous fliers, brochures, pamphlets, posters, bibles and basically anything I can get my hands on that I don’t have to pay for and since (as I mentioned in my previous post) religious people are all about “informing” (*cough* converting) people over to “their side,” they usually give a great deal of stuff away for nothing. So I go through the fair, having a great time, collecting all my religious literature that I usually end up doing some sort of collage or painting around throughout the long winters here in Pennsylvania, and eating as much as humanly possible; it’s a time that should not be missed, that’s for sure.
This year was no different, except for the fact that I got to show my boyfriend what the Fair was all about and why his past 31 years on Earth have meant nothing since he has not enjoyed the essence that is the Bloomsburg Fair. Towards the end of the day I came across this huge booth for something-or-other-church-of-somewhere where I scored big time in the flier department; so much so that I couldn’t get all of my new literature into my purse before everyone started walking away and I had to catch up. Best of all, I got a free, plastic rosary that I immediately had about one-hundred different ideas for, so I wrapped it around my hand until I could get all of my fliers into my purse.
I was walking merrily along, minding my own business, trying to catch up with the rest of my family that had obviously grown tired of my collecting process by then, when all of a sudden I hear a woman’s voice squeal with delight “I see you have a rosary! Congratulations, did you pray today?” I, of course, stop and look around because by then my head has been down for far too long trying to organize everything I was carrying and who knows where this woman came from. So I look up from my loot and I am greeted with this middle-aged woman’s face, staring at me with a polite smile on her face and I look up a little more and see little baby fetuses among a table in the biggest pro-life tent I have ever seen in my life.
My aunt started yelling my name and “no” as if she is shielding me from fire, protecting me from something that has come to take me away never to return. I was still a bit shocked as I didn’t think my beloved fair would be so cruel to me, but alas I replied with a simple “Um no, I’m going to use it for something.” Of course this woman prods me and asks what, I tell her art and she looks at me like I just told her I had a bomb in my purse and says “Well it isn’t art,” to which I reply “Well, it will be.” She keeps right on talking to me in the most condescending tone I have ever heard in my life and then when I make it perfectly clear that I will not be joining her on her crusade to convert the pro-choicers by telling her I am an atheist and a feminist and that I have to be going now, she starts asking me more questions and I swear this woman was specially trained in what questions one should not ask even acquaintances or someone who was on her side of the playing field. As soon as the word feminist came out of my mouth she jumped all over it and asked me if I was gay. Not a lesbian, not homosexual, but ‘gay’ with such venom I swear her eyes turned red, smoke came charging out of her ears and she was probably trying to get god to strike me down to hell where I stood. And even after I made her fully aware that that is not a question to ask someone and it would not matter if I was gay or was a married Mormon wife with eight children she kept right on going asking me if I had ever been pregnant and why I believed it was perfectly fine to destroy children.
So I gave in. YES, I GAVE IN! I humored her in debate I knew that she couldn’t handle and I was right. By the time I was through talking to her and told her for the eighth time or so that I had to go and was through with her and this nonsense she was preaching to people who I hope know better than to listen to her, I went in for the adoption stance. “So yeah, sure, a woman can give that child up for adoption…and that child would be put into a system so crowded that they would come out of it, property of the US government at 18 years old with no life experience, no proper parenting and no real idea on how to make a life for themselves.” I really wish I was surprised by her answer, but I saw it coming five miles down the street and I see it coming every time an anti-choice person tries to get me to think religiously–She said “What happens to that child is no concern of yours, you gave them life and you are not responsible for that child after giving it up.”
So according to the book of pro-life, this means that every unwanted pregnancy should be carried to term, that child should be given up for adoption and then after that, fuck them. Who cares, they’re gone, out of your life and sitting in foster care somewhere where they are still unwanted and more than likely, with the ridiculous amount of qualifications a family must pass in order to adopt, live in that system until they are 18 years old and are hopefully so poor that they have to join the military. According to the book of pro-life, the child that you give life and then give up for adoption will HOPEFULLY become a dead soldier.
So for the record, every child should be a wanted child and I’m sorry, but I think women are more intelligent than they are often given credit for; I believe that they have the ability to make an informed decision for themselves without having to be guilted into carrying a pregnancy to term because it would make a group of people feel better.
Her parting words to me were to be careful of what I wrote on my website and hopefully I will learn to be a slave to god.
Sorry, but I got bigger goals than that.
I refrained from getting stuck in front of the McCain/Palin booth that was down the road from this one, which I think was a wise decision.
Tina Fey Makes Her SNL Return
To play none other than Sarah Palin and oh the comedic genius!
Due to YouTube being run by “the man” the video of the skit has been removed. However, I found a new one! Thank you, Feministing!
Do You Agree with the Bush Doctrine? Well, Do You?
I didn’t think Sarah Palin would give us so much to talk about in just her first televised interview, but on September 11, 2008, Palin conducted her first interview on ABC World News with Charles Gibson. Gibson asked the question Do you agree with the Bush doctrine? and it took Palin all of 6 seconds to tell us all that she has no idea what the Bush doctrine is.
The Bush Doctrine: The Bush doctrine has set out a radically new–and dangerous–role for the United States.
On September 20, [2002], the Bush administration published a national security manifesto overturning the established order. Not because it commits the United States to global intervention: We’ve been there before. Not because it targets terrorism and rogue states: Nothing new there either. No, what’s new in this document is that it makes a long-building imperial tendency explicit and permanent. The policy paper, titled “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America”–call it the Bush doctrine–is a romantic justification for easy recourse to war whenever and wherever an American president chooses.
In 2 minutes and 34 seconds Palin never did answer Gibson’s question. No, it is not Bush’s “world view,” it is a page out of Bush’s terrorist myth book that blatantly says “Hey, you wanna go to war? Go for it!” However, through Palin’s semi-literate, guess-we-have-to-call-this-an-answer answer (after Charles Gibson was nice enough to tell Palin what it is) then yes, she agrees with the Bush doctrine 110%.
It does not take much to realize how the Republican party sees the US, how they see the rest of the world and how the US can inevitably unify everyone under one, totalitarian government.
The Palin Camp Responds to Matt Damon Video
I posted a video yesterday of Matt Damon speaking his mind about Sarah Palin. The worst thing that he said during this video was that Sarah Palin being so close to being the actual president is like a “bad Disney movie.”
Well the Palin camp has recently responded to Damon as well as all of the alleged “Barack Obama celebrity supporters” by saying:
Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Palin, called the comments “name-calling.”
“It’s not surprising that the Barack Obama and his celebrity supporters continue to tear down Governor Palin with little more than blatant name-calling,” she said. “It’s clear they’re threatened by a candidate who actually has a record of achieving reform and change, while Barack Obama just talks about it.”
First of all, what “name-calling?” Matt Damon did not call Palin any names whatsoever. What he did say about her and concerning her is that he simply knows nothing about her, will not know much more about her in 8 weeks and what he knows is what most of us know–Very close to nothing. Matt Damon did call her a hockey mom from Alaska, which is what Palin has been calling herself through all of her speeches so I don’t know how that is considered “name-calling.” Damon along with other American citizens that do not all include “Barack Obama supporters” know close to nothing about this woman and are terrified at the thought of Palin not just becoming the next vice president, but given how old McCain is and how poor he is in health, Palin could very well become the next president. All that Damon said in the video was that it was scary, which a lot of people can agree with. And with the end of that statement, isn’t the Palin camp issuing some “name-calling” themselves? Don’t we love political double talk?
As for being threatened by a candidate who “actually has a record of achieving reform and change,” that’s just some more biased comments from the right. Palin has indeed set to change a few things…Like freedom of the arts and of speech by asking the library how she could go about banning books. It is noted that while mayor, Palin endlessly injected religious beliefs into her policy which is directly giving the finger to that whole “freedom of religion” thing. Palin also slashed funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live from $5 million to $3.9 million.
So to get all this straight, the Palin camp has the audacity to say that she is a candidate who has a record of achieving reform and change, however, what Palin did manage to change has hurt a great deal of people instead of helping them. Palin believes that abortion should not be legal even in cases of rape or incest so if you are a teenage girl who was raped or is a victim of incest and you find yourself pregnant, under the Palin law, you would be forced to carry that pregnancy to term and either give up that child for adoption, playing that child into a system that is overflowing due to the restrictions set up by the government for people who wish to adopt children, or you can mother that child but Palin does not think you deserve any help whatsoever, even if you are a pregnant, homeless teenager.
Yeah…Great work, Palin! I can’t wait to see other changes you try to make and while you’re at it, why not just get rid of welfare all together, get rid of all great literature and books that were written without religious understones–You know, come to think of it, why doesn’t every library in American just carry millions of copies of the Bible? Sound like a great idea? Yeah, I thought you would like that.
As for other celebrities speaking out about Palin, Pamela Anderson recently said “[Palin] can suck it.” I wonder what kind of response the Palin camp is trying to come up with for that one!
Sarah Palin: The Executive, The Superhero and The School Girl
Sarah Palin is following a great deal of other politicians including Barack Obama and John McCain with the new series of Sarah Palin action figures.
For $27.95 you can get your very own Sarah Palin action figure to do whatever you’d like with but for just $2 more you can get the Britney Spears-like (we’re talking Baby One More Time style here, not crazy, shave your head and get committed Britney Spears) “school girl” doll that even includes white thigh highs and red bra poking out of a white shirt. And because Hero Builders are very uninspired here and are in the “make a quick buck” business, not only did they copy Britney Spears here, but you can also get yourself a Palin superhero action figure with one of Lara Croft’s outfits! All Palin dolls come with the same, super creepy Palin face.
They probably should have done a little more with the face and should have been a little more inspired with the style of the dolls since they look more like miniature sex dolls than anything else with the “school girl” doll, but Hero Builders is simply trying to cash in off of Palin mania that has been sweeping through the right wing.
Jessica over at Feministing said it best with:
So Hillary gets a nutcracker and Palin gets a schoolgirl outfit – obviously both of these come from a place of fear of women’s power. With Hillary, just call her a ballbuster; Palin, just sexify her so she’s not a threat but just another hot chick to look at. Either way, blech.
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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.
