activism

After I returned home from The New Agenda's Violence Against Women Forum last Saturday, I couldn't stop talking to my husband about it. (I, like one of my favorite bloggers, AnnaBelle P, am extremely blessed to have a husband with whom I can discuss these types of issues.)

by LadyBoomerNYC and MadamaB

Well, folks, we are finally, as LadyBoomerNYC says, Ready to Rumble! And roar, the way only PUMAs can.

Yes, it's the launch of...the New York Area PUMAs for Women's Rights! 

In 2008, protesters from all over the country made their voices heard in D.C.

The PUMA movement was born spontaneously in the zeitgeist around the May 31, 2008 DNC RBC meeting in Washington, DC. We mobilized to action during the shocking events leading up to and as a result of the Democratic Party's betrayal of the fair reflection of the voters.

So, PUMAs . . . what are you doing now?

In a post entitled "But Hillary Voted for the Warrrrrrrrr!", I detailed the absurdity of the default Obot position that Barack Obama was somehow "superior" to Hillary Clinton regarding Iraq, simply because he had given a speech in 2002 stating that he was against the invasion.

Did any of the Obots even know Hillary Clinton's plan to end the war in Iraq? Or did her scary ladyparts get in the way?

Here is the portion, found at the above link, that makes me especially sad today.

SUMMARY OF HILLARY CLINTON'S PLAN TO END THE IRAQ WAR

(Source: Hillary for President website)

WWOD about George W. Bush's Health and Human Services "conscience rule" enacted just before the Deciderer exited, stage extreme right?

Surely a SuperFeminist president like Barack Obama, one who earned the glowing praise and endorsement of every pro-choice organization there is, could not fail to overtunr the rule immediately, one would think. Yet it's not quite that simple because, well, it's just COMPLICATED  when teh wimminz wanna like control their own bodies and stuff. Why can't they just ask their pastors and husbands and health care providers what to do?

The Baltimore Sun has the story about the plans, or lack thereof, to overturn the rule.

First, just in case there are some people out there who think the rule won't REALLY affect women, think again:

Well, my sistren and brethren, after a month of "Hope and "Change," are you feeling sufficiently represented by your new "progressive" government?

In my case, the answer to that question is a resounding, "Hell, no!"

Be forewarned, ladies. If you dare to think you are entitled to equal representation in government, you are doing something called "femi-whining."

Don Surber says so, and his post made the "best of the blogs" on RealClearPolitics, so he must have a point. Right?

The Women’s Movement 

I have no degree in Women’s Studies. I have learned mostly through my own life experiences.  So please take what you want and leave the rest.  But recognize what you leave may be what keeps women from fully recognizing the power we hold but never wielded.  The reason for our failure to wield power is the subjugation of women in this country, which takes many forms.  All of them man made.   

"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."

Madeleine Albright

By now, we have all seen the infamous Ms. Magazine cover of Barack Obama in Clark Kent drag, opening his jacket to reveal a T-shirt where the Superman "S" should be. The T-shirt proclaims, "This is what a feminist looks like." It was a shocking, and yet predictable, hommage to a richly undeserving male by a so-called bastion of women's liberation; the ultimate poke in the eye after the endorsements of NARAL and NOW for the all-male Obama-Biden ticket enraged us in the general election.

President-Elect Barack Obama has finally named Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State today. I am thrilled, but nervous, since I expect the press to react like this for the next four years, and she will face many challenges in her new position, including - perhaps - other members of Barack Obama's Administration. 

Most people in this country do not know how explicitly misogynistic Barack Obama's campaign was. They don't have time to sit at the computer and read The Daily Kos, or Talking Points Memo, or The Huffington Post. They didn't read the vile, endless hatred spewed at women by Obama's supporters. They believe the lovely stories spun by the corporate media: that Obama was saintly and above all negativity and "unifying," while his opponents rolled around in dirt. And even when Obama or his surrogates did or said something overtly misogynistic, the media either did not cover it, or excused it.

If there's one thing we've learned from this historic election, it's that, to paraphrase George Orwell's famous quote from Animal Farm, "All people are created equal, but some people are more equal than others."

We found out that Hillary's historic candidacy was not nearly as important as Obama's historic candidacy. We found that it was all right to browbeat women into voting for Obama by threatening to take away their reproductive rights; that it was all right to perpetrate outright election fraud during the primaries; that it was all right to call any woman who dared to oppose this symbolic candidate a racist; to call her too old or too young, too smart or too stupid, too unattractive or too attractive; and just to make the salt in the wounds sting a little more, that it was all right and expected for women themselves to gleefully participate in their own humiliation.

Now that the shock and disbelief of Election Night have passed (and I must admit, I feel no small relief to finally have the matter decided), I find myself more able to analyze what happened on Tuesday. And unsurprisingly, it isn't the tale the media told us.

Having garnered only pro forma support from some of her Senate colleagues (with the notable exception of her frequent partner, Senator Patty Murray) in her efforts to prevent George W. Bush's HHS from denying millions of women access to birth control, Hillary Clinton joins with the president of Planned Parenthood and takes her case to the media:

As a woman, I have been told various things by various factions in the feminist movement. One claims that gender is a social construction. This faction, in my opinion, falls into the category of denying reality. In fiercely and falsely asserting that women and men are the same, we open ourselves up to what I call the "Oh, Shit!" moment.