Mommies Paradise

…and how this type of negligence contributes to how people vote, to the detriment of our bodies.

Over at Women’s Media Center there is an article up by Gloria Feldt (Read the article)

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Speaking of women not getting paid for the work we do, I have noticed that a few articles have popped up in the last couple of days regarding compensation for family care givers (SAHM’s *cringe*) as well as the shameful wage gap between women and men who work outside the home. The current pay gap is 23-24 cents. It never ceases to shock women that women make 76-77 cents for every one dollar a man earns in the same job. Some men? Not so much the shock.

These articles may be motivated by Equal Pay Day on April 24. Good on them. Here is some stuff that I found interesting and particularly heart-breaking (see The Feminine Face of Poverty) but I recommend following the links to read them all.

(Read the article)

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The Supreme Court has upheld a ban on late term abortions stating that it does not in fact violate woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. Bull Shit.

Lynn Harris over at Broadsheet sums it up nicely.

This is cruel and unusual punishment of women in the most tragic of circumstances. The Right just continues to beat at women’s rights in any form and it is appalling to say the very, very least.

UPDATE: Broadsheet and Feministing have a good round up what other people have to say.

UPDATE 2: Lynn Harris has another nice piece up at Salon about this.

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Let’s just say that I won’t be paying any money to see “Grindhouse.” And this article from Catherine Price over at the Broadsheet pretty much sums it up:

If I were to write a list of current movies that I am unlikely to see, “Grindhouse” would probably be right at the top. A double feature involving a zombie flick and a slasher film in which a stuntman kills women with his “death proof” stunt car? I would rather stare at a wall for four hours. (I’m not kidding. I would actually rather stare at a wall.)

Commenting on the misogyny of these films is hardly worth the trouble…

That being said, perfectly I might add, WHY oh WHY did Neca Toys develop an action figure based on the Rapist character?

Neato.

Rapists are sooo cool. And rape is a real joke!

Jackasses.

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This article in Slate entitled Women Who Ditch Their Career for Homelife Could Be Making a Huge Mistake initially made the hair on my neck stand on end.

The author, Leslie Bennetts recently wrote a book entitled The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. It would be easy to dismiss this as yet another salvo in the mommy wars-—the debate over women opting out of careers to be stay-at-home moms. But Bennetts, a longtime journalist and writer for Vanity Fair, is more interested in investigating what she sees as the heart of the matter: economics. Through impressive research and interviews with experts and with real women, Bennetts shows that women simply cannot afford to quit their day jobs. Long-term loss of income has a cascading impact in areas such as medical benefits and retirement funds, not to mention a woman’s sense of autonomy, derived from financial independence. Further, a career supplies a woman with a measure of security for herself and her children in the event of unexpected sickness or divorce. As any woman who has tried knows, returning to the workforce and finding a well-paying job after an absence of years, or even decades, is difficult. Not so long ago mothers would pin a dollar bill to their daughters’ underclothes when they went out on a date in case, for some reason, they needed carfare home. Those mothers knew all to well that without money of your own it’s easy to be left stranded. As Bennetts expertly shows, it’s still true. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bennets received scathing criticism from a whole flock of SAHMs, many of whom didn’t even read her book. I can’t imagine why with a title like that. At first glance it puts me in mind of something the horrifying “Dr.” Laura would come out with and that in and of itself makes me want to scream.

(Read the article)

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This is very late but other stuff has been taking over.

A friend of mine tipped me off to a message that was sent out by the American Family Association about the Discovery Channel Special “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” This message was emailed to my friend from a Very Faithful sucker believer who emailed the message along to everyone that she knew, regardless of his or her faith or lack thereof. Already rude.

(Read the article)

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GAH! A what?? You are kidding me! No? GAH!

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters?* We all know how much I love, love love talking meat.

The Slate review does compare it to vomit - albeit good vomit:

Neither a satire, a pastiche, nor a parody, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters is like the bright-colored gunk you might vomit up after a weekend of gorging on cartoons, B movies, and bad science fiction. But when I compare the movie to vomit, I don’t mean it in a bad way—a paradox that Willis and Maiellaro, with their scatological, stoner-friendly humor, would probably understand.

Well, come Sunday morning puke is puke no matter how fun your weekend was.

*Oh, and just so you know I do kind of dig the movie poster - because well, it is funny.

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Well, maybe not so much. Death does not really become anyone. Especially not like this.

I imagine that you are 82 years old. Imagine that you have smoked your entire life. You have one functioning lung because of this. You have macular degeneration - possibly also because of this. Imagine that you are diagnosed with an infection in your blood and the cure for this infection kills all the good bacteria in your blood and essentially causes a bionic infection which is only curable with one of two antibiotics. It will take six weeks to totally eradicate the infections.

Imagine that now you can’t breathe on your own. You are diagnosed with lung cancer and it has traveled to your entire lung - inside and out. You ask your family to keep you alive and to not let you die. You ask for chemotherapy. You are not eligible for chemotherapy and you are given two months to live - give or take. You are now on a constant drip of fentanyl for the pain. You can’t communicate because you have had a tracheotomy and you are too sedated to learn how to communicate with it.

In a moment of lucidity you ask your Middle Child to let you die.

Unfortunately, there are two other children to confer with, and they can’t make it. One of them is trying to gather the money he borrowed from you, so they can bury you - and won’t answer the phone. The Middle Child will not stop the life support without a consensus. No one will blame her for your death, in the end. This is the politics of death. Even in the battle of what is humane and right, we must cover our ass.

(Read the article)

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After the fervor of last year’s election and the fight to protect a woman’s reproductive freedom, the noise has sort of died down. I admit that I have been lax in continuing the discussion here. I promise to start writing more about this in the future.

Rest assured the anti-choicers/pro-lifers have NOT relaxed. Not one bit and they certainly never will.

Jill at Feministe has written some really powerful things and I recommend that you read them.

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The Kerouack quack has resigned. YAY!

He turned in his much overdue resignation amid some sort of action that has been lodged against him by the Massachusetts office of Medicaid, regarding his not-really-a-private-practice private practice.* Apparently, his private practice is really A Woman’s Concern. And A Woman’s Concern is a crisis pregnancy center chain. Ann at Feministing is taking steps to get all the info.

Let’s hope that this time this lame administration decides to put someone in this position who actually believes in birth control.
*See, you can’t have a private medical practice if you are not really a doctor. I’m just saying.

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