Republicans Are Liars

Kali fuck, would it have killed Kyl to say, "Sorry; I made a mistake"?

Where I Stand

There's something incredibly comforting to me, as a lawyer, about seeing your opponent unable -- finally -- to hide hir objective. I welcome what's happened all day today in DC as Republicans have made clear that, no, preventing abortion is NOT their main goal. Their main goal is hurting women. Women who've been daring for decades now to not act as second-class citizens. In their world, that MUST be punished. In mine, it MUST go on. Come on out in the open, my enemy. Come on out into the light.

hat tip/ Thorn Coyle on Twitter.

I Have So Had It With the Patriarchy Today

Know who's really an asshole? The unseen, male (of course) voice telling this woman to "take a minute and collect" herself because it's an "emotional" topic. I am willing to bet no man in the history of this body has been instructed to do the same thing. Fuck you. Let her talk. Her emotions aren't going to kill you or make your dick fall off.

Sexism. We're soaking in it.

hat tip: watertiger.

Happy Women's Day

One percent -- ONE PERCENT -- of the world's property.

/hat tip to watertiger.

Seriously.

Their list so far, which goes back several years, includes a comment by conservative radio host G. Gordon Liddy about Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor: "Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate," Liddy said on his show. "That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."

The women's groups also point to a quote in a Wall Street Journal story about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's run for vice president where a liberal voter asks, "Who's watching the baby? And what kind of nurturing is going on in that 17-year-old's life if she's pregnant?"

The comments were only lightly condemned, said Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center, and they keep coming.

"Sexism against women in the media has become normalized and accepted in a way that they would not be if the comments were racist," Greene said. "It dramatically affects women candidates."

More here.

Time, and past time, for this nonsense to end.

Picture found here.

My New Name for a Blog

What Shakespeare's Sister Said.

Picture found here.

My New Name For A Blog

Or imagine if it were women protesting male politicians. Nah.

My New Name For A Blog

What echidne Said.

Indeed, the majority of church goers in the Catholic church are women, and this is true for other forms of Christianity, too. It may be true for all the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. It may be true for all religions.

Most women on this planet stay faithful to religious organizations which will not want to share power with them, which have holy texts full of misogyny and which in their extreme forms support societal structures completely unfair to women.

Yes, I understand the reasons for women's religious fidelity. Spirituality is channeled into the avenues that exist where you are born. Community is built around religion. Religion succors those who have less power.

I even understand how hard (and even dangerous) it is to tear oneself away from shared community values and approval, even when those values are bad and the approval based on a role which slowly suffocates you, and I certainly understand the fear of infinite hell if one believes in that. But it is still true that misogynistic religions would have less power if fewer women supported them, if more women spoke openly against the misogyny and refused to participate in it.

The consequences of such rebellious acts are not the same for all women, and I'm not advocating suicidal acts here. But most women will not be stoned to death for asking questions about their religion or for demanding more access to its corridors of power.


The point that echidne makes reminds me of one of the big reasons why I am a Witch. A religion that honors the Earth, physicality, and the cycle of life -- specifically the Maiden, Mother, Crone cycle -- is one where it's much easier for women to wield power. And, while definitely not perfect, has done a better job of not victimizing women, particularly in terms of dogma.

My New Name For A Blog

What echidne Said.

Every Chance I Get

A really wonderful new friend of mine pointed me to Starhawk's latest essay in the WaPo's "On Faith" series. It's so good, that I'm going to reprint most of it here, before I comment on it.

Q: Is there such a thing as a 'just war'? In his Nobel speech, was President Obama right to speak in these theological terms about war? He also stated that 'no holy war can ever be a just war.' Do you agree or disagree?

Is there such a thing as a 'just war'? The problem with that question is that when we answer 'yes', we end up in a world where there is 'just war'--just war as an ultimate solution to every problem, whether it be terrorists, international diplomacy, drugs in our streets or bugs in our gardens. War becomes the default setting for all of our responses. War becomes the measure of manhood and the definer of strength. War constrains our imaginations and limits our intelligence.

A chemical farmer sees a bug in his field, and declares war. Out come the poisons and the sprays, the herbicides and the neurotoxins, dangerous and costly.. Kill the enemy! The result--poison on the vegetables, beneficial insects die, some pests always survive, making the problem worse.

An organic farmer sees a pest, and says, "Hmmn, here's an interesting piece of information. Something in the system is out of balance. Perhaps some mineral is lacking in the soil, that's weakening the plants. What can I do to shift the balance, to create conditions that will favor the beneficial bugs that will keep the pests in check?" Result--increased fertility, clean and nutritious vegetables, bright flowers growing among the fields, reduced damage to crops and increased health for farmworkers and consumers.

Our policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan, for decades, has been that of the chemical farmer--kill the enemy, and anything else that might happen to be in the vicinity, including civilians and potential allies, and when resistance develops, apply more of the same, regardless of cost. Then call it a 'just war'.

Imagine what our policy might be if, instead, we were guided by the maxim of the clever politician Harry Seldon from Isaac Asimov's classic science fiction novel, Foundation. "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent."

We might develop a policy more like that of the organic farmer--looking for the underlying forces that create the imbalance, that favor the development of terrorism and anti-U.S. sentiments. We might look for ways to support and favor the elements within Afghani or Iraqi or Iranian society that make for health, resilience, and liberty instead of employing the force that creates a perfect habitat for resentment, hatred, repression and terror. We might have supported and protected our Kurdish and Shiite allies after the first Gulf War instead of abandoning and betraying them. We might support the women's organizations in Afghanistan who, even under the Taliban, struggled heroically for women's rights. We might look at the model of Otpor, a student group who successfully overthrew the dictator Miloscevic using nonviolent resistance--with some strategic help and funding from outside. We might support the nonviolent resistance among the Palestinians, pressure the Israelis to lift the stranglehold siege on Gaza, to restrain their use of disproportionate force and to recognize that their true security can only be gained when Palestinians also have peace, security, and a just recognition of their human rights.

I'm deeply disappointed in Obama, because he is intelligent enough to forge such a policy. However, he operates in a country still controlled by a deep assumption--that strength equals force and violence, that a man who is reluctant to use force is less than a man, that a nation who refrains from wholesale slaughter is 'weak'. I can't help but think that his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan has less to do with the 'justness' of the conflict and more to do with the politics back home--an attempt to placate his right wing detractors and to look strong in their eyes.

In my futuristic novel, "The Fifth Sacred Thing," my character Maya says, "For five thousand years, men have been goading each other into acts of brutality and stupidity by calling each other cowards."

Until we confront that assumption, until we challenge our 'real men' and real women to embody a different sort of strength--the strength that nurtures, that heals, that uses intelligence and thoughtfulness and diplomacy to solve problems instead of brute force, until the thought of violence becomes abhorrent to us all, we will have no clear yardstick by which to measure any sort of justice.

I'll disagree only to the extent that I don't think it's the concept of "just war" that is the root of the problem. I think, as Starhawk's discussion of farming intimates, that the real root of the problem is the notion of duality -- the idea that there's nature and then there's us and we can war against some part of nature (say, a bug that eats our crops or a group of people who bother us, possess "our oil, live on "our" land) without warring against ourselves. Once you buy into the notion that we are separate from nature (and, thus, each other), then you need the concept of a "just war" to "justify" what you do, not only to plants, animals, and planets, but also to other humans. And that notion of duality, of "us" and "them," with "us" better than and, thus, "in charge of" "them" is bound up deeply in patriarchy, in the notion that men are better than and, thus, in charge of women.

Starhawk's right: Men have been goading other men into violence for thousands of years. Men, even intelligent men like Obama, would rather kill thousands of other humans (and we won't even mention war's impact on animals, plants, the Earth) than be called a coward. And women raised in this culture often agree. We need a new way to raise children that helps them to see themselves as a part of a beautiful web, not as separate from, and therefore "justified" in wreaking havoc upon nature, including other people. It's one reason that I try pretty hard to get G/Son out in nature, to help him to see the wonder of it, to get him to care for it. I don't kid myself that a few trips to the Nature Center completely counter a world that fills his head with Batman beating up bad guys (just war) or that had him convinced at age two that girls aren't fire fighters. But I will undermine the patriarchy every chance that I get. And I get a lot of chances.

May it be so for you.

PS: If you haven't read The Fifth Sacred Thing, you owe it to yourself to do so, right now. One of my all-time favorite novels.

Picture found here.

I Hate The Catholic Church

For some odd reason, this makes me think of this.

No reason

Thank The Goddess, We Didn't Choose Hillary. She "Voted For The War."

It's your quagmire, now, Mr. Obama. And the blood's on your hands.

Woman Murdered In London For Being A "Witch"

The increased murder of women because they are seen as witches isn't confined to Africa and Asia.

A divorced father of three from north London stabbed his mother 21 times after becoming convinced she was a witch and had put a curse on him, a court has heard.

Kayode Kuye tortured and killed Christina Kuye, 69, because he believed she had ruined his life with a black magic spell, the Old Bailey was told.

I'm planning to do some personal magic at Yule to protect women from this madness. Will you join me?

One More Time

Some things make me so angry that I become inarticulate. So:

What Amanda Said

and

What Ericka Said.


Since before the Civil War, the nice progressive men have been explaining to women why we had to wait for our rights. First it was to free the slaves. Then it was to win WWI. Then it was so we could get Civil Rights for African Americans. Then it was so we could end the war in Viet Nam. Now, it's so we can get a health care bill passed. It's odd how we can't multitask. But I'm old enough to detect a pattern here. And I don't fucking like it.

Over And Over And Over And Over Again

It's odd, isn't it, how it's so seldom that men need to be paraded naked around a field?

Five women, including three widows, were forcibly brought to a field Sunday in Patharghatia village in Deoghar, about 350 km from state capital Ranchi. They were stripped and paraded naked and two of them were forced to eat excreta, police said.

"Sushila Kumahrin, Sagiran Beebi, Hafijan Beebi, Sujan Beebi and Gulnar Beebi were tortured to accept that they were witches and practise black magic. The incident took place at the instruction of a witch doctor. The witch doctor said that these women were practising black magic and were causing problems in the village," a police officer said.

. . .

In Jharkhand, women are subjected to different forms of torture after being branded witches. There are instances when women have been paraded naked, forced to eat human excreta and even killed.

According to official data, more than 700 people, majority of them women, were killed after being branded witches. The witch doctors manage to escape as people fear black magic if they are named. Yet they don't fear stripping and torturing women accused of practising black magic. That's odd, isn't it? It's almost as if there were some other explanation for what's going on.

Picture found here.

She Still Is A Woman

The WaPo has up some interesting thoughts about religion's role in oppressing women, inspired by President Carter's decision to leave the Southern Baptist Convention because of its views on women. Specifically, writers were asked to respond to this question: Former president Jimmy Carter and other world leaders issued this statement: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable." What's your reaction to these statements? Are 'male interpretations of religious texts' to blame for the 'deprivation of women's equal rights?'

Interestingly, the article is titled: "Elders or Patriarchs: Who Speaks for Women?" Of course, historically, it was males doing the interpreting, but that's beside the point. As is the question of whether it's "elders" (which appears to have some specific meaning for this article) or "patriarchs" -- usually, there's little difference between the two -- who get to speak "for" women.

Susan Brooks Thisthethwaite expalins:

Women's second-class status in the world's major religions is not primarily a text problem, it's a God problem. As Mary Daly said so many years ago, "When God is male, the male is God."

The root of prejudice against women in today's religions stems from the fact that, for millennia, females have not been regarded as reflecting the image of the divine in the same way males are held to hold that image in humanity. I believe, therefore, if you don't fix the God problem, you'll never get at the text problem.

The 'deprivation of women's equal rights' in the major religions is not primarily a problem of "misinterpretation." While deeply appreciative of President Carter and his fellow religious Elders in their concern that women are definitely deprived of equal rights in, through and by religious interpretation, they are looking at a symptom, not a cause.

When I taught undergraduate religion, I assigned Merlin Stone's fine book about ancient, female-centered religions: When God Was a Woman. A woman student came to class one day and told the rest of us that she had been reading her assignment on the campus bus and a male student had expressed outrage at the title. "That's ridiculous," the young man protested, "Everybody knows he has no sex." This male student's choice of pronoun says it all: God is a "he" and "everybody knows that." Women need not apply.

My New Name For A Blog

Really. If you can only read ONE blog a day, it should be First Draft.

Sex In The Fields And The Forests On Beltane

Here's an article from the News Scotsman that starts off well enough and that has a nice slidshow. And, then, it runs off the rails:


IT'S the festival that heralds the start of the summer and if Beltane 2009 is anything to go by it's going to be a hot one.
The Beltane Fire Festival, which takes place every year on Calton Hill as April turns to May, lit the sacred fires of summer in front of 11,000 revellers last night.

The May Queen started the summer by evoking all four elements – air, earth, water and fire – before banishing the horned-god of winter and bringing forth her consort the Green Man to breathe new life into the Earth.

The festival is renowned for its lustful atmosphere as this year's May Queen and Green Man proxies Fenella Hodgson and Rupert Smith found out when their three-month-old son Reuben was conceived on the night of Beltane 2008.

It's enough to make any mother want to lock up her daughters . . . .

No, it's not. Pagan mothers may v well be happy if their daughters have sex on Beltane. Protected sex, yes, unless the daughter wants to conceive. It's like writing an article about catholic confession and saying, "Of course, most parents don't want some creepy old guy in a skirt sitting in the dark and making their kids feel guilty for having sexual feelings." It's not true. That is what (at least some) catholic parents do want.

Pagans believe that sex is good, sex is holy, magical sex makes the world fertile and happy and good. We don't think that locking up our daughters is good, or holy, or makes the world fertile and happy and good.

And, of course, no mention of fathers locking up their sons. Ever.

Photo found here.

Rituals Are Body Techniques For Doing Thealogy

This article, in Matrifocus is well worth the reading. Here's a taste:

In Goddess Feminism, ritual is the most privileged way of learning and embodying individual and group thealogies and ideologies. Rituals are “body techniques which harbour the powers and potentialities of both our own subjectivity, as an embodied way of being-in-the-world, and those of the social world” (Crossley 2004: 46). Each new ritual re-creates and more fully develops Goddess thealogy. As such, Goddess thealogy is never static but always in flux, always being re-thought, and, importantly, performed and embodied. The emphasis on continual re-thinking and re-enacting Goddess, especially through ritual but also in everyday life, leads me to suggest that Goddess Feminists utilize what I’m calling “performance thealogy.”

Picture found here.

My New Name For A Blog

What echidne said.

Art found here.