The Greatest Thing You'll Read All Day

Here: Amazon reviews of Wendy Davis' pink running shoes.

My favorite of the bunch:

An essential tool for running down the clock in a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long! These shoes are perfect for those days when you must spend 13+ hours standing, not lean on your desk or take any breaks - even for meals or to use the bathroom. The snazzy hot pink color brings out your inner badassness and helps you to "humbly give voice to thousands of Texans" and stop a "raw abuse of power" in its tracks. Raise a feminist army and lead the charge when your competitors cheat and change the rules on you. These Mizuno's are built to protect your feet from mudslinging and add sunshine to the political process. Highly recommended for fierce women and anyone who's not a Greedy Old Prick (GOP).

She'll have to bring them out again next week, seeing as Governor Rick Perry has called another special session.

"Restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men"

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.   ~Khalil Gibran

This should be posted in every police department in the country.

And please don't feed me that shit about "women taking precautions." We need to work towards a world where women don't have to take precautions, and rapists are prosecuted.

This should be everyone's goal.

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

Wow! Maybe I should move to Australia if (God forbid) Mitt Romney wins.

Australia's prime minister would make mincemeat of any male politician in America.

The Ejectables

Well. This is the feel-good story of the day.

Female Pilot Ejects Sexist Male Passenger

Too bad it couldn't have happened in this country.

Who's the Adult Around Here?

This article has been making the rounds in the feminist blogosphere, so I'll throw in my two cents.

Putting Money On the Table

Some quotes:

For instance, the median income of women age 21 to 30 in New York who are employed full time was 17 percent higher than that of comparable men.

Professor Beveridge said the gap is largely driven by a gulf in education: 53 percent of women employed full time in their 20s were college graduates, compared with 38 percent of men. Women are also more likely to have graduate degrees. “They have more of everything,” Professor Beveridge said.

The shift is playing out in new, unanticipated ways on the dating front. Women are encountering forms of hostility they weren’t prepared to meet, and are trying to figure out how to balance pride in their accomplishments against their perceived need to bolster the egos of the men they date.

That's sad. It also illustrates how patriarchy's tentacles have wound themselves into every fabric of our lives. In a time when accomplished young women should not waste one iota of their time catering to anyone's ego, especially a male's, this mindset remains.

Ms. Rosenmann said that dating considerably older men helps her avoid innuendos from younger men who feel threatened by her professional success. She said that when she has gone out at night with men her own age and has to turn in early to be fresh for work, they have commented , “Oh, Anna’s an adult, she has a real job.”

As opposed to...the non-working, Halo-obsessed, beer-soaked, juvenile status of the speaker? Talk about a dead giveaway.

So as not to flaunt her own salary, Lori Weiss, a 29-year-old lawyer in Manhattan, has found herself clipping price tags off expensive clothes she buys on shopping binges, or hiding shopping bags in the closet just so men she was dating would not see them lying around and feel threatened by her spending power.

Grrr. When are we as women going to get over this nonsense? This is one good thing that comes with age. My response to this would be: "Screw you, if you can't accept my salary, my clothes, my apartment, my job and my ambition, then get the hell out of my life and go back to your mother's basement. I ain't stroking nobody's ego."

Of course, this is easier said than done, with all the subtle messages to the contrary threaded throughout this culture. This is why it's so important for young women and old to stand up and repeat this over and over again, to anyone who will listen (and everyone who won't). The sheer weight of numbers, and the refusal to accept anything less in our personal lives, is the only way to get this across.

Feministe also has an excellent take on this.

UPDATE: Oops, this is the New York Times after all. To get in try this login: spacetwinkie and cupcake. Or use Bugmenot.

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The Feminine Reality Check

This is an interesting article.

Stay-at home moms take big financial risk

It also ties in nicely with one of my favorite new books, Leslie Bennets' The Feminine Mistake. Basically, she is arguing that women should not sacrifice their careers for their children, because one never knows when the breadwinner could get cancer, get hit by a bus or just up and leave, and then what will you (and your children) do?

I suppose in one way this is pretty cynical, in not trusting one's partner to always be there for the family. However, I'm sure we all know at least one person to whom this has happened (either the dying or the upping-and-leaving part) and to deny it is not facing reality, in my opinion. As the writer of the article states:

They are handicapping their future financial security and that of their children by being economically dependent on a man. Leaving the workforce, even for a relatively short period of years, can permanently affect a woman's ability to support herself and her children in the event that something untoward happens to her marriage or to her husband's job or health. Once you leave, it's not so easy to get back in.

This should be so obvious it shouldn't generate any controversy. Nevertheless, reading the comments to this article is instructive--and sad. Talk about protesting too much--which inadvertently proves the writer's point. One commenter, Wendy, is refreshing:

I find it interesting that a reality check is considered mommy bashing. Paranoia, anyone? Ms. Blumner makes some excellent points. Even if you are lucky enough for them not to apply to you doesn't mean that they don't happen. Get over yourselves.

The basic thing to consider in all this is that PEOPLE DO CHANGE. The twenty-year-old who promises to love you forever becomes the forty-five-year-old who has to take his sportscar and "find himself," leaving you penniless, jobless and up the creek. Personally, I would much rather be prepared than be broke.

Also, one must consider the fact that those children eventually grow up and leave home, and you as a mother are only responsible for them for the first eighteen years of their lives. Do mothers live only eighteen years? "What a stupid question," you say. "Of course not." Of course not indeed--I think the average lifespan of women (at least in this country) is coming up on eighty. That leaves sixty years wherein a woman needs to think about herself. Are those kids going to support you if you haven't worked enough to provide for yourself in your old age (as an example, my own mother only gets $858.oo a month from Social Security--in plain terms, if she wasn't living with me, she'd be S.O.L.)? Frankly, you shouldn't count on that either. Most people do their best, but in the end the only one you can rely on is yourself.

Anyway, if you make it clear to the kids that you're going to work, most of the time they'll adjust. This is especially so when your partner steps up and takes on equal responsibility for the children--i.e., sharing in housework, picking up kids from daycare, paying for daycare, staying home with kids when sick, etc. This should be such a deal-breaker that if the husband doesn't agree to do it, there won't be any kids. If the two adults in the family work together, it is entirely possible for both partners to have fulfilling jobs, be fulfilled parents, and be prepared for whatever quirks life might throw at you. (I get irritated when women complain that we "can't have it all." Well, yeah, if you don't have any help from your frakking husband, I suppose that's true.)

The article ends thusly:

If what a stay-at-home mom does is truly worth more than $100, 000, then her husband should write her a check. Otherwise, she needs to protect her financial future and her footing in the larger world, and opt back in.

Word.

Gobsmacked

This is a hit out of the ballpark, far better than the pathetic Mr. Bonds.

The Right Without Which No Other Right Exists. Via Shakesville (still on the Shakespeare's Sister site).

Wordy Mc Word Word.

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Hell No, I'm No Lady!

You Are 28% Lady

You tend to make up your rules of etiquette, throwing all conventions aside. And while you try to be a lady (sometimes), your behavior is often quite shocking.

Are You A Lady?

That sounds about right.

"Lady," of course, being another word for "in thrall to the patriarchy."

So I still have some work to do, it seems.

The Blue Angels

This article is a fascinating look at what women can accomplish when they are given free rein.

The 103 Indian women who have called this compound home since January make up the United Nations' first-ever all-female peacekeeping unit. The women have quickly become part of Monrovia's urban landscape in their distinctive blue camouflage fatigues and flak jackets. They guard the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, patrol the streets day and night, control crowds at rallies and soccer games, and respond to calls for armed back-up from the national police who, unlike the Indian unit, do not carry weapons.

Liberian and UN officials hope their presence will help inspire Liberian women to join a fledgling police force struggling to recruit female officers. The all-female unit also signifies a revolution in UN peacekeeping, which has been rocked by rape and abuse scandals in recent years, notably in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti. Analysts say an increase in female peacekeepers will help limit abuses perpetrated by the very people sent to safeguard the rights of those already traumatized by conflict.

This is the sort of thing all governments who belong to the U.N. should consider. It's rather shameful that India, not exactly a bastion for women's rights, was the country to put this into motion.