Moving

Hello everyone, I'm moving my blog to a new hosting site.
http://aradicalfeminist.wordpress.com/
I hope all of you will follow me there. :)

Republican Islamophobia

For centuries, many Americans have sadly tried to find some group of people in this country to deem scapegoats for America's problems, and people that they unjustly hold in suspicion and contempt. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the Irish and the Italian immigrants. In World War I it was German Americans, and in World War II it was the Japanese. Now Muslims have become the new targets in the eyes of bigots everywhere. You have to be a most hateful, insecure, and ignorant person to generalize an entire group of people based upon the actions of a few. But that is exactly what many in the current Republican presidential field have done.

Herman Cain is, in my view, one of the biggest hypocrites of all time. He grew in the segregated south, and has recounted stories about discrimination he faced in school, and in the workforce, and how he and his brother once even had to take turns standing watch while using a "Whites Only" drinking fountain. To have to grow up in this type of situation is certainly tragic and my heart went out to Mr. Cain while hearing about this. However, during the last Republican debate broadcast by CNN Cain showed everyone his amazing lack of empathy and perspective when it comes to discrimination. Whilst he was discriminated against himself during his youth, that doesn't seem to stop him from advocating discrimination against others. He openly stated that he would require American Muslims to prove their loyalty to the United States, while not making the same requirement of Christians and Jews. But all of this pales in comparison to what Newt Gingrich said when he actually compared American Muslims to Communists and Nazis.



Both Gingrich and Cain are ignorant bigots. Plain and simple. There is no justification for what they said and it is horrific that their comments haven't automatically shattered their chances for winning the White House (even though Gingrich stands no chance regardless).

For one thing, their arguments rest upon the idea that every Muslim that could possibly come up for appointment is going to be a fundamentalist. This should come as no surprise, as Cain and Gingrich generalize even the people in their own religion. Their attitude is that anyone who is to be considered Christian is automatically a fundamentalist as they are, which is not true. The same goes for Muslims, I have met many conservative Muslims, but I have also met many liberal Muslims. No two Muslims are alike and while some might be radicalized, there are many others who are not. Some may hate America, but there are many others who are loyal patriots.




Furthermore, Cain and Gingrich, are also hypocrites because both of them have advocated basing United States law upon their conservative interpretation of the Bible. They oppose gay marriage, abortion, and tolerance for other religions based upon Christian principles, not constitutional ones, and desire to instill some level of Mosaic law in the United State. Yet they preach Judeo-Christian theocracy, all while having the audacity to criticize Muslims for wanting to instill their own theocracy in the United States, which in terms of social issues would be virtually the same as a Christian theocracy which Gingrich and Cain have advocated.

As we can see from the video, there was one candidate who actually seems to have come around on the issue of Muslim Americans. This is probably because, sadly, he has more recent experience in regard to religious discrimination. This was Mitt Romney, one of two Mormons, the other being former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, currently running for president.

I certainly applaud Mr. Romney for his more thoughtful answer, however, I'm a little disappointed and that he, along with all the other Republican candidates didn't say a word to condemn what Cain and Gingrich had said. What's even more disturbing, is that when the debate was going on, Cain and Gingrich were cheered by the Republican audience for their response while Romney didn't get any applause whatsoever for his answer. Even when he assured everyone that Sharia Law could never be applied in America because the constitution would never allow it, there was absolute silence in the room. Not a single clap.

And while we're on the topic of the constitution, here is a little snippet from our founding document that might be worth remembering if Mr. Cain and Mr. Gingrich are elected president and try to immorally and illegally discriminate on the basis of religion when hiring their staff:

Rebuking the Anti-feminists Part II

Next, Schlafly and Venker try to refute the fact that the feminist movement led to an improvement of women's lives both as housewives and in the workforce. Here:

"Another false premise of the feminist movement, according to Venker and Schlafly, is that it's given credit for moving women into the workforce. The real credit, they say, goes to the invention of laborsaving devices like washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and vacuum cleaners. It was the Great Depression that forced women into the workforce when men couldn't find work. And it was the Equal Pay Act of 1963 that abolished wage disparity based on gender."

First, I find it amusing that Schlafly and Venker try to claim that appliances gave women the time to enter the workforce. In fact, many studies have shown that since the advent of "time-saving" appliances, the average housewife's workload has actually increased exponentially. This actually makes logical sense, if it takes less time to do one load of laundry in the day, then this simply means you have time to do more than one load of laundry.

Furthermore, it wasn't the Great Depression that brought women into the workforce on a mass scale, but rather World War II. You think Schlafly would have gotten this right being as she grew up in the Great Depression and was amongst the women who worked in wartime factories. This actually again demonstrates more of Schlafly's own personal feelings on the matter rather than fact. As a little girl, Schlafly and her mother actually were for lack of a better word, forced, to work during the Great Depression and support the family because her father, an inventor, couldn't find a job.

Much is also revealed when we consider the term that Schlafly uses to describe women going into the workforce, "forced." Actually, most sources indicate that many of the women who entered the workforce during this period were more than happy to do it, not only because they wanted to support their country during the war, but also because they were personally curious about this concept of working. Many women also enjoyed the experience and found that when men came back they didn't want to stop working and return to the duties of housewife. In reality, Schlafly may have used the word "forced" in her book more so because she personally may have felt forced as a child to work and support her family during the Great Depression, rather than because all women somehow felt forced into working.

Furthermore, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was an idea and goal of the feminist movement. Feminists pushed for it, therefore they are responsible for the improvements that it made, albeit small improvements. Despite what is implied, the Equal Pay Act did not eliminate the wage disparity gap. Women still only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.

To conclude, the entire article and the book that inspired it is based on the notion that feminism has made women self-centered. This seems ridiculous to me because while women have been entering the workforce at a tremendous rate in recent years, men have not been doing the same when it comes to child-rearing. Today's men primarily work and have little to do with the raising of their children, while women are still primarily responsible for caring for children and now also have the responsibility of full-time jobs. If feminists were as selfish and irresponsible as the authors of the book and article claim, you would think they would have been figuring out ways to reduce their all ready massive workload.

Finally, the authors continue to assert that it is feminists who claim that men and women are not equal and that they refuse to acknowledge that men and women are different. Actually, the basis of the feminist movement is that men and women are equal and that society must treat them equally. And no one has ever denied the differences between men and women, Steinem has acknowledged this her entire career. What feminists have argued is that men and women should be treated equally despite skin-deep differences just as the Civil Rights Movement argued that blacks and whites should be treated the same rather than treated differently based on skin-deep differences.

Rebuking the Anti-feminists Part I

The feminist movement's own anti-Christ, Phyllis Schlafly, and her niece and heir-apparent have written a new book which debuted this past month. I won't mention the title of the book on this blog because I will have nothing to do with promoting that hateful woman's written works. In their new book, Schlafly and Suzanne Venker write extensively on the feminist movement as they see it, and not only attempt to rebuke it, but then demand that the American people start coming to them (conservative women) for advice.

Clearly this is an attempt by Schlafly to help establish the career of the woman who will succeed her after she dies (which is likely to be soon, she's 86 now and not moving any faster according to reports). It is also a way for Schlafly to rant some more about the feminist movement, which she has always had an animosity toward. While she often claims to have "defeated" the feminist cause with her sabotage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and 80s, she yet still finds reason to write a new book about the alleged evils of the movement every 10 years or so. Her last book about feminism was written in 2003.

In the book Schlafly and Venker attempt to make various arguments about why the feminist movement is supposedly bad and why it somehow hurts both women and men. They also use the book to repeat common misconceptions and deceptions about the movement that conservative have, via the mass media, been churning out for decades. Normally, I wouldn't pay this book any attention. There's also an article that's been written by a Radical Christian named Marcia Segelstein.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1332238

This article is a just a rehashing of what Schlafly and Venker have to say and it praises both women for "courageously" writing it. I have yet to understand how writing the book could be considered a courageous act. Normally I wouldn't pay it anymore attention than I would the book. But after reading the article I have to admit that the very fact that the incredibly false, and frankly outrageous, claims that both the book and the report make about feminism truly bother me to know end. I dislike the idea of these kinds of claims being out for the public to absorb without some kind of rebuttal in defense of feminism. So I am going to make that rebuttal here.

First off, the article tries to create a chasm between the first-wave feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the second-wave feminists who arose in the mid to late 20th century.

"In fact, those suffragettes were pro-family (not anti-male) and adamantly opposed to abortion (which existed, but was not legal), a cornerstone of today's feminist movement."

Once again, the anti-feminists have snuck in their deceptive little barbs that feminists are somehow anti-male and, of course, "anti-family." In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Trying to claim that feminists are anti-male is the same as trying to claim that the members of the Civil Rights Movement (which many Radical Christians such as Schlafly now try to emulate, despite being opposed to it in the past) were somehow anti-white, which is absurd. You might as well be saying that trying to protect children from abusive parents makes you anti-parents.

Feminism also does not attack the concept of the family. What it is opposed to is that there can be only one definition of the family and that that definition is somehow superior to all others. Feminists are not anti-family because if that were true then most feminists would neither marry nor have children. But we see that most who are part of the movement are married and have children just like anybody else. What feminism is against is patriarchal family, in which women are subjugated by the men, and children are "owned" like property and not persons.

Segelstein then goes on to drag Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem through the mud, that Schlafly and Venker also do in their new book, by pointing out their personal, proverbial dirty laundry. If this weren't awful and derogatory enough, the article (inspired by the book) then go on to say this:

"As Venker and Schlafly write, "Rather than try to cope and offer other women solutions for how to cope, Friedan manufactured a societal problem. She suggested society is to blame for the plight of the American housewife, who lived, she wrote, in a 'comfortable concentration camp.'""

What Schlafly and Venker are trying to assert throughout their entire book is that feminists are somehow self-centered people who take no pride in sacrificing through things such as motherhood. However, this preceding passage from Schlafly and Venker's new book reveals their own self-centered feelings.



It's outrageous that Venker and Schlafly try to claim that Betty was "manufacturing" a social problem. In the same paragraph they openly acknowledge that other women were suffering from the same problems that Friedan was. Later in the article, they are quoting describing much of the suffering that could be found in Steinem's childhood. And by definition a "social problem" is a problem that affects a multitude of people in a society. Therefore, it wasn't something that Friedan was manufacturing; many women were suffering.

Yet, Schlafly and Venker seem outraged that Friedan had the audacity to start a movement to solve the social problem, rather than simply "coping" with it. According to them, all women who are suffering from the types of marital and familial problems that Friedan was should simply have to "cope." This reveals just how cold, selfish, and cruel Schlafly, Venker, and others like them are. The fact that Schlafly and Venker could even write that in their book and think that it would come off sounding anything less than awful astounds me. Anyone suffering from a social problem must simply "cope," just as long as Schlafly and Venker don't have to hear about it or deal with it.

But none of this should be a surprise coming from Schlafly. Once a reporter asked her how she felt about women who's husbands abused them. Schlafly has advocated against domestic violence laws and believes women can too easily divorce their husbands over issues of domestic violence. She's even gone as far to say that men have a right to rape their wives. Anyway, Schlafly answered, or I should say didn't answer, the question by saying that her own husband treated her well and "let's me do what I want." At this moment, Schlafly's deep selfishness and cold personality is revealed. She doesn't even for a second think about other women who suffer from domestic violence. She can only think about herself and her own situation. In her mind, if a problem doesn't affect her or her friends, then it doesn't need to be dealt with. It for all intensive purposes does not exist as a problem and anyone who suffers from it simply has to "cope."

The Solid Rock that is the Constitution

When something like the voting rights Amendment or the Civil Rights Act passes, we often feel euphoria of triumph. After so many years and so much energy spent fighting it’s nice to just take a breath and look out upon all that has been accomplished. And once we have won it seems absurd to many that we should have to continue fighting as if we had never achieved anything at all. Unfortunately, there will always be those who oppose progress, and if they lose once they simply try again to undermine what has been accomplished.

The Supreme Court decision Roe V. Wade affirmed a woman’s right to choose in the United States nearly a half century ago. You would think that the issue would be closed. Unfortunately, even today people who have nothing better to do continue to attempt to restrict women’s health rights under the disguise of being “pro-life.”



Another example would be the situation currently taking place in Argentina. Last year, Argentina became the first Latin American nation-state to legalize gay marriage. This occurred with overwhelming support from the Argentine people. However, only a year after this radical Christians in Argentina are gathering petition signatures in an attempt to overturn the legalization of gay marriage.

In both these cases, it wasn’t enough for liberals and progressives to triumph in their goals, they then had to defend these victories from attacks that could be just as ruthless as the attacks used to try to prevent them from happening. This is why it is so important to ensure that the victories that we gain are safe from any future attempts to undo them.

Examples of this can be found throughout previous American history. Few are aware that almost immediately after the voting rights amendment passed there was a Supreme Court challenge against it by anti-feminists trying to claim that it’s ratification was unconstitutional. In 1985, Republicans in the House and Senate under Ronald Reagan gutted the two-decade-old Civil Rights Act. Restoration of this bill had to be undertaken several years later to re-implement many of the important parts of the Act that the Republicans had removed.

And today, in light of the recent Republican triumph in the House and in state legislatures there is a new massive attack against women’s health rights. Most noticeable in the recent budget debate in which Republicans refused to fund the government for the next year unless they could cut Planned Parenthood funding from the federal government (none of which actually goes to fund abortions, but rather contraceptives, cancer screenings, and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases).

There is also a new and virulent challenge to the 14th Amendment, which was adopted shortly after the Civil War and granted the right of citizenship to former slaves and anyone else born in the United States regardless of race. The justification used by Republicans is that undocumented immigrants from Mexico can use the Amendment’s clause that anyone born in the United States is a citizen in order to have “anchor babies” here in the United States and thus create an easier path to citizenship for themselves. The problem that I see is that many of these Republicans are not simply trying to change the single clause within the amendment, but want to obliterate the amendment entirely. One should also pause to consider that many of these same Republicans have argued in the past for the repeal of the 14th Amendment.

But with the challenge to the 14th Amendment comes a glimmer of hope. A constitutional amendment has only been repealed once in American history, and in order for an amendment to be repealed it has to go through the same process it went through during its implementation. That means it not only has to be repealed by a majority vote in both the House and Senate, but then has to be repealed by the legislatures of at least two-thirds the states.



Acts of Congress on the other hand are much easier to be dismantled by either the federal or even state governments. This should give us pause to reflect on the kind of routes we are taking in order to secure a progressive future for succeeding generations. Constitutional amendments, as opposed to acts of Congress, are harder for conservatives to overcome. Supreme Court rulings, which deem a law or change in laws as constitutional or not, are a very powerful means for securing not only wide-sweeping victories, but also permanent ones.

It isn’t enough to pass a bill saying that women should be paid equally to men, or that gay marriage should be legalized, or that everyone is equal regardless of race, or that women have a right to choose. We need to affirm the constitutionality of these changes, because the Constitution is a very greater obstacle to traditionalists than a bill in either the state or federal legislature or a lower court ruling is. Therefore it would be prudent to ensure that whenever we fight for some change in laws or greater freedom granted to the American people, that we ensure that we do so in a way that can’t be easily overcome by the conservative onslaught that will come a year later, or even 100 years later.

Some Therapeutic Ranting

I normally don't use this blog to rant about my personal feelings. But lately I feel like I need to make some kind of post to help myself work all the things out that are going on in my head. Besides, I never said this blog was only for political ranting. Ha ha.
Recently, I lost a friend who I had grown very close to. Perhaps too close. He and I were a great team in lots of ways, but I made the mistake of treating him more like a psychologist and less like a friend. After a while, he stopped talking to me except when he needed me to do something for a project or something. I've felt resentful toward him because I wanted him to continue being there for me and because he told me on several occasions that I could come to him with my problems. I asked him several times if he was okay with my ranting and he said it was fine. But it wasn't fine and he eventually shut me out. He's always been all talk though, so I should've known better.
Still, in many ways, I think it was my own fault too, though people tell me not to even consider that. I knew even when he said he was fine that pressure and stress were building up on him. I was asking too much of him, and I recognized that, it's just that I had no one else to turn to.
And in other ways it was completely understandable that our friendship dissolved. The people he hangs out with now, outside of politics, have far more in common with him than I ever did. And their relationship with him is far more healthy than mine was. The problem with my relationship to him was that I became dependent on him for support. He became the solution to every single one of my problems. If I was lonely, I expected him to make me feel not lonely. If I was sad, I expected him to make me feel happy. If I was bored, I expected acted like it didn't bother him, it was extremely unfair to him and put an unnecessary amount of pressure on him.
I can't blame him for needing space, I would have just cut off all contact if I were in his shoes. Looking back over the past couple of months I've been completely crazy, literally. In my defense, this last semester has been the worst one I've yet experienced. I had two medical scares, am on my way to failing a class, lost a lot of friends and damaged my relationships with others, been betrayed by numerous people, gotten my hopes up way too many times, nearly ended up homeless, went in debt nearly a thousand dollars, and all of this combined together gave me one bad start to the year 2011.
A friend told me once that whenever anything in my life disrupts my homeostasis I like to cuddle up to my friends for support. I think he's right and I think I do it emotionally as well. Over the past six months I was constantly sucking the life out of other people in order to compensate for anything that is lacking in my own. Coming from an addictive family, I think I have my own addiction to other human beings. I put people on a pedestal and expect them to be my saviors. And if it turns out by chance that they are actually normal people who can't always be there for me, then I lash out at them, sometimes quite viciously. It isn't healthy and I'm trying not to do it anymore.
One really positive thing that I can say is that I've gotten better. Unlike some others I've witnessed, I can always recognize at some point when I'm doing or have done something wrong. I always try to then find constructive ways to deal with my emotional ruptures when I notice them or someone else points them out. I can look back and say honestly and happily that I'm much better than I was a year ago or five years ago. I'm seeing an actual psychologist at my school and this helps me a lot in dealing with things whenever my homeostasis is disrupted. Ha ha. It's also showing me healthier ways to dealing with people. This is probably the most important thing to me because I'd like to ensure I don't drive people way either with over dependence or hostility.
Anyway, now that I've gotten all of this out I think I'll much better. Writing about things has its therapeutic qualities, which is probably why I enjoy it so much. And it's probably a better way of dealing with things than asking others to take on my burdens, because when I really think about it I would never want to have to deal listening to someone's insecurities and have to talk them through them all the time.

Why Sarah Palin can never be called a feminist

Recently, I had a shortened version of my latest blog topic posted as the Viewpoint for Weber State University's the Signpost! :D Check it out here:

http://www.wsusignpost.com/editorial/the-signpost-viewpoint-1.2139108

Here is the full version of my argument. Enjoy guys! :D

The subject of feminism is a hot topic in recent days. Of particular issue is the fact that Sarah Palin calls herself a feminist. Many other self-described feminist take issue with this statement. Justification for calling herself a feminist is that Palin makes her own “choices” and decides for herself how to live her life, therefore she can be called feminists despite the fact that Palin often criticizes other feminists and doesn’t agree with their views. One can also argue that every individual woman has the right to define what feminism is for her, even if she defines it as choosing to submit to and be enslaved by men.



Very reasonable arguments to make. Individualism has always trumped collectivism, certainly there can be differences between the ways different people view a certain issue or live their lives while still being considered part of the same group. Except there are a few points that need to be brought up before right-wing women can be called feministic.

When Palin defines herself as a feminist, she does so only by accompanying that statement with an explanation that her definition of feminist is different than that of “left-wing” women who’ve “hijacked” the term.

Have “left-wingers” hijacked the term feminist or is it possible that there are only certain women (and men) who actually practice feminism in the way that it should be? This brings us to the question of what feminism is defined as and what defines a feminist.

It’s no lie that feminism has taken many forms and evolved in a variety of ways throughout its history. Today contemporary feminism as it is practiced in the United States is divided into three major branches known as: Radical feminism, Liberal feminism, and Socialist/Marxist feminism. Socialists and Marxists are also not always united, and there are many other smaller branches of feminism that interpret feminism as it relates to another issue, such as, the environment, or how minority women fare as compared to those in a majority population.

The same thing can be said of the Civil Rights Movement of the past and present, and the Gay Rights Movement of today. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X are both cited as major figures of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. But what isn’t always talked about is how much the two men disagreed with and even loathed one another. They also organized their own camps quite differently and advocated different methods of fighting social inequality between Blacks and Whites.

But what if there had been Blacks in America and European colonial empires who advocated the idea that European culture was superior to African culture. What if were Blacks who, for their own varied reasons, opposed ending slavery during the civil war. Can these few Blacks be called part of the civil rights movement? These African people would simply making their own choices as individuals and expressing themselves as individuals. Therefore, couldn’t they be called part of the Civil Rights movement and other movements before it that wanted to empower Blacks by allowing them to make their own unobstructed choices?

No they could not, because their individual choices would be obstructing the rights of other individuals like them. The main problem with Palin being called a feminist is that the things she advocates trample upon the individual rights of other women and men. An example would be Sarah Palin stating that she would deprive her daughter of the right to an abortion even if she were pregnant after being brutally raped. If Sarah Palin simply said she opposed abortion when it concerns herself as an individual, then that would be acceptable. Any woman can be opposed to abortion and be called a feminist. The problem comes when women like Palin advocate taking that right away from others simply because she disagrees with it. If feminism depends upon the individual freedom of women and men to choose their own destinies, then Palin would forfeit the title by interfering with the individual right of her daughter and others.



Furthermore, how do we know that this “choice” by Palin is actually choices? Many right-wing women may embrace their own subordination simply because it is an easier and less painful route to take. Certainly being a feminist is not easy in many parts of the United States. Battered women are a perfect example. Often times they simply accept the abuse receive and are coerced into justifying it as a way to cope with the pain and avoid perceived rejection by the men they love.

And Palin cannot be called a feminist simply for the sake of the movement being something coherent and able to organize in favor of certain major goals. Despite all the differences between the many branches of feminism, most of them agree on a few key points. One, feminism is meant to empower women (and men) in light of an oppressive patriarchy. Two, while feminists may argue on why women (and men to an extent) are oppressed, they still agree that oppression against the genders takes place regardless of its cause. These key agreements make the movement what it is. It only exists as a movement because there are certain things that everyone agrees on. If we let every individual call themselves part of a movement, yet not be in any kind of agreement at all with other members of the movement, then we are lost.

Also, any member of a movement that seeks to liberate people and defend the rights of those in its movement must not be hypocritical and argue against the same liberation for other groups of people. Therefore, “conservative” women who are anti-gay or racist cannot be called true feminists. Another reason why Palin can't be called a feminist because she has openly advocated against the rights of gays and lesbians.

As well, women on the far left who advocate misandry or show contempt for men cannot be called feminists anymore than Palin can. Most major branches of feminist thought have attempted to distance themselves from these misandrists and lunatics. Unfortunately, people on the right have taken the behavior of certain people who label themselves feminists and attempted to attribute it to the entire feminist movement.

Therefore, certain people cannot be called part of a movement unless they adhere to basic guidelines of what the movement is about. If someone’s practices and beliefs actually lead to harming the movement they claim to be a part of then for the sake of the movement and all the other individuals that are liberated by it, that person cannot be called part of the movement.