Pro-life feminism is my wonk issue, so when I post to this blog, I'm probably going to circle back to that a lot. Especially when some group of idiots make appallingly anti-woman comments while pretending to be the most pro-woman people in the room.

Like this.

Context time. The NaNoWriMo forums, in the thread entitled "Proudly Liberal, Proudly Pro-Choice." They're kind of alienating all the pro-life liberals there (and all the pro-choice conservatives, if we were going to get into deets), but I see no need to interrupt them while they are busily isolating themselves in an echo chamber. I can hang with pro-life libs. They're cool.

Anyway.

So, in the midst of busily dissecting how horrible "anti-choicers" are, we get this little gem (same link as above). Read it. It won't take long.

So, the woman under discussion is one Janis Lane from the Central Mississippi Tea Party who said the following in this interview.

Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote.

...Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I'd much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them.

So, clearly she's taken a turn for the cray-cray. On that, I think any self-respecting woman, whether she calls herself a feminist or not, could agree. So much for Janis Lane.

Let's look at how the supposed pro-woman abortion apologists respond, though. Rather than saying, "Yeah, she's clearly a moron." and moving on (like any ordinary person does when confronted with Insane Troll Logic), they have to "unwoman" Lane. And more than that, they instantly go for gendered slurs to attack her. First it's "bitch," but she's worse than a bitch. Then it's "cow," but even that's not bad enough. Last "pig" is rejected on the grounds that pigs are pro-equality creatures (because apparently cannibalistic child-murder is not anti-equality or anything). Finally, the consensus is this woman isn't even human. Though she may be a "Republican house slave."

The trouble here, aside from the gendered slurs and the general disgusting attitudes, is the initial push. If you aren't sufficiently in line with our way of thinking, you aren't a real woman and should be punished. Because real women all agree with them, at least most of the time. Real women never say anything dumb. Real women don't stray from the ideological lines we give them.

Maybe these folks would be more comfortable in Stepford, Connecticut?

But even moving beyond the ridiculous group-think, the idea here is that to be a good woman, you can never make a mistake. You can't be wrong, or even an idiot. Women aren't all valuable beings with rights (whether any given woman thinks of herself or other women that way or not). Only the women this select group approves of are really human people with all the rights and responsibilities thereunto pertaining. Which is, once again, the definition of mysogyny.

I have said it before, but I'm starting to think we may need to graffitti this on every building in the world: If you don't respect the life of every human being, you don't really respect the life of any human being.

I debated with myself a long time about what order these last two should go in because I can move from a specific to a general or a general to a specific. And I have at last decided on the former.

And this is actually something I've looked forward to writing, because it deals with the intersections of a lot of prejudiced attitudes that crop up in abortion apologetics. So, without further ado...

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I may come back and add more to this after church, but for now I'll just put up a short note.

Yesterday, President Obama released the following statement for the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women's health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.

I am committed to protecting this constitutional right. I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.

And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

Okay, feministy rant to be added later. For now, I will let John Piper do the ranting. This video is a year old, and unfortunately, it still applies.



EDIT: All right, now that I'm back from church and can get to the feminist ranting and give it the attention it deserves. Because Obama's little statement there is stupendously anti-feminist. Did you catch it?

"...On this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams."

*suppresses urge to throw things*

Women. Do. Not. Need. Abortion. To. Be. Equal. With. Men!

Women are equal, as they are, with no additions, subtractions, or modifications required to make them that way. In fact, the very idea of changing women in order to make the culture in which they live view them more positively is, by its very nature, antithetical to feminism. It is the opposite of feminism. It is anathema to feminism. If a culture views women wrongly, or views anything of which women are capable--including pregnancy and motherhood--wrongly, the solution is not to change women, it is to change the culture. The suggestion that women are, by their nature, inferior to men simply because we can become pregnant is insulting, offensive, degrading, and pig-headed.

President Obama, as a woman, I am offended by that statement.