I have to say one thing about the Tiller assassination...

[ljm2002]

...this is for all of you younger women who believe that "Oh, I'm not one of those *feminists*, because, well you know, that's just so radical-sounding and I don't hate men."

I wonder: are you getting a clue yet? I mean, not to be abrasive or anything, but really, are you GETTING A F***ING CLUE?

This is what happens when we get complacent about our hard-won rights. We have allowed our position, that women have the right to make medical decisions for themselves, to be framed as "pro-abortion"; we have allowed the rabid religious right to use the "icky" factor to sway people emotionally; and we have come perilously close to having a Supreme Court that could take that right away again.

Guess what: most feminists are heterosexual and do not hate men. That has nothing to do with recognizing political realities and how they apply to the status of women. Please remember, women did not get the right to vote until 1920 -- still less than 100 years ago. In the 1960's when I was growing up, abortion was still illegal and women were still dying from back-alley abortions. When I came into the workforce, the Want Ads still had "Men Wanted" and "Women Wanted" sections -- and the latter were all housekeepers, secretaries, school teachers and nurses.

And oh, by the way, none of that changed because women played "nice". Each one of those things changed because women -- FEMINIST women -- fought for those changes.

[MADem]

1. You forgot the "It could never happen to me" logic, as well. nt

[omega minimo]

3. and shaved legs

[MADem]

8. ? nt

[kestrel91316]

2. Until the late 1970s, women were routinely excluded from consideration

for admission to veterinary school (and most other professional schools) solely on the basis of gender. Egregious anti-woman attitudes and discrimination are not things of the dim prehistoric past.

[truedelphi]

4. Another way of saying this is

"Uppity women change the world."

[ljm2002]

7. I was hoping...

...that this assassination could at least serve as an object lesson to naive young women, who really think that we are modern and lucky and could never go back to the oppressive past.

Think again, my dears.

As for your formulation, yes, it gets the point across. Short and sweet. As Shakespeare put it, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

[truedelphi]

37. There's a bumper sticker that is equally short, sweet and also

Funny but am not able to remember it correctly.

Or maybe nothing seems too funny today - not with fanantics shooting Doctors and being applauded by the RW 'Christians.'

[Hepburn]

5. Another 60s feminist sounding in...

...I became of age in the 1960s. I am now in my 60s. When I went away to college, abortion would not become a legal procedure for nearly another 10 years.

What made me an ardent pro-right supporter? I lived in a dorm as a freshman and found the girl across the hall who had bled to death from an illegal abortion. Same age as me ~~ barely 18. She would be in her 60s today ~~ most likely with children she wanted and grandchildren.

FUCK THOSE WHO ARE AGAINST CHOICE. It kills women ~~ don't ever forget this!

:cry:

Still to this day I remember that scene...

[ljm2002]

9. How awful...

...I can see why that would stay with you all these years.

It is one reason I must support abortion rights: women have always had abortions and they always will. Not to mention the many medical reasons why abortions, even late-term abortions, are sometimes necessary.

It angers me that we are still fighting this battle, that women cannot routinely get such procedures, that they can't even always get birth control pills from their pharmacists.

Thanks for sharing, it is a heart-rending story.

[Greyhound]

23. The very idea that there is even a possibility that the law can dictate

such a personal issue is disgusting and the very definition of anti-American.
:puke:

[truedelphi]

12. Sorry to hear you had this experience. and of course even sorrier

For her.

never again!

[omega minimo]

14. o my

:cry: :hug:

[question everything]

6. Further more

Until the 70s women could not purchase a home or get a loan on their name. They needed a male co-signer. Classified ads could include preferences for men only and, of course, many jobs were limited to men (usually white) only.

[ljm2002]

10. Right you are...

...women in general did not have control over their own property, they were treated like children from a legal perspective. And again, this changed because FEMINIST women fought to change it.

[Ilsa]

11. K & effin R. Alot of us that stood watch at the clinics to help women

make it inside are getting older and not as able to stand the heat during the summer. Alot of us don't have working ovaries any more, but we still have pocketbooks to try and help good organizations like planned parenthood. But the younger generation has to take up the slack. Your rights to reproductive healthcare are hanging almost by a thread. You must be strong and vigilant and active! They have taken away most of the clinics that serve women. They have taken some doctors, nurses, and bodyguards from us. They are terrorists, trying to scare us into not advocating for our rights.

[truedelphi]

15. Thank you for this good work.

Just today, I read a letter in the newspaper where I used to work.

A person writing a letter to the editor, complaining that the Morning After Pill was a killer because it was an abortificant as it prevented the "fetus" from attaching to the uterine.

I wanted to reach inside the paper and jab her a good one.

How many wanted babies are prevented from their existence by industrial fumes and from herbicides and pesticides? I lived in Silicon Valley - the "pollutionless" work area, supposedly.

Women working in the "clean" labs where semiconductor chips were developped could not get pregnant,no matter what methods they tried.

After scientists investigated, it was found that certain chemicals in the air prevented the ovum from attaching (Probably) and that is why there was such a high rate of infertility abmong the married women there who were trying to conceive.

But you never see a Pro-Lifer asking for fewer chems in the workplaces. And in many communities, it is the RW Christians who own the paper mills, and the tanning factoires, etc.

Not only do the workers' health suffer, but the pollutants are then released into the air and water, and so affect people not even working in those walls.

It is all such hypocrisy!

[Ilsa]

20. They scream about clinics and doctors and pharma making these

drugs and doing procedures for profit, but scream about the economy if liberals try to clean up the environment so our kids aren't born with disorders like autism. I believe autistic kids are genetically predisposed to not metabolize certain pollutants.

[truedelphi]

22. I share your belief on that.

I did caretaking for one autistic young adult. His parents periodically applied such heavy duty wood "protection" to the redwood decks and stairways envelopping their home that my husband couldn't deal with the fumes. (I am chemically sensitive and not a good judge of what is harmful and what isn't - but when my husky sweetie pie won't deliver groceries where I work because the chems in environment make him sick - I know something is up.)

Now it is becoming common knowledge that the old fashioned wood protecters were loaded with arsenic, mercury and copper.

But you couldn't discuss chems with A's aprents. They were the sort of people who turned the car's motor on to warm up the engine, then spent that twenty minutes sweeping around in the garage with the door closed! And these were very "educated" people.

[create.peace]

30. so right, there were a lot of grey heads at the wichita vigil last night

there were, however, a lot of young people, men and women. it was so sad. he sounded like a person you would want to know. i didn't know him but we felt compelled to travel to wichita to support all the people who knew him, and had gone to his clinic. so glad we went. i am 60, was able to get birth control at 19, which my older friends had not been able to get till they were older. my class had control over their bodies for the first time!!! most of us had children at older ages than women 5 years older than us. never forget what we were due, not given, control over our reproduction!!!!

[Baikonour]

13. You can be for a woman's right to choose without being a feminist.

There's no need for trite labels.

[omega minimo]

16. TRITE LABELS?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's no need for WILLFUL IGNORANCE.

:thumbsdown:

[ljm2002]

19. Well, maybe there's a need for *accurate* labels...

...personally, I do not find the term "feminist" to be trite. Are the labels "abolitionist" and "suffragette" also considered "trite labels" by your standards? I find them to be fine, descriptive labels, and I believe "feminist" is a similarly appropriate label to be worn openly and proudly.

Who will fight for the rights of women? It took black people to stand up for their own rights. It takes women to stand up for ours. The label "feminist" refers to a political movement and a body of thought, and is therefore descriptive. And yes, FEMINIST women have figured in virtually all of the advancements for women in the 20th century.

Trite is in the eye of the beholder. I find your brief response to be trite, in all honesty. But there you go -- we certainly disagree on this issue.

[Greyhound]

25. What an incredibly stupid thing to say.

Put down the kool-aid and go think for a minute.
:thumbsdown: indeed.

[Ignis]

26. The word "trite" speaks volumes about your sexism.

Words have power.

:thumbsdown:

[question everything]

29. What, then, is your definition of a feminist?

It was always the right of a woman to choose how to live her life: a homemaker with a husband, two kids and a dog, a firefighter, a legislator, single or married, holding any job she wants and, of course, in control of her sexuality and reproductive cycles. And don't kid yourself: a lot of the anti choice rhetoric is really anti women sexuality. I can assure you that had pregnancy not resulted from sexual intercourse - just an academic suggestion, please bear with me - the battle would not have been that fierce.

So, again, if feminism is just a label for you, what does this label mean, for you?

[maxsolomon]

32. perfect example of the effectiveness of Frank Luntz language

in many (younger) women's minds, "feminist" = man-hating, non-shaving, no-makeup bull dyke. it's been an effective campaign.

when in reality, even men (such as me) can be, and are, feminists.

[geniph]

33. To not be a feminist

implies to me that one is anti-female. Feminist simply means you believe in the rights of women as human beings, the right of female persons to be treated equally with males. You appear to have a rather outdated, indeed, trite definition of feminist in mind.

[BolivarianHero]

17. At least you're American...

The woman who fought to give equality to Canadians was also a White supremacist who routinely bashed immigrants and who was almost singlehandedly responsible for marijuana prohibition in our land. She would never have been pro-choice.

[ljm2002]

27. There are flawed leaders...

...in most movements, particularly when you are discussing something as broad as the political rights of women. Even within the feminist movement of the last 40 years, there are different schools of thought on a number of issues.

We have similarly flawed feminist leaders in our history: Margaret Sanger, who was a proponent of "negative eugenics", i.e. encouraging less breeding by the less "fit". That did not make her wrong about the fundamental issue that women should have access to birth control.

[LadyHawkAZ]

18. Best article on the subject to date:

http://www.sheknows.com/articles/6290.htm

An outstanding piece of work- should be required reading in junior high.

[izquierdista]

24. Be careful what you wish for

What caught my eye was that only 44% of women worked outside the home. It's nice to know that today, thanks to corporate efficiency, women HAVE to work outside the home to make ends meet. While women may have had their eye on the prize of a job with salary parity, they forgot that the rich would be busting unions, offshoring, and reducing the value of ALL labor to a mere pittance.

[ljm2002]

28. Thanks, and welcome to DU! n/t

[inna]

21. K&R!!

:applause:
:applause:

[Wednesdays]

31. K&R

:kick:

[Raster]

34. What are you: a free-thinking woman able to make your own reproductive choice...

or a brood mare? Your choice.

[ljm2002]

35. A good formulation, to be sure!

One of the things that gets to me, is the "ick factor" that I mentioned in the OP. The hard right uses pictures of aborted fetuses because they are very good at stirring up our emotions.

It's funny. At work when we used to have "post-mortem meetings" on software releases, to analyze what went right and what went wrong during the development and release process, I tried to get them to change the terminology to "post-partum meetings". Because you hope that the thing you just released is more like a birth, than a death, right? But it never caught on. I asked one of my male colleagues about it, and he said that men find terminology like that difficult, because it implies birth, and birth related stuff is messy and more in the realm of women.

Interesting, I thought. And just a digression. But I think it illustrates a little about why the abortion billboards and online pictures are effective at stirring people up.

[mainer]

36. Oh, wow. I'd forgotten about those "men-wanted, women-wanted" ads.

Thanks for reminding me of those bad old days.

I remember how revolutionary it was when women started keeping their own last names after marriage. It's easy to forget how far we've come.