So you’re out hiking in the woods and you find yourself being stalked by wolves. You try to flee but you find yourself cornered. You are alone and unarmed. As they close in suddenly a grizzly bear charges in and chases off the wolves. Is the bear your friend?
Only in a cartoon. In real life they would be fighting over who gets to eat you for dinner.
For the past month or so the dominant political issue has been contraception. But how did this current battle start?
Feminists have been warning for years that contraception was next on the conservative hit list; that the war on abortion would metastasize into a war on birth control.
On Friday President Obama handed conservatives the first victory in that war, marking off contraception as a special thing that could be legitimately denied on the basis of religious liberty. You would think that the people who have been warning against this for years would be alive to the danger. And some of us are. But a lot of folks aren’t getting it.
[...]
But with contraception, Obama has acknowledged that it’s a special thing that can be denied on the basis of religious liberty. He has carved it away from the rest of the pack of treatments and medications, and put it over in a special class.
A special class that has only one other member: abortion.
This is precisely what feminists have been warning about for years. It doesn’t matter that Obama has provided a practical workaround so that women can still get pills; the moral and legal ground has shifted. Female contraception has been marked, called out, made negotiable.
It’s important to understand that this is a move backwards. For the past 12 years the EEOC has been treating birth control as normal healthcare and insisting that employers—including Catholic institutions—cover it lest they be in violation of the Civil Rights Act.
But now, contraception is special. Now, contraception is negotiable. A matter of conscience, something employers in the public square can opt out of.
That’s right – Obama started it. So then the guys in beanies started making noise. Then Issa held a hearing and excluded Sandra Fluke. So Sandra Fluke spoke anyway at a special hearing. This upset Rush Limbaugh so much he had to spend three days ranting about sluts like a neanderthal Talibani. Then Move-On reacted to Rush, etc., etc.
Meanwhile, while our attention has been diverted there are a whole bunch of things we AREN’T talking about. But when the smoke clears, what will be different?
Best case scenario:
Women with medical insurance won’t have to pay extra for contraception and one or two rich misogynists will be unemployed. Obama and the Democrats will claim credit for a great victory and the wingnuts will be outraged. But there will still be plenty of misogynists out there and the religious right will keep looking for ways to nibble away at women’s reproductive rights.
Worst case scenario:
Some women with medical insurance will have to pay extra for contraception and a couple of rich misogynists will still be employed. Obama and the Democrats will claim credit for a great compromise and the wingnuts will be outraged. But there will still be plenty of misogynists out there and the religious right will keep looking for ways to nibble away at women’s reproductive rights.
Griswold v. Connecticut was decided in 1964. Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Both are still good law. But the ERA didn’t pass and neither did the Paycheck Fairness Act. Homosexuality is no longer considered a mental disorder but gay marriage is only legal in a handful of states. Obama signed Executive Order 13535 restricting federal funds for abortion. MoveOn is out to get Rush Limbaugh but they are silent about Bill Maher.
Maybe it’s just me, but do you ever get the feeling that the Democrats don’t really want to win these battles?
Filed under: Sexism and Misogyny Tagged: | Sexism and Misogyny
I stole this from lorac over at Uppity’s place:
I’m sitting back and watching progressives supporting Dems walk off a cliff in slow motion. It’s surreal. And many of them actually are happy to walk off the cliff for Obama.
What we’re seeing here is the total and complete destruction of the liberal agenda and policies, one by one. Who on earth could have seen that coming. /snark
The Democratic Party has been fully taken over by a group whose sole purpose is self interest and power. Anyone outside of this very narrow group is a target. Sexism, regionalism, agism, classism, and racism are not only tactics, it is what they believe. People who are clearly members of these targeted groups are fully co-operating and working to harm others in their own groups!
When I first started observing these acolytes in 2007 I was stuck by their nastiness. At the time I thought they were overly ambitious opportunists who were hopping on the Obama train to further their own self-interest which is very common in political campaigns. The cult of nasty personality also played a part and has pretty much petered out. Many whose self identity and careers are based upon how “smart” they can convince everyone they are are so far down the rabbit hole they cannot back out. Others gave Obama campaign money and will not walk away from an investment.
And there is another very large group of continued supporters or at least acquiescers. They are self-loathing. They will take anything he dishes out and make an excuse for it while thinking they deserve it and because they deserve it everyone else does too. They think they and everyone in the country needs to be punished. This needs to be pointed out and is one of the Obama-crats tenets of governance. It is sick and abusive and women are a particularly favorite target.
Agree. There is coordination going on, and many of the debates in DC are kabuki shows for effect. Right now we seem to be going thru a Rush-for-Maher noisemaker exchange similar to the Beck-for-Olbermann take down a couple year ago. But on the actual policies for women’s repro health rights being driven by Obama and the Republicans on the federal level, there’s more perceived than real difference.
Same on the economy, I saw a position paper on federal budgets yesterday in the New Republic from the head of the Center for American Progress that could have been written by John Boener’s staff. Also foreign policy. Aside from over the top campaign rhetoric, I don’t see where Obama is fundamentally different from Republicans these days, even on Israel and the Middle East.
The campaigning drama and perception politics are one thing. The governing policies and real actions taken are something else. There’s more energy being expended on the former than the latter right now, but who knows The big actual policy event of the year may be the Scotus ACA review and decision.
I’m tired of the contraception melodrama. I’ve got seniors still being forced to choose between food and medicine. I’ve got sick people with no health care insurance at all. What about them? It seems like students attending expensive private Jesuit colleges with medical insurance aren’t so needy that they can’t pay a copay for contraception. This whole drama has nothing to do with serving people and everything to do with politics.
This is what I think also. They specifically chose an elite with an elite problem while ignoring the any and everything having to do with anyone else. If your main health care problem is that you don’t have time from studying for your elite law degree to go sit in a waiting room with everyone else at PP or the low income clinic for for your $10-20 per month pills that you have to get because you chose to go to a Catholic law school. Of all the horrible health and financial tragedies occurring daily in this country and this is chosen to appeal to the elites to shore up Obama’s base and further split the country by class and sex.
They don’t have the choice of paying a co-pay. The medication is not available to them because the Jesuit school is discriminating against them based on their religious beliefs.
Political people are going to play politics. That’s a fact of life. That doesn’t mean that the issue isn’t valid or every bit as significant as your issue of the day. We do need to learn to advocate for more than one issue at a time. Resting on our laurels, thinking that birth control and abortion were settled law was a mistake and we cannot affort to make those kinds of mistakes.
Until 12 years ago (the EEOC decision making birth control normal health care), no insurance policy I had covered birth control and I lived, bought it myself full price, etc. (Didn’t work for any Catholic institutions, btw). Was it fair that for the first 15 years of my active sexual life my insurance didn’t cover contraceptives? No. But you know, what? Being “unfair” doesn’t equate to anyone being DENIED contraceptives or making the sale of contraceptives ILLEGAL.
So, when you write that women are “resting on their laurels, thing that birth control . . . was settled law” WTF exactly are you talking about? The law is still SETTLED on that – the sale of contraceptives is still LEGAL &, in fact, NO ONE is trying to make the sale of contraceptives ILLEGAL. The issue here is solely whether student insurance has to cover it (and, btw, people who work for Georgetown? Contraceptives are covered because of the EEOC ruling 12 years ago. But students aren’t employees).
Given the priorities of what needs to happen in this country, making sure students who chose to go to expensive Catholic colleges have contraceptives covered under their student health plans is bottom of the list for me. Unfair that they have to? Sure. But buying into/trying to extrapolate the issue into “the law on contraceptives is at risk!” hysteria is a bunch of b.s.
Back in 1969 the Catholic Church told me I was committing a “mortal” sin by using the pill. So, I left the Church. The whispers at that time were … a married woman on the pill was akin to being a legal prostitute.
True story.
Religious zealots are after birth control. Have you heard of the Blunt-Rubio bill? There goes your mandated employer coverage of birth control. Do you think that it won’t be re-introduced and passed if Republicans win the Senate? Isn’t that a law that will make it more difficult for women to access birth control? How about the bills to defund Planned Parenthood? Aren’t those laws? Title X is in jeopardy because because ignorant rightwingers have convinced their lard head followers that sex is dirty (at least, when women have it) and that women who have sex should be denied medical coverage, private or public, for prescription medication and devices.
Nowhere in my post did I say that contraception was going to be made illegal not that I don’t think the zealots in my state legislature won’t try it. I was referring to the crusade by religious zealots and other rightwingers to make both abortion and birth control as hard to obtain as possible using laws that chip away at access and affordability.
How nice for you that you could afford insurance. I graduated from college during a recession and couldn’t find a job that included health insurance or paid enough to allow me to buy health insurance for two years, and, yes, I had two jobs and my income barely covered rent, utilites, food, car repairs/insurance and school loans. Planned Parenthood was my life line. Getting pregnant when I could barely take care of myself was not an option.
Finally, I don’t appreciate your tone, your cursing, your shouting or your description of my rather mild post as hysteria. I have been posting with you for years and I’ve never once been rude to you so, if you can’t be polite to me, STFU.
No its not bull shit. The point is that the american taliban religious police have been very successful at creating “jane crow” laws that limit and deny access to abortion and contraceptives.
Its the hoop jumping game that they pulled on black men in the south who dared exercise their constitutional right to vote. Interesting that the most infamous states that pulled this crap on black men are the worst offenders of blocking abortion rights. Their doing the same thing with contraception on the federal level via the Blunt Amendment. The wingnuts in the states have already started following suit.
Okay. So now denying contraception is racism.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/
One problem is that payroll taxes and benefits are becoming a real burden. We need to overhall a few things, like state disability programs. I know that in our business, employees see less than half of the money we spend to employ them. Employers wind up trying to cut costs anywhere they can.
The idea behind SS, disability, medical insurance, was to give employees some benefits, so if you broke your leg at work, you weren’t headed for the streets. But it’s a system that hardly works for anybody. I know people who have had to hire a lawyer and spend years fighting to get a disability check, a check so small, it’s barely worth fighting for.
In related news,” Liberal Women Promote Abstinence” as a means of birth control ! Oh wait……..I misunderstood …..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/13/sex-strike-contraception-_n_1342266.html
Silly girls. Most married men won’t notice, and most horndog Liberal men will just, what do they call it, MoveOn.
The messaging is a problem. They should have claimed to begin the asprin birth control method.
Weird stuff. It seems like a bunch of noisy old guys are thinking *they* personally will have to pay for women to have sex – but not with them.
Expecting a bunch of old guys who don’t know the first thing about sex with women or birth control to have any idea how insurance works… Doesn’t matter if we withhold food, water, sex and air – they still won’t get it.
That ad has terrible messaging. Having women in soft, calm voices repeat what was said by men with a sneer or anger or a judgmental tone normalizes the comment.
I’m glad that I’ve never given any money to those idiots.
I agree – ten shades of bad.
Move On is part of the problem.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-14/afl-cio-drops-criticism-to-endorse-obama-citing-focus-on-jobs
It was all kabuki anyway.
Hypocrite-in-Chief.
Remember when HiC said kids should be off limits? Remember when he said it was for the sake of his daughters that he called out Limbaugh for using the s word?
Guess who he invited to his party to toast the British PM?
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/14/Sullivan-Obama-Trig
It’s different when He does it.
Sullivan is one of the creepiest pundits around. His obsession with Palin’s vagina should keep him from being allowed to eat at the Olive Garden, let alone the White House.
Sullivan had photoshop images/captions of Trig on his Atlantic blog back in 2008 (long since scrubbed) that were about the sickest items I’ve seen on the web. Beyond the politics. He is a sick individual.
Faux outrage begins 3, 2, 1 …..
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/new_guidelines_discourage_annu.html
Again, this should be between a woman and her doctor, not some guideline committee who gets funded by BigHealth
Wouldn’t “Big Health” have recommended increasing pap smears so they could make more money? I would rather not have or pay for unnecessary tests and I have no problem with the idea that scientific knowledge increases over time, leading to better guidelines. Apparently, my gynecologist agrees because she told me that I didn’t need to have a pap smear for another two years when I saw her a few months ago.
I agree with the guidelines, but some doctor friends of mine tell me this means insurance won’t cover preventative care while their malpractice insurance requires them too.
I dont think the guidline gets in the way of the doctor’s judgement. If there is something unusual in a result, more frequent screening will occur. My doc recommended something like this a few years ago. I really don’t see anything unusual with the concensus recommendations by the medical groups.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2114912/White-Cliffs-Dover-Thousands-tons-chalk-crash-sea-large-section-collapses.html
It’s started again
And he is knocking his predecessors to show how smart he is. http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/03/obama-knocks-rutherford-b-hayes-117572.html
I am going to think of the 2012 Obama campaign as the Sneer Tour.
Assume blog configs have changed. Can’t seem to post comments without logging in to wordpress, which also means can’t post from my phone.
I haven’t changed any settings but people were having problems commenting at Uppity’s place too.
chrisrudski – WP Staff:
If you don’t want to log in then use your usual alias but make up a fake email address. (fakename@yahoo.com)
The first time you do it the moderator will have to fish you out but after that it should work.
Gracias.
Guess the new Obama film must be playing. Obots everywhere are praising and fainting. How is it that so many people who make a living being propaganda professionals (in sales and advertising for instance) are so gullible to the manufactured propaganda of Barack Obama. Wouldn’t they know better.
The guidelines look at whether the overall death rate is significantly higher with less frequent screening, NOT at individuals.
So while the studies that develop these kind of guidelines can tell you that not a lot more women overall will die of cervical cancer, they have no bearing on an individual woman. If I catch a cancer developing in the first year it’s there, rather than 3 years down the road, my individual chance of surviving is indeed higher.
Studies and statistics designed to address what happens in large groups of people are utterly worthless at predicting what will or won’t happen to an individual. It’s one of the major failings of statistics. One can simultaneously say that no significant decrease in mortality results from more frequent screening, and that MY prognosis is individually better if I get screened yearly. It’s the paradox of statistics.
Also, doctors are going to recommend annual pap smears regardless of whether it’s “recommended” or if insurance will pay for them. Why? Because women who get cervical cancer are going to sue, and say that the cancer would have been caught earlier IF the doc had done annual paps. And they will win. Because “guidelines” give doctors NO protection in a court of law. It’s not a defense.
Um, that was supposed to nest under Erin, on the pap smear subthread.
So I was playing…..
http://bloghopenchangery.com/2012/03/15/a-thousand-words-2/
