February 21, 2012

Soccer moms, the Macarena, Bob Dole, and Rules Girls.

You know why they're together? Right, they are the "four strange phenomena, inextricably linked, that will forever be associated with 1996."

Somehow, we're still talking about soccer moms, which is the title of the Wikipedia article I was reading when I came across that link.
The term came into widespread use near the time of the 1996 Republican National Convention. The first use of the term in a news article about that election appeared in the July 21, 1996 edition of The Washington Post. E. J. Dionne, the article's author, quoted Alex Castellanos (at the time a senior media advisor to Bob Dole) suggesting that Bill Clinton was targeting a voting demographic whom Castellanos called the "soccer mom." The soccer mom was described in the article as "the overburdened middle income working mother who ferries her kids from soccer practice to scouts to school." The article suggested that the term soccer mom was a creation of political consultants. Castellanos was later quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying "She's the key swing consumer in the marketplace, and the key swing voter who will decide the election."
Clinton, of course, won the election, perhaps because he wrapped those "soccer moms" around his little, crooked... finger.

And ever since, political consultants and candidates, have tried to milk the emotions of the voters they call "moms." This has always irritated me. Though I have 2 sons and have spent a good portion of my life's energy caring for them in all sorts of ways, I have never decided how to vote by thinking of myself as a mom. I don't think I have ever said "I'm a mom" or "as a mother" in framing a question about politics. If a politician addressed me as a mother — and especially as a soccer mom — as if my political thinking revolved around conventional housewifely activities, I would regard him or her as sexist. Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.

What got me searching the term "soccer mom" this morning was a blog post — I could see in Site Meter that it linked to me — insulting me over what I'd written the other day about the newly coined term "birth control moms." You may remember that I'd noted that the term is "distractingly oxymoronic: if you use birth control, it's to avoid motherhood." I went on to criticize politicos who patronize women by calling them "moms" and treating them as if they "emote and intuit their way through elections."

Since the blogger is a lefty blogger, and lefty bloggers stereotype me as a righty blogger, the blogger could not perceive any feminist critique in what I was saying. His idea was that I'd just said the "stupidest thing [he'd] ever seen Ann Althouse say." He proceeded to make a huge deal out of the mundane fact that a woman who'd had children — and thus was a "mom" — would still use birth control to stave off unwanted additional pregnancies. At that point, she couldn't "avoid motherhood" — my phrase — because she would already be a mother. Crushingly obvious fact noted. "Birth control moms" is still an awkward term, containing a distracting contradiction. You're distracted even if you stop and think about the way some women with children use birth control not to avoid acquiring the status of mom, but to avoid additional mothering responsibilities.

Said lefty blogger goes on to state the true definition of the recently coined term: a "birth control mom" is "a woman who demands her birth control medication paid for according to the terms of her employment as regards insurance, even if she works for the Catholic Church. As well she fucking should."

First, birth control mom is "a woman..."? But some of these women don't have children. (If I had the instincts of a lefty blogger, I would call him a fucking idiot.) Second, "paid for according to the terms of her employment as regards insurance" — what? Could you write in English, please? Apparently, we're talking about women who are not merely going to be manipulated by scaring them that the government might ban birth control, but who are adamant about their entitlement to have their insurance fully cover birth control pills and who hate the idea of giving exemptions to the religious organizations that are portraying the proposed insurance requirement as a violation of their religious freedom rights.

The blogger — who is a married man whose wife is "on birth control" — ends:
And they are fucking with my intimate relationships?

Who the fuck are they coming after next? Rich people?

Bitch about stupid Politico phrasing, sure, but don't pretend that makes obnoxious, sexist insurance coverage decisions inoffensive.
Apparently, after the notion of fucking with his fucking crossed his mind, this man lost his mind. My post said nothing about insurance. It was only about the "stupid Politico phrasing." It was language analysis, from a feminist perspective.

And if I may continue in a feminist mode... this is the most egregious example of phallocratic writing I've seen in a long time.

83 comments:

hawkeyedjb said...

The government's not going to force my employer to pay for my groceries.

Therefore I'm going to starve to death.

MadisonMan said...

Phallocratic is a great word.

kristinintexas said...

I work for a Catholic entity. I am not Catholic. When I hired in, I was informed that certain medications may only be covered by the insurance plan if they were medically necessary, usually relating to reproduction. I am a reasonably intelligent person, so I figured out that they weren't going to pay for my birth control pills. No problem - it absolutely should be their right not to. I managed not to be offended, and I managed to buy my own birth control. It wasn't difficult.

acm said...

The best part is probably the comment wishing you the horrific fate of becoming pregnant with twins, in the hope that you would "grow a heart while pregnant".

It takes a really enlightened progressive for that kind of misogyny.

Unknown said...

Here's what my wife and I want to know: do we now get free condoms from our health insurance company? What about the male contraceptive pill?

Will Cate said...

heh heh... "phallocratic writing" ... that's excellent.

Peter said...

The soccer moms of 1996 looked like adult women. The soccer moms of 2012, well obviously they do not.

Henry said...

So the definition is something like this: "Moms on birth control who work for the Catholic Church and receive paid health benefits." Really? Really?

Somehow, I don't think that demographic is going to tip the election.

Sorry, bud, but the "birth control mom" invention is all about the make-believe world in which lefty resentment is transferrable to a large pool of useful idiots. Who need to be women, apparently. Misogynist.

The whole point of a demographic is to gain insight into a cross-section of potential customers -- voters in this case. The profile helps to identify their concerns and needs, not some fantasy resentment you want to foist upon them.

John Cunningham said...

"Phallocratic" is indeed a great word, I shall endeavor to use it today. and to me, the notable fact about Comrade Urkel's pronouncement that health insurance companies will be obliged to provide abortifacients, sterilization, and BC items free is simply nationalization without compensation. If allowed to stand, the govt could logically force grocery stores to provide meat free to all comers, etc.
and how about this--if you cannot afford $5 for rubbers, or $10/mo for BC pills, you should stop fucking until you get a job?

rhhardin said...

" ... mom" is a political subdivision of women voters, and women do vote differently - stupidly - than men do.

Their love of narrative over perverse consequences - perverse consequences being ones not in the narrative - is responsible.

60% of women vote like men. That's not enough. There's too big a swing bloc that takes it the other way, towards the moron vote.

You won't see this covered in the MSM. It would puzzle their audience.

Brian Brown said...

And they are fucking with my intimate relationships?


Hysterical.

Yes, because changing an insurance contract that I'm a part of isn't fucking with my life at all!

These people are such an embarrassment.

Remember, he's smart and conservatives are dumb.

Balfegor said...

a woman who demands her birth control medication paid for according to the terms of her employment as regards insurance, even if she works for the Catholic Church. As well she fucking should.

Forget the grammar, I find the statement itself hilarious.

And for two reasons -- first, that people now have a baseline expectation that their boss is going to pay for their birth control. Doesn't that just sound . . . kind of ridiculous on its face? I pay you to do some work for me, therefore I have to buy you birth control. I can understand negotiating for it as a term of employment -- it's always nice to have other people pay for things, especially if you can spread the cost out across other people (men, infertile octogenarians, etc.) who have no use for the service. But to have it as a baseline expectation? I mean, I find it absurd that health insurance is treated as a baseline expectation from employers, so I'm already hugely out of sync with the times, but this just seems like the reductio ad absurdum of employer-provided healthcare.

And second, if a woman wants to demand birth control as part of her employment, she's completely free to do so -- one of the benefits of a free market. The whole dispute here is about forcing Catholic institutions to do so for women who conspicuously didn't demand that they pay for birth control as part of their employment negotiations. It's about people demanding that other women's employers pay for birth control for other women.

Saint Croix said...

You can't be phallocratic on a keyboard, in my experience.

I'm phallocratic with pens, though.

Sometimes, big phallocratic crayons.

Brian Brown said...

a woman who demands her birth control medication paid for according to the terms of her employment as regards insurance, even if she works for the Catholic Church. As well she fucking should.

How about we demand that stupid leftist "feminist" males write with proper English and stop being such pansies?

Brian Brown said...

a woman who demands her birth control medication paid for according to the terms of her employment

Of course the only "woman demanding" here was Commissar Seiblus.

Note how in lefty land all demands are met. There is no such concept of negotiating with your employer or insurance companies. Or gasp, shopping around for policies that suit your need.

Nope, the wittle girls demand! and the government swoops in and makes it so.

TMink said...

Althouse wrote: "Since the blogger is a lefty blogger, and lefty bloggers stereotype me as a righty blogger, the blogger could not perceive any feminist critique in what I was saying."

I changed it to: "Since the blogger is a lefty blogger, the blogger could not perceive what I was saying."

Fixed it!

Trey

Firehand said...

Alex, didn't you know that a Democrat politician has declared that birth control is a matter for women, not men? So you don't count.

What I find interesting(well, one thing) in this is the almost hysterical declaration of a bunch of people that 'preventing me from having an abortion/contraceptives' = 'I don't have it unless someone else pays for it!'

Jane the Actuary said...

Actually, I have a hard time seeing "moms" (in the sense that "soccer moms" was used to mean middle-class mothers) getting bent out of shape about this: for them, family planning is a family decision and, to the extent that it's costly, a family expense. It's single women floating in and out of relationships who see contraception as an intolerable, unfairly women-only burden, and see single men as unfairly freed of that burden.

traditionalguy said...

About that radical notion that women are human beings, is there any evidence that this is true?

It is actually amazing that so many men and women don't seem to agree with that concept. Is it to make the fathers' relations with child bearers into a master/servant relationship?

Of course the scriptures also says about "Man," "...man and woman he created them." So there is authority there that woman are human.

Henry said...

Balfegor wrote: I pay you to do some work for me, therefore I have to buy you birth control.

That's a perfect formulation. That is what Obama and his chaff jammers need to defend.

* * *

One outcome of mandates is to push employers toward loopholes. Remember that an employer doesn't need to offer health insurance. In fact, under Obamacare, it may be more affordable for the employer to pay the penalty for NOT covering health insurance. Yet the nature of the mandates is that if the employee does offer health insurance, they have to offer an expensive version of it.

The more the government ties benefits to employment as something that employers must offer, the less incentive an employer has to hire someone.

This is especially true for marginally skilled and entry-level workers. The true cost of hiring such folks is so much higher than their actual wage that a smart company will hire as few as possible.

Remember the "jobless recovery" under Bush that the Democrats liked to complain about so much? Notice the really jobless recovery under Obama? There's a reason that employers are loath to hire unless they're forced by need. Ramping up employment for prospective work has been made too risky.

Anonymous said...

religious organizations that are portraying the proposed insurance requirement as a violation of their religious freedom rights

As well they fucking should.

ricpic said...

Frightening as it is to contemplate, the election may very well turn on the success with which the MSM paint the Republican candidate as hostile to women. Enough women are constantly on the alert for the slightest indication of "oppression" that if Obama's whores are able to sell it, Republicans alleged misogyny may override the price of gas and groceries and even their own or their loved ones unemployment.

rhhardin said...

Gynocrats.

I ♥ Willard said...

If a politician addressed me as a mother — and especially as a soccer mom — as if my political thinking revolved around conventional housewifely activities, I would regard him or her as sexist.

"I love those hockey moms. You know what they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is? Lipstick."

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

As long as its not phallographic, like in Super Bad (2007) it'll be fine.

TosaGuy said...

There is a legitimite need for free birth control and womens's health education -- lots of teen pregnancy in poor areas stems from years of abuse and sexual trauma.

Unfortunately, the partisan lefties aren't making that case for that type of need. Instead, the debate is by and for a bunch of preening partisan affluent people who think Rick Santorum is going to stop them from having sex. Which they know he will not, but since they probably like politics more than sex, the confluence of the two things probably makes their otherwise boring sex lives much better.

Joe Schmoe said...

I'm sick of contraception talk right now.

Bob Dole; what a bad candidate he was. I wouldn't go all AndyR and call him a joke, cuz he was a seasoned veteran both of war and politics, but just not, well, a good fit for the job.

Norm MacDonald as Bob Dole, on the other hand, was a perfect fit.

jrberg3 said...

"But to have it as a baseline expectation?"

It's not just that it is an expectation, it is now deemed a "right" by those on the looney left. And if you mess with it, you are messing with their unalienable rights deemed onto them by the annointed one (Obama or Sebelius, you choose).

MadisonMan said...

It's "easy" to put people into neat little compartments so your little mind doesn't have to dwell on the fact that there is a continuum of voters in any group, and what's important to one small segment of "soccer moms" certainly is frivolous to a second segment of that population.

I rarely hear people talk about the white male vote (unless they are bitter clingers) and my assumption is that's because the white male vote is most important. The Soccer mom Vote, the Black vote, sure it's nice to pick up those, but unless you get the White Male vote, kiss your election chances goodbye.

So when I hear a politician go after a particular voting bloc, I always ask myself: Why are they unable to pick up the white male vote? I would love to see a journalist ask that question.

Old RPM Daddy said...

"Are You Really Making Me Bitch about You Interfering in My Successful Heterosexual Marriage?"

My goodness, Dr. Althouse! You interfered with his successful heterosexual marriage! What did you actually do? Did you:

- Make his heterosexual marriage unsuccessful?
- Make his marriage homosexual?
- Harsh his mellow?

Words mean things, at least when diction and syntax are involved. The comment on Whiskey Fire from EDH at 9:54 AM hasn't been responded to yet. We'll see how further damaged this guy's marriage is because of it.

jrberg3 said...

"And they are fucking with my intimate relationships?

Who the fuck are they coming after next? Rich people?

Bitch about stupid Politico phrasing, sure, but don't pretend that makes obnoxious, sexist insurance coverage decisions inoffensive."

How exactly are "they" messing with his intimate relationships? What has changed for him in that regard compared to this time last year when we didn't have this "forced requirement?"

sakredkow said...

I think Althouse has it all over this low-level lefty blogger, and you guys are all correct to get in there and give some kicks of your own now that Althouse has done the hard work and this fucking idiot is down.

I think the problem for the GOP is that they still have a problem - the folks on the far right are perceived by many moderates as being hostile to (moderate) women and families and their interests. Any GOP candidate is likely to be tied to those views in the campaign ahead.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Some states now have "medical marijuana".. will Catholics be asked to cover that too.. down the line?

John henry said...

I can, potentially, see some long term good coming out of this whole kerfuffle.

If the Catholic Church really sticks by its guns, perhaps it will say: "OK, fine. You want us to fund something we don't believe in? We will stop funding insurance for our employees altogether."

They could then cancel all insurance and give their employees an additional $12,000/yr in their paychecks. The employees, not the employer would be responsible for their own insurance.

AS IT SHOULD BE!

Those employees who want to pay double for birth control by having the insurance company provide it for "free" would be able to do so.

Others would choose to save money by purchasing it directly.

And if the Catholic church stops providing employer paid insurance, it may open the floodgates to make it obsolete in general.

I do realize that there is a tax issue. Health Insurance (with a life insurance rider) is pretty much the only benefit that a company can give that does not need to be included as taxable income to the employee.

If they give the employee the money instead, it will be taxable as income. Still deductible to the employer, of course.

So perhaps we would get a massive outcry from the church employees as well as the 100mm or so parishoners to fix this stupid tax loophole.

Either make health insurance premiums tax deductible to the individual or make employer paid insurance taxable compensation to the employee.

I favor the 2nd but realize that it is probably politically impossible.

So if the govt gets the church pissed off enough to do this, I see it as am amazingly good thing for the country.

John Henry

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

@8:43 Henry makes some good points.

bagoh20 said...

This is the primary problem with government provided healthcare. If this is where we are now, imagine what the future battles will be about, what will be demanded from the program, and how huge the cost will become. This single law will destroy the strength and eliminate much of the future good this nation could do. We will look back some day and say: Of course this would happen, what were we thinking?"

Good vote there people.

So much lost to the power of supple mind.

sakredkow said...

imagine what the future battles will be about, what will be demanded from the program...

Bagoh, got an example you're thinking about?

Saint Croix said...

Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.

Well, if you try to be a pro-life feminist or a Republican feminist or Sarah Palin, feminists will call you whore.

Feminism is also a movement that wants to empower women. Thus, in the abortion debate, there is no baby, and fathers don't exist. Is that power or what?

Feminism also seems to be in favor of a unisex view of the world. Thus women are human beings and men are human beings and those important biological differences (like being a mom) are cultural.

There are no moms! Society made them up!

Feminists who claim that all they want is to be recognized as human beings should stop and wonder why so many women and girls refuse to identify themselves as feminists.

Maybe all these girls and women suspect that the feminist cry for humanity is actually a pretext for a more disturbing agenda. For instance, a latent hostility to men and babies. And since most girls and women like men and babies--or at least want to keep their options open--they refuse to identify with the feminist movement.

I don't know but that's my guess.

ErnieG said...

Some startups with high morale and huge cash flow had at one time, the custom of having beer and pizza brought in on Friday afternoon to celebrate a good week.

Suppose some bureaucrat, hoping to stimulate high morale and huge cash flows, and grateful for certain considerations from a brewer, mandates Friday beer parties, with free beer for all, including predominately Baptist or Muslim enterprises.

Comes now Rick Santorum, who says that he doesn't think that's a very good idea.

"See! He wants to bring back Prohibition! when he's President you won't be able to buy a drink! What will we get? Moonshiners! Speakeasys! Rum Runners! Theocracy!"

Rick67 said...

Lefties.

Tim said...

"Gynocrats."

That's great.

And to their left, are the "hysterectocrats."

Freaking pathetic.

If you like these national discussions over who is "entitled" to more free shit at someone else's expense, just keep voting Democrat.

It isn't like Greece (or California...) isn't serving notice on the rest of us that the yellow brick road ends not in the Emerald City, but rather in national bankruptcy and impoverishment.

bagoh20 said...

"Bagoh, got an example you're thinking about?"

Just off the top of my head:

Extensive life support at the end of life.

Payments to subsidize a healthy diet (which will be sold for drugs)

Expensive testing to prove we are not sick, but will often require more testing to be sure.

Payment for every possible prenatal and post-natal device, test, nutrition, and therapy, and by post-natal, we mean through age 26.

Hundreds of new government paid or subsidized specialties in nutrition, psychology, child development, physical and emotional therapy.

NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS

Gym memberships

Comfortable shoes

But even without all that, the explosion of current testing, treatment, and medicines to the natural hypochondriac in all of us.

Think about the difficulty in arguing against treating sick people, even if most of them are not sick, the fight will be all about the few who are. Just like government programs now, where much, if not most, of the money goes to fraud or simple expansion of definitions into the absurd.

edutcher said...

These people are truly incapable of independent thought, aren't they?

Once the talking points come out, that's the end of any discussion.

And I can't even imagine how any of these people could write a simple declarative sentence if the work "fuck" disappeared from the language.

Ann Althouse said...

Since the blogger is a lefty blogger, and lefty bloggers stereotype me as a righty blogger

Only because they can't conceive of one of their own disagreeing with the Anointed Word.

a woman who demands her birth control medication paid for according to the terms of her employment as regards insurance

Ah, yes, the true feminist doesn't negotiate or bargain or reason. She demands!!!

PS Don't hold back, Madame, tell us your true thoughts on the matter.

PPS One of the funniest things in the world is watching a sober wife trying to teach a half-smashed husband the Macarena.

garage mahal said...

, but unless you get the White Male vote, kiss your election chances goodbye.

Obama failed to win a majority of whites (43 percent); or white men (41 percent); or even white women (46 percent) But he won 54 percent of all white voters age 18 to 29, to McCain's 44 percent.

Anonymous said...

If I were in an "intimate relationship" with my health insurer, I'd probably say "fuck" a lot too.

dbp said...

I am pretty sure that no Democratic candidate for president has won the white vote since LBJ.

dbp said...

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings."

So, what is wrong with the slogan? I guess what I don't like about it is that it is pretty obviously dishonest.

1. Since everybody thinks that women are people, it is not a radical notion at all. It is better described as common sense or just obvious.

2. Feminism goes well beyond this little "radical notion". If it didn't then everyone would be a feminist and the whole exercise would be pointless.

3. If feminists really believe that it is radical to believe that women are people, then logically they must believe that most people disagree with the statement since a thing is only radical when a small minority believe it. It follows then, that they are either paranoid or very much out of touch with reality.

I always figured that not even the most radical feminist would actually believe the slogan on the button. It was just a bit of strategy: Any fair minded person would agree that women are people and thus feel good about the idea of feminism.

Fen said...

Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.

Except for fetus. "Its not a female, its a parasite!"

Bender said...

If a politician addressed me as a mother . . . I would regard him or her as sexist. Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.
_____________

The logical implication being here that mothers are not human beings.

And it is true that the counterfeit feminism of the left does not view mothers as human beings. Hence, they see the potential to motherhood as being something to be eradicated and destroyed.

The problem is that it is also true that the counterfeit feminism of the left does not view women as human beings either. As exemplified by the male lefty blogger at issue, they view women, not as human beings, but as their sex toys -- and how dare you fuck around with their fucking their fuck buddies. This objectification of women goes for the female counterfeit feminist as well, who is all too eager to reduce her vagina and herself to a thing that she can have dialogues with.

Respect women as women? Respect their unique innate womanness, not to mention their femininity? Bah! Any real women is one that acts like a man. That is their idea of "equality" -- not that men and women have equal dignity as men and women, but that anything uniquely female be destroyed so that women become men.

Larry J said...

"a woman who demands her birth control medication paid for according to the terms of her employment as regards insurance, even if she works for the Catholic Church. As well she fucking should."

I don't object to birth control. I don't object to it being covered by medical insurance. I do object to the idea that of all medicines, birth control must be "free." If you need heart medicine, you'll pay a copay. My wife and I have copays for all of our prescriptions. Why the demand that birth control have no copay? Since that will drive up costs, the rest of us will end up paying more for medical insurance even if we don't use birth control

This is just a cynical ploy by Obama to buy women's votes by promising them "free stuff." Sad to say, it'll probably work, at least for the women stupid enough to think anything is "free."

bagoh20 said...

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings."

and men are lowly animals of unfortunate usefulness.

prairie wind said...

The ONLY reason we are talking about birth control is because Sibelius/Obama decided that insurance policies should pay for birth control. There was no general clamor for insurance that covers birth control but NOW, now that the Catholics have protested, the liberals are all abuzz about how unfair the Catholics are.

The Pied Piper pipes and liberals trot along after him.

John henry said...

I spent a bit of time in the Navy back in the days before the language became pussified.

I've heard a lot of swearing, cursing and name calling and "fuck" was one of the milder terms.

So it is not like I find the word unfamiliar or shocking.

It is rather monotonous, though. Writers like this one use it because they are too lazy to actually write something interesting.

They think it will shock. They think their use of it reveals them as grownups or something.

All it does is reveals them as poor writers.

That is not to say that it is not a useful word and does have its place in writing. Just that so many do not know its place.

It is lazy. It is monotonous.

Most of all, it is boring.

John Henry

bagoh20 said...

To radical feminists, a mother is a woman who has been raped, unless she's a lesbian who was artificially inseminated, or who adopted, in which case she is the beautiful future of the sepcies.

bgates said...

Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.

Feminism is the radical notion that feminists get to define the terms "women" and "human beings".

I pay you to do some work for me, therefore I have to buy you birth control.

"Thank you for accepting our offer of employment, Ms Johnson. Here's your parking permit, your ID badge, and of course your diaphragm."

wv: edrecei imsonotarobotiknowwhatthesecondwordisandidontlikehowyouretryingtogetmetospellitforyou

Synova said...

Maybe the stupid is catchy.

Women are too weak and helpless to get their own birth control.

And the men they are married to are too weak and helpless to do anything but be subordinate to their sexual partner's ineptitude.

Anonymous said...

I pay you to do some work for me, therefore I have to buy you birth control.

But of course, they would never phrase it that way because the real way they phrase it is Why should my boss be involved in my birth control choice? Been seeing this exact complaint on Facebook. Not surprisingly mainly by the same acquaintance who accused ME to my face of taking her lesbian aunt's children away (as if I was the judge), and all because she knew I likely opposed same-sex marriage (she didn't give me the respect enough to ask.)

Basically, it's all about how somebody completely remote to them is ruining their life. They definitely do not see that they have the option to buy birth control on their own. The boss isn't following them into the clinic and tearing up the doctor's prescription after all.

Scott said...

Feminists are simply the Ladies Auxiliary of the Democratic Party.

Perhaps they were once something else, but that was long ago.

edutcher said...

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings."

No feminism is the radical notion that only females who are in a profession, single, somewhat bisexual but mostly lesbian, perpetually angry, man-hating, Left wing, and have aborted all but one designer baby which is usually left in the care of an au pair are women and thus human beings.

If a female is Conservative, married, a mother with 2 or more children, Republican, likes men, or happy, she is not a woman and hence does not count as a human being.

traditionalguy said...

Politics practiced on TV by using panels of the opinionated folks only requires that a false statement be made and then repeated over and over again like frogs croaking all night long.

That is your basic "Big Lie" technique in action.

CNN has already started up croaking that the GOP opposes the use of birth control by women.

That is scary, especially for the men.

Jose_K said...

American must learn spanish
This is the lyrics of Macarena:
Give joy to your body macarena
Your body is t' give it joy and good things
Macarena Hey Macarena
Macarena has a fiance who has Vitorino as last name,
During the flag oath
She f.. with him
along two friends
Macarena dreams a with el Corte Inglés ,
With buying moderns models
She would like to live in New York
And have a new fiance.
end
...
Vitorino is the name of a famous bull breader.He has horns and is not the devil
Macarena is the name of the Virgin Mary aparition to wich bullfighters pray before going into the arena.
So you had families , even Sesame Street featured it, dancing to the lyrics about a woman that slept with 3 men at the same time, that is unfaithful to him and is looking for a rich man to take her to America.
Ignorance is bliss
The song was a summer hit(The equivalent of who left the dogs out ot the thong song) three years before it reached the USA.By that time nobody remenbered it in Spain.

Saint Croix said...

Speaking of birth control, this is a really interesting article that attacks the pill, and argues for natural family planning (NFP).

I've actually heard a lot of attacks on the pill from women over the years. They don't want it screwing with their hormones.

In many ways, of course, the pill is far more convenient for men than for women.

Ditto abortion.

What's interesting about natural family planning is that it forces the man to understand and appreciate the woman's rhythms. It seems like an interesting birth control technique. In one study the effectiveness rate was 99.6%.

Of course, I remain a big fan of the condom. I know, I know. How phallocratic!

Saint Croix said...

That's something new I learned today, by the way. The Roman Catholic church is officially okay with NFP, which is to say, birth control. They draw the line at artificial birth control. I did not know that.

Bender said...

Of course, I remain a big fan of the condom.

Come on, a man be responsible here? You hate women, don't you?

The responsibility of the man is to have the woman take pills to throw her body out of wack, to drive her to the abortion clinic and demand she abort, and to have full sexual pleasure (i.e. no condoms!). That's it; that's the full extent of the man's responsibility.

Larry J said...

While I read the book decades ago, I seem to recall that in B. F. Skinner's "Brave New World", the word "mother" was an obscenity.

Are we heading there?

prairie wind said...

That is your basic "Big Lie" technique in action.

Exactly.

Obama admin: Insurance companies should provide "free" birth control.

Catholic church: Hey, we don't want to pay for it.

Media: The right wing is trying to ban birth control!

At least that's the way it worked among my Facebook "friends." Never mind that Catholics are far from part of the right wing and never mind that not even the Catholics are talking about banning birth control. Not even Santorum suggests that we ban it.

Seeing Red said...

Silly Professor, your womb ID's you, defines you, vote your womb. That is the most important female thing. Deny your womb, you vote against your self-interest on occasion. The womb is never wrong.

Anonymous said...

in B. F. Skinner's "Brave New World"

Nah, that was Aldous Huxley's Walden Two.

Unknown said...

Nah, that was Aldous Huxley's Walden Two.

You're probably thinking of Eric Blair's Watch the North Wind Rise.

Mary Beth said...

The blogger — who is a married man whose wife is "on birth control" — ends:

And they are fucking with my intimate relationships?


Relationships? How many wives does he have?

Bender said...

Relationships? How many wives does he have?

He wants to ensure that he doesn't get his paramour girlfriend pregnant. His wife would not be happy with that.

Chip Ahoy said...

Oh man, this hits where it hurts the most, right in the douchebag.

And phallocratic is a word! It doesn't even get a red underline like douchebag does.

Kirk Parker said...

You are so cute when you are angry!

Laura said...

My fellow conservatives and libertarians if you would just stop and think of all the future government job openings for Birth Control Compliance and Education Officers!!

From Guttmacher statistics: "Two-thirds of U.S. women at risk for unintended pregnancy use contraception consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year; these women account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies. In contrast, the 19% of women at risk who use contraception inconsistently or incorrectly account for 43% of all unintended pregnancies. The 16% of women at risk who do not practice contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies..."

Saint Croix said...

19% of women at risk who use contraception inconsistently or incorrectly account for 43% of all unintended pregnancies. The 16% of women at risk who do not practice contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies..."

Our national birth control failure drives liberals batshit crazy. "We trained you in school how to put a condom on a banana. How come you can't do it?!"

Must be the Catholic church.

No, wait. Must be they can't afford it. We need to help the poor!

Liberals would love to ask those 1.2 million abortions why they didn't use birth control. But liberals are too sensitive to ask questions like that. So liberals go back into their liberal huddle. They throw darts at their liberal dartboards.

"It's Roman Catholicism."

"No. It's poverty. It's always poverty."

"I think we need to send more money to the schools!"

You know what it is? Alcohol. Demon rum. Alcohol is that thing uptight Americans use when they want to have sex with strangers. Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.

We're drunk! Hello. Have you ever been to a bar? You damn fucking liberals.

If I was running for President, the media would be like, "He wants to bring back Prohibition!" Yeah, that's my plan. Take us back to 1924. Back when the market was rockin'.

Maybe the government should put up photographs of aborted babies in the bars. Sort of like a warning label. Would that suck or what? It would piss off all the libertarians.

Yeah yeah, call me Tipper.

My other theory is that we have a desire to reproduce. And when we drink, our inhibitions go away.

So we forget to control it.

We don't want to do what the government wants us to do. Bunch of drunk rebels, that's what we are.

wv: useful + Moreman

cubanbob said...

Laura said...
My fellow conservatives and libertarians if you would just stop and think of all the future government job openings for Birth Control Compliance and Education Officers!!

From Guttmacher statistics: "Two-thirds of U.S. women at risk for unintended pregnancy use contraception consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year; these women account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies. In contrast, the 19% of women at risk who use contraception inconsistently or incorrectly account for 43% of all unintended pregnancies. The 16% of women at risk who do not practice contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies..."

2/21/12 3:26 PM

Get rid of welfare and the number will drop dramatically. Make child support conditional that the man consents prior to having relations with the woman and unintended pregnancies become rather rare. If DNA testing comes back the man isn't the father have her wages and other income garnished for fraud. It's all in the incentives.

We have a right to the pursuit of happiness, not the right to have it subsidized. Besides, what a cheap bastard the author of that piece is. He wants a piece but doesn't want to pay for the fun and to avoid 18 years of support.
It takes a special kind of stupid to be a liberal.

Larry J said...

Paul Zrimsek said...
in B. F. Skinner's "Brave New World"

Nah, that was Aldous Huxley's Walden Two.


Maybe but I don't think so. From BNW Chapter 3

"Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?" enquired the Assistant Predestinator. "I hear the new one at the Alhambra is first-rate. There's a love scene on a bearskin rug; they say it's marvellous. Every hair of the bear reproduced. The most amazing tactual effects."

"That's why you're taught no history," the Controller was saying. "But now the time has come …"

The D.H.C. looked at him nervously. There were those strange rumours of old forbidden books hidden in a safe in the Controller's study. Bibles, poetry–Ford knew what.

Mustapha Mond intercepted his anxious glance and the corners of his red lips twitched ironically.

"It's all right, Director," he said in a tone of faint derision, "I won't corrupt them."

The D.H.C. was overwhelmed with confusion.

Those who feel themselves despised do well to look despising. The smile on Bernard Marx's face was contemptuous. Every hair on the bear indeed!

"I shall make a point of going," said Henry Foster.

Mustapha Mond leaned forward, shook a finger at them. "Just try to realize it," he said, and his voice sent a strange thrill quivering along their diaphragms. "Try to realize what it was like to have a viviparous mother."

That smutty word again. But none of them dreamed, this time, of smiling.

"Try to imagine what 'living with one's family' meant."

They tried; but obviously without the smallest success.

"And do you know what a 'home' was?"

They shook their heads.


Damn but I hate the new Captcha system. I have a hard time reading the word with the smudge on it.

Nathan Alexander said...

3 points (sorry, coming late to the fight):
1) I'm encouraged by this incoherently raging email, and especially this new term,"birth control moms". That's because it is Cargo Cult politics, an attempt to recapture the Soccer Mom voting block that pushed Clinton over the hump into a 2nd term against an extremely weak candidate. As I recall, "soccer Moms" was a term that grew out of the after-the-fact analysis. By coming up with this term, they are attempting to create a voting bloc out of thin air...but have no idea how to do it other than to get shrill about it. Smacks of desperation.

2) Give the email writer a break. He's clearly married to a feminist harridan, and writing screeds like this is the only way he can continue to get laid once a month.

3) This is just the latest in a series of Democrat-invented "rights". Certain "rights" never existed until made up out of thin air. As soon as they come into existence, the people who want/benefit from the new "right" apparently completely forgot how the "right" never existed previously, and argue from the perspective of civil rights, and how reversing course would be the end of the nation, or society, or civilization, or something.

A partial list of these non-existent-until-named "rights":
Social Security
Medicare
College education
Single-Payer health care
prescription drugs
green energy
government/union jobs w/ defined benefits
"free" contraception

Proponents of SSM should consider how nicely fits into that list...it does call into question its provenance and efficacy.

Renee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Renee said...

"19% of women at risk who use contraception inconsistently or incorrectly account for 43% of all unintended pregnancies. The 16% of women at risk who do not practice contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies..."

Maybe they really wanted to have a baby?

Many members of my family (including my parents) are 'unplanned' and 'unintentional'. I don't love my planned children more then my unplanned children.

It's called unconditional love.

I was at another baby shower this weekend, and for the love of life and the joy it brings, I'm blessed we're really terrible with birth control.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Renee said...

(re-write)

Sir, cool it. Be a real man, and in the name of equality go dutch and pay for half of your wife's birth control or better yet go dutch on a vasectomy.

Or rather in the name of charity....
Please reconsider the fact, if you love your wife, then your intimate relationship with her is more then the free birth control.

My husband loves me, and while we don't do contraception and rely on Natural Family Planning instead I never have to worry about the insurance companies involved in my family planning. I do greatly appreciate though they cover all of our children, and I worry with this free birth control by decree sees children's lives as preventative health cost measure, and that larger families will be greatly frowned upon.

Thers said...

Apologize to GWPDA.

And, overall, just grow the fuck up.