July 6, 2014
"Women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people — men — to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers."
A quote from Hillary Clinton. The topic was Hobby Lobby, but I'm fascinated by this sentence as a great generality and because it connects to that quote of mine, which I foisted upon you yesterday morning: "I believe there is no more profound subject in human civilization than the female body. It is the central focus."
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There's a quote from Aristotle Onassis:
"If it weren't for women, all the money in the world wouldn't mean shit"
Actually, when guys get together and hang out, they don't talk about women.
Terrible Reading Comprehension Guy says:
Althouse writes: "I believe there is no more profound subject in human civilization than the female body. It is the central focus."
Meanwhile, a French author is quoted in the following:
"He had earlier explained that he chose to use Johansson as the model for his protagonist because she is "the archetype of beauty today"."
For his subject of the central focus of the female body -- his novel, "La Première Chose Qu’on Regarde (The First Thing You Look At)" -- he is sued.
Even when Althouse writes about this she doesn't write about this.
No Scarlett, No Peace.
Let's first acknowledge the self-serving nature of women saying such things about themselves. It doesn't matter if those women are professors or politicians. Would such a statement make sense in any other part of the animal kingdom? No, it would not make sense. Do liberals think Darwinism applies to every other animal species except humans? If so, why?
Let's then query the purpose of these quotes, one of the results of which is to pit groups against each other. What is the purpose of doing so? Why not admit the symbiosis between the genders?
Finally, I hope everybody can admit that Hillary's quote is convoluted. Nobody can use a soundbite of that quote, except to note her inarticulateness. There's a Dan Quayle-ish nature to that quote. But the press won't call her out for her verbal diarrhea.
At least when Althouse says offensive things she says them directly and takes the heat for her opinions.
One of the mechanics at the auto dealership where I used to work called people like Hillary Clinton "educated idiots". No doubt the woman is highly intelligent, but an idiot nonetheless.
This is a gaffe. It sounds like a 12 year old girl writing her first essay on feminism after reading Cosmo.
Is Hillary not prepping?
Certainly, the female body and female sexuality have been a major focus of art, literature, sculpture, mythology, etc., in virtually all cultures since prehistoric times.
In past centuries, this wasn't widely known because Christian and Islamic explorers and missionaries tried to suppress this material in the various foreign cultures they encountered. The Christian Church used to have a vast collection of erotic art obtained from foreign lands, which they kept in their vaults, away from the ordinary people.
I believe there is no more profound subject in human civilization than the female body. It is the central focus.
Well that and the creativity of men.
So while I agree with Althouse's comment, I do not agree with Hillary's comment.
It's NOT that women's bodies are used to "prop up rulers."
The Hobby Lobby case was about religious freedom for devout Christians.
And that's the whole issue, really: Modern devout Christians believe that life begins at conception (and so they want to run their businesses that way). But that wasn't always true.
For a long time, the Catholic Church held that abortion, while sinful, was not an abomination if it took place before quickening.
What Dems like Hillary and Elizabeth Warren are trying desperately to do is belittle the religious beliefs of folks like the Hobby Lobby owners as invalid or illegitimate. They're not. They're just different from other folks' religious views (and certainly different from atheists' views).
I'd much rather listen to someone much more intelligent. Like Sarah Palin.
Her language could be a little loopy at times, but at the end of the day you know it wasn't bullshit. And at times she exhibits a kind of rhetorical genius.
"Death panels."
When did Hillary Clinton ever express an idea with that kind of crystalline clarity?
Liberalism... The progressive kind of unintelligent but educated liberalism that infected feminism and to which Hillary is cowtowing, is an intellectual cancer. It rots the brain.
"Women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people — men — to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers."
Well, it's certainly true that Barack Obama used the War on Women bullshit to get himself re-elected.
As a teenager, we got on the Pill so our boyfriends did not need to use a condom. The Pill was to please and accommodate them, not us. This was the 1990s, during HIV/AIDS education that promoted culture.
The Pill is the ultimate control of a woman's body. It neutralizes it, make her body chemically synthetic.
But that according to the feminist lobby is the ideal of womanhood.
Catholic teaching states man must respect and honor a woman's sexuality. He can not manipulate it for his pleasure.
That's what Dan Brown was getting at in the Da Vinci Code!
Deep philosophy there.
Perhaps what Hillary! said about regimes using female bodies to prop up their power with men is true about some Muslim regimes. I'll be interested to see whether she runs on a platform to oppose such regimes, rather than try to curry favor with them, as Obama has done.
But a ruling that the Green family doesn't have to pay for Sandra Fluck's birth control is not even a small step toward establishment of patriarchy.
"Women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people — men — to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers."
That's certainly how the Democratic Party appears to be using women's bodies.
“I disagree with the reasoning as well as the conclusion,” Clinton said, almost before Isaacson had his question out. “I find it deeply disturbing.”
The former secretary of state sees those who would deny women birth control or reject compromise as akin to the theocratic zealots she encountered on her travels overseas.
This wasn’t the wishy-washy Hillary her detractors portray, a consummate, triangulating politician trying to play both sides of the issue. It was a true-believing liberal standard-bearer, drawing on her work in the cabinet to illuminate what's happening in America today.
1.) Notice, nowhere in the article does HRC address the Hobby Lobby decision on the merits.
2.) As for compromise, what about RFRA, which her husband signed into law? And what about Hobby Lobby itself?
Fact Checker
Hillary Clinton’s claim that Hobby Lobby wanted to stop covering all contraception procedures
Before the ACA became law, Hobby Lobby actually had provided coverage for all 20 FDA-approved contraceptive procedures required under the law. But once it became a mandate, the owners decided to object to four on religious grounds: Two “morning after” emergency contraceptive pills, Plan B and ella, and hormonal and copper intrauterine devices (IUDs). Founder David Green told the Wall Street Journal he was “shocked” to discover his plan covered these procedures.
“The Green family has no moral objection to the use of 16 of 20 preventive contraceptives required in the mandate, and Hobby Lobby will continue its longstanding practice of covering these preventive contraceptives for its employees,” says a Web site on the case maintained by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which helped bring the lawsuit. “Covering these [morning-after] drugs and [IUD] devices would violate their deeply held religious belief that life begins at the moment of conception, when an egg is fertilized.”
The Pinocchio Test
Clinton, who was speaking extemporaneously, should have been more careful in making sweeping statements about the contraceptive coverage at Hobby Lobby. It’s unclear how knowledgeable she was about the details of the decision; host Walter Issacson was a bit sweeping in his description as well.
In the specific case, the company on religious grounds objected to four of 20 possible options, leaving other possible types of contraceptives available to female employees — though not necessarily the most effective or necessary at the moment. It remains to be seen whether the lower courts will interpret the ruling as allowing some companies to institute a broader ban on coverage, so Clinton was leaping to an assumption about the impact on employees.
Two Pinocchios
What's strange is seeing a cultural and even personal/religious conservatism deployed for increasingly progressive populist causes in the public square right now.
And of course, exploited in the rhetoric of politicians.
One of the mechanics at the auto dealership where I used to work called people like Hillary Clinton "educated idiots". No doubt the woman is highly intelligent, but an idiot nonetheless.
Added to that list of idiots is of course Harry Blackmun and the people who continue to advance his ignorant idiocies (sinz52).
The truth is that the Church has always known and taught that a unique life begins at conception and, hence, any destruction of that life after it begins (at conception) is a mortal sin. One need go no further than the Incarnation itself, which occurred at the Annunciation, not at Christmas or some magical period in between. Similarly, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in which the individual life of Mary, body and soul, began at conception (the term kind of gives it away).
The various musings of Thomas Aquinas as to when there may be evidence of a soul/life has never been accepted by the Church and has never been taught by the Church, even if those who are ignorant of Church teaching and history have tried to exploit him for their own agenda (Blackmun and the pro-abortion crowd). (Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception, which the Church has celebrated for many centuries even though it was only officially recognized as doctrine in the 19th century.)
As for the common law, the point of quickening was a matter of evidence of life, a matter of proof that the woman is pregnant, not the reality of life itself. Even when the common law was devised, they knew life began at conception, but the actuality of it in a given legal case could not be established as an evidentiary matter without discernible movement.
I would argue a bit with you about how atheists feel about the Hobby Lobby decision and about birth control and abortion. We aren't a monolithic group. Most of us understand for us to have freedom from religion, we must also allow for others to disagree and be free to have a religion. For those of us who have come to atheism through our understanding of science, we recognize there are only two absolute markers for assigning when "life begins". Those would be conception or birth. I leave it to individual conscience to decide which to choose. Personally, I choose conception. I would expand the Hobby Lobby decision to include any employer, regardless of religious faith or lack thereof, who would find it abhorrent to kill unborn children. Why must I believe in a God to be morally opposed to abortion?
"I believe there is no more profound subject in human civilization than the female body. It is the central focus."
I once walked down my block and every woman came out and whistled.
She must mean something like that,...
This is like the Marxist and their views of economics: economic determinism.
Just substitute women's bodies for properties and everything follows.
It's a silly view of men; sexist really. But women are allowed to express such view and not suffer criticism.
Not giving women free contraception is a war on women. Viewing men as a monolithic group who unite to oppress women is perfectly fine.
Strange times we live in.
"White Glove Persecution"
As Pope Francis would say...
You have NOW listing The Little Sisters of the Poor as dirty.
The overwhelming intolerance of the modern "liberal" (really just leftist) is breathtaking to behold. Anything that they disagree with, they seek to ban under the law, and if that is impossible due to that pesky old parchment written by dead white men, they turn to shunning and bullying (i.e. equating climate change skeptics with Holocaust deniers). At the same time they insist that their own special groups be not only tolerated but embraced and affirmed (bake me a weeding cake! Or in Canada, perform my gay marriage of else).
"Her language could be a little loopy at times, but at the end of the day you know it wasn't bullshit. And at times she exhibits a kind of rhetorical genius. "
Sarah, unlike Hillary, came up from the bottom level of politics, at the local level, and understands what people want from government. Hillary, as used to be said about Bush," was born on third base and thought she had hit a triple."
The whole Atlantic article reminds me why I no longer even glance at it since Megan McArdle left.
The Crack Emcee said...
I once walked down my block and every woman came out and whistled.
As if to confirm Crack's world view, were those rape whistles?
Billary said "Women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people — men — to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers."
That doofette is quite, uh, creative.
Birkel said...Do liberals think Darwinism applies to every other animal species except humans?
For the most part, yes, and the phenomenon even has a name - "liberal creationism".
If so, why?
"The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, social, and personal. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the approval of those around us; we want to get even with that s.o.b who insulted us at the last tribal council. For most people, wanting to know the cold truth about the world is way, way down the list …" -- Derbyshire
Original Mike said...
"Women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people — men — to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers."
Well, it's certainly true that Barack Obama used the War on Women bullshit to get himself re-elected.
7/6/14, 9:07 AM
You sir have cracked the code. Leftists project themselves onto the GOP. The Leftist's hate is self-hatred, and somewhat justified.
These Kennedys and Murthas and Weickers hate themselves with good reason, and they were amazingly talented at deflecting that hate to Reagan or Newt or Scaife.
Ted Kennedy helped create in modern times the notion of Americans as dumb, grotesquely obese, drunken, obnoxious assholes.
Thanks you Boston &*&$'s.
-----The truth is that the Church has always known and taught that a unique life begins at conception and, hence, any destruction of that life after it begins (at conception) is a mortal sin….
Very good post, thanks.
You can take the radical out of the campus, but you can't take the campus out of the radical.
Even if this ever-so-horrible legal precedent results in every single employer being exempted from paying for every single type of birth control, the terrifying theocratic endpoint of the slippery slope will be... exactly how things were for almost all of our history, including the sainted Bill's administration.
For someone who purports to be so concerned about women and their bodies, she has no compunction about advocating the continued slaughter of millions in abortion mills. She, not surprisingly lies about the "access " to birth control with regard to the Hobby Lobby decision. Not unlike she and the rest of the totalitarians lied about access to healthcare when foisting the steaming pile of bullshit they call the ACA. Screw you ,you greedy, ignorant harpy. Bugger off along with the rapist you're married to.
Even if this ever-so-horrible legal precedent results in every single employer being exempted from paying for every single type of birth control
The fact is that there is and always has been a less burdensome means for the government to accomplish its goal of the subsidization of people's sex lives, i.e. "free contraception."
And that less burdensome means which does not require employers to have their fingerprints all over the provision of contraception, and at the same time fully respects the privacy interests of employees, is to require that employers pay a certain minimum sum of money to employees as part of their employment. Then the employee is free to take the employer's money and spend it on whatever the employee wishes, from contraception to drugs to porn to weekly abortions to paying rent to buying food to paying for other medical expenses, all without the employer's involvement otherwise and entirely the action of the employee and without having to pay with her "own money."
If this scheme sounds familiar, it is because it is -- its called wages and it effectively breaks the moral chain of causality because it is the employee who chooses to apply the money for moral good or moral wrong. The HHS mandate, on the other hand, is a purposeful scheme to interject employers into this private arena and involve them in the moral chain of causality, to purposely make them complicit.
Get rid of the HHS mandate today and women can still get their contraception "for free" by taking the employer's money (i.e. their wages) to pay for it. None of that money originates from the employee - it all comes from the employer.
Anyone else note Hillary!'s attempt here to turn a company's rejection of paying for abortifacients to a War on Women? The Dems, and her in particular, are so intent on turning this from a dispute over abortion, to motivating esp. low information female voters to Dem causes. Not surprisingly, the Atlantic portrays Hillary!s deliberate misinformation there in a positive, almost fawning, light.
Perhaps Clinton could give us some examples of rulers "propped up" in this fashion? One comes to mind.
I feel for the conservative atheist here. Now they have to vouch for every religious crank, from every crank religion, when they challenge federal laws claiming "religious freedom". Actually no, I don't feel for them at all.
The really remarkable quote is the heading the Atlantic (once a leading journal of American thought) chose for this screed;
"The former secretary of state sees those who would deny women birth control or reject compromise as akin to the theocratic zealots she encountered on her travels overseas."
'deny women birth control, or reject compromise'. Who is denying any woman birth control? I guess that would be the same people who are denying women 86-foot yachts. Selfish bastards! And what compromise is being rejected? Has Sandra Fluke offered to pay half?
In the specific case, the company on religious grounds objected to four of 20 possible options, leaving other possible types of contraceptives available to female employees — though not necessarily the most effective or necessary at the moment. It remains to be seen whether the lower courts will interpret the ruling as allowing some companies to institute a broader ban on coverage, so Clinton was leaping to an assumption about the impact on employees.
Let's unpack this a bit. What was the defining characteristic in HL eyes determining whether or not they would fund that form of contraception? Whether or not it was an abortifacient. I.e. whether it operated pre or post fertilization. The 16 types they would pay for operate pre-fertilization. The other 4 appear to operate post-fertilization (and, to many, post-conception). Which means, I think, certain types of IUDs and the day after pill. Because of the troubled history of IUDs, I would almost expect the statement "though not necessarily the most effective or necessary at the moment" to be primarily aimed at day after pills. And, yes, I can see some justification here in response to rape-rape (as contrasted to campus-rape, which most often seems to be women having regrets over sex that they voluntarily engaged in, or voluntarily engaged in the prequel to the sex, including, in many cases, getting blindingly drunk).
And, maybe some companies or organizations may attempt to impose broader bans on contraception. But so what? It is their money, and there are plenty of other places the few people impacted could work. Why is it Hillary!s place to decide how these, likely mostly Roman Catholic (due to the distinction between aborting and non-aborting contraception made by presumably Protestant HL), institutions spend their own money. Heck, with the sort of money flowing into the Clinton foundation, why doesn't she just pay for the few actual cases a year actually needing this sort of birth control. The foundation would then be something more than a mechanism to route tax free money from their donors to their friends.
I assume she is talking about her husband in quotes like these. It makes them sound very very funny.
She was talking about Bill, right?
Lordy, there's pandering and then there's pandering. All politicians, here and in every multi-party democracy, do it.
Hillary Clinton is a lousy panderer. She's so obvious, it's so transparent.
She really is a poor politician.
Bill Clinton? Now there's a politician who could pander without it being so obvious.
"I believe there is no more profound subject in human civilization than the female body."
I'd argue that the rape of the Sabine women was done for the children -- and female labor. Forget the body.
""Women’s bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people — men — to get them to behave in ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers.""
Actually, I would suggest just the opposite, on Hillary!s part - she is trying to bring together all women in a bid for sexual solidarity, to, of course, support her. A bit of projection though on her part - she is projecting on Republican men, what she is attempting to do with progressive and low information women.
Several things to keep in mind here. First, women have always been more critical than men to the survival of the species, or even of a society. Males are expendable, while females are not. A few surviving males can impregnate many females, but not the other way around. So, no one should be surprised if society protects female bodies more than male ones. A lot of ramifications of this - one of which is that the same forces that have given Hillary! and her sisters preferences throughout their lives are based on this. Every time a guy opens a door for a woman, or pays for her meal, or buys her jewelry, this dynamic is involved.
Secondly, as a result of all this, females tend to be more narcissistic, more self-indulgent than males. Often much more so. My theory there is that it probably has survival advantages for females - possibly by biasing them to select males best situated, or most willing, to provide support for them and their children.
But, the basic problem with this narcissism, this self-indulgence, is that a lot of women really seem to have a problem seeing beyond themselves, their children, and maybe close community. Which means that they are more likely to be swept away by Hillary!s illogic, and to vote for what is good for them, even if it is harmful to the country at large.
...but I'm fascinated by this sentence as a great generality and because it connects to that quote of mine, which I foisted upon you yesterday morning:
Yours was a quote meant to provoke conversation and argument among intelligent people. Hillary's was emotive barking meant to appeal to the limbic systems of stupid people.
Hillary is projecting. She is not only part of the problem, but seeks to normalize its causes.
Women are the controlling interest behind the scenes in every society, except perhaps in a bigamist/polygamous or "friends with benefits". While men work to build, defend, and feed the tribe, it is women who design, nurture, and direct the communities. This natural order has been intentionally and incidentally circumvented with feminists' led progress to devalue human life and promote taxable activities.
Our society is collapsing, and we are being displaced and replaced by an invading population, because greed (e.g. money, power) and moral depravity are the sole motivator for both men and women. Even worse, policies which create dissociation of risk are not only alienating families, but promoting infantilization of the population.
"reject compromise"
Compromise? I didn't see any compromise being offered here, certainly not by the Dems.
Hillary misunderstands RFRA. In her interview, she says it helps houses of worship overcome communities' misguided zoning ordinances against building them.
Old, white, theocratic, unaccountable, powerful men want to exercise control over women's natural rights to her own body. GOP equals American Taliban is the single issue of her campaign.
GOP only overcomes this by branding itself as the party of liberty.
The female body is not the central focus as a proportion of time. It is only a central focus incidentally with respect to procreation, but that perspective has changed since the so-called "sexual revolution" or regression. While libertinism has a focus on moral depravity, and natural corruption, its focus varies between individuals. That should be obvious with the selective "equality" movement.
So, what is the cause and effect? Was Hillary always corrupt? Was her corruption emergent, perhaps motivated by Bill's adultery (i.e. betrayal)? Was there another aspect of her life that forced a divergent reconciliation of natural, moral and narcissistic principles?
So a vote for Hillary is for... a women's body? A ruler? The one she would prefer at any given moment?
So, what Hillary's saying is that all the real men are in favor of the Hobby Lobby decision, and only fake men, pathetic betas who (wrongly) think they'll get laid if the parrot the "female" position, oppose it?
I'll take that. :-)
Of course, what she's also saying is that if you respect the law, you're not a real woman. Which if true would be a strong argument for removing women's right to vote.
It's important to think about equality feminism and difference feminism.
Equality feminism says the two sexes are equal in everything. Christina Hoff Sommers cheers this kind of feminism. And many men like it too. People respond positively to the notion of equality.
But of course there's a profound problem here. Men and women are not equal when it comes to sex and reproduction. Sex, pregnancy, reproduction, there's nothing equal about any of this.
Feminists pursuing their ideology of equality would dismiss the importance of sex. They said Freud was wrong on everything and you shouldn't read him. They said sex is a cultural construct, a political creation. There is no sex difference, there is no biological difference. Equality feminists denied sex difference for decades.
Camille Paglia demolished them. Also here and here.
Many feminists have adopted difference feminism. Men and women are different. Women are nice, nurturing, the center of all creation. Men are potential rapists.
This sort of feminism is ugly and vicious. See the work of Sommers for countless examples. She does wonderful journalism in her books, while Paglia does enough provocative thinking for ten scholars.
If woman are going to adopt difference feminism in regard to sexual relations, we need to resurrect chivalry. We need to adopt an attitude of respect and reverence for the opposite sex. And it's not just men who need to adopt chivalry. Feminism desperately needs to understand and respect the male sex.
I don't think Hillary really believes that. Not by the Althouse definition of "true belief."
Are women voters that stupid to vote for Hillary solely because of her XX chromosomes?
Yes, they voted for Obama because of his skin color. Like Obama, Hillary only needs to convince blue states women.
"Are women voters that stupid to vote for Hillary solely because of her XX chromosomes? "
Yes, next question.
We might note too that male focus on women's bodies is predominant with younger women. And this is because younger women get pregnant and have babies.
This focus can be quite annoying to young women. Diana Rigg, who was once the most beautiful woman in the world, talked about how annoyed she was with all the male attention when she was young. And how shocked she was how this attention completely disappeared when she was in her forties.
In essence, she went from complaining about the male gaze to complaining about how invisible she was. And we can criticize men for paying attention to young beautiful women and not giving that sexual attention to older women. But there is a fundamental biological reason for this disparity. Young women get pregnant; old women do not.
When Althouse says...
I believe there is no more profound subject in human civilization than the female body. It is the central focus.
...she is talking about young, reproducing women. Pregnancy is why these girls are the central focus of men, and it is the basis for much male behavior. It is why men can pay more attention to a 22-year-old waitress than a 65-year-old Nobel physicist. This may be annoying to women who want us to focus on brains, as opposed to bodies. But sexual reproduction is fundamental and very basic to the human condition. We need to respect it.
The Vagina Campaign in 2016. Lovely.
"RFRA ... helps houses of worship overcome communities' misguided zoning ordinances "
"Hey! We wrote RFRA so you little people could try to squash each other! We never meant that you were supposed to use it against the Feds!!"
Mark:
"The truth is that the Church has always known and taught that a unique life begins at conception and, hence, any destruction of that life after it begins (at conception) is a mortal sin."
Both Popes Gregory XIII and Gregory XIV didn't have much of a problem with abortion in the first 5 weeks of gestation.
Their views were reversed by subsequent Popes, however.
george mahal:
As a non-Christian conservative whose conception of God is completely separate from organized religion, I "vouch" for anybody.
I'm not a shill.
I always call the shots as I see 'em.
Many feminists have adopted difference feminism. Men and women are different. Women are nice, nurturing, the center of all creation. Men are potential rapists.
And, of course, males are the ones who basically created the technological world that we live in. Not females. Males. All those great labor savings devices that allow women enough time to protest male hegemony. Automobiles, airplanes, ships, computers, telephones, etc. While women were at home watching soap operas or getting their nails done.
If woman are going to adopt difference feminism in regard to sexual relations, we need to resurrect chivalry. We need to adopt an attitude of respect and reverence for the opposite sex. And it's not just men who need to adopt chivalry. Feminism desperately needs to understand and respect the male sex.
Not sure I get your logic here. Yes, difference feminism is built on la différence. And male chivalry is built on the same. BUT, chivalry worships the differences, while difference feminism seems to demean them. Sure, there is worrisome edge, at times, to male aggression, but that same male aggression, displaced into pseudo-combat and the like, is what built our economy and technology. Difference feminism seems to take what males have provided as their due, then denigrate precisely those characteristics that made such possible.
I would say that males should just ignore females except for breeding moments and the like, letting both live in their separate societies. The male society progressing technologically, while the female society regressing, but that won't work, as we are seeing with current female breeding practices in this country. The purpose of much male effort is to either attract mates or to provide for the ones they have, and absent females in their lives, a lot of males seem to just quit, following females into narcissism. And, thus was born the slacker generation.
The billion dollar plastic surgery market is based largely on the concepts of making women appear younger (i.e. breeding age) or making a woman's breasts appear bigger (i.e. more milk for babies).
Sex makes us stupid.
Men and women also have plastic surgery to appear more sexually attractive in general. Both the billion dollar plastic surgery market and the billion dollar abortion market suggest our society is severely messed up when it comes to sex.
And both of these medical markets are largely forbidden by the Hippocratic Oath.
Many doctors have decided to stop curing people, and to use their surgical skills to make money off healthy people. It's a very deep corruption that takes advantage of women and young girls. Smart feminists should recognize what is happening and attack it.
sinz52:
The Church sponsored and tolerated the commission of crimes against humanity on more than one occasion, under more than one Pope. However, that is not a unique feature of that institution, and is in fact quite common with centralized governance. In fact, the 20th century was bloodied by state-sponsored schemes, including the abortion of tens of millions of human lives annually, both through coercion and normalization.
As for abortion as a moral issue, it begins with an objective fact: human life evolves from conception to death. Murder is the willful, premature termination of a human life. Abortion is premeditated murder, which is both illegal and immoral when committed for a cause other than self-defense.
I think a good measure of civilization is how much a woman is allowed to be visible. The more a woman is able to show herself in society without being attacked the more civilized the society is. The more a woman must cover herself the more barbaric the society is.
Behold the empowered HRC supporter.
Cogent. Articulate. Informed.
(Watch the whole six minutes for the full effect.)
Both Popes Gregory XIII and Gregory XIV didn't have much of a problem with abortion in the first 5 weeks of gestation
Again - WRONG. Again, with respect to the question of ecclesial penalty in cases of abortion, it is a matter of evidence. Without movement, there is the possibility that the child in utero already died of natural causes. Just as in any other murder case, it is necessary to prove that the victim is alive, so too when the victim is in the womb. It was purely an evidentiary matter to require proof of movement, i.e. quickening, and not a doctrinal matter.
To know what the Church teaches and has always taught, just go to the Church. It is not a secret. They even have it freely available on the Internet (for example, Evangelium Vitae) for anyone who is truly interested in the truth of the matter rather than wanting to distort things and score ideological points.
This focus can be quite annoying to young women. Diana Rigg, who was once the most beautiful woman in the world, talked about how annoyed she was with all the male attention when she was young. And how shocked she was how this attention completely disappeared when she was in her forties.
Diana Rigg still has a measure of "M appeal." Her problem was the men of her generation, who were and are shallow and tend toward objectification of women,
not men generally.
The abortion opinions are interesting when you consider there is almost no discussion about women's bodies. The entire discussion is in regard to women's autonomy, women's choices, these metaphysical concepts. There's hardly any discussion about what an abortion--an induced miscarriage--does to a woman's body.
: Why can't we criticize the Pill?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1780996071/ref=mw_dp_mdsc?dsc=1
Isn't that the problem?
"Both Popes Gregory XIII and Gregory XIV didn't have much of a problem with abortion in the first 5 weeks of gestation."
This seems odd. How was pregnancy diagnosed that early ? Do you have a source for this ?
At a time when examining a pregnant woman vaginally was a common cause of death, I would love to know how many successful abortions there were.
Was there very a more wrong headed notion than the one proffered by Hillary? If one wants to see human action and women's bodies useful information might be found observing the meltdown of the Balkans, the partition of India, the civil war in Algeria, the many civil wars in Africa, the fault line between Christian Africa and Muslim Africa, and many thousands of years of human history.
But I suppose she is talking about American or at least western sociology. In that case have any women in history ever had a stable of tame men like American women? Most men I know spend their lives trying please women, their mothers, wives, and daughters. They work their asses off at difficult jobs, commute long hours, and come home for society to tell them aren't doing enough. That is one coterie of men. Another is the men who have discovered that women like boy toys, dependent men, projects, bad boys, and sweet lies. As women slowly gain control of our culture, politics, government, tax revenue, and political economy they seem to want to complain all the way to the bank.
Paco Wové said...
"RFRA ... helps houses of worship overcome communities' misguided zoning ordinances "
"Hey! We wrote RFRA so you little people could try to squash each other! We never meant that you were supposed to use it against the Feds!!"
Nope.
1: It was written in response to a Scalia opinion saying that Federal laws banning peyote applied to Indians who claimed to be taking it for religious reasons.
2: The part of RFRA that applied to the States was struck down by the Supreme Court as exceeding Congress's powers. Only the part affecting the Feds is valid.
3: The actual line is : "We wrote this to protect minor sects from you religious bigots, not to protect normal Christians from US!!!!!"
I spent way too much time reading the original Institute of Medicine report. This isn't about the unfairness of women having to pay for their own birth control pills. It's about using an employer mandate to increase the number of women using more-expensive long-acting no-user-error contraceptives, to reach a public policy objective of reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies.
Whether the targeted poor women really want to wait until they're 30 years old to have children, and whether it's really appropriate to corral employers in this way, is beside the point.
http://janetheactuary.blogspot.com/2014/07/reading-institute-of-medicine.html
I am still confused. What year was the law passed that required Hobby Lobby to pay for female employees' recreational sex?
@Jane
IUDs for every young woman. 700 dollars for each device inserted, and she can't remove it herself.
Same with implants in the arm.
Covered by parents employerd insurance.
For a long time, the Catholic Church held that abortion, while sinful, was not an abomination if it took place before quickening.
Wrong.
This is such BS, at least in the context of our nation's culture.
Consider how dependent the Democratic party is on female voters. That fact ALONE makes this statement a flaming heap of pig dung, an odoriferous rosy conflagration which could smell sweet to no nose under no name at no time.
The only thing this quote does for me and to me is to make me embarrassed for the Democratic party.
"IUDs for every young woman. 700 dollars for each device inserted, and she can't remove it herself.
Same with implants in the arm."
I'd be in favor of this for every women when she delivered her second illegitimate child.
Any chance you feminists would be in favor ?
Hah !
"and whether it's really appropriate to corral employers in this way, is beside the point."
Yes, freedom to exercise your moral conscience is beside the point.
Guess all those conscientious objectors should be forced to kill people.
Let me rephrase:
Whether the targeted poor women really want to wait until they're 30 years old to have children, and whether it's really appropriate to corral employers in this way, is beside the point, in the opinion of the Institute and HHS .
"I'd be in favor of this for every women when she delivered her second illegitimate child."
Why not a fix the guy?
Woman is the apex of God's creation.
HRC is so evil and incoherent. If she loved women she wouldn't be so quick to politicize them. To repeat myself she has lost a lot of IQ points over the years. She doesn't have the mental health to run for POTUS.
I am still confused. What year was the law passed that required Hobby Lobby to pay for female employees' recreational sex?
The law in question is the PPACA/ObamaCare. But, it isn't the law itself that is the issue, but rather, the regulations that were promulgated as a result.
Everyone here can probably remember the passage of that legislation. One of the sticking points was that there was a group of pro-life Dem members of Congress, led by Rep. Stupak, who were balking, due to the question about abortion funding. Their votes were essential to passage of the legislation, and so President Obama and his Administration promised them that there would be no abortion funding. Then, in implementing the legislation, a panel or committee was named to designate preventative care treatments that would be covered with no co-pay by outspoken abortion proponent then Sec. Sebelius. Somewhere around 11 of the 15 members selected by her department were also outspokenly pro-abortion. The result, as anyone could expect, is that not only was FDA approved birth control considered preventative care, but it included four methods of such that are considered by many (including, arguably, the Supreme Court) as abortifacients - meaning that instead of preventing fertilization/conception, they instead operated to essentially kill fertilized eggs, mostly, as I understand it, by preventing implantation.
The idea that birth control can be considered preventative medicine, and thus can save money, is essentially based on the theory that pregnancy and childbirth is less expensive than contraception. Of course, that ignores that absent pregnancies, the demographics supporting our entire society fall apart. And, the other thing pushed by a lot of the proponents is that women benefit economically by postponing their pregnancies. Of course, that ignores the reality that the young women that they think should be postponing their pregnancies in order to complete high school and the like, are often getting pregnant intentionally in order to gain their own welfare checks. And, that delaying childrearing in their 20s and into their 30s has not been shown to better their careers, but merely to reduce their overall fertility, and make it problematic for a growing number of young women to ever have children.
Whether the targeted poor women really want to wait until they're 30 years old to have children, and whether it's really appropriate to corral employers in this way, is beside the point, in the opinion of the Institute and HHS .
You are too kind. Of course they won't wait. Rather, a large number of them seem to see pregnancy as a road to welfare benefits. Why wait until their 20s, or even 30s to get on welfare to support their children, when they can do so in their teens?
This is pure slight of hand. Yes, these young women should wait to have children. But, there is more of a financial incentive not to, than to wait. And, the women who are delaying their childrearing for their careers are, as I pointed out above, often trading their fertility for the potential advancement of their careers - despite little evidence that putting motherhood later in their careers helps such overall. The deception is in mixing these two groups together - those who would benefit by waiting and won't, and those who might benefit, but are already waiting probably too long already.
It's about using an employer mandate to increase the number of women using more-expensive long-acting no-user-error contraceptives, to reach a public policy objective of reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies.
Yes, thanks, Jane, that's exactly right. The problem with birth control isn't price, or knowledge. The problem is alcohol and people not using birth control because of alcohol. Thus IUD or Norplant is essential.
Any federal plan to give free birth control should focus on the high end variety.
Not sure I get your logic here. Yes, difference feminism is built on la différence. And male chivalry is built on the same. BUT, chivalry worships the differences, while difference feminism seems to demean them.
Yes, that's why difference feminism needs to adopt a chivalrous attitude towards the opposite sex. Chivalry applies to both sexes! Men revere and respect women under chivalry, and women revere and respect men.
In other words, we keep equality concepts in the political realm (voting, jobs, etc) but in the sexual realm, where we are not equal, we must have chivalry. Otherwise sex difference results in an ugly gender war with both sexes attacking the other.
Equality feminism says the two sexes are equal in everything.
Misapprehension. Equity feminism says women and men are spiritual equals, and therefore should be equal in law.
And that - statistical differences between the sexes notwithstanding - what someone is allowed to do should depend on that person's abilities, rather than their sex being used to slot them into certain tasks and out of others. (For example, statistically more men than women excel at mathematics, but this should not be used as an excuse to suppress or discourage a woman who does excel at it, because the sexes are spiritual equals and therefore talent in one sex is as valuable as talent in the other.)
That's equity feminism. This isn't the same thing as alleging there are no differences between the sexes.
The obvious example of a failure to think in a chivalrous way is abortion. The feminist chant is, "it's my body, it's my choice." There is no baby in that rhetoric, there is no father in that rhetoric. The woman is put in the primary position. The baby is defined out of existence. The father is relegated to footnote 67. In Danforth the father is explicitly stripped of any rights whatsoever.
This lack of respect towards men and fatherhood by our authorities has decimated fatherhood. 11% of births were to single moms in 1973. Now over 40% of births are to single moms.
In some circumstances, feminism needs to recognize sex difference. Pregnancy is obviously one. But if you disregard or disrespect men and fatherhood, feminism is starting a gender war. Fathers disappear. Pregnancy becomes a female issue that doesn't concern men.
This is a disaster for men, yes, but also for tens of millions of women, not to mention their babies. Fatherhood is man at his best. Many women understand that.
Equity feminism says women and men are spiritual equals, and therefore should be equal in law.
I think that was the argument of the first generation feminists. The 2nd generation (which tended to be secular) argued the two sexes were biologically equal, equal in nature. This was always an absurd argument, which is why Paglia's attack is so fun to read.
I actually support the availability and affordability of universal contraception. Anything that curbs the prosecution of genocide is positive progress.
My concern is that pro-choice women and men will never understand or appreciate why their choice was legally and morally degenerate.
Baby steps, I suppose.
It's the argument of (most of) what used to be called second-wave feminism.
First-wave feminists (circa 1920) tended to argue that women were spiritually superior, less crude, etc., which sounds a bit like current difference feminism but had a different tone - the argument was less one of individual superiority and more that women, being more refined, would improve public life by their participation. Very Victorian-influenced.
It always had an element of noblesse oblige, also - women, being more spiritually refined, had an obligation to draw along and influence their mates and the next generation. (Very different from the lack of respect for the power of both fatherhood and motherhood we see today. Now it's more likely to be "parenting".)
I honestly don't understand what Hilary is saying. Who's using, how are women's bodies the issue (grammar?)? And why is it/ are they an issue? Bringing together men -- that's another way of saying unifying, I can undersant that, but how about the defining part? Ways that are disadvantageous to women but prop up rulers: what ways? Maybe an example would help.
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