Women’s Space

This looks pretty amazing, thanks to son John for sending me the link!

Heart

“Both campaigns, in the closing stretch, seem not fully worthy of the moment. We are in crisis — a once-in-a-century event, as we now say. And what we got from the candidates, in this week’s presidential debate, was a bunch of gummy meanderings — smooth, rounded sentences so full of focus-grouped inanities that six minutes in viewers entered a kind of trance in which we almost immediately gave up on trying to wrest meaning from what was being said and instead focused on mere impressions. The look of things. The men on the plane, the pseudo-tough political operatives who surround both candidates, sometimes grouse, in private, that it’s all symbols now, all mood, all about the visual. 

But they have some real responsibility here. They send their candidates out to speak such thin gruel, such spat-out porridge, that we are struck dumb, and left daydreaming about the fact that Mr. Obama’s suits are always slate gray and never seem to wrinkle, and Mr. McCain tonight seems like a rabbity forest creature darting amid the hedgerows.

Why would anyone trust either candidate to help dig us out of this if they can’t speak frankly about what got us into it?”

Read the rest of Peggy Noonan’s exquisitely-crafted response to the Presidential debates from this morning’s Wall Street Journal.  H/t to World Can’t Wait which also gets the credit for the image up there.

Heart

Once again, I am having moderation policy difficulties.    There are a whole bunch of comments in my moderation queue and they will remain there until I decide what to do.

I blog because I care about women and want to engage with women and publicize women’s issues in ways nobody else does.  I know that I do that well.  I do not want my blog, ever, to be one of the billion blogs people can turn when they get a hankering to watch as women tear each other apart.  And I don’t want to read that stuff myself.  I’m so tired of it.  It is demoralizing and wearisome and I cannot afford that particular expenditure of energy in my life.  I’ve already got way too much on my plate to allow for that.

So I’m deciding what I’ll do about it. 

Heart

I said in my last post that I didn’t see any evidence of real leadership in crafting the bailout. But I am wrong, I sure did see leadership. Last weekend in researching the financial crisis, I came upon an open letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen drafted by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Among other things, Sanders was calling for:

…a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for individuals. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue over five years, but wouldn’t cost 99.7 percent of taxpayers a single penny.

I was one of, as it turned out, 48,000 people who signed Sanders’ open letter.  In his speech to the Senate during the Bailout debate, Sanders said: Continue Reading »

So in the past year or so:

• The subprime mortgage market in the United States tanked;
• Bank stocks plummeted;
• Big Six investment firm Bear Stearns tanked;
• The British government seized insolvent mortgage lender Northern Rock;
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went into receivership, taken over by the U.S. government;
• The largest insurance company in the nation, and probably the world, AIG, was nationalized;
• Lehman Brothers failed and filed for bankruptcy, setting off a global financial alarm;
• The U.S. government brokered a takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America;
• Washington Mutual was seized by the FDIC with pieces sold to JPMorgan Chase;
• The British government seized Bradford & Bingley, a company specializing in liar loan” mortgages.  The sale was necessary, the government said, to protect the banking system.
• The German government put up a $51 billion dollar rescue package to bail out Hypo Real Estate Holdings AG., a multinational property lender “in response to the extremely challenging conditions on the international money markets following the Lehman collapse …”.  As of two days ago the rescue is failing.
• The Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments bailed out (and nationalized) Fortis bank to the tune of $16 billion and Dexia multinational bank to the tune of $9 billion. 
• Iceland’s government bailed out Glitner, its third largest bank, because it was on the verge of collapse;
• The Russian government pledged $50 billion to Russian banks just in case.
• Citicorp bought Wachovia, we thought — which was in trouble because it had purchased Golden West Financial, a subprime mortgage lender — but really, Wells Fargo bought Wachovia late yesterday for about $12 billion more than what Citicorp had offered.

The house of cards, in other words, began to come crashing down.

In the midst of what is and has been an international financial crisis, both houses of Congress passed the $700 billion dollar “bailout” package yesterday.  It rescues the big guys and offers mostly empty and vague promises to the rest of us,  regular taxpayers, who are going to foot this bill.  We are supposed to feel reassured because all the companies and institutions that got us into this mess in the first place will be able to keep doing more of the same things that got us into the mess:  making more and more mortgage loans and car loans and student loans and other kinds of loans so more and more citizens in a neverending supply will continue to owe their collective souls to the company store that is corporate America, the banks, the credit card companies, financial institutions, the U.S. government, and with that certain future, no reason to expect more, or any, transparency, honesty, integrity, ethics, morality on the part of those to whom we will owe our souls.   

But gee, we got the limits raised on FDIC deposits so all those zillions of us with over $100K in the banks won’t have to worry so much about the banks failing!  And upper middle class people who made use of the Alternative Minimum Tax in filing their tax returns will get relief!  There are all sorts of tax relief and other deals legislators cut — read: pork — to get the bailout approved:

• Extending an expired provision that gives Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a rebate against excise taxes charged on imported rum. The rebate, at $13.50 per proof gallon, helps finance local infrastructure projects. The cost is $192 million.

• Establishing a new tax credit ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 for purchasers of plug-in electric-drive vehicles. Cost: $758 million.

• Extending tax credits that expired at the end of 2007 for certain domestic corporations involved in American Samoa economic development. Cost: $33 million.

• Extending a credit of up to $10,000 for the training of mine rescue team members. The credit expires at the end of this year and the one-year extension costs $4 million.

• Enacting President Bush’s proposal to erase the debt of the black lung disability trust fund at a cost of $1.3 billion.

• Extending for one year a seven-year depreciation timetable that NASCAR and other motorsport racing facilities have had for some years, the same tax break that amusement parks enjoy. Without the extension, the tracks would have to depreciate the cost of their improvements over 15 years, raising their taxes by $100 million.

• Extending for five years a program that reduces import duties on some wool fabrics. The tariff relief benefits U.S. worsted wool fabric producers that use imported fibers and yarns. Cost: $148 million.

• Increasing the single-year deduction in production costs, from $15 million to $20 million, that film and TV productions may take if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas. In an effort to keep film and TV productions in the U.S., it also allows more companies to use a domestic production deduction. Cost: $478 million.

• Allowing commercial fishermen and others hurt by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska to average out damage awards over three years rather than taking a one-year hit from the IRS. Cost: $49 million.

• Extending two programs that fund rural schools and rural communities that have been relying on declining income from logging on federal land or have low property tax bases because they are located on or next to federal lands. This is a major issue in the West. Cost: $3.3 billion.

• Exempting wooden practice arrows used by children from an excise tax of 39 cents per arrow. Oregon’s two senators and two Wisconsin representatives previously introduced legislation calling for the action, saying the tax was meant for more expensive archery arrows and is untenable for makers of toy arrows that may cost only about 30 cents apiece. The bill would affect about a half-dozen manufacturers nationwide, including one in Oregon; the Oregon senators said they didn’t seek its addition to the bailout, however. Cost: $2 million.

• Allowing employers to exempt from taxation what they spend on some fringe benefits for workers who commute to work by bicycle, for example, reimbursing the cost of parking the bikes. Cost: $2 million.

Most of these things sound really good, it’s true.  But they ALL COST A LOT OF MONEY.   This bailout includes a hefty number of giveaways, and the money is going to come from whom?  Us.  All of us.  Taxpayers, including the poorest taxpayers.  On top of the $700 billion we will pay, ultimately, that will allow Wall Street to pretty much keep on doing what it’s been doing for a while longer, to buy a little more time, ’til next time.  And then what?

Meanwhile, homeowners in bankruptcy didn’t get the relief they need, i.e., allowing bankruptcy judges to restructure their mortgage loans.  There are vague promises only about the importance of restructuring mortgage loans about to go into foreclosure.  These folks’ homes will end up in foreclosure.  Importantly, for women, a $61 billion bill that would have directly helped the poor and that had the support of Democrats until the big meltdown “slipped into political oblivion last week…It would have pumped billions into infrastructure projects, extend unemployment insurance and beefed up subsidies for health care, food, housing and other programs. Nearly $600 million was envisioned for food subsidies to help offset steep price jumps at the supermarket.”  The bill would have helped women the most, because, of course, women are the majority of the nation’s poor.  The urgency of the bailout meant the quiet kicking to the curb of this important legislation for women.

Where was the leadership the nation and the world needed?  No where to be found, that I could see.  I see little for which to be grateful and so, so much that is just disturbing and wrong.

Heart

I will limit my own modified version to apply to what I know of male privilege from Western white-dominant societies, but not white-only societies. I want to thank Barry Deutsch [Amp of Alas, a Blog-- Heart] for creating and further compiling the list which identifies 43 forms of male privilege. I will also offer up a critique of that list, as I find some of it to be racist, heterosexist, and classist, among other things. But thanks, Barry, for getting the ball rolling. (Pun probably intended.) And I hope you have stopped allowing misogynists and racists to degrade and harass women of color and white women on your blog…

The Male Privilege Checklist
[Barry Deutsch: let me know if you'd prefer I offer my criticisms of your list in another way other than bracketing them below. -- Julian Real.]

1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favour. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. [However, men who appear to come from poverty or the working class are much more likely to be turned away from a prestigious job than a middle class or wealthier-appearing man.]

2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex - even though that might be true. [This is far more true for white men than for many men of color.]

3. If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex. [But may well be due to my race or ethnicity, if I'm not white.]

4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities. ["Black mark" is part of racist speech. Black Monday, black mark, black sheep of the family: all generate negative associations with blackness and Blackness. See Dreaming The Dark, by Starhawk, for more on this.]

5. The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible. [This is much more likely to be the case for men perceived to be heterosexual.]

Read the rest here at Julian Real’s place, and thanks, Julian, for sending the link to me.

Heart

Here is a clip of Sandra Bernhard’s new “routine” featuring no-holds barred attacks on Sarah Palin. The “she’ll be gang raped if she shows up here” statements aren’t in this clip, but I’ve posted the clip so readers can see for themselves what kind of routine this is.

BOSTON — A women’s shelter on Wednesday cut headliner Sandra Bernhard from its annual benefit after she said Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin would be gang-raped if she ever visited New York.

Bernhard’s made the remarks last month during her one-woman show in Washington D.C., before Palin visited New York to campaign. Bernhard said Palin would be “gang-raped by my big black brothers” during a diatribe in which she also criticized Palin for opposing abortion rights.

Many guests at Rosie’s Place, a Boston shelter, have been victims of violence, public relations director Leemarie Mosca said.

“In light of our mission, we don’t think violence against women is a laughing matter,” she said.

Mosca said the shelter expected to book a replacement before the Oct. 16 luncheon “Funny Women … Serious Business.”

“Right now, our main focus is our event and making sure the event is a success,” Mosca said. “And for us, that means not including Sandra Bernhard at this time.”

A representative for Bernhard had no immediate comment on the cancellation.

In a statement on her Web site, Bernhard said the gang rape comment was part of a larger piece from her show about “racism, freedom, women’s rights, and the extreme views of Governor Sarah Palin — a woman who doesn’t believe that other women should have the right to choose.”

“I certainly wish Governor Palin no harm — I’d just like her to explain to me how she can hold such outrageous views … and then go back to Alaska,” she said.

With women like these in the world, men’s work is made much, much easier. With white people like this in the world, racists’ work is made much, much easier. “Raped by my big black brothers?” This is supposed to be part of her political campaigning, like, for Obama?

H/T Donna Hughes DIGNITY Listserv.

 Call me a lazy citizen, but it is 9 am and I have not yet finished reading the 451 page bailout bill that the Senate passed last night.  But then again, I’m guessing that none of the Senators read it either.

How else to explain that suddenly on page 115 there is a section titled “Energy Production Incentives” that goes on for well over a hundred pages.  My favorite provision in that particular section pertains to top-loading clothes washers (page 223).

Go here to enjoy Lucinda Marshall’s early response to the Bailout Bill. 

Heart

Continue Reading »

by Rebecca Mott

I am sorry to write again, but I wanted to say that the patronizing attitude the pro-prostitution lobby has towards me is meant to undermine my words.

I get comments saying my “story” is sad and that they do not dislike me as an individual - but always with the refrain that I am manipulated by the “evil” radical feminists.

I want to make it clear to those who choose think my experiences are just bad luck or my lack of judgment, that is not true.

For these same people will say a whole mass of prostituted women and girls have bad luck or have made bad choices:

• Under-aged prostitutes.
• Prostitutes trafficked from other countries.
• Prostitutes who were raped or abused before they were in the sex trade.
• Prostitutes who were raped, battered or verbally abused whilst “working”.
• Prostitutes who are locked into brothels/saunas.
• Prostitutes forced to work out of poverty, or to feed a drug habit.
• Prostitutes who were lied to about the reality of the “work”.
• Prostitutes who move from other aspects of the sex trade without full knowledge of the reality of what they will have to do.
• Prostitutes who cannot choose the men who fuck them, who cannot turn away violent men.
• Prostitutes who are forced by men to have unprotected sex.
• Prostitutes who are underpaid or a large cut is taken by managers/pimps.

And there hundreds of ways that prostituted women are abused by the sex trade.

My experiences are not written about because I am a “sad case”. I write because the more I read, the more I listen, the more I choose to care about the conditions of a whole class of women and girls – the more I know my experiences are the boring reality for the vast majority of prostituted women and girls.

In the end, I cannot change my past but I can use my experiences to help build towards helping prostituted women and girls exit the sex trade and get real choices.

I personally find the idea that I have been “brainwashed” by radical feminists laughable.

Being violently raped for years by countless men may have made me hate prostitution. Being forced to “perform” porn fantasies that cause me a great of physical and mental pain, may have made me campaign against the sex trade.  Knowing that most men that use or sell prostituted women and girls have a deep hatred of all women, may have made me a feminist.

I became a radical feminist way before I ever meet any radical feminists.

Seeing men feeling entitled to rape, batter and murder women can make you question the structure of any society that treats that like it is no big deal.

Let me be very clear , it was not words or listening to radical feminists. It was not even reading Andrea Dworkin. 

I became a radical feminist because I had managed to survive male violence, and found [in radical feminism] words that did not say it was okay for men to have that privilege.

I am not a victim, I will not fit into that simple box.

When someone says or writes that my “story” is sad, it is usually in order that they can continue to refuse to see the strength that it takes to speak out about the reality for the majority of prostituted women and girls.

I would say those who choose to view me as a sad case are doing so in order to maintain the status quo of the sex trade:  that the right of men to a constant flow of women and girls to fuck or sell should not be questioned.

So the [pro-porn] side patronizes any exited, prostituted woman who says that torture is the day-to-day experience for the majority of prostitutes.

It is up to the reader/listener whose voices are the most important to listen to.   

***

Rebecca posted this as a comment to her last guest post, but I believe it deserves and needs to be a post in its own right.  The lies need to stop.  The patronizing, the victimizing and revictimizing, the whitewashing and propaganda:  ALL need to stop.

Thanks again, Rebecca.  You can count on it that no matter what, here, your voice will be heard, published, and given the respect it is due.

Heart