anunfunnyfeminist

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By anunfunnyfeminist • 15 years ago

If “Maury” Made the Laws

I don’t even know why I watch Maury, since it pisses me off so much sometimes. It’s one of the most sexist shows on television. One of Maury’s signature topics is teen girls gone wild. You know, teenage girls who have sex with older guys, steal, join gangs, and get into fights. I don’t know where the wild teen boys are, but that apparently doesn’t matter, and that’s not what this post is really about.

What bugs me is how the wild teen girls are treated. They embarrass themselves on stage. They never get to really delve into their psychological issues. Then they’re taken to jail to be “scared straight.” Most of the girls do engage in illegal behavior, like prostitution, drug use, and truancy. But some of them don’t. Some of them just have sex. One of the teens, I think she was 15 years old, didn’t do anything illegal. She hardly even lied. She was asked three questions on the lie detector test and told the truth about two of them. She lied about how many people she slept with (she said 2, but the lie detector determined it was 5). She admitted that she’s had unprotected sex five times, and she was telling the truth when she said she never received money or gifts for sex. It’s still troubling that this teen had unprotected sex, but it’s not a crime. Except if you’re on Maury. Then you get sent to a ...

By anunfunnyfeminist • 15 years ago

As If We Needed More Proof That Anti-Choicers Are Misogynists

Kansas is proposing adding an Equal Rights Amendment to their state constitution. Pretty great, right? Not if you hate women as much as the anti-choice lobby.

“If we allow it to pass, Kansans will wake up one day wondering how a right to unrestricted and taxpayer-funded abortion was smuggled into our constitution,” said Beatrice Swoopes, a lobbyist with the Kansas Catholic Conference.

What the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck? I mean, feminists have been saying it for the longest that anti-choicers really, really don’t believe women should have equal rights. But to read it on my computer screen . . . damn.

Kansas is proposing adding an Equal Rights Amendment to their state constitution. Pretty great, right? Not if you hate women as much as the anti-choice lobby.

“If we allow it to pass, Kansans will wake up one ...

By anunfunnyfeminist • 15 years ago

Maggie Gallagher: Defending, and Dehumanizing, Bristol Palin

I’m reading this Washington Times op-ed by Maggie Gallagher, and it’s ridiculous. I already know not to take it seriously, since it is in the Washington Times. She talks about how the media “jumped” at Bristol Palin saying that abstinence isn’t realistic for teenagers in a recent interview. At one point, Gallagher states,

But there is something strangely dehumanizing about the way so many adults are so eager to insist that sexual self-control is actually impossible.

She never goes on to name these adults, so they probably don’t exist. But that’s not the point of this post. The point is the contradiction that Gallagher demonstrates when talking about Bristol’s comments. She goes from decrying this “dehumanization” that “so many adults” ...

By anunfunnyfeminist • 15 years ago

Song Lyrics, American Idol, and Heteronormativity

I’ll admit it. I love American Idol. I watched it since the second season, and I’ve been to two American Idol Lives concerts. It’s almost scary. But I haven’t let my love for American Idol cloud my heterosexism radar. That’s still very much intact. It beeps extra loud when performers change gender pronouns to connote a heterosexual relationship.
Two examples of this come to mind, and in my opinion, the performance suffered from the change of lyrics. Last season, Syesha Mercado sang “Me and Mrs. Jones,” a really great song. But she changed “Mrs.” to “Mr.” Yesterday, Casey Carlson sang “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” which is one of my favorite songs by The Police. She ...

By anunfunnyfeminist • 15 years ago

Taking Womb Envy One Step Further

I was reading one of Amanda Marcotte’s recent posts over at Pandagon. It’s about the misogynistic language used by the anti-choice movement, and this passage jumped out at me.

What they fail to understand is that “life begins at conception” is a misogynist statement. It’s the erasure of a woman’s role in making new people, and a claim that the only effort that counts is the effort a man put into ejaculating. Abortion is horrifying because it’s a reminder that men do not actually make babies, but that women do through a 9 month process, and that if a woman chooses to interrupt that process, there will not be a baby. Which is pretty conclusive proof that men don’t make ...

I was reading one of Amanda Marcotte’s recent posts over at Pandagon. It’s about the misogynistic language used by the anti-choice movement, and this passage jumped out at me.

What they fail to understand is that “life ...

By anunfunnyfeminist • 15 years ago

Controversial Site Outs Homophobes

There’s this website called Prop 8 Maps. It uses Google Maps and public campaign finance records to expose the people who donated money in support of Proposition 8 in California. All you have to do is type in the name of any US city, and the names and workplaces of the people who donated to support Prop 8 and the amount donated they pop up. For example, I just typed in “New York City” and found out that an attorney at Lehman Brothers donated $250 in support of Prop 8 on September 23, 2008. Really? Lehman Brothers is in the toilet, and someone there had an extra 250 bucks to ban gay marriage on the other side of the ...

By anunfunnyfeminist • 15 years ago

Law & Order: SVU — The Most Feminist Show on TV

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit isn’t often talked about on Feministing or other feminist blogs that I read from time to time. This surprises me, because I think it’s the most feminist show on television. That might not be such a hard thing considering the anti-woman crap that’s on the tube all hours of the day, but I still think SVU is the most pro-woman show. In fact, it’s the only fictional show on TV that makes me tear up almost every week. Even though it’s a fictional show, the problems it exposes are very real.

Have you ever read something on this site and thought, “That wouldn’t have happened if Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler were around”? I know ...

By anunfunnyfeminist • 16 years ago

Consensus My Ass

E.J. Dionne, Jr. recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post reminding President-elect Barack Obama to keep his “promise to pro-lifers.” It was a pretty bullshit op-ed, riddled with logical inconsistencies. But here’s the part that bothered me most:

Abortions did become rarer during Clinton’s time in office, dropping by 11 percent. But since Clinton made no major public moves on abortion reduction, many pro-lifers who had been inclined his way felt he ignored the third word in his motto [i.e., “rare” in “safe, legal, and rare,” which is actually the 4th word]. There’s no reason for Obama to make the same mistake — and no reason for advocates of abortion rights to get in the way of his trying ...