Got milk?

Nothing like reproducing to remind you that very little separates us from the animals (opposable thumbs, sense of self, reality television, etc.). Pregnancy is Cartesian dualism writ up close and personal - your mind's doing the usual things (barring the odd bout of spontaneous sobbing at particularly touching fabric softener commercials), but your body has gone AWOL and is not responding to orders:

Mind: Okay, time to tie up your shoes!
Belly: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA whatever.
Mind: Where the hell did that come from?!#$#
Floyd: [is late for work]

And then there's labour, where your body completely takes over, chasing your mind into a tiny little dusty corner, where it curls up, shaking, amidst rapidly fading memories of what it's like to be able to go more than three hours without peeing.

A life revolving around instinctual behaviour, bodily functions and satisfying the most basic needs for water, food, sleep and randomly howling at people - never before had I felt so close to my animal sisters. Never, that is, until I found myself breastfeeding in public.

Show-off

I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to - not because I have a problem with public breastfeeding, but because I have a problem with my breasts being public. And for the first few months, feeding in public was a tangle of squawking, squirming limbs and Winnie-the-Pooh blankets. On the one hand, no one made a fuss about it; but on the other, I'm pretty sure it's because they thought I was trying to smother a particularly bad-tempered hairless cat.

Flash-forward a few months - and there I am, sitting at the local coffee/hipster festival with nothing but a baby's head and a successful music career between me and a Janet Jackson-style nipple slip. And, despite my tendency to make everything political (movie nights! family dinners! the food choices of people in front of me at the grocery store!) this particular action wasn't. I was there, boob out in a public place, because at this particular point in our lives, it's the easiest way to feed my child.  No bottles, no battles, no cursing the Creator for giving humans a measly two arms...just me and my (no longer fussing) baby, sitting quietly and secretly envying how effortlessly cool everyone looks in their skinny jeans and pink high tops.

Did I offend someone with my public display of lactation? Maybe. But honestly, I barely have the energy to check my pants for spit-up before leaving the house, let alone concern myself with the delicate sensibilities of complete strangers in regard to a completely normal and unobtrusive action. And to be even more honest, people really do seem to have better things to do than get upset about it.

Liked this post? Try these on for size:

• Sorry I'm late - must be the daycare
• On Chivalry
• Get your own damn uter...er, coffee

On doctors and lady parts

Oh oh oh, it's TMI-time, travellers! This post has been brewing and stewing in my brain for a few months now, ever since a fateful day at the walk-in clinic proved to be the third strike against dudely doctors and dudes-who-aspire-to-be-doctors-but-instead-practice-what-is-largely-recognized-as-quacktacular-medicine.

Strike one occurred back in the 1980s when my mom's then-chiropractor responded to her not unreasonable request to examine her 8-year-old daughter's seemingly curved back with "She just has a large behind." Which a) I should be so lucky, b) is creepy and c) is a lazy, gross, patronizing excuse for medical treatment. (For the record, it is not so much the size of behind as the fact that it is constantly parked on the couch that accounts for my still lousy posture. Hey, do I get a pretend medical degree now?)

Strike two was back in the undergrad years, at the university's walk-in clinic:

Me: I'd like to get my pill prescription renewed, please.

Doc: When was your last physical?

Me: I'm a virgin.

Doc: Good for you!

"Good for you!", as if I'd spent the last eight or so years since menstruation fighting off an army of sweaty, shirtless James Masters-lookalikes, instead of being a gangly and self-conscious homebody who spent her spare time reading Stephen King novels and writing terrible poetry about not wanting to be a virgin anymore. "Good for you!" as if virginity was some sort of grand accomplishment and not the inevitable by-product of my particular blend of self-esteem issues, shyness and tendency to dork out to the extreme in front of any boy I liked. "Good for you!" as if 'virginity' is a medical term requiring no follow-up questions and not some sexist and heteronormative social abstract which means different things to different people and exists only in their minds, anyway.

Now that's a rant and a half, but I have saved the rantiest for last! Strike three happened just this summer when I, a grown lady who had spent a good half her life with (to the best of my knowledge) working lady bits, and had yet to cause some sort of international incident or natural disaster with them, went to get my pill prescription renewed yet again. In my mind, I was qualified  to a)make requests as to my reproductive needs, and b)receive medical advice in a professional, objective, and non-douchetastic manner.

BZZZZTTT!!!! WRONG!!! At least according to the douchiest of all dudely doctors, with whom I had an unfortunate encounter at the walk-in clinic I was frequenting while trying to find a family doctor in my new town. (Which I totally have now, and she is also a lady, and she is pretty swell).

This guy was such a douche, he earned his own three strikes within our five-minute appointment, for:

1) Telling me that once every two years wasn't enough for women with multiple partners, after I had just told him that I was in a long-term, monogamous relationship ("Whatever, slut!");

2) Looking so pointedly at my (wedding ring-less) hand the whole time that I finally snapped a "I'm married; we don't wear rings", which I hate because a)marriage is a legal relationship and NOT a medical one and therefore NOT RELEVANT to this particular conversation, dipstick, and b)when I have to pull the marriage card it reminds me just how patriarchal and sucktastic a lot of people want marriage to be and means that I am in the presence of someone who is probably against things like same-sex marriage, women's equality, and kittens. Because he is an asshole.

3) After the marriage admission, writes me a six-month prescription, "Since [you've] been such a good girl."

If ever you needed proof that Angry Floyd still has self-control - I am currently blogging about this instead of serving time for "aggravated assault with various medical implements". So there.

Ladies, gents and every in-between? Any douchestactic doctor experiences?

A tale of three Punishers

One summer, my older brother worked at the local video store, and would come home from late shifts with as many seven-day rentals as we could watch before his next shift, which meant staying up all night with our shared love of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude van Damme, Steven Seagal, and all the other heavy hitters of the “martial arts and/or-guns and/or plot plus lots of explosions” genre of the 80s and 90s.

This is also known as the greatest summer of my life.

It was also the summer that introduced me to the action stylings of one Dolph Lundgren, whose career can be accurately summed up here, or humourously summed up here. And it just so happens that, among my favourites of his many movies is the original Punisher. (Yes, I have more than one favourite Dolph Lundgren movie. Red Scorpion and Universal Soldier are the others, in case you were curious. And I know you were.)

It’s a dark movie - so dark they dye his hair black, which makes the normally blond, blue-eyed Swede look like he has, like, consumption or something. But he’s supposed to be dead inside, anyway (figuratively, not literally) (although a zombie Punisher would just be so much awesome that my head would asplode) so it only adds to the gloomy, morbid atmosphere of the film. Which is essentially about a guy who (spoiler? Maybe? Although you probably know this already if you’re at all interested in the film) takes the law into his own hands after his family is killed by the mob. Literally into his hands, with fists and guns and explosives and swords and knives. And sometimes his feet too. Awesome.

So I was more than a little excited when I was wandering around some European mall in 2004 and saw posters with a dark-haired Thomas Jane and the familiar skull symbol. This excitement was tempered half a second later when I realized that right next to that poster was one with John Travolta (entry #2 in “embarrassing crushes from Floyd’s youth”. Entry #1 can be found in this post). But still, I held out hope, even in the face of the dismal opening and turrrrible reviews. After all, I have liked unpopular, ill-received films in the past.

I finally rented it a few months ago, mostly fueled by the knowledge that a third one was in the works, with every major player (actors, director, writers) from the 2004 version unceremoniously dumped. I needed to know – was it really so bad?

Let me put it this way - if one measures the quality of a movie as being inversely related to how angry it makes me when I so much as think about the fact that it even exists, then the 2004 version of The Punisher is the Worst. Movie. I have ever seen. (I am not even going to link to its IMDB page, out of spite.)

The director, Jonathan Hensleigh, apparently blames this on having only $15 million and 50 days to shoot the movie. The director is an idiot. The problem with this movie is that it forgets the very simple, but necessary, formula of any action/revenge movie:

WBGD<WGDTBG. In plain language: what bad guys do must be exceeded by what gets done to bad guys. If the bad guy kicks a puppy, he should be hit in the face with a bat.If he attempts to rape your best friend and then insults and threatens her, he should be shot. If he kidnaps your daughter, you should slaughter of all his minions, accept his challenge to a knife fight - even though you know he will cheat - and then impale him with a steampipe with such force that it propels him backward into a live generator. It's simple math, people.

(Note – I’m about to get SPOILER-RIFFIC right here. It shouldn’t matter to anyone, though, ‘cause if you’ve seen the movie you won’t care, and if you haven’t seen the movie, do not make my sacrifice in vain by going out to rent it now).

So when the 2004 movie had the Punisher’s ENTIRE EXTENDED FAMILY - down to his second cousins and third aunt twice removed, including young children - BRUTALLY MURDERED ON-SCREEN, it upped the ante significantly in terms of what the bad guys did. Even by action movie standards, these were terrible, terrible men, whose actions went well beyond the comfort zone of what the audience expects. (Aside – and spoiler - Stallone did this with the most recent Rambo – having the bad guys be really, terribly graphically, evil - but then he spends the second half of the movie disposing of them with arrows, a machete and 10 glorious minutes behind a Gatling gun. Again - just do the math.)

So of course, when the Punisher gets hands on a member of the mob family behind this, surely he must exact a terrible, bloody and graphic revenge, right? Right? RIGHT?

Well, only if by “terrible, bloody and graphic revenge” you mean “pretend-tortures him with a popsicle in a scene played for laughs”. And it certainly isn’t what I meant.

Okay, but that guy was just small potatoes, right? And the play-torture was a way to get him to come around to the Punisher’s side, so that the Punisher could get really awesome, gruesome revenge on the real bad guys, right?

Sure, if by “awesome, gruesome revenge” you mean “tricks villainous John Travolta into killing his equally villainous wife and best friend.” Again – no, not what I meant. Tricks the bad guy to kill the other bad guys? Tricks him??!! Dude, this movie is not called The Trickster. It is not called The Manipulator. It is not called The super-dangerous guy who has a lot of guns and righteous anger, but would rather fool people into committing violence than resort to violence himself. Honestly, Dolph Lundgren would have turned in his grave. If he were dead. (Which he isn’t, since he’s currently in pre-production of The Expendables which features a cast that gives me a gore-gasm just reading it: Sly Stallone, Jason Statham and Jet Li.)

Not to mention that, just in case we forgot that these guys had massacred dozens of innocent people right before our eyes, we are reminded of how bad they are halfway through the film when they corner one of the Punisher's neighbors and tear out his facial piercings. Oh no! Shooting children point blank was one thing, but now you've gone and pulled out some guy's nose ring. On purpose!

So when the Punisher drags John Travolta behind his car and sets him on fire in the end, it's just waaaaaay too little, way too late. He should have done something like that to EVERYONE. For Travolta, it should have been even worse. The Punisher should have ripped out Travolta’s still beating heart, and stuck a popsicle in there, and said “I always knew you were cold-hearted” and then beaten him nearly to death with his own heart and then taken the popsicle out and eaten it to keep him cool as he burned Travolta alive, piece by piece, on a bonfire made up of the variously mutilated bodies of all the bad guys who worked for Travolta. And then he should have stabbed him in the eye with the popsicle stick. If that’s too much for you to stomach, Jonathan Hensleigh, than maybe you shouldn’t have made the bad guys do such terrible things. Maybe they could have just threatened his dog and stomped on his azaleas. Then your stupid movie would have made sense.

Man, I am just getting angry all over again.

So it was with a little bit of nervousness that I dragged DD to the theatre last night for Punisher: War Zone. I was hopeful, what with the new cast, including the awesome Ray Stevenson (if you see one new series this year, see Rome), Dominic West (if you see two new series this year, see Rome and The Wire) and Julie Benz, who, strangely enough, plays essentially the same role in this film as in the most recent Rambo (and, if you see three new series this year, see Rome, The Wire, and Dexter). The director, Lexi Alexander (Yes! A woman! Who made a film! Her vagina didn’t get in the way or anything!) was a bit of an unknown factor…

…but not any more. Because the movie? Is flat out awesomeness from start to finish. There are stabbings, and slashings, and explosions, and fisticuffs, and so many bullets that even John Woo is all “What? So many bullets!!”. The bad guys are bad, and they do crazy bad things, and then the Punisher kills them in new and interesting ways, and at the end of the day WBGD<WGDTBG and all is right in my world.

If I had to pick one word to describe my reaction to the film, it would be gleeful. This movie made me so goddamn happy, I just wanted to fly down to L.A. (the city) and give L.A. (the director) a big ole sloppy kiss for bringing some cheer to my holiday season. Unfortunately, with the movie not doing so well at the box office (I guess not that many of us want to start the holiday season with exploding drug-running parkour guys) a sequel is likely out of the question - although if Twilight is any indicator, even surpassing all box office expectations isn’t good enough for a female director to keep her job. Sounds to me like the studio heads need a little...punishment.

Get your own damn uter...er, coffee

UPDATE - Per the discussion in the comments, here's some info from the National Advocates for Pregnant women on drug use during pregnancy. There's a fact sheet that refers to studies (although it doesn't name them! drat! My search continues!) and many articles that deal with how the "crack baby" myth is used to criminalize poor, and mostly African-American, women.

Back when I tried to keep my raging radical feminism separate from my raging political radicalism, I kept a separate blog called The Fetal Position where I angrily told theocrats, fundies, bitter folks young and old, be-penised or vagina-ed, to keep their grubby, most likely improperly-washed hands off and get their own damn uterus.

It’s also where I wrote this post, about an article from the Washington post detailing a report put out by the CDC in response to the U.S. ranking second to last in infant mortality rates in the developed world (in your face, Latvia!). According to the article, the report advised that all women who had functional ovaries should consider themselves ‘pre-pregnant’, whether they were planning on getting pregnant in the near future or otherwise, and therefore abstain from drinking fun things, eating fun things, doing fun things, or thinking of themselves as human beings entitled to have any enjoyment in their lives.

Of course, if you actually read the report, unlike me, then you would have known that it said a lot of things, including that the general health of women of child-bearing age could be improved. (Or, as John McCain would say, “health”.) But "Study gives detailed overview of complex issue with reasonable, science-based suggestions towards a solution" doesn't make for as catchy a headline as "Forever Pregnant".

Now, the CBC’s not going that far – but nothing exacerbates my Monday morning grouchies quite like two separate “Pregnant women who do X are bad!” stories. Don’t gain weight! Don’t drink coffee! Or else you are a TERRIBLE MOTHER who will probably want to have, like, ONE GLASS OF WINE, and should you suffer the tragedy of a miscarriage it will probably be YOUR FAULT because you went by a Starbucks and you INHALED.

Honestly, these types of reports are double-plus badness – another item on the already weighed-down shoulders of women, whose behaviours during pregnancy seem to be responsible for every possible aspect of their child and its development, from physical appearance, to character, to abilities and more (“damn you, slice of brie my mother had three months into her pregnancy, for preventing me from being a gorgeous, six-foot judo expert and concert pianist who solves crimes on her spare time using her hyper-sensitive sense of smell!”); PLUS another weapon for every self-righteous douchebag out there who gets off on judging a woman’s “morals” by her appearance, since nothing says irresponsible slut like a visibly pregnant woman, right douchebags? (Douchebags: “Nice sweater vest, man-hater.”) Better put her in her place, that uterus-having, life-creating, “I’m a human being with the ability to make decisions about what’s best for me, my body and my family”-thinking incubator.

Now, I’m not saying that research on healthy pregnancies isn’t important – it’s just frustrating that the studies (and the media coverage) focus on taking away stuff from women, rather than giving them stuff, like, say, comprehensive pre-natal health care. Because that would be SOCIALIST, and socialism is EVEN WORSE than having the second-highest infant mortality rate in the developed world. Or something like that.

Fun with Fractions: Cabinet Shuffle Edition

Previous: 7/31=23%
Current: 11/38=29%

Stephen Harper: “Okay, I’ll add more women to my cabinet, but only if I can add almost as many more dudes.”

Had he kept to his previous cabinet size and appointed women instead of men:

11/31=35.5%

Believe it or not, my beef isn’t with Harper on this one (well, not completely). He’s not the one out there trumpeting the increased representation of women in his cabinet. He and his party are very open about their stance on women’s equality, which is that they don’t give a flying prairie oyster about it.

But at the very least, maybe media outlets could do a little math (gasp!) to put things into context. Pretty please?

RELATED POSTS:

• Extreme Makeover: Cabinet Edition

Wait - so, pumping out kids isn't the healthiest thing in the world?

This just in from the land of the obvious - larger families are harder on the parents' health than small ones. 

I'll wait while you fetch the smelling salts.

[waits]

Ha ha, just a bit of drollness in keeping with the absolute hilarity that anyone ever doubted that having zero control over reproduction is bad for women.  From the article:

The researchers, from the University of Utah, analysed nineteenth century data from the Utah Population Database.


They found that the couples had an average of eight children each, but family size ranged from one to 14 or more children.


The data showed that the more children a couple produced, the higher their risk of early death.


The situation was worst for women, because they were affected by the physical costs of bearing the children. [emphasis mine]

Are you listening to this, Jim-Bob and Michelle?

Decemberween Round-up

Having just handed in my last paper of the term yesterday, I'm now trying to make up for the many weeks (and months) of neglect that most other non-school-related parts of my life have been suffering.  Such as: talking to friends/family; drinking; watching season 5 of Xena; reading for pleasure; catching up on holiday cheer; successfully waging war on Christmas with wishes of 'Happy Holidays' (wishing people to be happy?  Over the holidays? What an evil, oppressive sentiment!  Time to go back to my original saying of "Shove a snowball up your a**!"  Yes, much better.); drinking (the second one's a pre-emptive drink - it's only been one day, give me some time!) and finally, commenting on a few of the awesome and awful things that have been going around:

Item the first: Ironwoman sent me this vid a while back - coincidentally, the day myself and a fellow grad were discussing this exact topic - we laughed our collective asses off and raised our glasses to toast the destruction of the patriarchy (a fine toast if ever there was one).  As much as this particular text is pretty funny, there's still an element of truth there as any woman who's worked in a male-dominated field will probably tell you.  Like, say, being a political assistant who has to deal with smug little boys in expensive suits explain Parliamentary procedure to you incorrectly - and then smile at you smugly when you point out they're incorrect like a bunch of freakin' smugwads...you know, if I just had to pick a random example.

Item the second  - don't know if this made the rounds outside the merry land of Blog, but my current academic institute was a hot topic for December, when the student union voted on a motion to deny support to anti-choice student groups, either through funds or use of space.  Had a lively discussion in my class the next day about how I am ABSOLUTELY 100% SUPPORTIVE of this decision.  FACT: CUSA is not the student government or the university government. FACT: A loss of $250 and a couple of spaces on campus is not an attack on free speech.  FACT: The student union should stand up for the rights of students; groups that want to make 100,000 Canadian women into soulless murderers, groups that think the intelligence, humanity and morality are only carried on the Y chromosome, groups that would lie, threaten and manipulate women out of their rights, these groups have no place being funded or in any way supported by the students' union.  Students shouldn't be supporting groups that then use the money to actively attempt to strip them of their rights; anti-choice groups deserve as much funding as KKK, Nazi or anti-LGBT groups.  If they want to spout their hateful bullshit in the open air, they can pay to photoshop their own "OMG, look at this 8-week aborted fetus, yes, it DOES TOO have fingers and toes and weighs 6 pounds at 8-weeks, you baby-murdering whore!" photos. 

Item the third - Apropos of nothing - Green Christmas this year, much like almost every single year of my child and no year of my adulthood.  Save us Al Gore!

Item the fourth - How to sum up the movie (and, I'm assuming, book) Eragon: "Man, I hate being a teenaged-boy!  I wish I lived in a different place, and was 17 going on 21, and had my own dragon that only served me, and magical powers, and a hot girl who was totally into me, and like, fought sorcerers and stuff...that would be soooo awesome."

That is all - happy holidays to you and yours!

Watch out, Melania!

Your husband was auditioning replacements last night...

That's right, it was the 2006 Miss Universe pageant, yeeeeeeaaaah!!!

I tuned into City TV (one of the half-dozen channels I still get, what with the cable being cut and all) hoping for a decent Sunday night movie - and instead happened across this strange throwback extravaganza.  Doubly strange was the fact that watching the first hour didn't make me nearly as angry as one would think (that one would be DD, who was visibly cringing as soon as the credits rolled - waiting for the inevitable "GGGGRRRRR PATRIARCHY" comment that was quickly at my lips, but which never fully-formed because pretty! Costumes!) 

Continuing that thought outside the brackets - oh, the costumes...they were very pretty.  My personal favorite was Miss Trinidad & Tobago, which made her look like she was surrounded by these giant, gorgeous, black and red  floating butterflies.  I also liked Miss Japan because she was dressed up like a samurai, albeit a sexy one, because we are talking about the grrrr patriarchy here.  But she had a sword!  C'mon!  And Miss...Peru, I think, had a big spear.  I am all for arming these women, and I'm not just talking about when Trump's around.

I sat through the swimsuit competition, mostly to hear some former Miss USA try to convince Carson Kressley that his enjoyment of said competition meant he was a closted heterosexual - to which he did not retort (much to my chagrin) that she seemed to be enjoying it just as much.  Honestly, people, it's a freakin' swimsuit show, not an infallible sexuality barometre (YEAH, that's right, I said it, DONALD TRUMP).

Anyway, like I said, I only watched the first hour, but I did tune in long enough to catch the mini-bios of the top ten contestants, in which I learned that Miss Canada was 6'1, Miss Japan spoke 4 langauges, and Miss Bolivia's interests included "Making people happy." I wonder if she also lives in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane? And then other women listed things like "Learning about new people" and "helping other people" and I finally snapped and snarked "Why don't they just list "Giving blowjobs" or "taking it up the a**"?" Grr...you know the rest...

But really, I stopped watching more out of boredom than anything else, because at the end of the day, 95% of these women were pretty much indistinguishable from each other, and were all basically trying to compete to fit the mold of "most attractive woman in the world according to standards set by insecure Viagra-addicts who build giant phallic buildings named after themselves, which, incidentally, rhymes with "frump"", and it was just generally kind of boring and a little depressing, but the women themselves seemed mostly pretty cool, and will probably accomplish a lot with their lives, and generally raise the status of women everywhere, as long as they are stunningly beautiful.

Who really makes that baby?

Content note from 2021: Edited to remove transphobic, gender essentialist language.

I'm a frequent lurker on the Fark forums, which provide some of the funniest, most hilarious, most irreverent-and-not-for-the-easily-offended comments on all the Internet tubes.

However, it also provides an outlet for some of the most mind-numbingly asinine asshats to spout their stupidity, an example of which I came across recently in response to an article about anti-abortion groups buying out abortion clinics' leases to shut them down.  A self-proclaimed atheist pro-lifer was arguing against abortion based on his own misguided version of property rights:

Pro choice = pro destruction of shared property. Its half the fathers DNA too, making it not "part of her body". It is "part of her body" in the sense that when you deposit money into the bank it is "part of the bank".

 Sure, the bank is housing your money like the woman is housing your uterus. Sure the bank adds its own money onto yours as the woman adds her own DNA to the child. The fact that it happens to be temporarily residing in one place should not give the right to unilateral destruction.

Now there's a thoughtful, egalitarian and realistic view of reproduction:  A uterus is like an like an ATM!  You put in $100!  A month later, you take out $100.05!  And that's how babies are made! It's a fun update on the "Magic Sperm" view of gestation.  If you've never heard of that one before, it's kind of like the belief that each sperm is a mini-baby, kind of like a pack of "magic grow" sponges.  Stick one in a uterus/put them in a bowl of water, and poof! Dinosaurs!  Er, or babies, depending on the package.

This view - that people with uteruses are passive baby containers - is at the heart of many anti-abortion arguments.  And, like many other views at the heart of anti-abortion arguments, it is entirely false. The two genetic parents do not contribute equally to the creation of a child.  One party contributes 1 (one) (uno) (ein) sperm.  That is it - one sex cell.  That is it.  That is all.  The human body has anywhere from 10-100 TRILLION cells.  At birth, you have anywhere between 5-10% of that (based on size), and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE CAME FROM THE PERSON WHO BIRTHED YOU. They came from the food they ate, what they drank, the contents of they blood, the air they breathed, the substances that permeated their skin.

Forget about that "magic sperm" of yours, buddy - you didn't make a deposit in a bank.  Making a baby is like building a house. You dropped off half of the design plans, and your partner supplied the other half, as well as the concrete, the bricks, the mortar, the steel girders, the 2x4s, the nuts and bolts, the drywall, the shingles, the paint, the curtains, the major appliances, a couple of nice throw rugs, etc.  Congratulations - you have viable gametes.  But you didn't "make" a baby, any more than Trump made any of those buildings with his name on them. 

And if you have a uterus - be wary of misogynists who hide behind atheism - anti-abortion arguments are anti-women, and religion (or lack thereof) is just a convenient smokescreen for people who really just want those sluts to get what they deserve.

How much is a good sex life worth?

According to a recent study, about $50,000.  But I doubt this applies to lights-off, eyes-closed, man-on-top-of-women, God-is-watching-quick-don't-enjoy-yourself-this-is-only-to-create-viable-embryos sex. 

On Chivalry

Brace yourselves: I'm about to say something only a crazed, man-hating feminazi looking to incite fear and anger would ever consider...

I don't like it when men hold the door open for me.

Now, before you need to reach for your smelling salts, torches and/or pitchforks, allow me to add a little context: I don't like it when a man holds a door open for me because I am woman. If he's doing because I have my hands full, or he's gone through first and doesn't want the door to slam in my face, or there's someone right behind me he's holding the door for, then fine. But I hate, hate, HATE the concept of "Ladies first".

I haven't always hated it. Well, I hated it at first, and then I was told that I should stop being such a reactionary uppity bitch and accept these actions gracefully, and then I quietly stomached then, and then I grew up, grew a pair of ovaries, and decided that if chivalry wasn't dead, then I would track it down and finish it off once and for all.

Because this world doesn't need "doors-open-chairs-pulled-out-coat-in-the-puddle-ladies-first" chivalry - it needs simple human consideration. You should open the door for others because it's a nice thing to do, not because they have XX chromosomes.

And this cuts both ways, women on my bus who won't give up their seats at the front for the elderly or obviously pregnant.

Still, I like to think that we are moving more towards a "people helping people" society rather than a "men helping women who then fix sandwiches and/or sleep with them". But just when I start making my peace with it, of couse I stumble across an article by Bella Online's Sons Editor (no really, that's her title):

Everywhere we go, people comment on my son’s manners. Not just the ever-present
“please,” “thank you” and “you’re welcome” in his vocabulary, but holding the
door open for women, allowing ladies to exit the elevator first, and holding out
his elbow to “escort” me during our “dates”. All this, and he's not even eight
yet!

"Please", yes. "Thank you", yes. Letting other people exit the elevator first? Why not! BUT WHY JUST THE WOMEN?

Because chivalry is about the powerful being momentarily gracious to the powerless. The white knight who picks up the lady's hankerchief moments before he wins her, an ox, 13 chickens and a peasant or two in a jousting tournament. Chivalry is about perpetrating the myth that fine "ladies" do nothing for themselves - not dress, not sit, certainly not open doors. The less capable a woman is of taking care of herself, the more dependent she is on a male provider, the more attractive she is.

I am perfectly capable of opening my own doors. I am perfectly capable of seating myself. I am also perfectly capable of walking on my own, unescorted (unless I am wearing high heels in which case I must cling to the nearest friend, stranger or parking meter for safety).

One would think that any mother would want to instill in her children the idea that she is their caretaker, their protector - not the other way around. And yet:

From the time my son could walk and talk, as he saw his father open the door for
me, we always told him, “Ladies go first”. This became ingrained in his
thinking. At every opportunity, we explained to him what Daddy was doing and
why. Now, it is second nature to him.

Notice she never tells the reader what was explained to her son:

"Oh, Daddy's opening the door for me because I'm a lady!"
"Why?"
"Because 'Ladies First!'"
"Why?"
"Because...ladies should be treated special from men."
"Why?"
"Because! We, uh...aren't as strong as men."
"But you're stronger than me, mommy. Why do I open the door for you?"
"Because I AM A LADY!!!!!"

In a similar vein, this is why I don't go out of my way to open doors for people in wheelchairs. It's insulting for me to assume that they aren't capable on their own. If someone's right behind me, I'll hold the door the same for them as for anyone else, or offer my assistance if the building seems inaccessible - but I've seen people sprint to get to the doors first, and it's about as big a slap in the face as it gets. He made it all the way to the bank in the wheelchair, pal - I'm sure he can handle the button. You gonna offer to operate the ATM for him too?

I'm not saying we shouldn't be nice to each other. And I'm certainly not saying, as in the words of a commentor on a BBC article which I cannot find for the life of me so you'll just have to take my word on this more-or-less accurate paraphrase, that "Women got the vote, so they're not getting my seat on the bus - they can't have it both ways." We should be courteous out of human kindness, not out of outdated gender notions.

Now, this is likely a generational thing, and I respect that. And I'm also not about to judge couples who partake in chivalry together - knock yourselves out. But the day an eight-year-old opens the door for me because he's a manly man and I'm a mere woman is the day his parents get to explain just what "nice misplaced socialization emphasis, jerkwads" means.

Also - true story - the other day at the library as this post was fermenting in my brain, a frail-looking elderly man stopped to hold the door open for me and another woman. She was clearly of a like mind - that the person who looks as though a stiff breeze could blow him over should not be doing the heavy lifting for two healthy adults - and said firmly: "You didn't need to do that!" To which he replied, "It's what I do - I'm a Wal-Mart greeter!"

So - I guess the moral is that I hate chivalry, but I hate assumptions more?

Some good news!

The FDA has approved a vaccination against certain strains of cancer-causing HPV.

Now - Canada needs to get its act together! If they can get it passed in the US despite some vocal opposition about how not being able to threaten pre-teen girls with a highly-fatal form of cancer will turn said girls into wanton, sex-enjoying women, then certainly it should be a cinch up here.

I hope.

Sorry I'm Late - Must Be the Daycare

The Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children recently published a booklet containing some pretty startling facts about daycare in a totally reasonable, unbiased, unpatronizing, non-mysogynistic, scientifically-thorough and non-ideologically-motivated way! Oh, except for all those last parts.

The cover letter accompanying their ground-breaking pamphlet states that three studies found results that are "a serious cause for concern", such as:

1) The amount of time you spend away from your mom before you turn five is a "predictor of assertiveness, disobedience, and aggression." Whereas the amount of time you spend away from your dad is a predictor of how many fart jokes you know.

2)Daycare before the age of three increased anti-social behavior at age three. And we all know that nobody changes after age three. Now excuse me while I go play with my Barbies without sharing.

3)Children in daycare either become aggressive or compliant. This is totally in sync with the study I did just now in my head that shows that they also grow up to be tall or not tall.

Basically, they have 40-odd pages of poorly punctuated "articles" (honest to goodness - every single title uses ellipses...like this...it is terribly awkward...not to mention incorrect...) describing how anything less than 24/7 mothering turns infants and toddlers into, at best, emotional basket cases and, at worst, dangerous psychopaths.

I'm all for scientific inquiry into the effects of early childhood groupcare and education, but if you want to be taken seriously, maybe you shouldn't start the intro to your "scientific" report with:

I feel sorry for women who cannot look after their babies themselves[...].

Aw, that's so nice! You feel sorry? For my mom? Wow, I bet she really appreciates your pity. Here, why don't you go tell her in person! Oh, and just so you know, in our family we show appreciation by smacking people upside the head.

This issue really burns me because I went to two stellar, and one pretty good, daycare. I made good friends, had plenty to keep me busy all day, learned a lot about a variety of topics (including socialization because - duh, I had to get along with other kids) and had access to activites, toys, games, play structures and other things that my own parents could never have provided on their own.

Do I wish I had been raised at home? Do my parents wish they'd been able to do so? Maybe. But I'd say that's based more on the desire to have spent those precious years together, than out of regret that daycare has turned me into some sort of mentally unstable, violent, anti-social monster.

This type of argument does nothing more than pit people against each other, which is where the ideology seeps in. Are they really doing this out of concern for mothers and children? After all, if they'd managed to guilt my mom some 25 years ago into quitting her job, she could have reaped the glorious benefits of raising infants in abject poverty - which, as we all know, has no negative impact on children whatsoever.

It's not an either/or issue, no matter how hard they try to frame it as one. You can easily be in favour of both daycare and homecare. There is no conflict, no cognitive dissonance, in saying "I believe that both daycare and homecare are valid and valuable ways of raising healthy and happy individuals".

Oh, but there I go, asserting myself again! Damn you, daycare!

I Wish I Hadn't Done it; Therefore, No One Else Should Have That Option, and other sad moments from The March for Life

They're probably the only anti-abortion group that gets to me: average women, sombre faces, black signs with white writing that proclaim "I Regret My Abortion".

And my first thought is: Dude, that sucks.

And my second thought is: That's not a valid argument.

And my third thought is: Why have you gone to the dark side?

Let's deal with those thoughts one at a time, shall we?

First of all - that really, really sucks. I can't imagine how much stress, depression, insomnia, and wordless rage that kind of regret must generate. Every day, every smiling family, every child, every parent, must provoke a numb hollowness that is unbearable.

BUT - and this brings us to thought number two - that is not a valid argument. You made one of the most difficult decisions any person will ever be faced with, and now you regret your choice. You have my sympathy. But you don't know better than I do what's right for me and my body. I'm sorry that you regret your abortion, and I'm interested in your story, but you don't get to make that choice for me.

Laws don't exist to protect me from making decision I might regret (hello, grade six perm), they exist to protect my fundamental human rights and freedoms. They exist to create a society in which fully autonomous citizens are informed and aware and capable of excercising free will.

Which leads me to my final point - these woman have(unwittingly, I like to think) gone over to the dark side by endorsing the same social factors which likely contributed to their regrettable decision in the first place: the systemic devaluation of women, their intellect, their contributions to society, and their intrinsic worth.

Did these women abort because of pressures from their partners, parents or peers? Were they made to feel selfish for considering what was best for them and not the interests of others? Were they threatened with financial abandonment, physical violence, or moral judgment?

Abortion wasn't, and isn't, the problem - it's a society which consistently undermine women's rights. And that is why, when I look at these women, I want to extend my arms and invite them over to this side of the fence, where they belong, where every woman can choose what is right for her and her alone and not fear retribution for daring to presume to act like a full human being with the rights and privileges thereby accorded.

That Was Fast! US Solves Infant Mortality Rate Problem

...by declaring that all women of child-bearing age treat themselves/be treated as "pre-pregnant".

Read the article here, read Amanda' Marcotte's excellent post on it here (and check out the comments too), and then, if you're a breeder...er, I mean "female", go enjoy that pack of smokes and dry martini while you still can, before the government decides that it could harm the unborn child you may or may not be carrying to term within your body.

THIS IS FUCKING SICK. What's next? "Gee ma'am, I'd love to get you a beer, but first you need to pee on this stick and wait 5 minutes." Or maybe they'll just go one step further, and ban anyone without a Y chromosome from drinking, smoking, eating sushi, dancing, riding horseback, watching violent TV, standing, sitting, thinking, etc.

It's like the fucking twilight zone. Am I actually reading this correctly? The US is getting its fucking ass kicked in infant mortality rates, but that's not the fault of the corporate-controlled private healthcare system or the religious right's takeover of reproductive information...nooooo. It's those goshdarn ladies not devoting every aspect of their lives to being the best baby-machine possible!

How about giving women accurate, correct, scientifically-sound information and access to quality healthcare if and when they choose to have children? HOW ABOUT CARING ABOUT WOMEN'S HEALTH BECAUSE WE'RE PEOPLE WITH OUR OWN INTRINSIC WORTH AND NOT JUST FETAL-INCUBATORS?

If these mysoginistic wackos have their way, it'll only be a matter of time before us womenfolk learn that our place is in a Matrix-like compound of goo-pods, pumping out infants from puberty to menopause.

It takes a village to raise a child, but just one idiot to write a budget

Oh, Jim Flaherty. Jim jim jim. Jimmy jimmy jim-bob bobby jim. What are we going to do with you?

I know, I know, you've got it tough. Minister of Finance for an entire country. The first budget for a party that has not held power in over a decade, and, technically, never governed really governed this country in its current incarnation. No matter what you did, somebody was bound to complain. I hear ya!

And really, I shouldn't be complaining about you. It's not your fault that your so-called economist boss put forward two of the most economically unsound campaign promises since...well, okay, since the Liberals promised to cut the GST. But at least they had the good sense to not follow through with it.

'Cause here's the thing, Jim. This whole 1% GST cut? Is awesome - for you. And your golfing buddies. And all other high-income earners in Canada. Here's some simple math for you (and it'd better be simple, for the guy who thought that 15.5% was a smaller amount than 15%).

Last year's income tax cuts put around 1$ back in taxpayers' pockets for every 100$ they earned between $8500-34,000. It also, by raising the basic personal exemption by $500, gave an automatic $75 back for everyone earning at least $8500. If you made $34000 or more, it meant savings of between $250-300.

In order to get the same savings out of a 1% GST cut, someone earning $34000 would have to spend $25,000-30,000. Yes, that's right - THEY WOULD HAVE TO SPEND ALMOST EVERY SINGLE PRE-TAX DOLLAR THEY EARNED. Genius! Spend to save! Brilliant:

Person 1: Love the new car!
Person 2: Thanks! It cost $50,000. I was going to buy the $25,000 one, but I realized I could save twice as much on the GST if I bought the more expensive one. Now I have an extra $500 towards retirement.
Person 1: But...couldn't you have an extra $25,000 by buying the cheaper one?
Person 2: Whuh?...I guess...you...SHUT UP YOU'RE STUPID I HATE YOU

And don't even get me started on your Universal Child Care Benefit. Oh, too late! So, let's see...study after study comes out showing that early access to educational and developmental programs is the key determinant in future success. Countries around the world (and Quebec right here at home) progress towards universal daycare. The former Minister of Social Development and Making Hockey Dads Stare in Awe manages to pull a goddamn miracle out of his ass and get ALL 10 provinces to sign Childcare Agreements whereby they will receive federal funding to creat childcare spaces that meet the QUAD criteria of Quality, Universal, Accessible, and Developmental.

And then your boss says, "Fuck that! $1200 taxable bucks a year per kid under six! For everyone! No matter if you're barely scraping by, or if you wipe your kid's ass with hundred-dollar bills!"

And you're all - fo sho, dawg. I've already helped out my privileged male friends with stay-at-home wives earning more than $100,000 grand once - why not do it again?

Because, here's the rub: those are the people who will benefit most. Well-off, single-income families (and not to make this a gender issue, but...OH WAIT. THIS TOTALLY IS A GENDER ISSUE. 'Cause the number of stay-at-home dads is about as high as the number of female heads of companies or states. WHAT A CRAZY COINCIDENCE. But now, thanks to this extra taxable $1200 a year, moms have a choice! They can choose to stay at home with their kid(s), or they can choose to...stay at home anyway because the real problem is that it is almost impossible to find quality, affordable daycare outside of Quebec!) will keep the most of the benefit. Lower income, two-earners households will keep the least. Plus, some of their other benefits are being rolled back. Oh, yes, Stephen Harper, champion of the working Canadian family - the way he wants it, with Dad off to the office and mom making dinner and babies.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a spin doctor, not an economist, but even I can see that your plan sucks. It sucks so much that even light cannot escape its swirling vortex of doom. Now, to be fair to you, I can hardly claim full non-partisan status. But, to be fair to me, the budget sucks. I don't want to save by spending, I want to save when I earn. I don't want you to throw spare change at parents, I want you to give them real choice. I don't want a transit tax credit, I want a bus with brakes that don't squeal like a group of teenage girls at a Simple Plan concert.

I don't want a paltry cheque, a slap on the back, and a hearty "Here you go - now fend for yourself!" I do want a village, a community, a country that grows and prospers together.

And at the end of the day, all I can do is rally the villagers. Normally that means pitchforks and torches and thunderstorms...so I guess that explains the extra 1,000 RCMP officers.

Maybe you're not such an idiot, after all.

How the Mighty Have Fallen (Prey to Flawed Arguments and Rhetoric)

As I have mentioned before, my job exposes me to pretty much every single publication circulated in the entire country. A lot of them immediately get filed in the big blue bin (sorry, Ontario Chicken Farmers), but some of them get read cover to cover as soon as I have a spare moment. And, perhaps because I am some sort of crazed masochist (I prefer to think of it as knowing my enemy but hey! po-tay-to, po-tah-to), this includes a trinity of newsletters from organizations whose very existence confuses and enrages me: REAL Women of Canada, Campaign Life Coalition, and LifeCanada.

So when the latter of these arrived today, a took a quick moment to scan through it, looking for irrefutable evidence that I am a shameless whore who God will punish with all forms of terrible STDs and cancers (if only those damn scientists would stop discovering treatments for them) (ASIDE: DD and I were going through customs together in Vancouver, and the officer was this, like, New Yorker with the accent and everything, and we were all "Oh, we're travelling together but we're not family and that's why we each filled out a declaration card" and he's all "So, living in sin, huh? Have a nice cruise!" and that was it. Maybe he didn't get the memo that I am a shameless whore).

Anyway, I'm looking through the newsletter, and it got me angry for approximately 30 seconds, then sad, then angry, then hopeful (they do actually have some good stuff in there, dealing with issues like stem cell research, euthenasia, rights of the disabled, and other topics that often get overlooked by other groups too caught up in the glamourous world of showing pictures of aborted foetuses), then angry again, then angst-ridden, and then I would have normally forgetten about it except for an article on the very back page. And I'm reading it, and it's an anti-abortion piece presenting about a half-dozen totally flawed arguments, but written with this folksy, down-home humour and gentle irreverence and I'm thinking "I know this writing style" and then I see the name and I'm all "No. Shit. Doctor Dave!"

Now, O-towners won't know this name, but back home, he was known to many as a doctor, a columnist, father of an crazy-talented and super sweet daughter who also played on my softball team, which he, incidentally, coached.

Oh, Doctor Dave...I wish LifeCanada had this recent issue up so y'all could read along at home, but you'll have to read now and fact-check later. Thing is, I have a ton of respect for this man, and he's done a lot for a lot of people, and he really is a likeable guy, and so it pains me to no end to have him write things like:

Every child is wanted. Every pregnancy is not [...] Doctors constantly
receive requests from those who would love the opportunity to raise a
child. Every child is wanted... by someone.

Which - nice sentiment, but try telling that to these kids. And then, this gem:

Q)What about a woman's right to do with her body as she pleases?
A: It is against the law for a woman to sell her body or do certain things
to or with it [maybe it shouldn't be, then!-Floyd]. But a growing fetus
is, in fact, not her body...An appendix or a toenail is part of our body but a fetus is a distinct society.

Dude - you are...a doctor. Like, an actual medical doctor. And, I have heard, a good one. So, this? Is a little weak, coming from you. This one reminds me of an argument I had in high school with Rikki about whether or not one could "fall off" of one's shoes, which she said one could, whereas I maintained that one could only "fall out" of one's shoes, and said argument went all the way to our English teacher, who soundly crushed me by siding on the "fall off and/or fall out" end of things. "Part of her body", "in her body", see above: po-tay-to, po-tah-to. (Also see - "Straw Man") Bottom line - HER BODY.

Also - man, is Quebec going to be le pissed when they realizes that foetuses everywhere beat them to the "distinct society" sucker punch. Also - man, are women everywhere going to be la pissed when they realize that their is a distinct society inside their wombs and the government starts to try to fund heritage and unity events up there ("Please, ma'am, just one "Canada" banner?" "NO!").

There's more, but this post has already taken me through half a Law & Order: SVU, a brand-new Lost, the inevitable Kevin Covais elimination and now the latter part of Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life (honestly? I think I am kinda in love with the awesomeness that is Angelina. Her hotness transcends all known sexual orientations. Huh... sort of like this guy's), and threatens to take me all the way to the midnight rebroadcast of The Daily Show.

So, unlike the comprehensive lists of arguments against abortions with appropriate rebuttals which I had intended, I will leave you with the thought that even smart, generous, and educated people will often sacrifice accuracy in favour of humour (no, I don't mean me...well, not just me :)); that even the best of us can fall prey to fallacious arguments when our most sacred beliefs are being debated; and that Angelina Jolie is like, way hot.

I take it all back

Please please please send me thousands of e-mails supporting same sex marriage. The asshats are at it again, with their stupid stupid stupid letters of stupidity. God, these people are SO DUMB. Some write short notes that say "I think homosexuality is wrong". Fine. If you're going to be hateful and discriminatory, at least make it brief and to the point. Do not send paragraph after paragraph of "AND the LORD JESUS came to MY WIFE in a vision and she cried "OH LORD, cover me in your BLOODD and here is the message that my wife was told about THE DOWNFALL OF society and BLAH BLAH BLAH I live in A BARN with my GOATS and GODDAMN WOMAN MAKE ME A SANDWICH, can't you see I'm on the COMPUTERMAJIG!@#$!$!@$!@"

The people I hate the most - HATE - are the ones who say that this will lead to the downfall of society. That society is just fine the way it is and if you change anything - ANYTHING - it will just collapse. And there's always something, isn't there? Some tolerant, forward-looking, social shift that's ABOUT TO DESTROY US ALL AAAAIIIEEE!!! Like, a hundred-odd years ago it was freeing the slaves. If you free the slaves, society as we know it will crumble! And then it was women getting the vote - next thing you know society will crumble! And men might have to make their own sandwiches!

Civil rights, right to vote for First Nations, abortion, equal pay legislation - for almost every single law that tries to make people equal, there's a vocal group of cranky grouchfaces who are all "Whah? No owning blacks? People other than white men voting? Womenfolks having control over their own bodies and chequing accounts? Sunday Night KKK call-in with Joe-Bob going off the air? Why can't things just stay the way they are!"

I just can't express how frustrating it is when someone's whole line of "reasoning" in a debate is "Change is bad". Here's a fun first-year philosophy tip - these people use a line of arguing known as the "slippery slope" fallacy, wherein your premise is that A leads to B, B leads to C, C leads to martians marrying wildebeast, and in conclusion we're all going to burn in hell.

Okay, I'm just rambling now...this whole thing started because I got a letter from a "Conserned Citizen" who informed me that if same-sex marriage laws are passed I'm going to be forced to marry my Dad and a goat, or something.

Oh well, you're all invited to the wedding, regardless.

PS. Here's an essay that made me feel better. I think it expresses exactly how I feel about a bunch of loudmouth bullies co-opting Christ (a dude whom, though I don't personally ascribe to his religion, I find to be pretty freakin' righteous and awesome) and using his name to do pretty much the opposite of what he taught.