Category Archives: women

…and then there’s violence without a gun…

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The human body can be used as a weapon, as well.  How effing vicious does a rape have to be to put a woman into intensive care?  And what about that bus driver?? He had to have known what was going on.

And the way this story is written makes it sound like only in India is rape a stigma…yeah, well, I’ve got news for ya, it’s a stigma *everywhere*…right here in the U.S., we have republicans who say if a woman is raped, she can’t become pregnant...or if she is a Native American woman, a non-native man can rape her without fear of punishment.

Or how about the town I grew up in–where teenage boys tied a mentally challenged woman to a tree and raped her…one of my former friends actually blamed her, saying that she “let them”.  How the hell can you defend yourself if you’re tied to a tree? Or not in command of all your mental faculties?

So we come back to the acceptance of violence in our society.  “Boys will be boys” and all that crap…

No way…

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…that 90% of the Democrats endorse and support Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. (Of all the times to forget my earphones–so I can’t watch this, but I have heard parts of it.)

She actually thinks Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu are upstanding people that speak well of her integrity and leadership skills?

Kissinger quotes that are alarming:

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

“Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.”

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

In other words, power turns him on–ego, ego, ego.  Intelligence is not needed when you’re trying to bomb the hell out of another country–you only need bigger bombs than they have.  And lastly, starving people will do wonders at gaining their compliance to do things they would not normally do.  And he who has the gold makes the rules….

Tony Blair and his compliance with invading Iraq.

And, of course, we know of Netanyahu’s connections to Romney and his exaggerating the Iran threat….for twenty years…

Clinton is a war hawk who would love to push that fabled “red button” at the slightest provocation….or none at all.

One of the employees bought a converter for our TV in the main room for the residents, so I get whatever our antenna picks up.  I watched ABC This Week on Sunday morning and was stunned at Carville’s statement that 90% of Dems have already decided that Clinton will be the nominee.

First of all, how dare you make such an assumption of what the voters are thinking??  I am so sick and tired of politicians and pundits using the phrase “the American people believe/want/need…” when they can only speak for themselves.

…and from where this writer sits, I’d vote for Romney before I’d vote for another Clinton in the White House.  I’m sick of Bushes and Clintons in the White House.  We can thank Clinton for NAFTA, and Bush II for No Child Left a Mind, and for getting us into two wars on false claims of weapons of mass destruction…between all of them, they’ve done a bang up job of ruining this country.  And let’s not leave out the Godfather of it all, Ronald Reagan.  I’m ashamed to say that I voted for him the first four years, but thankfully, not the second four…

Cantor blocking reauthorization of VAWA

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Turtle Talk has a blog up here.

I found this statement a little unsettling:

The two sources say, to Cantor’s credit, his staff has said they’re willing to try to come up with other solutions to responding to violence against women on tribal lands, as long as the solution doesn’t give tribes jurisdiction over the matter. But proponents of the Senate bill see the limited jurisdictional change as the only realistic way to address the problem.

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To Cantor’s credit, he’s willing to come up with solutions…

…as long as the solution doesn’t give tribes jurisdiction…

In other words, “we can’t trust those Indians to know what is best for them, so Big White Brother has to keep his thumb over them and decide what is best for them…” /snark

Meanwhile, women are being brutalized by non-native men who know they can violate them without punishment.  A free-for-all.

Ghosts of Alcatraz

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Indian Country also has this up on the re-painting of the water tower at Alcatraz.  It’s simply amazing that they allowed this to be done.  I’m glad that this piece of history is being preserved.

If you recall, Alcatraz was formerly a prison that was taken over by the Native Americans on the basis of their former treaties that allowed them to claim any federal land that was not being used.  It was part of the new reclamation of traditional beliefs and reclaiming the Self that had been nearly destroyed by the European population.

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was one that was there, and she wrote about her experience in her autobiography, Mankiller. This is a great book for those unfamiliar with the Native American history and customs.  It was one of the first books I read that opened my mind to how different the Native Americans were as opposed to how they had been portrayed in my history books.

 

Continuing the violence against women

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Why is this article trying to make Jovan Belcher out to be some sort of compassionate person who is a victim in this tragedy?

He’s not.

He’s a bully who couldn’t have his cake and eat it, too, and took his girlfriend’s life when she objected to his fooling around on her.  It’s especially poignant that he lost it when she went out and enjoyed herself for an evening without him.

He had a choice on whether to pack up and leave because things were not working out, or kill her and himself.  He chose to take her life…he is not the victim in this scenario.  And he chose to leave his daughter motherless as well as fatherless.

And before I get flack for not buying into the victimhood–there are plenty of people in this world who had rough childhoods and they rose above it and have made decisions not to repeat the bullying, control freak behavior.  It’s a choice.  I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s the right way to live.

God Bless those that rise above their circumstances and stop the cycle of abuse and violence.

 

No, not broken homes…

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Listening to Rush Limbaugh at noon, and can.not.believe.my.ears.

He starts out by criticizing feminists for turning the tragedy of Jovan Belcher political.  (sigh)

He blames single parent households, and then says that Belcher was a sick individual, and that the gun didn’t kill the woman, a man did.

Okay, I have to agree with the gun thing–something that I’m at odds with the progressive crowd.  It’s not the guns that are the problem, but the acceptance of violence as a way to settle disputes.  *ahem* Two wars going on at the same time… Vietnam….Kent State…the Occupy movements…I could go on…

The marriage myth is just that–that kids from divorced parents will turn into killers or wife beaters, etc.

Well, let’s look at that, shall we?

George W. Bush was a product of an intact household.  Launched aforementioned wars.  Agreed that waterboarding and other torture was quite all right.

As far as I know, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld’s parents were also together.

John Wayne Gacy had an intact home, and it should be noted that there was domestic violence in the home, along with his father being alcoholic.

There are many folks who manage to make something of themselves without being violent towards others in spite of divorce.

It’s a crock that divorce alone causes abhorrent behavior.  Poverty is more of an indicator of how well a person will do, but we can’t deal with that, now can we?

 

Am I in Saudi Arabia??

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Stephen Colbert has a few words on  Suzanne Venker  for repeating the same crap her Aunt Phyllis Schlafly has spewed since the 70s:  if women would just stop trying to be valued equally, they could find marriageable men.  Seriously. (Phyllis Schlafly also thought that a woman’s virtue could be detected in the way she moved her hips.  If she swung them a little too much, she was of easy virtue.

I hate to say this, but my mother thought along the same lines…she had my best interests at heart, but she was the woman of that mindset.  She either implicitly or explicitly indicated that a woman showing she was intelligent would discourage “good” men.  And an unmarried woman…gasp…an unmarried woman…well, there must be something wrong with her if she’s not married, for heaven’s sake.  She still, to this day, some seventeen years later, is trying to get me remarried, bless her heart.

The best quote I’ve ever read in regards to marriage and intelligent women is this:  (paraphrasing) “If a guy breaks up with you because you’re too intelligent and show it, don’t worry too much about it.  He’s just someone you would end up divorcing later.”  Classic.

Here’s another column on Suzanne Venker and not advising her daughter to become a brain surgeon because she will want to have babies.

Okay, I’m mixed on this because I do believe that kids need a parent–not necessarily the mother–to stay home at least the first five years.  I think these years are so very important in the development of the child’s sense of self and sense of security.  I just don’t think putting them in child care from the get-go is beneficial mentally.

But to say that the child should not strive for a career because she might want babies leaves out that the husband may want to stay home if she is the breadwinner.  She may want to have kids first and then go to college.  She may not want kids at all.

And it just is the old crap that has been spewed for centuries…the medical profession (men) actually put forth the idea that women’s uteruses would shrink if they went to college.  They got this *cough* brilliant conclusion after they noticed women who went to college were less likely to have kids or didn’t have as many kids as those who did not go to college.   Oh, yeah, and they also put for the idea that endometriosis was caused by…wait for it…women who delayed childbearing due to pursuing careers.  They were saying this clear into the 80s.  I kid you not.  It’s too much to actually look past biases and prejudice to see the actual cause might be environmental toxins and in my view, the effects of gluten intolerance (autoimmune response=menstrual blood attaching itself to abnormal places).