Category Archives: women

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).

When annihilating a culture doesn’t work…

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…you diminish them in other ways.

That wasn’t the only recent incident of continuing to sexualize Native American women…No Doubt also used it in a video.

Holy crap, you couldn’t see how unbelievably offensive this was–not only to Native American women, but to women in general?  I seriously doubt the claims that they had consulted with *cough* experts and Native Americans who thought this was just fine.  Anyone with two brain cells would be offended by it.  Violence towards women is never okay.  It’s not entertainment.