The Feminist Francophile

Two things need to be talked about: Bush and Obama.

First, Obama. I voted for the man. I gave money. I even went the watch party, and I hate parties. And, I would never, ever want McCain/Palin to be in power. But, the idea that he invited Rick Warren to be apart of the inauguration infuriates me. It's not because I don't like his theology-even though I don't. It is because of his political views. Equating the "Social Gospel" viewpoint with Marxism [because helping people is UnAmerican] and the Homosexual community to some of the worst society has to offer(incest and pedophilia) is abhorrent and unacceptable to me. Try saying that my friends are the same as the lowest of scum to my face and we'll have a lot to "talk about".

Obama tried to defend his position by saying that Warren was so nice to invite Obama to Warren's church in 2006 that he wanted to return the favor. That is not returning the favor. Returning a favor is inviting Warren to the White House on talks about something or inviting Warren to his church. But, to invite such a man, especially after the LGBTQ community just had dirt kicked in its face because of Prop 8 (which Warren was an ardent supporter of), is careless and tactless. What if Obama invited a vehemently anti-woman or anti-Hispanics or anti-children? People would be up in arms. Apparently, it is okay for a certain portion of the country (at least 10%) to be ignored or shunned. Obama even felt like saying that he is a huge supporter of LGBT equal rights. Granted, he is better than his Republican opponents. But to not be for marriage rights is to be against LGBT equal rights. Not that Hilary would have done better. In fact only Kucinich was for gay marriage. But Mr. Obama, please do not stand up and say you support equal rights when you do not support gay marriage. As it was written in the opinion of Loving v. Virginia: Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man".

Enough of Obama. On to Bush, my favorite.
A couple of years ago, I was apart of the NEW Leadership program at OU. I loved it. I wish I could return every year. I loved it because it taught me many things. One of the major things that it taught me was that I should be proud to be a woman and not let anyone put me down because of it. Prior to NEW, I believed being a woman was such a burden: you have to look pretty, be smart-but not too smart, certain height, certain weight, certain shade of whatever, gotta get married early-because no one wants an old hag, gotta have kids-whether you like them or not, and always, ALWAYS, keep your thoughts to yourself- you don't want to be thought of as a nag. Thankfully, that old me has gone away. But the problems have come back. Oh, they are not the same. Now, being a woman is burdensome because everyone keeps trying to mess with my ovaries. They're mine, damn it! And if I don't want them to be used; then, don't make me.
All this stems from the Bush Administrations last effort to have me hate being born with two X chromosomes rather than just one. The Administration just pushed through new HHS regulations that includes the "right of conscience rule":

Reporting from Washington -- The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.

For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.

Well, this is very annoying. First, let me say that although I'm sure the Administration's target is abortion and contraceptions. This also applies to simple things like cold medicine. And the rule is so broad that it not only includes the doctor or nurse or pharmacist, but also the cashier ringing you out. If you have a Christian Scientist as a cashier, then to bad, no Sudafed for you.

So, essentially, even if you have the right to obtain an abortion, you may not have access to the information necessary to actually know all your options. I would never deny how smart a doctor is, but I don't really think it is up to a doctor to decide what is morally right for me or for my body. If the law has already decided that I can have access to reproductive technology, then why is a doctor allowed to tell me something different? I would like the advice I get from my doctor to be based on my health needs, not his/her religious and moral beliefs. Just as Rachel Maddow says, "If you are Amish, you may have the right to drive the bus, but you should not be able to."

Doctors give advice just as lawyers give advice. You give your patient/client the information and he/she acts on it- to his or her improvement or detriment. I go to the doctor and I want birth control that doctor better give it to me.
Although it is possible to go to a different doctor, who the hell wants to go doctor shopping? And women shouldn't have to do that because the government got pious. Plus, this affects mostly women who are poor and/or live in a rural area. They have less options than others.

So thanks, Bush Administration. I don't believe in Hell, but now, I wish there was one so you guys can fry in it. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

I’m actually not a huge proponent of marriage in general. Partner benefits, family health benefits and legal recognition -- Yes. Marriage as a normative cultural institution with the white dress and bells -- No. I feel strongly that marriage has become more of a religious and/or commercial institution than a civil one, which makes me extremely uncomfortable. Also, I personally do not feel that I need a ceremony to prove (and prove to whom?) that I am in love with someone. That said, I am not wholesale against marriage nor should my personal feelings reflect on what other people choose to do with their lives and in their relationships. I may not be keen on marriage myself, but I would never presume to impose my views on other people.

What I fail to understand is how anyone can make an argument against same-sex marriage on any grounds, religious or otherwise. I think the moralizing "traditional marriage" argument is ridiculous and wrong wrong wrong, but at least I've grown accustomed to the fact that when it comes to some religious institutions people don't seem to have any qualms about saying they're better or more worthy than other people. If you don't have the false judgmental security of "God on your side" (whatever that means), what is your excuse? Everyone should be outraged by this blatant discrimination, because that is what it is. And it scares me that so many people don't see it that way. It may seem like not that big a deal. It is just marriage, who cares? But if you claim you're against same-sex marriage for any reason, no matter how you rationalize it, you're really just saying that you think LGBTQ people are less than, that they don't deserve the same rights as everyone else. And we all know where that line of thinking leads.

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

~Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Unless you think, as some people do, that equality is a Un-American , I find it hard to even wrap my mind around the outright discrimination implicit in denying same-sex couples the right to marry. Even more mind-boggling? The lying and coercion perpetrated by those opposed to gay marriage. You can bet your hat that if the "liberal elite" were trying to deny, I don't know, say, right-wing conservatives the right to marry each other, there would be an outcry of discrimination to beat the band. And rightfully so. Nevertheless, apparently, in the eyes of some, only certain (straight) people are equal in the eyes of the law.

California's a Proposition 8 (which would make same-sex marriage illegal) and Florida's Amendment 2(which would not only legally define marriage as between a man and woman, but also disenfranchise unmarried couples whether homosexual or heterosexual) are discriminatory and hateful. Why are these votes in California and Florida so important when we don't even live there? Because every statewide opposition to same-sex marriage is another blow to LGBTQ freedoms and rights across the country.

It does not matter if you're straight, gay, bisexual, or asexual. It does not matter if you never plan to get married, if you are hoping to get married one day in a big church with all the frills or if you married years ago at City Hall. We should all cry out in outrage against laws that seek to discriminate against a group of people, regardless of if they affect us personally or not.

"Your silence will not protect you." ~ Audre Lorde

It has been stated that one does not fully understand an issue unless a person has gone through it. The ERA is one of those issues for me. The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) was initially proposed to Congress in 1920s. For over fifty years, feminist groups have lobbied for the amendment, not truly gaining traction until the 70s. Anti-Feminists movements, mostly led by Phyllis Schlafly, rallied against the ERA, claiming that it would harm women more than help them. In fact, that has been the reasoning for most legislation that was designed for women’s equality: by making women equal, they will in fact be harmed. How sweet. How thoughtful. How patriarchal.

To give a perspective of the anti-feminists flawed logic in what they viewed would be harming women, let me draw an example. Phyllis Schlafly and others like her stated that the ERA would allow women to have equal access to employment (oh no!) and therefore would be able to work “manly” jobs without being discriminated against. Women would be able to work in places like mines, which would require them to lift heavy objects, which the anti-feminists would claim harmed women because we just might hurt ourselves (we are very clumsy gender, are we not?). Granted these groups never took into account that heavy lifting is required in jobs that are more socially acceptable for women such as childcare, secretarial work, nursing, and so forth. Apparently, women are too stupid to take care of ourselves in inherently dangerous (or not) workplaces without hurting ourselves. On the other hand, maybe it is because women working a variety of employment that might pay more would allow women to escape being solely dependant on her husband, and we just cannot have that. What is next-women thinking for themselves? By the way, may I bring to attention how I find it somewhat hypocritical that some women like Ms.Schlafly are able to climb the ladder to success yet work tirelessly to make sure women have a difficult time gaining the same authority and notoriety? Just a thought to hang your hat on.

Nevertheless, before you get outraged, just remember, that those anti-ERA groups were only trying to protect our mothers. Obviously, as I stated at the beginning, I was not around during the precipice of the ERA. Reading my history books and talking to feminists who fought the fight over 30 years ago, I wondered what is so controversial about equal rights especially in today’s climate where we as a society believe, falsely, that we live in a post-feminist nation. I wonder what could possible be the reason today for not enforcing equal pay and punishing discrimination. Why is it so hard to pass such legislation? How dumb were those legislators and states who opposed the ERA? What were they thinking?

This brings me to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The Act was brought before Congress this past spring and failed. First, I will give you the background. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act started out as a critical Supreme Court case: Ledbetter v. Goodyear, 127 S.Ct. 2162. First the facts. Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear for 19 years before accepting an early retirement offer. Shortly before she left Goodyear, Ledbetter received an anonymous memo revealing that the other shift supervisors with the same title and job responsibilities she had, were paid between 14-30% more than what she was earning. The decision to pay Ledbetter less than her male co-workers was made years earlier by a supervisor who did not believe women belonged at Goodyear, and certainly not working as supervisors. Until Ledbetter got this memo, she had no knowledge that she made less than her co-workers did all those years. Ledbetter sued, and during the discovery of the lawsuit, Goodyear’s records confirmed the anonymous tip: the sole woman supervisor was paid far less than the men in the same positions were paid.

A jury found that Goodyear had unlawfully discriminated against Ledbetter and awarded her $224,000 in back pay, $4,600 in mental anguish and $3.2 million dollars in punitive damages. Goodyear appealed, and the appellate court sided with Goodyear finding that Ledbetter was barred from bringing a lawsuit because she did not file a complaint within six months of when her supervisor made the discriminatory decision to pay her less than the men. Finally, the case went to the Supreme Court, which decided in a 5-4 conservative majority opinion that shielded employers from liability unless an employee discovers the pay discrimination and acts on that information within 180 days. The dissenting opinion written by the sole woman justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and joined by three male justices (Stevens, Souter, and Breyer) raised an issue that the Court’s majority decision blatantly ignored: the reality of the workplace and common characteristics of pay discrimination. As most who have ever worked a job realize, workers rarely, if ever, have knowledge of how much they are making compared to the co-workers doing the same or similar jobs or the factors employers take into account in making pay decisions- not to mention that many employers specifically bar its employees from discussing their pay. Let it be said that the majority’s opinion goes against most appellate courts (granted, not the appellate court in Ledbetter’s case) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) longstanding position that every unequal paycheck, based upon discrimination, is a new violation, therefore starting the statute of limitations clock again. At the end of Ginsberg’s dissenting opinion, she noted that it is now Congress’ duty and invited the legislature to correct the Court’s “parsimonious reading of Title VII.”

The House of Representatives, with the help of many Civil Rights groups, passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have reinstated the law that the EEOC and most appellate courts interpreted Title VII. However, once the bill went to the Senate for approval, forty-two members of the Senate voted to block cloture. The unabashed action of the US Senate has and does astonish me. Many of the Republicans who blocked the vote to reinstate the original reading of Title VII claimed they were doing so to protect women (read “stupid women”)from the greedy clutches of unprincipled plaintiffs’ attorneys and from women’s own stupid inclination to sit around for years, decades even, while being screwed over financially before they bring suit. That means they were, of course, just protecting us from the dangerous laws that protect us. THANK GOD! Women in the United States are paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men; African-American women earn only 63 cents, and Latinas earn only 52 cents for every dollar paid to white men. Yet the Ledbetter decision tells employers that as long as they can hide their discriminatory behavior for six months, they have the green light to treat female employees badly forever. Why is this problem not sufficiently real to be addressed by Congress?

It seems that several people in government have attempted to answer that question. Can guess what their concerned about? Of course, the answer is protecting women, or in their view- stupid women, who just cannot seem to think for themselves. Ladies, when will our brains evolve to be on par with men? Let us look at the reasons they proffered:

The White House threatened to veto the legislation if it ever passed Congress because the act would “impede justice and undermine the important goal of having allegations of discrimination expeditiously resolved.” Of course, there is a place for finality in the law, and it is not reasonable to bring allegations against businesses for actions that were committed twenty years back. Nevertheless, unless an employee is psychic, one hundred and eighty days is simply not long enough to decipher a pattern of pay discrimination, which is normally subtle not obvious. The notion that expeditiousness in resolving legal disputes should altogether trump one’s ability to prove those disputes is cynical beyond imagining. Moreover, the very notion that extending the statute of limitations somehow encourages scads of stupid women to loll around accepting unfair wages for decades in the hopes of hitting the litigation jackpot in their mid 70s is just insulting.

Next on the list is a statement by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. The Senator did one better in insulting women when he said, “The only ones who will see an increase in pay are some of the trial lawyers who bring the cases.” See, now this is the argument that holds that the same women who are too stupid to bring timely discrimination claims are also too stupid to avoid manipulation by those scheming plaintiffs’ attorneys. First off, some of us still believe that those damn civil rights attorneys do some good in the world. But what really infuriates me here is the endless, snobbish recitation that it is only the really dumb people—you know, the injured, the sick, and the women—who are not smart enough to avoid being conned by lawyers into filing frivolous lawsuits.

All of which brings me to Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona(who, by the time you read this, may or may not have won the presidential election) skipped the vote on equal pay vote altogether because he was out campaigning. (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both showed up to support it.) McCain’s opposition to the bill was expressed thusly: He is familiar with the pay disparity but believes there are better ways to help women find better-paying jobs. “They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else.” All of that is code for the imperceptive claim that the fact that women earn 77 cents on the dollar for the same work as men will somehow be fixed by more training for women as opposed to less discrimination by men. Now, this makes me wonder. McCain has at least one daughter. If she ever came home to tell him the same situation of Ledbetter happened to her, would he really stay to her face that she needs more training, rather than telling her that she was discriminated against. I think not.

So, forty two members of the U.S. Senate blocked a bill that would allow victims of gender discrimination to learn of and prove discrimination in those rare cases in which their employers do not cheerfully discuss it with them at the office Christmas party. And the reasons for blocking it include the fact that women are not smart enough to file timely lawsuits, not smart enough to avoid being manipulated by vile plaintiffs’ lawyers, not smart enough to know when they are being stiffed, and (per John McCain) not well-trained enough in the first place to merit equal pay. So how dumb are we as a nation? Unfortunately, the next generation, thirty plus years down the road, will have to tell me.