VOTE!

Seriously, I have had people all day telling me why they are not going to vote. If you don't vote because you are disatisfied, apathetic,hopeless, etc. I blame you for what happens next. Something will happen, if young people,smart people, women, homosexuals, poor people and the others ignored by the system don't vote, then no one has to recognise you to get elected. If they don't have to do it to get elected, then they will not do it.
It is not too hardto vote,or too inconvenient, you are not too busy. It is hard to lose your freedom, your choice and recognition of you rights. Do it.

I just finished watching the documentary about Dr.Tiller's murder that was aired Monday. It was nice to see all the information put together, but most enlightening was the representatives from anti-abortion groups. They were obviously and unabashedly celebrating his death, but then they immediately wash their hands of Roeder's actions. There is much more I want to say,but I'm writing this on my phone, so there will be more later. I also want to say congratulations Lt. Dan Choi and the many other service members that have been reinstated as openly GLB, your right to be what you are while doing your jobs should never, ever have been questioned.

Assasination of Dr. Tiller

Tonight on MSNBC a documentary will air in Rachel Maddow's timeslot.

It's called The Assasination of Dr. Tiller, about the murder of Dr. George Tiller by a anti-choice zealot. It is narrated by Rachel Maddow. I am pretty excited.

I am back fromthe unanticipated break.

There was a significant gap in posting since summer, I do apologize. Coming this week will be some new posts about, among other things, DADT and the new documentary about Dr. George Tiller that will premier in the Rachel Maddow slot on MSNBC.

Right here in Ithaca this story just came out. I went to NYC for work friday and on the way back someone was alerted on their phone. It has since been covered on Feministing and I am sure many other places. Everyone I was with was most disturbed by the post procedural testing involved, seeing it as a molestation, it is yucky, but I was still having a hard time getting past the basic stuff.
A urologist, for one thing, has no business cutting away things that in no way hinder the functioning of the urethra, or medically endanger the patient. There is also the myth if normal sexual development. These girls wouldn't be able to develop normally because they don't have petit, feminine sex organs. No one is shortening the shafts of penises when they are outside of normal size. Normal is an excuse here. What would better serve these children is a simple concern for there happiness and control of there own bodies.
Would the women these girls will become be happier with ladylike, neat little vaginas after unnecessary surgery and memories of long instances of genital manipulation from Dr. Poppas, or might they be better off remaining blissfully unaware of the hateful, rigid way that some view what they should look like until they are old enough to make a choice themselves. Many children grow into what originally look like outsize body parts, and many women today have very happy, fufilling and by all accounts "normal" sexual relationships despite or because of their large, beautiful, naturally given clitorises.

And the world looks a little worse.....

This article at the nation details a newly acknowledged phenomenon where some men in relationships with women use our unique susceptibility to pregnancy to control their partners. They sabotage or refuse to use birth control, then force abortions or childbirth, sometimes both.
Seriously, guys, wtf? This makes me sick. Literally, it was hard for me to continue the article. With all the ways that hetero relationships can be a hellscape of victim blaming, gendered violence and general abuse, there is this. Shit like this is tragically made worse by the widely held belief that all women are itching to trick men into fatherhood. So when a young woman becomes pregnant, much of the world assumes the very worst of her. She will be seen as a liar or a slut, stealing seed to imprison a man or to steal from the state.
Men’s culture magazines like details have been selling the idea that women unfairly control sex and reproduction, and MRA groups have been lobbying to take away any rights women do have. Never is the fact that all the real physical, emotional and social risk lies with the pregnant woman taken into consideration. Men should not have the right to decide how and when to carry a child, because obviously they will never have to carry a child. That is 9 months to a lifetime out of someone else’s life, and a significant risk to someone else’s safety. It is ridiculous to say that the provider of the sperm and possible future father or financial partner should be able to impose or forbid that.
Beyond any semi legitimate argument about parental rights, this is strongly linked to domestic abuse. The men in these relationships will uses violence or threats to get their way.
None of this would be able to get to this sort of scale if we were serious as a nation about supporting education, reproductive freedom and respect between men and women, or about not putting up with violence and misogyny in our young men. This is seriously deranged behavior, and it can and needs to be stopped.

I have been allover youtube today watching Noami Wolf interviews and I found this . Feministing has a youtube channel that I didn't manage to know about. Awesome! I love Jessica.

NOW in Boston

I am going to the NOW conference in Boston this summer! Sales from my shop will hopefuly help me pay for it. So I am discounting some paintings pretty steeply and I will be putting some new stuff up soon. I am also particularly receptive to commisions now, as school is almost over. Please come on over and get some art to send me to Boston! I am already registered and really, really really excited.

TBTN scrapbook!

TBTN

We had our Take Back The Night march and rally thursday, it was pretty great. We had a nice turnout, the marchers were loud and enthusiastic, the music was great and there wasn't any trouble. Unfortunately over at Rutgers there were some attacks on marchers. 'Shit's ridiculous.

So I got sick right after the show but the Vagina Monologues was AWESOME! I went with a Professor and a friend of mine and it was a really good time. There was a devastating last section but there were also the standard really funny parts and I bought some vagina shaped lollipops afterword.
ps So I have been watching Bart Stupak and company being unyielding douchebags for a while now, then I see today this link persuasively arguing that he is most likely lying about votes in the threats he has been using to muscle reproductive restrictions into the healthcare reform bill. Also, though it is not directly his doing I also feel like I have to mention this, a bill recently on the table in Utah that would criminalize miscarriages with possible life in prison for the woman. These are measures that are embarassingly clear about the intention to keep women as breeding stock.

Vagina Monologues this weekend! I am excited and going saturday. should be awesome.

Here's a link to one of the groups promoting comprehensive sex ed.

I stumbled accross a facebook petition to maintain funding only to abstinence only education. Further, it explains that they demand no funding to any program that includes any information about family planning or contraceptives, replacing these with "marriage education". This ensures the absolute ignorance of not only teens, but married adults, as they are not taught anything about their body's functions and marriage does not immediately endow this knowledge. I am looking for a counter- group, I am really disapointed because many of my aquaintences have joined this petition.

Ithaca's Take Back the Night celebration has a facebook page by the Advocacy center

IWD at Cornell University

Here is the shedule of activities through CU for International Women's Day

stuff coming up....

so there are events coming soon to Ithaca many of them for International Women's day. Cornell has a few weeks of events and then Take Back the Night in April. I'll put up schedules and links this week.

Activism Project

So for a women and gender studies class I need to come up with a project, and I am having a hard time coming up with something good. There is plenty that needs to be done, but still stuck....

Felicia's

I dont know where I heard that Felicia's Atomic Lounge was closed, but it is not true at all. I feel really bad for believing it and now I have to visit. Their site and blog is really great by the way...