Posts Tagged ‘empowerment of women’

Being a true historickal account of the women of America

Posted: October 17, 2020 in Life, Political musings
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Woman with child

Woman: “Can I have birth control?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No.”

Woman: “I couldn’t get birth control, so I got pregnant. Can I have an abortion?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No.”

Woman: “You prevented me from having an abortion so I’m carrying the fetus, but my employer won’t provide reasonable accommodations and is threatening to fire me. Would you please pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No”

Woman: “I had the baby, but now I’m out of work. Can I have WIC and food stamps until I get back on my feet?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No.”

Woman: “I found a job, but it doesn’t offer me insurance. Can I have government guaranteed insurance?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No.”

Woman: “My kid got sick and I got fired because I missed time caring for him/her. Can I get unemployment benefit?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No.”

Woman: “My new job never lets me know what shift I have to work in advance, and if I don’t go I get fired, so I’m having a hard time picking up my kid from school on time consistently. Can we fund after-school programs?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No.”

Woman: “Well, I’m prepared to work to support my family. Can you make sure that a full-time job’s minimum wage is enough to do that?”

Republican Controlled Congress: “No. But what’s the matter with you and your family, that working two jobs can’t lift you out of poverty? And what kind of a mother are you, letting someone else watch your child while you work? If your child doesn’t do well in school or gets in trouble, it’s entirely your fault. You shouldn’t have had a child if you weren’t prepared to take care of him/her. Actually you shouldn’t have had sex in the first place. You’re just a dirty little slut sucking off the teat of the State and honest taxpayers.

Have you considered prostitution?”

Kim Kardashian and the sexualisation of women. Is it really about empowerment?

Posted: March 11, 2016 in Popular Culture et al
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Kim KardashianThe internet has gone into meltdown over a teasing photo of celebrity Kim Kardashian (yes, she of the leaked sex video and numerous other public displays of flesh, some paid for, some leaked, and some just put out there) standing nekkid but censored in front of a mirror.

Commentators, especially other women like Bette Midler, have laid into KK for her posting of the photo, and a seemingly equal number have spoken up in her defence. Kardashian herself has defended her posting of the photo as “empowering”.

Surely the issue really in debate here is whether the relentless sexualisation of women in the media really is empowering to the women concerned or whether it merely contributes to a society where the first matter of interest in a woman is, by default, her sexual nature, which is very limiting.

Women should be able to “own” their sexuality without shame – sure, no issue at all, and we are big fans of #freethenipple – but where a woman is known for nothing but her sexuality (where her celebrity is merely a by-product of continually promoting her sexuality) then the message that sends other women is questionable, in our view.

Let us consider, for example, the effect of this bias in society on women who are not “conventionally attractive”, particularly women in the formative years of their life. Are the encouraged to measure themselves up against such images to determine if they are “acceptable”? What effect does this have on their morale, and sense of self?

We have zero objection to nudity. Or for that matter, a healthy sexuality, whatever form it takes. But we have a lot of concerns about what effect people like KK and her antics have on our broader society as a whole and its psychological health.

This is an issue that divides feminists, and it’s worth debating.

She is also, for the record, and the rest of her family, utterly boring.