Must "Strong Women" be Masculine?

"A good man's work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what she is."
--G.K. Chesterton

In film, if one is to be a "strong woman", one must generally be armed and wearing a very tightly-fitting outfit, or a highly successful career woman with a figure-flattering suit.  Or both, if possible.  Entertainment media and society in general define strength, success, and power solely in masculine terms (position, wealth, aggression, and command of others). This is often done without attention to reality, genuine human nature, and real differences between men and women.


In a recent New York Times article, Carina Chocano, who is fed to the teeth with what she calls "A Plague of Strong Female Characters" in film writes:

“Strength,” in the parlance, is the 21st-century equivalent of “virtue.” And what we think of as “virtuous,” or culturally sanctioned, socially acceptable behavior now, in women as in men, is the ability to play down qualities that have been traditionally considered feminine and play up the qualities that have traditionally been considered masculine. “Strong female characters,” in other words, are often just female characters with the gendered behavior taken out.

(Read her entire article. It's worth it. Really.)



Instead of a movie universe populated by heroines "who are tough, cold, terse, taciturn and prone to scowling and not saying goodbye when they hang up the phone", she suggests a greater emphasis on female leads who actually have to struggle with a few human (and even distinctly feminine) weaknesses. Hmmm. Less spandex and more substance. Now, there's a thought.

Missing: 160 Million Girls

It's not every day that the New York Times publishes an op. ed. piece with which I agree.  Today's "160 Million and Counting," in which Ross Douthat discusses the problem of sex-selective abortion and its impact worldwide is one of those rare pieces. Specifically, his article revolves around Mara Hvistendahl's recent book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

Though Hvistendahl describes herself as "pro-abortion", her work is gaining attention from many different spheres. For those who favor abortion as a means of empowering women and for those who also favor population control, her findings are raising some very necessary questions.  For those who are pro-life, and especially for pro-life feminists, it confirms fears that (politically and eugenically motivated) American-sponsored abortion and population control programs in the third world would backfire, creating social change that actually leads to greater violence and increased  oppression of women.

Douthat discusses the implications of her findings in his article. He writes:

The spread of sex-selective abortion is often framed as a simple case of modern science being abused by patriarchal, misogynistic cultures. Patriarchy is certainly part of the story, but as Hvistendahl points out, the reality is more complicated — and more depressing.

Thus far, female empowerment often seems to have led to more sex selection, not less. In many communities, she writes, “women use their increased autonomy to select for sons,” because male offspring bring higher social status. In countries like India, sex selection began in “the urban, well-educated stratum of society,” before spreading down the income ladder.

Moreover, Western governments and philanthropic institutions have their fingerprints all over the story of the world’s missing women.

...

...A self-proclaimed agnostic about when life begins, Hvistendahl insists that she hasn’t written “a book about death and killing.” But this leaves her struggling to define a victim for the crime that she’s uncovered.

It’s society at large, she argues, citing evidence that gender-imbalanced countries tend to be violent and unstable. It’s the women in those countries, she adds, pointing out that skewed sex ratios are associated with increased prostitution and sex trafficking.

Read the rest at the New York Times.



Hvistendahl's book has exposed the consequences of the kind of feminism that early American feminists opposed: the kind that says that women must be like men to be equal to them, and must sacrifice the lives of their children as a condition of participation in society.

Hopefully, in light of this, more people will begin to realize that some choices are wrong.

Schoolmarm ruler wave to The Institute for Marriage and Public Policy
For more on pro-life feminism, visit Feminists for Life of America.

State-Sponsored Eugenics in America

In our national conversations about the history of racism in the United States, I have rarely heard the Eugenics movement mentioned, much less properly condemned.

The machinations of eugenicists have affected real people in real ways, not just in far away places, but here in our own country. The frightening part is the extent to which the eugenics movement has influenced both our national conscience and public policy.

Maybe the following story will get us thinking and talking a bit more.




From BBC News:

Sterilisation: North Carolina grapples with legacy
By Daniel Nasaw BBC News, Washington

More than 60,000 Americans were sterilised, many against their will, as part of a eugenics movement that finished in 1979, aimed at keeping the poor and mentally ill from having children. Now, decades on, one state is considering compensation.

In 1968, Elaine Riddick was raped by a neighbour who threatened to kill her if she told what happened.

She was 13, the daughter of violent and abusive parents in the desperately poor country town of Winfall, in the US state of North Carolina.

While she was in hospital giving birth, the state violated her a second time, she says.

A social worker who had deemed her "feeble-minded" petitioned the state Eugenics Board to have her sterilised.

Officials coerced her illiterate grandmother into signing an "x" on an authorisation form. After performing a Caesarean section, doctors sterilised her "just like cutting a hog", she says.

Read the rest at BBCNews 




Interestingly, sterilization of the "feeble minded", minorities, and other populations was one of the central goals of the American Birth Control League founded by Margaret Sanger.  Over the years that organization has remade its image to keep up with changing times.  Since the early 1940's, when eugenics began to lose its political popularity, that organization that began as the American Birth Control League has gone by the slightly friendlier name of Planned Parenthood.



Tip of the Schoolmarm Ruler to the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

Catholic Feminism: Common Sense or Oxymoron?

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So (also) husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Eph. 5: 25-30)

During my engagement, I found myself explaining to a professional colleague (not a Catholic, nor, to my knowledge a practicing Christian of any kind at the time) that the passage above is, when taken in historical context, a feminist statement. In ancient times, men were expected to love their wives about as much as they were expected to love their cattle.   This message of Paul's was probably a bit of a surprise to them.

In the end, I told my colleague, if husbands do indeed follow the model above, women could safely "submit" to them without fear or loss of dignity, as the end result would be a mutual relationship in which each spouse places the other first.   If both strive for the ideal St. Paul lays out for us, neither spouse will be able to habitually treat the other as a mere object for exploitation.

This would also mean that both spouses should object to social and cultural trends that encourage violations of human dignity, and especially those trends which encourage gender-based exploitation and discrimination.

Simcha Fisher, a self-described Catholic feminist and blogger for the National Catholic Register, explains what Catholic feminist ideals look like in the present world in a recent post:

My husband says I’m a feminist. I know many liberal feminists would recoil in horror at that assessment: After all, I have all these kids, and I’m a member in good standing with that horrible old misogynistic Church, with its oppressive rules about reproduction and obedience. I’m pro-life and wholeheartedly follow the Magisterium’s teaching on the male priesthood and contraception, and try to make the Blessed Virgin my model.

So what makes me a feminist? Some would say that all faithful Catholics are feminists, because the Church is the most pro-woman organization around: The Church honors and values the particular gifts of women, and demands that men treat women with dignity and even a little bit of fear. John Paul II famously called himself a “feminist pope”; and in practical terms, the Church has probably done more for the physical well-being of women around the world than any other charitable organization.

Catholics who are feminists recognize that, while so many true wrongs have been righted in the last 50 years, the poor treatment of women in America has just been displaced, not eradicated. So now, instead of corsets and disenfranchisement, we have widespread pornography, abortion, and abandonment of every kind. We have gained some necessary ground, but lost so much else that is valuable in the process. Most of my Catholic friends see the world this way.

...

What change would I like to see? From the secular world: Stop thinking of women as sex objects; but at the same time, stop thinking of women as identical to men. Stop treating fertility like a disease; but stop pretending that women can be full-time mothers and full-time careerists. Stop blaming men for everything that is wrong with the world. It’s tiresome and counterproductive.

From my fellow Catholics: Stop thinking of women as objects who are here to save you from personal sexual sin; and stop thinking of women as intellectually inferior to men. Stop assuming that all women are meant to bear child after child no matter what; and stop pretending that if women just tried a little harder, men would be happy all the time. Stop blaming women for everything that is wrong with the Church. It’s cowardly and childish.

That’s for starters.

But feminism is not all about complaining and protesting. What I would like most of all is for women to ask themselves honestly, without worrying about history or politics, “What is it that I, as a woman, can do especially well? How can I help other women do what they do well?”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/what-is-a-catholic-feminist/#ixzz1Oe03Z7Ui

On Sin and the Opression of Women

John Paul II wrote the following in his encyclical Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity of Women):

Jesus enters into the concrete and historical situation of women, a situation which is weighed down by the inheritance of sin. One of the ways in which this inheritance is expressed is habitual discrimination against women in favour of men. This inheritance is rooted within women too. From this point of view the episode of the woman "caught in adultery" (cf. Jn 8:3-11) is particularly eloquent. In the end Jesus says to her: "Do not sin again", but first he evokes an awareness of sin in the men who accuse her in order to stone her, thereby revealing his profound capacity to see human consciences and actions in their true light. Jesus seems to say to the accusers: Is not this woman, for all her sin, above all a confirmation of your own transgressions, of your "male" injustice, your misdeeds?

This truth is valid for the whole human race. The episode recorded in the Gospel of John is repeated in countless similar situations in every period of history. A woman is left alone, exposed to public opinion with "her sin", while behind "her" sin there lurks a man - a sinner, guilty "of the other's sin", indeed equally responsible for it. And yet his sin escapes notice, it is passed over in silence: he does not appear to be responsible for "the others's sin"! Sometimes, forgetting his own sin, he even makes himself the accuser, as in the case described. How often, in a similar way, the woman pays for her own sin (maybe it is she, in some cases, who is guilty of the "others's sin" - the sin of the man), but she alone pays and she pays all alone! How often is she abandoned with her pregnancy, when the man, the child's father, is unwilling to accept responsibility for it? And besides the many "unwed mothers" in our society, we also must consider all those who, as a result of various pressures, even on the part of the guilty man, very often "get rid of" the child before it is born. "They get rid of it": but at what price? Public opinion today tries in various ways to "abolish" the evil of this sin. Normally a woman's conscience does not let her forget that she has taken the life of her own child, for she cannot destroy that readiness to accept life which marks her "ethos" from the "beginning".

Early feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft called for a higher moral standard for men, knowing that to do so would not only improve life for women, but also elevate the entire human race.  They too opposed the contraceptive mentality that made women the playthings of immoral men, and the pattern of exploitation and abandonment that left women bearing the weight not only of their own sins, but those of men who used them.  They believed rightly that this pattern must be broken.   Here, Bl. Pope John Paul II offers us the same challenge, this time woven into the great tapestry of Biblical theology.

It is worthwhile to note his explicit linking of the fallenness of humanity with the phenomenon of gender-based oppression. This is a connection largely missed by the more recent incarnations of the feminist movement, which have instead suggested that women must be just like men (including adopting their supposedly congenital sexual depravity) in order to be "equal".  In short, they have themselves bought into a lie that has its roots in our very fallenness as human beings: a lie invented by men (or passed to them by the Father of Lies) in order to "keep women in their place".

What is this lie?  That anything uniquely female is also inherently inferior, and that only male behavior and male-defined success, and male power is real and legitimate.


G.K. Chesterton addressed that lie in What's Wrong with the World:

The shortest way of summarizing the position is to say that woman stands for the idea of Sanity; that intellectual home to which the mind must return after every excursion on extravagance. The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's. There must in every machine be a part that moves and a part that stands still; there must be in everything that changes a part that is unchangeable. And many of the phenomena which moderns hastily condemn are really parts of this position of the woman as the center and pillar of health. Much of what is called her subservience, and even her pliability, is merely the subservience and pliability of a universal remedy; she varies as medicines vary, with the disease. She has to be an optimist to the morbid husband, a salutary pessimist to the happy-go-lucky husband. She has to prevent the Quixote from being put upon, and the bully from putting upon others. ...

...


The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

Chesterton recognized the vast and profound importance of women, especially in their role as mothers.  He does not, as many people suppose Christian men do, view us as mere incubators, as playthings, or as servants.  We are the center of the most important place in the world: the home, the fundamental unit of society, and as such may be said to be, in a sense, the center of the human universe!  One may contribute to society in the workplace, but one creates society in the home.

Instead of using gender differences as a bludgeon to keep women down,  as an excuse to deprive one half of the population of education and social power, Catholic teaching and common sense challenge us to elevate women without diminishing our uniqueness, leaving us free to influence the world around us as God meant us to do.   As a culture we must "keep women in their place", not as slaves to men, but as partners.


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Related reading:
Psychology Today: Why Do So Many Women Experience The "Impostor Syndrome"?

Mama Lions in Lipstick

I think I'm going to have to add another subscription to my blog reader!

She posts on great topics, has excellent taste in music, and her writing style is fun and approachable, and scathingly humorous in places.

I'm talking about Parisienne Farmgirl, specifically her recent "Momma Lion Rant" on the issue of oversexualization of girls.




I'll take Grace Kelly over Britney Spears as a role model any time, and I hope that any girls I raise will feel the same way.

 I'd post a contrasting Photo of Ms. Spears, but I just can't bring myself to do it. If you must compare the two yourself, click here. 

Like "Parisienne Farmgirl", I find much of the fashion and images available for girls at present rather shocking, and sometimes just ugly.


The day I saw a toddler old at the zoo  in a bare midriff top, miniskirt, and knee-high boots (strangely enough, a lot like her mother's outfit), I knew that we had reached a new low in children's fashion and the objectification of females.  On a grown woman, the only place that outfit would have been appropriate would be on a seedy street corner. No doubt mommy dearest thought the little outfit was cute.

We don't have to wear jumpers that look like barbershop awnings to be modest.  Neither do we have to dress in turn of the century bathing suits to go to the beach, though it is interesting that a Victorian swimsuit is more modest than some outfits on the market today.

 

But, let's at least teach our daughters that an outfit is not actually more attractive the more likely it is to ride up or fall off.

I'm still trying to figure out how shoes that barely let one walk, or a skirt and top in which one can't bend over, much less run or lift anything, is supposed to help "empower" the female half of the population.

It's nice to find another kindred spirit, even in the blogosphere. Pariesienne Farmgirl is right on, and she makes me laugh.  I like her already.


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For more on why modesty and chastity are such important parts of true "woman power", see the post titled "The Politics of Porn" at Tea at Trianon.

Cybill Shepherd on going on The Pill

"... I became sexually active as a teenager. One day, my mom took me to my family doctor. He wrote something on a prescription pad and said, ‘Take one of these every day, and all your periods will be regular.’ What a thrill! He didn’t even tell me it was birth control.”

It's a thrill to have your doctor lie to you?  Really?

Shouldn't she be completely offended at the sexist attitude of her doctor, whose behavior suggests that he believed women (especially young ones) can't handle a simple explanation of what medications actually do?

I know I'm offended as much by her attitude toward herself, as by his attitude toward women.


Shepherd's comments are cited in a New York Magazine article entitled "Waking Up from the Pill".  Interesting reading, as it shows that some people in secular culture are questioning the cost of such technological interventions in a woman's fertility, even if they are not yet ready to admit that they may have overestimated their value.


----------------------------------------

Update: Ms. Shepherd also made similar remarks about her first birth control pills in an interview with Larry King:

KING: You've always been pro-choice, right?

SHEPHERD: Always been pro-choice.

KING: Even growing up in an area where pro-life would have been sacrosanct?

SHEPHERD: I was very lucky. Very close family friend in 1966, a doctor, prescribed me birth control pills without telling my mother and without telling me. Just went for my first gynecological appointment, and he said, "Do you have a boyfriend?" I said yes. He said, "Do you love him?" I said, "Yes, we're going to get married?"

He said: "Well, you know, your periods have been a little irregular here. I'm going to give you a prescription of something that's going to make your periods real regular."

I was very fortunate, and that is why I feel compelled to stand up for the young women in this country now who are not allowed to control their own fertility, their bodily fertility. People keep wanting to take away from women our right to control our pleasure and our bodies and our reproductive health. And for this, I will always continue to fight wherever it is. 

KING: Are you Catholic?

SHEPHERD: No, I'm not. I was raised Episcopal.

I still cannot understand how a "pro-choice" woman could be so excited about this, since her doctor made the choice for her.

Priorities

"How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?"

--G.K. Chesterton, The Emancipation of Domesticity




Tip of the Schoolmarm Ruler to Emily Lunsford of the Distributist Review.

Woman Power in the Primaries

 This blog would like to offer its congratulations to Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.  I hope they beat the pants off of Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer.


No doubt there will be much discussion of pro-life feminism (versus the more well-known pro-abortion feminism we have seen in this country over the past 50 years) over the months between now and the election.   Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, rightfully recognizes that abortion, instead of empowering women, has instead created a cultural atmosphere that makes it easier for men to use us as playthings for their own pleasure, and requires us to sacrifice our natural femininity as a condition of full participation in society.  I excerpt her comments below:
 

It’s surprising, really, that abortion-rights feminists are so unequivocal in their insistence that “pro-life feminism” is an oxymoron. After all, the pro-life feminist argument relies upon feminism’s better angels. It is a communitarian argument for one thing.

The pro-life feminist looks out for the interests of other people affected by her decisions. She refuses to take terrible advantage of another vulnerable group - the unborn - in order to advance her own case. She makes the “both/and” argument: both the woman and the unborn child deserve respect.

Secondly, the pro-life feminist relies upon empirical and scientific datum. She makes a rational argument about when life begins or about the psychological or physical harm some women suffer after abortion; she is not shouting down or pressuring her opponents, or belittling them personally.

Finally, she insists that what women alone are capable of doing – bearing and mothering children–– merits more respect than it presently receives. Abortion rights have unburdened men from the fathering role. His freedom from sexual responsibility is premised on the woman's choice to abort or not.

It is no coincidence, suggests the pro-life feminist, that 37 years after women were granted the “right to abortion,” the number of women and children living without the presence or the support of the father is at an all-time high. She thinks it’s no accident that elite jobs are regularly populated by women who, often with regret, felt pressured, with no support available to them, to avoid parenting in order to advance in their career.

Read the entire article here.

Cancer Chemistry

The Breast Cancer Fund is an advocacy group that draws attention to environmental toxins that are linked to breast cancer, including those in food storage containers, cosmetics, and even oral contraceptives.

One more group that recognizes the link between the Pill and cancer.

Eugenics and idiocy in the media once again...

FoxNews has an article about a woman in California who just gave birth to eight children after getting a fertility treatment:


Reports are circulating that cast an unflattering light on the miracle mom who gave birth to octuplets in California Monday.

CBS News reported Friday that the mother of eight newborns, who already had six children, filed for bankruptcy and abandoned her home less than two years ago. She hasn't been identified publicly yet, though CBS News described her as a woman in her 30s who lives with her parents.

The woman's mother revealed to the Los Angeles Times that her daughter already had six children before seeking fertility treatment, though she had no idea she would become pregnant with so many babies.

...

The babies were born nine weeks premature, adding to their health risks, the Associated Press reported. Because of the risks, doctors generally advise against births with so many multiples — though the decision is left up to the mother.

Stress comes along with any pregnancy, but giving birth to octuplets could be overwhelming, according to Dr. Charles Sophy, medical director of Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services,

"Any new parent is going to be under stress and multiple that by 8, it's a lot of stress," Sophy told FOXNews.com. "Hopefully the upfront work and due diligence was done."

Sophy said the most pressing concern for Suleman should be getting the youngsters on a schedule.

"Eating, sleeping and bathing are the key areas to get scheduled," he said. "The same goes for mom and dad. Parents need to make sure they're whole or else they won't be valuable to their children."

Sophy said the expense of raising 14 children will likely be prohibitive, citing studies that estimate it costs roughly $2.5 million to raise a child to adulthood. Using that math, raising 14 children would cost roughly $35 million.

"And that's basic stuff," he said. "That doesn't include swimming lessons and things like that. It's very costly and hopefully the planning that needs to be done was done upfront."


The subtext: She's poor, she's ignorant, she's too stupid to know better than to have 8 more kids when she's bankrupt and living with her parents. Oh, and the poor dear will never be able to manage the STRESS!

In other words, she's not a miracle mom, she's just an ignorant woman.

They fall just short of saying she should have done the "smart" thing and had them all killed in the womb. You know, save the poor babies from a lifetime of illness and suffering and the taxpayers from the expense of providing them with health care. Doesn't she know that chilren are better off dead than chronically ill? Doesn't she know they'll be a drain on society? You know, like Nancy Pelosi says, "family planning" stimulates the economy!

I'm surprised they didn't comment upon all of those little carbon footprints.

It really irritates me when people play the ignorant/hysterical/weak woman card. Really.

Setting aside the ethical problems with the kind of fertility treatment she received, let me ask this: Is there something wrong with seeing this as courage?

She could have aborted some or all of those children, but she didn't. She has six already, so it isn't like she doesn't know that having kids is difficult. And she sought fertility treatment, so it's not like she doesn't know how this happened. Come on.

Furthermore, having been a Kaiser patient, I can tell you it isn't their style to not inform a woman of the negative risks of motherhood, especially if she is having multiples. She had to know what she was getting herself into. And she did it anyway.

Think about it. How many women have the guts to try to raise 16 children, even if they're born one at a time?

I'd have a cup of tea with someone like that any time. She can bring her 16 kids along.

Who said FoxNews was a right-wing news outlet?

Study finds men, not poverty, drive women to abortion.

The early American feminists saw this one coming a mile away. Wait, I take that back. They saw over 100 years ago that it had already arrived:

"[This] subject lies deeper down in woman's wrongs than any other...I hesitate not to assert that most of [the responsibility for] this crime lies at the door of the male sex."
Matilda Gage, The Revolution, 1(14):215-6 April 9, 1868


A recent study finds that unsupportive male partners are the top reason women decide to have abortions:

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While abortions have decreased in women having their first pregnancy, the number of repeat abortions has increased. Today, 47% of all abortions are obtained by women who have already had at least one previous abortion.

In addition, most abortions occur now in the group of women who already have one living child. ....

A new study by Priscilla Coleman and colleagues has been published in the International Journal of Mental Health Addiction. This study uses data from the Fragile Families and Well-Being Study.

The sample was drawn from hospitals in 16 cities around the country, which had high numbers of unmarried births. The final sample consisted of families with one child. The mothers then either aborted or gave birth to a subsequent child. ....

This study looked at the reasons women chose childbirth or abortion for their subsequent pregnancy. It is unique, in that, it examined the decision-making process in the context of the relationship with the father of the child. ....

The results of the study indicated that the most important factors in determining the women's choice to abort a second pregnancy were those associated with the father's inability or unwillingness to provide assistance in rearing the first child.

Women were significantly more likely to abort if they reported that the father of the child cannot be trusted to "watch the child for a week," "take good care of the child," "watch the child when the mothers needs to do things," "does not support the mother's way of raising the child," "does not respect the schedule and rules" for the child, etc.

In addition, it was found that mothers who were married to the father were significantly more likely to deliver the baby.

What is especially interesting are the variables that did not appear to influence the choice of abortion vs. delivery.

For example, the difficulty of raising the child, based on poor temperament of the child or the need for frequent medical intervention, did not affect the choice to abort. In addition, financial considerations were not important in the decision. ....

The results of this study are counter to the prevailing opinion that women abort because of poverty and financial considerations. Instead, these mothers were more apt to make the decision based on whether or not they would be supported in their role as a mother by a father who had already demonstrated an ability to care for one of his children.

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"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!"
-Susan B. Anthony, The Revolution.



Tips of the Schoolmarm Ruler to: Granny Grump and Feminists for Life.

Anti-Feminism and the Birth Control Pill

Interestingly enough, even in the Pill's earliest days, it was known to have poisonous effects on the female body. But, during the initial trials in the 1950s, researchers John Rock and Gregory Pincus were so excited about its effectiveness they didn't stop to think about whether or not they were harming women (emphasis mine):

Dr. Edris Rice-Wray, a faculty member of the Puerto Rico Medical School and medical director of the Puerto Rico Family Planning Association, was in charge of the trials. After a year of tests, Dr. Rice-Wray reported good news to Pincus. The Pill was 100% effective when taken properly. She also informed him that 17% of the women in the study complained of nausea, dizziness, headaches, stomach pain and vomiting. So serious and sustained were the reactions that Rice-Wray told Pincus that a 10-milligram dose of Enovid caused "too many side reactions to be generally acceptable."

Rock and Pincus quickly dismissed Rice-Wray's conclusions. Their patients in Boston had experienced far fewer negative reactions, and they believed many of the complaints were psychosomatic. The men also felt that problems such as bloating and nausea were minor compared to the contraceptive benefits of the drug. Although three women died while participating in the trials, no investigation was conducted to see if the Pill had caused the young women's deaths. Confident in the safety of the Pill, Pincus and Rock took no action to assess the root cause of the side effects.

...

In later years, Pincus's team would be accused of deceit, colonialism and the exploitation of poor women of color. The women had only been told that they were taking a drug that prevented pregnancy, not that this was a clinical trial, that the Pill was experimental or that there was a chance of potentially dangerous side effects. Pincus and Rock, however, believed they were following the appropriate ethical standards of the time. In the 1950s, research involving human subjects was much less regulated than it is today. Informed consent standards were minimal and only the most basic toxicity tests were required for human trials.

(Source: PBS.org)

In other words, they decided the pill was safe and the women were just hysterical little things and the side effects were all in their heads.

There are few things more frustrating than having a doctor dismiss symptoms that you know are real by conveniently filing you away as hysterical woman. This has only happened to me personally on one occasion, but that does not make it any less infuriating.

Also interesting here is that a female researcher raised concern about the harmful side-effects, only to be dismissed herself by these two men who apparently believed that not being pregnant is much more important than being healthy.

All good feminists should be outraged by this. So should anyone concerned about racial equality and imperialism, for that matter. We are told that the pill is supposed to be liberating for women, but it was (no pun intended) conceived through the exploitation of women. Women who were not even fully informed about the fact that they were test subjects! So much for choices.

Bailouts for banks, auto manufacturers... And Planned Parenthood?

From the Susan B. Anthony list, which advances the cause of pro-life
women in America:

http://www.sba-list.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=ddJBKJNsFqG&b=4179747&aid=11533

Abortion groups have submitted their 50 page proposal to the
Obama-Biden transition team. At the top of the list? More taxpayer
dollars for abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood. How much
more? Over 1.5 billion dollars more!

The Abortion Bailout Package:

* $1 BILLION dollars in taxpayer funding for International Abortion Groups
* $700 million in taxpayer funding for "Title X" Health Clinics
(aka your local Planned Parenthood affiliate)
* $65 million for the UNFPA, an international aid organization
connected to coercive abortion as part of China's coercive one-child
policy
* Repeal the Hyde Amendment – Vastly expanding federal taxpayer
funding for abortions
* Include Abortion coverage in any taxpayer-subsidized national
health care program
* Expand taxpayer-funded abortions on military bases
* Expand taxpayer-funded abortions through the Peace Corps program
* Expand taxpayer-funded abortions for federal prisoners

Send a letter to your Senators today demanding that they keep your tax
dollars out of the pockets of abortion providers.

Click on the link above to take action and automatically send a letter
to your US senators.

Ahead of her time:

Words from the first Female US Presidential Candidate:

I wish to say my word on the theme of the day — Abortion and the Abortionists. . . Abortion [is]one of the fixed institutions of the country, one of the marked characteristics of the age, one of the indicative symptoms of the ripening and the rottening of our prevalent state of society! Who proposes to disturb Madame Restel [underground abortion practitioner]? Who really wants that there should be no opportunity to secure an abortion under peculiarly trying circumstances? . . . But the great revenue of these practitioners is from the married women among the wealthy. They have become unfit to have children, and abortion is the sewerage for this wretched stagnation of feminine life. . . . Abortion before marriage and especially after marriage are the rule rather than the exception—in the wealthy and fashionable classes, and to a great extent among workingwomen who say they 'can’t afford to have children'. . . Abortion is only a symptom of a more deep-seated disorder of the social state. It cannot be put down by law. Normally the mother of ten children is as healthy, and may be as youthful and beautiful, as a healthy maiden. Child-bearing is not a disease, but a beautiful office of nature. But to our faded-out, sickly, exhausted type of women, it is a fearful ordeal. Nearly every child born is an unwelcome guest. Abortion is the choice of evils for such women.

• Victoria Woodhull, first woman to run for U.S. President, member of the Equal Rights Party, in Woodhull's and Claffin's Weekly (September 23, 1871).

Rape survivor speaks out about choosing life:

From Feminists for Life of America:

This month, Feminists for Life invites you to meet Joyce Ann McCauley-Benner. Joyce was raped while working her way through college, discovered she was pregnant, and chose not to abort, even though she did not know if the father of her unborn son was the rapist or her boyfriend.

Joyce’s story, “Victory Over Violence,” is the second of FFL’s speaker videos, which are being unveiled one by one over the coming school year and posted on FFL’s website and on YouTube.

“I thought: ‘I don’t know how to take care of a baby! I’m not ready to be a mother, I don’t have medical coverage. I can’t do this now!’” Joyce recalls. But on deeper reflection, she realized that “while I did not know who the father of my baby was yet, I did know who his mother was. And that was me.”

Joyce, along with other Feminists for Life speakers, promotes pro-woman solutions especially on college campuses. She explains, “When I chose single motherhood, it was hard. Finding resources and returning to my hometown college were challenging…. I am here to tell you, women deserve better.”


Joyce points out that it is in difficult times that women (including herself) often discover how strong and powerful they really are.

Watch Joyce tell her story:

I saw something cool on TV!

Remember this little line from Clarence the angel in It's a Wonderful Life?

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

I saw this on TV tonight, and it put me in mind of that:




Now, I can't claim to have helped anyone as dramatically as a firefighter. Teaching just doesn't require the same kind of heroism. I hope I have been able to have some positive effect in the lives of others. I'm certainly glad I had the opportunity.

I have to say, that I am pleased that they chose a female firefighter as the central character in this ad.

The advertisement is from the Majella Society of Austin and Houston, TX.

Where to begin:

Sandra Bernhard's racist and anti-feminist attacks on Sarah Palin. She owes women and the African American community an apology.



Professor Meyers is at it again. This time, the man who publicly desecrated the Eucharist is going after a pro-life pharmacist. Pray for him. Hopefully, it will do him good.




Barack Obama's less than classy response to abortion survivor Gianna Jessen:

Her Ad:



His:




Yup. 'Nuff said.

Tip of the Ruler to: Jeff Miller

Who will take care of Sarah Palin's Baby?

Why, Daddy, of course.

So says the Washington Post, calling him "the GOP's favorite stay-at-home-dad".

While the left is busy criticizing Sarah Palin for having five kids and a career at the same time, and asking who will look after little Trig and his special needs, they seem to be ignoring her husband, not to mention her older children. Those of my readers who come from large families know that very often the oldest children help with the care of the youngest ones.

Not too surprising, I suppose. So many people on the left are so appalled at the sheer size of her family's carbon footprint, they haven't stopped to think of the benefits of having a family that size. And, as to their tendency to overlook her husband, well, we often hear from the Left that fathers are overrated anyway.

You would think the feminists would be praising the Palins for defying traditional gender roles, but instead they are excoriating her, and ignoring him. Strange. 

 

Editorial Cartoonist Dana Summers at the Orlando Sentinel captures this well:

This blogger considers at-home parenthood to be the ideal. While it is expected that women will take on this role, the most important thing is that somebody do it, if at all possible. If having dad at home works better, that's great.

Kudos to Todd Palin for providing his family with what it needs, including time for his wife to take on corruption and foolishness on both sides of the aisle.

Commentary on the Media feeding frenzy:

Mark Shea's commentary on the MSM's treatment of the presidential race is worth a look:

Here's a small slice:

The visceral, palpable fear and hatred of her was (mark this) instantaneous and took place *before* the Left that is desperately trying to trash her and her family actually knew anything about her. It's a pre-rational thing. Indeed, what drives the search for dirt is the pre-rational decision that she must be destroyed, no matter what the cost. And so we get the astounding spectacle of feminists demanding she abandon career for family and forget shattering the glass ceiling, of the Party of Compassion ritually slaughtering a 17 year old, of the Party of the Little Guy laughing at Jefferson Smith and his hicks up on the woods. Most of all, we see the deep, deep hatred of children that fills up the empty core where the heart of the Democrat party used to be. When the chips are down, Herod behaves as he always has when his shot at power is threatened. And so we get the appalling suggestion that "truly responsible" people would have just had Trig Palin killed for failing to measure up to Master Race specs and Bristol Palin delivered to the tender mercies of an abortuary.

To his great credit, Obama himself has told his rabid self-appointed neo-Puritan Inquisitors, "My mother had me when she was eighteen…" He's a smart enough pol to know that ritually sacrificing a girl to him is not right and will not win votes for him. But the latter-day Jephthahs are about as smart as the original Jephthah. In their worship of Obama, they are prepared to offer him human sacrifices that he himself never commanded. And in so doing, they show forth the ugliest and most inhuman face of the Left (a face rather like that of Dick Cheney in his willingness, nay, eagerness to "go to the dark side").

Read the rest of his post "Duelling Religious Systems" here.