by matttbastard
Day: January 13, 2008
We’re All Waving Flags Now
Quote Of The Day: Not Fists.
by matttbastard
[W]hat I really want to say is that women’s reproductive freedom is a women’s right and women’s rights are human rights. It pisses me off to no end to hear men telling me how I am expected to behave in order to get my right honoured. This is my right we’re talking about!!!
And it pisses me off because it has happened repeatedly throughout history: each of the waves of feminism, including this, the fourth wave have been scolded by progressives and regressives alike for their behavior! Isn’t it time it stopped?
And why, oh bloody why, do any of you think you have a right to offer unsolicited advice, criticism, protection, what have you to women who have been working this issue all their freaking lives?
Why do you think you know better than us how to do our work? And what gives you the right to so much as think you have the right to speak it? Is it that freaking difficult to stand with us or to *gasp* ask us how you might assist us instead of shooting us down?
Do you know how very much you actually hurt us — not to mention detract us from our work — by being so very inconsiderate? OMG! I am soooooooooo tired of seeing this behavior [repeated] by men who call themselves progressive. So. Very. Very. Tired. And I am exhausted from forcing myself to be patient with you, to educate you, as I wait for you to actually get it!
And at times like this I don’t know why the hell I bother, because there are some who will never allow a word I type into their minds because they have already written me off as too radical and too militant. Which is what the patriarchy said of the Famous Five as well.
What Berlynn said bears repeating ad infinitum: “…women’s reproductive freedom is a women’s right and women’s rights are human rights.”
Women’s rights are human rights.
Women’s rights are human rights.
Women’s rights are human rights.
This is not an extremist position requiring moderation; the f-bomb (fill in the “f” yourself) != the clinic bomb. People will naturally show great passion when real lives–their lives–are at stake, not some prefabricated fetish of the misogynist far right ( noun: any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion). It should come as no surprise, Scott, that some see far more important things at stake than the fragile egos of those who, frankly, have chosen–who, like even yours truly, have the privilege of possessing such a choice–to not care, at least not in a meaningful fashion, displayed through sacrifice, getting your fucking hands dirty, and, yes, pissing people off.
Women’s rights are human rights.
Women’s rights are human rights.
Women’s rights are human rights.
This isn’t a game, some abstract debate club exercise with specific rules and boundaries, to be followed by cookies and Coca Cola in the atrium. Women’s rights–human rights–are in peril if we give any quarter to those who would place a fetish above a living, breathing person. Because when it boils down to it, Scott, it’s not your rights (nor my rights) being “moderated” for general consumption.
And that apparently makes all the difference to some.
So, in the spirit of solidarity, Berlynn, April, dBO, pale, Prole, JJ, fern, holly, Gigi, anne, Beijing, Kuri, everyone: what can I do to help in the human rights struggle?
bastard.logic 