Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Litmus Test
Nobody ever talks about this, but feminists are mysterious and scary. Our attitude toward them is so simple, that I believe I can speak for just about everyone with a few well-selected sentences. I’m for feminism when it means women should be paid the same for comparable work — with comparable experience, qualifications and seniority. I’m for feminism when it means women should be charged the same for the same goods and services, and if you can prove women are being slighted in the field of medical care, I’m for feminism when it means fixing that.
I’m against feminism when it dictates I can’t watch porn.
Or go to Hooter’s.
Or that I should be fired from my job for nothing so a woman can have my job.
Or when it makes it easier to fire me from my job, by creating a bunch of cultural rules in the workplace nobody can fully understand.
Or when it makes it easy to convict a man for rape, for having sex that was entirely consensual on both sides until the following morning.
I think those attitudes cover the “big middle” of our society, women as well as men. So I have a litmus test to anybody who calls themselves a “feminist.” And the first person I’d like to apply my litmus test to, is Katrina George of the University of Western Sydney. Katrina George has made a career out of lecturing against the practice of euthanasia, which strikes me as a purely gender-neutral issue. She manages, however, to work into her columns a few snippets about how badly women have it.
Women’s experiences show how social and cultural biases can affect health care. Several US studies show that women receive fewer cardiac treatments and procedures than men and have worse outcomes. Women are also likelier than men to suffer inadequate pain control. Although women provide most of the care that is given to dying patients, when they need care themselves they tend to receive less assistance from family members than men and are likelier to have to pay for any care they might receive.
As feminist Susan Wolf has put it, “Dimensions of health status that may affect a patient’s vulnerability to considering physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia differentially plague women”. Is it just a coincidence that most of the prominent assisted suicide cases have been women? In the US there were Diane Trumbull, Janet Adkins and Marjorie Wantz; in Canada, Sue Rodriguez; in Britain, Diane Pretty; in New Zealand, Victoria Vincent and Joy Martin; and in Australia, Nancy Crick, Sandy Williamson, Norma Hall and Lisette Nigot.
Now, like I said, by all means if there is a difference in the health care women are receiving just because they are women, I’m all for fixing it — as is just about anyone. But in another role, spokesman for Women’s Forum Australia, Katrina George was speaking out about a recent victory for the group, apparently exerting enough pressure to shut down a beauty show.
The “Blokesworld Live” event, a spinoff of a late-night television show, had been promoted in the east-coast city for Saturday and Sunday as “the ultimate weekend for the bloke of the species”.
The group Women’s Forum Australia said the show was demeaning to women and that the council had bowed to pressure from protestors.
“It’s time to declare zero tolerance against men who treat women like recreational sex toys,” spokeswoman Katrina George told the news agency AAP.
A council spokesman denied the event had been cancelled on moral grounds, but Renee Eaves, the managing director of the event’s featured dancers, the “Flirtmodels”, said she believed the council had caved in.
Feminists like Katrina George are suffering from scope creep. They need focus. So to give them some, here’s the litmus test not only for Ms. George, but any & all feminists.
What’s better? A society that offers women substandard medical care and slave wages, but enforces “zero tolerance against men who treat women like recreational sex toys,” or a society that guarantees women equality of medical care, and equal pay, but lets horny men look at whatever they want to look at?
It’s a valid question, because it’s extremely likely that this is the choice any civilized country is facing now. One of my hypothetical societies restricts all classes from true freedom, the other makes this freedom available to everyone. Freedom to do serious things like get affordable health care, and to do silly things like stuff dollar bills into a stripper’s thong.
And society-at-large, appears to line up overwhelmingly on one side of that litmus test. “Real” people, in other words, would have no difficulty answering my question, and everyone except the True Believers would answer it the same way. People love freedom.
But feminists seem to be straddling the line. They don’t give off the appearance of knowing, with any certainty, which of those goals is more important to them.
So while we’re making up our minds how much rope to give a feminist to hang herself, trying to figure out what she’s all about…maybe that would be a good litmus test for her. Show Dracula the cross, and see what happens.
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