Tea and Strumpets
Follow along with me here, people. Young people in New Zealand drink too much. I KNOW. We have a problem with binge drinking and violence and people generally behaving badly at 3am on Queen St (And Courtenay Place, and the Octagon and wherever the hell Christchurch twatcocks gather these days. Papanui?)
Yes, this is a problem, one that has many causes, including but not limited to: the availability of cheap pre-mixed drinks, bar staff who fail to police people’s drinking, the concentration of bars in these areas, our general poor attitude to alcohol, and people’s general fuckwittery.
You know what doesn’t cause this problem? Short skirts.
Queen Street, just before midnight – there are pushes, shoving and foul language. We had just arrived, and already we see a woman bloodied after a girl-on-girl punch up….
All night I have seen young drunk revellers. Some of them are underage; most of them are women wearing tight, revealing dresses. They have admitted to me they are binge drinkers getting drunk on a Friday and Saturday night. They come to Queen St because they like the attention.
“The girls here are completely young and drunk,” says Lana MacFarlane. “They are so much younger than I am. It’s so awkward. You feel old at 21. I feel ridiculously old at 21.”
Combine that language with some loving, lingering shots of young women’s asses.
Here’s my question, Amanda Gillies. What on earth does it matter what these women are wearing? God knows, I am all for binge drinking, but I try to avoid the hideousness that is Courtenay Place (and I assume, Queen St, it’s been a long time since I was there after midnight) early on a Sunday morning. Looking after one’s beautiful shoes is much easier when one doesn’t ave to sidestep puddles of vomit. This is an actual, serious problem, and one isn’t going to be solved when the news is served with a good healthy dollop of slut-shaming.
What, exactly, are you trying to say here? Only sluts would get drunk like this? They deserve whatever happens to them because of their behavior and attire? What’s the subtext here? Because the actual text is more than offensive enough.
A guest post from the brilliant Constance. (Link NSFW)
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This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a long time, but have kept putting off because I haven’t been sure exactly what I want to say (or how to say it). I’m still not sure, but I’m realising that this might be one of those topics I will never be sure about, and my feelings and thoughts will always be a fluid jumble, absorbing and evolving the more I learn and talk about it.
I am a feminist who is committed to sex positivity. I am constantly thinking about, analysing and ultimately hoping to help dismantle the saturation of misogyny that hurts women, men and folk who don’t identify with either of those genders. I think the media is a huge perpetrator of misogyny by (both overtly and subtly) reinforcing gender norms, gender roles, aesthetic desirability etc. I am also really interested in sex (academically and, uh, in practice) to the point that I like to try my hand at things people may consider left of centre. Namely BDSM.
Every now and again the media churns out something so overtly sexist that people are forced to (briefly, for most) acknowledge that we haven’t really come as far as we think we have in terms of “women’s liberation”. Today the White Ribbon Campaign’s Facebook page showcased some shockers from the past and present. Like this one.
Obviously talking about oppressive images of women is central and relevant to a campaign which works to stop violence against women across the world. However, a few of the pictures that they showcased have multiple layers, especially for those aware of, or engaging in, BDSM.
Now, this is possibly going to get me in big trouble, but I can’t say I’m offended by these photos. I can even see how people would find them sexy. I’m obviously conscious that people who have no idea about BDSM (and the heavy emphasis the community places on consent and negotiation) will see these photos as oppressive and violent, and not as a portrayal of alternative sexual preferences. But the thing is – how do we know that they aren’t?
There’s no context around either of these images to suggest that this isn’t a portrayal of consensual sexual play. There’s also no context to suggest that it’s not problematic sexual violence either. But when we default to yelling “sexism!” at images of women in submissive sexual positions, I would argue that we are actually being oppressive ourselves.
I’m not saying that we should assume all images of sexual male dominance are harmless. I’m also not saying that we shouldn’t be discussing what exposure to these images without any dialogue about consent may mean. What I am saying is that we need to have that discussion, and we need to drop our assumptions.
At times (and depending on your internal head noise) it can be pretty shitty to be a female feminist who’s also a submissive to male dominant/s. I know dozens of women who are committed to ending violence against women and subverting oppressive gender roles, but who enjoy being a submissive, begging plaything to their male partners in the bedroom. And although all of these women are conscious that the second consent is negotiated these acts are not in any way violent, it can still be really confusing to want to dismantle the power men have over women everywhere…except the bedroom.
When our discourse around the portrayal of potentially consensual kink screams “oppression!”, it furthers the messages that female submissives get constantly. These messages range from “woah that’s a bit twisted” to “your sexual preferences are contributing to the rapes of millions of women and children across the world” (an actual sentence I’ve had thrown at me).
I am conscious that queer submissives are not in any way immune to sex shaming and internal conflict, but given that queer dominant/submissive relationships would be seen by many as subverting traditional gender roles and norms, and images of queer sexualities are sadly omitted from mainstream advertising, I am going to talk solely about women engaging in dominance and submission with men. I am deliberately not specifying cis women, as trans women are women and are not immune to feeling conflicted about acting out the very things they may be working to end in other spheres of their lives.
I would also like to state that by lamenting an issue some women have, I am not implying in any way that we don’t have privilege in many other interlinked and pervasive ways.
Sex positive feminists are of course aware that any sex involving consenting, informed and considerate parties is fine. And if the goal is to dismantle oppression and gender norms then these acts of submission to men are ultimately not reinforcing anything problematic because they are not manifestations of some deeper desire for the patriarchy to rule us all. The fantasies exist as play. And a lot of other BDSM is super subversive of gender roles.
But the thing is, when your kind of BDSM is actually a play on things that you see as problematic in other contexts, the sex positive mantra is not super effective or reassuring at times. Even if you know it’s right. And people taking images of things some people enjoy and labeling them as “sexist” is going to elicit a very exhausted sigh from pretty much every sex positive feminist sub everywhere.
I am not in any way arguing that images of male dominance should have a blanket classification as “fine” because they might be part of someone’s sexual preference. What I am arguing is that we can’t just assume that they’re not. Perhaps in a perfect world there would be a disclaimer in the fine print of the ad that says ‘this image is meant to represent consensual adult fantasy’. I think that would be great.
If advertising is adhering to normal censorship and age-appropriate regulations then why can’t alternative sexual preferences be portrayed? The only arguments against using kink in the same way we use vanilla sex to sell stuff are incredibly sex negative ones: “because it’s violent” (not if you establish consent either in the image or with a disclaimer as mentioned above. And while we’re fucking at it, why don’t we establish consent in vanilla images?), “because it’s vulgar” (define vulgar, and don’t tell me non kinky sex in advertisements doesn’t fit that bill at least half the time), “because it’s not everyone’s taste” (yeah well bikini clad ‘scientists’ selling me Tui beer isn’t my taste but I’m saturated with it), “because people might think that sort of stuff is okay to do without asking” (if you follow that line, then no sex should ever be portrayed anywhere in case someone tries it without asking).
Many things that fit on the BDSM continuum are fairly common. I was going to say “nowadays” but actually, none of it is new or more prevalent than it was 2000 years ago. And I bet you that even then, women who wanted their male partners to have power over them in the bedroom but not in any other way were just as fraught about it then as they are now.
I suppose what I’m saying here is that we get it. Any issue you have with female sexual submission to men has been thought about over and over by the submissive themselves. Why do I want this? What if there’s something wrong with me? Why does he want that? Does he respect me? What if this goes too far?
Chances are, if you’re into this sort of stuff and even vaguely aware of feminism, it’s been thought to death. And hopefully, fears and anxieties have been quashed by the knowledge that we can’t always explain why people are into things, and ultimately we wouldn’t be into them if it didn’t make them feel fucking amazing and strong and sexy and liberated. And that, as both sex positive feminists and members of the BDSM community, we think about consent and negotiation probably about a zillion more times a day than you do.
But no matter how staunch people are in owning and advocating their preferences, having messages that tell you something you may very well have done the other night is misogynistic, sexist and oppressive, just kind of makes people feel like shit. And really, people who are into BDSM get enough of that.
If a sexual image of two or more adults is ambiguous in its message and makes you feel uncomfortable, remember that anything conveying sexuality is going to have a multitude of layers.
Don’t assume that there’s no consent. Don’t assume that there’s not a bunch of people who do that for fun in your life that you may never ever know about. Don’t decide that you’re an expert on whether someone’s fantasy is harmful or not – they can decide for themselves.
Instead, have a discussion about it. I even have a mind blowing suggestion for you – you could do some research about something that you’re not personally into. That way, you can extricate yourself from the masses of uneducated sex-shaming voices that can get the fuck out of my bedroom.
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Here, I’ve even got some further reading suggestions:
Things we liked, or didn’t like, from around the internet this week.
Taking the Christianity out of sex. How many of the things we tend to assume are ‘natural’ are actually culturally constructed?
Thanks to the exhaustive efforts of anthropologists like George Murdock, Douglas White, and dozens of others who contributed to the Standard Cross-Cultural Survey, I can tell you quite emphatically that there is no uniformity of human beliefs about sexual behaviors across cultures and from an early point in time.
On the Pintrest problem. Or, how to make your feminism social media friendly. (For my – Tallulah – part, there’s way, waaaay, too much fat-shaming and pro-ana stuff on Pintrest for it to be a particularly woman-friendly space.)
I (again, Tallulah) fully intended to write about SlutWalk, but I ended up feeling somewhat out of spoons. But QoT has a roundup for your SlutWalk-related needs.
She also has a brilliant post on truthiness and abortion.
I (Deb) had vague thoughts of writing about SlutWalk too, and I might still get around to it (who knows!), but in the meantime, I had a great time marching with Tallulah and my fabulous 13 year old daughter, and other Friends of The Lady Garden. A big shout out to Lady Gardener commenter Tamsin, who came over to say hello because she recognised my red shoes. And Tallulah? I’m still thinking about that saying of yours about red shoes.
Here’s a post that’s worth spending a bit of time reading and thinking about. From Clarisse Thorn: My Mon’s rape story, and a confused relationship with feminism. The story is triggering. Be careful, especially if you’ve had to deal with creepy stalkery people, or with an abusive partner or ex-partner. (And have I [Deb] mentioned how grateful I am to Emma for introducing me to Clarisse Thorn’s writing?)
Blue Milk has a great post about the time she broke the P&C (equivalent to PTA in NZ) meeting. And she has a brilliant post on attachment parenting and feminism.
And because I (Deb) need somewhere to grumble about this, and there seems to be a bit of a conversation in NZ about parental behaviour at school sports games, I would just like to say to the parent from the other school who was watching her daughter’s netball team thrash my daughters’ netball team this morning, that it is never, ever acceptable to call ten year old girls “little bitches.” As in, she said things like, “Go get the little bitches.” Repeatedly.
On that cheerful note, have a pretty. Actually, this is not so much a pretty as something that fascinated me (Deb) when I came across it, because I had always wondered how a sewing machine actually works.
How a sewing machine works
Feel free to add your own links in comments, and to treat this as an open thread. And hopefully the Lady Gardeners will be back in form a bit next week. We’re all a bit low and / or tangled up in various things at present, because of reasons. It will pass….
Things we liked, or didn’t like, from around the internet this week.
Explaining privilege in words that might get heard and understood: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is. (You should know that the number of Lady Gardeners who logged in to add this link is greater than one.)
Talking to your kids about pornography.
They may wonder what is wrong with their child or if what the child has seen will forever traumatize him or her. Neither assumption is correct, she said. The greater potential harm — and shame — can come from a parent’s reaction.
Girl on the Net, On Men, and how they’re only after one thing:
If you fancy a shag, all you need to do is walk down the street, find the nearest available man, and invite him back to your house. He will leap at the opportunity, drop all his current plans, and run over to hump you senseless before you can say “hooray for sexual stereotypes!”
Some philosophical thinking, or non-thinking, mostly interesting for the responses it has provoked. The first set is not so controversial: Shelly Kagan has argued that death really isn’t so bad for the person who experiences it, because she or he isn’t there to mourn their own loss, or the future denied. But annejjacobson at Feminist Philosophers has a different opinion: women are often deeply distressed by impending death, because of the impact on children and other family members.
And David Benatar has argued that, oh noes, it’s teh menz who are discriminated against, in The Second Sexism. Ophelia Benson dismisses the case very quickly in A neglected form of sexism, and Suzanne Moore nails it: The Second Sexism is just victim envy.
Over at The Hand Mirror, LudditeJourno writes about the silent B in pink shirt day.
This Pink Shirt Day I’m going to share some link love for bi people, and those interested in challenging biphobia and biphobic bullying. I’m not including generic queer groups as too often those groups have a silent B (and T, let alone I) when it comes to LGBTI issues and communities.
From Annanonymous, who writes at The End is Naenae, two great pieces: a nuanced and thoughtful discussion of fetal alcohol syndrome, and why just telling women not to drink won’t solve anything; and a bit of support for the beer-drinking bride.
Worth a look. Re-imagining great nudes in art, in 21st century form. ‘Though as a woman who has been on the skinny side for most of my life (Deb), albeit not since going past 40, I’m not quite sure what reaction we are supposed to have. Yes, the re-imagined nudes look all wrong, but does that mean that my body is wrong? Even so… the meta-story is that no matter what, women’s bodies are wrong.
Via Hoyden about Town, a link to a great new Tumblr: Is this feminist? A sample…
This woman is doing science. IS THIS FEMINIST?
“Science,” as a narrative of knowledge, prizes a phallocentric adherence to logic and mastery, breaking things down into discrete parts and seeking to name and control their interactions, rather than viewing them as an intuitively connected, interdisciplinary, feminine whole. This woman is adopting and reinforcing a masculine-supremacist view of intelligence which encourages women to rely on externally defined “facts” and academic credentials, rather than heeding their own inner wisdom. A true feminist simply knows the cure for Alzheimer’s disease, possibly because it’s yoga. PROBLEMATIC.
Something pretty: Go feast your eyes over at Friend of Marilyn, written by friend of TLG Cat Pausé. Cat also has a review of True South: a poly fabulous fatshion show on her blog.
And something else pretty: my (Deb) new, and first ever, red shoes. I shall be slutwalking in them.
Red Shoes
Feel free to add your own links in comments, and to treat this as an open thread.
This week, I fell in love with a Guardian columnist. No, actually, not Julie Burchill. Martin Robbins. His porn panic column was a great first date, but the clincher was this column on FHM and the ‘mainstream’ view of female attractiveness. Or rather, what we’re told men find attractive in women.
(A little side-note. This post is about what men find attractive in women. I think it’s a topic worth discussing. So complaining that the topic is ‘what men find attractive in women’ will largely be a waste of time for all of us, okay? Also, yes, this post will be remarkably heterocentric. I see it, it’s okay.)
My new darling’s point was basically this:
Nobody I’ve ever seen really looks like Cheryl Cole, and that includes Cheryl Cole. Yet almost everybody in FHM’s list looks a bit like Cheryl Cole, with only minor variations allowed in age, breast size, body shape or even skin colour: it seems Beyonce marks the acceptable limit of darkness for black people.
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here’s an experiment you can try at home: go to any porn site that ranks its most popular clips, and have a look at the top 100 clips that people actually pay for – the range of outfits, body types, situations, ages and skin colours far exceeds anything you’ll find in FHM’s list. When it comes to what people find sexy, there’s a truth in porn considerably purer than the sterile, manufactured consent of glossy magazines.
Basically: what the media (in the broad sense) present to us as the range of attractive women bears absolutely no relation to what actual men find attractive. (Martin doesn’t seem to have considered that around a third of that porn is actually downloaded by women, but that’s okay. We can sort it over dinner.) And this disconnect is intensely damaging to both men and women.
It’s damaging to men because if the kind of women who turn him on physically aren’t of the accepted mainstream type, he may see his desires as aberrant and sick, or conceal them so he isn’t mocked by his peers. Who wants to be branded a “chubby chaser”?
And it’s obviously damaging to women because many (not all, this is not universal) feel pressure to try to conform to the outlines of that ‘attractive woman’. They will use up acres of time and money and potential happiness doing things to their bodies that men, generally, never even fucking notice.
So yes, I think it is well worth taking the time to point out that this Universally Attractive Woman is a lie. Men, being different, like different things. Also, during any man’s lifetime, the fashion in what’s supposedly attractive in women is going to change. His taste in women is not going to change to suit. I was at my ideal boinking age in the 90s, when heroin chic was in. None of the men I knew suddenly starting finding protruding hip-bones a real turn-on.
And that’s one of the two great tools I had for understanding that ‘more conventionally attractive’ didn’t mean ‘more attractive’. For a start, there was my bi-ness. When you find women sexually attractive, it helps you understand the breadth of female attractiveness. Yeah, I have a type, but I’ve fancied and crushed and loved outside that type many times. Why? Because of a lot of the things Girl on the Net talks about in this post: confidence, intelligence, humour, presentation.
The most important thing, though, that kept me from buying into the myths about What Men Want was having lots of male friends. Seriously, I cannot recommend this highly enough. Have a variety of men that you’re close enough to to talk about attraction, about sex, about what they like and want, and what they don’t. Eventually the realisation you come to is that men are, and I cannot emphasise this enough, no fucking different from women.
That was part of what gave me the confidence to weather the fashion for skinny over-plucked eyebrows. Now suddenly the fashion has changed. Heavy, strong brows are just obviously the sexiest. Just like they weren’t last year. My actual sexual attractiveness hasn’t changed at all.
With the exception of symmetry, which seems to have a sound biological basis, every indicator of attractiveness is simply a matter of fashion. Tall, short, plump, slim, tan, pale, hair, no hair: they’ve all been the height of “conventionally attractive” at some point. And it’s all bullshit.
When I was talking about our sex-pos utopia, I said we needed to change the way we thought about masculinity, and male sexuality. This is part of that. The myths about straight male sexuality aren’t even consistent. Either men are total horndogs who want all the sex all the time, or they’re so incredibly picky they’ll only fuck you if you’re really attractive. They can’t be both. We need more straight men talking openly and honestly about sex.
Me, I like women (and men) with really sexy brains. And I’m not the only one.
We here at TLG are massive supporters of the Slutwalk movement, and are hoping to see as many people as possible in Wellington and Christchurch on Sunday.
So, I thought we’d have a talk with one of the organisers, Maria-Jane Brodie. She is awesome. Thanks for being so generous with your time, MJ.
Why did you decide to organise another Slutwalk?
Last year’s SlutWalk was, for me personally at least, a hugely empowering experience; something that obviously struck a chord with a lot of people (I’m assuming from the turnout in both Wellington and Auckland!). And for all that we generated some fantastic discussions, we still have a very long way to go. I never wanted this to be one march and then fade into the background – the movement has to be ongoing, it has to be loud, we have to make it clear we’re not going away until the victim-blaming culture we exist in checks itself.
What impact do you think last year’s had?
It got people talking. That’s the biggest thing. For all that the media had their own agenda, for all that we got a lot of hate, it got people talking about sexual assault, about victim blaming, about the diversity of survivors, and I think that’s really important. We’ve had this cloud of shame for too long, I think.
Last year, there was criticism that the Slutwalk movement hadn’t done enough to involve women of colour, or with disabilities. Do you think that has/can be addressed?
The accessibility of the route was a massive checking of our own privilege last year; and while it wasn’t our intended route and we did have issues with the double-booking of Civic Square, the responsibility for that ultimately fell to us as organisers and it just wasn’t something we were as conscious of as we should have been. It’s certainly been in the front of everyone’s mind as we planned the route this year!
In terms of the inclusion of women of colour, it’s been a really tricky one for us. We all read the open letter to SlutWalk and took it on board; at the same time, that was written for a North American culture and context and it’s not up to me as a white woman to decide how that should be applied to New Zealand culture. With that being said, we’ve always welcomed diverse participation and organisation, we do have a woman of colour on our organising committee (as well as at least two queer women!) and we would always welcome more input on the intersectionality of SlutWalk
Has your own thinking around SlutWalk changed in the past year?
I had the privilege of speaking at SlutWalk Perth in December last year and it was fascinating to see the different approaches in organisation and focus – we had a short, sharp planning time where they had a months-long build up; they also had a much bigger focus on reclamation of the word ‘slut’ than we did. It was really interesting, for me, to see so clearly that no two SlutWalks are the same, that it’s not a homogenous group (and nor should it be). Coming off the back of the criticism levelled at SlutWalk NYC for the “Women are the n***er of the world” sign that had quickly become criticism of the SlutWalk movement as a whole, that was really interesting to witness first-hand.
I’ve had a lot of time over the last year (time I didn’t have in the lead up to SlutWalk 2011!) to read the criticisms levelled at SlutWalk – and while there are plenty I don’t agree with, there are also a lot out there that I think have some really good points that have certainly given me a lot to think about. And while ultimately my feelings on SlutWalk haven’t changed all that much, I’ve certainly been able to take on a lot of things that have given me a lot of clarity.
What do you want people to get out of the march?
Ultimately, I want people to come away with a sense of empowerment – it can be a huge thing to talk about your own experiences, to hear about other people’s, but I really think that just walking amongst a crowd of survivors and refusing to be shamed or afraid can be an incredible, enriching experience.
What advice do you have for people that might find SlutWalk triggering or confronting?
Obviously, keep yourself safe first and foremost, whatever you need to do. Wellington will also have support workers from Rape Crisis available on the day, and the organising crew have also had training in dealing with disclosures.
And finally, what are the details people need to know?
We are meeting in Te Aro Park (in Wellington) at 2pm – marching along Dixon St, down Cuba St, along Wakefield St and into Civic Square for the speeches. There will also be a forum held the Saturday following – 26th May at 2pm – at St Andrew’s on The Terrace to discuss intersectionality and inclusion within the SlutWalk movement, koha entry, which everyone is welcome to come along to!
In Christchurch: From 2pm: Shand Cresent, down Riccarton Rd, then Riccarton Ave, then Oxford Tce to the grass opposite the central police station
[Tallulah here: I know that the boner-killers are also planning a pre-walk lunch, which some of the Lady Gardeners will also be at.
Things we liked, or didn’t like, from around the internet this week.
Woman has breasts, minds blow.
The end is Naenae has a lovely piece on Emily Longley, violence, abuse, and how it is perpetuated in our society. (I – Tallulah – cried reading it, but I’m a big wuss.)
Ms Naughty blogs on recent coverage of porn issues in Australian current affairs, and how, yet again, a survey on “porn addiction” has been used to characters all porn viewers as paedophiles.
For reporter Rebecca Baillie, an 800-person survey of self-identified problem porn users can easily be applied to the entire porn-watching population. Worse still, she then went on to suggest that a compulsive use of adult porn led to an inevitable use of child abuse material.
Clarisse Thorn on removing BDSM from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Steve Braunias examines the inner workings of the mind of Colin Craig. I don’t think any of us are surprised.
Imperator Fish wonders whose brain is this, and comments on John Key’s lifestyle choices.
And a lovely piece of satire from LudditeJourno: STOP: National Party press release: Vasectomies and limited liability.
Something pretty: a postcard from Berlin, which a friend of mine (Deb’s) who is holidaying there at present sent to me. It was a delight to receive real mail, and especially such a saucy piece.
Dancing couple, by Henrich Zille
1858 – 1929
“Dreaming under trees in the springtime with a girl on your side makes worries disappear.” 1925
Feel free to add links in comments, and to treat this as an open thread for anything you want to chat about.
It’s not often that your opposition tells you exactly what you should do. Even less often it turns out to be a good idea. But, and I can’t really believe I’m saying this, John Key is right.
Yesterday he was asked his opinion on marriage equality. Turns out he doesn’t have one. He’s put as much thought and sense of personal ethics into this as he did the Springbok Tour.
He said he didn’t think there was any “clamour” for gay marriage in New Zealand and it was not on the government’s agenda, NZ Newswire reports.
Got it? No clamour. If we want marriage equality, we need to make some noise about it. And given how often this issue actually makes an impression in the media in New Zealand, we need to do it NOW.
Those in favour of same-sex marriage outnumber those opposed nearly two to one. Yet you’d never guess it from the amount of noise we make. This is our chance to make ourselves heard on an issue that, apparently, our Prime Minister has no strong views about. David Shearer and the Greens are in favour. Peter Dunne wouldn’t comment.
So let’s clamour. Make some noise. Tweet. Facebook. Say you support marriage equality in New Zealand. Use the #clamour hash-tag. Write to Key. Tweet him (@johnkeypm). Go to the marriage equality website and sign up. If you’re in Wellington, Queer the Night is tonight. Go be clamoury there.
I don’t often get hectory. But this isn’t a lot to ask. If you’re in favour of marriage equality, if you think it matters, say something. How can we expect schoolyard bullies to treat us as equals when our government doesn’t?
If you have friends or co-workers or schoolmates who are on the fence or who argue against, try sending them here: if they’ve got an argument I haven’t covered, I want to hear it.
One thing Key has admitted: there are no legitimate arguments against gay marriage. Just a lazy feckless government that doesn’t give a shit. It’s up to us to change their minds. Who else is there?
A round-up of the posts about the government’s plan to pay for some contraception for beneficiaries.
Morgan Godfery at Maui Street: Controlling Maori reproduction
Tallulah writing here at The Lady Garden: The War on Women hits New Zealand
Deborah at A Bee of a Certain Age: Making those slappers cross their legs
Deborah at A Bee of a Certain Age: This isn’t really news: doctors like controlling women too
Deborah at A Bee of a Certain Age: “Free” contraception: disingenuous or just plain nasty?
Tactical Ninja: In which the government makes me feel slightly ill
The Little Pakeha: Nat’s move to eugenics
Maia at The Hand Mirror: Problem solved
Danyl at The Dim-Post: Talkback bait
Peter Cresswell at Not PC: Is this state control of reproduction?
Anne Russell at Scoop: The War on Women, NZ edition: Beneficiaries & Contraception*
Feel free to add more in comments, and I will update the list.
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* Why yes! Anne *is* related to me.
Y’all, I have no way to express how happy this is making me. I love it when they out themselves as misogynist pricks.
Conservative Party leader Colin Craig says taxpayers should not be picking up the tab for what he says are the most promiscuous young women in the world to get free contraceptives.
(Story here. Interview, if you can stomach it here)
The conversation