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Christian school fires pregnant teacher for having premarital sex, then offers a job to the man who got her pregnant

(TODAY) - In October, Teri James says her supervisor at San Diego Christian College called her to her office and got straight to the point: Was James pregnant?

James, 29, of El Cajon, Calif., was indeed pregnant – and she was also unmarried, a violation of school rules, according to the lawsuit she filed in San Diego County superior court. She says she was fired because, as the termination letter included in the suit stated: “Teri engaged in activity outside the scope of the Handbook and Community Covenant that does not build up the college’s mission.”

Speaking by phone with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, James said she felt humiliated. 

“I had to leave right after the meeting. I had to go into the office with all of my co-workers and say I’m leaving,” James said. “I never came back so I don’t know what my co-workers thought, but for me, it was humiliating. I felt like I was in trouble.” 

Also insulting, James said, was that after firing her, the school offered a job to her then-fiancé – they are now married – even though it was known that he, too, engaged in premarital sex. He did not accept the job, she said. 

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Wow.

Double standard much?

It’s no accident GOP candidates can’t stop talking about rape: the party view is women are mere vessels subject to men’s will

by Jill Filipovic | The Guardian

Dear GOP candidates and party members,

I’m going to give you some free campaign advice: stop talking about rape.

The latest Republican rape commentary comes from Romney-endorsedIndiana senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock, who tells us:

“I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Cue outrage, then cue “apology” from Mourdock – not for his comments, but for “any interpretation other than what I intended”. National Republican senatorial committee chairman John Cornyn voiced his support for Mourdock and added that he also believes “life is a gift from God.”

I would hate for Mr Mourdock to think I’m misinterpreting him here, so let’s be clear about what he said: he did not say that rape is a gift from God. He did say that an unwanted pregnancy is a post-rape goodie bag from the Lord. And that the Lord intended it to happen that way.

Perhaps God should rethink his delivery system. And perhaps Mourdock should rethink his interpretation of divine will.

What this umpteenth rape comment tells us isn’t that the Republican party has a handful of unhinged members who sometimes flub their talking points. It reveals the real agendas and beliefs of the GOP as a whole.

These incidents aren’t isolated, and they aren’t rare. Sharron Angle, who ran for a US Senate seat out of Nevada, said she would tell a young girl wanting an abortion after being raped and impregnated by her father that “two wrongs don’t make a right” and that she should make a “lemon situation into lemonade”. Todd Akin said victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant – an especially confusing talking point, if God is giving rape victims the gift of pregnancy. Maybe God only gives that gift to victims of illegitimate rape?

Wisconsin state representative Roger Rivard asserted:

“Some girls rape easy.”

Douglas Henry, a Tennessee state senator, told his colleagues:

“Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse.”

Republican activist Phyllis Schlafly declared that marital rape doesn’t exist, because when you get married you sign up to be sexually available to your husband at all times. And when asked a few years back about what kind of rape victim should be allowed to have an abortion, South Dakota Republican Bill Napoli answered:

“A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”

Rape lemonade. Legitimate rape. The sodomized virgin exception. A rape gift from God.

Some Republicans, like Mitt Romney, have tried to distance themselves from their party’s rhetorical obsession with sexual violation. What they’re hoping we won’t notice is the fact that their party is politically committed to sexual violation.

Opposition to abortion in all cases – rape, incest, even to save the pregnant woman’s life or health – is written into the Republican party platform. Realizing they can’t make abortion illegal overnight, conservatives instead rally around smaller initiatives like mandatory waiting periods, transvaginal ultrasounds and mandated lectures about “life” to make abortion as expensive, difficult and humiliating as possible.

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Conservative Media Attacks Debate Question On Pay Equity as a “Feminazi” Lie, Calls Questioner a “Tool”

Conservative author Matthew Vadum attacked the premise of the question as a “feminazi leftist lie.”

Jim Geraghty of National Review wrote: “Oh bulls*** Katherine Fenton is an uncommitted voter.”

Michelle Malkin complained that the question was a “softball” and described the questioner as a “ladyparts tool.”

Fox’s Greg Gutfeld insinuated that the questioner was a plant, and described the question as a “‘Sandra Fluke’ intermission.” He later added, “I haven’t seen a man grovel before women since The Bachelorette.”

Conservative media has regularly downplayed disparities in pay equity and summarily dismissed concerns about the very real problem.

source

Romney’s Latest Political Ad Is All Sorts Of Racist

During a campaign speech, Reagan invented the “Welfare Queen” trope, a vivid image with no basis in reality:

“She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”

While Reagan never expressly saying that this “welfare queen” was African American, Lebanon Valley College Professor John Hinshaw said he didn’t have to. ”The Welfare Queen driving a pink Cadillac to cash her welfare checks at the liquor store fits a narrative that many white, working-class Americans had about inner-city blacks,” Hinshaw says. “It doesn’t matter if the story was fabricated, it fit the narrative, and so it felt true, and it didn’t need to be verified.”

The GOP wanted to build a base of support from the failed public opposition to anti-segregation laws – and it worked. Anyone who was upset that Black people could vote, could serve in the military, and that drinking fountains and businesses were no longer segregated could continue harboring their racial sentiments behind the banner of welfare fraud. It worked so well, in fact, that Americans were still blaming their economic woes on “welfare queens” as President H. W. Bush bailed out the Savings and Loan industry, costing taxpayers a total of$124 billionby 1999.

“This image of the lazy African-American woman who refuses to get a job and keeps having kids is pretty enduring,” says Kaaryn Gustafson, the author of Cheating Welfare. “It’s always been a good way to distract the public from any meaningful conversations about poverty and inequality.”

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(Source: stfusexists, via cijithgeek-deactivated20121104)

Piling on, male GOP Michigan Representative says two silenced female Democrat legislators were like children in “time out”; one said “vagina” and another said “vasectomy” when they spoke out against a restrictive abortion bill

Two female legislators in Michigan can’t catch a break. First, the women were banned from the floor for trying to speak out against the worst abortion measures in the country and using the word “vagina” to discuss the bill. Then, the spokesman for the GOP House majority leader said the women were having “temper tantrums” over the bill.

Now, in the latest sexist move on the part of the Michigan Republicans, state Rep. Wayne Schmidt (R) compared the two women to children, saying that they were given a “time out” for misbehaving:

You know, as I said to someone up north here, it’s like giving the kid a time out for a day. Hey, time out, you went a comment too far, you spoke your piece, we’re gonna let these other people have their dissenting comments, and then we’ll get back to business. But unfortunately, business has become a sideshow.

Progressives are pushing back against this sexism. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a petition demanding an apology from Michigan’s Republican legislature. The petition so far has garnered nearly 36,000 signatures.

audio at the source

You know what this sounds like to me? It sounds like these representatives are punishing these women for speaking up.

What year is this again?

gravityandstuff asked: Englisch is not my first language and I have to admit, that I don’t get a) the joke PETA is trying to pull (hooker = whore = fishing boat? Is it that way?) and b) what upsets you about it (and PETA on general). I’m sorry, I’m probably just terribly stupid, but would you mind explaining it? :)

thisgingersnapsback:

Oh hun! You’re not stupid at all, please don’t say that! <3

The pun they’re trying to pull is on the word “hook,” as in, using a hook to fish with. They’re making “hook” into “hookers.” Also, they could possibly be talking about the one-masted sailboat specifically used for fishing, known as a “hooker”—but the wordplay is still relevant.

This is wrong on many different levels. For starters, they’re equating what they believe to be very, very wrong (fishing) to women who enjoy sex, or sex workers, thereby saying that sex work/women who enjoy sex are equally as bad. Which is completely false—even if you believe fishing to be a terrible crime, what someone chooses to do with their bodies is completely up to them, and to equate it to something you believe is wrong… that’s not cool.

Plus, “hooker” is a pretty derogatory term to call a sex worker, in my opinion, and in the opinions of sex workers I’ve seen talk on the matter. Some might reclaim the word, some might not—regardless, it’s not an okay word to use in a derogatory or negative fashion.

This advert perpetuates the concept that sex work is bad, and, it’s not. And this isn’t the first time PETA has been offensive or fucked up.

In this advert, they compare the “Octomom” to a cat in heat. This ad compares dog breeding to Hitler. This one claims that going vegetarian can make you lose weight! …which is not only fat-shaming (not the first time they’ve pulled this shit) but also completely inaccurate. There are PLENTY of unhealthy veg*n foods, and veg*n does not = healthy for everyone, and neither does thin. 

They dressed up as the KKK to hand out fliers at the Westminster Dog Show, the point of which is still kind of flaky.

Let’s not forget the blatant sexist advertising they use—and while not all the women in their advertisements are white, when you see a WoC, it’s comparing her to “exotic” animals.

PETA has compared eating meat to slavery, asking, “Are Animals the New Slaves?” And when confronted by “Dr. James Cameron, founder of the Black Holocause Museum, had this to say about the “Are Animals the New Slaves?” campaign:

“They may have treated us like animals back then, but there is no way we should be compared to animals today,” he said. “You cannot compare the suffering of human beings or the suffering that I experienced to the suffering of an animal.”

PETA responded by saying: “Generally speaking, mustn’t rhinos think that rhino suffering is more important than vervet monkey suffering and vervet monkeys think that their suffering is more important than songbird suffering?”“

[Text above is a direct quote.]

When not using women in sexist campaigns for their bodies, PETA compares killing animals to violence against women. Before you watch this, if you decide to, understand that it’s highly disturbing, and certainly doesn’t get the “What if you were killed for your coat?” message across. No, it’s just a man running up and beating a woman to death while the crowd continues to walk along without noticing—incredibly low, considering the attitudes surrounding domestic violence. Here’s the link to the video if you still want to watch it.

And of course, there’s the ever-so-popular comparison of how we treat animals to the Holocaust.

The website Peta Kills Animals has overwhelming evidence of just how awful and hypocritical of an organization they truly are. Admittedly, PKA is a website that is supported by the meat industry, but their sources of information are not biased—they come directly from the Virginia Department of Agriculture. PETA has been known to kill more animals than it, in fact, saves—including highly adoptable kittens that had nothing more wrong with them than a common cold. Their “emergency shelters” do not meet even PETA’s own standards for an acceptable shelter, often times leaving animals in incredibly cruel environments. They practice euthanasia, and killed roughly 95% of the adoptable dogs and cats in its care during 2011.

PETA is not the animal-loving organization that supporters wish it to be. It is disgusting, and it’s “shock value” is honestly worthless when it’s riddled with sexism, racism, lies and cruelty.

Short and to the point:

Fuck PETA.

Reblogging without comment because it’s perfect.

(via glittertitties-deactivated20130)

Could we all stop fighting over “who has it worse” and instead focus on how gender inequalities suck and are the product of systemic patriarchy?

sonic-hip-attack:

permutationofninjas:

sonic-hip-attack:

Those MRA statistics that have been floating around, true or false, are overwhelmingly the result of the same system that causes the things we feminists have been fighting against.

There are multiple ways to skew data to show what you want to show. The point is not who gets raped more or who wins custody cases. The point is that rape victims are seen as weak and slutty (or if in prison, deserving because they are dehumanized in the eyes of the law). The point is that society says women are the only nurturers and that men are the powerful (and therefore also the violent, see the murder/assault stats).

These are problems.

I’m sick of screaming back and forth about misogyny and misandry. That’s not the point. As they are defined (not arguing the existence), they’re both the result of a poisoned well that ALL OF US grow up in. Men ARE put in shitty situations because of gender expectations the patriarchy presents. Women are socialized to fear men by society, and taught to resent men by the fight for equality. They’re also limited in almost every area on a macro scale simply for being women, which is not the case for men, though we can find a few areas where similar patterns of discrimination exist (homophobia, custody, some lesser careers). The point is just this: The current system sucks for everyone. That’s why I’m a feminist.

If you dont like being told what you can and can’t do based on your gender identity, you’re a feminist. If you just want to “win” the “who has it worse” game, get the fuck off my Internet.

MRA’s don’t care about gender equality. Statistics wars don’t solve any of the problems. It just proves someone knows how to data mine in SPSS and also how to derail arguments and silence the concerns of others that they deem insignificant.

Sick of it.

Look, the problem is that most feminists are of the opinion that oppression is simply something that doesn’t happen to men, and that misogyny exists while misandry doesn’t.  Those statistics are not a way of saying “men have it worse,” they’re a way of saying “no fucking way are you going to pretend that men aren’t being hurt too”.  You talk about derailing arguments and silencing the concerns of others, but nine times out of ten I see those things coming from so-called “feminists”….not MRAs.

Many feminists see it as “derailing” when they start discussing rape (purely in terms of women, naturally) and an MRA speaks up and says “hey, we can’t forget that evidence shows men make up between 1/4 and 1/2 of all rape victims outside of prison, or forget the quarter-million male rapes in prison every year.”  That’s not derailing, because the MRA isn’t saying “fuck the women, we need to talk about the men,” but rather “you’re only talking about the women, and we need to talk about the women and the men.”  Which is more erasing, the MRA asking to talk about all the victims….or the feminists ignoring half of them to begin with?

Nor is it “silencing” to point out that a conclusion simply doesn’t match the facts.  Virtually every economist to examine the “wage gap,” for example, has concluded that it basically comes down to the individual choices of men and women working in the aggregate, and that while the socialization leading to those choices could be targeted men and women simply aren’t being paid differently for doing the exact same job with the exact same experience and other criteria.  It’s not erasing, silencing or derailing to point out that the consensus by experts in the field is that what someone is saying is wrong and why.  ”Shut up about rape” is not okay, but “we know that the 1 in 4 figure is inaccurate for the following reasons” is a different matter.

The problem is that 90% of “feminists” don’t believe that the system sucks for everyone; they believe that it sucks for women, and that it’s men’s fault.  If we define a “feminist” as someone who fights for gender equality (honestly, and without making shit up), then the vast majority of the movement doesn’t qualify.

There are MRA’s and feminists on Tumblr who engage in these behaviors. It’s not fair for you to assert that “90%” of feminists are erasing and silencing men and ignoring their struggles, but that all men on Tumblr who care about sexism and the patriarchy and its effect on men have no desire whatsoever to silence women and bring the spotlight back onto them and them alone.  I trust that you are not one of those people, but they do exist, and they ARE vocal on the internet, just like the women you speak of.

I do not accept the assertion, either, that feminists are out to blame men for the problems women face.  It’s more that we feel we are entitled to blame men who continue to indulge in the advantages granted to them simply for being born male, while doing nothing to decrease the inequality between the sexes.  It’s a fine distinction.  I don’t blame the men of today for historical patriarchy and sexist socialization, but I do blame them for perpetuating it.  Similar to racism, you know?

The statistics posts I was referring to all did erase the complaints of women by saying men have it worse in THESE contexts, which insinuated that those contexts where clearly the “correct” ones to view the issues through.  Men and women can’t both be the primary victims of rape, for example.  But we can slice up the statistics and see where the crime tends to happen and then we can get into arguments about the “worst” kinds really are, and I just can’t stomach that.  It’s self-defeating.

My point is that statistics are all well and good, and they should be sobering for all sides.  But instead, they’re just becoming a back and forth tug-o-war over who the rope of patriarchy is hanging the worst. There are plenty of men on Tumblr engaging in erasure and silencing, and there are plenty of women who are pulling out the satirical WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ gifs, and I just discovered today that I’m really not comfortable with those.

I apologize for my use of them in the past, but I’ve come to a place where I honestly do believe that this is an open issue for everyone to feel free to air the grievances that the patriarchy has placed on them.  WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ is a heartless thing to say.  I do understand that there are men who pull it out in a nasty attempt to shut women up and get the attention, but for every man doing that there is a gay man being bullied for his sexuality, a man who was emotionally and physically abused as a child for showing emotions, a man who will learn to hurt his family because tenderness is not allowed, a man who will feel depressed and turn to drugs and alcohol because men are not allowed to seek help from a counselor or show weakness ever, a transman who will not be accepted due to his past, and a transwoman who will never be trusted because of hers.

Sexism and the patriarchy and feminism is similar to racism in that systemic oppression occurs, but it’s not as clear-cut.  The consequences affect a lot of people a lot of different ways.  In racism, white people come out on top in basically every arena, with no burden to speak of in being white.  In sexism, assumptions are made of men that are not made of women, and it cuts both.  

Men do have advantages, and women do have disadvantages.  The socialization that occurs is largely at fault, and both sexes do a lot of things to perpetuate it, but there is still systemic POWER granted to men for being male.  The power comes with responsibilities that a man did not ask for and may not have earned (giant radioactive spider of patriarchy strikes again), but there is still power.  Women do not have that power.  If you believe we do based on statistics that say we win custody battles and that we are less likely to be victims of assault, I don’t think we have a shared definition of power.  

A lot of the statistics that show men are more likely to be harmed, that women can win custody, that women can make up claims about paternities and rape cases and win because the courts will side with us?  Those are symptoms of Benevolent Sexism, the belief that women are dainty and beautiful and precious little flowers who deserve pity and assistance because they’re the fairer sex.  That’s not okay.  There should be no fairer sex.

I hope that made some sense.  Thanks for the discussion, and feel free to write back.  I just hope you can cut down on the generalizations some?

“giant radioactive spider of patriarchy”

sonic-hip-attack, you are awesome!!!