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The Fucking Patriarchy, Part 3
Well, I’m clearly coming down with a cold, so I’m going to try to make this quick today.
What do you call someone who isn’t interested in a long term relationship, but just wants to swing free and have casual sex? Does your answer change with the sex of the person in question? These aren’t just rhetorical questions, it’s easy to accept things like this as normal and never really think about it, never even notice the double standard.
What’s with health insurance that covers viagra but not birth control? Or vasectomies any time, but tubal ligation only if the woman has at least three children? Why is sexual autonomy simply assumed for men, but women have to fight for it?
The only answer I’ve found so far is the base assumption of the fucking patriarchy, that women are inferior. Their desires simply aren’t as important. Controlling whether you get pregnant or not isn’t as vital as getting a good hard erection. As for sterilization, well, a man knows his own mind and can make his own decisions, but women clearly can’t be trusted with important choices like this.
Back in August there was debate going on about women’s health services being covered by insurance companies. (I think the actual issue was making coverage a legal requirement, but I don’t remember and I’m sneezing too much to look it up.) The GOP was heavily opposed, especially to covering birth control. The arguments they presented were bizarre, suggesting that broad access to birth control would threaten extinction. Leaving aside the insanity of such claims, why is it even a debate whether health insurance covers women’s health? Did they have a similar argument over health services specific to men? I must have missed that one.
Starting to feel pretty miserable, so I’m off to take some cold medicine and get some tea and soup. More tomorrow.
The Fucking Patriarchy, Part 2
(While I was writing this, Mississippi’s election results came in. Prop 26, the “personhood” amendment was defeated 57/43. Scary it was that close, really, but sanity won this time.)
Hello, and welcome to Day 2 of Fucking Patriarchy Week. Today’s installment will focus on some of the various ways the fucking patriarchy disenfranchises, trivializes, isolates, manipulates, and even dehumanizes women. My standard disclaimer applies, while this is all as accurate as I could make it, you shouldn’t assume that I know what I’m talking about.
Probably the core idea on which the entire fucking patriarchy is based is that women are inferior to men. This can express itself in variety of ways: Maybe that men are stronger, smarter, and generally more capable then inferior women. Perhaps that women are as capable as men, but God placed men above women in the cosmic hierarchy. Or maybe it’s simply declared without explanation that “bitches ain’t shit”. The general idea is always the same, though: women are inferior at best. Read the rest of this entry
The Fucking Patriarchy, Part 1
Thanks to several blog posts and at least one anecdote that I’ve encountered recently I’ve decided to to dedicate a series of posts this week to the fucking patriarchy. Like all of my writing, I’ve done some basic research but one shouldn’t assume that I know what I’m talking about. I’m going to be discussing this more or less from the ground up, partly to make things clear to anyone who’s not familiar with the basics, partly to squeeze more posts for the post-a-day challenge, and partly for my own education. This is also going to be a lot more vulgar than usual, because somehow that takes the edge off a bit.
So welcome to Fucking Patriarchy Week. I’ll try to get through this with as little alcohol as possible. Read the rest of this entry
The Adventures of Leo Tarvi 