FYI Congressman West: us feminists have no interest in neutering your gender.

Sometimes I hear politicians say things, and I wonder how anyone can actually believe the shit that comes out of their mouths. I realize this video is from April, but I just saw it for the first time last weekend at the NOW National Conference and I had to respond.

In this video, Congressmen Allen West (R-FL) urges his female supporters to come together to tell the “Planned Parenthood Women” and “Code Pink Women who have been neutering American men”, that the Women for West are “not going to have their men become subservient”. He tells them that if they don’t come together to stop the Liberal Women that the “debt will continue to grow”. I swear I’m not making this up, have a look for yourself:

 

 

First, he makes these wild accusations, bashing “liberal women” for neutering men then turns right back around and calls on “his” women to “lock shields and come together to strengthen the men that will go in to the fight” for them. Wow – great game strategy Mr. West – what a way to enabling that “mean girl” mentality and pit women against other women.

And what is this 1910? Why are us women supposed to just sit around in our “Women for West” t-shirts, strengthening up the men so they can “go in to the fight” for us? Frankly, I don’t want you anywhere near my fight with that kind of attitude.

When I posted this link on facebook, a friend of mine, Hugo Schwyzer – an amazing feminst, women’s studies professor, and blogger (definitely check out his site) – commented this:

“How the hell do I still have my balls after all these years as a male feminist? **checks scrotum** **checks politics**”

We need more men like him in this world. He reassuringly said, “men like him are a dying breed, just taking a long time to go extinct.”

Obviously, Congressmen Allen West knows nothing about feminists and the feminist movement. The very last thing we want to do is to neuter men. I don’t want my men to be subservient, but I don’t want them to be dominant either. I want my men to stand with me – next to me – by my side as my equal.

I’ve got news for you Mr. West – real men don’t have to denigrate women in order to make themselves look better or to win elections.

Since When Are Pedophile Rape Jokes Funny?

I ref men’s league hockey games at a few of the nearby rinks. I’ve heard some pretty shitty stuff on the ice. Everything from insulting me because I’m a female official – to sexist jokes about players skills on the ice. Last night what I heard was, by far, the worst, most disturbing and disgusting thing I’ve ever heard – not just while officiating either. It pretty much takes the cake for one of the sickest comments ever.

This guy (who’s lucky that I don’t know his name and that he can only be identified by his jersey that read HPPB in bright pink letters. He told me it stood for Hot Pink Panda Bears) skates over to the bench in between plays. Behind their bench were two little girls, one maybe 6 the other about 10. The younger one was sleeping in the bleachers, wrapped up from head to toe in a blanket. I said to the guys on the bench, “Well, someone’s kids are out past their bedtime!” It was an 11:15pm game.

The guy in the HPPB jersey says, “Oh those are my kids.”

He was really young – like maybe 25 so I replied, “No they’re not – are they really?”

He says, “Yea, I have 6 kids.” I don’t believe him, and he offers to show me pictures.

Now I can tell he’s full of shit and making all this up cause him and his teammates are all starting to giggle like little boys. I jokingly said to him, “Haven’t you heard of birth control?” At this point, play was going the other direction so I had to skate away.

He waits till the next face-off and skates over to tell me this story. This is where it goes from funny to sick REAL fast.

He goes, “Let me tell you what happened. So, I took my 7 year old daughter to the doctor. Everything was great – the doctor said she was fine. And I asked him, ‘Hey doc, do you think I can get her some birth control?’ and the doctor said ‘What?! For you daughter? She’s only 7 years old, you mean to tell me she’s already sexually active?’ and I looked at the doctor and said, ‘No way, are you kidding? She just lays there . . . just like her mother does.'”

I had absolutely NO idea what to say to him. I think what came out of my mouth was something like, “Your fucking sick. I should give you a penalty just for telling that joke.” (Which was a totally lame response, but come on I was shocked.)

He actively sought me out, half way across the ice, to come tell me a sick joke about him having sex with his 7 year old daughter. He honestly thought I would think it was funny!

I do have to give the guys on his team credit though, the ones that heard him tell it all made remarks about how they thought it was sick. A few minutes later in the game my partner called a penalty on him and as I skated by him in the box I told him it was karma for telling sick pedophile rape jokes. Then I told him he needed to change the HPPB on his jersey to HPDB for douche-bag.

I guess maybe I’m less offended by sexist or racist jokes, because we hear them so much more often. And I guess I should be just as offended by those too. But what could possibly make ANYONE think a joke about having sex with your 7 year old daughter is even the slightest bit funny. I don’t understand that.

He told that joke to the wrong feminist . . .

Turning Women into Meat . . . Literally

I realize that this HUSTLER cover is really outdated (June 1978), but I think it’s important to talk about. This was the cover of a HUSTLER magazine form 32 years ago. Yet, I still feel like it’s relevant to how women are viewed in the gentleman’s magazines of today.

Yesterday started reading the book Pornland: How porn has hijacked our sexuality. So far I’m loving the book! I’ll be sure to post some updates about it!

Any thoughts on this image? 

When we Said we Wanted Equality, we Didn’t Mean This

I swear this is the real image from the Man Spanx home page!

 

My boyfriend and I were at a men’s dress clothing store today called The Shirt Box. While he was trying on clothes, I was browsing around the store and I couldn’t believe what I saw on one of the shelves. Mixed in with the bow ties, tie pins, and cuff links were . . . . SPANX FOR MEN!! I was shocked when I saw them.! I might have believed they were a product that sat on the shelf for a long time that men just laughed at, but As I was having this conversation with myself, trying to comprehend the tragic-ness of the situation, I realized that a man in the store was trying the man Spanx on!

The Spanx website features undershirts and underwear for men with the catch phrase,

“Expect more from your underwear!”

The website claims, “These physique-improving, game-changing undershirts feature powerful compression zones that comfortably transform the torso and chest! He’ll look sharper, stand taller and feel stronger in his clothes!” Another style claims, “These chest-firming, back-supporting shirts will narrow his waist line, flatten his stomach and leave him looking and feeling his best!” Because we all know your true self is never your best, right? This is the same bullshit that these companies have been feeding women for years!

We have been fighting the toxic body culture that we (mostly women) live in for years. We have been fighting for equal rights with men for so long. But, when we said we wanted equality, we didn’t mean we wanted men to hate their bodies as much as we do! How sad. There can’t be much hope for women if the toxic body-hate is spilling over to the male gender too.

From Seed magazine:

Every bit as unattainable as Barbie-doll proportions and the heroin chic look are the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, fat-free, and muscle-sheathed male physiques littering today’s media.

Men in advertising and media are no long hairy, sweaty men who don’t care what they look like. They are now shaved, buff, fat free dudes who put a lot of thought in to their appearance. I don’t have too much expertise on this subject, but I sense that this is creating some sort of conflict in the male world. Our culture is telling men to be “men,” but at the same time the media is teaching them to hate their bodies. I feel like these are two very conflicting messages.

Seed Magazine says:

Whether “real-body” discomfort in men is truly new or something that’s only now being noticed is impossible to say, but sociologists and psychologists say that images of hairless, sweatless, pseudo-perfect men are more common than ever before.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, there are about 1 million men with serious eating disorders and tens of millions who have some form of eating disorders.

Again, this is sad. Not only do we have to worry about protecting our young girls from the body-hate culture, but now we also have to protect our boys.