Wired For Noise

Most of the moms I know are so hard working I think they all deserve spa packages, monthly body massages, and some high tech espresso machines to get them through. But being the generous and giving people that moms are, some have different ideas about what they want for the big day.

Head over to Momocrats and read all of the Dreams of A Mother posts to see what those moms are wanting instead of the typical jewelry and flowers. How about some affordable house, free health care, and immegration reform? Can you fit that in a gift box?

Tags: Mother’s Day, Momocrats

Last year Dove put out their best marketing campaign ever, promoting “real beauty” and using women that were less than the ideal image we usually see. It was a hit, gaining applause from many women who were happy to finally see women their size on TV. Well, it seems that “real beauty” was just another marketing gimic. Via the f-word:

To avoid such complaints, retouchers tend to practice semi-clandestinely. “It is known that everybody does it, but they protest,” Dangin said recently. “The people who complain about retouching are the first to say, ‘Get this thing off my arm.’ ” I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”

I guess it’s better than nothing, I mean most women in commercials don’t show any mileage, lumps, or bumps at all. And with women carrying around everything from marketing pens to make up bags proclaiming “real beauty” the campaign seemed to at least raise some self confidence among women.

Well, white women at least. I wrote this last year in June about the Dove “real beauty” campaign.

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Some days I’m really sad to be an Oklahoman. It’s not enough that we have hate-filled bigots holding public office, now we have legal rape for women who dare step out the tiny confines of sexuality allowed them.

Here’s a clue: when you stick something, anything, inside a woman’s vagina without not only her consent but without giving her the choice to not consent it is rape.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor, lawyer, gardener, or crazy hobo. It doesn’t matter if it’s a penis, handle, toy, or medical instrument. The point, which seems to be so missed on “pro-life” people is consent and choice. A woman’s body does not belong to her husband, father, politician, or president. She and she alone gets to decide what goes in, and out, or her body. Because, hey, it’s her’s.

The Oklahoma House has recently voted 80-12 in support of the Freedom of Conscious Act. This act was sold as letting pharmacists decide to get the pay without doing the job so they can look down on women with an air of moral superiority, however it also includes this fun little tidbit.  [via Alternet]

 Under the guise of obtaining informed patient consent, this new law requires doctors to withhold pregnancy termination until an ultrasound is performed. The law states that either an abdominal or vaginal ultrasound, whichever gives the best image of the fetus, must be done. Neither the patient nor the doctor can decide which type of ultrasound to use, and the patient cannot opt out of the ultrasound and still have the procedure. In effect, then, the legislature has mandated that a woman have an instrument placed in her vagina for no medical benefit. The law makes no exception for victims of rape and incest.

In case it’s not clear the law says that before a woman can even obtain consent to have an abortion she has to get an ultrasound, which ever gives the best image of the fetus. Which gives the best image in almost all cases? The vaginal ultrasound, a painful and sometimes humiliating process. Why? Why would you mandate a woman having something inserted with no medical reason? There’s a great discussion going on about it here.

Anti-choicers are willing to do anything — even make women suffer through invasive, sometimes painful procedures (as anyone who has had a vaginal ultrasound can attest, they are not pleasant) — to punish women. It’s not about “life,” and it’s not about saving babies. It is about controlling, punishing and doing harm to women who make unapproved sexual choices.

And there’s a discussion on the entire bill going on at Menstrual Poetry that you should read as well.

Tags: abortion, women, Oklahoma

I had originally written a post about breastfeeding and set it up to post this morning. Then one quick look through the news before heading off to bed. Well you know what they say about the best laid plans.My quick look turned into frustration, then calling Dearest to rant over the phone, then finally deciding I needed to vent some stream here.

Apparently there is this new children’s book called My Beautiful Mommy coming out on Mother’s day. It’s the story of a mom who decides she’s too lumpy so she gets a tummy tuck, boob job, and tosses in a nose job for good measure. The book is written by Dr. Michael Salzhauer who becomes a musclebound superhero in the story, heroically saving mom from saggy boobs and a crooked nose.

You know what, if you want to get your body redone from head to toe, that’s great. Go for it. The book still pisses me off. Why? Because it’s a pretty, pink, shiny marketing ploy to teach little girls, ages 4 - 7, that they too can be happy if they’ll only spend thousands of dollars and weeks of pain to look like this ideal image that even celebs can’t achieve without airbrushing. Oh sure, because there just aren’t enough little girls today with image and self-esteem problems.

Then there are the body image issues raised by cosmetic surgery—especially for daughters. Berger worries that kids will think their own body parts must need “fixing” too. The surgery on a nose, for example, may “convey to the child that the child’s nose, which always seemed OK, might be perceived by Mommy or by somebody as unacceptable,” she says.

Exactly. See, I’m not the only one who gets it. This isn’t about plastic surgery, it’s about marketing an unattainable beauty ideal into little girls. Unfortunately the Dr. Michael just writes people like me off as prudes.

Salzhauer knows that not everyone will like his book. “There’s a good percentage of your readers who are dead set against plastic surgery, who see it as a sign of the decadence of Western civilization,” he says

Sure, I’ll give you that plastic surgery is one of the modern decadences we worship today. So are Hummers, fast food, and satellite TV. But that’s not the point. The point is that when the mom in the story tells her daughter that her nose will look “prettier” real little girls are going to wonder if they can have prettier noses, if they should have prettier noses, if they need prettier noses. Then that leads to 12 year old girls getting boob jobs. Oh, think I’m exaggerating? Guess again.

The daughter of glamour model and tell-all phenom Alicia Douvall wants mom to buy her a boob job. Mom intends to oblige. The kicker? Daughter Georgia is not yet thirteen.

True most of the daughters are not going to be running out for their first set of boobs right away. But the seed is being planted, and it quickly grows into the “if only” tree. Everyone woman knows this. “If only I was thinner…” “If only I had larger breasts…” “If only my nose were smaller..” Then what? You’ll be happier/get a better job/ he’ll love you more/ etc…

That it’s aimed at kids ages 4-7 doesn’t surprise me at all. After all, big companies market padded bras to little girls who aren’t even close to having breasts yet. Oh sure, it’s made to “cover up” what isn’t there by making them appear bigger. But hey, it isn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last either.

If you need to cover up a six years-olds’ non-breasts in order to feel like she’s being “discreet ,” there’s something wrong with the way you look at six year-old girls.

And don’t even get me started on the regular clothes I’ve seen in stores for little girls to wear. For every cute “Oh I wish I had a daughter” outfit I see there are a dozen more “OMG who would put their baby in that?” outfits hanging on the rack. Little girls should not be dressed like they’re going out to the club, in their little padded bras, and dreaming about getting a prettier nose someday.

Maybe I am just a prude after all.

Tags: life, parenting, daughters, girls, sexism, beauty standards, plastic surgery, My Beautiful Mommy

Can childbirth be orgasmic? That’s the topic of discussion I’ve had lately. It started when I learned about the movie Orgasmic Birth and shared it. Then a conversation on Twitter reminded me of a book I read a few years ago that I loved called Sex, Time, and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain. It was the first time I had heard of orgasms and childbirth being related.

According to Shlain a woman’s body is designed so that as the baby is born the right buttons get pushed. The endorphin rush provides a natural pain relief that helps women make it through and be willing to do it again.

Let us consider why it would have been very beneficial to the survival of the human species for a woman in the throes of childbirth to experience an orgasm. Or, in unable to attain this extreme height, she would have, at the minimum, neurotransmitters tickling her brain’s synapses, diverting her attention away from the painful crushing occurring between her legs. How convenient for Natural Selection to arrange to have an internal morphine pump alleviating the pain of childbirth. The switch for it, abutting the back side of the pubic bone, would be indented “on” only when heavy pressure was applied - the kind of pressure that could happen routinely during birth, or in odd positions during sex. In a few women, the pump releases other psychoactive substances that can stimulate a woman to orgasm. [pg. 81]

He goes on to liken the experience to breastfeeding which can be extremely painful in the first days/weeks and yet the brain releases oxytocin, the love hormone, to make a mother fall in love with her baby and be willing to continue feeding the child. In a time when she couldn’t whip up a bottle of formula it was extremely important that a mother want to feed her baby. The loving, relaxing, calming sensations that wash over a mother when she breastfeed encourage her to keep doing it. Shlain feels the same about childbirth.

I propose that the human female orgasm was an evolutionary prize awarded to women because Gyna sapians became the first females to learn of copulation’s onerous and even deadly prize. [pg.82]

If you visit the orgasmic childbirth section of the Born Free site you can read quotes from women who have experienced orgasm during the childbirth. Some the type of orgasm you would expect during birth and some a more “becoming one with the universe” type of orgasm. You can also read an interview with Debra Pascali-Bonaro, the creator the Orgasmic Birth film.

Tags: orgasm, childbirth, orgasmic childbirth, natural childbirth

I’m a woman and I’m poor.

Together that often leads to a double dose of being shit on. In politics, in society, in most people’s ideas being a porn woman means I’m about 75% worthless. But, being a WHITE poor woman is a walk in the park compared to being a poor woman with any kind of color to her skin. Because no matter how much we are both smashed down, there’s always someone willing to offer a carrot to me that they would never offer to someone in the same position with less than perfect European heritage.

And it is disgusting. And yet, so many buy into it, thinking that little carrot is the ticket to the golden gates. It ain’t, but it keep them hoping. Isabel Allende said in her speech Tales of Passion that the only thing that truly trickles down is abuse. No matter how poor a man is there is always someone under him to abuse, most often a woman or a child. Unfortunately even among the poorest of the poor there is a trickle down onto people of color. Even if the only thing that keeps them below you on the ladder is your assumption that they are below you.

It’s called white privilege, Tim Wise explains how it got here.

Tags: race, racism, white privilege, Tim Wise

My news feed last night brought me an article about a woman named Leslee Unruh who was fighting to make abortion illegal. To, you know, save the babies.

One fundamental flaw in things such as this is this idea that some have about their own power. An idea that seems to dictate that if they just say “no, you can’t” you will immediately stop. Heh. I can’t get my toddler to stop peeing on the cat and they think passing a law that turns women into walking wombs for the state will make them stop having abortions?

Making abortion illegal does not stop it.

Figures show that 10,000 women die every year in Nigeria from unsafe abortions, carried out by untrained people in unsanitary conditions.

That is 27 deaths every day. [link]

Did you catch that? Here, let me try again. Making abortion illegal does nothing to stop it.

In Peru alone, an estimated 50,000 women a year either die or suffer serious complications after an illegal abortion. [link]

No, still not sure? How about this. Making abortion illegal does not stop it, does nothing to affect the circumstances surrounding abortion, and conveniently overlooks that some of those clumps of cells they are fighting so hard to save will, in fact, grow up to be the very women they hate.

“Pro-life” Where life means a clump of cells floating in someone’s body, yet a fully formed human being doesn’t count if it has a uterus. I feel a Friday Feminist Fuck You coming on, if only I had a webcam.

Tags: abortion, pro-life, pro-choice, women, politics