Grow Up! "Vagina" is not a "bad" word!

Unbelievable.  Michigan House Republicans  "prohibited state Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking on the floor Thursday after she ended a speech Wednesday against a bill restricting abortions by referencing her female anatomy." She used the word vagina.

What? Is the Michigan House full of middle-schoolers who snicker at words that refer to female anatomy?

See the story here: "Lawmaker Barred from Speaking Over 'Vagina' Comment," Detroit News, 14 June 2012, reported by Chad Livengood.

And you can listen to her words here: "Rep. Lisa Brown speaks out against House attack on women's health."

More here:  from the Detroit Free Press

I'm getting really tired of these Neanderthal attitudes towards women's bodies.

Ten-Year-Old "Consents" to Rape?!

I haven't posted lately because I've been busy with projects and because I've been rather dispirited over the news. Nothing seems to change. The Democrats are in the majority in the House and Senate, yet they seem to be only weakly challenging the administration. There are a few lone voices--voices we've heard all along--but the Democratic leadership capitulates too easily to the fear of being negatively branded by Republican propagandists sometime in the future: fear of being called unpatriotic or weak on terror or [fill in the blank]. . . .

But more on that in the future.

Having earlier posted on the horror of Saudi Arabian attitudes toward women who are raped, I would be remiss if I didn't bring to your attention two recent news items that I found through Broadsheet, stories that remind me all too vividly that sexual oppression and hateful, violent attitudes toward women are not limited to one culture. I hate to sound like a throw-back to the 70s, but, by god, are we progressing at all in our attitudes toward women? The first article is about a rape case in Australia: a ten-year-old girl was gang-raped, and the judge in the case did not send the perpetrators to jail because the girl "probably consented" to the rape. What ten-year-old consents to rape?

The second story is of a young woman from Houston, Texas, who was gang-raped by her colleagues in Baghdad, all of whom worked for Halliburton/KBR. After complaining about the rapes, she was kept under guard in a shipping container. After a sympathetic guard loaned her a cell phone, the woman called her father, who contacted the State Department. People were then sent to release her from the shipping container. Since then Halliburton/KBR and the State Department have worked to cover up the case, evidently. According to what the young woman told ABC News, Army doctors examined her and found evidence of rape--anally and vaginally--but--surprise!--the rape kit disappeared after being turned over to KBR security.

Ah, the vanishing rape kit act! In the 1980s, one of my aunts was raped in Dayton, Texas, and Liberty County officials lost her rape kit, too--very conveniently as they were accusing her of making up her story of her attack. When her experience became locally public, several women called her to describe similar experiences they had had with Dayton and Liberty County police.

Just as I was counting my blessings as a woman that I didn't live in an oppressive culture that holds women guilty for being raped, I am reminded that not too far beneath the surface, similar attitudes lurk in my own culture. When are we going to win this war?

Is That Sexism? You Bet!

Now, I hadn't decided which candidate I hoped would be the Democratic nominee for president. I like the front-runners for different reasons. John Edwards supports women's rights, he understands the needs of the poor, and he has a strong, smart wife whom I admire. Barack Obama is a fresh (minority!) face, with good ideas, a smooth presentation, and a strong, smart wife whom I admire. Hillary Clinton is tough and smart, but I've been concerned about her vote for supporting President Bush in the Iraq war and about her inside-the-beltway connections that seem a little too cozy.

However, the "how do we beat the bitch" question posed to John McCain by a white-haired woman has fired me up. A woman runs for president in the United States, and she's called a "bitch." And John McCain doesn't flinch from the language--using it, instead, to raise a lot of money for his campaign. Then Clinton gets tossed that "diamonds or pearls" question. !!!?

My mind is now made up. It's way past time that the United States had a woman president. I mean, good god, Chile has a woman president; Argentina just elected a woman president; Germany has a woman president--among others. Hillary Clinton for President!

WHY are more Americans hostile toward Christianity?

Three articles in the LA Times connected serendipitously for me today. I began with a post on Broadsheet, where Carol Lloyd discussed an article about a homemaking major offered at Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Only women are allowed to take these homemaking classes which are preparing women, according to seminary president Paige Patterson, to become home schoolers. Then, while perusing the online newspaper, I came across an article about Ann Coulter, who said in a recent interview on television that her ideal of a country would be one in which everyone is Christian. Her host, who is Jewish, protested. Coulter added that she believed that Jews could be"'perfected through conversion to Christianity," implying, of course, that Judaism is inferior to Christianity.

Finally, I noted an article on a poll that indicates changing attitudes toward American Christianity. The pollsters noted that while a decade ago "an overwhelming majority" of non-Christians, including those aged 16-29, had favorable perceptions of Christianity's role in society, those perceptions are today much more negative in this age group. Just 16% of the people in that age group felt favorably toward Christianity's role in society. Evangelical Christianity is in particular disfavor, with only 3% of young non-Christians being favorably disposed toward this group that has become increasingly high profiled during the Bush administration.

And why do these young people have a more negative attitude toward American Christianity? Well, they perceive it to be "judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%) and too involved in politics (75%)." The pollsters also discovered that "even among Christians, half of young believers said they too view Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality."

Here in the LA Times, American Christian evangelicals can discover how their embrace of the Bush administration has turned non-Christians against them. Their foray into national politics has diminished their religious message. Their rise to power, accompanied by the likes of Ann Coulter and James Dobson, has hurt their cause--if that cause is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One of the students taking the homemaking courses at the Southern Baptist Southwestern Theological Seminary says it really doesn't matter what she thinks in terms of a woman's role in society. As a woman, she is supposed to learn how to take care of the home so that her husband will not have to be responsible for any household duties. Is it any wonder that non-Christians have a negative perception of American Christianity?