"Just"...Stop.

"Just have it and give it up for adoption."  Because pregnancy and childbirth are totally safe and easy and free of cost, and don't totally change your body and life forever no matter what happens to the child after you give birth, right?

"Just stop taking everything so personally/expecting perfection from yourself/thinking about things so much."  I wish I could, but see, I have this brain that kinda doesn't let me stop doing those things.  What, you think I *like* being obsessively miserable and hating myself for every tiny failure in my entire lifetime?  Does that sound like fun to you or something?

"Just eat healthier and exercise more."  I've never thought of that before!  How incredibly simple!  Except that I can't afford much produce, don't like or know how to cook more than the couple meals I eat all the time, can't force myself to enjoy vegetables despite trying and trying, and dislike the taste of water.  Oh, also I have chronic back problems and low energy and am cripplingly self-conscious about exercising in front of other people, so any exercise I have to do has to be low-to-no-impact, easy, and something I can do in my house while my partner is at work, without boring the crap out of me.

JUST: (adv.) merely, simply.

I hate this word.  It minimizes.  It trivializes.  "Just" do this, or that.  It tells me the person speaking thinks the action should be easy.  It ignores circumstances and individual capabilities in favor of a normative narrative of what "everyone" should be able to do.  It also implies a moral judgment - the speaker obviously believes the course of action is not only easy, by their own arbitrary standards (usually heavily influenced by society's standards, of course), but the *right* thing to do.  It erases conflicting emotions and tells you the choice should be easy, and therefore being conflicted about it is wrong.  It invalidates peoples' feelings and experiences. 

From a stranger or ideological opponent, it's sneering, condescending.  From a loved one, it's even more damaging, a slap in the face.  It is the worst word, a metric fuckton of condescension, patronization, minimization, trivialization, all wrapped up in four innocent letters.

So please.  If you are ever tempted to 'splain someone's situation and the course of action you think they should take by saying "just do X", DON'T.  No matter how obvious the solution seems to you.  Just don't.  Step back, think about why they might not have done that yet, and find a way to offer advice - IF they asked for it in the first place, which in my experience the object of this unfortunate phrase usually didn't - that doesn't imply that the person is stupid for how they've handled themselves and their situation so far.  Respect their decisionmaking process.  Try giving them the benefit of the doubt - try assuming that they *do* know what they're doing, and that they *do* have reasons for handling things the way they have. 

But for the love of all that was, is, and ever will be..."Just" stop.

Feel free to add and vent about other "just" experiences you've had to deal with in comments.

Hiatus

Alright, loves.  I've been trying to avoid doing this, but I think it's gotten to that point anyway.  Life has been kind of kicking my ass; depression's been a sneaky bastard who chose, this round, to just sap away my motivation and ability to do things, but without the usual accompanying mood shifts so I didn't recognize it right away.  (Well played, you destructive fucker, you.)  And though my usual impulse is to force myself to keep up "normal" output and soldier through, I'm learning that it's seriously detrimental to my *actual* recovery for me to do so. 

So for the time being, Witch.Words will be on official semi-hiatus.  I'll probably throw together a post about Dan Savage's epic bi-fail this week, and I plan on participating in the Shakesville/What Tami Said Planned Parenthood Blog Carnival, and I'm toying with the idea of setting up a reader survey to get clarity on some questions I've had about my readers and my blog's direction, but other than that, posting will be light-to-nonexistent for at least a week or two, maybe longer.  I'll post if I feel the urge, but I'm not going to be forcing myself to anything. 

It's time for me to rest and heal.  I apologize for the interruption but, honestly, it's what needs to happen for me right now.  I hope to be back to "normal" (where normal = my baseline condition, not some normative idea of mental health and productivity) in a few weeks, maybe a month at most.  If you need me before then, my email is in my bio on the sidebar.  

Love and light,
Jade

PS:  To those readers who are so inclined, healing energy/prayers/thoughts/vibes/spells/whatever you do would be most welcome.  Thank you.

Oh Look! Another Reason!

Specifically, another reason to STOP FUNDING RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS to perform government functions.  Cause they're allowed to use religious criteria in hiring despite the fact that they're paying those salaries with the dreaded taxpayer money.

This exception to federal anti-discrimination rules for government contracts was instituted under Bush (executive orders, how we love thee) but, surprise surprise, Obama has yet to take his thumbs out of his ass and do anything about it.  So a coalition of 52 "religious, civil rights, labor, health, women's, and other organizations" sent a polite letter asking him to fulfill yet another apparently-forgotten campaign promise, quoted in the letter:

Restoring Executive Order 11246 for all government contractors would be an important first step toward fulfilling the campaign promise you made on July 1, 2008, in Zanesville, Ohio. In that speech you stated that you would reform the Faith-Based Initiative so that “if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion.”

 Hell, who knows.  It's campaign season again; maybe we'll actually see some response other than the cavernous absence of genuine progressive principles that has been the hallmark of this administration? 

I kind of doubt it though.

I'm Curious...

Presidential candidate Herman Cain (R-ampant Islamobigot) has said he will not allow any Muslims in his administration didn't say that at all would have to be extra-cautious about hiring Muslims wants Muslims to take a special loyalty test before being hired in his administration if he were to be elected President.

The No Religious Test Clause of the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 3) states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

So I'm curious.  If it's not specifically a religious test, but it is a special test selectively applied on the basis of religious belief...does that cross that line into unconstitutionality?

I'm neither a lawyer nor a Constitutional scholar, so I can't say with any certainty.  But I can certainly say it looks suspiciously like.

What do you think?

Suspiciously "Convenient"

You hear a lot of shit about how women who get abortions* are getting them "for convenience".  (Most recently brought to mind for me by this thread on tumblr.  Yes, tumblr rules my life now.)

I've been pretty open around here about how I am childfree by choice and have no interest in ever having children.  But here's the thing: even if I did want children someday, when I got pregnant five years ago, I would still have gotten an abortion.  Because...

• I couldn't afford prenatal care or other health-care costs associated w/pregnancy;
• I was on antidepressants which are not compatible with pregnancy, which were keeping me alive and which I'd have had to discontinue taking for the fetus' safety, which would have had the effect of seriously destabilizing my already fragile hold on life and sanity, and which could have ended with suicide;
• I was in college and already struggling, and any further detriment to my school efforts could have been the final straw that got me kicked out;
• The man who donated the other half of the genetic material (he wasn't a "father" anymore than I was a "mother" simply by virtue of accidentally getting pregnant, so I refuse to use that terminology) lived across the country; it was a long-distance relationship and we had no plans to move closer together in the near future, so either A: I'd have been on my own without a partner, or B: we'd have had to have rearranged some very large life circumstances to be close enough together (and no, adoption wouldn't have been an option because of the above items and also I can't imagine giving a child of mine away, so no).

Do any of these sound like "convenience" to you?  Because my definition of convenience includes things like the grocery store being only a few blocks away from my house, or a parking space close to the doors of the mall when I'm not feeling like walking much, or my local Starbucks having a drive-thru for when I'm in a hurry.  Note that major financial concerns, life circumstances (the long-distance relationship), goals/plans (finishing college), and medical issues (depression) do not appear on the list of "conveniences".  Wanna know why?

BECAUSE THEY HAVE FUCK ALL TO DO WITH CONVENIENCE.

Prioritizing one's plans for life and one's ability to provide for one's self and possible or potential family over a biological "oops" moment is not about fucking CONVENIENCE.  Ask anyone who's had a child; having a baby, even if you don't parent, is a life-changing event.  Often also a body-changing event, in ways both permanent and impermanent.  It is a Big. Goddamn. Deal.


So if the fucknuggets who churn out anti-choice propaganda would please stop handwaving-away women's goals, dreams, plans, and life circumstances by dismissively referring to it as "convenience", I'd very much appreciate it and maybe not lose my shit so fucking often.  Kthx.

*Women are not the only people for whom abortions are sometimes needed medical care; all people with uteruses may fall into this category at some point.  However, the rhetoric of anti-choice groups centers on women, so I'm reflecting that in this response.

Let's Play Word Games

I'm having a thought sparked by this post on tumblr, which crossed my dash a week or two ago.  To quote the relevant bit for those who don't want to click through:

gaywitchpracticingabortion:  Here's a quick way to check if you have a right to stop an abortion:  Ask yourself, "Is it my body?"  If the answer was no, then surprise!  You don't have the right.

[some pro/anti-choice back-and-forth deleted for space]

iamabutchsolo:  A fetus relies on someone else’s body to survive and therefore the actual person with that body has the choice to carry the pregnancy to term or terminate it. It’s not my job or anyone else’s to say otherwise. 

just-smith:  I’m fairly sure newborns or older fetuses still rely on the mother. Simply because somebody is temporarily dependent (and I mean temporarily, it would only take a few more months for them to be potential survivors), that is no excuse to suggest their rights are null.
If you have to have a heart transplant, you’ll be dependent - initially on a machine, and then on the organ of another person. There are thousands of people who couldn’t live without help, but you don’t go questioning their right to life. You wouldn’t kill somebody on permanent life support simply for your convenience and against their will, and you certainly wouldn’t if they had a strong chance of recovering within the year. But when they are young and innocent, you have no qualms. So is it just the age that makes them different for you, or is it the convenience?

Emphasis added to draw attention to the bit I want to talk about.

There's this difference in vocabulary that's a staple of the movements: where pro-choicers refer to abortion as "ending a pregnancy" or something similar, anti-choicers refer to it as "killing a baby".  Mostly this just gets overlooked as rhetorical flourishes, either used to "dehumanize" the abortion process, or to falsely invoke infanticide-guilt, depending on which side you're asking.  But I would argue that there's something underlying this difference of terminology, a real, qualitative semantic difference, and I'd like to try to poke at it and see what's in there.

First, to clear the air so I don't get accused of the "clump of cells" argument or whatever - yes, a fetus is a unique being, with its own DNA and physical being, and it is alive, in some sense of the word anyway.  A fetus is "just a clump of cells" in the same way that we are all just very large clumps of cells*.  For purposes of this argument, I'll even grant the premise that the fetus is somehow imbued with the nebulous quality we call "personhood", both legal and moral.

So.  Given these premises, the logical conclusion is that abortion is killing (or murder, depending on if we're using legal terminology or emotional terminology), yes?

Well, yes and no.  When pro-choicers talk about abortion as "terminating a pregnancy", we choose those words very deliberately, for their very precise meaning.  Cause here's the thing:

Nobody enters into the abortion process because they want to kill the fetus.

Let me repeat that:  Nobody enters into the abortion process because they want to kill the fetus.

Even in cases of elective abortion, uterus-bearing people (UBP) who could/would otherwise be able to carry to term and deliver the fetus do not do it to kill the fetus.  They - we - do it to not be pregnant anymore. 

What's the difference, antis say.  The fetus is still dead.

Well, yes.  If we're working from a premise that counts a fetus as a living being, a person, yes.  When the abortion is over, it is dead, and the abortion has killed it.  That is inarguable.  But the abortion was not undertaken with the intent of killing the fetus.  It was undertaken with the intent of the UBP to no longer be pregnant.

And when you take into account the intent underlying the process - when you refocus the lens to bring the UBP back into the picture, instead of imagining some nebulous uterine-support-machine, a cipher with no traits of hir own - the quoted comparison to "killing a person on life support" falls absolutely flat, as do comparisons to very young infants and toddlers as being dependent on their parents just like fetuses are (with the implication that, if you believe you have a right to abortion, parents should logically have a right to infanticide). 

The only reason one would pull the plug from someone on life support is to end their life**.  Actual infanticide is a form of murder, and the act of murder is undertaken specifically to end someone's life.  Neither of these is something in which a non-life-ending aim simply has the side effect of ending someone's life.  Therefore, the comparison with abortion cannot stand, because as I said, abortion is undertaken in order to not be pregnant/continue a pregnancy/give birth.  It's just that with our current level of technology, we cannot sustain fetal life outside the uterus in which it was originally implanted.  So the process of not being pregnant anymore ends the fetus' life, but that was not the aim, merely an associated effect. 

Amazing what perspective does to an issue, isn't it?  And really, what does it say about the anti-choice position, that I can grant you the founding premises of "it's a baby/human being/alive/etc" and still show how abortion cannot legitimately be compared to murder or killing in any sense? 

Now, if only logical arguments actually worked on anti-choicers, I'd be in business. ;-)

*This is not to say that a fetus and a grown being are somehow morally equal, because I do not believe that, but I'm trying to give as much common ground as possible in establishing premises, because it doesn't actually affect the argument I'm building up to, and it gives antis less to work with in arguing back.
**Which may be done for a number of reasons, from the person having a directive requesting they not be sustained under certain circumstances, to moral beliefs about life and death, etc.  The point remains that pulling the plug is an act undertaken specifically to end a life.

Religious Freedom! (Some restrictions apply; see conservative Christians for details)

A double-standard on which religions get religious freedom and social acceptance?  No, never; not in this country.  Right?

So I'm sure there's some other, totally reasonable explanation for why religious-freedom organizations constantly have to take government entities to court in order to get Christian religious symbols removed from government buildings*, but a statue of Ganesha in a county art gallery in Idaho provoked calls to protest against "idols" approved by the "godless group of individuals" who approved the art display. 

But for the life of me, I cannot figure out what that reason might be...

*I only linked one example, but it is by far not the only one out there.  Or perhaps we could look to the atheist high school student in Louisiana who protested his high school's use of invocation/benediction prayers at the graduation ceremony, who then received death threats from fellow classmates and ended up not attending the graduation.  Just in case anyone was inclined to accuse me of cherry-picking examples and doubted the existence of Christian hegemony in this culture.

Phobia != Bigotry

You may have noticed that my posts of late do not use the terms homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, etc. anymore*.  Basically, I was informed that terms using the -phobia suffix, despite being in wide popular use, conflate mental illness with bigotry and violence, give inappropriate credibility to the "gay panic" or "trans panic" defenses when straight/cis people commit violence against queer/trans people, and, much like calling Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann "crazy", smear people with actual phobias by appropriating their disability to describe despicable attitudes and people.

Terms like heterosexism (replacing homophobia), cissexism (replacing transphobia), monosexism (replacing biphobia), and Islamobigotry/anti-Islam bigotry (replacing Islamophobia), aren't all that hard to introduce to one's lexicon and convert to general use.  Certainly no harder than learning not to use "lame", or "crazy", or other ableist slurs.  I like them additionally because they put the focus back on the dominant/oppressive side of the dichotomy by clearly noting who the problem is right there in the word.

But even if all the other reasons were wrong**, it would still be better to change from -phobia language, because it makes it a lot harder for asshats to pull shit like this.

For many people “homophobia” is actually about “having a fear of being accused of being bigoted, prejudiced or discriminating against homosexual people”. This fear, which is increasingly common, causes people to take a defensive posture in order to avoid attracting disapproval or adverse publicity. ... For people who don’t hate, dislike or fear gay people, but simply believe that sex between people who are not married (including all sex between those of the same sex) is morally wrong, we need a new term. I’d like to propose the term “homoskeptic” - a term that is not yet in common use and hence arguably open to (re)definition.

Using -phobia language leaves a nice little loophole for the bigots to exploit.  They can say "I don't fear gay people!" and thus deflect critique off into speculation of their *real* feelings about teh gayz, diverting attention from the oppression and bigotry they're perpetuating. It allows this jackass to turn the fear-connotation of using -phobia around and twist it into the Good Christian's fear of The Gay Mafia and their notorious jackbooted enforcers.  It lets him pose bigots as the victim and their ideology as reasonable, not a phobia, but simply skepticism, which is a healthy quality, right?

But the last lol came from a comment to the post on NOM's blog, by commenter Anonygrl:

I would like to suggest that people who don't hate or fear African Americans but simply think that they are morally inferior should be called afroskeptics. And people who don't hate or fear women but think that they just shouldn't get paid the same as men or have control of their own bodies should be gynoskeptics.
No matter what you call yourselves, if you are doing so to justify denying rights to another group (and that is what you are doing with homosexuals) then the correct term you should be using is bigot.

Word.

*If you have seen me slip up in this, please do let me know, either in comments or via email, and I will change it.
**However, they are not wrong, and this will not be up for debate here.  Additional commentary on the harms of -phobia language may be found here and here if you want or need further reading on the subject.

On Weiner

Because I am ridiculously sick of hearing, and correcting, Weiner's liberal/feminist defenders, who are apparently really goddamn invested in painting Weiner as a good man who just made the mistake of getting caught in his extramarital wandering, I just want to crosspost a rant I tossed up on tumblr earlier this morning. 

[In response to a post saying, basically, that what Weiner did isn't that bad, and it's not fair to be so mean to him when there are lots of other sexually immoral and otherwise unethical jackasses still hanging onto their political positions and power]

No.  No no no no no no NO.  He did not just “lie about racy pictures”.  He lied about SEXUALLY HARASSING women over the internet.  Two of the women have said that the sexual tone of the interactions was not consensual, that they did nothing to indicate they were receptive to receive sexual pictures or messages.  Weiner’s pattern in these interactions is fairly clear, that he used his position and his fans’ admiration for him to SEXUALLY HARASS women online. 

I get that the mainstream coverage of this hasn’t really focused on the consent angle.  So maybe people don’t realize this.  But for the love of all the gods can we stop fucking defending a man whose offense was not just “having an internet affair and/or lying about it”, but was instead SEXUAL HARASSMENT?  Can we stop fucking acting like Weiner’s the victim here?

I agree, too, that there are quite a number of other Congressional douchefucks who ought to be thrown out on their asses, and they have not been held anywhere near as accountable for their varying types of fucked-up behavior, as Weiner is being held for his.  BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN WEINER SHOULD GET A PASS. 

I get that he was one of our heroes.  I get that he did some very good shit.  I loved his politics and his fiery speeches and his willingness to call Repubs out on their bullshit, with a flaming passion.  THAT DOES NOT MEAN HE HAS A RIGHT TO SEXUALLY HARASS HIS FEMALE FANS.  That does not mean we should defend him for doing so. 

I have had to say this I can’t even count how many times in the past few days.  For fuck’s sake, people.  It’s not about the lies.  It’s not about the “racy” pictures.  It’s about his disregard for consent and boundaries, it’s about his taking advantage of his position and the goodwill of his supporters to HARASS women.  It’s about holding Weiner to a standard of conduct that includes Do Not Sexually Harass People, and I see no reason why “But those other people didn’t get in enough trouble!” should be taken as a reasonable justification to NOT hold Weiner accountable.

Also, to the jackass on RH Reality Check who felt the need to mansplain to me that "that's not what sexual harassment is" when I made points similar to the above - according to Merriam-Webster online, sexual harassment is "uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, especially by a person in authority toward a subordinate (as an employee or student)".  I'd say sending unsolicited pictures of one's junk to someone with whom one was having a nonsexual conversation prior to the picture-sending counts as "uninvited" at the very least, and according to at least two of the women, it was also "unwanted".  Add in that Weiner, as an elected official, was trading on political power and reputation and the admiration of his female fans who may also have been his constituents, and you have the power differential that makes it "especially" sexual harassment.


What it comes to is this: Anthony Weiner was a progressive hero.  He used the power and fame and admiration that gained him to sexually harass women via the internet.  No, that is not as bad as some other things politicians have done.  But it is still a bad thing to do.  I refuse to compromise my ethical standards around consent, simply because he who violated them was someone I really liked.  And I genuinely don't understand why so many people who purport to be feminist, are willing to just brush those principles aside in order to defend Weiner.  I really don't.  


SO PLEASE FUCKING STOP ALREADY.

Catholic "Charities": Our Bigotry Is More Important Than Caring For Orphaned Children

Remember what I wrote a few weeks back, about how government money going to religious organizations which insist on operating according to the dictates of their religious beliefs was kind of a Bad Idea, because it meant there would be gaps in service and people who couldn't access services that a government-run institution would provide, because the religious institution refused to offer it, meaning people not of a particular religion would be forced to live by the dictates of that particular religion in the absence of non-religious care providers?

Shit like this would be why.  Adoption by same-gender couples in civil unions is permitted in Illinois, but the local Catholic adoption groups, which rely on financing from the state, want to be able to continue their exclusionary policy of "not placing children with unmarried couples".  This is, of course, their workaround that lets them cover their anti-gay bias in a thin veneer of "it's not about TEH GAYS, it's about ALL unmarried people!"  (This is also an excellent example of why civil unions are Not Good Enough as a "compromise" instead of full marriage equality.) 

Anyway, the point is, these jerks are actually upset enough at having to treat same-gender couples almost-equally that they are suing the state of Illinois for religious infringement, and have said that they will stop offering their state-funded - state-funded!  Taxpayer money!  Let that sink in for a moment - foster and adoption placement services entirely if they don't get their Special Snowflake Jesus Said So exemption. 

This is why I am leery at best (and actively hostile toward, at worst) when it comes to the idea of Faith-Based Outreach.  I didn't like the federal office of faith-based outreach when Bush instituted it, and I like it no better now that Obama has kept and expanded and reworked it.  (My ire is bipartisan!  Are you willing to treat my objections as reasonable now, Mr. President?)  If religious institutions want to offer charity and services, by all means let them do so, but let them do so with their own and their tithers' money.  And do not treat them like a substitute for publicly-funded and government-run social services, because they are not.  Spend the tax dollars that previously went to religious charities on building the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to provide those services.  (Yes, I realize it's a hair's breadth from COMMUNISM! to suggest that the government should spend any money providing any services, much less social services, but we all know I'm a dirty pinko leftist anyway, so.)

Look, if anti-choice extremists can get all huffy about "my tax dollars" going to fund Planned Parenthood, I'm entitled to make a fuss about my tax dollars going to fund religious organizations who would rather abandon their mission to help children in need of families, than be forced to treat same-gender couples as equal to mixed-gender couples. 

These Catholic charities apparently need to give back the taxpayer money, find a fainting couch, and lie down to have the vapors quietly for awhile, cause obviously they can't handle the idea of putting the needs of children ahead of their bigotries.  And in the meantime, why don't we see about finding those children some loving homes - no matter the genders of the adults providing them.