Women's Rights Defunded by House

On Friday, the House of Representatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood as an amendment to the Healthcare Reform Legislation. The issue has generally been stated by conservatives to be about the taxpayers funding abortion clinics. Conservative pundits and representatives have come out against this sort of funding, claiming the American taxpayer should not have to pay for abortion as it is not primary healthcare and is wholly against their moral or ethical beliefs.

I would be more sympathetic to these pundits if the allegations covered the issue entirely The debate as to whether abortion clinics should be funded by the federal government is a worthwhile debate to have. I believe that not funding organizations like Planned Parenthood, which supports abortion rights, unfairly discriminates against underprivileged classes in fulfilling their right to reproductive choice. It is apparent that there could be a debate about this, but cutting funding to Planned Parenthood is more devastating than this.

Planned Parenthood provides all sorts of sexual health care at little to no cost to underprivileged women, including pap smears, sexual education, and birth control. In some cases, they also provide general OB/GYN services to women regardless of financial stability. This amendment to the Healthcare Reform legislation denies women their right to seek healthcare regardless of financial status, and I think it is highly illegal under the new legislation and against common sense. Everyone should be entitled to healthcare regardless of social status; it is an inalienable a right as any other.

So the conservative agenda needs to realize that it is not fighting against abortion. It is denying women their right to healthcare. They have conflated a very important issue and have managed to get it passed to the Senate. Let us hope that President Obama and the Senate stop this in its tracks.

Tough Guise: HxC bands

The picture above is a band called Skylit Drive, a 6 piece hardcore (HxC) band from Lodi, California. As you can see, those guys look tough. A new type of masculinity, even if it involves long hair and huge earrings. The hardcore music scene prides itself on being tough. It has...

Mosh Pits, where people often get injured...

Zero gauges and tattoos. and Let's not forget...

Blood, "power stances", vocals involving screams and "pig squeals" (gutterall throat sounds).
The whole guise is tough. Sometimes even, the guys are physically tough. I used to play in a hardcore band wherein I would get physically beat up in mosh pits. I must admit I sort of enjoyed it, but not in a masochistic way. I enjoyed sports all my life, and moshing was just like getting hit in football or checked in lacrosse. It meant you were playing hard and having a good time. But I think the difference in the hardcore movement (for the most part) and other tough guises is that most HxC people truly care.

Take A Skylit Drive. Mike "Jag" Jagmin, the lead singer, is a vegetarian and strong political activist. He has worked extensively with peta2, and often defends his vocal style (a high-pitched range spanning three octaves) against those who want him to be more "masculine". Many hardcore bands are also "Christian" bands that preach love and peace, like The Devil Wears Prada. Their guitarist also works with PETA. Maybe this is just a function of the post-hardcore movement and our new, progressive understanding of the world, but let us not forget that under the tough guise we have some truly tough guys; tough on injustice. There are still those just looking to pick a fight, in fact, sometimes the music itself suggest that, which cannot be endorsed. But the positives are also very prevalent in bands like A Skylit Drive and The Devil Wears Prada.

The Anti-Abortion Moniker rolls on...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/15/us-southdakota-abortion-idUSTRE71E67N20110215



So the proposed bill up for debate in South Dakota would include "defending the life of an unborn child" as justifiable homicide in the state. Opponents are strongly against the bill, as they believe it paves the way for "justified" killing of abortion doctors and clinic workers. Defendants say they are protecting pregnant women from attacks against the fetus in their womb.

From what I have seen of the proposed legislation, the law would allow a woman or anyone intimately tied to that woman to murder the abortion doctor if he was to advocate for or be prepared to give an abortion. Now, I cannot think of many instances where a woman would want to kill the abortion doctor they sought out for their abortion. But the amount of emotional trauma that comes with an event like that is not any place to be allowing "justified" killing. This also opens the door for family members (or a "mistress, master, or servant") to "defend" the woman by killing the abortion doctor.

First of all, we should not be legally stigmatizing abortion. A willing woman and her partner who want to have an abortion are legally allowed to do so (Roe v. Wade decision) and no law should prevent that. While I am certainly an advocate of womens' rights, I am not advocating that we give the right of murder to anyone. This law would put abortion doctors at an increasingly high risk of attack (the ACLU is already on it) and we do not want another Dr. Tiller incident. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tiller) Religious nutjobs will do what they want, but we should not be making that legal. Yes, the law prospectively would defend a pregnant woman for killing anyone who tried to kill her fetus. I could support that, but you have to word laws very specifically so no one can justify killing abortion doctors for their practice.

Whether you are for abortion or not, this is no way to go about stigmatizing the practice. Killing the abortion doctor just adds to the cycle of violence and hurts the family of that physician irreparably. 

Arianna Huffington on Sleep

http://www.ted.com/talks/arianna_huffington_how_to_succeed_get_more_sleep.html



As witty as ever, Huffington argues for "a new feminist" ideal: "We are literally going to sleep our way to the top!" At the TEDWomen event last year, Huffington told the audience of her episode of fainting from exhaustion two and a half years ago that landed her in the hospital. She advocates abundant sleep in hopes of leading a more productive, fulfilling life. She cracks a Lehman Brothers "and Sisters" joke, amidst explaining that sleep deprivation has become a sort of "one-up" game, wherein people brag about how little sleep they get.

She calls on women to lead the way in sleep, and to thus take the world by storm by being more productive, forward-thinking and big picture individuals who live happier persona lives. Certainly, Huffington is addressing the need of our over-worked businessmen and women to remember the need to sleep. We can see it here on a college campus, where 8 hours of sleep a night is unheard of. I have had many friends brag about their insomnia and other sleep health problems. In particular, Arianna is referring to "Type-A" women, like herself, who overwork themselves to compete in leadership roles against the overly-advantaged men. She says that sleep is the key to live better and be more sucessful.

The only problem I have with Arianna's speech is that it ignores men, but I suppose we can forgive her for that, speaking at TED Women. She does, however, play into the "one-up" game by encouraging women to surpass their male counterparts. On a personal level, this is fine, but as we mentioned today, we are looking for equality not a reverse hierarchy.

Neil Patrick Harris: The Womanizer (Wait, He's Gay?)

 

Mr. Neil Patrick Harris plays Barney Stinson, an infamous womanizer, on the hit TV Show, How I Met Your Mother. If you knew nothing of Neil Patrick Harris watching the show, you would think that his character is the epitome of the "bro" culture, which views women as objects to have sex with. Indeed, Mr. Stinson is far more complex than that (as I hope to show in my TV analysis), but the idea of a gay man was a womanizer on a hit TV show makes me ponder.

First of all, the first question I have is "Does this play into the hypersexualization of gay men and women?". My tepid answer to that is no. Indeed, Barney is a womanizer on the show and has numerous affairs with many women (although the nature of those affairs are often ambiguous). Indeed, Barney talks more about sex than actually pursuing it, and is a type-character to show the faults in "bro" culture, loosely defined as the culture of men who take brotherhood to the extent of defending their "bros" to unlimited ranks and demeaning the female population. Since you have no idea from the show that Neil is gay, it does not affect the hypersexualization of LGBT people.

Second, "Does Barney as a 'character' have a positive effect on the audience?" I would say yes, for those who actually watch the show. He's humorous, he's a satirist. If you don't take him seriously, he's purely comic. The only negative impact is those using the character as a defense of "bro" culture, although that is just showing their ignorance of the actual character.

Neil has consistently been a model for the improving view of gay men and women in society. He is in a long-term, committed relationship with his partner, and has just had surrogate twins, which is phenomenal for the new family. In fact, with the character of Barney, Neil is making himself loved by all, and allowing the conversation to start for the equality of all people.

Huzzah, NPH!

Queer Conscious MTV?

This particular cultural commentary requires a bit of a back story.

I went to high school in the conservative Midwest at an all boys Jesuit high school. The school, being both Catholic and all-boys, had some serious issues with homophobia and discrimination against LGBT people. You could not walk down the halls without hearing some sort of blatant or implicit harassment of the few openly gay men or slang/slur uses of the terms "queer", "gay", and "fag". As the head of the Young Democrats and a vocal support of LGBT rights, I decided to take action. My junior year, I organized together with some friends a small Day of Silence. It was not advertised, and the result shocked the community, making the paper. The next year, the event included 50+ students and raised awareness throughout the Catholic community. My Spanish teacher, whose daughter worked at MTV, was impressed (despite her political conservatism) and told her daughter to contact me about it because MTV has been working on creating a new character for a show that as-accurately-as-possible portrays the struggles of a gay teenager in high school. So next month I will be working with MTV on development and such things to progress their understanding of the LGBT experience in high school.

What I have found most interesting about this whole thing is the fact that the lovely TV network that brings us such high-class shows as Jersey Shore and Teen Mom are interested in making a character who is gay that accurately portrays the struggles of "out" gay teens in high school. The person I work most closely with is concerned that Kurt (Glee) and other gay characters do not accurately portray the widespread diversity of the LGBT community and wants to draw on the whole of the audience for viewership. With all the problems in media related to race, gender, and sexuality, it is finally nice to hear someone is trying to make a difference. I hope I can do a great job helping out with that!

SKYY Blue and the Hypersexualization of Gay Men

In one of the few ads I have ever seen depicting (insinuated) gay men, the SKYY Blue Vodka ad strikes me as incredibly stereotypical and not beneficial for the homosexual male population.

First of all the (limited) pros
1. The ad portrays relatively attractive men, which I guess in some sense could provide eye candy for the male homosexual or female heterosexual viewer.
2. The ad portrays a (probably) gay black man who is dark black. Dark black men are not often portrayed in other ads, so to see the added diversity is nice.
3. It is an ad that portrays gay men, which most companies shy away from.

The cons
1. All the men are looking at each others' sex organs. Can you say hypersexual gay male stereotype?
2. The ad insinuates that all gay men do is lay around and stare at each others' junk. Obviously not a productive portrayal.
3. I am familiar with the SKYY Vodka brand. Most people are. But how on earth are we supposed to know that those blue bottles are a malt beverage, not to mention at their availability is limited to foreign countries? I was worried that these guys were drinking bottles of vodka at first, which is never a good idea.

Every ad of gay people I have seen portrays them in a hypersexualized way. I think advertisers need to embrace the diversity of LGBT culture and understand that gays and lesbians are no more sexually active than  heterosexuals.