The New Republic

The women I know on the Left value women's right as much as or more than anything else. I don't know about men on the Left. I would say that women on the Right are much more the problem than anybody on the Left. The majority of Republican males are Neanderthals. It seems that Republican women should have the courage to at least stick up in some areas for their own gender against these cavemen. I've known several Republican families, and the women in them are outspoken in their own interests in the home. If only they would carry that over into public.

- magboy47.

February 17, 2012 at 1:03am

Well if they win I am all set for burqas.

- Sophia

February 17, 2012 at 1:53am

"Over the past generation, women have gone from being second-class citizens to being full and equal partners in American life." An overstatement, but I appreciate the sentiment. It's always like this. When those in power feel besieged, they lash out at the most easily identifiable disenfranchised group available. It's their way of trying to (re)gain control. And contempt is always strongest for those with whom you have daily contact - in this case, wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, female colleagues...

- Claris

February 17, 2012 at 5:34am

In their darkest moment, when they roll about sleepless at four in morning, Republican legislators imagine their fourteen year old grand daughter having an intense orgasm and there is nothing they can do to stop it. Keep that image in your mind when you see them santimoniously intone the mantra of right to life.

- paskunac

February 17, 2012 at 6:26am

Thorstein Veblen wrote some 100 years ago, "The Patriarchy has met its demise." I don't remember which book, but I was struck by how hard the Patriarchy must be fighting or how pervasive it is, if he thought it met its demise at the turn of last century.

- Nusholtz

February 17, 2012 at 7:04am

"the administration’s attitude toward abortion and contraception has been muddled". The evidence cited here for this statement (the Plan B decision) is pretty weak. I think that reasonable people can disagree on how to approach that issue, and the administration arrived at a legitimate position. And there's simply no comparison of that decision to the actions by conservatives, such as the law on the verge of passing in Virginia on ultrasounds, which isn't even mentioned in this article.

- kluhman

February 17, 2012 at 7:10am

Republicans start in on the mysoginy because they do not know how to do anything else in American political life. They don't know how to govern - don't bother to try, they have no policy ideas that make the first bit of sense, they live from childish ideological bullet point lists that allow for no formal critical thinking to take place and their frustration level over their manifest idiocy in this Presidential campaign mounts daily (an the attendent polls showing an Obama bump), hence their knee jerk impulse to find the latest enemy. The "MSM" is getting to be a tired target, the coastal elite thing looks silly since billionare kooks are running their show, what's left? What the war on Christmas? Please. Women.

- WandreyCer

February 17, 2012 at 7:17am

Of course, the latest firestorm was ignited by the left, not the right. While I encourage family planning, most especially among teens, and I respect a woman's right to choose in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, my much greater concern with regard to minimum standards for health insurance (the context in which the latest firestorm erupted) is that they address likely expenses for common diseases such as (to take one example) leukemia, including the very high cost of chemotherapy, the almost constant intake of antibiotics to fend off infections to a body that has no antibodies, blood replacement therapy, removal of and treatment for a ruptured spleen, and a bone marrow transplant plus the professional fees for the oncologist who becomes a too constant companion to the patient. The health care cost crisis in America is in large part attributable to the increase in the number of patients with chronic diseases, such as cancer and, yes, old age (it's chronic because there's no cure for it), diseases that at one time were fatal but, through advancements in medicine, are now chronic. Very difficult choices lie ahead in the design of the minimum standards for health insurance with regard to chronic diseases, while we engage in a culture war over whether the standards should include a $24 per month supply of birth control pills. I'll admit this is personal. My parents died of cancer may years ago when treatment was crude. But my sister died of cervical cancer not many years ago and my brother suffers from leukemia, and their fight aginst their insurance companies was as difficult as the fight against the disease. And I'll admit that I am ambivalent about abortion. You see, my son was born in 1970 when I was only 17 years old, and I cannot imagine the past 42 years without him.

- rayward

February 17, 2012 at 8:10am

Thank you rayward, bless your son and I'm very sorry for your family pain. I just want to make sure of your position. I'm not certain how it is that the left created this firestorm? By Obama's policy implementation and then his compromise? How is it that Republican attempts to intefere with women's rights, in Virginia for example with forced ultra-sounds, become the fault of the left? Because we know how Pavlovian they are? Is this what you're saying? I respect you enormously and I'm asking honestly, without pique. Like I said in my inchaote manner and you underscored in your very moving personal manner, the core of this flap to me is how little modern Republicans are equipped to focus on what matters - such as the diseases that drive up health cares costs the most in your case. It seems there is always some easy, dancing clown issue that takes precedence over hacking through the weeds of difficult technical issues, usually at someone else's expense. This is what angers me, and is personal to me - women's health and rights are always the first thing to be sacrificed to this vicious laziness on the part of conservatives hungry for power rather than compelled by the desire to serve. My grandmother's sister died of a back alley abortion after getting pregnant by her married boss. I never got to know her and I'm still angry about that. The stories I have regarding reproductive rights are too numerous and personal to detail here so I won't, but I will say that we all bring our personal stories to the table in these things and that's OK. No one is forcing anyone to take birth control and its frankly too bad if someone has a problem with the govt compelling everyone to pay for it - my husband is a Quaker and would prefer that his tax dollars don't go to war. This is the system we live in.

- WandreyCer

February 17, 2012 at 8:51am

The right would much prefer to engage in a culture war than have an informed discussion about policy choices, including the policy choice of the minimum standards for health insurance (in my view ACA's greatest achievement). When the difficult choices for the standards arise (and by difficult, of course I mean expensive), the insurers will fight for the least expensive and barest minimum standard while the right (allies of the insurers) engages in a culture war about the standards ("death panels"). My problem with the birth control debate is that it trivializes the decisions yet to be made about very, very expensive medical treatments for people with chronic diseases (among others), expenses that are not covered by health insurance today, expenses that the minimum standards hopefully will include, and expenses that the insurers don't want to pay and will fight inside and outside government to prevent from being included in the minimum standards. By falling into the right's culture war trap, the task of adopting meaningful minimum standards becomes that much more difficult because half the country will be convinced that the standards are intended to force women to have abortions, for seniors and the sick to face death panels, and for decisions about a patient's health to be taken away from the physician and taken over by the government. Of course, I could be wrong about the minimum standards, that nobody actually intended for them to force insurers to cover the likely expenses of the sick or injured, but instead intended for them to be used merely as a political tool to score points with the base and help defeat the other side at election time.

- rayward

February 17, 2012 at 9:49am

Excellent posts, Wandrey. Where's Friedrich Hayek now that we need him? From his essay, "Why I am not a Conservative": When I say that the conservative lacks principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The typical conservative is indeed usually a man* of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions. It is the recognition of such principles that permits the coexistence of different sets of values that makes it possible to build a peaceful society with a minimum of force. The acceptance of such principles means that we agree to tolerate much that we dislike. I sometimes feel that the most conspicuous attribute of liberalism that distinguishes it as much from conservatism as from socialism is the view that moral beliefs concerning matters of conduct which do not directly interfere with the protected sphere of other persons do not justify coercion. This may also explain why it seems to be so much easier for the repentant socialist to find a new spiritual home in the conservative fold than in the liberal.** But, from its point of view rightly, conservatism fears new ideas because it has no distinctive principles of its own to oppose them***; and, by its distrust of theory and its lack of imagination concerning anything except that which experience has already proved, it deprives itself of the weapons needed in the struggle of ideas. Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality. *"Man" seems more descriptive here than sexist ** I'm looking at you, Irving Kristol *** Bingo!

- GeoffG

February 17, 2012 at 10:12am

Ray, I can't agree with you that the left "ignited this storm," if that is meant to imply that Obama or the left should somehow have been smarter and not insisted on contraception coverage. Easy access to contraception is one of the foundation pillars of women's opportunity and equality, and has had enormous impact in terms of improving women's standing in our culture and quality of life. Letting the right dictate that it's somehow fungible, just because your employer happens to get .1% of its funding from the Catholic church, would be a concession beyond conscience - it's a palpable abandonment of commitment to women's rights. Furthermore, this is precisely the sort of basic preventative care that ought to be a no brainer in any health system, and letting the Right erode it with a bogus "conscience" argument undermines the whole notion of universal care. The questions about coverage for acute and chronic conditions are indeed hard; that's no reason to fold on questions that ought to be easy.

- IowaBeauty

February 17, 2012 at 10:45am

"These attacks are coming almost exclusively from the right. But liberals are not entirely blameless. For a long time on the left, there has been a notion that social issues—among them women’s issues, chiefly abortion—were somehow a waste of time. " I don't know if I entirely agree with this. I think - just my personal opinion - that what we've seen up until very recently is a reluctance on the part of a significant number of liberal men to take up the burden of women's issues. Abortion and reproductive issues, equal rights, equal pay, etc... perhaps my observation is flawed, but it seems the championing of such issues was chiefly undertaken by women. And given the conservative (and mysoginistic) forces arrayed against them, the challenge has been significant indeed. What seem to have taken place in the last decade - and is increasing at an increasing rate - is an understanding that reproductive rights and equal rights are not merely women's issues but are human rights issues. Thus the united furor among us men on the left side of the aisle with recent attacks on contraception coverage.

- Tristan

February 17, 2012 at 10:51am

I agree with you rayward 100%, but it is not the left that trivilizes health care issues. Obama made a minor policy decision and a sensible, brief compromise when it seemed to make sense, deal done. Every bit of the craziness that has ensured, including this crescendo of the cretinuous Issa's mysgonist show trial and the parade of billionare culture dopes comes entirely from the right. The right screams death panels when the left discusses minimum care standards. Et cetera. Who is trivializing here? Although again, I do agree with you on the misplaced priorities of this entire manufactured mess. But then women's basic health care can't really be considered a political trap, needs must be met and lines must not be crossed, whatever opportunistic hay the deeply lazy right attempts to make of it. I think America is making that crystal clear. My gut tells me the Dems take it all in 2012, even the Christmas tree.

- WandreyCer

February 17, 2012 at 10:59am

Instead of another tedious symposium on what the US should do about the latest revolt in the Islamic world (knowing full well the US isn't in a position to do much), how about a symposium about what to do to push back the Republican assault on basic women's rights? That would at least be more effective in policy terms.

- wildboy

February 17, 2012 at 11:05am

I wish that everyone, including Ralph Nader, could get this fact through their thick skulls: For women, reproductive rights IS an economic issue. If you can't control that aspect of your life, your ability to make a living and live on what you earn can be severely compromised. Oh, by the way, here's an answer to the editors' question "Why weren’t more conservatives making a principled case against abortion while also conceding—and applauding—the important role that the organization has played in allowing women to take control of their health and their lives?" Because conservatives don't want women to take control of their health and especially their lives. They want us economically dependent on men and as minimally involved in the workplace and public life as possible.

- heppner52

February 17, 2012 at 11:26am

rayward, I'm not sure what you meant by blaming the left for the latest firestorm, as it seems to go against everything else you say. I agree with the other stuff, especially the right's focus on the culture war, it's determination to force women to live according to their Church's conscience, rather than debate what properly constitutes minimum coverage for health care insurance. But the right picked this fight, and the closest they've come to debating the appropriateness of contraception in a minimum coverage package is claiming they're morally opposed to all forms of it. And thanks for sharing your story!

Wandrey, thank you as well for sharing your perspective. I'm right there with you. As a Catholic, the CCB and everyone else involved makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.

- GSpinks

February 17, 2012 at 11:29am

Big standing ovation for this whole thread - GSpinks, thank you. Wildboy for TNR editor forever, Tris and many others (wildboy's idea too come to think of it) remind us that that the loudmouth neanderthals simply do not speak for American men, heppner52 whacks us all on the head with the real deal.

- WandreyCer

February 17, 2012 at 11:35am

Oh and rayward definately for lamenting how stupid the whole damn thing really is.

- WandreyCer

February 17, 2012 at 11:37am

Addendum to IowaBeauty: Whenever there is talk about foreign aid and assistance to developing countries, one of the top agenda items is always reliable, affordable contraception. Getting population growth under control, along with female literacy, is a cornerstone of any effective development program. There is no doubt contraception is a fundamental health and development issue. Everything else evolves from it - including resources for a truly comprehensive, universal health care system, which has yet to happen in the U.S. We cannot allow contraceptive services to be undermined, especially at home.

- Claris

February 17, 2012 at 11:59am

Just saw Heppner52's comment. Absolutely! Much more succinct than my long-winded babbling, except to emphasize that women's (and men's) economic security is in EVERYONE'S interest.

- Claris

February 17, 2012 at 12:16pm

agree with rayward that the broader issue is how PPACA awards complete control to the Executive (President) of what health insurance must cover, and using access to contraception as the first mandate obscures the much more important questions of what health care IS. For the historical record, what is at stake for women is going back to the Comstock Laws of 1873 (text included at end of my historical defense of Margaret Sanger, who I consider to be the most influential woman of the 20th century, and am appalled at how she is under attack by some conservatives). Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), is the person most identified with the modern birth control movement. She founded the New York Birth Control League (NYBCL) in 1914, when both Federal and many state laws defined related information and products as obscene and immoral, and thus illegal, throughout the United States (U.S.). The American Birth Control League in 1921, and the Planned Parenthood Foundation in 1942, succeeded the NBCL. Her mission to secure the freedom for women all over the world to control their reproductive life, the most divisive political issue in the U.S. since slavery, continues today. By the end of her life, this mission brought new options in contraception, funding research and development of spermicides in the 1920’s and the birth control pill in the 1950’s, and the first domestic manufacture of the diaphragm. Planned Parenthood’s sponsorship of the U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold vs. Connecticut became the first interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to include a woman’s right to privacy and thus choice in her reproductive life, decided by the Warren court a few months before Sanger’s death, and the basis for Roe vs. Wade in 1973, which extended that right of privacy to abortion. Between 1912 and the 1920’s, she shifted her base and strategy from the direct action of the radical labor left, to judicial activism supported by prominent clubwomen, libertarian backers of free speech, doctors, and nativist proponents of eugenics in order to change the meaning of the obscenity laws that inhibited transmission of birth control information and products in the U.S. The tragic death of one patient, Sadie Sachs, from a second self-induced abortion after vainly pleading for information on birth control subsequent to the first one, was Margaret’s epiphany in 1912 when she was a nurse working for the Henry Street Settlement. The Federal Criminal Code Section 211 from 1873 reads: "Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication of an indecent character, and every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for preventing conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for preventing conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information directly or indirectly, where, or how, or of whom, or by what means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned matters, articles, or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed or how or by what means conception may be prevented or abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed; and every letter, packet, or package, or other mail matter containing any filthy, vile, or indecent thing, device, or substance and every paper, writing, advertisement or representation that any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can be, used or applied, for preventing conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing, is hereby declared to be a non-mailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery, anything declared by this section to be non-mailable, or shall knowingly take, or cause the same to be taken, from the mails for the purpose of circulating or disposing thereof, shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." [I do add that I personally stopped my annual donations to Planned Parenthood when their pleas for funds solely focussed on needing money for lobbying for government funding. A very odd strategy - I think PP could easily fund all their services through private donations for actual health services. Once PP shifted to securing government funding, they opened themselves to unnecessary criticism.]

- K2K

February 17, 2012 at 12:32pm

i guess i will try to pose a contrarian voice here: We are adamantly pro-choice; yet we could certainly respect a principled abortion opponent who took this position. This strikes me as a logic fail. You can't be adamant yet respectful because adamant means no concessions. Restricting the morning after pill to people above 17 seems a fair concession in that it signals that society doesn't tacitly accept unrestricted copulation amongst children younger than 17. In reality, of course, every 16 year old can easily get a 17 year old to buy them the pill. One other criticism: Defending and expanding on these gains should not be a side-issue for liberals But what does expanding on these gains mean? Government funded abortions? Why insist on muddying the waters by treating abortion rights and contraception rights as being one and the same? Beyond this, this highlights how employers should not be the agency to acquire healthcare. Give the individuals his rights. Set up insurance exchanges, let the individual decide what his insurance plan will cover. Those who are opposed to contraception can buy into a plan that does not cover contraception. Those who favor it can do the same. Insurance exchanges will create large enough risk pools to allow this to happen. The only rights I am interested in expanding are the rights of the individual to have greater control over his own health care. Republicans are arguing to make Americans slaves to their corporate masters, giving the owners the right to determine every aspect of care. The Democratic answer is not to make Americans slaves to the government, it is to give the right to Americans. At most Government would set minimum standards, such as no recission, no denial of care due to pre-existing conditions, guaranteed issue, portability, and the like. Republicans can not win this argument. They can win the argument if they say that Democrats want to give the morning after pill to 13 year olds, or that they will force people of faith to pay for condoms for 15 year olds. (I am not saying Democrats want to do this, but why give Republicans any opening?) Oh, and Rayward, we can have discussions of multiple matters. The state insurance exchanges and the regulations in Obamacare do address most of these, I just wish Democrats would go all the way and end tax deductions for businesses to cover employers. Health exchanges must be the future.

- blackton

February 17, 2012 at 12:51pm

"Those who are opposed to contraception can buy into a plan that does not cover contraception. Those who favor it can do the same. Insurance exchanges will create large enough risk pools to allow this to happen." Sounds like "let the market decide." Haven't we tried this before?

- Claris

February 17, 2012 at 1:14pm

This culture war against women's reproductive rights just indicates how the extreme right-wing in this country has been attempting to institute a political theocracy in this country. To ignore and deny basic human rights of women is slightly more than just a retrograde political tactic. If a woman is bared from being a conscious, free agent in determining her reproductive rights in this society, would you please tell me what real rights she has as a women and a citizen in this country? Rep. Darrell Issa bared any women experts from testifying before his committee yesterday on this issue. Yet we bemoan in this country how the Wahhabi leaders in Saudi Arabia won't even allow women to drive their own cars. Is Rep. Issa's iron-fist in his leadership really that different from the authoritarianism of the Saudi leaders? Hopefully women voters will see the threat to their reproductive rights in the upcoming 2012 election and come out in droves to defeat Republican Party nominees who are allowing themselves to be held hostage by their extreme right-wing members.

- rewiredhogdog

February 17, 2012 at 1:18pm

claris, no we haven't. There is no individual marketplace for health insurance iin America considering that it is prohibitively expensive. State insurance exchanges create large enough risk pools to cover everyone. Right now we have employer provided insurance juked up by tax credits. I, as an individual, am not eligible for those credits, neither can I be part of a large risk pool with which to bargain with employers. Fundamentally you should be aware that most insurance plans will cover contraception as contraception is CHEAPER than not covering contraception, the risk pool will be far larger, the amount of unplanned pregnancies far smaller and it will likely be standard. The risk pool of those not wanting contraception covered will be smaller, the premiums will be larger. Be honest, who would really want to say, yes, I will pay an extra $20 a month to not get contraception as an option?

- blackton

February 17, 2012 at 1:22pm

rewiredhog, you got that right. Issa did a huge favor to Democrats. Did you see that panel he called up, a couple of celibate, fat priests and a couple of other old men who look like they can't get it up anymore railing against non procreative sex. Issa issa idiot.

- blackton

February 17, 2012 at 1:24pm

The Republican war on women's health (no other way to put it) is cheap, tawdry, and very, very hypocritcal posturing by a party that has nothing else to fall back on now the economy is turning around and Barack Obama can respond to charges of "appeasement" or "weakness" with "go ask Osama bin Laden. Rachel Maddow (God I love her) did a wonderful piece on the abject hypocrisy of GOP "politicians" - I prefer the word "hacks" are opposing the same laws and requirements they signed into law in their own states as Governors, supported as state legislators, or as members of Congress. For crissakes, you had their fomer senate leader adn presidential candidate pushing Viagra, and to be fair to the little ladies, the Repugs decided maybe to include contraceptives in health insureance plans. The GOP since 1980 is a curse and the sooner it is relegated to the ash heap of history, the better.

- dubyadoubte

February 17, 2012 at 1:39pm

and for those that missed it, in VA. the government just demanded that Doctors rape their patients before they can get an abortion. Literally, there has to be an ultrasound with vaginal penetration at the patients expense before an abortion can be done. And the woman has to view the pictures and if not, it will be written in their records. These so called pro lifers are just evil. If anything it will create a backlash against the pro life movement. Every woman who has to go through this violation will not be considering the fetus at all, they will be full of hatred for these assholes and will make them far more committed.

- blackton

February 17, 2012 at 2:01pm

It seems as though it's time for someone to update Jacob Heilbrunn's old piece "Neocon v. Theocon," from back in 1996.

- STTaylor

February 17, 2012 at 3:02pm

Hap and IB are correct. This is an economic AND a social issue. And it an issue that is driven by the "left", if you define the left as any position or person that includes O'Conner, Burger, Eisenhower, Ford, and Nixon. And none but the editors seem to notice, or care, that BHO's defence is not exactly full-throated. Without pushback from the Eisenhower center, if the past predicts the future, BHO will move the compromise further right. As he did when he first got pushback on contraception funding at religious institutions. It is not clear at all that the current compromise will provide access to contraception at no additional cost--that problematic detail has already gone down the memory hole.

- drofnats1

February 17, 2012 at 3:17pm

Actually, it's perfectly clear that the current compromise will provide access to contraception at no additional cost to the employer or employee. The insurance companies will have two amortization tables, one for full participation and one without contraception coverage. They'll charge the rate for full participation coverage, which will cost a bit less as only birth control implants rival the costs of even a healthy pregnancy, and they'll absorb the difference on their profit margin. It's not a forgotten issue, it's a done deal.

At the rate things are going though, you might have to hold your nose and vote for Santorum if you don't want to see Obama in the White House in 2013. I mean, how is PPACA going to get repealed if Republicans aren't running the show? America will never accept true liberal policy until they've stared down the abyss, right?

- GSpinks

February 17, 2012 at 4:47pm

Blackton, i read that, too! I have to think the state supreme court will strike that law down almost before the law suits are filed. I mean, the increase risk of miscarriage alone, with associated health risks to the woman, should make it a non-issue, right?!

- GSpinks

February 17, 2012 at 4:52pm

Wandrey, any time!

- GSpinks

February 17, 2012 at 4:54pm

And here I thought when I read "The Handmaid's Tale" in college that it was an impossible exaggeration. And that was during the Reagan presidency!

- frippo

February 17, 2012 at 5:31pm

Ok, I can't take it anymore. I'm sorry if this portends the devolution of this discussion, I've tried to keep my trap shut, but I have to know! Is it just me or is the pregnant lady in that photo kinda hawt?!

- GSpinks

February 17, 2012 at 6:13pm

I think the Editors need to be a bit more current affairs - aware when they think that the current multi-month spate of rhetoric coming from the Right is simply a recent phenomenon. In fact, now that I think about it, why doesn't TNR have a female editor that could do more write-ups on women's issues that affect or are affected by public policy other than the occasional blog post? My friend Laura Bassett reports on women's health issues over at Huffington Post and she's been highlighting these issues for quite sometime and it's not like the GOP haven't been putting the screws to women's reproductive health issues for a while now. Some egregious examples have been happening in the mid-West and Southern States since Obama took office and most especially since the Tea Party GOPers started their widespread takeover of local government offices in 2010. If it weren't for her reports that I read, I wouldn't be aware of the state-by-state conservative attacks on women's reproductive rights much of the time. I think what has caught everyone off guard and especially the Right is the sudden and very nationally covered public push back on Komen's flip-flop for grant money to PP. I think suddenly alot of people realized the over-reach by the Right was coming to a head and sitting idly by letting incremental moves be made wouldn't make the threat go away. Despite the conservative media's overblown reaction and claiming a war on religion, I'm sensing some real push back from the public on the contraception issue being debated now. Aside from Issa's laughably sexist "hearing" we likewise have self-loathing Republican women like Liz Trotta making asinine comments on Fox to the effect that women should expect to get raped if they're in the military and we shouldn't spend all this money to help them get raped less. WTF? What we are seeing, really is a last-grasp attempt by Conservatives to make the only move towards maintaining a patriarchal system by severely limiting women's reproductive rights and choices short of reclassifying them as chattel. Every guy having a woman in their life or sister or mother should be supportive of women's reproductive health choices and rights to access because it affects not just the woman individually but their family and loved ones. My wife is Catholic and was on birth control for hormone control, she's off of it now and because we're getting ready to start a family. But I will always do my best to defend in the most effective way I can, the right for my wife to have access to birth control and help defend her reproductive rights. Not just because I'm her husband but because she's my equal and often-times better and because it's the moral thing to do in my opinion.

- singlspeed

February 17, 2012 at 6:46pm

GSpinks.. Good luck with Health Insurance compancies absorbing the immediate cost of providing contraception at no extra charge versus amortizing cost of pregnancies from those that opt not to use the service (like all males-- or are there going to be separate policies amortized for males versus females??). It's discouraging to see how such proposals consistently sucker support from semi-centrist voters

- drofnats1

February 17, 2012 at 7:08pm

Dro, of course they will, they already do! Do you not look at your employer's health insurance costs sheet? Did you not notice they charge all kinds of extra money for spouses and kids, but all men and women pay the same base premiums? They balanced out the disparity of costs by gender a long time ago. PPACA isn't going to change any of that. It's just going to bring in a bunch more enrollees, each of whom will significantly contribute to the insurance company's bottom line; economies of scale are sweet like that. It's a done deal.

- GSpinks

February 17, 2012 at 9:00pm

What is feminism? What rights were gained? Equal pay? Okay.... That it is socially acceptable to be whatever you want to be without identity constraint? Okay.... Hey, That's why the lady is a tramp. I consider myself lucky inasmuch that my wife is pretty bright and I can get by with beating her only once a year. Was it ever socially acceptable to lay hands on the wife or girlfriend? In what, when and whose book? The Judeo/Christian environmental circles that I grew up in made it absolutely clear that assaulting women was a very cowardly way to run your business. These people were considered contemptible and/or quite disturbed. Now the abortion issue belongs in it own special category. It gets pretty damned cruxish when drawing the intersection of the most human of all identity parameters. Mother and motherhood. Everybody has one. It is the closest most of us will ever get to experiencing a truly unconditional love. She represents the full circle of life AND death and is held in reverence and 'unfortunately' fear for that very reason. It is the fullness of this power that has been the motivation of dismissive and demeaning regard of station and pecking order at the hands of men. There is much more to say on this as a full exploration of this issue must needs be explored beyond the relively modern notion of rights. Somewhere along the fairly recent way a womans right to abortion tried to piggyback upon the scientific model of cells are cells and power is what organized cell systems do. Thus the consequence of exercising choice was inconsequential within the moral realm.

- jacko

February 18, 2012 at 12:46am

In the words of the timeless B.B. King, " Nobody loves me but my mother..... and she could be jivin, too. Nobody loves me but my mother.... and she could be jivin, too. Now you see why I act funny, baby when you do the things you do."

- jacko

February 18, 2012 at 1:59am

Well with respect to jacko, women were assaulted in many ways not so long ago. I could write a book about real abuse in the workplace and not just in the entertainment business, in the night world, but in the oh so lovely corporate world. I remember on VP handcuffing a fellow secretary to her chair, another got on the floor and looked up my friend's dress. We were nothing but good looking objects who typed and had to take s*** all day long. Finally they passed a law about sexual harrassment and some of that stuff stopped but ageism, lookism, shortages of real opportunities? Was pay equal? Absolutely not. BUT it was better; in my mom's day (b. 1920) it was way worse. She was a professional woman, commercial artist, paid way way less than men. Oh by the way her best friend had TWO abortions. My own sister had to plead for one in 1970, she had to claim insanity, it was a nightmare. So I don't know what this moral business has to do with anything Jacko; it's fine it you want to get all mystical about The Great Circle Of Life. We women have to deal with reality. Reality is getting raped, being objectified; being 2nd class citizens, still not being equal in the workplace and apparently having to fight for contraceptives here in America in the 21st century. Enough already.

- Sophia

February 18, 2012 at 2:04am

Blackton writes: "Fundamentally you should be aware that most insurance plans will cover contraception as contraception is CHEAPER than not covering contraception, the risk pool will be far larger, the amount of unplanned pregnancies far smaller and it will likely be standard. The risk pool of those not wanting contraception covered will be smaller, the premiums will be larger." It depends on the pool of folks you are talking about. Folks with insurance today are generally employed, somewhat smart, and understand how to avoid having kids. Requiring insurers to cover birth control will raise costs for them, as this group just doesn't have many unwanted pregnancies. This group is the majority of the population. The purchaser will use the product whether or not the insurer pays for it. But since few in the general population use the product, it does mean it will raise costs for everyone. The pill is $300/year, and if 20% of the population uses it, then costs for everyone go up $50/year. Free this is not. There is an entire other class of our population that seems to not yet understand how to stop pregnancies. In fact, the safety net in this country seems to encourage it. Requiring insurers to cover this group of folks may or may not reduce unwanted pregnancies, as some level of discipline is required for the birth control to actually work. Recall about 20 years ago someone (a republican) proposed paying mom's on welfare $500 to get implanted with Norplant. Oh the howls of protest! The ACLU called it coercive at the time. Here we are, and 20 years later we're offering to pay this same underclass $30/month to be on the pill. Except it's being held up as virtuous this time.

- seattleeng

February 18, 2012 at 4:35am

Yes Massa. Some level of discipline might help if MEN didn't fuck WOMEN too seattle right? Course only women get pregnant. so its all their responsibility. What a disgusting, sexist post from hell - gag.

- WandreyCer

February 18, 2012 at 12:23pm

Sophia. First of all you should know that I love women and generally speaking women love me back. They are quite easily my favorite sex. Now my proposition was simply an attempt to look underneath the skirts of the issue of womens rights and abortion in a larger and less accessible context. I contend that the relationship dynamics go beyond male convenience. One might be forgiven for having suspicions of this fear being manifest in the gender dynamics particularly in the Middle-East. Raging insecurities have produced this destructive loop. Now beyond the dismissal of enough already, Does feminism have a goal? Is there a charter that constitutes acceptable credentials for inclusion? Are there political affiliation requirements? Is there an objectivication test that one might pass or fail? This is a long running issue as eloquently stated when Zeus cut off Uranus' gonads and tossed them into the ocean only to produce Aphrodite. As an aside I am a prochoice guy as informed by the degree of reference and deference to that Mystical Circle of Life thing that you casually demean. Sophia, what do you think of pornography? Is it enlightened and liberated sexual expression or continued bondage?

- jacko

February 18, 2012 at 12:46pm

Oh so the "underclass" doesn't know how to prevent pregnancies. RIGHT. You realize even pills are not 100% effective? Oh ps what about MEN. Also, maybe you haven't been reading. Folks in the "underclass" are so poor they can't afford their prescriptions. This includes well educated people who are young, hurt, sick, out of a job, whatever. Hello? FINALLY, oh yes, let's discuss how THE SAFETY NET is encouraging pregnancy. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Are you living on MARS? Haven't you been listening to the GOP? These guys think sex without procreation is A BAD THING, so who exactly is encouraging pregnancy? HUH? What Wandrey said x two.

- Sophia

February 18, 2012 at 12:54pm

Jacko let me think about your questions and respond thoughtfully, no time right now; later!

- Sophia

February 18, 2012 at 12:55pm

Briefly though, Jacko, I understand your comments about archetypes, and there is indeed great power in the image of the mother, indeed women's ability to procreate probably inspired worship in the past but also the need to dominate and control it. So that power inspires fear as well as worship, plus, males seeking to establish a line would be suspicious and possessive I would think; ergo one finds mythology about young, virginal, inconveniently pregnant women and snakes. A lot of face has been saved by stories of nosy boa constrictors:) and probably, a lot of female lives. I doubt if the most innocent tribe really believes that serpents can impregnate women, or proffer apples, or talk to ladies...but SOMEBODY has to embody sin/inconvenient social transgression - so why not the serpent? Serpents get people off the hook! So, our myths are projections, they aren't "real," but they have real power and real purpose. And, in the "real world," the bonds between mothers and children are profound. The drive to bear and nurture is also profound. Many of us don't have children for whatever reason - for example, watch the film "The Turning Point;" and not all women are motivated the same way - but, most of us feel or have felt the desire for them, sometimes not being able to have a child destroys a person or a couple. So, I don't want to leave the impression that I underestimate either myth or biology because they are essential elements - along with our intellects, the backbone of our species I think. That said, the treatment and experiences of real women and real children don't mesh with the imagery of the goddess (understatement). Read about the experience of women in war, this is going on to this very day; the treatment of "respectable" women who get pregnant here in the US, to this very day; the treatment of women in the workplace, to this very day, in America; the fact that we are having this discussion is not a good sign. It means that we haven't really broken down the old patriarchal control at all nor the fact that men and churches want to control women and our sexuality and also that we are seen to a large degree, primarily in terms of our sexuality and procreative abilities. And, we still apparently lack political agency. Viz to wit, the Virginia ultrasound sound, the attack on Planned Parenthood, on the idea of contraceptives; Rep. Issa's shameful all-male panel discussion in Congress. Feminism to me is not a quest for dominance over males, not an attempt to deny essential femininity - rather, the opposite. The fact is we have been subjugated to greater or lesser degrees in many cultures around the world and even in some of the most enlightened and advanced and ancient cultures, females are not wanted, are regarded as burdens; or are second class at best. We are denied equal opportunities, equal pay, and even the right to control our own bodies. We can't control and are not supposed to enjoy our own sexuality. In war zones, in acts of crime, our relative physical weakness makes us the object of terror, of rape. In parts of the world our sexuality is physically destroyed. This has happened in America too, in the days of slavery, in the 20th century even to control "hysteria." Now we have American politicians declaring we should submit to legalized rape by doctor, we should bear the fruits of rape, we should bear, period. Ergo, my personal quest as a feminist seeks to redress this. We are not second class in any sense, and as human beings deserve equal rights and protections under the law, period. This includes equal opportunity in the workplace, really equal. It includes full enjoyment of ourselves as sexual, intellectual and economic and political beings. So, in this conversation, I think we're dealing with two spheres, Jacko; and they overlap. One is mythological, the other is practical. In one sphere of my life I deal with the mythological but in daily life, there is the struggle simply to survive on THIS PLANE and that involves a political struggle for recognition and equality. That includes recognition that women are more than, must be allowed to be more than mothers and sexual partners. We have minds, we have artistic abilities, we have ambition; we can fly planes. And, we have needs. We need to fulfill our intellectual and creative impulses, as much as or more than our procreative impulses; we need to love, we need to enjoy sex; but we also need to accomplish. And, we need to eat. With our without children we need economic dignity. We need to be self-sufficient. Without that, we have no dignity and no freedom and we are in want. In Judaism, it's only very recently that women have been allowed to study Torah and become rabbis. That is but one example - but it's a very important one. Anyway thank you for your thoughtful questions/comments and I'll continue thinking about this. PS I don't think pornography has anything to do with these questions? People can be turned on by Georgia O'Keefe's flower paintings; it's in the eye of the beholder is it not? Sexuality is both innate to animals and also complex and also, NOT WRONG. If you're talking about pornographic films, etc, that's another ball of wax, and I am not sure it has anything at all to do with this discussion but I'll think about it. I am curious as to why you're brought pornography into this discussion? What does it have to do with feminism, the current political scene, etc?

- Sophia

February 18, 2012 at 1:31pm

Sophia. Now THAT was a thoughtful response to my inquiries and I thank you for that. I, too, have a list of necessary things to accomplish today without indulgences or excuse. Let me see if I can come back to this in the evening. Again, thanks. Jack

- jacko

February 18, 2012 at 2:10pm

Sophia, great post -- I'd just add that I think there is a SERIOUS problem not just in the U.S. but definitely here surrounding our relationship with pleasure. We have a culture in which the most violent and savage images or descriptions are often consumed by a wide audience of all ages, but a national convulsion takes place over the possibility that a woman's nipple might have been seen for 30 seconds at the Superbowl half-time show (and it's worth thinking about THAT juxtaposition, the mind does more than boggle). There seems to be a kind of burning magma layer of terror and hostility that comes out in rapes, accusations of 'slut' (including among females), a desperate search for reassurances of masculinity, a schizophrenic divide in women, et cetera. But don't get me started. I have one question, however: what does the GOP think they are getting out of this? Do they believe that there's a silent majority on their side, or what? Normally one would not want to piss off millions of women voters, right? Oh and my second question (yep, there was more than one), why do all these Republican figures from Ryan to Mitt to Santorum look like the 1960s and 1970s never happened? I don't believe you see this in any other advanced country.

- ironyroad

February 18, 2012 at 2:14pm

I truly want everyone in America to read Sophia's comments, so I apologize for being the comment on the next page, but, since I came online to elsewhere challenge a truly disturbing "conservative" blogpost that paints Margaret Sanger as guilty of creating Planned Parenthood in order to 'cull the unfit', including 'genocide against black women' (yes, Herman Cain said that and it seems there is following that believes that). so, irony asks "what does the GOP think they are getting out of this? ", and what I think some of them think is that, in order to "overturn" 1973 Roe v Wade, they also have to "overturn" 1965 Griswold v CT, which, in addition to finally establishing a SCOTUS precedent for the NOT-enumerated in the Constitution "right to privacy", which, of course, applies to all sorts of situations. Just happens that Estelle Griswold was president of CT Planned Parenthood, and the point was to finally overturn, on national scale, The Federal Criminal Code Section 211 from 1873 (see entire text in my comment 02/17/2012 - 12:32pm EDT) that made anything to do with contraception a criminal offense. As a detox from that horrid blogpost attacking Sanger, I just had an interlude at The New Yorker's online blogs - and the one about the Virginia vaginal ultrasound DID clarify that there is a medical reason to use that technology. NOT that it makes the law any less despicably intrusive. Now I understand the real reason Mitch Daniels did not run. He called for a truce on these social issues in order to focus on the economy and the debt. He would not have made it out of Iowa... well, nowhere to go now except Nowhere.

- K2K

February 18, 2012 at 6:55pm

well, nowhere to go now except Nowhere. as in the loveliest of utopias to visually re-imagine as needed, "News from Nowhere", by William Morris.

- K2K

February 18, 2012 at 7:02pm

Humans are animals that think. We don't know if there are any others in the vast universe who also do so. [Whales are at best problematic; though I have an acquaintance with more whale experience than I who disagrees vehemently.] We can be kind and caring. Women tend that to be that kinder way a little more than we men do, probably because of their biological role. However, the history of humanity is one of indescribable horror and cruelty, with lots of women playing their share in terrible monstrosities. Our evolution (as far as I can tell) brought to where we can destroy ourselves as a species (instead of committing suicide individually, and killing each other in relatively "small" wars contrasted to our gigantic overpopulation). Our evolution has also brought us to the point where we invent gods (in a universe without the slightest tangible, empirical evidence to support the existence of such creatures). Our evolution has brought us to the point where we can start consciously shaping our own evolution. So where do we go with this? Self destruction, or a new kind of unimaginably kind or evil creature?

- skahn

February 19, 2012 at 1:25am

In the late '80s, I had just returned to my apartment in the city after a long bike ride in the country. As I unloaded my bike from the trunk of my car, which I had parked in the circular drive in front of my building, another car pulled up behind me and a middle-aged man and woman stepped out to assist an elderly woman out of that one. As the man walked past me he muttered, "I'll ring that bike around your neck!" Presumably he was angry because he had to park a few yards further away from the door because of my car. Do you think he would have dared say this to me if I had been a man? (http://kvickthoughts.blogspot.com/2011/09/lady-girl-but-never-woman.html)

- Claris

February 19, 2012 at 12:35pm

TO THE MANAGERS OF THIS COLUMN: I ACCIDENTALLY INCLUDED A WRONG LINK TO MY OWN BLOG IN THE COMMENT ABOVE. WOULD YOU PLEASE REMOVE THAT LINK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE? THANK YOU!!

- Claris

February 19, 2012 at 12:45pm

I don't know, honestly don't know, what the GOP expects to get out of this. It sounds like maybe they are running for Pope? Here's the latest, hope it isn't too OT, but it does fit in with these attacks on women in some respects: Santorum attacks Obama on religious grounds, says we shouldn't have federal funding for education and also, prenatal testing because in his opinion it leads to more abortions and claims we are "culling the disabled;" I think he's around the bend: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/19/santorum-phony-theology_n_1287475.html Note, these are the same folks who want to cut to so called "safety net" that supposedly leads to more pregnancies in the first place, they want more pregnancies? Or what? And, if they cut money to help people with disabled child, and disabled adults, who will care for them? Oh wait I think I have an idea, a very large, powerful, patriarchal entity that gets huge tax breaks and thinks women are the embodiment of sin....right? So, here we have a perfect example of skahn's comment about how we invent gods, apparently we are still at it and now have GOP God, which is different from Democratic God, who is manifestly a false God, and must be defeated in the Presidential election. Marx would be laughing his a** off. In fact, Moses himself would probably be, wt???? The worst of it is, well, we may not even be alone on this planet in being thinking creatures but, we also have the ability to make stuff, some of which is incredibly deadly. And we are quite irrational and sometimes outright evil and destructive, as pointed out above. People in outer space may well be aware of us and are going oy gevalt, raise the shields!

- Sophia

February 19, 2012 at 1:10pm

Anyway, back to archetypes about women, the use of terms like "lady" and "girl" as Claris says can indeed be used to put us in our place. Women are scary. Look at de Kooning's paintings, but also the mute power of a Goya maja or, I think always of Rembrandt's Bathsheba...obviously the mere thought of WOMAN has power still, if the very idea of a costume malfunction at the Super Bowl is enough to stop the presses. But also, there's the ultimate taboo, women who kill their children. Is there a scarier play in the world than Medea? Taboos are another aspect of archetypes, don't you think? They do overlap with religious but also legal, sociology and intellectual constructs that help us survive as a species. People who fear abortion may be acting not just out of their religious convictions but within a psychological sphere that protects the small and the innocent. That in itself is good, it's a positive aspect of our nature, the ability to nurture, and also, not eat our own, although people have done exactly that under certain circumstances - so - cannibalism is also a taboo; and incest. The problem is, in religious, archetypal schemes, we don't see actual people especially real women and men, we don't consider extreme cases like the siege of Leningrad - we don't see real people who are starving. People apparently have eaten dead humans in order to survive many times. If our job on this earth it to live and not to die, then at what point do we admit the taboo isn't absolute? Now, we have conflated fetuses, zygotes in petri dishes even, in fact, unfertilized eggs and sperm, with people, living, breathing, actual human beings. Common sense and compassionate reason would argue in defense of the living, present day, actualized person, but also with the situation, which the Chinese had to confront, in which too many people in and of itself threatens the entire nation. We're probably at that point globally; yet, we still have people arguing against birth control in a supposedly modern and enlightened country. And, women are daily sacrificed. My own mother would have died in childbirth in a Catholic hospital so her infant could be baptized, had my father not chosen her life over his. They actually gave him the choice. Why on earth wouldn't they have automatically considered her first? She was a beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, talented 28 year old woman; a wife, a daughter, a sister, an artist, a person who wanted badly to be a mother and she was not a Catholic, she was a Jew and would have and did raise her subsequent children as Jews in any case; yet, her life in those fraught and agonizing hours hung only on the bare thread of my father's earthly love for her, not on her own merits as a real live existing human being. And he, thankfully, chose to save her. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. My mom would have been dead. My sister and I wouldn't have been born, nor my nieces. In the present day we have the case of the nun who was excommunicated for saving the life of an 11 weeks pregnant woman by permitting the induction of an abortion. To me, these cases exemplify the tragic fact that women are not seen as fully human, but in terms of part of our biological function, the fact that we have wombs. Similarly, women are killed for not bearing sons, to this day; women who lose husbands - well we're familiar with suttee, with the burning of wives; with the taking of wives whose husbands have been killed in battle - much of this was in the past but honor killings and the like continue even now; mass rapes, forced marriages, human trafficking. So, I agree with irony and others above: women's rights are anything but a sideshow. They are essential to a real understanding and accomplishment of human rights.

- Sophia

February 19, 2012 at 1:35pm

Claris, I'm not sure the TNR threads have any "managers" in the sense you mean. But in any case your blog comments were very pertinent -- why do you want to remove the link? Sophia -- I'm coming more and more to think about the peculiar toleration for extreme violence we have in America and the palpable hostility toward physical pleasure on the basis of equal desire (a movie with naked breasts in which nobody hurts anyone gets an RR rating if it's lucky, a movie with a savage murder of a woman gets PG-13 -- because we have to protect the children, you see).

- ironyroad

February 19, 2012 at 1:35pm

This is sort of nowhere, but back in the late 1980s I had a girlfriend who was also from Ireland and living in Germany. So I had been to college a few years earlier and I'd been drilled by various female friends in the spirit of the time that "girl" was patronizing and sexist and "woman" was the appropriate term. After a short time together, I remember the gf asking me, "You say 'woman' all the time, why?" I explained it was due to my earlier training. She said that she quite liked the word "girl" and rather missed it. So I started using it. I should note, however, that she liked it more in friendly intimate circumstances rather than e.g. at work. I think it had some connotations of youthfulness and energy for her, that she was worried about losing now that she was over 30 (funny how these things become relative . . . )

- ironyroad

February 19, 2012 at 2:05pm

I wanted the link removed because I thought I had posted a link that gave access to my dashboard and total access to my blog including editing rights, posting rights, etc. But if the link is just to the blog post and doesn't give access to my dashboard, that fine. Interesting stuff, Sophia. I think there is a cultural difference, too, in the word "girl." It may not be as politically loaded in a foreign context as it is in the U.S. I'm happy to hear, Irony, that you learned the lesson that feminists of the '70s and '80s were drilling into people. (And, yes, men can be feminists too.) But, alas, I'm afraid we've regressed and that's what frightens me. I live in Sweden and was coaching a group of nurses (all women) in English. I was trying to emphasize that in a professional setting you use the word "woman" for female adults. One of the people in the group said, "But I like the word 'girl!' It makes me feel young!" In Swedish, there is a word for (adult) young woman that is not as pejorative as the word girl and a corresponding word that applies to (adult) young men. So both genders have words with their words. So you can "insult" (if you don't like the words) both women and men, which tends to equalize things. This may be why your Irish/German girlfriend didn't find the word so objectionable if similar vocabulary exists in German or in Ireland (think "lass"?) Or maybe she just wasn't a feminist! I also think European women in general are lagging a bit in terms of feminist thinking. Sexism is much more open here. But I found the nurse's answer troubling. First, what's wrong with being old? Women, of course, are not supposed to get old or show their age. Second, I think the word "girl" puts her at lower status especially among doctors who are often men. She should be a professional peer, not a subordinate. I didn't get into that with her since that wasn't really my job, but she didn't seem to recognize the point either. Maybe it didn't bother her to have a subordinate role, which I thought was sad. Especially in the nursing field where doctors have historically treated nurses like shit. My problem with casual use of the word "girl" even in a friendly way is that the distinction between friendly and professional is often blurred and its use in professional settings is increasing again. How often do people call grown men "boy" and how would you feel if they did it to you? There's the obvious slavery connotation, but maybe that's the point. The word "boy" applied to an adult man just isn't acceptable. It carries too much of a sense of unrealized adulthood. Although, I must confess, I have heard the word "boy" applied to young men in the entertainment industry in the sense of "young" or youth. I'm not sure this is such a good thing, although it is equality! We are so reluctant, even among women themselves, to allow women to be the adult peers of men - for all the reasons Sophia writes. And regarding my preceding comment, don't forget "A boy's best friend is his mother." I think the guy who cursed me may have been extra angry because mothers are to worshiped and far outrank uppity young women on bicycles who dare, however unintentionally, cause inconvenience for them!

- Claris

February 19, 2012 at 3:42pm

Claris, another quite amusing memory, that sort of goes in the other direction: Around 12-13 years ago when I was still in grad school, I was heading toward a class I was TA'ing. As I passed through the double doors two undergrads, guys, around 19 or so, vaguely in the jock class, were coming through in the opposite direction, and I heard one of them say to the other with an air of sage wisdom: "Women just don't get Star Wars!" About the U.S.-European differences as regards feminist thinking -- that's true, and there may be some extra tweaks in there as regards Scandinavian countries. But it's not always clear what is progressive in one place is automatically so in another. My suspicion is that many European women don't believe that American feminism is particularly a model to be followed because it seems to partake of highly individualistic notions of social identity that echo other points where Europeans and Americans diverge. There are some issues about family and childcare that are less fraught in Europe because the social provision is better (in some countries), and they are seen as general services for the good of society, not necessarily for women only. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I think what I'm trying to say is that tone plays a bigger role than we might imagine, and there are more consensus models in Europe than "individual battling her way though" models (for example, there are female members of Christian Democratic parties in European countries who have no problem connecting women's issues with a moderate conservative vision -- you cannot find that in the Republican Party). And yet . . . and yet . . . I lived in Germany for a long time and was often somewhat puzzled about the disjuncture between the fairly aggressive feminism that one found in progressive circles and the incredibly 1950s masculine nature of German public or corporate life, even today much more retro than in the United States.

- ironyroad

February 19, 2012 at 4:38pm

"Kinder, Kuche, Kirche" makes a comeback? yes, Claris needs to know that there is no one at TNR to ask to delete any comment, the online version of that 'space garbage' that the Swiss have decided to clean up. No such luck cleaning cyberspace :) I found it interesting that, of all the talking heads on all the Sunday morning news shows yesterday, only Michelle Bachmann (CNN's State of the Union) got this issue correct: the issue is about how PPACA aka Obamacare vests authority to decide what health care benefits are to be covered with the President, which also seems to me to be a frightening problem with PPACA, NOT this politicization of contraception... A corollary for irony - this whole mishegoss reminded me that it is the nations who utilized women in the WW2 carnage who won. Germany and Japan kept their women at home, and out of the armanents factories. The USA and UK did the opposite, from Rosie the Riveter to Princess Elizabeth as jeep mechanic.

- K2K

February 20, 2012 at 9:12am

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/100850/the-status-birth-control-1938?page=0,1&utm_source=The%20New%20Republic&utm_campaign=c58555bed3-TNR_Archives_021912&utm_medium=email FROM THE NEW REPUBLIC ARCHIVES: April 20, 1938 Margaret Sanger "THE STATUS OF BIRTH CONTROL" Thanks to TNR editors for posting Margaret Sanger's entire essay online because everyone in America should read this. The URL above seems to still be active.

- K2K

February 23, 2012 at 10:27am