new wave feminism

If a survivor of domestic violence uses a gun to warn an attacker, not kill him, and that survivor now faces a prison term of twenty years, then what purpose does Stand Your Ground serve?

On Tarja Halonen’s first day at work in the legal department of a trade union she answered the phone to a man who, hearing a female voice, asked to speak to one of the lawyers. She informed him that he was speaking to one. Things got better after that. Following her stint as a lawyer she served in Finland’s parliament for over 20 years. Since 2000 she has been the country’s president, the first female in the job.

Try to imagine a parent-daughter conversation about sexual restraint and maturity that includes the words: “Honey, I’m going to deny you a vaccine that prevents a horrible, bleeding cancer, just as a little reminder of the religious values I’ve been trying to teach you.” This would be morally monstrous. Such ethical electroshock therapy has nothing to do with cultivation of character in children. It certainly has nothing to do with Christianity, which teaches that moral rules are created for the benefit of the individual, not to punish them with preventable death.

This approach to moral education may appeal to a certain kind of conservative politician. How could it possibly appeal to a parent, conservative or otherwise?

Our desire to be free has got to manifest itself in everything we are and do.

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.

There is a country where the leading cause of death of pregnant women is murder by a partner. In this same country, more than a million women were raped in 2008 and women are much more likely to live in poverty than men. Local laws don’t protect their right to bodily freedom and integrity; some rape laws even state that once a woman initially consents to sex, she doesn’t have the right to change her mind.

You may have caught on by now — yes, I’m talking about the United States.

The reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism. Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women –as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement.

You have so many men and women, making assumptions based on your movies about what normal or hot sex looks like. What does it feel like to be influencing the way that people have sex? That’s way more responsibility than I want. We do stuff for the camera, we are having sex for the people at home, so not necessarily everything that we do feels good. I once did a magazine interview where they asked me for tips on how to have sex like a porn star and one of my biggest pieces of advice was, don’t.

Another thing I want to shoot down about pacifism is that violence doesn’t solve anything. Bullshit. What that means is that if violence doesn’t accomplish anything does that mean that all the Africans just jumped on the slave ship on their own? Does that mean that American Indians just handed the land over? Does that mean that women don’t have to be afraid everywhere in the world because of men’s violence? It’s absurd. And what’s more is this whole culture is based on violence and if violence doesn’t accomplish anything then I guess that civilization doesn’t exist, does it?

When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.