Pregnant Women + Discrimination = Hilarious (…For Fox News)

Tracey, over at the blog Unapologetically Female, posts a video clip of a sketch involving pregnant women and work from the Fox News 1/2 Hour News Hour and has this to say:

Because according to them, pregnancy discrimination is non-issue. Because their message is apparently that pregnant women should know better than to think they’re capable of doing their jobs or that they should be entitled to their state-mandated worker’s rights before, during, and after their pregnancies. That pregnant women don’t need to make a living. They should just shut up and smile and bask in the glow of the little miracle growing inside their bodies whether or not they are able to financially support it. And that those who actually speak up and demand their rights are loud, strident, baby-hating bitches. This garbage is on national television. Thanks a lot, Fox. You’ve sunk to a new low.

35th Carnival of Feminists

The 35th edition of the Carnival of Feminists if up on the f-word blog, here are some excerpts:

FemaleScienceProfessor reports on sexism in academic circles.

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A study by a group of Swedish researchers, apparently showing that equality is bad for the health of both women and men has been roundly trashed by feminist bloggers. Jill from Feministe points out that Sweden - which regularly tops polls on gender equality - has the second-highest average life expectancy in the world.

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Polish politicians are trying to tighten anti-abortion laws, removing exceptions for rape, incest and cases where carrying a pregnancy to term endangers the mother’s health.

But Kyso Kisaen at PunkAssBlog points out that these exceptions do not necessarily protect those women that fall under them. Case in point, Alicja Tysiac, a 35 year-old Polish mother who was denied an abortion even though doctors warned that she would go blind if she gave birth.

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One Jewish Dyke goes in search of a Yahoo avatar that looks like her - and finds the selection of body types sorely lacking. But at least they expanded the line of outfits for our virtual selves to include hockey gear.

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More evidence that pharmacists in the US are routinely restricting access to the morning after pill from Ginger Miss, who asked her boyfriend to pick some up for her. Although the law guarantees both men and women the right to buy emergency contraceptives, he ran into problems when he tried to exercise that right.

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head over to Mind the Gap!, where Winter sketches out what happened at a recent meeting, during which the Welsh activist group discussed the “lad’s mags” phenomenon.

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Anil Kumar at Jag’s Blog critiques women at a cricket match who “protested” the performance of Sachin Tendulkar by holding up a placard depicting him wearing bangles.

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Hometownwriter from Sand Gets In My Eyes posts about the festival of Janadriya in Saudi Arabia. Ostensibly intended to showcase the country’s culture and society, Hometownwriter questions what that really means when men are allowed to attend, children are allowed to attend, Western women are allowed to attend, but Saudi women are almost completely excluded.

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BJP “Feminists”

Krish blogs about the hypocrisy of calling oneself a feminist and being a member of the ultra-nationalistic BJP party in India in his blog Krishworld Politics:

I have come across many Indian women who claim that they are out there in the world to eradicate male chauvinism. The same women (who are from the privileged castes of the society) support BJP unabashedly. I find this highly hypocritical. I have high regard for real feminists. But I consider these pseudo-feminists as the cheapest group of people. BJP is a party which considers Rama to be the gold standard. Rama, the last time I heard about him, made his wife walk through fire to prove her “purity”. It seems he did that to shut the mouths of people who, in their own male chauvinistic way, questioned the “purity” of Sita.

Someone Else’s Problem

N. (from Bangolore, India) blogs about an encounter she had with a publisher from a feminist publishing house in her blog Noah’s Ark Broken:

I find it disturbing that the representative of a feminist publishing house is not clear about what feminism means, not to the world at large but even just to them. That she gets defensive about the word ‘feminist’. That three other writers with her believe that “women like us” don’t have “such problems” therefore, women like us don’t have to write about them. I find it especially disturbing because it reflects a trend that is common among urban educated women from upper middle class families in India. Feminism is passe. Feminism is uncool. And mostly, it is Somebody Else’s Problem.

Originally linked by Bhupinder at Blog Bharti.

The Myth of “Equality” Feminists

On the blog feministing.com Jessica blogs about conservative women whom call themselves feminists:

I just lurve women that call themselves things like “equality feminists.” Or “conservative feminists.” These are ladies who doth protest a bit too much about how they trust and respect women—all while bashing the hell out of them. (Or as the ever-brilliant Ms. Marcotte said recently, “’equality feminists’ are for equality if you think ‘equality’ is synonymous with ‘looks good with the boot on her neck.’”)