And Then There Were Nine

The Professor and I went down to Legislative Plaza as planned. I did end up inadvertently showing the guard my underwear, because it’s so windy, but I didn’t flash my cooter at anyone, since no senators showed up for the press conference to explain themselves.

So, yes, here in Tennessee we are one step closer to enshrining a woman’s second-class citizenship in our constitution. Only nine senators voted against the amendment.

The press conference was a little like a good Irish wake. Folks were crying and hugging, but also catching up with each other and there was some laughter and some smiles. Still, everyone in the room knew that the amendment was going to pass; I think for most of them, it was just seeing it happen, and hearing the vitriol during the debate that made it hard.

As for me, I have deeply mixed feelings. I already thought there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that they wouldn’t pass the amendment, and so to hear these folks get up in front of the microphones, some of them still sobbing, talking about how this will be the first time the state’s constitution is amended to deny rights to a group of people, was really sad. One woman asked how she was supposed to tell rape victims that they can’t have abortions and then she started to cry. I did too.

But I also am deeply glad I went, because the wide spectrum of women in that room made me really deeply proud. There were grand Southern women in their fancy hats with their refined accents and old hippies and medical students from Vanderbilt and Meharry and women in their work clothes and some just in jeans and t-shirts. And they all seemed grand and noble in a way that made me cry, too.

Shoot, maybe I really am becoming a Southerner, after almost a decade. Look at me waxing nostalgic about the inherent honor and dignity of folks fighting a lost cause.

Edited to add that Egalia has a great post about the morning’s proceedings and explains that we have time to work to educate people and stop this. So, things are dire, but they are not hopeless.

The Fed-Ex Man Makes a Crucial Error in Judgment

Fed-Ex Man: Hey, sweet thing, what time do you get off work?

My intern: 10, but I have class until 3.

Fed-Ex Man: Class? Three? Really? Well, that’s very nice, Miss. I must be going.

My Dog Eats Poop

My dog eats poop, then comes in the house and licks herself, and then goes upstairs to wake up the Butcher by licking him.

They say dogs’ mouths are cleaner than humans’ mouths, but I wonder how long after eating poop that becomes true again.

Reproductive Freedom for Everyone!

Exador sent me a link yesterday to this story about a woman in Britain who made some fertilized eggs with her boyfriend almost a decade ago and now that she’s had ovarian cancer, wants to use these fertilized eggs to have some kids. Her now ex-boyfriend has succeeded so far in his efforts to legally prevent her from doing this.

The Shill just sent me a link to this story about a guy in Michigan who didn’t want to have kids with his ex-girlfriend, who told him she had a condition that prevented her from getting pregnant, who got pregnant anyway, and now he’s got to pay child support for a kid he didn’t want.

In short, my opinion is that no person or government entity should be able to force a person to become a parent against his or her will, and that Mark Felt, the director of the National Center for Men, is right, since he “doesn’t advocate an unlimited fatherhood opt-out; he proposes a brief period in which a man, after learning of an unintended pregnancy, could decline parental responsibilities if the relationship was one in which neither partner had desired a child.”

Honestly, I don’t think that goes far enough. A man, upon learning of any pregnancy, intended or not, should have a brief window of time to decline parental responsibilities. No compulsory parenthood for anyone, I say.

But I also want to talk about the National Center for Men, because, my first reaction when I looked around the website was, honestly, derisive snickering. I don’t know anything about this group. It could be that, once you get to know them, they’re a bunch of misogynist pigs, but I wasn’t snickering because I thought they were pigs. I was snickering because it seems kind of unmanly to devote a whole website to bitching about how rough you have it.

Woo hoo, America, I am a giant asshole! Sure, I preach about gender equality and how the current system we have for relating to each other is incredibly damaging to us all. But when some folks want to get together and address that problem from the point of view of men? And to band together to address real, live, legitimate ways that the system screws over men?

My gut reaction is derisive laughter.

Today, you might have noticed, is Blog Against Sexism day.

I didn’t participate because who am I to talk about being against sexism?

Scruffle

Let’s pause for a moment from the ongoing political ranting to consider the joys of a day or two’s worth of beard. Just a little scruffle to tickle under your fingers as you run them across a man’s jaw or to scratch against your cheek as you brush your lips against his.

I used to know this guy who had the most magnificent scruffly beard. I’d always could tell just when it was at the perfect prickly stage because he was blond and his face would sparkle when the light hit his cheeks.

I wonder what ever happened to him.

I also wonder if scruffle is really a word.

Ah, well.

When I’m queen, I will send my spies to find this kind of stuff out.