Bitchslapped

Right-wing performance artiste Ann Coulter supports forced forced abortions on unmarried women who get pregnant!

Here she is getting smacked around by the ladies of ABC's The View today:

Coulter is doing a media tour to promote her latest book which is full of her usual slanders, half-truths and outright falsehoods. But this time, instead of just going for politicians and liberals, she attacks single mothers, as if single mothers don't suffer enough stigmatization.

"Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts," she writes, claiming that all of society's ills can be attributed to the fact that ''liberals hate marriage.'' The crime rate is directly linked to the rise in illegitimate births, she insists.

So what's the answer, Ann?

Force widows to give up their kids? Make unhappy couples stay together? Make single women who get pregnant have abortions? Lock up all the unmarried ladies?

Hmm. There's an idea. Coulter herself is a bachelorette.

P.S. This is also a good case for bringing home the troops.

Fuzzbuster

U.S. President George W. Bush may be on his way out, but bush is back. Or so says Lisa Germinsky at Salon, in this piece about how nobody is flying down to Rio down there anymore. Apparently, it's all about beavering away your pennies in these tough economic times.

"It's back to shaving in the shower for me," says Catlin, a brand manager for a Los Angeles  fashion label.

"It's a fortune to keep a trim bush," bemoans Meredith, a healthcare marketing executive.

But it isn't just hard times driving this trend. After seeing the shaved beav of nearly every pop tart, after years of porn going mainstream, isn't the thrill of the bare vage getting a little stale? If not, you know, creepy?

That was Bill Maher's take, when he lamented on a Sept. 19 episode of "Real Time With Bill Maher," "Bring back a little pubic hair. Not a lot. I'm not talking about reviving that 1973 look that says I'm liberated ... and I'm smuggling a hedgehog. I just want a friendly, fuzzy calling card that tells me I'm not going to get arrested."

These days, even Playboy -- and it's hard to find better experts on the matter -- acknowledges a departure from a near-decade run of absolute clean living. Gary Cole, the Playboy photography director who has observed the region's changing landscape since 1975, says, "It started [in the '80s] with trimming and a landing strip, in part a reflection of the skimpier swimsuits. Then it went further to tiny patches, then to none at all. Now, the pendulum is swinging a little the other way."

And I, for one, am not going to complain.

I first took a lady Schick to my bikini line sometime during the second term of the Reagan administration. The process guaranteed unpleasantries: razor burn and in-grown hairs, not to mention the constant and necessary repetition. But in time, with increased skill, the invention of the gazillion-blade razor and ladies-only shave gel, I gave the task little thought. Until I moved to New York City, of course, where highlights from a New Jersey mall and a "natural" brow were the sartorial equivalents of hate crime. Eventually, seduced by the city's indulgent carelessness, I let Sonya and her thick imported Brazilian wax have their way with me. My lady garden -- once lush -- now lay nearly bare. And for years, that's how it stayed: a tiny patch of hair, not dissimilar to Hitler's mustache.

But in recent months, I've longed for the fuller landscape of yesteryear. While I've become accustomed to some benefits of the Brazilian -- it does clear a nice path for action -- I'm aching for change. The act itself is invasive. I'm feeling a little rebellious. And, hey, money is tight.

Fine with me. As I wrote last year, the burning bush treatment is just a big pain in the butt.

Now if only this would lead to the end of those stupid cosmetic surgeries on lady parts.

Zipless cluck

I'm a little late to this party but ...

The blogosphere continues to buzz over last week's Today Show on which ''Dr. Laura'' Schlessinger basically blamed Silda Wall Spitzer for her husband Eliot's turning to premium-priced prostitutes as a release.

Quote one:

When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings — sexually, personally — to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman. […]

Who knows what went on between the Spitzers? Certainly not the moralizing ''Dr. Laura.''

Quote two:

The cheating was his decision to repair what’s damaged and to feed himself where he’s starving. But yes, I hold women accountable for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need.

Oy vey. Don't go to a marriage counsellor — assuming that was what was needed — to ''repair'' the damage. Don't even have a ''girlfriend'' who is your intellectual peer. Hire a high-priced hooker less than half your age and risk your career, reputation and family because, boo-hoo, your wife didn't fall down on her knees every time you walked in the door.

Give. Me. A. Break. Lady.

And what if the high heels were on the other feet? What if the husbands are the partners not treating the wives ''with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need?" Would you be then excusing a wife's hitting on Chippendale dancers?

Authour Erica Jong was on CNN's Reliable Sources yesterday. I loved how she talked about this, between host Howard Kurtz's interruptions.

Well, I'm particularly horrified by Laura Schlessinger, who is blaming the woman for what's going on. Clearly, Eliot Spitzer had some sort of sex addiction problem. He didn't have a super ego that was developed as it should have been.

He had been doing this for eight years, and he thought he would continue to get away with it. He had worked out a system of going down to Washington, to the Mayflower Hotel, of all places, a place crawling with politicians and journalists, and he was seeing prostitutes at the Mayflower Hotel. He must have been insane to do that, or there was a lacuna where his (conscious) should be and he thought the rules that apply to other people didn't apply to him.

Maybe the guy is bipolar. I'm not a shrink. I'm a lowly novelist and poet. But I will say that all these shrinks who are going on TV and talking about Eliot Spitzer should be disbarred, or whatever they do to shrinks.

They should have their licenses taken away. An ethical shrink does not go on TV and psychoanalyze people she or he has not met. So I'm horrified by this.

Just for the record, ''Dr. Laura'' is not a ''shrink.'' She is a physiologist. Why she is presented as anything but beats me.

What really kills me is that this moralizing, homophobic anti-feminist gets so much airtime when  much more qualified female pundits — who don't hate women — never make it into the show bookers' magic call lists.

Misogyny lives, especially in the conservative media.

Grrrrrrrrl Power

From my friends at The Galloping Beaver -- no pun intended -- an awesome post on what feminism has given the world.

Feminism hasn't created socio-economic inequalities. Over the course of centuries, feminism, which didn't start with the end of WW2 or with the cancellation of Leave It To Beaver, has always benefited society. Feminism has the effect of highlighting the worst of social ills and correcting them for women, men, children and sometimes, animals. A British soldier of today would still be living the life of his 18th Century antecedent if it hadn't been for a feminist.

Feminism is responsible for a lot of things, 99.99% of them good.

It is not responsible for fascism, Islamic or otherwise. It is not responsible for the exploitation of women and children in the sex trade. It is not responsible for sharia law, the Taliban, the war in Iraq, Hitler, domestic abuse, anorexia, bare midriffs or the Spice Girls.

Feel free to fill in the blank: Feminism is not responsible for _________.

UPPITY DATE (4/1/08): Habibah Richards in the comments below takes exception to my including shariah law on this list. She writes, in part:

Though I certainly appreciate much of what you've written, unfortunately your choice of words is suggestive of some bigotry and prejudice in the form anti-islamic sentiments - ironic for a blog that is against gender discrimination to engage in religious discrimination. Fascism is unislamic, so the notion of "Islamic fascism" is an oxymoron. And the much-maligned shariah law is not what is portrayed in the media, nor is it defined by the occurrence of misinterpretations and misapplications in third world countries. Shariah refers to the legal constitution of Islam and the true Shariah is aimed at elevation of women, as seen through the voluminous quotes from the Qur'an and Prophet on the subject.

While I am prepared to accept that the media misrepresent shariah law, I highly doubt feminists had anything to do with drawing it up. Indeed, feminism is not responsible for modern patriarchal organized religion of any kind.