Feminists don't have a sense of humor

Found on Feministing:

Nelly McKay tells feminists where to get off. (Didja notice her evil pitbulls?)

Dear John

Found on Imageshack, via PopUrls:

Beyond the pale

Trying not to take this personally ...

Rapier Wit

ABC's Modern Family star Sofia Vergara is 37. She has a son who is 18.

Do the math.

Now watch this clip from Wednesday's The View:

What's so funny, Whoopi, Babs and the rest of you? This is a joke?

A 13 year old getting raped and pregnant is a JOKE?

Or maybe because it's not, you know, rape-rape, it's ahahaha funny.

At least Whoopi choked on this one.

Stalk exchange

Ain't this the truth?

Con-TRAP-tions

So remember when I wrote about this booby trap?

Sarah Haskins takes it to a whole new level, and throws in more.

Grassroots to grassfire

So, about that column 11 days ago:

I'm thinking of making T-shirts: "Proud to be a member of that `left-wing fringe group' called `Women.'"

They'd be pink, of course, for socialism – and also for the pink triangle, the badge the Nazis made gays and lesbians wear before shipping them off to the camps.

Thanks to Prime Minster Stephen Harper, those T-shirts will make me rich!

Well no, LEAF is a registered Canadian charity that helps women and minorities fight for their rights.

So props to you, P.M., for letting down your hair, and your guard, last week at that not-so-closed-door speech in Sault Ste. Marie.

Thank you for finally admitting that your government shut down the Court Challenges program in 2006 not just because, as then-Heritage Minister Bev Oda claimed in Parliament, you "recognize the importance of women" but because you believe that that women's rights are "left-wing fringe" rights.

Now, with a little help from my 2,720 (and counting) Facebook friends, as well as the ladies at LEAF, the Women's Legal Action and Education Fund, the t-shirt has become a reality.

Okay, so it's not pink but black. That's more slimming. Plus it made it easier to come up with a version for supportive men.

Order yours here.

Props to Francesca Dobbyn, Jude Macdonald, Pale Cold and Michael Hanna-Fein for making this all happen.

Big ups to Dwayne Radzik Radke for the photo manipulation you see above.

You can bet that Mr. Harper won't be putting us on...anymore.

10 Top Tips For Avoiding Rape

Found via my Tweep @NutkinNB:

1.   Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2.   When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3.   If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault  them!

4.   NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5.   If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6.   Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

You like?

Then go read the rest.

And then go read this list too.

Then ask yourself why it is that all the usual tips are focused on the potential victims. Don't go out alone at night. Don't go jogging on the boardwalk at 5 a.m. Don't use stairwells. Don't wear a tight shirt.

As the late Israeli PM Golda Meir famously told her cabinet during a debate on imposing a curfew on women to protect them from a series of rapes, maybe it's better to lock up the men instead.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: A few people, who obviously don't have superwide LCD screens like I do, asked me what the balloons in the image say. Here goes:

HE: My sweet honey, I hope you are to be let with the lodgings.

SHE: No, I am to be let alone.

Fringe Benefits

What started out a flippant tweet inspired by my Tweep @impolitical on Thursday, morphed into a column, then an avalanche of email, a Facebook group, a blogburst and maybe, just in time for the expected federal election, a movement!

So far, we have 700 members ... and counting.

Here's the column, published on Friday, with annotations and links.

I'm thinking of making T-shirts: "Proud to be a member of that `left-wing fringe group' called `Women.'"

They'd be pink, of course, for socialism – and also for the pink triangle, the badge the Nazis made gays and lesbians wear before shipping them off to the camps.

We already have a draft design, compliments of Francesca Dobbyn, who describes herself as ''Executive Director of the United Way of Bruce Grey, activist, feminist, artist, mother, child and most importantly: a work in progress.'' We also have plenty of offers from other graphically-gifted grrrls (and boys).

Oh, and we decided black would be more flattering -- but the graphics and writing would be pink.

Thanks to Prime Minster Stephen Harper, those T-shirts will make me rich!

Well, no actually -- although I have received something like 1,000 requests. Hence the Facebook group. It is just too much!

Also, I am stepping away from this, as it would not really be appropriate for me to get into the t-shirt business, or to be actively involved. So I have handed it off to others, and we're lining up a charity for fundraising. More on that below, and later -- when there is news.

So props to you, P.M., for letting down your hair, and your guard, last week at that not-so-closed-door speech in Sault Ste. Marie.

Thank you for finally admitting that your government shut down the Court Challenges program in 2006 not just because, as then-Heritage Minister Bev Oda claimed in Parliament, you "recognize the importance of women" but because you believe that that women's rights are "left-wing fringe" rights.

Truth is, you only "recognize the importance" of some of the women some of the time. Members of fringe groups such as R.E.A.L. Women, which opposes women's rights and same-sex rights, plus just about everything that doesn't hew to the "family values" one-man, one-stay-at-home-woman and lots-of-babies fantasy.

But they are not "fringe" to you, Prime Minister. At least not judging from how everything your government attempts to do comes right out of R.E.A.L. Women's playbook. So thank you for, once again, opening that not-so-hidden agenda, the one that you would impose if you ever won a majority government.

The agenda that thinks women's work is not as valuable as men's.

The agenda that would treat lesbians and gays as less than equal.

The agenda that would curb the rights of people with disabilities.

The agenda that would discriminate on the basis of race and religion.

The agenda that would leave women without reproductive freedom.

That's because that Court Challenges program your government deemed "wasteful," was, according to its website, "a national non-profit organization which was set up in 1994 to provide financial assistance for important court cases that advance language and equality rights guaranteed under Canada's Constitution."

Not just "important" cases, but landmark cases, many fought by LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund – a group clearly overrun by rabid fringe feminists.

They intervened in "left-wing fringe" court cases such as Torres v. Minto Management (2002), which prevented a landlord from increasing a single mother's rent by 41 per cent just because her husband had left the building.

Then there was the "left-wing fringe" case The Queen v. Keegstra (1990), which kept a Holocaust denier from teaching his anti- Semitic ideas to Alberta schoolchildren.

Or how about that "left-wing fringe" case Brooks v. Safeway (1989), which forced employers not to discriminate against pregnant staffers.

And here you are, Mr. Harper, such a champion of "childcare choices" that, last week, you boasted of your government's failure to create a single daycare space.

"We need to win a majority," you told your enthusiastic audience. "If we do not win a majority, this government will have a Liberal government propped up by the socialists and the separatists."

And later, you added: "Imagine how many left-wing ideologues they would be putting in the courts."

Frankly, I think more Canadians would find the alternative a scarier proposition.

Finally, thank you for revealing your nasty, petty and vindictive side, the one that you batten down when you know the cameras are on you.

Maybe, while you're scrapping the gun registry, you could start one for cellphone cameras so, next time, nobody in your audience can tape you, and then leak the videos to CBC.

So, anyway, I'm thinking of adding shimmy-shimmy-shake fringe to the T-shirts.

Rich! Rich I tell ya!

(Marketing types can contact me at my email address below.)

As I mentioned, I have passed the torch to others. If you're on Facebook, join us. (Supportive men are welcome. Trolls will be banned.) If you can help, let us know.

And stay tuned for the name of the cause and where you can buy that t-shirt.

(A hat tip to Scott Tribe for sending me the Hollywoodized edited version of Harper's speech. (A full-length version is here.))

UPPITY WOMEN DATE: For some reason, I am suddenly reminded of this...

Back during the big referendum battle of 1980, an insulting comment about federalist women might have made the difference between the Oui and Non sides:

It was early March 1980. René Lévesque’s separatist government had just tabled in the Québec National Assembly its long, muddled up, deliberately ambiguous referendum question. Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals had been re-elected in February following Jos Clark’s defeat. Claude Ryan was the Leader of the Opposition in Québec. Unfortunetely, the federalist forces were nowhere to be seen or heard. All what one could see or hear was about voting “Yes” to the question and to separation. The “No” camp was a complete vacuum. It was just terrible to watch.

On March 9, the péquiste Minister of the Status of Women (Lise Payette), formerly a well-known TV personality, while attacking in the Assemblée nationale the sexism of schoolbooks – the nice and docile little “Yvette” who always helps at home – concluded that the Leader of the Opposition in charge of the “No” forces loved women who were “Yvettes”, submissive women, as was his wife, Madeleine. Those in favour of separation applauded, while women in the “No” camp, insulted, took note. Still nothing was happening in the fight against separation.

It is then that a small group of unknown grassroot Liberal women organizers from Québec City decided, without a word, “to take over”, using to the federalist advantage this unbelievable political gaffe against women. The “Yvettes” were born.

All by themselves, with no money and no paid publicity, they organized on March 30 a first brunch in Québec City; 1,700 women of all walks of life came. The initiative caught women’s imagination like a bush fire. On April 7, they were 14,000 at the Montreal Forum. Everywhere in the province, they started expressing in their own words their passion for Canada. Many had never participated in anything political.

Here's the report from CBC's archives.

More here. And here.

Just saying.

Girl on Girl Action

Welcome visitors looking for porn!

Actually, yes, I did choose a provocative headline, one that would drive up hits. Google ''girl on girl action'' to see how common a search term it is. (95 million plus links!) But it's not like people are looking for women's pro basketball coverage.

As Sociological Images points out:

These days it’s not unusual to see girl-on-girl action on TV and in mainstream movies. Are we tolerant of lesbianism? Let’s do a thought experiment:

Two thin, young, conventionally attractive women in stillettos with large breasts making out? Hot or not? Hot.

Two women making out? Hot or not? Hmmmm.

<SNIP>

Much of the supposed acceptability of girls kissing girls is predicated on the idea that they are doing it not for themselves, but for an imagined male viewer. That is, they’re kissing each other to get guys off. That male viewer doesn’t even have to be present. He’s implied when the girls are, as I described above, “thin, young, conventionally attractive women in stillettos with large breasts.” Looking “hot” signifies a capitulation to the male gaze. So long as the women kissing each other conform to this standard of beauty, they aren’t breaking the rules of femininity (one of which is a desire for male sexual attention).

This may sound outlandish, but consider the disgust or outrage that is often aimed at lesbians who do not conform to this standard of beauty. When lesbians are not thin, do not wear make up, or refrain from dressing in ways that reveal and feminize their body, they are “dykes.” These women are not unacceptable simply because they are sexually attracted to other women, they are unacceptable because they are refusing to acknowledge and accept that they exist, first and foremost, to please men.

Last year during Gay Pride Week, the boy and I found ourselves in a pub that had a huge open window overlooking Yonge Street -- just as the Dyke Parade was on. There was a bunch of beer swillers at the next table -- clearly from out of town, just there for the occasion -- their cameras clicking away. They got all hot and bothered whenever an attractive topless woman marched by -- but they just got bothered if she wasn't conventionally young and pretty.

We were totally grossed out by these sexist hicks. Could they be any more stereotypically sexist?

Anyway, Sociological Images' post was inspired by the latest video by Current TV's Bryan Safi, who shares a website with that Broadsides fave Sarah Haskins. He makes the point that pop culture exploits the girl-on-girl action for its own commercial ends. I would just like to add that pop culture is nowhere to be found when gays and lesbians are battling for equal rights.

But I'll let Safi speak for his funny self: