Kinja reply list

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nutmegcinnamonJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:24am
I really dislike these “pro-life is pro-women” posters. I do not think anything could be farther from the truth.
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  recidiviciousnutmegcinnamon
  12/15/15 10:30am
  No kidding. The brand of pro-life these people push reduces women’s bodies to objects that the women themselves have no autonomy over. Fuck that noise, that’s about as anti-woman as you can get.
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  Chester the Dognutmegcinnamon
  12/15/15 10:31am
  George Carlin said “ pro-life is anti-woman” and that is a true description of the movement,
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FeralFrigidSlutJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:30am
The U.S. healthcare system

I wish people would stop calling it that. It’s not a system it’s an industry. There is a difference and our maternal morbidity and mortality stats reflect that fact.
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  big_sobber (goooooooodbye, baby)FeralFrigidSlut
  12/15/15 10:46am
  You have two doctors in the US at all times, actually: the professional doctor, and the insurance mega-corp computer’s second opinion. So, it’s good.
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  mekkiFeralFrigidSlut
  12/15/15 10:51am
  Agreed. Canada and the UK has a system. We have, like you said, have a for profit industry.
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isner-mahutJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:37am
But why? Why are we so backward about this? What is it about us that allows or causes this to happen? What’s wrong with us?
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  Ilikefactsisner-mahut
  12/15/15 10:42am
  The same thing that keeps Ireland and Poland back. Bronze age fairy tales.
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  mekkiisner-mahut
  12/15/15 10:50am
  It’s easy to say religion as already stated but I think that only is half the problem. The other half? Money. Making it and keeping it.
  
  The US health system neglects the poor. Full stop. Why? Because it would cost money to cover everyone like they do in other countries and only a small fraction of the public is willing to pay more taxes for universal healthcare. And none of them are the ones who have actually enough money to make a difference.
  
  The lack of maternal and paternal leave, sick days and vacation days in the work place? Again, the CEOs are looking at lost revenue. Profit means more than treating employees fairly.
  
  Over-incarcerations? Big companies that are running the jails are making mint over the huge population of prisoners we have in this country. They want more people in jails. More profits.
  
  We value the Almighty Dollar too much in this country. Especially valuing it over human life.
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Ginger Is A ConstructJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:47am
It’s funny*, yesterday, while reporting harassment by colleagues to Human Resources the woman taking my formal complaint said “it really is all about perspective,” then proceeded to talk about how revolutionary it might seem to Saudi women that they just got the vote, and how that is old news to Western women. All I could think was about how very behind the United States still is on matters of gender.

*Not “haha” funny, more like “laugh so you don’t cry” funny.
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  stacyinbeanGinger Is A Construct
  12/15/15 11:05am
  You should be thankful you’re allowed to have a job where you can be harassed! Did your eyes fall out of your head from rolling so hard at her?
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  Ginger Is A Constructstacyinbean
  12/15/15 11:09am
  Another junior faculty member (male) implied that I should be flattered that a tenured male faculty member described me as “attractive" to a student, and that said tenured faculty member was too stupid to be taken seriously. Thanks for the support, bro!
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crankylittlephotonJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:44am
I was lucky enough to meet Bill Clinton last night, and his remarks nearly made me cry in public. We have gone so far backwards in the last 15 years, in just about every respect. We have been better than this. We can better again.

PLEASE VOTE, EVERYONE.
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  bebeembopcrankylittlephoton
  12/15/15 10:59am
  What did he say that affected you so? I’m at work so I don’t want to cry either, but I’m really curious.
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  crankylittlephotonbebeembop
  12/15/15 11:12am
  He was awesome in every respect. Funny, poignant, and magnetic. His message was that we, as a nation, have got to get back to the business of working towards prosperity for ALL Americans. He spoke out against sexism, racism, and Islamaphobia. He told many incredible stories about what Hillary has accomplished, both in and out of elected office.
  
  My favorite line: “The last great civil rights battle of my life will be breaking the iron-clad grip of women on the position of presidential spouse.” :)
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IlikefactsJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:46am
A big part of the problem is that do to American exeptionalism, if you asked the average American woman where her quality of life/freedoms are at, she would pronounce that she is better of than almost everyone else.

I am always stunned just how unaware Americans tend to be about how being a pregnant woman works in every other developed nation.

Another big problem is that your politicians are really smart about discrimination. Abortion is a good example in huge swaths of you country it’s legal, but you can’t reasonably get one, nobody else does it that way. At least the Polish and Irish are honest about it and ban it outright. It’s so much harder to combat American style sneaky discrimination.
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  stacyinbeanIlikefacts
  12/15/15 11:09am
  I’ve gotten into it on some pregnancy board with women who say things like “I don’t need more than 12 weeks of maternity leave” and “why should my employer accommodate my breastfeeding?” They refuse to believe they deserve any better and it’s mind-boggling to me.
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  Al Litigator, Reptilian Attorney-at-LawIlikefacts
  12/15/15 11:30am
  Like the case of the pregnant woman who sued UPS for discrimination. They fired her because she asked for help if she needed to lift a heavy package, which was a rare occurrence for her since she mainly handled letters. People went apeshit saying she was asking for “special treatment”, “pregnancy is a choice”, etc., etc., all this while UPS allowed drivers with DUI to continue working.
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andsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbaneJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:24am
nothing i love more than a strongly worded UN letter

cuts everyone to their core EVERY TIME
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  sybannandsmokeit is mrs tormund giantsbane
  12/15/15 11:57am
  sigh. WELL IT SHOULD
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courtJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:56am
Some thoughts, hopefully relevant. Although I grew up in a very conservative household, my father, who like everyone, has flaws galore, taught my brothers and I in his own way thAt every human being deserved respect and dignity, and this included, especially women. For such a conservative republican voting war veteran marine .my dad made it quite clear that women deserved the same rights, wages, and opportunities as men, and that they were not frail creatures to be protected or treated like children. My dad had such a soft spot in his heart and admiration for strong women who took no.shit. it.took me a long time to realize my dad was a adamant and dedicated feminist in word and deed. And so I became a feminist too. For me, semantics didn’t matter. Treating everyone equally was just the right thing to do. I am not here to white knight this, it’s antithetical to everything I believe in. But for this abominable treatment of women to change, it’s going to take strong fathers, coaches, teachers, and other great men to teach young men the same thing my father taught me and my brothers. I don’t agree with so many of my fathers politics but I am so blessed to have had him in my life, passing on his moral and ethical codes. Thanks Dad. I love you.
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  ahoymatiescourt
  12/15/15 11:04am
  You’re dad sounds like a wonderful man! You’re right there it will take everyone men included to teach this is not a foreign concept.Respect everyone, treat everyone equally. Period and done.
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  newsratnesscourt
  12/15/15 11:43am
  That’s awesome. I’m glad you had a father that wanted as much for you as his sons :)
  
  I do have an issue with the idea that “strong women” means “women who aren’t meek and/or adopt traditionally male characteristics” and that they are more worthy of equality. I find this sentiment everywhere, but it is especially rabid on internet forums... or mommyblogs. I really think that we, as a people, need to redefine that characteristics that we admire, or be willing accept new ones into our lexicon of what we perceive as strong.
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Kris-the-Needlessly-DefiantJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:48am
I live about an hour and change from the U.S. border but when I compare my life with a few American college friends and my American cousins, it’s a world apart. I had a full year off on maternity leave for both my kids. My first pregnancy required specialized pre-natal care, my second baby was in NICU for a while, this was all 100% free. I pay under $10 per day for quality daycare. These should be rights that EVERY woman should have.
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  MariaVonTrappKris-the-Needlessly-Defiant
  12/15/15 12:30pm
  I want to go to there.
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  InquartataKris-the-Needlessly-Defiant
  12/15/15 1:58pm
  That reads like such an amazing impossible dream to my American woman’s eyes.
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CaptOtterJoanna Rothkopf
12/15/15 10:58am
I understand that the lack of support for women before, during, and after pregnancy is absolutely indicative of discrimination against women on the basis of their being women—but all the rest of those bulleted tid bits are particular to indigent women and women of color—so are those phenomena a result of particularly anti-woman or gender discriminating policies, or are they simply the particular ill effects felt by women who are discriminated against for other reasons (e.g., race, socioeconomic background?)

Mind you, I’m not saying it makes the discrimination anything less hurtful, only that if a given phenomenon only affects *certain* women, then this basis for the discrimination might be more complicated or layered than simply chalking its up gender-gender-based discrimination.
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  Writer4003CaptOtter
  12/15/15 11:58am
  It’s not that black, disabled, LGBT, poor, or otherwise marginalized women’s gender doesn’t matter - it just adds another layer of potential for discrimination. A wealthy white woman is still oppressed by patriarchy, but a Native American bisexual woman is oppressed in other ways, too. It isn’t that her gender isn’t a factor, it’s that her gender is, because of patriarchal values, another point of vulnerability. It’s about understanding how these systems work together, not about picking them apart to figure out who’s “more oppressed.”
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  CaptOtterWriter4003
  12/15/15 4:22pm
  I get intersectionality; I’m saying that (taking the last bullet point as an example) if white women are not Subject to the same ills listed in that bullet point (e.g., increased rates of incarceration and homicide by law enforcement), it naturally raises the inferences that those statistics are the product of a discriminatory animus targeting some identity marker other than gender. Even if we presuppose (in the case of black women, who are reportedly killed by law enforcement at a much higher rate than white women) that the cops doing this killing sexist even besides being racists (not exactly a far leap), the disparate effect of their discriminatory disposition and conduct is still (in this case) predominantly if not exclusively being felt by black women—thus, regardless of whether the individual bad actors are sexist, racism clearly plays a disproportionate role in either spurring some LEOs to kill black women, or (in the case of particularly blood thirsty LEOs who are just out to kill) staying their murderous hand when it comes to dealing with white women. I mean, would those black women have been safer as black men, or white women? (I think the latter)
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