Sweetening the Pill
Holly Grigg-Spall’s book
Sweetening the Pill
does an amazing job uncovering the harmful effects, questionable history, and medicalized misogyny of hormonal birth control (HBC). She points out that both the pharmaceutical industry and modern third wave feminism have downplayed the harms of HBC and have equated use of the pill with liberation. As she says,
Contemporary feminism is enamored with consumer choice and has fully accepted it as a substitute for freedom. (p 61)
In discussion of this book I want to start by talking about my own experiences on the pill. Then I’ll mention the book’s critics, and finally I’ll cover a few of Grigg-Spall’s points.
My own experiences with HBC began in my teens when I began taking it for acne. I remember that once I started taking it, it took me about a month for my over-the-top emotional hormone swings to lessen. I recall going dancing in…
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It’s the Same Male Violence
“I don’t believe rape is inevitable or natural. If I did, I would have no reason to be here. If I did, my political practice would be different than it is. Have you ever wondered why we [women] are not just in armed combat against you? It’s not because there’s a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence.”
–
Andrea Dworkin
Last Friday, Adam Lanza murdered Women and Children in Newtown, Connecticut with a .223-caliber Bushmaster, a semi-automatic civilian version of the military’s M-16. It’s similar to the weapon used in the 2002 sniper killings in the Washington, D.C., area and in the recent Portland, Oregon shopping mall shooting. Both the D.C. sniper attacks and the Clackamas Mall shooting were perpetrated by Men – as most of these spree killings are.
As most lethal violence is.
Under
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We can disagree without wanting each other dead.
The Cost of Empowering Femininity
SSCAB/DSCAB: Reframing the Conversation
[Note: There are several acronyms used throughout this post. If needed, you can hover your mouse over them to view meaning.]
In an online conversation about the use and application of the acronym “TERF” (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist [sometimes the E is said to stand for “Exterminating” or “Eradicating”]), a friend argued the semantics of calling something “women or female space” when what is meant is “space for women who are Female Assigned At Birth (FAAB).” As she put it, “Why is it OK to use the terms woman or female to describe FAAB spaces when you know very well that there is a conflicting view about the accuracy and appropriateness of those terms?”
Inevitably, conversations about separatist spaces intended for females devolve into assumptions or projections that such spaces are inherently “anti-trans.” The label “TERF” is applied to any female who admits to…
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hairybrat 