Legend of the Corsair

As noted in the subject line, both the OP and my reply may be triggering. Specifically to victims of abuse (all kinds.)

I was reading through my friend feed and came upon this journal entry by theferrett

( This was my reply: )

So the other day we had the first of my Company's version of a Town Hall Meeting using the latest in videoconferencing technology to connect about fifteen locations and a variety of people working from home or on the road. Most of the various offices have round tables or one of those sets of rectangular tables that are set up to be a square with an empty space in the middle. The home office, where I have my little office space, had a room set up where the CEO would make the kick-off speech and another, larger room generally used for training classes.

The stage is set.

At the end of the whole thing, my manager looks around and says "How did it end up that all the women ended up seated in the back rows and all the men are up in the front rows?" Now. The strange thing is that I was one of the first people in the room and knew how this happened. Most of the women arrived to the meeting first and self-selected the back row seats. To me, as this was my reasoning, was because these seats were the furthest away from the giant camera at the front of the room and I wanted to be out of the way if anything stupid happened. As the men started to come into the room they discovered that the only seats left for them were the ones toward the front of the room and closest to the camera. To me it didn't seem like something that was done a purpose to exclude or diminish the women in the room or their standing in the company... But sure as hell, how must it have seemed to all of us when it was pointed out like that?

It was the big pink elephant in the room. There was some murmuring but it was mostly just passed off and everyone went out to the cafe to grab the free lunch that had been set up courtesy of the company. Team building meal sharing and chatter followed. People weren't seated around the little cafe tables by gender, but there was a bit of hierarchical splitting as peers and coworkers are want to do.

Luc Besson said, “This is a man (Polanski) who I love a lot and know a little bit. Our daughters are good friends. But there is one justice, and that should be the same for everyone. I will let justice happen… I don’t have any opinion on this, but I have a daughter, 13 years old. And if she was violated, nothing would be the same, even 30 years later.”

One justice. For all.

A quote of a quote from a live-journal that shall remain nameless out of respect for ginmar because, although I wish to comment on this, I don't want to garner this nameless user more attention.

“When a female determines she is pregnant, she has the freedom to decide if she has the maturity level to undertake the responsibilities of motherhood, if she is financially able to support a child, if she is at a place in her career to take the time to have a child, or if she has other concerns precluding her from carrying the child to term. After weighing her options, the female may choose abortion. Once she aborts the fetus, the female's interests in and obligations to the child are terminated. In stark contrast, the unwed father has no options. His responsibilities to the child begin at conception and can only be terminated with the female's decision to abort the fetus or with the mother's decision to give the child up for adoption. Thus, he must rely on the decisions of the female to determine his future. The putative father does not have the luxury, after the fact of conception, to decide that he is not ready for fatherhood. Unlike the female, he has no escape route”.

This was found in a commentary on "female privilege" which was quite, quite misguided. Most of the list and commentary actually appeared to be coming from a recently divorced man who maybe liked to beat on his now-ex-wife. Yeah. I love, also, how the quoted text above calls the woman a female, in the way a scientist studying animal behavior would, especially when she deigns not to become "humanized" by becoming a mother. Whereas the man is referred immediately as a father, and one which is to immediately also to be seen as a helpless victim.

What about the decision to... Hrm... not have procreative sex? Seriously. If this pregnancy occurs outside of a relationship that, between the two parties, has decided that if a pregnancy were to occur what they would do about that pregnancy (to welcome it or not) then it is indeed the woman's choice. Because outside of those circumstances, the man is making no promises, and the woman is not looking for any, of the joint responsibility of child rearing. Hence, therefore, the decision would be the woman's. Yes. That is me saying that if a man allows his sperm to leave his body into that of a woman without having provided a pregnancy-friendly agreement with said woman then he has no right to say what occurs to that sperm once it does leave his body. That includes her choosing to continue with said pregnancy and expecting help or refusing help - it is her choice.

Any arguments otherwise?

After watching the dark comedy Burn After Reading, I come home to find this posted on one of the communities I read:

A while back, I tried to read this book The Mommy Myth, but got so angry with the revealed deceptions that I have yet to finish it. Someday...

Supporting evidence of neither sex being easily able to beat the ticking clock is being revealed daily.

Men have the ticking biological clock as well. After 35, there is lowered fertility. After 45, it gets even worse.


Women with already low fertility (read, any female over 35, right?) can cut their chances of conceiving by an additional 26% if they drink four or more cups of coffee a day.

As someone who currently has no plans to conceive any time in the future, this doesn't really affect me, but it is an interesting trend to follow.

What follows is an essay/article published in the New York Times earlier today. It contains graphic descriptions of what happened to a lot of women before the Roe vs. Wade decision. I am contemplating getting a t-shirt that just depicts a wire coat hanger.

June 3, 2008

Repairing the Damage, Before Roe
By WALDO L. FIELDING, M.D.

With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside.

When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe “bad old days.” Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.

I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City, from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals.

There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done.

The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear: The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die.

This, too, was clear: Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available.

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.

We did not have ultrasound, CT scans or any of the now accepted radiology techniques. The woman was placed under anesthesia, and as we removed the metal piece we held our breath, because we could not tell whether the hanger had gone through the uterus into the abdominal cavity. Fortunately, in the cases I saw, it had not.

However, not simply coat hangers were used.

Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.

Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart.

The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.

It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.

What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.

Waldo L. Fielding was an obstetrician and gynecologist in Boston for 38 years. He is the author of “Pregnancy: The Best State of the Union” (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971).

I just had myself a mini-rant over at ginmar's journal. She links to a post over on Shakesville and talks about some guy who (as a lawyer) is shaking his finger at women and accusing them of privilege for thinking of voting for Hillary and accusing them also of (if they do vote for Hill) giving the presidency to McCain. GAH! See my rant at the first link if you want to get an eyeful of my opinion about that commenter.

In strangely related news... villagecharm mentions (in a post appearing just after gin's on my f-list) that:

"Our friends at Snopes explain one of the most persistent customs associated with the reappearance of February 29:

Leap years, according to folk tradition, were the only times when women could could propose marriage to men, with this belief often termed "The Ladies' Privilege."

This reflects the familiar folk belief that extraordinary events require a suspension of normal customs - since an extra day in February is outside the "normal" course of that month, human affairs on that day should be similarly "abnormal."

So. Therefore. By combining event A with event B, I say that we should definitely all elect Hill as our first female president. I don't quite have the logic of the decision worked out just yet... but, intuitively, it fits.

PS: VC, if you want me to not mention where I got the idea/info on the snopes stuff let me know, as you have that post f-locked or filtered.

Oh. And then there's the math of a leap year, which I cannot help but repeat because it is a neat math related rhyme...

Leap year's here! There'll be one more / In each year that cleanly divides by four / Except for full centuries / To be leap years they must / Be cleanly divisible by 400 / Otherwise they are common years / With the standard 365 days / That's why, for example / 1900 was not a leap year / but 2000 was.

In the process of doing my homework, I've been reading up and listening to speeches made in the past in order to become better at creating my own speeches for use in class. I was perusing the top 100 speeches in American history and specifically looked for speeches made my women. Since women have been making officially recorded for posterity speeches for a lesser amount of time than men I was not surprised to see less of them on the list. I'm hoping that someday that will be rectified.

I did, however, want to bring to your attention the following speech that was available in trascript form only. It stills seems relevant to me.

Shirley Chisholm
"For the Equal Rights Amendment"
August 10, 1970
Washington, D.C.


Mr. Speaker, House Joint Resolution 264, before us today, which provides for equality under the law for both men and women, represents one of the most clear-cut opportunities we are likely to have to declare our faith in the principles that shaped our Constitution. It provides a legal basis for attack on the most subtle, most pervasive and most institutionalized form of prejudice that exists. Discrimination against women, solely on the basis of their sex, is so widespread that it seems to many persons normal, natural and right.

Legal expression of prejudice on the grounds of religious or political belief has become a minor problem in our society. Prejudice on the basis of race is, at least, under systematic attack. There is reason for optimism that it will start to die with the present older generation. It is time we act to assure full equality of opportunity to those citizens who, although in a majority, suffer the restrictions that are commonly imposed on minorities, to women.
The argument that this amendment will not solve the problem of sex discrimination is not relevant. If the argument were used against a civil-rights bill — as it has been used in the past — the prejudice that lies behind it would be embarrassing. Of course, laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is not reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws, to perpetuate injustice through inaction.

The amendment is necessary to clarify countless ambiguities and inconsistencies in our legal system. For instance, the Constitution guarantees due process of law, in the fifth and fourteenth amendments. But the applicability of due process of sex distinctions is not clear. Women are excluded from some state colleges and universities. In some states, restrictions are placed on a married woman who engages in an independent business. Women may not be chosen for some juries. Women even receive heavier criminal penalties than men who commit the same crime.

What would the legal effects of the equal rights amendment really be? The equal rights amendment would govern only the relationship between the state and its citizens — not relationships between private citizens.

The amendment would be largely self-executing — that is, any federal or state laws in conflict would be ineffective one year after date of ratification without further action by the Congress or state legislatures.

Opponents of the amendment claim its ratification would throw the law into a state of confusion and would result in much litigation to establish its meaning. This objection overlooks the influence of legislative history in determining intent and the recent activities of many groups preparing for legislative changes in this direction.

State labor laws applying only to women, such as those limiting hours of work and weights to be lifted, would become inoperative unless the legislature amended them to apply to men. As of early 1970 most states would have some laws that would be affected. However, changes are being made so rapidly as a result of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is likely that by the time the equal rights amendment would become effective, no conflicting state laws would remain.

In any event, there has for years been great controversy as to the usefulness to women of these state labor laws. There has never been any doubt that they worked a hardship on women who need or want to work overtime and on women who need or want better paying jobs, and there has been no persuasive evidence as to how many women benefit from the archaic policy of the laws. After the Delaware hours law was repealed in 1966, there were no complaints from women to any of the state agencies that might have been approached.

Jury service laws not making women equally liable for jury service would have to be revised.

The selective service law would have to include women, but women would not be required to serve in the Armed Forces where they are not fitted any more than men are required to serve. Military service, while a great responsibility, is not without benefits, particularly for young men with limited education or training. Since October 1966, 246,000 young men who did not meet the normal mental or physical requirements have been given opportunities for training and correcting physical problems. This opportunity is not open to their sisters. Only girls who have completed high school and meet high standards on the educational test can volunteer. Ratification of the amendment would not permit application of higher standards to women.

Survivorship benefits would be available to husbands of female workers on the same basis as to wives of male workers. The Social Security Act and the civil service and military service retirement acts are in conflict.

Public schools and universities could not be limited to one sex and could not apply different admission standards to men and women. Laws requiring longer prison sentences for women than men would be invalid, and equal opportunities for rehabilitation and vocational training would have to be provided in public correctional institutions.

Different ages of majority based on sex would have to be harmonized.

Federal, state and other governmental bodies would be obligated to follow nondiscriminatory practices in all aspects of employment, including public school teachers and state university and college faculties.

What would be the economic effects of the equal rights amendment? Direct economic effects would be minor. If any labor laws applying only to women still remained, their amendment or repeal would provide opportunity for women in better-paying jobs in manufacturing. More opportunities in public vocational and graduate schools for women would also tend to open up opportunities in better jobs for women.

Indirect effects could be much greater. The focusing of public attention on the gross legal, economic and social discrimination against women by hearings and debates in the federal and state legislatures would result in changes in attitude of parents, educators and employers that would bring about substantial economic changes in the long run.

Sex prejudice cuts both ways. Men are oppressed by the requirements of the Selective Service Act, by enforced legal guardianship of minors, and by alimony laws. Each sex, I believe, should be liable when necessary to serve and defend this country. Each has a responsibility for the support of children.

There are objections raised to wiping out laws protecting women workers. No one would condone exploitation. But what does sex have to do with it? Working conditions and hours that are harmful to women are harmful to men; wages that are unfair for women are unfair for men.

Laws setting employment limitations on the basis of sex are irrational, and the proof of this is their inconsistency from state to state. The physical characteristics of men and women are not fixed, but cover two wide spans that have a great deal of overlap. It is obvious, I think, that a robust woman could be more fit for physical labor than a weak man. The choice of occupation would be determined by individual capabilities, and the rewards for equal work should be equal.
This is what it comes down to: artificial distinctions between persons must be wiped out of the law. Legal discrimination between the sexes is, in almost every instance, founded on outmoded views of society and the pre-scientific beliefs about psychology and physiology. It is time to sweep away these relics of the past and set future generations free of them.

Federal agencies and institutions responsible for the enforcement of equal opportunity laws need the authority of a Constitutional amendment. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1963 Equal Pay Act are not enough; they are limited in their coverage — for instance, one excludes teachers, and the other leaves out administrative and professional women.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has not proven to be an adequate device, with its powers limited to investigation, conciliation and recommendation to the Justice Department. In its cases involving sexual discrimination, it has failed in more than one-half. The Justice Department has been even less effective. It has intervened in only one case involving discrimination on the basis of sex, and this was on a procedural point. In a second case, in which both sexual and racial discrimination were alleged, the racial bias charge was given far greater weight.
Evidence of discrimination on the basis of sex should hardly have to be cited here. It is in the Labor Department's employment and salary figures for anyone who is still in doubt. Its elimination will involve so many changes in our state and federal laws that, without the authority and impetus of this proposed amendment, it will perhaps take another 194 years. We cannot be parties to continuing a delay. The time is clearly now to put this House on record for the fullest expression of that equality of opportunity which our Founding Fathers professed.

They professed it, but they did not assure it to their daughters, as they tried to do for their sons.

The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers — a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.

In closing I would like to make one point. Social and psychological effects will be initially more important than legal or economic results. As Leo Kanowitz has pointed out:

"Rules of law that treat of the sexes per se inevitably produce far-reaching effects upon social, psychological and economic aspects of male-female relations beyond the limited confines of legislative chambers and courtrooms. As long as organized legal systems, at once the most respected and most feared of social institutions, continue to differentiate sharply, in treatment or in words, between men and women on the basis of irrelevant and artificially created distinctions, the likelihood of men and women coming to regard one another primarily as fellow human beings and only secondarily as representatives of another sex will continue to be remote. When men and women are prevented from recognizing one another's essential humanity by sexual prejudices, nourished by legal as well as social institutions, society as a whole remains less than it could otherwise become."