I haven't written anything for a while but today I read some comments regarding this article on Sweden's 1999 legislation which changes the traditional view of prostitution by criminalising the buying of a woman for sex and decriminalises the selling of sex, thereby putting legal repercussions for prostitution firmly at the door of men. But not just with your average (average?) man buying sex but with organised criminals and sex traffikers. So any criminals seeking to profit from prostituting women in Sweden got a short sharp shock and since the law was enacted in 1999, guess what? Sex trafficking has gone from a huge problem to nil. (read the article) Thereby saving the lives of countless women and children from being forced into prostitution. 

That's great, right? But not according to some sad-sack women in the comments section. Bleating *but what about the wimmins choice to prostitute herself? What about the CHOICE????* What??? What fresh hell is this absurd plea that in order to allow a few women the choice to prostitute themselves we must question a law which helps so many others. My reply to that is as follows:

Prostitution attracts organised crime and sex trafficking  Sweden's law has reduced trafficking to nil. Sex trafficking includes not just women but children. If you could prevent the trafficking of women and children by adhering to the law and maybe getting a different fucking job wouldn't you do that? Or would you just say hey it's MY choice as a woman... Honestly are we really saying prostitutes are hollow unfeeling shells with no responsibility to anyone else but themselves and their their own *choice* (which seemingly must never be denied no matter how many trafficked women it harms) or should we be questioning this assumption that the law must allow prostitution (and trafficking and child sex for the freedom of choice of these few women.) What about the trafficked women. What choice so they have unless society and our fucked up sense of individualism realises how selfish we are being. And I don't give a damn what a woman does with her body but if the law changes things for the better for ALL women then I'm on the side of that law.

Sanctified Misogyny

Yeah, you know what that is don't you? It's when religions use their dogma and "sacred texts" to justify the oppression of women. And it's not just one religion, right. It's all of them. Every single monotheistic religion out there denigrates and dehumanises half the human race in a frolicking patriarchal ancient bronze age, completely outdated, out of context and out of their tiny minds misogyny-fest.

If you're born with a dangling piece of flesh between your legs, sometimes called a penis, you're fine. The world is yours, God LOVEs you so much. (God is a man and presumably also has a penis, hence why he is so into you) Your penis gives you the right to do whatever you choose. You may hold forth and pontificate as Archbishop, you may become an Islamic cleric and pass judgement on all manner of female waywardness. You may become Pope! You can stride about in your Priestly robes. You can tell women everywhere what to do with their bodies. You can tell us to cover up, lest we inflame your poor penis into action, which is not good because all sexuality is wrong. Wrong.

But hey, it's not all bad. There is some good news from the religious side of life.

Oh. No there actually isn't. I looked and there is nothing good about being a woman according to God, be he Yahweh, Allah, or the GOP. If you have to be a woman then for goodness sake be quiet, cover up, have no desires, none, nothing, nada. You must want or need nothing except to bear children and clean the kitchen. If you do happen to want anything else, like say, drive a car in Saudi, or wait until you're at least out of puberty before you get married to a 50 year old, or not have your genitals sliced off, or vote (Saudi), or attend school  without having acid thrown in your face (Afghanistan) or become a member of the Afghan parliament without having your life threatened (Malalai Joya) or go outside without the permission of your male "guardian", even though you're an adult woman (Saudi) (again) or critique Islam in the most honest unflinching way without being threatened with death (again) (Ayan Hirsi Ali) or indeed just be a human being with her own thoughts, then please don't look to religion. Because religion hates you. It hates your mind and your spirit. It hates your sexuality. It hates your body. And most of all it despises your femininity because guess what, it isn't masculinity. That's right, women are not men! And we don't have penises. Therefore God, who decides these things, has decided that we must live a half life. Like some radioactive isotope with our inherently unstable female atoms undergoing exponential decay in a world which degrades us because we dare to exude that very essence of which we are made, our femininity.

Don't take this religious bullshit anymore.

Flying into the sun

Maybe we need to burn before we can move forward
I dream of the white heat
Were I to be thrown to the source
Passing through the fiery gold
Into cool warmed air

Yeah we're pissed at Vogue and we Moisturise

Anonymiss won't take it lying down.

S 987 Suffer Little Children.

S 987 RFH

111th CONGRESS

2d Session

S. 987

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

December 2, 2010

Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

---

AN ACT

To protect girls in developing countries through the prevention of child marriage, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010’.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Child marriage, also known as ‘forced marriage’ or ‘early marriage’, is a harmful traditional practice that deprives girls of their dignity and human rights.

(2) Child marriage as a traditional practice, as well as through coercion or force, is a violation of article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, ‘Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of intending spouses’.

(3) According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), an estimated 60,000,000 girls in developing countries now ages 20 through 24 were married under the age of 18, and if present trends continue more than 100,000,000 more girls in developing countries will be married as children over the next decade, according to the Population Council.

(4) Between 1/2 and 3/4 of all girls are married before the age of 18 in Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, and Nepal, according to Demographic Health Survey data.

(5) Factors perpetuating child marriage include poverty, a lack of educational or employment opportunities for girls, parental concerns to ensure sexual relations within marriage, the dowry system, and the perceived lack of value of girls.

(6) Child marriage has negative effects on the health of girls, including significantly increased risk of maternal death and morbidity, infant mortality and morbidity, obstetric fistula, and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

(7) According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), increasing the age at first birth for a woman will increase her chances of survival. Currently, pregnancy and childbirth complications are the leading cause of death for women 15 to 19 years old in developing countries.

(8) Most countries with high rates of child marriage have a legally established minimum age of marriage, yet child marriage persists due to strong traditional norms and the failure to enforce existing laws.

(9) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated that child marriage is ‘a clear and unacceptable violation of human rights’, and that ‘the Department of State categorically denounces all cases of child marriage as child abuse’.

(10) According to an International Center for Research on Women analysis of Demographic and Health Survey data, areas or regions in developing countries in which 40 percent or more of girls under the age of 18 are married are considered high-prevalence areas for child marriage.

(11) Investments in girls’ schooling, creating safe community spaces for girls, and programs for skills building for out-of-school girls are all effective and demonstrated strategies for preventing child marriage and creating a pathway to empower girls by addressing conditions of poverty, low status, and norms that contribute to child marriage.

SEC. 3. CHILD MARRIAGE DEFINED.

In this Act, the term ‘child marriage’ means the marriage of a girl or boy, not yet the minimum age for marriage stipulated in law in the country in which the girl or boy is a resident or, where there is no such law, under the age of 18.

SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) child marriage is a violation of human rights, and the prevention and elimination of child marriage should be a foreign policy goal of the United States;

(2) the practice of child marriage undermines United States investments in foreign assistance to promote education and skills building for girls, reduce maternal and child mortality, reduce maternal illness, halt the transmission of HIV/AIDS, prevent gender-based violence, and reduce poverty; and

(3) expanding educational opportunities for girls, economic opportunities for women, and reducing maternal and child mortality are critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the global health and development objectives of the United States, including efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS.

SEC. 5. STRATEGY TO PREVENT CHILD MARRIAGE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.

(a) Assistance Authorized-

(1) IN GENERAL- The President is authorized to provide assistance, including through multilateral, nongovernmental, and faith-based organizations, to prevent the incidence of child marriage in developing countries through the promotion of educational, health, economic, social, and legal empowerment of girls and women.

********************

Excellent. There could be nothing in this bill to object to, surely. In fact it passed the Senate on December 1st by unanimous Bipartisan support. On Dec 6,  Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, praising the USA : “This act illustrates how support for securing a just and healthy life for every woman and girl transcends politics.” Then on December 16th the Bill failed to pass the House of Representatives.

The GOP Whips (John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) had sent out an alert, "There are also concerns that funding will be directed to NGOs that promote and perform abortion and efforts to combat child marriage could be usurped as a way to overturn pro-life laws."

This is plainly a lie. Federal funding is already prohibited for abortion activities by the Helms Amendment


The Republicans, perhaps realising the abortion tactic would not play, used a scaremongering fiscal argument saying the Bill would cost $67million over the period 2011-2015. However the Congressional Budget Office states "Enacting S. 987 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply to this legislation.” This money was therefore already budgeted foreign aid, not new appropriation as claimed by Ros-Lehtinen.

Conor Williams of the Washington Post, wrote at PostPartisan “How can Republicans explain efforts to defeat a human rights bill because of $67 million in potential spending while simultaneously pushing for a tax cut deal for wealthy Americans that will add $858 billion to the deficit? Is this at all credible?”

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) the main author of the Bill said 
"The action on the House floor stopping the Child Marriage bill tonight will endanger the lives of millions of women and girls around the world. These young girls, enslaved in marriage, will be brutalized and many will die when their young bodies are torn apart while giving birth. Those who voted to continue this barbaric practice brought shame to Capitol Hill."

In her 1978 book Gyn/Ecology, author Mary Daly makes note of a 1922 index involving child brides in India at the time  describing four cases:

A. Aged 9 Day after marriage. Left femur dislocated, pelvis crushed out of shape, flesh hanging in shreds.
I. Aged about 7. Living with husband. Died in great agony after three days…
L. Aged 11. From great violence done to her person, will be a cripple for life. No use of her lower extremities.
M. Aged about 10. Crawled to hospital on her hands and knees. Has never been able to stand since her marriage.

Elham Assi

Putin is an Alpha Dog or Where the Fuck is it?

Well, I like dogs, but Putin? No thanks. I don't want his doggy jaws anywhere near my English cream tea.

But Russian dog distractions aside, once again the slightly flamboyant Kenneth Lipp has referenced my terrific and wondrous blog in his analysis of the UN - that increasingly flaccid organ of Utter Nothing. Defamation of Religion...read it and weep oh freethinking and vigorously robust challengers of dogma, hypocrisy and downright bloody lies, for thine is the Kingdom..  Lets us for once target the source of oppression, the set in stone ancient religious texts, instead of those that question it. How about a Defamation of Basic Dignity and Human Rights as espoused by the Bible, the Torah and Koran? How about that for starters UN?

Slobber Slobber Doggy Yum Yum

Culture is a Weapon takes over my Blog, We have a duel, I win because I have the biggest sword and then I flash him and he faints.

Kenneth Lipp has once again written a brilliant blog post, this time on the exact meaning of the word phobia. He goes on to deconstruct the term "Islamophobia" into the meaningless and trite "Get out of Jail Free" card it has come to mean for Islam. People who oppose the medieval and barbaric tenets of this religion are exercising their freedom of thought to disagree with an ideology they find abhorrant. Lipp references my brilliant blog, otherwise I wouldn't be plugging his. Ta da. Enjoy