Chick schtick

I was going to blog this depressing bit about how the recent Supreme Court ruling will make doctors afraid to treat pregnant women in any meaningful way other than as a Consecrated Incubator (my framing, not the author's), let alone with health of their own. Instead, I've decided to celebrate Twisty's rant about the indignity of finding "decent" swimwear in the absence of anything that might "need" covering up.

“Mastectomy swimwear,” see, doesn’t mean “no-boobs swimwear.” It means “swimwear that maintains, for the comfort of the entire community, the illusion that you never had a socially awkward deadly cancer, and could still turn dudes on if you weren’t so old and pruney.”

Let's just call it a day to Shake Fists at the Patriarchy and then get on with the week. Fight each fight as best you can, and enjoy the eloquence along the way...

Update: Oh, what the heck, why not get a full Twisty Overload and go read her rant about the inherent oppression of porn. That's always good for some outraged blow-back (and consequent readerly amusement)!

A woman is a member of the sex class whether she “chooses” it or not. This pre-existing condition forms the backdrop to any fun feminist’s conclusion that her compliance with the patriarchal sexbot mandate is voluntary. She may believe otherwise, but her belief does not alter the fact that patriarchy — a social order predicated on an oppression to which she is already subject — is real and in effect and entirely beyond any unrestricted control she may wish to exert and only too glad to welcome her as a team player and sign her up for the rewards program.

The fun feminist confuses “empowerment” with the decision to acquiesce. This is understandable; it’s the one actual choice she has in this game: surrender, or stand and fight. She doesn’t have to be Candida Royalle to recognize that if she chooses the latter all she’ll get for her trouble is ridicule, hostility, suspicion, and the threat of bodily harm.

(The wording of this argument necessarily brings to mind this classic mind-bending cartoon...)