Since it’s a rainy Monday, you all should do some reading. Here are two articles, each with an off-the-charts level of What-the-Fuckness. Aren’t y’all lucky? (I got these articles from feministing.com, which is the BESTEST blog ever–even better than this one!)
What the Fuck #1: Doctors in Canada are refusing to give women Pap smears if they are not married. So . . . women who choose to have sex outside of marriage deserve cancer? Huh?Now, people do have a right to practice their own religions privately. If someone chooses to think that sex outside of wedlock is immoral, that is their prerogative (even though I disagree). However, their right to practice religion DOES NOT trump the right to health care. And I do not think it is a coincidence that most, if not all, of these religion vs. health care battles have to do with women’s health care. After all, it doesn’t seem that unmarried men are being refused treatment for STIs. Nope–women are the ones who have to put up with doctors’ “morality.”In my opinion, any “morality” that puts someone’s life and health at risk is no morality at all.There goes my plan to move to Canada if McCain gets elected. *shudder*
What the Fuck #2: This just makes me livid. I am so pissed right now, that words right order in the can’t put I.This op-ed piece published in the L.A. times attempts to prove that the rape crisis is “overblown” on college campuses. MacDonald’s primary argument is that women are as much of a participant in alcohol-fueled rapes as men, and that these assaults thus take place in the “gray area” of rape. First of all, there is no “gray area” of rape. Consent is consent, and lack of consent is lack of consent. If a woman is too drunk to consent, then that is rape. Second of all, to argue that a woman is complicit in rape will merely exacerbate the rape crisis. After all, what woman would want to report a rape if she will be accused by people like MacDonald of being at fault? MacDonald, so focused on statistical methodology, might want to examine how her viewpoints affect the likelihood of someone reporting an assault.The key is not to vilify survivors of rape, but to continue to provide and build safe social networks (including the rape crisis hotlines that MacDonald abhors in her piece) so that they are encouraged to report the crime and to heal. Pieces like MacDonald’s only makes this less likely.Thank you, Heather MacDonald. Thank you for actively working to make the rape crisis worse, and then to insult survivors by insisting that it was their fault. Good on you, MacDonald. Way to go.
Filed under: Sexual Violence, women's health | 12 Comments »