Today in Lady News
I’m thinking of renaming my blog - ‘Girl Stuff as the Newspapers Died’. I am just a broken record these days.
Anyway, another day of ups and downs in Lady Land. Good news first.
The final version of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Bill passed the House today, and is on its way for President Obama to sign. If you haven’t read the backstory of the Ledbetter case, it’s insane.
Ledbetter worked for Goodyear for nearly two decades. She discovered, near retirement, that she made far less than men in her same position and sued for discrimination.
In May 2007, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 that Ledbetter’s case was invalid, since she had to sue within 180 days of the original violation (the first unequal paycheck). Of course, Ledbetter had no idea that she was being discriminated against for all those years, so that would have been impossible.
The new legislation extends the statute of limitations by making every paycheck a new act of discrimination, the 180 days extending each time a new check is issued. Huzzah!
But President Obama is going to need that feminine good will to forgive him for caving to Republicans on women’s health.
Obama and Pelosi have agreed to cut $200 million for low-income contraceptive and sexual health services in the stimulus package.
Aside from being a grand total of .024% of the stimulus (math thanks to Jezebel’s Megan), the money was going to fix a costly and time-consuming wavier that states have to get in order to use their own money to cover contraception.
Unfortunately, John Boehner (R-OH) has the soundbite of the fight:
“How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives how does that stimulate the economy?”
His argument against the contraception money has allowed a cavalcade of other conservative voices to fight the culture wars with this procedural money. For example, James Pethokoukis [via USA Today]:
This is wrong on so many levels, one of which is looking at children born to the ‘wrong people’ as economic burdens rather [than] gifts, the music makers, the dreamers of dreams. [Pelosi]sees them as a cost instead of blessed benefits. Wow.
Notice the anti-abortiony-speak going on here. That’s not at all what was being suggested, but the Right to Life crowd has done such a good job of moving the abortion debate onto the birth control debate, that the language is now interchangeable. Running this google search brings up plenty of links arguing that Obama’s stimulus plan will fund abortion.
Many are arguing that the ‘war on abortion’ has now turned into the ‘war on sex, by way of the war on contraceptives’. It’s hard not to see that in Boehner’s objection to the contraception money (one of several items in the bill not directly tied to stimulating the economy, but somehow generating the most outrage).
The point was to save the states money by eliminating a federal hoop (which, if you’re a states’-rights, low-tax Republican should seem like a good thing…), but if it’s about limiting access for women, Boehner’s all about federal oversight. Sex is for marriage and procreation.
Which brings me to my last (possibly NSFW) point. Georgia’ s Coweta County has banned, “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”
Notes the Newnan Times-Herald:
The county’s old ordinance specifically exempted condoms from being considered as a stimulation device. The new ordinance makes no such distinction, and would appear to apply to items such as ribbed condoms and various lubricants marketed as having a “warming” or “tingling” sensation.
Hmm, to whom are those products generally directed? Ah yes. Jezebel’s Tracie comments:
…we’re fairly certain that the holy rollers and misogynists that are so concerned with regulating how women stimulate their genitals aren’t nearly as strident when it comes to the sale of Viagra and other drugs that treat erectile dysfunction.
[I assume that, like me, Tracie tried to check on that for sure and got stymied by the unholy number of Viagra links that were not about Georgia's laws regarding the product.]
Point is, if you ladies would just stop having the sex (especially the unwedlocked, pleasurable kind), everyone’s life would be much, much easier.
Screw that. I say check your paychecks instead.
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January 28th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
poor people should just stick to anal like our nations virginal celebate teens.