Today is the day when I suffer one disappointment after another. I just read this horrible article on Israel where vicious animals who have the gall of calling themselves Jewish men spit and throw stones at women for daring to exist, harass underage girls, exercise physical violence against women with small babies, impose their barbaric clothing standards, and force women to live in an atmosphere of daily terror. And the supposedly secular authorities are siding with the maniacs on an increasingly frequent basis:

Bowing to pressure from politically influential Haredi rabbis, secular male authorities have also acceded to bans on women’s faces on billboards in some ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, gender-separated office hours in government- funded medical clinics, and de facto gender segregation on publicly subsidized buses. Women have been discouraged, and at times even prohibited, from participating in some official ceremonies. In short, restrictions that once affected only Haredi women are spilling into public spaces, affecting all women.

The reason why the Israeli authorities are standing by impotently while this is happening is that Israel has become all about the racist ideal of ethnic purity. Human rights are easily sacrificed to the goal of making the ethnically Jewish population grow. Since women who are not completely beaten down will not be popping out little Jews every year, the authorities are doing nothing to prevent fanatics from assaulting women who see themselves as human beings and not as breeding machines on legs. And just think about it: wouldn’t the entire conflict with Palestine be resolved by now if the racist belief that it is crucial to have a mono-ethnic nation were abandoned?

Many years ago, I witnessed the Israeli organization Sochnut bring its disgustingly racist messages to the FSU countries. According to these freaks, the greatest threat to Jews that existed on the planet was. . . no, not neo-Nazism. It was me. The existence of people like me was the greatest tragedy the Jews were experiencing because we were the result of Jews choosing to have children with non-Jews. This was told to my own face on several occasions by people I had known forever and who had been brainwashed by Sochnut. I thought these were just deluded, stupid fanatics but now I’m seeing that the racist ideas of the disgusting Sochnut are being picked up by the government of Israel. Maybe they were there all along, and I was simply refusing to notice.

People who have been reading this blog for a while know that I was always biased in favor of Israel. But after I read this most recent in the series of articles on Israel’s descent into religious fanaticism, I can say that even I have had it with Israel. The only remaining reason we are being offered to keep supporting Israel is that it supposedly is the bulwark of secularism and respect for human rights in the face of the growing religious fanaticism of the surrounding countries. But that’s not even true any more.

Any country where women are bullied into wearing “modest clothing” and covering their heads and the authorities do not immediately bring a stop to this form of degradation accompanied by massive public protesting should be told to stuff it. And when all of this is done for the sake of racism, it should be told to stuff it many times over.

Already, many fear that efforts like Nili Philipp’s to stop ultra-Orthodox encroachment are doomed, simply because Haredim, nearly all of whom have more than five children and some of whom procreate in the double digits, are reproducing rapidly. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics projects that, at current growth rates, Israel could well be 40 percent Haredi by 2059.

I thought nausea was all in the past now that I’m in week 35 of pregnancy but it came back with a vengeance as I was watching this interview Obama gave to Jay Leno:

I understand that politicians lie because that is practically part of their job description. But here every word he says is just so egregious that I’m horrified. “There is no spying on Americans”? “We don’t have a domestic spying program”? “Whistleblower protection”? “We’ve been trying to reduce the reliance on contractors”? Snowden should have just come forward and shared his concerns with the authorities? Is this some sort of a vicious joke at the expense of the citizens?

What kind of blathering fools does he think we are?

You know the funniest part? During the entire first term, Liberals were saying with the dedication of obsessive parrots that Obama was being what he was and doing what he did because he was afraid he wouldn’t get reelected. “Just wait for him to win the second term and that’s when he will do what we elected him to do! We will see his true face then!” they kept repeating in triumphant anticipation. I was saying the same thing, so I’m acknowledging my own delusion here.

And then the guy gets his second term, and what do you think? He cheers for Larry Summers, chases Snowden all over the world, defends spying on the citizens, champions lower corporate tax rates, etc. Well, I guess the Liberals were right all along: we are seeing Obama’s true face. What you see in this interview is who he is and who he always was.

I might need to go vomit now.

Of course, it is crucially important to defend reproductive rights. Some people, however, do it in such a clumsy, unintelligent way that it would be better for them to stay silent. Here is one example:

Previous to the woman’s liberation movement, men had a secure source of inferiors, right there in his home, and everywhere around him.  Women were always right there, to be subservient.

He knew they were inferior, because everything showed him that — they were smaller, they were weaker, they were always pregnant and burdened with children, he could beat them up whenever he liked — and further, his religion and his culture told him they were his inferior. Plus, thanks to all that child-bearing, they kept dying on him.  And, thanks to the laws he had written, all the money they made belonged to him.

But then women fought for changes in the laws, and some of them worked to create these medicines, and now what’s happened?  They’ve changed the world!  They don’t have to have ten or fifteen babies!  They can get educated and get jobs!  Lots of them have decided to start ignoring the priests and not do Natural Family planning!  Lots of them don’t believe the Mens who tell them Natural Family Planning actually works!  (Spoilers: It doesn’t.)

Instead, they decide to use IUDs and take that evil pill (which does not in fact cause cancer or kill babies).

Why would women do such a thing?

And why does it make (some men) so angry?

Simplifications are very seductive because they make the world sound very easy to comprehend. They are, however, completely stupid and never lead to any useful activism. Anybody who has ever paid any attention to the fight over reproductive rights has surely noticed that anti-choicers are not exclusively or even overwhelmingly male. There are crowds of anti-choice women and crowds of pro-choice men. It is simply not possible to create a neat gender divide along the lines of one’s attitude towards reproductive rights.

The post doesn’t end here, however, and, as always happens in such cases, begins to make a case in favor of keeping women “barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” Any contribution to gender wars, including when conducted in order to advance the rights of women, ends up promoting anti-feminist goals. Here is an example:

For those of you who have never been a mother, I’ll just make this clear: a child takes all of your time.  A child needs every bit of every hour of your time.  That’s every hour of every day and every night.  Two kids need 48 hours of your 24 hours.  And so on.

Leaving aside the extreme condescension towards childless women, please consider what this statement implies. If a child has such a profound need of all of the mother’s time, it only follows that women with children should not be allowed to work. Or study. Or leave the house at all, lest their children suffer from their mothers’ absence. Maybe we should chain women to their children to ensure that “every bit of every hour of their time” is spent staring at the kids.

But wait, there is more. The post collapses into a celebration of the patriarchal family model:

If you’re lucky enough to have an extended family around you (I wasn’t), which is the way humans are meant to raise kids (see Mothers and Others by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, a book I cannot recommend highly enough) this work of raising a child, and it is work, dear reader, it is the hardest work you will ever do, however much you may love your child, and I love mine more than anything, but don’t fool yourself about what you’re getting into, it’s work, with an extended family around you, the work will be a bit easier, but it’s still work.

I’m sorry for inflicting this horrible writing on you, by the way. If you do manage to get through this breathless sentence, you will see that it suggests the restoration of a patriarchal family. This blogger writes first and thinks never, so she fails to realize that the moment you make your relatives responsible for raising your children, you cannot make any reproductive decisions without taking their interests into consideration. Surely, a woman who finds it such an insurmountable task to raise her own child, cannot be permitted to make any decisions without the input of the relatives who end up paying for her choices.

Three people in a row asked me today if I’m planning to name my son George Alexander.

Do I look like a person who is into this particular name or am I going insane? Is this one of the pregnancy symptoms I still haven’t had? Who is the weirdo, me or these 3 people?

I only get to sleep for 3 hours a day or so, and weird things start happening when you are severely lacking sleep.

One of the foundational principles of the patriarchy is the appropriation of an individual’s sexuality by his or her family.

When a father feels dishonored by his unmarried daughter losing her virginity that is patriarchy.

When a grandmother does not accept her transgender grandson and thinks that he should “just grow out of it” that is patriarchy.

When a mother believes that her gay son should get treated and become heterosexual that is patriarchy.

When a father-in-law feels abused by his daughter-in-law’s affair that is patriarchy.

You cannot be a feminist and simultaneously assert a family’s right to have a say in how one of its members organizes his or her personal life. Because that is patriarchy.

Spouses and partners can agree and negotiate how they manage the sexual side of their relationship. But that is their relationship and nobody else has the right to participate or contribute opinions. Because when a couple’s sex life becomes a matter of communal discussion and management that is patriarchy. When a bloodied sheet was exhibited for everybody to see after a wedding night to prove that the bride was a virgin, that was patriarchy. And those who tarred and feathered women for being sexual in communally unapproved contexts were not feminists.

Nobody is forcing you to be a feminist but can you just pick a side and stick to it already? If you go into a fit of frenzy because somebody else’s sheets don’t offer evidence of a sexual scenario you can approve, that is not feminism.

That is patriarchy.

There is absolutely no difference whatsoever between saying,

“He cheated on his wife; he is an abuser and a freak who put his family to shame”

and

“She had sex before getting married; she is such a slut”

or

“He had sexual relations with a man; has he thought how this will shame his parents and how abusive this is towards them?”

No difference. None.

If you pass judgment on people’s legal and consensual sexual activities, you are a horrible, vicious prude. It doesn’t matter a bit what those activities happen to be. Go stand in the same corner with slut-shamers and homophobes. Just don’t call yourself a feminist because that’s such a joke.

Musteryou brought a link to a terrifying article about the tragedy of a little girl whose abusive and self-involved parents illustrate perfectly well how little anorexics / bulimics / neurotics / addicts, etc. are manufactured. The article is written by a mother whose selfishness and lack of self-awareness is nothing short of stomach-turning.

“The doctor has told me and my husband, oh I don’t know, maybe 25 times, that it is not our fault. But that mother’s guilt has a way of creeping right in there. She also said there’s no prescribed method of parenting that can prevent a kid from becoming anorexic.”

Of course, to hell with the pesky kid. The important thing is that the paying customer, the Mommy, is placated and never has to face what a shitty parent she is.

“And truly, I don’t care where it came from, as long as my daughter gets over it.”

This is just priceless. “I don’t care what is going on with her. Just repair her already so that I don’t have to be paying any more attention to this.” Note how she is not even trying to pretend she cares where the child’s problems come from.

“Every night, we went to bed exhausted from trying to get our increasingly furious kid to take yet another bite at the dinner table. We coaxed her along in the “dolphin” method we’d learned.”

Instead of searching for the root of the problem, the irresponsible and cruel parents choose to subject the kid to outright torture that will create a multitude of problems for her later on. But what can you expect from people who say:

“Our natural inclination was to say, “Eat your freaking food or the wrath of your parents will rain down on your head with a vengeance you’ve never imagined in your worst nightmares.”

Got it? This is a natural inclination for such parents. Now we know what kind of natural parenting practices were used on this girl and drover her to anorexia.

During that meal, my daughter gave the girl in “The Exorcist” a run for her money. She glared. She pouted. She ranted. She raved. She acted possessed — the same way she sometimes acted during dinner at home. The therapist reassured us it wasn’t really our daughter. It was the “eating disorder,” which she said had a life of its own. Now, that’s not something any parent wants to try to wrap their head around.

People who act in horrible ways love to generalize. They convince themselves that everybody is exactly like they are, and this means they don’t need to do anything about their lousy behavior.

The infantile and cruel mother thinks nothing of making the descriptions of how she tortured her daughter public. She even seems to expect praise for what she has been doing. She managed to break the girl’s will and bully her into eating. What price the kid will pay for that when she grows up doesn’t concern the abuser. The daughter’s job is to pretend that she is like all other kids and thereby allow the mother to get the social approval that is the entire goal of her existence.

People are getting too infantilized for their own good. See the search that brought 4 people to this blog today:

What do you mean “how”? You put a cigarette into your mouth, bring fire to the tip that sticks out, and suck in.

People look up instructions online before doing absolutely anything these days. The belief in the magical power of Google searches is profound.

Wanna know something crazy? I just discovered that the Fall semester starts on August 19 instead of on August 26, as I was sure it did. This means I have to start teaching 5 days a week (this weird schedule was created because I will be on maternity leave most of the semester) in just two weeks.

Wanna know something even more crazy? I feel happy and energized about the idea. If you saw how I walk like a duck, hauling that enormous belly on me, you would agree this reaction is not normal.

I’m totally like that teaching plant I told you about exactly one year ago.

I was wondering why the OB-GYN kept asking me about my emotional state, whether I was feeling sad or overwhelmed, and how “the father of the pregnancy” felt about it. And then I realized that I must have been scratching myself in my sleep, leaving long, deep scratches all over my belly and chest. I now really look like a victim of abuse.