The War on Women

[seemslikeadream]

Mike Huckabee: Democrats Tell Women 'They Cannot Control Their Libido' Without The Government

[seemslikeadream]

The GOP's War on Women is Alive and Well

[Project Willow]

[Allegro]

^ 30% (Women and Politics in Sierra Leone)

Oil-painted animation brings to life the stories of three powerful women in postconflict Sierra Leone, revealing the violence and corruption women face as they fight for fairer representation in governing their country. 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

[FourthBase]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014 ... in-america

Which Place Is More Sexist: The Middle East Or Latin America?
by LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO
March 16, 2014 5:13 AM

A semi-naked woman in a sequined Carnival costume. A veiled woman with only her eyes showing in a niqab. Two stereotypes of two vastly different regions — Latin America and the Middle East.

On the surface, these two images couldn't be more diametrically opposed. What could the two have in common, right? What a woman wears — or what she doesn't wear, in Brazil's case — is often interpreted as a sign of her emancipation. The veil, for many, is a symbol of female oppression; the right to wear a bikini, one of liberation.

As a woman and a foreigner who lived in Baghdad and Cairo and worked throughout the Middle East for years, I always felt the need to dress modestly and respectfully. Frankly, my recent move back to Latin America was initially a relief. Brazil is the land where less is more — and it was wonderful to put on whatever I wanted.

But underneath the sartorial differences, the Middle East and Latin America's most famously immodest country both impose their own burdens on women in the way they are treated and perceived.

On a recent balmy afternoon, I was sitting at a seafront kiosk watching Brazil's carnival coverage on the biggest broadcaster here, GLOBO. Suddenly, a naked woman popped onto the screen during a commercial break. She was wearing nothing. Literally nothing except a smile and some body glitter. Called the "globeleza," she is the symbol of GLOBO's festival coverage, and she appears at every commercial break.

Later programming showed a contest where women from various Samba schools — all of them black — were judged on their dancing and appearance by a panel that was all white. They all had their measurements read out for the crowd. But when one woman said she was studying at one of Brazil's premier petrochemical departments to eventually work in the oil and gas industry, the male judge smirked in surprise.

The Role Of Women In Brazil

And that's the thing about Brazil: It has a female president, and women are well-represented in the work force. This isn't Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive, or Afghanistan under the Taliban, where women could not study.

And yet it is one of the most dangerous countries to be female in.

Statistics show that about every two hours a woman is murdered in Brazil, a country with the seventh highest rate of violence against women in the world.

This juxtaposition of sex and violence isn't new, according to Rosana Schwartz, a historian and sociologist at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Sao Paulo. Brazil imported more slaves than any other country in the Americas, and slavery was only abolished in 1888.

"The female slaves were used as sexual objects to initiate the master's son's sexuality or to satisfy him. And the result has been that until today, Brazilian women are seen in a sexist way, in a more sexualized way, because she was used as a sexual object for so long," Schwartz says.

The legacy still affects women of every class and race here.

In many parts of the the Middle East, however, women are mostly hidden away at home and, in the most traditional countries, are not allowed to have unsupervised contact with men outside their families. Female genital mutilation, where a woman has her clitoris removed, is still practiced in many parts of the Middle East.

Pressure To Conform

Brazilian women don't face the same kinds of restrictions.

In Brazil, women are second only to the U.S. in the amount of plastic surgeries they have and in the number of beauty products they consume.

In a recent article talking about vaginal reconstruction — yes, Brazil is a world leader in that cosmetic surgery, too — psychoanalyst Regina Navarro noted that there is a huge amount of pressure in Brazil to conform to an ideal.

"Women want to adapt to what they think men want," she told Brazil's Glamour magazine.

I recently spent some time at a leading international modeling agency in Sao Paulo. During the afternoon, waif-thin models came in with their amateur portfolios and big dreams. The girls were all in their early to mid-teens.

The main headhunter told me confidently that all young boys in Brazil wanted to be soccer stars, and all young women aspired to be models.

You can go to schools here and quickly learn that little girls are not encouraged to become the next Ronaldo. While Brazil is a global force in men's soccer, women's soccer in Brazil is almost nonexistent. But girls as young as 6 or 7 know which models are on the cover of magazines.

Which brings us to the recent controversy over Adidas. Clever marketers (presumably male) came up with two shirts that the World Cup sponsor was selling in advance of the games later this year.

One shows a woman in a bikini beside the slogan "Looking to Score in Brazil." The other says "I (Heart) Brazil," with the heart in the shape of a woman's backside in a thong bikini. After Brazil complained that the T-shirts were sexist, they were pulled.

But the objection smacked of selectivity, if not hypocrisy.

A column in Brazil's biggest daily, Folha de Sao Paulo, said: "Compared to the naked woman dancing on GLOBO TV every day during carnival, this is nothing. My 5-year-old daughter asked, 'Why is that woman dancing naked on TV, Dad?' And I had to explain that she was very warm. Our carnival coverage focuses exclusively on the female body, so by that standard these T-shirts are pretty tame."

The 2022 World Cup will be played in Qatar, a country that is not known for its sex appeal. Women's activists often target the Middle East for its policies toward women. But as living in Brazil has taught me, for women, even having all the freedom in the world can be its own cage.

And here is what I said yesterday on Facebook:

What an absolute moron she is to even ask. The crushing tyranny of Muslim patriarchy is not even remotely fucking comparable to a Western democracy like Brazil. Feminists like Garcia-Navarro have been driven insane by their own leftist double-bind, wherein it is not permissible to condemn the Other but wherein the Other in this case is oppressing the shit out of women, which is also impermissible. Cognitive dissonance and horrible thinking ensue. Hence crap like this.
Like · 18 · More · Yesterday at 7:43pm

In the war on women, egregious false equivalencies like this are a form of oblivious treason. Not acknowledging the far-worse severity of the oppression of Muslim women in order to artificially keep the score close between the West and the anti-West, in order to fulfill ideological expectations = a betrayal of women. Leftists, feminists: Get real, please, with haste.

p.s. Not to mention the usual catch-22 of either...
a) being anti-objectification
b) being a slut-shamer

Garcia-Navarro chose to be b), because it let Muslims off the hook.
Shame on her! Choose neither! Be REAL, not ideological.

[RocketMan]

Well, good on Mr. Carter.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/24/j ... and-girls/

Jimmy Carter is making a “call to action” over discrimination and violence against women, addressing issues from female genital mutilation to child marriage in a new book out in the US this week.

The 39th US president writes in A Call to Action of his belief that “the most serious and unaddressed worldwide challenge is the deprivation and abuse of women and girls”, which he says is “largely caused by a false interpretation of carefully selected religious texts and a growing tolerance of violence and warfare, unfortunately following the example set during my lifetime by the United States”.

Out tomorrow from Simon & Schuster in the US, the book is already drawing positive reviews: the Pittsburgh Post Gazette said that it “should not only be required reading in America, but should also serve as the template for a complete reinterpretation of the religious views behind our treatment of each other”. The St Louis Post-Dispatch said it “reinforces [Carter's] dedication to wiping out injustice – and his ability to move others to join his cause”.

Simon & Schuster said that Carter, who, with his wife Rosalynn, has visited 145 countries, his charity The Carter Centre active in more than half of them, was “encouraged to write this book by a wide coalition of leaders of all faiths”. The book will see Carter point out “that women are treated more equally in some countries that are atheistic or where governments are strictly separated from religion”.

“Around the world, [Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter] have seen inequality rising rapidly with each passing decade. This is true in both rich and poor countries, and among the citizens within them,” said the publisher. “Carter draws upon his own experiences and the testimony of courageous women from all regions and all major religions to demonstrate that women around the world, more than half of all human beings, are being denied equal rights. This is an informed and passionate charge about a devastating effect on economic prosperity and unconscionable human suffering. It affects us all.”

Speaking to the US’s National Public Radio this weekend about his new book – the latest in a long literary career for the US president – Carter discussed how quotations from the Bible can be used to argue for both equality and the inferiority of women. “You can pick out individual verses throughout the Bible that show that the verse favours your particular preference, and the fact that the Catholic church, for instance, prohibits women from serving as priests or even deacons gives a kind of a permission to male people all over the world, that well, if God thinks that women are inferior, I’ll treat them as inferiors. If she’s my wife, I can abuse her with impunity, or if I’m an employer, I can pay my female employees less salary,” he said.

In A Call to Action, he writes of how some selected scriptures are interpreted, “almost exclusively by powerful male leaders within the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other faiths, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls”.

“This claim that women are inferior before God spreads to the secular world to justify gross and sustained acts of discrimination and violence against them,” writes Carter.

As well as the “unconscionable human suffering” which he writes is “almost embarrassing to acknowledge”, there is also “a devastating effect on economic prosperity caused by the loss of contributions of at least half the human beings on earth,” writes Carter. “This is not just a women’s issue. It is not confined to the poorest countries. It affects us all.”

Carter is also the author of more than 20 books, including Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, and Our Endangered Values, subtitled America’s Moral Crisis.

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://leftaction.com/action/denounce-r ... audit-bill

These men think they can make health care decisions for women. Tell them they're wrong.

House Republicans have gone too far: A panel of 12 men on the House Judiciary Committee actually held hearings on a bill that could allow the IRS to audit survivors of rape or incest for using their contraceptive health care coverage.

Forcing women to submit proof of their traumatic experience to government auditors is dehumanizing and unconscionable.

Sign here to denounce John Boehner and House Republicans for supporting this extremist anti-woman bill. >>

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6461/ ... n_KEY=9077

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://prospect.org/article/new-moral-p ... t-babies-0

Last month, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill that would allow state authorities to file criminal assault charges against women who use illegal drugs during pregnancy.

Shelby County Attorney General Amy Weirich described the measure as a “velvet hammer” designed to force recalcitrant women into substance abuse programs. Wielding a classic think-of-the-children argument, lawmakers pointed to a tenfold surge in babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), where infants temporarily exhibit some of the symptoms of drug withdrawal. “These babies are born addicted and their lives are totally destroyed,” said Tennessee Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver, a Republican, when she introduced the bill in February.

Contemporary anxieties over NAS echo the widespread moral panic over “crack babies” that unfolded in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Hospital staff and social workers in cities like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., discovered, to their alarm, that many of the poor, predominantly black women who gave birth in their maternity wards were addicted to crack cocaine.

As with the hyped-up crack-baby crisis, fears about NAS appear to be overblown.

The idea that Tennessee might be poised to lock up women for using drugs during pregnancy was alarming enough to make national headlines. Doctors and civil liberties advocates wrote to the governor, Bill Haslam, urging him to veto the bill. The New York Times editorial board weighed in, calling the measure “meanspirited and counterproductive.” (He signed it last week anyway.)

But the Tennessee law is just one extreme manifestation of a larger—and subtler—trend, which threatens to separate countless mothers from their children. In states with high levels of opiate abuse, growing anxiety over NAS is also spawning a surge of laws that could result in civil penalties for women who use drugs or participate in drug treatment programs during pregnancy.

Prescription drug abuse is on the rise across the country, especially among women. A study released last summer by the CDC found that emergency room visits related to narcotic pain relievers like OxyContin more than doubled among women between 2004 and 2010. Pregnant women are by no means immune to this trend; according to a recent analysis, nearly 23 percent of pregnant Medicaid recipients filled a prescription for an opioid pain reliever in 2007, a 5 percent increase since 2000.

The growing incidence of NAS in newborns is likely connected to this wave of prescription drug use, says Mark Hudak, a neonatologist who wrote guidelines on neonatal drug withdrawal for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Babies with NAS exhibit a range of symptoms, from seizures to diarrhea to difficulty feeding. Often, hospitals will send infants who test positive for opiates straight to the neonatal intensive care unit. The babies stay in the neonatal ICU for anywhere between a week and two months, as doctors slowly wean them off the drug they were exposed to in utero.

During the crack crisis, troubling tales began to circulate in the media of “crack babies” born with small heads, irritability, and poor muscle tone. The children, experts and politicians predicted, would suffer from mental retardation. They would never be able to hold down a job or have a meaningful relationship. Many of the babies born to low-income women who admitted to cocaine use were sent into the foster system. A few women were even arrested and prosecuted. “Crack baby” became synonymous with bad mothering.

Two decades later, the myth of the “crack baby” has been repeatedly debunked. Longitudinal studies that followed crack-exposed infants through their childhood and adolescence found that in terms of their IQ and school readiness, cocaine-exposed children were no different than their peers. But none of the children in the study performed especially well on these tests. The researchers concluded that the confounding factor wasn’t whether their mother had used drugs during pregnancy; what held the children back was poverty.

Today’s trepidation about NAS carries a similar tenor. While it's hardly a favorable circumstance for entering the world, there’s no evidence that NAS has long-term consequences for infants. Moreover, some doctors say there’s a tendency toward overtreatment for NAS, which can be mitigated by breastfeeding and close contact with the mother.

Politicians lament the babies “born addicted,” although Hudak notes that this terminology is incorrect; infants with NAS are drug dependent, and their symptoms are predictable and treatable. Implicit in laws like Tennessee’s is the assumption that the responsibility for babies born with NAS can be traced directly to the mother.

“It’s all about the framing,” says Susan Boyd, a professor of law and drug policy at the University of Victoria. “Here’s this vulnerable fetus or baby who’s being threatened by the mother’s selfish actions. If we think about it that way, we don’t need to figure out why the women are using drugs in the first place, and helping them get treatment, because it’s their fault.”

Ignoring the advice of medical professionals, states are roaring ahead with policies that penalize women for using drugs during pregnancy, rather than seeking treatment for both mother and child. Already, seventeen states treat drug exposure at delivery as a form of civil child abuse.

This year, Ohio and Indiana required hospitals to report NAS diagnoses to the Department of Health. Three other states—Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee—have similar laws on the books. Although Ohio’s law specifically forbids hospital staff from turning over information about pregnant mothers’ drug use to criminal authorities, there’s nothing to prevent doctors and nurses from involving child welfare agencies, especially if they suspect that the mother may have been using illegal drugs, or abusing prescription pills. In some hospitals with reporting requirements, staff members call state social workers to investigate whenever there’s an NAS diagnosis.

“Once a child welfare agency intervenes, it can be very difficult to get them out of your life,” says Kylee Sunderlin, an attorney for National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a nonprofit law firm with a focus on reproductive issues. “In worst-case scenarios, it can lead to termination of parental rights.”

Even women who enter substance abuse treatment programs during pregnancy can find themselves faced with civil penalties. Julie Jones (not her real name), a woman living in rural southern Ohio, began taking opiate painkillers without a prescription in February 2011, after her 20-year-old sister died in a traffic accident. “They made me forget about everything,” she says. “That made me more functional, for a while.” More than a year later, she was dependent on the painkillers and spent most of her time among other drug users; she had even experimented with heroin. Then Julie discovered she was pregnant. “That was when I realized I needed help.”

Her best shot for a healthy pregnancy, Julie’s doctor told her, was to enter into a substance abuse program immediately. If she quit cold turkey, she’d risk a miscarriage. Julie began making the two-hour drive to Cincinnati once a week, for counseling and doses of buprenorphine, an opiate drug that staves off withdrawal symptoms. By the time she gave birth to her son, Elliott, in July 2013, she had been clean for more than six months.

But while she was still in the hospital, days after Elliott was born, a social worker came into Julie’s room and told her that Elliott had tested positive for opiates—because of Julie's buprenorphine treatment. Hospital staff transferred him to the neonatal intensive care nursery, where he stayed for nearly two weeks for addiction treatment. They also filed a report with Child Protective Services.

This reaction is not unexpected in southern Ohio, where diagnoses of neonatal abstinence syndrome have increased fivefold over the past five years. In September 2013, hospitals throughout the Cincinnati area—including the hospital where Julie gave birth—began to implement universal drug testing of mothers in labor.

Although women have the right to refuse these tests, parental consent isn’t required to perform drug screens on newborns like Elliott. After an infant is diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome, Child Protective Services gets involved as a matter of course. “The intention isn’t bad,” Julie says. “The people at the hospital just want to make sure the baby is going home to a safe place.”

At first, the social workers from Child Protective Services assured Julie and Tom, her husband (also not his real name), that their case would be simple. They would sign up for counseling, Julie would continue her substance abuse treatment, and the state would close its investigation. But in October 2013, three months after Elliott was born, Julie was driving home from the grocery store when Tom called in a panic. “He said, ‘Hurry up, get home right now,’” she remembers. “‘They’re taking you to court.’”

Within the week, Julie and Tom found themselves in a courtroom, facing charges of civil child abuse and neglect. The problem, the social workers said, was that the buprenorphine Julie took to treat her drug dependence was an opiate, a substance no different from OxyContin or heroin.

Robert Newman, a doctor who specializes in addiction treatment, says there’s a widespread misperception that drug replacement therapies are the functional equals of powerful prescription opiates or illegal drugs like heroin. In addiction treatment programs, patients like Julie take controlled doses of medication under a physician’s care. The drugs, although they are chemically similar to their illegal cousins, prevent withdrawal but don’t include any of the side effects that make prescription painkillers or heroin appealing in the first place.

In civil cases, unlike criminal trials, the state isn’t obligated to provide an attorney to the defendant, marooning women who can’t afford their own lawyer in a complex, sometimes hostile system. The charges against Julie were eventually dropped, but only after she reached out to Sunderlin at National Advocates for Pregnant Women for assistance.

Now Julie is pregnant again and still taking buprenorphine. She’s less worried about a second tangle with Child Protective Services after transferring to a program at a different hospital with a specific emphasis on treating high-risk pregnancies like hers. But programs like these are unusual.

Henrietta Bada, a neonatologist and professor of pediatrics at the University of Kentucky, says that in her state, where diagnoses of neonatal abstinence syndrome rose more than 300 percent between 2000 and 2009, the number of treatment programs can’t meet the demand. “We need more residential treatment programs where women can take their babies or intensive outpatient programs with daycare,” she says. “But it’s expensive, and where’s the funding?”

Money is often part of the calculus behind state laws designed to check NAS. A frequently cited study published in 2012 reported that, on average, the cost for treating an infant with NAS was more than $50,000. Because the mothers of children with NAS are often low-income, most of the bill goes to Medicaid.

One way to cut costs, says Michael Musci, chief medical officer of ProgenyHealth, a neonatal care management company, is to create outpatient programs for infants suffering from NAS. The goal is for babies to live at home with their families while they’re weaned off the drugs, speeding their recovery and avoiding the expense of weeks in the neonatal ICU.

It’s hard to find supporters in the medical community for a law like Tennessee’s, which threatens drug dependent women with jail time if they get pregnant. The incentives are misaligned, say advocates and medical professionals; women who fear retribution will be even less likely to seek prenatal care.

Strangely enough, it was only last year that Tennessee legislators passed the Safe Harbor Act, a law that protects drug dependent women from having their parental rights terminated if they enter treatment. “It seemed like last year, legislators were starting to realize that people can struggle with addiction and still be good parents,” says Allison Glass, an organizer with Healthy and Free Tennessee, a coalition of organizations that focuses on sexual health and reproductive rights. “The important thing is to keep families together, to the extent we can. This new law is a huge step backward.”

If the Tennessee laws represent two extremes, the laws that require hospitals to report cases of NAS are more mixed. On the one hand, more data can show states where opiate abuse is concentrated, so they can expand treatment facilities by geographic need.

But these laws also give wide discretion to hospital staff and social workers, which leaves room for discrimination. “Marginalized women, low-income women and women of color, are being over-tested,” says Farah Diaz-Tello, an attorney for National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “That means that women of color are vastly overrepresented in arrests and punitive child welfare interventions.”

Whether other states will try to follow in Tennessee’s footsteps remains to be seen. The national flap over what reproductive justice advocates call “criminalizing pregnancy” may convince other politicians to take a subtler tack. Nevertheless, anxiety over NAS seems likely to continue to spiral, fed by the nagging belief that women should be punished for failing to properly care for their fetuses.

Like the “crack baby epidemic,” this narrative puts mothers in opposition to their children, rather than seeing them both as vulnerable people, in need of care. “The fetus is part of the mother,” Susan Boyd says. “What’s good for her is good for her baby. I think sometimes we forget that.”

[JackRiddler]

Oh no!

Protests are about to run the He-Man Woman Haters' Club out of Detroit!

Poor oppressed Krysos!

http://motorcitymuckraker.com/blog/2014 ... urban-vfw/

In an odd turn of events, the organizers of a controversial men’s rights conference moved the event from a swanky downtown Detroit hotel to a suburban VFW hall.

A Voice for Men announced the change Wednesday evening, insisting the move was prompted by surging interest in the inaugural International Conference on Men’s Issues following protests and online skirmishes.

SNIP

http://motorcitymuckraker.com/blog/2014 ... n-detroit/



SNIP

About 200 protesters gathered outside the DoubleTree on Saturday to demand that the hotel cancel the event.

When asked Tuesday whether the event would be moved, an organizer responded: “The DoubleTree GM (general manager) actually said that he has ‘feminist phobia’ and sort of laughed but in a nervous way. So its being discussed.”

It’s questionable whether this conversation ever occurred because the general manager is a woman.

A Voice for Men claims boys and men are oppressed by irrational feminists. The group also accuses women of exaggerating the severity of rape and denounces “the institution of marriage as unsafe and unsuitable for modern men.”

Organizers of the demonstration amassed more than 3,000 signatures from opponents of the conference.

[JackRiddler]

Did we miss George Will on how being a rape victim is a privilege, and the AEI motherfuckers (also in the Washington Post) saying (with "data") that women should take fewer lovers and marry up if they don't want to be killed?

[Pele'sDaughter]

I posted that in the Mansplaining thread and forgot to post it here.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35382&start=360

[seemslikeadream]

[RocketMan]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ack-creepy

A woman drowning, a bloodied face, a man turning his fingers into a gun and pointing it at his own head: not exactly the stuff of romance! Yet this – along with a bunch of private text messages – is the imagery that makes up the music video for Get Her Back, the lead single from creepy crooner Robin Thicke on his followup to his number-one selling album Blurred Lines. And this is just one song on an entire record dedicated to winning back the affection of his estranged wife, the actress Paula Patton. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned chocolate and flowers?

Thicke's new album, titled - what else? - Paula, features tracks called You're My Fantasy, Still Madly Crazy, Something Bad, Whatever I Want and Lock the Door, among others. The disturbing video, released on Monday, features real SMS messages sent between Thicke and Patton, interspersed with images of violence, and ends ominously with a shadowy figure walking off into the distance with these words: This is just the beginning. So far, the video has been called "vulnerable" and "emotional"; album write-ups call Thicke "repentant" with this "romantic gesture".

I think a more accurate term would be stalker-ish.

The US Department of Justice defines stalking as "a pattern of repeated and unwanted attention, harassment, contact ... that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear." That definition explicitly includes the repeated sending of unwanted presents and flowers, waiting for a woman at home or school, or making indirect threats. Does selling a music video with a look-a-like of your wife drowning count?

None of us know the ins and outs of the Patton and Thicke's relationship outside of what's public - they were high school sweethearts and they have a child together. But romanticizing the creepy and potentially harassing efforts of a man obsessed with this ex sends a dangerous message to young men about what "romance" really is. Hint: it has nothing to do with haranguing and publicly shaming us back into a relationship.

Thicke is hardly alone in his interpretation of what constitutes a grand romantic gesture. Stalking or behavior bordering on such is a huge part of the narrative around romance, especially in pop culture: the boy keeps trying to get the girl until she says yes. You need to look no further than the outrageously popular Twilight series - books and movies - to know that the stalker-as-romantic lead looms large in our cultural imagination. From There's Something About Mary to Groundhog Day, the guy who would do anything to land the girl is supposedly the stuff women's dreams are made of. (Of course, there's no room for female protagonists or celebrities doing the same, like, say, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She'd be called nuts in less time than it takes to get through the YouTube ad before a music video.)

It doesn't surprise me that a man whose hit song sounded like an assault anthem and featured a video full of naked models would attempt to get back his wife via public pressure and a threatening music video. And the Get Her Back video is threatening. From the drowning to the finger gun (threatening suicide is a common signal of an abuser), the video sends a message that Thicke won't take no for an answer. And that's not romantic - it's just downright scary.

[seemslikeadream]

Homemade Solutions for Hobby Lobby Female Employees -- Hilarious DIY Birth Control
In the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling, here are some homemade solutions for female Hobby Lobby workers to prevent pregnancy.



Knit condom, modeled on a banana.
Photo Credit: Jill Richardson

July 3, 2014 |



With the recent Supreme Court decision, allowing closely held corporations like Hobby Lobby to refuse to cover certain forms of birth control in their employee insurance plans, female employees might wonder how they will keep from getting pregnant. Not a problem! They can use their employee discounts to purchase low-cost items at any Hobby Lobby to make any number of DIY craft birth control projects.

1. Decorated Rhythm Method Calendar: The rhythm method is an excellent method of birth control for devout Christians, provided you are in a heterosexual marriage. All you do is avoid having vaginal sex when you are fertile. Do this consistently for a year and you have a 75 percent chance of avoiding pregnancy.

Here’s how it works: You’re only fertile for a day or two when you ovulate, but sperm can hang around inside you for five to seven days. That leaves you with a bit of a larger window in which to avoid sex.

First, you need to learn to tell when you are ovulating. Look for changes in vaginal mucus or look for a 0.4 to 0.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in body temperature using any one of the adorable thermometers sold at Hobby Lobby.

Next up, you need a calendar—and you are in luck because Hobby Lobby has them on sale. Mark the dates of your ovulation over time to see if they are regular and predictable each month. You can customize your calendar with photos of your loved ones and adorable stickers to mark the five days before ovulation and three days after when you should refrain from sex. Placing Virgin Mary stickers on those days would be perfect, but as Hobby Lobby does not sell any, perhaps its Believe in Miracles or glittery cross stickers would make a suitable stand-in. After all, it would be a miracle if the rhythm method actually worked.

2. Abstinence: Abstinence is the only 100-percent effective form of birth control. Hobby Lobby provides two different options for the lady looking to refrain from sex altogether. The first option is found among Hobby Lobby’s wide selection of super glue. Simply glue your legs together – or for the active lady who cannot do so without impairing her daily activities, simply glue the cervix shut for a less restrictive option. Note: Although sprinkling glitter on the glue would look fabulous, the glitter may chafe your legs, making it an uncomfortable option for some.

Second, Hobby Lobby provides everything you need to make your own “man repellent” sweatshirt. Simply purchase a plain sweatshirt and embellish it with puffy paint, sequins, glitter, and pompoms. The more decoration, the better, so don’t be afraid to go crazy! Religious women hoping to stay abstinent could even sew on a bow made from Jesus Loves Me ribbon or add a pink iron-on applique cross. (Note: This method may not work, particularly if the man being repelled has been drinking or has not had sex in a long, long time.)

3. Fun and Funky Knitted Condoms:Choose from Hobby Lobby’s wide selection of yarn to find the right color and texture for a set of custom condoms. Remember, when buying your knitting needles, smaller sized needles (sizes 3 and 4) will give you a tighter stitch to better prevent the sperm from getting through. Larger needles will create a loopy stitch, particularly with lightweight yarns like baby, sock, fingering, or sport weight yarn. While this might look decorative on your loved one’s member, it will not aid in birth control.

As always, take time to check gauge. For the condom, knit on four needles as you would for a sock. Use the stockinette stitch – unless you prefer a ribbed texture, in which case a 2x2 ribbed pattern will do nicely. Feel free to embellish your homemade condoms with fringe, pompoms, or even cables. You can even make your loved one a themed set of condoms as birthday or Christmas gifts.

4. Puffy Paint Condoms: Don’t knit? Don’t worry! Make a romantic evening by covering your husband’s equipment in puffy paint and then allowing it to dry before getting frisky. It’s a fun couples activity for date night. Buy paint in your favorite colors and take turns coming up with creative designs. Or, if you’re in a hurry, simply use a balloon to do the job. Try putting this smiley face balloon on Mr. Happy, and you’ll smile too knowing you are safe from unwanted pregnancy. (Note: The effectiveness of homemade condoms is untested, and they may not be as effective as standard latex condoms. In which case you might need to make a….)

5. Needlepoint Prayer Pillow:Check out Hobby Lobby’s Cross-Stitch and Needle Crafts section and make your own cross-stitch or embroidered pillow with your favorite prayer to prevent pregnancy. For example, your pillow could read “Dear God, please grant me the serenity to accept the pregnancies I cannot prevent, the strength to prevent the ones I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference.” For your pillow’s backing, you might like Hobby Lobby’s cross or faith fabrics, both now on sale.

6. Copper IUD:Hobby Lobby considers the intrauterine device (IUD) an abortifacient and does not wish to cover them under the employee health plan. Not to worry! While hormonal IUDs are difficult for the DIYer, copper ones are easy. Head over to the beading section of the store for a diverse array of copper wire and findings. Twist the wire into a suitable shape (a mandrel, also sold in the beading section, might assist with that) and stick it right up inside yourself.

Should these homemade solutions fail to prevent pregnancy, no doubt Hobby Lobby entirely disapproves of repurposing its copper wire for use in DIY abortions if employees live in places where they can no longer obtain safe and legal abortions in nearby hospitals or clinics. No doubt they would much prefer if you visited your local Hobby Lobby to purchase all the materials needed for your shotgun wedding.

[Project Willow]