Posted by Amanda Marcotte October 3, 2007 in Uncategorized, Asides
I’m really thrilled with this week’s column at RH Reality Check. It’s a humorous (hopefully) examination of how easy it would be for anti-choicers to oppose menstruation without skipping a beat in tactics. It’s a bit raunchy and I don’t let “moderates” off the hook. Enjoy!
28 Responses to “No Constitutional Right to Tampons”
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Better and more comprehensive than a “news article” on an anti-menstruation bill in the National Lampoon in the 1970s. Good work.
Well, we all know what Phyllis Schlafly and a tampon have in common …
Except one absorbs a bit better than the other.
That picture is scary.
That’s all I have to say…I can see the advertismeents.
Is it that time of the month? Feeling guilty about it? Now you can…Repent!! by Opus Dei Women Products. All of the dryness and none of the comfort.
I adore it.
Well, we all know what Phyllis Schlafly and a tampon have in common …
They have string coming out of their heads?
You’re ‘thrilled’ at your own column???
And then there would be the Evil Mad Scientist crowd proposing that menstruation could be prevented by chemical means, but they’d be torn limb from limb for Tampering With Nature…
Well, you know what happens when scientists try and play god: horrible movies on the Sci-Fi Channel.
No, Eric. I actually walk around with a hairshirt on after I publish anything to remind myself that I’m not worthy.
This is scarily plausible.
Consider: Menstruation flushes away an innocent egg that could have been fertilized had its mother allowed it to live! The Evil Mentrstruationists must be stopped! Save the Gametes!
I’m so glad I don’t live in the States.
Every egg is sacred,
Every egg is great
If an egg is wasted
God gets quite irate!
Eric, many writers are thrilled when they write something they care about and think it turned out well. I know I always am. What’s strange about that?
Well, if you let a girl stick a plug up there, she’ll get all excited and stick just anything up there.
How is a man supposed to know if his chattel has properly maintained her virginity for the wedding night? You’d best just admit that those tampons can break the hymen…
You’d best just admit that those tampons can break the hymen…
Worked for me!
This essay would be a good companion piece to Gloria Steinem’s “If Men Could Menstruate.”
http://www.mum.org/ifmencou.htm
Good work!
One fact-checking issue, though. Tri-Valley is not an NYC school. It’s a rural school located on the southern edge of Catskill Park. So, basically, a person is more likely to get eaten by a bear at that school than to see a yellow cab.
So, Crabby, you’re suggesting that sexist men fear they’ll be inadequate next to the tampon?
“You’d best just admit that those tampons can break the hymen…” I actually had a Muslim friend who wasn’t allowed to wear tampons for that reason. (No, she wasn’t a victim of FGM. Just a regular intact hymen that her mother was worried would be broken by a tampon).
Landover Baptist is as always ahead of the curve:
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0999/cotton.html
“Satan’s Little Cotton Fingers!” Tee hee.
Two things I’m reminded of:
Line from “Election” episode of Freak Show by Republican senator Don Berry (voiced excellently by Jon Benjamin):
“Together we can ban abortion, and eventually ban a woman’s right to menstruate”.
And as a companion, don’t forget this excellent toon by Mikhaela Reid.
But a great column. It’s funny and an excellent summary of anti-choice crusaders.
Amanda, this is precisely why I love reading you. You rock
Consider: Menstruation flushes away an innocent egg that could have been fertilized had its mother allowed it to live! The Evil Mentrstruationists must be stopped! Save the Gametes!]
“Gametes” are liberal pro-death propaganda.
The ovum must carry the soul - the sperm is too small and too prolific. Therefore, every ovum is an unborn 9and unfertilized) HUMAN BEING. A woman allowing herself to menstruate when she could have prevented it is COMMITTING MURDER.
It is obvious that women should be as pregnant as possible from menarch to menopause, and should take every possible opportunity to keep themselves in that state.
Certainly, the behaviour of certain members of the Religious Right clericy suggest that they are both aware of and endorse such a theory…
So, Crabby, you’re suggesting that sexist men fear they’ll be inadequate next to the tampon?
Hell, they’re afraid a stray pube might overshadow them.
Eric, a writer’s work is a part of them, like a child they brought up, hard work. A job well done is worthy of pride. Hell, I even read over my own work that I really like quite a few times, just to revel in its completeness. Tis a pity Eric, that people like you haven’t experienced the pleasure of creative work.
I thought the analogy was excellent. I don’t doubt there’s many a wingnut who hates menustrating women. “Fertile but willfully not pregnant” is a state of being that contradicts their view of women’s existence.
Did you find that picture on the internets, or is it your own arts and crafts? Is there someone out there independently making little tampon angels for some other purpose?
I also really liked the commenter over there who said, “We’re not anti-menstruation, we’re *pro-clean*.” Because you *know* it would be like that.
Men who are that squicked out/intimidated by menstruation are often…outgirthed by tampons.
Maybe if the kids at school could make little Christmas angels, snowmen or Halloween ghosts out of tampons, less people would get all weirded out over the combination of cotton and string.
Phoenician, if the ovum DOES carry the soul, that might explain the terrified, tortured peeping sounds I hear whenever we make omelets…
Will SOMEONE please think of the chickens???
Phoenician, if the ovum DOES carry the soul, that might explain the terrified, tortured peeping sounds I hear whenever we make omelets…
No, that’s just the cries of the people who know you’ll be feeding it to them later.