Lucy's Guest Blog

"Why I Am A Failure"

I just got home from seeing Bay Buchanan's talk titled "Failures of Feminism". MS. (yes, I totally went there) Buchanan is a relatively famous conservative. If you feel like learning more about her and her accomplishments, google her.

I wanted to hear her speak because, being the well-rounded human that I am, I enjoy listening to people who have opinions different from mine. Seriously, I do. I like it because that way I can at least understand where they are coming from when they debate me, and I can have rebuttles ready for their ignorant remarks.

Anywho, I sat back in the "liberal angry feminists" corner, because I fit in quite well with that crowd. During her talk, I was literally SHAKING with anger. I'm not kidding. My hands were shaking, and my heart was pounding. But as the good little girl I am, I sat quietly and listened.

I will now express my anger with the talk, one point at a time.

She began with stating the successes of feminism. Because according to her, you should also be aware of your enemy's strenghts along with their weaknesses. I definitely agreed with the successes. Moving along women in education and in busting them into traditionally men's careers (doctors, lawyers, etc).

After that very short bit, she started on the consequences of the sexual revolution. I will paraphrase her comments, "Women were upset that men could sleep around without consequences. Back then, men who had lots of sex were just being men but women who slept around were looked down upon. The feminist said, "Hey, this isn't right!" So, birth control became legal and available. The feminist thought, "This will balance the women and men. Now women can also sleep around without consequences." This FAILED because the birth control didn't work. Women still became pregnant. So the feminist starting pushing ABORTIONS. Now, they thought, men and women are completly equal."

After that, she ranted about how horrible abortion was for about 20 minutes. She had a story about a girl who had an abortion at the age of 14 (PRIOR to Roe V. Wade) and later in life she became an alcoholic. She froze to death one night after leaving a bar completly drunk and passing out in the snow and freezing to death.

This story was in the book of some politician, it was his daughter. He questioned whether or not the abortion was something that his daughter could never cope with.

Ok, time for my angry rebuttal.

First of all, the way she made the CHOICE of abortion sound was that it was as easy as choosing to have cereal or a bagel for breakfast. She was going on about "Do you really believe that this clump of cells isn't a baby? That this is just a medical procedure, like removing a mole?"

Let me tell you, I really don't think that ANY WOMAN decides to have an abortion out of the blue. It is a very difficult thing to decide. It's not like you find out you're pregnant and you just shrug your shoulders until you find the nearest family planning facility. It is a personal decision that you need to make for yourself.

I would also like to point out how often I am using the word CHOICE in this rant. Because, some women choose to have abortions while others choose not to. That is the literal fucking definition of 'PRO-CHOICE'. That is why I call myself pro-choice, NOT "Pro-baby killing".

My ex-boyfriend once asked me what I would do if I accidentally became pregnant. I think he expected me to tell him straight up that I would have an abortion. That did not happen.

I still do not have an answer for that question. If that ever happens to me, I will deal with it in my own way and time. (Although I will mention that I don't have many opportunities to get pregnant these days, which is why I have all this pent up hostility and stress)

Continuing with my rant, I would like to refute her "If I have an abortion, I will become a drunk and die" theory. She had other numbers that proved that women who have abortions have higher suicide rates/early deaths/etc.

Can we possibly take into account something that I learned in SOCIOLOGY 101? Correlation is NOT Causation. We should probably take into account the type of women who generally have abortions. Women who have been raped, abused, or just grew up in poverty and were not fortunate to get a proper sex education (Thank you, North High School).

Those are all, unfortunately, other reasons that women could be depressed and unstable.

The world would be all fine and dandy if the only abortions were from strong successful business women who got a little too drunk at the bar one night and forgot to bring a condom. But guess what, that isn't the reason why.

I'm not even goint to start on a rant about our piece-of-shit education system that does NOT properly prepare kids for the real world. Especially those idiots who push "abstinence-only" education. PEOPLE LIKE TO FUCK EACH OTHER BECAUSE IT IS FUN. GET OVER IT.

I will move away from the pro-life part of MS. Buchanan's talk. I will now move onto the anti-marriage part of the talk. Another short paraphrase, "Feminists have strived to bring down the institution of marriage since the beginnning." (That's all I'm going to say about that). Basically, feminists are the reason that divorce rates are so high.

Ok people, first of all - divorce is good in some aspects. I believe that it is wonderful that women are able to get out of abusive relationships because they can support themselves. A few decades ago, even if a woman was in an abusive relationship, she could not do anything about it. She had to be married to because she could not support herself.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the divorce rate is super freaking high because people get married too quickly, or for the wrong reasons. There are plenty of reasons why people get divorced. I'm sure it's not all a woman trying to further her career so she has no time for a family.

I don't even know what else to say about her talk specifically. I think I immediately blocked out a few things that she said because I was blind and deaf with rage.

I would like to point out the irony of her. (Which somebody did during the Q&A portion). Wait a minute, you're a female, you're a single mother, you've had a divorce, you have power in politics, don't you owe some of your success to the feminist movement?

"No, I did everything on my own."

Let me tell you, you stupid fucking bitch, that without the feminist movement in the 50s and 60s, your ass would not have been able to get into college and into a high position of power. What pisses me off even more is the fact that she pointed all this out in the beginning of her talk on the successes of feminism. Which, according to her, have helped women get into education and good careers EXCEPT FOR HER. SHE DID IT ALL ALONE.

I think I just had a mini-brain stroke. If she were a robot, she would have self-destructed at her own paradox.

I think I need to stop this soon. It's been almost an hour of angry ranting and I don't know if anyone is going to make it this far down the page.

I will leave you with this:

To me, feminism is about choice (there's that pesky word again). I am a female who has an equal opportunity to choose my future. If I want to go to school to get a business degee, I can. If I want to live in crack-house and be a stripper, I can. It's all about my choice, which I thank the early feminists for. Because, for pretty much the entire existence of man-kind, women HAD NO CHOICES.

Women were not allowed to vote, go to school, have jobs, and a lot more. They were told to sit at home and obey their husbands. And they did, for a long time, until some "angry bitches" decided to say NO.

Thanks, all my angry bitches.

(I would also like to point out right now, that I realize that I have had a pretty easy life. I am white and middle class, what more can I say? But, I have been educated enough to realized WHY I am so priveledged. There are many people out there who are not so lucky. There are also people who, even though they are also middle class, continue to be discriminated against based on their race or sexual orientation. Trust me, I feel for those people. Hopefully all the old, ignorant people will die off soon.)