A post in which I show nothing but blind patriotism for my country

After all, which Singaporean couldn’t be prouder when our country takes the basic tenants of human rights and democracy and flushes it right down the drain, right?

First reason to be proud of my country:
A case in which we think the death penalty should be a right of a country, and actually lead the battle against suspending it.

Second reason to be proud of my country:
We invite the Burmese junta to the ASEAN meeting, and then reject applications for people to stage a Myanmar pro-democracy protest.

Yup. It’s good to be a Singaporean.

/snark

OH MY GOD! They Killed God! Those Bastards!

Well, that’s it then. We should all gather in the town square to burn the books as we dance naked around the flames. Information is dangerous! If people have information, then they might start to think, and to question and then HOLY SHIT PEOPLE! Are you even remotely aware of what would happen if everyone were an independent thinker? If everyone was given all the information they needed to make decisions FOR THEMSELVES (and not as part of some collective hive-mind)? It’s getting harder and harder to oppress the unwashed masses as it is!

You know what’s worse than a book with information that endangers the world as we know it? A MOVIE BASED ON THAT BOOK. You know what’s even worse? If the people who made the movie TONED DOWN some of the book’s heretical messages so that people will be TRICKED INTO BUYING AND POSSIBLY READING THE BOOK. The world as we know it could end on or around December 7^th 2007 (depending on how long it will take the unwashed masses to read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Personally, it took me 4 days, but I’m a pretty fast reader. I wouldn’t seriously worry until at least a week later).

Christians like feeling persecuted. Trust me, we do. It makes us feel better that there are a great many forces out there that disadvantage us. Plus, there is a certain romantic passion that comes with facing down our enemies as a united mass. That universal yearn to be martyred (without the attendant inconvenience of death) is fuelling an email campaign against Nicole Kidman’s latest outing to the silver screen. The two emails (sourced from snopes.com[1]) currently making the rounds are below the cut.

On Emotion and Getting People To Stay Long Enough To Listen To What You Are Trying To Say

I’ve been meaning to write something like this for a while now, but have not been able to properly organize my thoughts. It started with the responses I garnered from my post about Feminism and Choice. I was told that it was potentially alienating, and that it was one of the worst things I could do if my intention was to recruit people to the movement. Don’t scare people and make them feel uncomfortable, I was told, don’t be so confronting. Once you make your point, you don’t have to make it for three more paragraphs, just slide into the night. Make your points in an objective and rational manner, otherwise you seem biased, and will push away people who “border on disagreeing with you”.

Isn’t Feminism All About Choice Anyway?

It’s not a choice if it’s your only good option. Now repeat that as often as you need to in order to take that on board.

Too often we see discussions of how if feminism is all about choice, then why can’t women choose to wear makeup (full disclosure: I’m wearing make up RIGHT NOW), or choose to stay at home and rely on their husband for full financial support, or choose to diet and lose weight or choose, choose, choose, choose, choose to perform actions that validate the patriarchy.

Friday Fun: Women are lousy workers who just wanna make babies!

Just some Friday fun, that is, if your fun consists of you banging your head against the table.

Justin Sanders, who guest-posts at Modite writes:

Feminism has destabilized society by undermining heterosexuality and the family. This perverse assault on gender difference is disguised as an act of “defense” of women’s’ and homosexuals’ “right” to be single and childless. Women have been duped into seeking “power” and “independence” (aloneness) through climbing the mirage of the corporate ladder.

..

The natural result of this union between the masculine and the feminine is the child - Heaven’s most precious gift. Without a child to care for, a woman often becomes frustrated, bitter and distracted. She often uses the “success” of her “career” (which is simply a glorified word for “job”) as a replacement for the void of the missing child. Motherhood changes a woman permanently. The job, which once seemed so important, quickly becomes secondary to the starry eyes of her loving child. I’ve seen far too many women recite feminists mantras only to discovery - in their late 30s - that all they really wanted was a warm baby to snuggle.

Because in Justin’s mind, it’s a crime to be single and childless - since, yknow, children are the gift from god and just all women get all so weepy when they see little baby booties!

But for some fun, here’s a song I’ve been listening to all morning.

Why can’t those damn gays just be happy with what little rights they have?

marriedtothesea.com

Singapore is currently in the midst of a debate on whether we should repeal an antiquated law titled Section 377a of the Penal Code. The law which was passed by down the British colonial masters (we declared independence in 1963, for a sense of a timeline) makes criminals out of gays for merely having sex.

Yes, two consensual men who fuck each other in private are considered criminals in the eyes of the law. Can we be any more progressive?

In April early this year, Minister Mentor Lee assured the gay community that S337a would not be enforced by the police, but the law would not be repealed so that the government would not “upset their [the religious conservatives] sense of propriety and right and wrong.”

Since then, we’ve been barraged with the cries of homophobes, bigots and fundamentalists who fear that their world would stop spinning in its axis if we let gays have the rights of a full human being.

Some of their poorly formed arguments against the repeal of 377a were:
1) It is against the good of society. Soon, we’d be like those damn Europeans, and gays will be having sex with boys as young as 14.
2) Those damn gays will start flocking to our island! And we’d have to see them kiss in public!
3) Schools will soon teach my children how to be gay! And churches will have gay ministers!
4) Those gays throw kinky sex orgies which leads to AIDs! AIDs is baddd!

But these aren’t the people whose heads I want to smack - for now. At least these people are honest and upfront about wanting to deny gays their rights.

It’s those pseudo gay-sympathizers whom I have no patience for.

No Malicious Intent

You know those people who are “all for equality” but refuse to be called “feminists”? The ones who proudly paste that god-awful “I’m not a feminist but” image on their webspace? (I honestly hate that tract. It manages to claim all the triumphs of the feminist movement while denigrating the people who, in identifying as feminists, managed to bring about those crucial changes. I digress.) At this point, I should probably fully disclose the fact that in my youth I was one of those people, but way back then I was also a fundie right-winger. I don’t think people should be held accountable for youthful indiscretions – I mean, that’s why most juvenile records are sealed right?

Then again, the I’m-not a-feminist-but people aren’t half as bad as the people who just plain don’t see the need for feminism and instead see it as a divisive movement that (and this is an actual quote[1], I kid you not) “spreads hate”. Call me naïve but I honestly believe that the only reason people like this exist is because of a fundamental misunderstanding not of feminism but of the patriarchy.

 

Why are we keeping quiet?

Building on Joie’s last post, the next inevitable question we have to ask ourselves is: What do we do when someone around us makes a racist/sexist joke?

Penelope Trunk, who writes the excellent career/work blog Brazen Careerist, blogged about how she went on air and was talking about Michelle Obama when a caller made a racist remark about the black people in general.

This Asian Slut has a Question, Yo!

I tell racist jokes. I also tell dirty jokes that are incredibly sexist. Sometimes I combine the two and tell jokes that are demeaning to both racial minorities and women. Yet, I don’t feel that this undermines my status as a full-fledged, card-carrying, feminazi bitch. I even own Birkenstocks! (I would mention here that I don’t shave my legs, but seeing as how there’s nothing there to shave it’s largely irrelevant.)

Jesus wants you back in the kitchen, bitch!

It’s awesome that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has found itself a time machine to transform itself back in the heydays of 1950’s. After all, why else would they offer a course that teaches you how to sew, cook and “the value of a child” only for those who own vaginas? (Penises not allowed.)

According to the Washington Post:

Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation’s largest Southern Baptist seminaries, is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.

It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in homemaking. The program is only open to women.

Coursework will include seven hours of nutrition and meal preparation, seven hours of textile design and “clothing construction,” three hours of general homemaking, three hours on “the value of a child,” and three hours on the “biblical model for the home and family.”

Seminary officials say the main focus of the courses is on hospitality in the home - teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook. Women also study children’s spiritual, physical and emotional development.

Seminary President Paige Patterson, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has its executive committee headquarters in Nashville, said wives of seminary students asked for the homemaking courses. The program was approved by seminary trustees in the fall.

“We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God’s word for the home and the family,” Patterson said at the denomination’s annual meeting in June. “If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed.”

How nice knowing that women’s liberation and the right to choose to go out to work is actually destroying America! The terrorists would be so happy if they knew that it was this easy.

In all seriousness, I love everything to do with sewing and cooking – for fuck’s sakes – we have craft and cooking tags on this blog itself. Between the two of us who blog here, we can sew, crochet, knit, spin, bake and cook up a storm.

What I deeply resent is when these gender roles are foisted upon us by those who demand that women should learn how to pick up domestic skills for the family and the men. Domestic skills are awesome for either gender, but no one should say that women should be expected to learn how to cook and clean by default of having vaginas.

This move by the seminary is only engineered to keep women in the kitchen like a maid so that she can keep worshipping her man who brings home the bacon.

Terri Stovall, dean of women’s programs at Southwestern, which has its main campus in Fort Worth, Texas, said the purpose of the program is to strengthen families.

“Whether a woman works outside or strictly in the home, her first priority is her family and home,” she said. “We just really want to step up and provide some of these skills.”

Shorter Terri Stovall: Even if you make money to provide for the family, you’re still expected to clean and cook like a maid! Don’t expect your husband to chip in with the household chores because mops weren’t made for those with dicks!

And these assholes are keeping true to their word. In 2002, the seminary having terminated a contract of Hebrew professor, Sheri Klouda, for being a woman and even going so far as to call her position a “mistake that the trustees needed to fix”.

So remember kids, when you step into Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, don’t be surprised to find that it’s just like the good ole 1950’s with a good dose of misogyny!