Having been accused of vagina “fauxrage” in response to my post yesterday about Arizona’s crazy-ass bill which would permit employers to fire women for being slutty birth control users, I feel compelled to make a counterargument.
Actually, I’ll let Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars make that counterargument for me:
When I was 18, I worked for a publishing company that was a little bit strange. The female department head was a fundamentalist Christian and a member of Jews for Jesus who used to hold Tuesday morning prayer meetings before work. It was well known that if you never did attend a prayer meeting, you could forget about ever getting a raise.
My immediate supervisor was a young woman named Janice. One morning, while Janice was in the restroom, the department head went rummaging in her purse and found her birth control pills. Instead of talking to her, she called all the editorial clerks and assistants into her department and announced that we were no longer permitted to socialize with the editors, and that we were nothing more than “Jezebels, sluts and whores of Babylon”. (I found this particularly ironic since one of my co-workers graduated from a genteel and well-known Southern women’s Christian college. She’d confided in me that both her father and grandfather—church elders—had raped her. The father raped her shortly after she tearfully confided in him that she’d been raped by her grandfather. “The family that prays together”, etc. …)
The department head also announced that if it was discovered that anyone was using birth control pills, she would be fired immediately. And that if anyone didn’t like it, well, she could just resign.
So I went back to my desk and typed up a resignation letter. I also took another piece of paper, drew a swastika and taped it to the department head’s door. (What can I say? I was young.)
This was my introduction to the fact that there are these kinds of people in the world. And now the modern Republican party has adopted the untrammeled craziness that was my former department head.
Fauxrage? I don’t think so. Is the bill unconstitutional? Yes. Are there remedies available for women who get trapped by this craptastic bill? Yes. Is that the point? NO.
[via Crooks and Liars]
[cross-posted at Balloon Juice]
ABL, sorry if I missed something but except for one dinkwad who got shot down fast. No one in the comments called you a “fauxraging vagina” in what I read of all the comments in your prior diary.
I’m following this really close because I live in AZ. Even though I’m old & retired I care a lot about this caca. Lozer, Loser or what she calls herself will be going home soon after this election. This mutant nutbucket is not scheduled for re-election & anyone connected with her is in trouble too.
Women using birth control for reproduction aren’t the only ones at risk of being fired. Exposing one’s medical history could also subject that person to discrimination. Any time an employer discovers that someone has a medical condition, that person is at-risk of being denied promotions or full participation in the workplace, and of being fired. A lot of the protections inherent in the ADA do not apply to employers with fewer than 15 employees. And even so, discrimination can be almost impossible to prove.
Another good reason not to do my shopping acorss the state line in AZ-sad to say I went shopping for another country in 2006 and have everything ready for a swift move to Argentina even though I love NM USA. This war on women is unbelievable-what is the solution?
I worked my (1st) husband’s way through undergrad school and professional school in Washington DC. I was a secretary — and, during a job interview, was questioned about not only whether I planned to get pregnant, but required to disclose my form of birth control. Not illegal, in their view. Not even in bad taste. Let’s not go back….I can still feel the embarrassment of that moment.
Can I give my vagina “Personhood” status? Somebody needs to protect it from others…
These attempts at passing legislation (such as this AZ crap) are getting crazier by the day! I am left shocked and stunned, again.