Makes me sick...

It irks me that birth control is still considered a "controversial issue." In a time when a woman heads the New York Times, women are beginning to out earn men, and a woman holds the Secretary of State position, it seems that contraceptives should fade to the background, cast in the shadow of the female accomplishments in our country. And yet, here we are. Given all of the attention dedicated to birth control in the political arena, it still shocks me (although I guess it shouldn't) that Rush Limbaugh called women "whores" and "sluts" for wanting affordable birth control. As Georgetown University student, Sandra Fluke pointed out, birth control can cost a woman up to $3,000 a year, (for female students, that could be a whole summer's salary). And no, women are not asking to get paid for sex. We are saying that it's not unreasonable for our Health Care coverage to cover some of the costs - no matter who our employer is. Also, a note to those policy makers out there who don't have lady parts - birth control is not only used to prevent pregnancies. Birth control can be used to ward off life threatening conditions such as ovarian cysts. Which, if a woman needs medical treatment for, would cost insurance companies way more than a monthly prescription. It makes me physically ill that someone who prides himself on being so educated would have the gall to say something as crass as this: "So Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch." Please Rush, that would cost you a lot more than a cycle of hormone pills.

If you're tired of getting screwed by men with a political agenda visit Women Are Watching, which lays out where political candidates stand on key women's health-care issues.

Monday Musings

I don't mean to get political on this Monday morning but this article from Rolling Stone is too good not to pass along. The purpose of this blog and my writing isn't to disguise a hippie agenda or push my ideals on anyone at all - I just thought this article offers up some unique information and gives you different perspectives to think about. What I found particularly interesting was how the author defines "change" in America:

"They plant their flag in an uncompromising position, and wait for the world to come around – which, quite often, it eventually does. This is because in a media environment based on the ideology of "balance," in which anything one of the parties insists upon must be given equal weight to whatever the other party says back, the party that plants its ideological flag further from the center makes the center move. And that is how America changes. You set the stage for future changes by shifting the rhetoric of the present."

As a future teacher, I would take this into my classroom...