Tag: politics

And So It Begins …

Published on November 11, 2024

Misogynists Are Already Crawling Outta Their Hovels

It starts like this: Young men standing on a local freeway bridge waving signs that say, “YOUR BODY, MY CHOICE.” A dude strolling Carpinteria in a T-shirt bearing the same phrase. High-school boys texting it to female classmates.

The phrase is a derisive flip of “my body, my choice” (see what they did there?), which feminists chanted for reproductive freedom in the 1960s … and again recently as we lost that hard-won right.

Co-opting it as an endorsement of rape culture is gross, but it shouldn’t be surprising. When you elect a convicted felon who’s been found liable for sexual assault, who brags about grabbing beauty contestants’ vaginas, and who calls his opponents bitches, you send a strong signal that this is all acceptable — even entertaining — behavior.

Screw Hope. Trust Tenacity.

Published on December 3, 2020

How Hannah-Beth Jackson Beat the Drum for Women’s Rights

It was 11:56 p.m. on her final day of her final term in office — and things didn’t look good. “I had ’til midnight to get this bill passed, and I’d been working on it for years,” State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson says of her Paid Family Leave Act, aimed at protecting the jobs of folks who take leave to care for family. It had passed the Senate but needed 41 votes to clear the Assembly.

Fresh from a C-section, Rep. Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley) showed up with her newborn to cast the 40th vote in favor. “We were running out of time,” Jackson recalls, “and I thought, We’re not gonna get there.”

And then (get this!) moderate Democrat Joaquin Arambula, who reps conservative Fresno and had publicly spoken out against the bill, voted in favor — tipping the ayes to 41.

A casual observer might call it luck. But anyone who’s followed Sen. Jackson’s career — her stint in the State Assembly from 1998 to 2004, and her two terms in the Senate, which officially ended Nov. 30 — knows it’s the result of the senator’s political mantra:

“Never ever, ever, ever, ever give up.”

Enlisting the Break-Up Pros

Published on September 1, 2020

Could Japan’s Wakaresaseya Woo Away Our Ball-and-Chain POTUS?

Dear Wakaresaseya Agency,

We were recently perusing the news when among the usual fare of planetary plagues, unsurvivable hurricanes, and right-wing Christian three-ways, we read about your surreptitious services. We don’t mind confessing we’re entirely intrigued.

Can it be true there are businesses in Japan dedicated solely to breaking up relationships? And that people hire these covert agents to bust up their own marriages by luring their spouses into affairs??

It’s hard to believe — but then again, if someone had told us six months ago that we’d be marching to save the US Freaking Postal Service and shoveling mountains of money at Ole Grampa Biden, we’d have laughed in their unmasked face, sputtering, “Shyeah, right, I’d sooner homeschool my kids!”

Reflecting on the Women’s Suffrage Centennial

Published on March 5, 2020

Susan B. Anthony’s Santa Barbara Sojourn Was Just One Stop on Rough Road to Get the Vote

In the month leading up to this week’s election, I spent an unhealthy amount of time debating with girlfriends on Facebook about political candidates. Some of these women denounced attack ads, others bristled at the mess of campaign financing, and still others upbraided me for insisting that Bloomberg is just another tantrum-prone manbaby. Sometimes our arguments got heated — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is what we do — the informed, opinionated, engaged women of our town. Of our county and state. Of our nation. We think about issues and develop viewpoints around them: Race-based policing. Cannabis growth. The housing crisis.

In all of our weighty pondering, though, there’s one important thing that we rarely think about: the onerous work it took to earn us the right to vote exactly 100 years ago. Putting our opinions into action by means of the ballot is a privilege we take for granted now. It’s so assumed, so obviously just, and so second nature that it’s almost offensive to have to be grateful for it, isn’t it?

The Optimism of Anita Hill

Published on February 12, 2020

Law Professor Reflects on Her Past, Our Present, and Being a Symbol of Sexual Harassment

Before there was a Weinstein trial, before there was a Kavanaugh hearing, and before there were fed-up females shouting #MeToo in chilling harmony from rooftops ’round the nation, there was Anita Hill. Stoic, young, and starkly alone, she sat in an unforgettable teal dress before a pride of powerful white men and revealed the sordid details of her boss’s sexual harassment.

It was 1991, and her story might not have gotten any attention at all — except that this particular boss was about to succeed Thurgood Marshall on the United States Supreme Court.

Hill, an honors graduate of Yale Law School and the youngest of 13 children born to Oklahoma farmers, testified that during the years she worked for Clarence Thomas — including, ironically, at the government agency responsible for adjudicating sexual harassment claims — he had repeatedly asked her out, described his anatomy and sexual prowess, made reference to pubic hair on his soda can, and talked about porn depicting bestiality, group sex, and rape scenes.

My Crisis of Comedy

Published on September 3, 2019

In unfunny era, comedian talks me off the Ledge of No Laughter

All I ever really wanted to do was to make people laugh: Strangers in the PTA meeting at my son’s new school. Colleagues in a supposed-to-be-serious work meeting. The poor lady doing my mammogram. I especially love it when readers tell me they snorted so abruptly at the local café while reading this column that latte foam spewed from their nose. Propriety be damned, I sincerely believe it’s always the right time for humor.

Except … maybe … right now?

Lately, in the face of political, social, and environmental crises, my life’s goal feels sort of futile. And worse than futile, it feels indulgent. Who wants to giggle and guffaw when every day’s news is more sobering than the last and the Amazon is burning, you guys? What could possibly be the value in wisecracking and wit slinging when we could be (should be!) phoning our senators, marching in the streets, shoveling money to sane candidates, maintaining a consistent “self-care” wine buzz and educating the shizz out of the next generation so they don’t wind up screwed and humorless like us?

I spoke recently with comedian Katie Goodman, who brings her Broad Comedy show to the Planned Parenthood Central Coast Action Fund’s Politics, Sex & Cocktails fundraiser on Saturday. Katie’s troupe of five feminist funnygals travels the country performing benefits for orgs like PP and the ACLU. They dress up in breast costumes while singing “Boobs Look Funny When You’re Having Sex,” don Russian accents for a bit called “Pee Tape Prostitutes,” and take Republican lawmakers to task with the country ballad “Get Out of My Vagina.”

Women Can’t Be Funny (Seriously)

Published on July 9, 2019

Study Shows Women Using Humor at Work Seen as ‘Disruptive’

More women are running for president right now than ever before in history. Harris, Warren, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Gabbard, and even Marianne “I’m here for my own amusement” Williamson are keeping their male counterparts on the run, and I hope they’ll keep it up. They should be bold, speaking out whether they’re invited to or not. They should be fearless, calling out opponents on their hypocrisies.

But according to a recent study, there’s one thing they should not do: crack a joke.

While using humor in the workplace is likely to benefit men by boosting their professional status, a University of Arizona study has shown that it has the opposite effect on women. In fact, female humor — at least on first impression — was generally perceived as “disruptive” while male humor was seen as “functional.”

Ain’t that a laugh and a half.

Bliss by Pavement Pounding

Published on November 14, 2018

For two years, I’ve been suffering from a strange, specific feeling: I’m in a hole in the ground and steamy manure is being shoveled on top of me as I lie there holding my breath.

I’d been counting on the midterm elections to offer sweet relief from this slow-death-by-dung sensation. But donating $10 to distant campaigns and sharing social media posts about voter rights weren’t helping me shake that feeling of being powerless over my own fate — of having to shut my eyes tight and just … acclimate to the aroma of excrement.

So when a friend asked if I would canvass door-to-door for a Democratic candidate in a tight congressional race two days before the election, I jumped at the chance to do something that might actually have an impact. I’ve never canvassed before, and in fact I loathe anyone coming to my door uninvited. But if I’ve learned anything since Election Day 2016, it’s that democracy is a full-contact sport. So I suited up in sunscreen and sneakers and got out the gosh-dang vote.

Terror Schmerror: Five Reasons to Visit Europe

Published on July 12, 2017

Life Lessons Abroad During a Violent Summer All we wanted was an escape. A desperate respite from our nation’s political poo storm, and our own incessant NPR-quaffing.…

Post-Election: The 7 Stages of WTF?!

Published on November 16, 2016

This isn’t how it was supposed to be. A week after the election, we were supposed to be celebrating in the streets, a jubilant, enlightened populace congratulating ourselves on having elected the most sensible, knowledgeable, and experienced candidate. Having spoken out for respect. And inclusiveness. One nation under Her, indivisible, with taco trucks and pantsuits for all.

Analysts will spend years unknotting how we got this so wrong; it may wind up in history books. What’s clear is we underestimated Americans’ dissatisfaction with the status quo — and overestimated their concern for anyone besides themselves.

So now we sit, slumped, humiliated as the rest of the world stares slack-jawed at our crude windbag of a choice. Our swaggering snake-oil salesman. Our callow narcissist. (Hi, Trump’s NSA. Are we doing this yet?)