Tag Archives: Feminism

News

France passes law to jail men who criticize their wife’s appearance

3 Comments
Feminist Nadine Morano

Story here in the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Couples who insult each other over their physical appearance or make false accusations about infidelity face jail, under a new French law making “psychological violence” a criminal offence.

The law – the first of its kind – means that partners who make such insults or threats of physical violence faces up to three years in prison and a €75,000 (£60,000) fine.

[…]Nadine Morano, the junior family minister, told the National Assembly that “we have introduced an important measure here, which recognises psychological violence, because it isn’t just blows (that hurt), but also words.”

Miss Morano said the primary abuse help line for French women got 90,000 calls a year, with 84 per cent concerning psychological violence.

[…]The bill, which has been unanimously approved by French MPs, defines mental violence as “repeated acts that could be constituted by words,” including insults or repeated text messages that “degrade one’s quality of life and cause a change to one’s mental or physical state.”

[…]Miss Morano said witnesses could be called on to testify in such cases and doctors’ certificates charting a patient’s descent into nervous depression as a result of such insults could be used as evidence.

“The judge could (also) take into consideration letters, SMSs or repetitive messages, because one knows that psychological violence is made up of insults,” she added.

The law technically applies to women, but I doubt it will be enforced equally – just consider the lighter sentences for women who murder their husbands. For example, Mary Winkler murdered her husband and got 67 days in jail. No abuse by her husband was ever proved in court – her husband just questioned her when she lost tons of money through the Nigerian internet hoax. She later shot him while he was sleeping and left him, so he bled to death. 67 days in jail is not a fair punishment for murder, and she got full custody of the children, too.

So, I think that this French law is not going to encourage men in France to marry. The risks are too great. To get men to marry, you have to lower the risks, and help women to be extra careful when choosing men.

News

Why is the left so angry with Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin?

21 Comments
Rep. Michele Bachmann

Here is a perceptive column from Stuart Schneiderman.

Excerpt:

Hot Republican women are a political issue, but they are also a cultural force. If that bastion of patriarchal oppression, the Republican party, is nominating more and more women, and being represented by more and more attractive women, what are the cultural consequences?

It is worth mentioning, even if only in passing, that the hot Republican women in question are not in the same category as Paris Hilton and Lady Gaga. They do not represent the kind of hotness that plays well in music videos. They are adult women; they have husbands and families; they have worked hard on their careers and have garnered a measure of success.

But they have done it without compromising their womanhood. None has ever pretended to be anything other than a woman.

If you believe that the world of men can only accept women who leave their femininity at the door, then these Republican women are saying that you are wrong.

Moreover, these women are not feminists. They are not leftist ideological zealots. They did not try to overthrow the patriarchy. They took the opportunities that were available, and they did not spend their time agitating about the opportunities that were not available. They competed and succeeded on the playing field that existed, and did not ask for special favors and dispensations because they were women. They did not spend their time airing grievances because they were too busy with their lives to involve themselves in such self-indulgent exercises.

That’s why I keep posting videos of Republican women who are also mothers on this blog, like Michele Bachmann, Nikki Haley and Marsha Blackburn. It’s important for women to understand that you can be a success in this world without neglecting your family, and without demanding that your alleged victim status be remedied by the coercive power of the state.

UPDATE: Governor Jan Brewer (Arizona) and Governor Linda Lingle (Hawaii) are also making news this week.

Please see below for links and videos about Michele Bachmann.

Campaign speeches, interviews and debates

Speeches:

Reactions from her first debate performance:

Profiles of Michele Bachmann:

Michele Bachmann on television news

Let Americans spend their own money

Time to prioritize spending

Obama’s plan is to raise your taxes

Michele Bachmann in the legislature

Against socialism:

For economic growth:

Against ACORN funding:

News

Another study confirms the link between abortion and breast cancer

11 Comments
Unborn baby scheming about new pro-life arguments

Story from the UK Daily Mail. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

An abortion can triple a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer in later life, researchers say. A team of scientists made the claim while carrying out research into how breastfeeding can protect women from developing the killer disease. While concluding that breastfeeding offered significant protection from cancer, they also noted that the highest reported risk factor in developing the disease was abortion. Other factors included the onset of the menopause and smoking. The findings, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, are the latest research to show a link between abortion and breast cancer. The research was carried out by scientists at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka. It is the fourth epidemiological study to report such a link in the past 14 months, with research in China, Turkey and the U.S. showing similar conclusions.

[…]There has been an 80 per cent increase in the rate of breast cancer since 1971, when in the wake of the Abortion Act, the number of abortions rose from 18,000 to nearly 200,000 a year.

Earlier this year, Dr Louise Brinton, a senior researcher with the U.S. National Cancer Institute who did not accept the link, reversed her position to say she was now convinced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer by about 40 per cent.

Note that there were only 300 people in the new study, so it is a small study. The only reason that I blog this is because it confirms the Turkey study that I blogged on before, and the China study that I blogged about before, and the American study that I blogged about before.

There is an interesting comment on this story at Secondhand Smoke.

Here it is:

But let me tell you, as a former trial lawyer, the potential is here for tobacco company-type litigation against certain groups if cancer info was suppressed.

That’s from Discovery Institute fellow Wesley J. Smith, who majors in bioethics.