Eff You Peter Carlisle

There is a pro-choice rally in Wellington on Tuesday. I really wish that I could go. Partly because I want to feel like a proper days-of-yore feminist who goes to six protests before breakfast and then goes home to read the Beauty Myth. Partly because abortion is actually illegal in New Zealand and because getting an abortion requires already vulnerable women to jump through hoops like little sparkly-ruffed circus dogs. I'd like to go to the rally because for a woman to choose abortion in New Zealand she has to see two different doctors and she has to tell them that the continuation of her pregnancy will endanger her life, her mental health or her physical health. If she lives outside of Christchurch, Wellington or Auckland she will have to travel, often meaning many days away from work and away from her local support network. MP Steve Chadwick is currently proposing an Abortion Reform Bill to take abortion out of the Crimes Act, which surprisingly will be opposed by anti-abortion group Voice For Life. The life that they advocate for of course being that of unborn foetuses, rather than the full and healthy lives of women and their planned families. So I have a few pretty good reasons for wanting to go and protest.

But mostly, I'd like to go to the rally to say a big 'fuck you' to Peter Carlisle. I don't know who Peter Carlisle is, but he posted this on the Facebook event page for the No More Jumping Through Hoops Abortion Rights Protest and I instantly hated him:

Needless to say, I am more than a little offended by the dismissive, misogynist, homophobic, slut-shaming and inaccurate Peter Carlisle. So were a whole lot of other open legged lesbians on the event page. Nicola made this brilliant point:

Astute, although I often wish that we didn't have to use extreme situations like rape or incest to suggest that a woman should be entitled full control of her body. Hannah casually pointed out Peter's apparent lack of basic biological knowledge:

My friend Izzy, a she-wolf if there ever was one, eloquently put Peter in his place:

But Tessa possibly had the best argument of all:

And just quietly, Peter Carlisle is not only poorly informed about basic biology but also about the meaning of the word contraception. He should possibly get his facts right before posting on a Facebook event filled with slutty lesbians who also happen to be pedants. Contraception is something that is used to prevent conception, so I am guessing that most women who request abortion are a little past that point. And if Peter means that women are using abortion as a method of birth control, perhaps he should go and read this awesome blog post at the Curvature. Here is a snippet:

"Because do you understand the actual words you are speaking? Do you know what birth control is? It’s right there, in the name. It is something you use to control whether or not you give birth. That’s it. Ta-da. The end. When someone says “lots of women use abortion as a form of birth control!” what they mean is “lots of women use abortion.” The extra words are unnecessary. How the hell else are you going to use it?"

I would love to go to that protest to shove it to Peter Carlisle. I would like to shove it to all of the Peter Carlisles of the world; men who think they ought to have a say in what women do with their bodies. I would love to go because full equality depends upon women having full control over their fertility. I would love to show my support for Steve Chadwick's bill, because often it is not abortion that causes mental distress, it is the obstacles that women face. I would love to shove it to Peter Carlisle for suggesting that women who have abortions are sexually promiscuous and for even thinking that the amount of sex a woman has is something that can be used as an insult. It would be great to ask him about a pile of things, like why he thinks that my being a lesbian (or at least a woman who is in a same sex relationship) somehow seems to undermine my stance on reproductive rights or why he seems to think that women are solely responsible for planning when to have kids. I would like to take him up on why he thinks it is appropriate to tell another human being to just shut their legs. I would like to tell him about how no contraceptive is 100% effective and about how nobody is perfect and about the many women who have died in back alley procedures as a consequence of limited access to safe and legal abortion . I would like to tie him to a chair and make him watch Vera Drake. I would like to ask him why he feels so comfortable with the idea of forcing his moral beliefs onto others. I would like to politely suggest that if Peter Carlisle doesn't like abortions then maybe he doesn't have to get one, but he shouldn't rob others of their personal choice.

But I can't go to the protest. I will be sitting at my desk at work devoting eight hours of my day to typing, mediocrity and capitalism. But maybe you can. Go. Shove it to Peter Carlisle.

If you live in Wellington and you want to stick it to Peter Carlisle you should go to the No More Jumping Through Hoops: Abortion Rights Protest at the Court of Appeal tomorrow, on the 5th of October. Make a stand against Right to Life is taking the Abortion Supervisory Committee to court, to try and further restrict women's access to abortion in New Zealand.Meet on the corner of Aitken and Molesworth Street at 12.30pm and wear something red. I understand that organisers are also looking for volunteers to hand out fliers this afternoon at the train station and on Tuesday morning they need help blowing up balloons. Email actionforabortionrights@gmail.com for more information or go to the Facebook event page.

Count This, Internet.

Today, I learned something from Facebook. Something other than the fact that girls from my high school are getting engaged at an alarming rate.

I was sent this charming screen cap and I learned that my big boobs don't count because I am fat. And let me tell you, Internet, that this was quite a revelation for me.

Previously, I had been under the impression that their mere physical existence was enough to ensure that my boobs counted. I thought that surely they must count because last week I spent one fifth of my pay check on a new bra and that money has definitely left my feeble bank account. I thought they counted because the week before my period my boobs ache, like two bowling balls have been shoved in my chest. Or because of the way they bounce up and down when my girlfriend is fucking me and because of the magic of a well-timed nipple pinch. I thought they counted because of the heckling and the come ons and the cat calls and the comments, or just because of the way they fill out a t-shirt. I thought they counted because of the crescent moons of sweat that appear underneath them when I jog up the Brooklyn Hill or how sometimes when I eat risotto for dinner I'll take my bra off to get in the shower and I'll find stray grains of rice tucked in my bra. I thought that they must count for something because I can easily fit my cellphone and my lip balm down there and forget about them, and on a special occasion I can conceal a can of Pulse. I thought they counted because of how sore my back gets sometimes, which must be some indication of their weight and their presence and the fact that they count. Or because I can look down my admittedly-low-necked top and literally count them. One. Two.

But apparently, I was wrong. Because I guess, at the end of the misogynist day, the only thing that boobs count for is being sexy. And we've talked about it before, but in our culture, being fat is not sexy. But actually, I hate this and I hate this Facebook group and I call bullshit. My boobs count. Not only because they are sexy, which they are. Not only because of the sweat and the pinching and the grains of rice. My boobs count, because they are mine and I am a person.

Internet, you tell me a lot of stupid things about my body. You tell me that I am ugly and that I am also an object and sometimes a fetish and that I am an immediate death risk. I get it, you have a lot to say. But please, don't tell me that the body I eat and walk and live and breathe and dance and think and fuck in doesn't count.

I exist.

I count.

A Post About Hacking, But Not About AJ Hackett

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Some Crap Advice From Facebook

Really? Actually? Australia being "the fattest nation on earth" is something that warrants me to weep salty tears from my very eyes? Is this really necessary? I wasn't aware that it was even common practice to cry over the sexual behaviours of others (sluts, also possibly bitches) in the first place, but crying over what a bunch of people look like seems to be kind of a crap alternative.

My suggestions:

- A death in the family.

- Darfur.

- Sex trafficking.

- This.

- Beaches, or possibly Stepmom.

- The gender wage gap.

- Bosnia.

- The way that The Real L Word portrays lesbian sexuality.

- Tilda Swinton signing a petition in support of fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski.

- Kiana Firouz.

- That bit in the final episode of Sex and the City after Charlotte finds out she is getting a baby and Miranda's house-keeper kisses her on the forehead and tells her she has found out what love truly is, and then Carrie comes back from Paris and Samantha has an orgasm while the bulbs sprout into flowers because SPRING HAS FINALLY ARRIVED.