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CLEAR SKIN IS SO ATTRACTIVE I’D CHOP A TOE OFF FOR CLEAR SKIN FOREVER

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You can easily harvest those refined plastics from the world's oceans; they're just floating there ripe for the taking!

the amount of single use plastics that our society produces is actually so upsetting to me because all those petrochemicals could have instead been used to power my terrible machines

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Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

For decades, the anti-abortion movement has aggressively promoted women into visible leadership roles. It's for cynical reasons, namely, to bat off entirely accurate accusations that the movement is misogynist. Never mind that there have always been women who are eager to police the bodies and behavior of other women. Enough people are credulous or at least disingenuous enough to think that "I'm a woman, which means I can't hate other women" is an actual argument. For ambitious women who wanted to climb the ranks of Republican politics, anti-feminism has long been the steadiest of ladders. The propaganda value of their gender outweighed their party's larger hostility to women in leadership.  But now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and Donald Trump is back in the White House, many on the right feel they no longer need to hide the naked sexism fueling their movement or put up with the annoyance of women in even token leadership positions. As Kiera Butler at Mother Jones reports, the anti-abortion movement is embroiled in an escalating civil war right now over these issues. Male leaders of the Christian right have been swarming Kristan Hawkins, the 39-year-old head of a "student" anti-abortion group, demanding her ejection from the movement. It started after she objected to Republican legislators introducing bills to charge women who get abortions with murder, an extreme move she fears will backfire on the movement. But mostly it was about growing male anger on the Christian right that women are allowed leadership positions at all.  "Removed [sic] this woman from public service," declared influential Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon, part of the "TheoBros" movement that includes the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's church. Soon other TheoBros jumped in, declaring "We need Christian men leading the fight against abortion," arguing that women's suffrage was a mistake, and accusing Hawkins of emasculating her husband by being "busy jet-setting."

Forty-five percent of female voters backed Trump in 2024, despite his overt misogyny. Most, no doubt, believed that complicity would protect them and that the attacks would be centered on other women. But while the GOP certainly wants to strip liberal and feminist women of their rights, male MAGA leaders are showing increasing interest in bringing Republican women to heel, both culturally and through the force of law. After all, they are more likely to live and work with Republican women. If they want to feel the full flowering of male domination, it's Republican women they need to see submitting. 

Webbon and the TheoBros have been clamoring more loudly in recent months about their wish to strip women, especially their own wives, of the right to vote. "You won't let women vote? Well, our society doesn't let five-year-olds vote," Webbon explained in a May podcast. He added that "a woman is like a child" and that "God has appointed men to protect them." As Sarah Stankorb at the New Republic documented, there has been growing support in Christian nationalist circles "for the repeal of the 19th Amendment and support a 'household vote' system in which men vote on behalf of their families." Hegseth's former sister-in-law reports she heard him echo similar sentiments. 

This isn't mere idle chatter, either. House Republicans passed a bill (which stalled in the Senate) this session to require citizens to have a passport or birth certificate matching their name to vote. This would be a back-door ban on voting for any woman who took her husband's last name and doesn't have a passport, an estimated 69 million women. It would also disproportionately affect Republican women, who are more likely to be married, more likely to have changed their name and less likely to have a passport.  Similarly, there's been a slowly rising volume on the right of talk about banning no-fault divorce, fueled by Republicans like Vice President JD Vance saying it's too easy for women — even those in abusive marriages — to leave their marriages. Legislators in red states are filing more bills to do so, and while it's unlikely any will pass soon, the goal is to create more momentum for an eventual ban. This would affect Republican women more because, as with abortion bans, only red states would even consider such laws. It's also true that red states have higher divorce rates than blue states, because sexist cultural mores lead to more unhappy marriages. But rather than treating their wives better, MAGA men are looking at making it illegal for their wives to leave them. 

[...] Feminist writer Moira Donegan wrote on Bluesky that the right-wing woman "believes that sexual and reproductive service to right wing men will earn her their protection, affection, and material support. She is wrong." Instead, Donegan wrote, "it is a core belief of the right wing man that no woman, however compliant, has any claim on him that he must respect." To be sure, it's not just conservative women who are at risk at the hands of an increasingly misogynist MAGA movement. That much was illustrated in a distressing incident in Idaho, where three men accosted a woman who spoke out at a town hall, dragging her fighting out of the room while the local sheriff cheered them on. They were later revealed to be security guards, but it appears that wasn't clear at the time — and it's certainly questionable that violence was necessary because a woman was heckling Republican officials at a public event. Abortion, the Associated Press reported, appears to have played a triggering role in the display of violence. "One lawmaker mentioned legislation that he said protected doctors from 'being forced to do abortions,'" to which audience members shot back “women are dying" and "doctors are leaving our state!” 

Amanda Marcotte has a gem of a story in Salon on how parts of the MAGA movement is coming after Republican women and their meager self-agency, who believe that complicity in eroding their own self-agency would protect them.

See Also:

Raw Story: MAGA is 'showing increasing interest in bringing Republican women to heel': columnist Marcotte

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Jess Piper at The View from Rural Missouri:

I will turn 50 this September. I was born in 1975, and I represent the only generation of American women born with full rights that have been lost in the same lifetime. My generation has witnessed anti-progress. A cultivated backpedal. In the grand scheme of things, American women did not enjoy rights for very long. All of my childhood pictures are in color — not black and white. The movie “Jaws” was released a few months before my birth. President Ford announced the end of the Vietnam War and Microsoft was founded in 1975. Women were officially allowed to join the Coast Guard and Wheel of Fortune and Saturday Night Live both debuted the year I was born.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show opened in 1975. The biggest song of the year was “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille and the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. You are likely familiar with all of the trivia and events I just listed from 1975, because it wasn’t that long ago. I was born 50 years ago with the rights that my daughters and granddaughters are losing or have already lost. I was born six years after the right to a no-fault divorce was first established. This law allowed women to divorce based on "irreconcilable differences" without needing to prove fault on the part of either spouse.

I have always lived under legislation that allowed me to divorce. I was born two years after Roe. The case established a woman’s right to an abortion and medical privacy under the law. I have had reproductive rights for most of my adult life. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act became law one year before I was born. This legislation made it illegal for banks to discriminate against loan and credit applicants based on sex. Before the ECOA, banks could legally refuse to grant women credit or they could require a husband's co-signature. I have had the right to control my finances all my life. I have had certain rights even if they were constantly under siege in my red state. The rights that women have enjoyed for a full generation are being rolled back by Christian nationalists to support authoritarianism. A cultish form of Christianity to pave the way for the oligarchs to form an authoritarian government with Trump as the figurehead. Everything from no-fault divorce to abortion to women having a bank account runs afoul of Christian nationalism and Evangelicalism. Their religion subjugates women and is antithetical to feminism and equal rights.

The patriarchy in general, and the Christian patriarchy in particular, subsists on the submission of women — either with a woman’s consent, or by force. Women must bend to the will of laws and regulations meant to keep them under the boot and without certain rights that would make them balk at forced compliance. [...]

Throughout my life, I’ve heard the argument that young men have been “falling behind” for decades and that women’s rights must be pulled back to let the men catch back up. That women’s rights have limited men’s rights. That’s a lie. Men can progress just like women have. Men can and should be able to get educated and find a job and get a bank account and get married and start a family (if and when they want) just like women have been able to do for an entire generation. And if they can’t? Well, that’s their problem to figure out and it has nothing to do with women having equal rights. Human rights aren’t pie. Giving rights to others doesn’t mean you get less. Equal rights are guaranteed under the Constitution…even if Republicans hate the Constitution. I have lived my life with the rights my daughters have already lost. Many more rights are on the chopping block, but I am telling you, I will not go quietly and neither will the folks around me.

Jess Piper recounts the experiences of how the Gen-X generation being the only generation to enjoy their rights in full before it became a gradual erosion.

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Where are you getting this definition of fascism and why do you think it's more valid than other definitions? This is another of those 'words have a meaning even if you don't know it or misunderstand it' things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism , https://www.keene.edu/academics/cchgs/resources/presentation-materials/characteristics-and-appeal-of-fascism/download/ ,

Early warning signs of fascism, by Laurence W. Britt, 2003, Free Inquiry magazine - 'a journal of secular humanist ideas'.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.

3. Identification of enemies/scape-goats as a unifying cause.

4. Supremacy of the military.

5. Rampant sexism.

6. A controlled mass media.

7. Obsession with national security.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.

9. Power of corporations protected.

10. Power of labour suppressed or eliminated.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.

14. Fraudulent elections.

(Note: The USA in the year 2025 ticks ALL of these boxes)

2. "right to physical safety"

A stance that disallows/punishes the termination of pregnancy is directly counter to this. Are you familiar with the term 'Bodily autonomy'?

Article I: Marriage

1. Marriage Age

The age of marriage shall be raised from 16 to 18. There is no reason to allow marriage of non-adults, especially since these kinds of marriages are typically between non-adults and adults, rather than non-adults and non-adults. Adult and non-adult relationships inherently involve unfair power dynamics and are almost always exploitative. Such relationships should not be legal, and such permanent decisions should not be made before the age of legal adulthood.

A. Criminal Punishment

It shall be a criminal offense to celebrate, aid or participate in a marriage ceremony for anyone under the age of 18.

5. Adultery

Adultery shall be considered any sexual acts with someone other than one's spouse while in a legal marriage.

A. Criminal Punishment

Adultery shall be added to the Criminal Code and punishable by law with up to two years in jail. Offenders shall also pay a fine, determined by a Court, not greater than 8% of their net worth, to their spouse.

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someone has apparently been having a year-long tantrum in the notes of this post because of something that i absolutely did not say at any point in this post or anywhere else

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That is all.

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I am coming at you from the perspective of someone who is much older and much more experienced than you, because that is factually true. I have previously been 19 years old; you have not been 42 yet. I cannot make us be peers.

I know things right now that you don't know, and I'm sure that you know things that I don't know. My goal is to provide you information to bring your knowledge to parity with mine. Your goal should be to bring my knowledge to parity with yours.

How do you learn and move on from entry level jobs if you starve to death while working them

There are so many things you can do to get food. You won't starve

Regardless, I said when you work there for a few years, you should get paid a bit more than minimum wage. I still don't think it should be the 'liveable wage. You can still survive without making that much, you just have to make compromises. And if you don't want to, get a better job that has a skill requirement

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Thank you for identifying your location.

Why do you think that conversation between us will not result in some sort of change of mind, new perspective, or consideration of new ideas?

How do you learn and move on from entry level jobs if you starve to death while working them

There are so many things you can do to get food. You won't starve

Regardless, I said when you work there for a few years, you should get paid a bit more than minimum wage. I still don't think it should be the 'liveable wage. You can still survive without making that much, you just have to make compromises. And if you don't want to, get a better job that has a skill requirement

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How do you determine what actions cause harm? Because you seem to support legislation against and punishment of many actions that do not cause harm.

If your legal framework takes from Christianity, that's a form of Theocracy. Why should I, who does not believe that the god you worship is a real, extant being, be legally forced to comply with said god's edicts?

You are very misinformed about polyamory, and I very much doubt that you've talked to polyamorous people and families, but let's put a pin in that. What's the problem with hedonism or wanting 'more'? What do you mean when you say 'commitment'? I've asked before but I'll restate here:

If I and my legally wedded spouse both agree that we want to involve other consenting adults in our sexual activities (and even cohabit with them, co-own property, and co-raise children with them) who is harmed by that and why should it be punished by law (who, in the group of fully consenting adults who love one another and wish to make a life together, should be punished?)

Article I: Marriage

1. Marriage Age

The age of marriage shall be raised from 16 to 18. There is no reason to allow marriage of non-adults, especially since these kinds of marriages are typically between non-adults and adults, rather than non-adults and non-adults. Adult and non-adult relationships inherently involve unfair power dynamics and are almost always exploitative. Such relationships should not be legal, and such permanent decisions should not be made before the age of legal adulthood.

A. Criminal Punishment

It shall be a criminal offense to celebrate, aid or participate in a marriage ceremony for anyone under the age of 18.

5. Adultery

Adultery shall be considered any sexual acts with someone other than one's spouse while in a legal marriage.

A. Criminal Punishment

Adultery shall be added to the Criminal Code and punishable by law with up to two years in jail. Offenders shall also pay a fine, determined by a Court, not greater than 8% of their net worth, to their spouse.