Tag Archives: The Handmaid's Tale

musings

What’s on the “vagenda” today?

Last night, I watched a video by Mr. Atheist. I had seen his channel before, but I’m not sure I ever stopped to listen to any of his commentary. I couldn’t resist last night, though, because he did a video about The Transformed Wife, aka Lori Alexander. I have written about Ms. Alexander myself on more than one occasion. She’s a blogger and book author who vehemently condemns feminism.

Last year, Lori Alexander wrote an explosive blog post about how men prefer debt free virgins without tattoos. Her comments about debt free virgins spawned lots of rebuttal blog posts and videos, including one by yours truly. I would link to my comments about Lori’s assertion that American men prefer debt free virgins without tattoos, but my old blog is currently on lockdown (ETA: I have since reposted those posts and you can find them through the tags for Lori Alexander). She’s written similarly ridiculous articles that people pay too much attention to, like the time she opined that women doctors are “ruining the medical profession” for taking med school spots from men and not staying home to spawn children. I’m sure many people follow her simply to ridicule her, but she also has her supporters.

I don’t pay a lot of mind to Lori Alexander myself. I only read her most ludicrous posts, and generally only when someone else links them. I find her writing style annoying and her ideas insulting and embarrassing, so I don’t give her much quarter. However, some of the things she says and writes are just so stupid that I can’t help but laugh. And since today is a rainy Friday morning, I figured I’d share Mr. Atheist’s hilarious take on The Transformed Wife’s commentary on shows like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie. Are you ready for this, y’all? Lori Alexander condemns these two classic, family friendly shows from the 70s and 80s as promoting feminism!

WHAT?!

I enjoyed Mr. Atheist’s enthusiastic and entertaining comments on Lori Alexander’s comments about those nasty G rated TV shows of yore. I decided to subscribe to his channel. This morning, I’m listening to Mr. Atheist’s August video about Lori Alexander’s thoughts on birth control. She HATES it. She thinks everyone should be having huge families, even if they are not prepared to take care of children. She says children are “blessings from God”, and that before birth control, women knew that their purpose in life was to have children. Well jeez, I guess my life has been wasted.

So get down on your back, spread your legs, and get to babymaking, you childless JEZEBELS! (for the clueless, this is NOT what I actually believe)

Lori is also an anti-vaxxer, claiming that vaccines are FULL of toxic chemicals. It doesn’t surprise me that she says these things, since she is anti-education, especially for women. She seems to believe that a woman’s main purpose is to pump out babies and keep house. However, the science behind vaccinations is solid and has been around for centuries. Don’t want to take the newest ones that don’t have many decades of proven success in preventing communicable diseases? Alright. But children in 2019 should not be getting the measles and dying of encephalitis. Children of 2019 should not have to worry about deadly or crippling diseases like polio, rabies, whooping cough, or rubella. Children who cannot be vaccinated due to their age or health concerns should not have to worry about getting sick because they are exposed to unvaccinated children who have been exposed to communicable diseases that could have been prevented through immunization.

Anyway… although I didn’t take the time to listen to Lori Alexander’s videos, I like Mr. Atheist’s thoughts on her nonsense. I especially like him because he is an ex Mormon and ex Mormons are some of my favorite people. They’re usually brave, smart, and have good taste in books and music. On another note, Mr. Atheist apparently had some technical difficulties on the “birth control” video and Lori sounds kind of like Foamy the Squirrel of the “Neurotically Yours” cartoons. Check him out.

This is still a classic. I think Foamy’s thoughts on life are more valuable than Lori Alexander’s.

I also like that Mr. Atheist came up with the word, “vagenda”. I think I’m going to incorporate that into my daily language. I’ll take a minute to think about the parts of my body that make me female and create a “vagenda”… but my vagenda will not include vaginal steaming, because according to Dr. Jen Gunter OB-GYN, and author of The Vagina Bible, vaginal steaming is a waste of time and potentially dangerous. Yes… I will listen to Jen Gunter over Gwyneth Paltrow any day. And I will listen to voices of reason like Mr. Atheist over religious quacks like Lori Alexander any day. Check out Mr. Atheist’s YouTube channel if you have a chance. He’s pretty good, even if he does have a habit of over pronouncing words like “button” and “important”.

MOVING ON…

I’ve been on another one of my 7th Heaven kicks lately. I don’t know why, but I really get a charge out of watching that show, even though it also makes me want to throw things at the screen. 7th Heaven was supposed to be a Christian values family friendly kind of show. However, look at the cast and you’ll find that some of the actors have kind of headed in the direction of the Diff’rent Strokes cast. Stephen Collins, who played the annoyingly sanctimonious and irritating Revered Eric Camden, was outed as a pervert back in 2014.

Eeew.

I am now at the part of the series in which Revered Chandler Hampton, played by Jeremy London, shows up. His character is wholesome, wise, and handsome. And yet, he and his twin brother, Jason London, are also no strangers to law enforcement. Jeremy London was arrested for domestic violence and did some time in rehab. Jason London, who guest starred in an episode about the evils of smoking, got busted at a club, was arrested, and crapped his pants in the back of a police car.

But these incidents are not what is prompting commentary about 7th Heaven today. Back in 2000, Stephen Collins was still a very bankable actor, as well as a hack author (seriously, I read his horrible novels– definitely not RevCam material, but truly awful), and wannabe musician (Pat Boone’s record label released his warbling). Collins also did some acting for video games, notably for a game called Code Blue, which was developed by a company called Legacy Interactive. I happened to be a big fan of Legacy’s interactive video games pertaining to health care, and they had quite a few of them 20 years ago. At the time, I was in graduate school earning my master’s degrees in public health and social work. I found healthcare interesting, and since I had no social life, I would sometimes kill my free time by playing games on the computer.

Yesterday, I went searching for the game, Code Blue, which had so helpfully killed my limited free time in the year 2000. Lo and behold, I found someone’s uploaded video of Stephen Collins playing Dr. Matt Clark on Code Blue. You know who else was on that game? Ann Dowd! That’s right, Aunt Lydia of The Handmaid’s Tale was the nurse in that game! At first, I thought she was Felicity Huffman, mainly due to the hair. The late Kathryn Joosten, who was on Desperate Housewives, was also a player. I am impressed by the level of star power Legacy Interactive invited to this classic game.

Aunt Lydia and RevCam in a hospital setting!

I miss these kinds of games. I waste too much time and money on pay to play games these days. Even The Sims 4 isn’t doing it for me lately. And yes… although Collins wasn’t outed as a pervert back in 2000, I found him just as irritating and wooden on this video game as I did on 7th Heaven. But some people are so annoying they’re entertaining.

Here’s a link to Dr. Jen Gunter’s book, which I will probably purchase myself at some point.

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true crime

Women in Alabama ought to be up in arms!

Alabama is in the news again for its increasingly misogynistic views and policies regarding females, particularly those of color. In May of this year, Alabama’s female, Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed an unconstitutional bill into law that outright bans most abortions at all stages of pregnancy.

Meanwhile, the Internet is abuzz today due to the case of 28 year old Marshae Jones, who was five months pregnant with a girl last December when she was shot in the stomach during a fight with another woman. The fetus did not survive the shooting, which would have been sad enough. What really has people alarmed, though, is that Ms. Jones has now been charged with manslaughter and was just released from jail on a $50,000 bond.

How can this be, you ask? Well, police say that Ms. Jones started the fight that got her shot in the stomach. She did not take steps to keep herself out of harm’s way. Because she was pregnant, they conclude that she should have done all she could to protect her unborn fetus. Since she allegedly started the fight that ended with her being shot and her unborn child’s death, police reason that she should be charged with manslaughter.

But I say hold on there, coppers… what about the woman who did the shooting? Ebony Jemison, who was fighting with Ms. Jones in the parking lot of a Dollar General store over the paternity of the unborn child, was initially charged with manslaughter in the death of the fetus. That charge was dismissed after the grand jury failed to indict her. So evidently, Ebony Jemison is now free, even though she shot someone. However, based on reports, she did shoot in self-defense, as she was evidently trying to get away from Jones when she fired her weapon.

Now… having read about this case, I’m pretty dumbfounded. Do I think Marshae Jones was right to get into a violent altercation with another woman over the father of her unborn baby? No, not particularly. Pregnant or not, I think it’s stupid to get into violent fights with other people, particularly if they’re packing heat. However, losing a pregnancy should not be a crime. I’m sure Ms. Jones had no idea she would be shot and her unborn child would be killed. This situation, like others involving pregnant women that have resulted in incarceration, seems to put pregnant women at a different legal status than other people. That’s not fair, and it could set a horrible precedent for other women who might lose a pregnancy that others might deem was due to their negligence.

Complicating matters is the fact that Ms. Jones is a black woman, and I think we know what kind of record Alabama has towards promoting the rights of people of color. This situation is appalling on many levels and reeks a bit of The Handmaid’s Tale to me. Before you know it, pregnant women in Alabama will wind up practically incarcerated by their own accord, trying to avoid being arrested for losing a pregnancy.

The officer who was quoted about this case, Lieutenant Danny Reed of the Pleasant Grove Police Department, had this to say: “When a five-month pregnant woman initiates a fight and attacks another person, I believe some responsibility lies with her as to any injury to her unborn child. That child is dependent on its mother to try to keep it from harm, and she shouldn’t seek out unnecessary physical altercations.” There’s something about that statement that totally skeeves me out. He sounds like a legalistic cretin who hates women and wants to control them.

I’m glad to see people are outraged about this and saying “Hell no.” This is a slippery slope we really don’t need to be on. I’m also glad to read that prosecutors may choose not to prosecute Marshae Jones for the death of her unborn daughter. It’s not that I don’t think what Jones did was stupid and the loss of her baby was avoidable. It’s just that this could really cause problems for a lot of other pregnant women. Pregnant and breastfeeding women in the United States are already under a microscope, with people calling the cops on them if they think they’re doing anything to harm their unborn fetuses. I’m reminded of Tasha Adams, the woman in Toad Suck, Arkansas, who was arrested when a waitress called the cops on her for drinking while breastfeeding.

Pregnant women should NEVER be prosecuted for losing a pregnancy, regardless of whether or not it was her fault. That’s is a dangerously slippery slope and it will cause a lot of problems. Where do you stop? Should we prosecute women for smoking, drinking, walking after dark alone, or not wearing a seatbelt while pregnant? Should we prosecute them for getting into car accidents, falling down stairs while wearing high heels, or eating food that makes them sick? You see where I’m going with this? And again, I really doubt Ms. Jones knew Ms. Jemison was going to shoot her.

Incidentally, this case predates Alabama’s new law against abortion, so it has no official bearing on this case. However, the fact that people in Alabama want to force women to be pregnant when they may not want to be is a good indicator of how women are treated there. Makes me glad I don’t live there myself… although they obviously could use some more blue voters.

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