The National Organization for Women (NOW) and other women advocacy groups have filed suit against the Bush Administration seeking to abolish Fathers Day. During a press conference held after the filing of the lawsuit, Kim Gandy of NOW said, "the day clearly indicates that it is meant to recognize only fathers."
The American Civil Liberties Union, filing on behalf of the organizations said the day runs afoul of equal protection and Title IX provisions and should be abolished because it is discriminatory against women. "It is time to move beyond the pattern male discrimination against women so prevalent in the home and the workplace," according to a press release.
It wasn't solely the discriminatory aspects of Fathers Day that had the groups aroused, but the fact that Fathers are chiefly responsible for domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, and are often negligent of their children. Many fail to make their child support payments in a timely fashion, if they make them at all. This has many women's groups wondering what is commendable about fathers that should give them a day to celebrate them. Prof. Hrdy in a recent TIME Magazine article showed that at best fathers only spend about 30 minutes a day with their children.
The Chicago Federation of Women is running a campaign, "What Will It Take", to recruit men to admit their fault in domestic abuse and accept a pattern of reparations. Gandy again cited the culture of support for domestic violence among men that has outlets across talk radio, such as Rush Limbaugh, who encourages violence against women.
Andrea Dworkin, in speaking on the lawsuit, said "Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice," and that there is nothing to celebrate simply because a rape resulted in childbirth. Dworkin said, if anything, people should be mourning the great harm done to women at the hands of men on Fathers Day.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Anna Creech
Wow. I had to double check to make sure I was reading this on Blogcritics and not The Onion. Gotta wonder what my feminist sisters are thinking on this one!
2 - Anna Creech
Ahh.... Satire?
3 - M.S.
You know, good satire usually doesn't quote dead people in a news release, like Andrea Dworkin. Either this was written by an idiot, or someone's re-posting something written long ago, in a political environment far away. Troooooollll away!
4 - Dave Nalle
JB, isn't that Dworkin quote real? I'm pretty sure she actually said something very much like that.
Dave
5 - Big Dog
Maybe the quote dead people if the attitudes about the subject should have died along with that person...
6 - sal m
dworkin is dead...big deal.
the following passage is from a pro-dworkin web site. shortly before she assumed room temperature, she attempted to "clarify" her position on one of her controversial, anti-male positions. after reading this you have to wonder if her attempts to make herself clear caused her demise. clearly this is a troubled person.
"Andrea Dworkin believes that all intercourse is rape.
FALSE. She has never said this. She sets the record straight in a 1995 interview with British novelist Michael Moorcock. And in a new preface to the tenth-anniversary edition of Intercourse (1997), Andrea explains why she believes this book continues to be misread:
[I]f one's sexual experience has always and without exception been based on dominance--not only overt acts but also metaphysical and ontological assumptions--how can one read this book? The end of male dominance would mean--in the understanding of such a man--the end of sex. If one has eroticized a differential in power that allows for force as a natural and inevitable part of intercourse, how could one understand that this book does not say that all men are rapists or that all intercourse is rape? Equality in the realm of sex is an antisexual idea if sex requires domination in order to register as sensation. As sad as I am to say it, the limits of the old Adam--and the material power he still has, especially in publishing and media--have set limits on the public discourse (by both men and women) about this book [pages ix-x]."
great job john!
7 - John Bambenek
Dave-
Well, I pulled the comment off a website that appeared to be authentic. Of course, it is the Internet... :)
8 - Nancy
Are you sure you checked to make sure this wasn't posted/issued on April Fools? I'm a member of NOW & this is the first I've heard of it. If that's what they've taken to wasting my dues on, they must be thinking they're congress....
9 - zingzing
nancy, it is listed as satire... unless you are being silly as well.
as for the article... it's not really all that funny, but some satire isn't funny, i suppose...
10 - Dave Nalle
Ok, the actual Dworkin quote is:
"Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership."
And as far as I can tell it's an authentic quote from her book Intercourse. It's not quite 'all sex is rape', but it's close, and taken with some of her other comments about sex, that's what her statements add up to.
The Moorcock interview is part of a campaign she engaged in for the last decade or so of her life to explain and soften some of the things she wrote in the 1980s.
Dave
11 - daryl d
This is well written. It's just that something like this sounds so close to becoming true that the "satire" part can't be appreciated.
12 - zingzing
daryl... do you really think so? i sincerely doubt it.
i'm not going to say you're a woman-hater, because that would be silly, but you must understand something about women that i don't. i mean, i know they (as individuals...) can be evil... E-V-I-L... but, this sounds like more "oh poor me, i'm made to feel ashamed for my manhood" crap.
women aren't going to dismantle father's day. it is the ONLY day on the calender that celebrates manhood whatsoever. well, maybe veteren's day, but who even remembers when that is?
13 - Billybob
THINK MAYBE A GOOD OLD FASION BITCH SLAP IS IN ORDER.
14 - Dr Dreadful
True satire walks a fine line between humor and discomfiture. Too far on either side and it fails. This piece, sadly, has all the subtlety of a fart at a funeral.
15 - Billybob
WELL SLAP YOUR TITTIES SIDEWAYS.
16 - Baronius
John - priceless.
17 - Larry
I love my wife, I love my sons, I have never raped my wife....this is the most ridiculous thing I have heard come out of n.o.w. for a long time....since they said men and women are equal!!
18 - RJ
LOL!
Great article!
19 - RJ
TIME Magazine recently had an article (written by women, of course) that almost makes John more of a soothsayer than a satirist...
CITE
The folks at Hallmark are going to have a very good day on June 17. That's when more than 100 million of the company's ubiquitous cards will be given to the 66 million dads across the U.S. in observation of Father's Day. Such a blizzard of paper may be short of the more than 150 million cards sold for Mother's Day, but it's still quite a tribute. What's less clear is whether dads--at least as a group--have done a good enough job to deserve the honor.
And, no, that was not satire...
20 - Arch Conservative
What does it say about groups like NOW that we all had to go back and check to make sure it said "satire" because it was no great leap of faith to believe every word in the article?
It just goes to show you that you can't fix stupid and groups like NOW have stupid in spades.
21 - Zedd
John
A psychologist would have a field day with this. Is this a public scream, an expression of feelings of inadequacy on your part in your parenting skills? Or is it a lash out against your wife and her distrust of your weaker ability to assess the needs of your child? Or is this a commentary on your lack of adequate paternal interaction as a child?
Either way, there there....... Huuuuuuuuuuuuug!
How's that daddy feelin now? Hows that weaker gender feelin? Wooo want vaweedation? He's a big boy, yes he is! Wooo matter, yes woo do..... sigh
22 - Zedd
Arch
Not all of us had to check. Just you special ones.
You don't get what NOW is so you are all over the place. If I read something like that I would wonder what happened to them because it would be so out of character. You however just think they are bad and hate men so you have no way of assessing anything about them.
That is the problem with an emotional interpretation of things. It causes one to generalize and miss the significant details which really define the situation.
23 - A female sick of feminists
The fact that i can see something like this happening is what makes this not at all funny. So go ahead and have a chuckle while in reality there are man haters, oops...i meant to say feminist groups who would love to see this happen. What has happened to feminism? When did it stop being about being equal rights and more about extra rights? *sigh*
24 - Billybob
My old lady came home with some paper crap she picked up from some NOW place. She tried to tell me I dont respect her and treat her as equal. What kind of bull crap is that. I bitch slapped her and slapped her titties into Joebobs trailer. After that she gave me a blow job. That will teach them females from NOW.
25 - Billybob
Have you noticed the commercials on TV for ladies rings. They have the rings wrapped around this white thing that look's just like a penis. Is this a commercial for a ring or a dildo?