Nothing shocks me anymore. And yet, I still become speechless at the utter inanity that is out there. I saw the following cartoon the other day, which is just one segment of a much larger panel depicting a friendly little "uterus" discussing supposed "menstruation myths" in an apparent attempt to educate:
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| From everydayfeminism.com |
Besides the growing realization that we have lost our ever-loving minds in this society and abandoned all human reason, there are two glaring problems I see here.
First, the science is all messed up.
For example, the reason that "transmen, non-binary, genderqueer folk" menstruate -- is because they are women!!
Yes, it's true! Though these people may "feel like men" in their minds, hearts, desires (and that's another issue altogether), their BIOLOGY, their very nature, is female. They are biological women. That is why they menstruate. They have a uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, an endometrium. These are women, menstruating as only women do.
This is science. This is biology.
As for "intersex" folks (also known as hermaphroditism), it happens in a fallen world that some children are born with ambiguous genitalia, perhaps having external organs that appear to be one sex, but a chromosomal make-up that indicates the other. This disorder is the result of a problem in the development of the child while still in the womb. If that child hits puberty and begins to menstruate, that is the female reproductive system at work.
But the bad science is only one part of the problem I see. Notice what happened in the middle there? The little girl mentions what her mom taught her, and then the friendly little uterus undermines parental authority by saying, directly, "No, Jo, your mom is wrong."
This is key to all the reprogramming going on in our culture today. Undermine the authority of the clearly unenlightened parents and inject into young minds the prevailing cultural ideology of "gender fluidity". In this backwards paradigm, mom and dad are the ones actually standing in the way of the true education of children, and these pesky parents can and must be gotten around. (Never mind that Catholic parents have a duty and thus a right to be the primary educators of their children, a duty that no state or culture can legitimately usurp.)
Finally, if you go to the entire panel (take a deep breath first!), you will note something that is glaring in its absence:
There is no mention of why the female body menstruates!
I'm not sure how one can work up a whole panel of "facts" and "science" about menstruation and accompanying body parts with nary a word about WHY the body menstruates in the first place?
To understand ourselves fully as human beings, shouldn't we first understand our very human natures? This silly and inaccurate cartoon is devoid of any real thought, any real depth, any real truth. I look at the proliferation of such superficial, ideological, political fluff and I understand more and more why our youth are floating aimlessly, finding less and less satisfaction in life, disconnected from anything real, becoming more hopeless, and never quite understanding their own humanity.
Thankfully, there is an antidote to all of this insanity! Our Faith stands ready to respond with reason and reality and meaning and depth and joy!
Bring it on. Let's have that conversation about the nature of our bodies, the nature of our humanity, the meaning of our lives. Let's teach our children well, before a non-scientific, unreasonable, utilitarian talking cartoon uterus gets to them first.
Truth, goodness, and beauty wins every time.
Stop the world, I want to get off. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWhat.The.Heck.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, they need to find someone who can draw hands and feet...or maybe they're overly sympathetic to amputees?
Secondly, this: "Virginty is a harmful construct..." This sums up the fruits of the sexual revolution pretty well. I echo what Mark Shea has said on several occasions, "Show me a society who hates virginity, and I'll show you a society who hates children (and the things of childhood)" (or something like that)
LJP, I noted that about the amputees, too! So silly all the way around.
ReplyDeleteYes, virginity is a harmful construct.... wow. And I had no idea it was a construct! I thought it had something of reality to it.
One other thing I noted: Not only does the full panel undermine parents, but it undermines other relatives and authority figures as well. It's like the Pied Piper, or the serpent in the garden..... "come follow me.... don't believe those who love you, believe me...."
Yes, Leila, exactly. Mankind's first and lowliest folly has become the latest and greatest sociopolitical ideology. Such strange dichotomy...deification of the 'spiritual' self, while rebelling against/denying the physical self; deification of non-human nature, while rebelling against/denying human nature. I forgot how disorienting it was to not be Catholic.
ReplyDeleteYikes this is just nuts. I'm not Catholic or Christian and I generally consider myself a liberal but this is just crazy. Society needs some way to refer to biology with meaningful words. (As an aside, it is possible in EXTREMELY rare circumstances to be born with both X and Y DNA, as in semi-identical twins. I'm not sure how their biological sex is determined. But that's an extreme edge case. Why are we redefining language based on a vanishingly small population of people who may not fit the terminology? )
ReplyDeleteTia, great question! The answer, of course, is that we are manipulating and redefining reality in order to advance a very militant political/"social" agenda. I put "social" in quotes because it's an agenda that is actually opposed to true social teaching and social justice. It has nothing of the social about it.
ReplyDeletehttp://everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/trans-guys-guide-menstruation/
ReplyDeleteIn "A Trans-guy's guide to menstruation":
I may have to remind myself over and over again that having a period doesn’t make me female any more than having nipples makes someone a mother, but someday I’ll overcome my conditioned ideas of sex and gender and be able to fully accept that men can have periods.
My body is not female. My menstruation is not female. It just is. My body just is.
***
My body is its own thing. It does what it does, and that’s fine. Getting my period is painful and bloody and messy and annoying, but it doesn’t have to make me feel like less of a guy.
We have lost our minds. We are on Candid Camera. We have lost touch with all that is real. And these are the ones who slam the Church for being 'anti-science'? Oh, Lord, have mercy!
I clicked on the cartoon panel in full and immediately said, “What in the actual …??”
ReplyDeleteThis gem:
Virginity is a harmful construct that reduces a person’s worth to the condition of a single body part ???????
Uhhhhh. The reduction of human dignity is tied to sleeping around NOT to virginity. You know that "more options=more power" crap you peddle? Yeah, that.
It literally goes on to say, “People should not be judged for how they handle their menstruation” (i.e., using tampons or not).
Oh, but, by all means, judgey-judge away should someone be remotely concerned about her virginity remaining intact by telling her she’s set up a “harmful construct” to begin with! The hell…?
Feminists who peddle this tripe are astounding clueless. Maybe they should make the effort to understand the context of human dignity in full before they underestimate the value of virginity. Buy a clue.
* astoundingly
DeleteI'm a VIRGIN hear me ROAR!!!!!!! I am elated to only have sex within the context of a married relationship. Take that feminazis!
Deletehaha- Roar on, sister ;)
DeleteYou know this cartoon just begs to be mocked. Ludicrous. Why aren't they validating virgins? I thought feminism was all about speaking power to modern female choices, no matter what the woman chooses for herself? Virginity is a healthy choice and not a harmful construct. But, hey, way to package it and sew it all up backwards, as usual, feminists.
ROAR, Margo, ROAR!!!
DeleteYes, Nubby, that's the thing! It's so twisted and confused and illogical that it actually makes my brain hurt. I think I can feel my brain hurting. I want to know the first principles of folks who write stuff like this and then extrapolate.
ReplyDeleteYea, I'm a huge fan of science myself. If the idea is to make females feel comfortable with menstruation, then they should just give the biological facts. A happens, then B, then C ... it's natural. The emotional side of things should be handled by the parents.
ReplyDeleteIf only it were about making females feel comfortable about menstruation. Instead, it's about an agenda (LGBTQ, sexual license, etc. etc.). Getting the kids to accept this worldview and throw off the old.
ReplyDeleteIt's just so bizarre to me. Menstruation happens because the uterus sheds the endometrial lining -- the lining that would otherwise support the implantation of an unborn child. Biologically, in the species homo sapiens, only the female of the species can carry and bear children. Biological males cannot. This isn't some sort of evil agenda, it's simple scientific fact.
ReplyDeleteThen again I guess it shouldn't surprise me given the number of people (even just on this blog) who won't even admit that an unborn child is an organism of the species homo sapiens.
Yea, "forgetting" to mention the purpose of menstruation is just awful... the only thing that gets me through the pain of really bad cramps sometimes is knowing that it means my body is doing what it's supposed to, and that it's a sign of my fertility, which is a wonderful thing!
ReplyDeleteAlso, pretty sure if I were a trans-man, the first thing I would do is get rid of the uterus. I mean, that is one of the most womanly things about you, so why would you keep it? Also, why go through the fun of a period if you want to be a man? That makes no sense to me.
Liesl, I also will never understand why Bruce Jenner keeps his penis, except for the fact that he still likes women sexually (and always has), but now he claims he is a lesbian? Which is weird, because he still has sex like a man when he is with a woman. No rush to change that, apparently.... Sigh. We have lost it.
ReplyDeleteLike the woman who decided she was a man, had her breasts taken off and started taking testosterone treatment , then met a man, decided they wanted a baby so stopped the testosterone treatment, got pregnant, had a baby and then figured out (s)he couldn't breastfeed the baby and signed up for mother milk donations because (s)he was a man and although (s)he carried the baby full term and delivered baby (s)he couldn't breast feed.
Deletehttp://www.milkjunkies.net/p/my-story.html
Or, the couple, where mom is a man and dad is woman (but they conceived both children naturally)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2721891/Transgender-couple-prepare-telling-children-father-actually-mother-vice-versa.html
Makes my head spin.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-catholic-church-children-and-same-sex-parenting
DeleteYep, and this article shows what it's doing to the children. So sad:
"We are faced with two competing worldviews. The Catholic worldview, and up until recently the worldview of all Christian denominations is this: Every child (and hence every adult) has identity rights and relational rights with respect to their parents.
And this is the part we do not like to say too loudly: These rights impose legitimate obligations on adults to provide these things to children. We don’t like to say this too loudly because people resist hearing that they have obligations to others that they did not explicitly choose to bear.
The competing worldview is this: Every adult has a right to the sexual activity he or she wants, with a minimum of inconvenience, and children have to accept whatever the adults choose to give them. We do not just blurt out that last part explicitly because we would be ashamed of ourselves if we said it out loud. But that is approximately the positon of most of the people in power in most of the so-called developed countries."
Oh, and now, Glamour Magazine, with all the millions of women to choose from, chooses a man with a penis (Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner) as "Woman" of the Year. Wowza....
It's actually an insult to women, no?
Yes. Yes it is an insult to women.
DeleteAnd my heart bleeds for the children.
Lord Have Mercy!
I can't even.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't a talking cartoon uterus infantilize womyn and non-womyn who menstruate? I mean, really, talk about a patriarchal microagression.
ReplyDelete"we have lost our ever-loving minds in this society and abandoned all human reason"
ReplyDeleteLeila
I agree with you here. Not all feminists think alike.
Johanne, I am so happy to hear you say that!! What is it that makes you disagree with this cartoon? (Because you must agree that this is the direction the culture is going...)
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the idea that people who are not women menstruate. I suppose there are extremely rare circumstances where someone is born with male genitalia and thinks "he" is a boy, but then menstruates because "his" internal organs are female--I think that kind of thing is extremely rare-- and shouldn't affect the general understanding of male and female.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read the cartoon carefully but I believe the so called "myth" of virginity (and I agree it doesn't make sense to call it a myth because it is a simple biological state) is the disagreement with the idea that women are "ruined" if they are not virgins--this idea still exists in some cultures. Therefore if a woman is raped she is considered "used" and no one will marry her. I think the term "myth" refers to the antiquated idea of virginity. Not positive, though.
And yes, it is the direction the culture is going and I just hate it and it offends me deeply as a feminist.
Johanne, thank you! I understand what you are saying about virginity in many cultures, and the issue of rape. Very sad indeed, and unjust.
ReplyDeleteAs far as being offended as a feminist, you are not alone among feminists, because my understanding is (correct me if I am wrong) that the segment of feminists who do very much "relish" (for lack of a better word) in being woman (and NOT man) do not appreciate all of this blurring of the lines.... the idea that a man can suddenly usurp the label and identity of "woman" when they are not. Sorry if that does not make sense. I'm still working out the time difference from my trip and I'm tired, lol.
I think what they're getting at with the whole virginity issue is more having to do with the fact that a hymen is in no way a good indicator of virginity and that people don't agree on what activities render a person a virgin or no longer a virgin.
DeleteReading through some of the articles on that website made my head spin. I agree with many classical feminist ideas, but this new feminism just boggles my mind. Sadly, I know many young women who cite this publication as if it were gospel.
ReplyDeletePRG, that is horrifying, but not surprising. Thank God for the sanity of the Church, which will never change and shift like a house built on sand.
ReplyDeleteA dental hygienist pointed out to me long ago how parents in Disney sitcoms are often portrayed as bumbling idiots. I was blessed by that conversation. As parents, we have to be discussing and educating in the faith constantly. We are all blessed by your voice of reason. Thank you Leila! AMDG!
ReplyDeleteDon't even click on the "6 abortion myths" article. Myth #6: Only women get abortions. How do people read these articles with a straight face? I'm so glad to be in my 40s, having escaped most of this stuff in college (it was considered fringe back then).
ReplyDeleteOMG- the “microaggression” one is even better!
ReplyDeleteLook at how pathetic they portray women. Good grief, if you want to be seen as strong the then be strong! Get a spine.
I can tell you right now the reason this cartoon woman is being shouted over at work is because she has no clue how to relate to men in the competitive workplace.
Here’s how: You don’t allow them to talk over you. You don’t let them. Talk over them until they shut up. If you know that you know that you know that you have a solution to the problem on the project or on the job, then you assert yourself with your voice. You assert it with a low tone and very measured pronunciation of your words. Men respond to male voice cues (deeper voice with tension) and measured cadence of speech. You don’t cower and say, “Would you please consider not interrupting me a anymore?”
OMG, lady. You’re playing in a man’s world in this panel. They literally do not hear, “Oh, please don’t ignore me! Wahhh!” No. You pull out the most masculine approach you can, and play it hard. You will get heard and respected. That’s how it is. It will never be anything other than that because men in a competitive workplace are typically all about the Alpha role, even unconsciously. Understand it, learn it, and play that game.
All of their alpha-male chest thumping comes to a halt when they see that you (as a woman) have a relevant solution that deserves to be heard and that you refuse to be ignored. Refuse. Even if you need to take it to your super post-meeting. They will respect you, they will acknowledge you, and they will listen to you in the future. You will have increased respect on the job by a factor of 50, simply by shoving back (conversationally).
And there will be no need for a silly comic strip depicting the whining of these weak-spined sort of women begging not to be interrupted.
Nubby, great points! I don't get the weak, whiny woman-as-victim thing that the feminists do. I have lived 48 years as a woman, and I've never had any problems with men disrespecting me. I mean, I've had disrespect from both men and women in my life, but none of what they speak about, this idea that woman cannot figure out how to be heard or respected by men. It's not really that hard.
ReplyDeleteI agree. And the whole workplace mentality is very different than, say, just socializing with men. Professionally speaking, men don't just "give respect". It's earned. Most are there with great ambition and they don't give a hoot if a woman is in the room. If she's there, she needs to make herself heard. She shouldn't wait for a chivalrous opening in the conversation. If it's an active table of discussion and problem solving or whatnot, she needs to assert herself. Men will listen. But they will railroad whoever fails to speak up - man or woman. Unconsciously, even, they do this. It's very dominance-driven.
ReplyDeleteSocially, it's another animal, because women and men aren't competing in that environment, so it's more casual and demands some set of social skills and etiquette where the man will probably mind his manners better because there is a woman present. Professionally, nope.
This ties in with my opinion of Carly Fiorina on the political scene. I've got a lot of good things to say about her because of where she's come from, professionally speaking.
Oh, I see! Yes, that makes sense. And it's common sense. Why is it that conservative women don't find themselves so victimized in the workplace? Is it because they are not trained to be victims? And they "get" the differences between men and women?
ReplyDeleteLeila
ReplyDelete" I mean, I've had disrespect from both men and women in my life, but none of what they speak about,"
You're lucky. A lot of women do experience enormous disrespect and abuse from men and naturally they are drawn to feminism. Don't assume that feminists have only had your experience and therefore are "whining." Perhaps the ones you speak about have been victimized in ways you can't imagine and are not whining at all.
Johanne, you don't think that young women entering colleges and "women's studies" courses are taught to believe they are oppressed and victimized simply because they are women? I believe that while some women are victims of workplace sexism and abuse (human nature is fallen), that is a far cry from being trained in academia to believe you are a victim going in.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that conservative women don't find themselves so victimized in the workplace? Is it because they are not trained to be victims? And they "get" the differences between men and women?
ReplyDeleteHaha- possibly. They probably understand the differences and accommodate the environment depending on their ambition, unlike the liberal mindset that has a stamp of entitlement on it. Some women are happy saying nothing. Some like to get into the fray. It depends on the ambition and the personality disposition, I suppose.
But to sit and ask not to be interrupted during a critical build-phase meeting where you’re considering re-tooling (a la this lovely cartoon) or during a deadline meeting with critical path items that need resolution asap … please, that’s just a red flag for the rest of the team to think, “Yeah, we see a complaint to HR coming from this one.” She loses respect by even framing the question like that, really. At least in my experience, hi-tempo/hi-level meetings were not at all the place where people fleshed out their feelings on round table etiquette. LOL
How about go out to lunch with your co-workers instead, and bring up your feelings there? It’s the more social atmosphere.
But, Johanne, they are indeed whining, regardless of how they may have been treated. That's the point.
ReplyDeleteIf one wishes to be respected one earns it by conducting herself with good brains.
I love that (not!) "you're erasing the existence" thing. You mean, I just committed genocide because I said only women have lady parts?
ReplyDeleteLOL – I thought the same thing. Isn’t “erasing existence” a little strong? We’re talking a very small percentage of people who have this biology. When people are reflecting on general statistics that show the norm of the curve, how does that equate so squarely with “erasing someone’s existence”?
DeleteI think what they're getting at with the whole virginity issue is more having to do with the fact that a hymen is in no way a good indicator of virginity and that people don't agree on what activities render a person a virgin or no longer a virgin.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we have to guess at what they're insinuating? Where's their clear meaning?
If I'm writing a "myth busters" cartoon, I'm pulling out every medical term and precise description I can think of-- to bust any myths out there. Why don't they do the same?
And they explicitly said that virginity is "a harmful construct". It was a subjective (emotional) answer to a very direct question about the human body and human dignity. They took the low road because they felt it necessary to frown upon a virgin's concern (and choice on the whole) while "busting menstruation myths", I guess.
The cartoon doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteI do understand that some females who have had one or more amputations, or have limb differences can still menstruate. That must be the message of the cartoon.