Women: Can’t live with them…
(I have a vague sense there’s a second part to that saying and if it comes to me I’ll get back to you.)
In any case, without giving it much thought (which is my usual approach to most issues) in four days I drew three cartoons about women getting screwed over by men, so apparently women haven’t come nearly as far as the makers of Virginia Slims wanted us to believe.
For those of you who aren’t older than dirt:
Virginia Slim was not a pool hustler, Virginia Slims – with an ‘s’ – made cigarettes specifically for women because when it comes to equal opportunity the people who sell tobacco wanted to make sure women got their fair shot at lung cancer and used the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby” to convince women it was a sign of their liberation to smell like ashtrays and occasionally cough up chunks of lung.
BTW: According to the internet, the person who came up with the Virginia Slims slogan was a man who never smoked which reminds me of a doctor friend who – when I asked what he thought of Lasik surgery – said, “You ever notice how many of the doctors offering it are still wearing glasses?”
“Oh, sure, you can let Luke Skywalker take a whack at fixing your eyeballs with a light saber, but I think I’ll just stick with LensCrafters.”
And speaking of bad vision
Right here in the US of A Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles appeared before Congress and said the FBI and gymnast officials turned a “blind eye” to USA Gymnast Team doctor Larry Nassar abusing her and hundreds of other young women.
Nassar is obviously a creep without a conscious, but Biles also blamed the system that allowed Larry to get away with it.
According to the Associated Press, after the FBI had been made aware of the Larry’s-A-Pervert problem, 40 more girls and women said they were molested by Nassar because the FBI didn’t take the girls and women seriously.
The FBI has admitted its conduct was inexcusable.
And if a bunch of men have behaved so badly they’ll actually admit it, that’s pretty convincing because most men will drive around in circles until their license expires before admitting they’re lost, so it’s safe to say admitting we screwed up is not way up on our Male-To-Do List.
Think of this: if a bunch of elite gymnasts who were in some cases nationally famous couldn’t get anyone to listen, what chance does some poor, unfamous girl have when she asks for help?
Men: we dropped the ball on this one and...as it turns out…it’s not the only ball on the floor.
I drew the sketch for this cartoon years ago and was reminded that it existed and was once again current when Amir Khan Muttaqi (the foreign minister for the Taliban-run government of Afghanistan) said foreign countries must not interfere with Afghanistan’s internal issues like whether or not they’d ever get around to holding elections or include women or minorities in their government.
When Muttaqi was asked about this, he said:
“We will decide in time.”
A response I think we all ought to write down and use when our next door neighbor wants to know just when we plan on mowing our lawn or you get one of those random texts wondering if you’d like to sell your house or the IRS asks when we’ll get around to paying our estimated quarterly taxes.
(Which I just paid and seems like a goddamn rip-off because I thought our deal with those bloodsuckers is we pay up every April 15th, but it turns out they want to get paid throughout the entire year and if we’re not paying taxes through withholding they want us to make a wild-ass guess about what we think we might make and then estimate our taxes and send that in four times a year because the government’s got shit they want to waste money on right now this minute.)
Anyway…
It has seemed to me that people (and by “people” I actually mean “fucked-up dudes”) in some bassackwards countries that treat women like crap have no trouble telling us how screwed up America is, but then have a hissy fit when anyone points out their flaws.
And I don’t buy it when people use religion to excuse racism, homophobia and sexism because generally speaking we get pretty selective when it comes to following religious instruction dictated by people who were so ignorant they thought the sun went around the earth, which – come to think of it – describes certain parts of the United States.
Texas, it’s like a whole other country
As you might have noticed already, abortion is a complicated issue and pretty much the last thing any women needs is some politician – trying to score points with MAGA hat wearers – getting involved in a personal and highly traumatic decision.
Now here’s an interesting quote from the Texas Tribune about the new Texas abortion law:
“The statute outlaws abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected — which can occur before many people know they’re pregnant.”
I’m having trouble with the word “people” because as far as I know –outside bad Arnold Schwarzenegger movies – men don’t get pregnant even though it’s become politically correct to say “we’re” pregnant like the man involved is going to have some body orifice stretched wide enough to pass a cantaloupe and if that was how it actually worked you know men would quit trying to outlaw abortions.
Also:
The Texas law just passed allows private citizens to file lawsuits against anyone who helps a women get an abortion that is illegal under the new law which will be pretty much all of them, so if some busybody (and we have no shortage of people fitting that description) decides to get involved in your business, this law lets them do that.
Personally, I’m against abortions and promise never to get one unless that cantaloupe-male-body-orifice thing becomes a reality.
But I also don’t think I’m in a position to decide this stuff for somebody else and if the people who whine and cry about the babies being killed weren’t also pretty much the same people who don’t want to spend any money on those precious babies once they’re born, I’d find their case much stronger.
Turns out, life is sacred for about nine months and after that, those kids are on their own.
In conclusion…
OK, I think I’ve written something to piss off pretty much everybody and I haven’t even had breakfast yet, so all in all, a good day’s work.
Have a nice weekend.
What do women really want?
Thank you.