Because everyone in the U.S. with half a brain has already team picked Wendy Davis as a Senator and badass super human, I will do everyone a feminist-comedy-solid by team picking the Amazon Reviews of Wendy Davis’s sneakers.
Wendy Davis, via The Guardian
A little bit of back story in case you didn’t stay up until 3 am with me on Twitter a few nights ago, watching the live-feed – on June 25th, Texas tried to pass one of the more strict abortion regulations in the United States. The bill, called Senate Bill 5 (or SB 5), would have closed all but 5 abortion clinics in Texas, thus making some people drive 100 miles or more, or even head to Mexico, for abortions. It had to be passed before midnight on June 25th. Legally, it had to be passed that day and not the next day. Those are the rules.
HULK STAND, SHOULDER TO GREEN SHOULDER, WITH WENDY!
— FEMINIST HULK (@feministhulk) June 26, 2013
Democratic Senator Wendy Davis filibustered the legislation for 13 hours to insure they wouldn’t get to vote on the legislation, certain to pass, before midnight. A Texas filibuster means that the senator could not sit, lean, pee or eat. For 13 hours. And at the end of the 13 hours, the GOP tried to change the rules and pass the legislation after midnight (Ann Friedman has a really good representation of a lot of humans’ collective feelings). Then they tried to change the timestamp on the vote to say that it had taken place before midnight.
The Senate’s revisionists are very fast. Nine minutes earlier, these showed the record votes on 6/26. #txlege #sb5 pic.twitter.com/OBECM4wIYA
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) June 26, 2013
And, though no major cable news networks covered the event (CNN was doing a piece on blueberry muffins at the time), 200 thousand people watching on YouTube kept Texas accountable. Wendy Davis won.
And she did it in these sneakers.
via Feministing
Now of course, Eternal Slimeball Rick Perry is trying to push the bill through again on July 1st, and it will probably pass. And some news sources feel the need to mention Wendy Davis’s outfit and sneakers and not mention her name until the 17th paragraph. So the world isn’t all sunshine and snuggles. But at least we can have a good go at patriarchy-smashing humor à la Bic Pens For Her. Just ignore the attempt at humor from reviewers who agree with Perry (they’re just not as clever as the pro-women’s-rights reviewers).
Here are a few of my current favorites:
Head over to Amazon to check out more reviews. They’re getting better by the minute.
I’m about to go find my stanky old mizunos in the back of my closet and paint them pink.
Wendy Davis. What a fucking badass.
This is a take-off of George “Oh myyyy” Takei’s reviews of lame products. He’s thrilled with this response, BTW. #I stand with Wendy.
“Guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day.” Perfection.
My state my state my state!!!!!!!!
Also Connie Britton needs to play her in the biopic.
And I would stand for 13 hours,
And I would stand for 13 more!
Just to be girl who stood for 13 hours,
For women’s right to abort!
Da, da, da da!
Da, da, da, da!
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da!
it’s waaaaaaay past my bedtime. o.O
Comment award.
But before anyone goes buy a pair in support of Wendy Davis:
“”A search on the FEC’s political donations database reveals that Mizuno President Robert Puccini has donated at least twice to the Republican National Committee and voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. So, that could have something to do with the company’s lack of enthusiasm.”
http://www.airingnews.com/articles/228086/Why-Sneaker-Company-Mizuno-Isnt-Milking-the-Wendy-Davis-Publicity“
Okay, so I’m not sure if this is a question or just a thing that I have on my mind, but I was discussing this with my mother last night, who is also a staunch feminist, and at first when we heard about Wendy Davis we were about to throw our arms up in celebration, but then we quickly did the math in our heads and realized that 20 weeks is approximately five months. We’re both all about the freedom of choice for women, but we, sort of guiltily, came to our own personal conclusions that five months or later is kind of pushing it for an abortion…Considering I have a cousin who was born at five and a half months and is now a perfectly healthy 13-year-old, it just seems to us that perhaps a ban on abortions after 20 weeks isn’t such a bad thing (unless of course there is a danger to the mother or if the fetus has some horrible disease or something like that).
Are we the only ones who feel this way who consider ourselves feminists? A the risk of sounding like an eternal slimeball off a GOP member, we feel that a woman has a right to choose, but if she can choose to abort a fetus after it is still viable outside of the womb, does that also give her the right to decide to have an “abortion” up until the moment it comes out of her?.
*gets banned from Autostraddle*
Now, I am by no means an expert on this, but from what I understand, an abortions performed at 20 weeks are (as far as I can tell at least fairly close to) exclusively used in cases such as that. The foreseeable problem with banning abortions after 20 weeks except in the case of danger to the mother/fetus and/or disease is that the gov’t then decides to be total assholes and abuse the power they now have to legally define what is an appropriate circumstance by requiring things like referring to the zygote/fetus/whatever as a “baby”, forcing them to see sonogram pictures, and other jerkish deterrents.
But also keep in mind that I am pulling all of this from previous knowledge garned from news articles and such (that possibly have a bias) because I hate trying to find actual abortion statistics since there is no way to quickly sift through all of the propaganda to find out what is actually fact. So its entirely possible that this is not 100% accurate. Someone with more extensive knowledge then me wanna chime in?
Here are some facts about the bill beyond the headline that reveal a little about why Wendy an others were so opposed to it: the bill banned abortion at 20 weeks under all circumstances. Therefore, there are no exceptions for rape, incest, fatal abnormalities of the fetus, etc. Think about this implication. Typically, the ultrasound to determine fetal abnormalities takes place a 20 weeks. Under this bill, a woman can find out that her potential child had a fatal disease and will not survive outside of the womb, but he will still be forced to carry that child to “term”. As a woman who has gone through a second term miscarriage due to fetal abnormalities, I cannot tell you how difficult it would have been to be told that I had to carry the baby to term (another 5 months) only to give birth to a child that would survive a mere minute or two. I am beyond grateful to have had the choices I had under the circumstances. Additionally, the bill imposed restrictions that would have shut down all but 5 of the clinics in the entire state of TX. These clinics provide low cost health care to women all over the state who cannot afford it otherwise. It puts women all throughout the state at risk, plain and simple. I suggest you read up a little more in it to get the full picture.
Fetuses are not “viable” until 24 wks gestation, and “viable” at that age means that around 50% will survive (depending on fetal weight and other concomitant conditions as well as birth location). That’s why the current law uses 24 wks.
Additionally, from a maternal mortality standpoint an abortion is associated with a smaller risk of death than a term delivery. So, even outside of the fetal issues, women who stay pregnant longer, have a higher absolute risk of death.
Pregnancy is not an illness. But it can kill you. I have seen it do so. These laws will result in dead women. Not a lot, but it will happen. At what point will our society begin to value women’s lives as well?
I won’t go into the 20 weeks debate, as it seems a lot of people out there have already answered the question pretty thoroughly. What upsets me is that this is billed as the primary aspect of the bill, when really there’s an entire series of other issues related to the bill, such as:
– limiting dispensation of the abortion pill to licensed physicians only, which would limit physicians assistants and nurse practitioners from dispensing the pill, when oftentimes they may be the only person on staff or available at a clinic to provide a prescription.
– requiring all abortion clinics to upgrade their facilities to surgical center standards. While this seems like a good idea to protect health standards, it’s actually just an unnecessary hoop that will require all but 5 of the clinics in Texas to close, severely limiting access to abortion. It also requires physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, which is unnecessary, but also a privilege that can be denied by say, a Catholic hospital, for religious reasons, or just by any hospital that doesn’t want to become a target of protest.
All in all, the entire bill is just an attempt to close all clinics that perform abortions within the state of Texas.
If you’d like to read the full bill: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/831/billtext/html/SB00005H.htm
Thank you for your answers! It makes a lot more sense now.
From what I know, which is little, the women who have abortions after 20 weeks are generally in the most dire circumstances. Girls impregnated by their fathers (usually abusers aren’t taking their daughters to the OBGYN until they can no longer lie as it’s visually obvious she’s preggers), women whose health would be endangered if they did deliver, and other difficult or unhealthy situations tend to be the abortions that happen after 20 weeks. The reason this bill is so bad is that it effects the women in dangerous situations.
Thank you thank you thank you for covering what’s going on down here in Texas! *Muah*
p.s. Footwear aside, Texans are mobilizing and heading to the capitol tomorrow morning. We get written off most of the time as “just another red state,” but we have a groundswell of strong, smart democratic leadership. Perry might have control of the legislature, but “bless his heart,” he underestimates the anger and momentum that his hate has created.
Some really great links about what we’re facing and why it’s important to everyone:
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/23/an-open-letter-to-anyone-ready-to-write-off-texas-dont/ by @andreagrimes
What you didn’t see on TV (an excellent breakdown of what happened during the filibuster):
https://medium.com/p/cb900fa4f14b
How Rick Perry is working to turn Texas blue:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/52335901#52335901
Democrat Lon Burnham is using Perry’s “special session” to reintroduce the Texas Marriage Equality Bill:
http://www.lonburnam.com/2013/06/26/rep-burnam-to-re-introduce-marriage-equality-bill-for-the-second-special-session-of-the-legislature/
3 Ways the “People’s Filibuster” in Texas Will Change Politics:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/51377/3-ways-the-people-s-filibuster-in-texas-will-change-politics
So proud my sister & friends are out there today! Also, anyone hear “The Wendy Davis song”? It’s fucking awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjmtPGEV_V0