Speaking of Fighting

It's tough. It's often painful. But you'll walk down the street knowing you have a good right cross.

Need an overview of styles? Look here. For those interested in mixed martial arts, check out some more links here.

Trying to find the right school for you? For those in Chicagoland, I recommend my school (of course). If you're a woman, you'll be gratified to know that the clientele is almost 60% female, and they can kick your ass any time of day. Sifu Katalin is one of the primary instructors, and she fucking rocks. The other boxing coaches are male, but all of them are really cool with teaching women, and they don't treat you like you're a fucking idiot. Also, if you're embarrassed about being out of shape, and that's the only thing keeping you out - don't worry about it. There are people there who've dropped 50-60lbs in the 2-3 years they've been there - we know it's a process, and everybody starts somewhere.



And even those of us who aren't fashionably thin are really fucking buff.

It's worth every minute.

Getting Pissed Off

And then you get us pissed off:

According to women’s rights activists in the area (Nagpur, India), men who rape are frequently let off by the courts, and helped by police. This weekend, 50 women — led by a rape victim — burnt down the houses of three rapists who had been attacking women for months with no consequences.

"We have all waited for police to act, but nothing happens. The molestations and rapes go on and nobody does anything," said Madam Chandra, a women's rights activist in Nagpur.

This renegade rape punishment began several months ago when a gang leader who had raped multiple women was stabbed and stoned by a mob of women.

Though I cannot, in good conscience, endorse killing people or burning down their houses, I will say this: People are going to be a lot less likely to fuck around with women if more of us start fighting back.

There's your thought for the day.

via feministing

No Control For You, Woman!

So, it's finally hit USA Today. I'd heard rumors of scattered pharmacists refusing to fill contraceptive perscriptions to women, but now we've got a nice article all about it. This should scare the shit out of men at least half as much as it should scare the shit out of women.

If you don't want to fill a perscription based on "moral grounds" than you shouldn't be a pharmacist. If you don't believe in science, you shouldn't be a teacher, and if you don't believe that women are people, you shouldn't be a doctor.

It is nice to finally see in black and white what all the abortion bruhaha is *really* about:

"We have always understood that the battles about abortion were just the tip of a larger ideological iceberg, and that it's really birth control that they're after also," says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood (news - web sites) Federation of America.

And controlling a woman's fertility is about controlling women. How many times do people have to say this before it sinks in? Before we all have to go marching on Washington yet again? Before we start being worried about packing the Supreme Court?

Be worried. Be worried about this more than terrorism, because times of Great Foreign Fear are the times when "little stuff" like this slides right in, and takes another two decades of hard fighting to get rid of. In the mean time, hundreds of thousands of women's lives will be co-opted by their fertility, and thousands more will die trying to get abortions illegally. That's what happens.

Stay awake, people.

Go to Naral Pro-Choice America and sign some petitions (it takes, like 3 minutes). Also, check out your local Plan Parenthood and see if they need any volunteers a couple hours a week.

via Jenn.