Godheval.com

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m way late to the party on this one, but I just wanted to weigh in quickly on this whole “Boobquake” thing.

For those who, like me 5 minutes ago, have no idea what this refers to, an Iranian cleric attributed the “immodest” dressing of women to the increase in earthquakes.

Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

As you can read in the article, a woman named Jennifer McCreight launched an effort to prove Sedighi wrong.  On April 26th, tens of thousands of women intend to wear their most revealing attire, figuring that if Sedighi is right, an earthquake should surely follow soon afterwards.

Chances are that nothing will happen, and that Sedighi is either a complete moron, or a ideological predator attempting to appeal to people’s sexual conservatism – through fear – in order to recruit more people to his particular moral code. (more…)

I posted this video without any lead-in, because I want the viewer to process it on their own, before I weigh in with my thoughts. However, I imagine that the mere title of this post prefaces the video and will make you see it in a different way. Just as the mere fact that it is Bristol Palin in the video – because of who her mother is – prefaced how I watched the video. Or how automatically any analysis of teen pregnancy in my brain necessarily intersects with my understanding of privilege.

Perspective is a funny thing.

Upon first watching the video, I felt all sorts of ill feelings. On the one hand, we have a woman talking about the importance of making good choices with regards to sex – to think before you act, more or less. There is no inherent fault in that argument, because thinking is always good.

On the other hand, the video is using class war to advocate celibacy. And class war automatically intersects with the discussion about race and privilege.  For example, when Bristol Palin’s pregnancy first became national news, there were many commentators who mentioned how there was a general demand for sensitivity towards Bristol’s pregnancy, but that the same demands would not have been made if she had been one of Obama’s daughters or any other teen mother of color.

When the mother is white, teen pregnancy becomes merely a regrettable mistake, one that must be handled with great sensitivity and care. But when the mother is a young woman of color, it becomes some sort of moral failure on her part, not only a bad decision but a symptom of the epidemic of poor decision-making by people of color in general.

Mind you, I am not saying that the video above is making any statement at all about race – at least not explicitly. But it does scream privilege loudly, if only the privilege of being wealthy over being poor. In that way it is waging class war, wherein being wealthy affords one a buffer  against the difficulties of raising a child in poverty, and suggesting that therefore only poor women need to think carefully before they risk pregnancy. (more…)