Lisa Brown silenced

[IAmSherlocked]

I heard a discussion on this on the radio as I drove into work this morning: Michigan State Representative Lisa Brown was barred from speaking on the floor of the Michigan State Legislature after using the word 'vagina' in a debate.

It is so disturbing in so many ways, and this is before we even begin to look at the content of the debate - on the abortion laws.

My jaw dropped at this response from one of the men involved:

"What she said was offensive," Callton told The Detroit News. "It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company."

I worry that with all the talk about how women are treated in certain cultures (not on here, just generally) that the world is in danger of not noticing until it is too late how dangerously oppressive and misogynistic certain elements of American society are. The Handmaid's Tale looks less and less like a work of fiction and more and more like an ominously prophetic warning.

could i suggest that this has nothing to do with the fact she's a woman and everything to do with the fact that republican americans are all 'up tight about the ass' and the word 'vagina' allmost measures in the rictar scale for them.

not saying that is why, just a thought.

Well, that's incredibly worrying, meow, because vagina is the recognised medical term. She didn't call it a cunt, for example: she called it a vagina. If recognised medical terminology for female genitalia is now offensive in a public space then women have an even bigger problem than I realised.

you dont have to tell me that vagina is a medicaly recognised term, but it isnt you or i who are reacting to this word.

sorry, what i meant to say was , yes it is very worrying, the word vagina has crept into more usage in the last 10 years or so, i have noticed. the vagina monologues helped, but i do remember a time when it was just avoided, i rekon some right wing americans are still there.

Well, right-wing Americans can piss right off, far away from the rest of us. A man who holds views like Callton's should be unelectable, not dictating any kind of agenda and certainly not telling women what they can and can't do with their womb and what they can and cannot call their nether regions.

The UK has its faults but I am pleased to think that any MP who tried this shit would be roundly disparaged. However, any pleasure I take from that is blasted out of the water by the thought that real live women will now have to suffer under legislation decided, in part, by this gigantic dickhead.

Absolutely, dittany. How can anyone take the pro-life agenda remotely seriously when it has just been shown to be that basically, men don't want women to even control their VOCALISATION of the word vagina, let alone control what goes in it.

It's worth noting that she didn't just say 'vagina', she said 'my vagina'. Even worse!

Vaginavaginavaginavaginavaginavaginavaginavaginavaginavaginavagina.

It is late. I am not eloquent, I'm just pissed off. And agreeing.

Is saying 'my vagina' now a radical feminist act?

Scary shit if so. Like dittany says, we are in Handmaid's Tale territory.

"It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company."

Right. Because all women who know their place know that 'vagina' is, like, really offensive and need their smelling salts if such a word is used in front of them.

I despair.

WTF are they supposed to call it? Don't they say 'penis' in that place sometimes? Surely they must, occasionally, need to refer to human genitalia when debating laws that refer to sexual or reproductive activity: do serious and important political debates have to fall back on talking about peepees and foofoos?

OH jeez this is crazy - men hiding behind their handbags/men discussion 'sensible policy on the needs and desires of the female sex' - its like the 18th century what the flipping hec have these senators been on? Mental backward juice?? Are these the Amish?? Are they in pride and prejudice?? Its a flipping northern state! I'd get it if it was a cod flight of Southern ''taint like the old days' nostalgia bollocks.. but really

but I loved her amendment - I want to meet her :)

sgb i actually think there would be allmost the same hoohaa if someone said 'penis'

it's more than likely that a woman useing that langueage would naark them more than a man

but at it's hart i think this is less a feminist issue, more a 'people need to grow up' issue

Well apparently it was OK for a man to say transvaginal ultrasound.

Surely she should have referred to it as a front bottom

Scary and very sad.

Every one knows she should have said "foo-foo".

Short post, running Mini-Dragon to nursery.

Of course it's a feminist issue! This is a debate about what women are allowed to do with their own bodies and a woman has been silenced for saying vagina. As Brown puts it, "If I can't say the word vagina, why are we legislating vaginas?" It fucking stinks!

Why are you so determined, chairman, to keep telling us things are not feminist issues?

Daft aside: am I the only one who keeps mis-reading 'transvaginal ultrasound' as Transglobal Underground?

No, but I will now, Pubes. And will have Temple Head on my InternalJukebox all day.

Of course it's feminist issue. Not TGU, the story in the OP.

It is so clear that we are in a backlash and it really depresses me at times.

Saying vagina really shouldn't be seen as a feminist act and it depresses me that it has become so.

The appropriate response :o

I suppose if during the debate she shouted across the house "Sit down and shut up, you fat fcuking vagina" or something similar then that might be a reason for objection!

We are talking about a State that only repealed the Sodomy Laws (anal sex, oral sex etc) in the last 10 years and only because they were forced to do so by the Supreme Court. They are so repressed it's frightening.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States