Yes Comment! Don’t Let Lady Antebellum Host Your Black History Month Party

Welcome back to the weekly comment roundup! It has certainly been a week full of ups and downs. From Egypt’s successful revolution to the GOP’s anti-woman budget, our readers have been all over the latest developments in the wide world of feminism.

Enough chit-chat, let’s begin!

Country band Lady Antebellum may have won big at the Grammys but “Antebellum”–meaning “pre-war”–is an homage to the pre-Civil War South, and Ms. Blogger Tami Winfrey Harris points out that you can’t glorify the period without also glorifying the South’s heritage of slavery. Our commenters agreed:

Brandi Skipalis points out who exactly the South was a glorious time for,

The Antebellum period was only glorious if you were rich, white, and male. If you were female, poor, or non-white, it was an oppressive existence, and to glorify that period is to glorify oppression and slavery.

Jessie compares glorifying the South to glorifying other ghastly periods of violent racial and ethnic oppression:

The comparison to how we treat Nazi Germany is spot-on; why is the attempted genocide of one people beyond horrific but the enslavement of another is romanticized? I’m also not a fan of how we romanticize the “movement west” of White Americans and gloss over the horrible atrocities committed against American Indians, though I think killing that would be even harder than killing the romanticism of the antebellum South.

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In perhaps our most controversial comments of the week, readers pointed out the discrepancy between our use of the term “gang-rape” and other sources use of the term “sexual assault”.

In response to Lara Logan and Egypt’s Next Revolution, Guest wrote,

I was furious seeing Ms Magazine using the words gang rape in their tweets and posts yesterday. This audience is too apt to throw ‘rape’ around with the hopes it will attract readership. No one is denying that Ms. Logan was assaulted; however, what constituted her sexual assault? There’s a lot that can fall under sexual assault. Let’s let the victim speak instead of speaking for her.

Bowing to our commenters, Ms. decided to go with the strict letter of CBS’s public statement and amend our language to “sexual assault”; however the difference between sexual assault and rape has become an Internet-wide debate. An interesting primer is this Slate piece: “What’s the Difference Between “Rape” and “Sexual Assault”?

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Meanwhile, a DC bill provoked reader discussion of the pros and cons of non-prescription birth control access.

In response to DC Bill Could Move The Pill Over the Counter, Jennifer wrote,

Eh….I think there should be at least an introductory physical with some sort of medical personnel. I mean, the pill doesn’t work well for everyone. It’s not recommended for women over a certain weight or women who smoke and I feel like there should be a face to face meeting so a woman (particularly a young woman) can ask questions.

hmprescott has price concerns,

Also, what will happen to the cost of pills if they go OTC? Usually the price goes up when a drug goes from prescription to OTC. Low income women get pills at reduced or no cost at Title X clinics (for now anyway) and female students can get them at student health centers. Some health insurance plans cover prescription drugs as well. If pills go OTC, they won’t be covered by insurance so the cost will go from a co-pay of $5-10 to whatever the manufacturer wants to charge.

Angelique argues that current realities for low-income women trump these concerns,

While costs could be an issue, not that many low income women have access to birth control like many people assume. It’s much harder for them receive a prescription. OTC forms of birth control would increase access and not necessary get rid of prescription forms. For women who have already been on the pill and have been monitored by their doctors, I don’t see anything wrong with relying on an OTC version rather than having to get full physicals just to get refills.

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Keep the comments coming!

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