May 2005 Archives

In a press briefing last week, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan completely refused to answer a pretty goddamn important question: is Bush opposed to contraception?

Q There are news reports this morning that parents and children who were guests of the President, when they visited Congress, wore stickers with the wording, "I was an embryo." And my question is, since all of us were once embryos, and all of us were once part sperm and egg, is the President also opposed to contraception, which stops this union and kills both sperm and egg?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and if you want to ask those questions, that's fine. I'm just not going to dignify them with a response.

Hmmm…I wonder why no answer? That’s a head-scratcher...

John Tierney elaborates on his genius "women aren't competitive" theory with an even more illuminating argument: women just don't want it bad enough. But don't worry; Tierney came to this conclusion using the most advanced method possible for studying gender differences: Scrabble.

...But if you think that leveling the playing field would eliminate gender disparities, consider an unintentional experiment conducted in the Scrabble world, which is hardly a hostile environment for women.

...A champion wouldn't waste any valuable time in a game. Thanks to the thousands of alphagrams he's memorized, he would realize immediately that there are four anagrams in the first rack (antlers, rentals, saltern, sternal) and none in the second.

See ladies, if we weren't so lazy about studying vocabulary we would be equals in life and in board games!

And why do women lack the necessary drive to succeed? We don't care about getting laid as much as men do.

"Evolution has selected for men with a taste for risking everything to get to the top of the hierarchy," [anthropologist Helen Fisher] said, "because those males get more reproductive opportunities, not only among primates but also among human beings. Women don't get as big a reproductive payoff by reaching the top. They're just as competitive with themselves - they want to do a good job just as much as men do - but men want to be more competitive with others."

...So if you're a lonely bachelor at the bottom, it makes evolutionary sense to have more zeal than the typical woman to fight your way up. It has been noted at Scrabble tournaments that some of the best players are single guys with wide-open social calendars. And there are Scrabble groupies - I'm not kidding - apparently still under the unconscious influence of that classic short-term reproductive strategy. They prefer guys who win.

And men prefer losers, I suppose?

You know, I can buy that the impetus behind many human actions is to have sex. But Tierney's (and these theories') assumptions that women won't go that extra mile because it's not worth it to them reproductively is just absurd. It relates back to the whole women-are-meant-to-be-monogamous-and-hate-sex argument that Amanda touched on recently at Pandagon.

For a fantastic book on women that (among other things) takes on evolutionary psychology's position on what "female nature" is, check out Natalie Angier's "Woman: An Intimate Geography." It's the best. Really.

UPDATE: Echidne on the same.

The Associated Press reports that women firefighters still face significant barriers and discrimination, most notably in New York.

...Of roughly 296,000 professional firefighters [nationally], about 6,500, less than 2.5 percent, are women. That's up from zero as of 1972, but "nowhere near the point where you lose your token status," said Terese Floren, director of the Madison, Wis.-based Women in the Fire Service.

...No major fire department embodies a new approach to gender more than San Francisco's, where 230 of the 1,700 firefighters are women, and the chief is Joanne Hayes-White, 41.

The article focuses on one woman's experience in several NY firehouses, and addresses specific cases of harassment and discrimination across the country.

In case you're interested...

Legal Momentum, a legal rights organization for women, does great work on nontraditional employment for women. In addition to taking on discrimination cases, the organization has also negotiated collaborations with sports clubs for free physical training for women firefighter candidates, worked for increased recruitment and retention of women firefighters in NY, and produced an award winning documentary on the previously unnoticed efforts of women on September 11, The Women of Ground Zero.

Make sure to check out Katha Pollitt's Stiffed, which takes on Viagra, Medicare, contraception and the sexual double standard.

My fave part:

And what about sex aids for women? Where's that female Viagra they're always promising us? Most newspapers didn't even report that in December an FDA panel turned down Procter & Gamble's application for Intrinsa, a testosterone patch intended to raise libido in women whose ovaries have been removed. The problem wasn't that Intrinsa didn't work (the panel voted 14 to 3 that the manufacturers' trials showed a meaningful improvement in desire and pleasure); the issue was health risks as well as the potential for "off-label use" by women who had simply lost their mojo. A "lifestyle drug" for women! Can't have that. Men, of course, have been known to use Viagra recreationally, and Viagra, moreover, is not without risk: It has been associated with fatal heart attacks and eye damage. Here's what gets me, though: FDA panelist Dr. David Hager voted against Intrinsa. Yes, that David Hager--the right-wing Christian Ob-Gyn accused of persistent marital rape by his former wife and now under scrutiny for his secret role, first revealed in The Nation, in killing over-the-counter status for emergency contraception. Maybe there are enough questions about Intrinsa's safety to justify the turn-down--but letting Hager vote on female sex drugs is like letting the Taliban vote on women's hemlines.

From Reuters:

Mexican President Vicente Fox accused the media on Monday of rehashing the story of a 12-year spate of women's murders on the U.S. border, minimizing a tragedy seen as among the nation's worst crime outrages.

Last week, Amnesty International cited the killings and impunity in Ciudad Juarez as a sign of Fox's "betrayal" of human rights.

Um...is addressing hundreds of unsolved murders and calling out Fox on government inaction really "reheating" cases? Seems to me it's more shaming. And it looks like it's worked, at least a little:

On Monday, Fox's new attorney general called the Ciudad Juarez murders a top priority and announced that special prosecutor Maria Lopez, appointed last year to clean up botched local investigations, was being replaced.

Click here for more posts on the Juarez murders.

Concerns that Ann Veneman, new head of UNICEF and a former member of the Bush administration, would implement a more conservative policy on HIV/AIDS prevention, sexual health and condoms were quelled last week when she announced that policies would remain as they are.

"We're not going to change UNICEF's position," Veneman, a former U.S. Agriculture Secretary, told Reuters late on Thursday at a feeding centre in Malawi where the U.N. is feeding AIDS orphans and other vulnerable groups.

Veneman raised concern in January when she said she believed social issues such as reproductive health were "irrelevant" to UNICEF's mission, a remark some interpreted as signalling a change in UNICEF's drive to promote family planning.

Let's hope Veneman really doesn't change UNICEF's policies...I'm a tad wary of anyone who thinks reproductive health is "irrelevant."

Feministing will resume posting tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft failed to support an anti-discrimination measure in Washington State and caused the bill (which would protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination in work, housing, etc) to fail passage in the state legislature. But soon after Microsoft changed its decision because of all the pressure from employees and gay rights groups.

In Friday's message, Ballmer seemed to suggest that input from employees had helped persuade Microsoft officials to renew their backing of the measure. More than 1,500 employees had signed an internal petition demanding the company support the bill, and scores had written in protest to Ballmer and Gates.

A Microsoft executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that after Microsoft's turnaround on the bill was widely publicized and prompted an internal company uproar, a group of senior officials had met and decided to change the company's position because of the pressure from employees.

Sweet! Activism at Microsoft!

A few weeks ago due to some really good investigative journalism in Spokane, Washington, it was found that Spokane Mayor Jim West, known for his anti-gay rights conservatism, was found to be soliciting men on Gay.com.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports...
Spokane Mayor Jim West, who championed an anti-gay agenda during his tenure as one of the most powerful Republicans in the Legislature, yesterday admitted to using the trappings of his current office to entice what he thought was a young adult man but denied allegations that he molested two young boys more than 20 years ago.

In more than 20 years in the Legislature, West had initiated legislation to outlaw sexual contact between consenting teenagers; supported a bill that would have barred gays and lesbians from working for schools, day care centers and some state agencies; voted to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman; and, as Senate majority leader, allowed a bill that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians to die in committee without a hearing.

SCANDAL! This happened at the beginning of the month, but the contraversy continues with West refusing to resign from his mayoral post. Talk about being in the closet. Now if only all the other anti-gay rights politicians would come out of the closet we could get somewhere already!

The Post-Taliban time of Afghanistan has been a confusing time for women. Although, the Taliban was known for its terrible treatment of women, it is still not clear what the condition for women is today and what role the international community plays in demanding the equitable rights of women.

A study done by Amnesty International found that women are still at serious risk in situations of abuse, abduction, etc.

AP reports...

Afghan women are in constant risk of abduction, rape and forced marriage and the government is doing little to address their plight, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report released 3 1/2 years after the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime.

"Afghanistan is in the process of reconstruction after many years of conflict, but hundreds of women and girls continue to suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands, fathers, brothers, armed individuals," the report said.

The manipulation of religion by government officials is still the main justification for the denial of women's rights in Afghanistan. There have been incidents of women being beaten and killed when in violation of Islamic codes. Some women have even been reported setting themselves on fire to escape abuse.

I am not feeling very optimistic about this. Is this what democracy looks like?

The Washington Post reports that President Bush vows to veto the compromise that key Republicans have created to prevent a showdown in Washington.

House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who has an antiabortion voting record, said he talked with Nancy Reagan about finding "some kind of middle ground." On Tuesday, he joined 49 other House Republicans to pass a bill that would repeal the limits Bush imposed when he announced the first federal funding for stem cell research in 2001.

"We very much want to be able to work with the president and see if there could be some kind of agreement," Dreier said. "I don't want the president to be in a position where he has to veto this. We want to lower the temperature and not be confrontational, so we can figure out a way for the research to go ahead."

Bush's response, "The Congress has made its position clear, and I've made my position clear," Bush said. "I will be vetoing the bill they send to me if it were to pass the United States Senate."

The White House did not embrace the search for a compromise. Spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush has drawn "a very bright line that taxpayer dollars should not be used to destroy life," and said it "would be difficult to blur that line" with a middle-ground proposal.

Using tax payer dollars to destroy life?! This shit has gone too far...Any thoughts?

Also, some more background info check out Jill's post at Feministe...

The Body Shop National Cell Phone Collection is collecting used cell phones to stop family violence. Donated phones will be sold, refurbished, or recycled, with proceeds benefiting the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Wireless Foundation.

You can drop off your old phones at any of The Body Shop stores through August 31, 2005. Even better? Click here to learn how to start your own collection.

A federal hate crimes bill with explicit protections against crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation was introduced in the House of Representatives yesterday.

Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign exclaimed that, "We’re proud that for the first time legislation was introduced that explicitly covers the entire gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, and the community will have an unambiguous shot at equal protection under hate crimes law."

While the bill is not expected to the pass, it's notable that (given our scary political climate) it made it through the door at all.

Kudos to -- Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) for introducing the bill.

So there is good news & bad news...

The good news -- The CDC announced this week that smoking among women in the U.S. has dropped below one in five for the first time in nearly 30 years. Also notable -- last year, the number of people who quit smoking was greater than the number of those who still smoked (only the second time in history that has happened). Nice.

And the bad -- A preliminary study, by the European medical journal Human Reproduction, found that among women seeking fertility treatment, there was no difference in the pregnancy rate between smokers and nonsmokers who lived with a smoker, but that both groups of women had less than half the success rate of nonsmokers who were not exposed to smoke at home.

Republicans don't favor comprehensive sex ed for high school students, but apparently it's a-OK by the time you're a Capitol Hill staffer. That must be why Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma sponsored a "Star Wars"-themed STD slide show yesterday for young Congressional aides.

At the event, Coburn hypocritically advised staffers to use condoms. He has long been an anti-condom crusader.

Coburn's STD presentation even contained a special message for the ladies. Apparently, it's up to us alone to stop the spread of STDs:
"What would happen in this country if the young women would say no [to sex] until they're 20?" [Coburn] asked. "Disease would go down, the pregnancy rate for unwed mothers would go down, the social costs for the next two generations would go down."

What else can we learn from Coburn? The death penalty should be applied to abortion providers. Women with breast implants are healthier. And "rampant lesbianism" is ruining Oklahoma high schools. Plus, it's a good idea to serve pizza to accompany a graphic STD slide show. Ewwww.

A recent study by Boston University Medical College researchers found that women who take oral contraception may suffer a *permanent* loss of sex drive.

While researchers knew that oral contraceptives lower levels of testosterone (and therefore sex drive), and increase levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), scientists had previously believed that levels of SHBG would decline when women quit taking the pill. However, the new study found that levels of SHBG remained elevated. Dr. Claudia Panzer explained that: "You would expect levels to drop back to normal after about six weeks, but the worry is that these women will always have more. That means they will have very low testosterone, which has huge implications for their sexual function." Whoa.

However, in her interview with the Guardian, Dr. Mayur Lakhani, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, remarked that: "I am unconvinced by this study; there is no cause for alarm...I want to reassure women about the safety and efficacy of the contraceptive pill and to stress that there's no need to stop taking the pill as a result of this study. Loss of libido is a recognised side effect but in the experience of GPs and practice nurses this is uncommon among most women." Hmmm...

Regardless, the findings may be worth a chat with your gynocologist on your next visit.

Yesterday the Alabama House passed the Domestic Violence Victims Empowerment Act. Sounds nice, right?

Not so quick -- the purpose of the bill is to make it easier for DV victims to arm themselves. The AP reports that the bills allows protective orders to be among the evidence a sheriff can consider when determining whether to issue a 90-day permit to carry a concealed weapon.

When asked about bill, Rep. Ronnie Sutton, chairman of the judiciary committee, explained that: "Obviously, it doesn't do very much. But technically, it does two things. It makes a bunch of people feel more secure, and it seriously runs the risk of getting somebody killed." Ummmm, what?

In fact, before the House approved the bill, there was much discussion of various scenarios under which a domestic violence victim might kill the abuser *or* the abuser might take the victim's gun and kill her. (sigh). Are we really supposed to believe this is a legislative solution?

This study found that "heavy set" women face more job discrimination. DUH! How about life discrimination? But reals,
Reuters reports..

"Body mass significantly decreases women's family income," the study by two researchers at New York University found. "However ... men experience no negative effects of body mass on economic outcomes."

I know this is not very suprising, but how do we begin to have a discourse about this EXTREMELY pervasive and dangerous phenomenon. Fat discrimination is still one of those things that people do consciously and it is considered okay (you've heard it, it is just not healthy blah blah blah, at least when you are a woman, if you are a man you are just a big guy!)

Some other findings...

--a 1 percent increase in a woman's body mass index -- a measure of weight relative to height -- pushes family income down by about 0.6 percent.

--a woman's "occupational prestige," a measure of the social status of differing jobs, also dropped as body mass rose, although to a somewhat lesser degree: 0.4 percent for each 1 percent increase in body mass

The study also found that women who are "heavy" for their height have a lesser chance of getting married and a higher chance of getting divorced. Yeah, maybe cause they are busy LIVING THEIR LIFE!!! But these statistics aren't suprising, the demon culture of diet and beauty does not stop short of the corporate world or the dream of heteronormative union.

Finally, the researcher found that body mass does not effect men in work or in marriage and divorce. Of course not, it is a woman that is judged not by her ability to do a job, but by her height to weight ratio.

And what in the world could this Florida mom possibly be charged with? Evidence tampering and child neglect. Un-fucking-believable.

The girl's 40-year-old stepfather was charged Friday with familial sexual battery. The 33-year-old mother also was arrested. Both are free on $5,000 bond. The girl [17-years-old] and her sister have been placed in state custody.

Palm Beach County sheriff's detectives wanted to perform a paternity test on the fetus as part of the investigation, but they say the mother took her daughter to a Broward County clinic for an abortion without notifying them.

They were both arrested and freed on the same bond?! So I guess helping your daughter receive a legal abortion is the criminal equivalent of rape. Lovely.

And am I really supposed to care about the state's interest in their investigation over what this girl wants for herself?

Who is the real criminal here: A mom helping her rape-victim daughter to get an abortion or the police possibly forcing a 17-year-old to have her stepfather's child simply because they need evidence.

Reuters reports that British women plan to make the world's longest chain of bras on the island of Cyprus to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer:

Organisers said they will need at least 90,000 bras and about 10 months to build the chain that they hope will put them in the Guinness Book of World Records. The previous record was a 79,000-long bra chain in Singapore.

Talk about original organizing! Though I would feel kind of bad sending in my nasty-ass old bras for the world to see. Gross.

From the Associated Press:

Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill Wednesday that requires physicians to tell parents when a minor daughter seeks an abortion.

Bush signed a similar bill into law in 1999 but the courts blocked it, finding it violated the privacy provision in the Florida Constitution.

OK, not too shocking right? Consent laws are the hot abortion topic lately. But here's the part that really got me:

The law, which takes effect July 1, applies to girls 17 and younger who aren't married and don't already have children. Unless it's a medical emergency, doctors are required to notify a parent in person or by phone 48 hours before the abortion or, if that's not possible, by certified mail 72 hours in advance.

So if I'm married I don't need to go to my parents for permission, but if I'm single I do? I'm surprised there's not a husband-notification clause for the married teens.

And you have to love the fact that the notification law doesn't apply to girls who already have children. What--we've done our reproductive duty so now we can make decisions for ourselves?

Disgusting.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to preserve women's right to serve in combat positions, but deny them the right to get an abortion on a military base.

The House passed the 2006 defense authorization bill without an amendment that would have repealed the current ban on abortions at overseas military clinics. It also rejected an amendment that would have restricted the number of combat positions open to women.

The military base abortion ban was instituted by President Reagan in 1988, lifted by President Clinton in 1993 and reinstated by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1996. It prevents military hospitals from performing any abortions except in situations of rape, incest or to save the woman's life. (Under no circumstances does the military cover the cost of the procedure.)

The message is pretty clear: We can trust you to defend our country the front lines, but we can't trust you to make choices about your own body.

This weekend, while you're bbq-ing and drinking some beers, check out the Indy 500. I know, I know. That seems like an odd request for a bunch of young feminists. But this year, possibly for the first time in its almost 100 year history, a woman has a chance of winning. Her name is Danica Patrick.

Danica Patrick is no novelty driver. Though she's only the third woman to qualify for the Indianapolis field, she's the first woman to earn an IndyCar drive with a topflight team like Rahal Letterman Racing. Basically, this means she might actually win, which would be huge for a sport and a culture that isn't particularly feminist-friendly.

For a whole piece on the history of women in race car driving, and the sexism that pervades the sport, check out espn.com.

Erica Jong tears into First Lady Laura Bush and her Middle East visit at The Huffington Post. It's pretty scathing on its own, so I don't feel the need to add on:

Now that Laura Bush is back from the Middle East and can take off her black scarf, it's time to ask why she is promoting freedom for women in the Middle East when the rights of American women are being systemically eroded by her husband's initiatives. Is it the same reason why her husband promotes democracy abroad while the Patriot Act and the suspension of the Geneva Convention dilute democracy at home? Is wearing the headscarf the last refuge of a desperate housewife? Of course women in the Middle East need the vote, an end to domestic violence and free access to contraception. But so do we. Odd that it is always easier to proselytize for feminism abroad while ignoring deteriorating womens' rights at home.

Read the rest here.

A 69-37 vote by the Michigan House yesterday may require medical clinics to offer women seeking abortion an ultrasound of the fetus, reports the Detroit Free Press. While Michigan has a history of pushing extreme anti-choice laws, this is their favorite as of late.

"Women will be given the opportunity to see the miracle of life through the miracle of today's technology to truly make an informed choice," Rep. Dave Robertson said in a news release. An “opportunity.” Is that what they’re calling it now? I call it a shitty way to try to influence already-informed women.

Shelli Weisberg, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, says the bill is just another obstacle for women seeking an abortion. “It puts the lawmakers in the position of making medical decisions for women, which should be between a woman and her doctor.”

The bill, which is set to go to the Senate, has been offered as an extension of Michigan’s informed consent law, which requires a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion.

Break out the champagne, ladies—the men-folk have solved our problems!

Right on the heels of John Tierney's profound article on What Women Want (apparently not to compete with big, bad men), Matt Miller solves women's work/life dilemmas by listening to his wife.

Both men seem to have the same answer for a problem that women apparently haven't been able to solve—just change the structure of the workplace. Wow, we never thought of that!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m appreciative of the interest and coverage on the issue. But both articles smack a little too hard of condescension for my taste.

Pandagon’s responses to Tierney’s What Women Want say it all, so I’m not going there.

While Miller's piece is a much-needed call to men, like many pieces on women and work it ignores the fact that the majority of American women don’t have a choice. Working is not an option. And of course—again, like most coverage on this issue—he includes a one sentence class disclaimer: In a world where most people are struggling, the search for "balance" in high-powered jobs has to be counted a luxury.

Miller then ignores his own admission to basically shit on anyone who isn’t the upper class:

Still, there is something telling (if not downright dysfunctional) when a society's most talented people feel they have to sacrifice the meaningful relationships every human craves as the price of exercising their talent.

My unreasonable wife rejects this choice. If the most interesting and powerful jobs are too consuming, Jody says, then why don't we re-engineer these jobs - and the firms and the culture that sustain them - to make possible the blend of love and work that everyone knows is the true gauge of "success"? As scholars have asked, why should we be the only elites in human history that don't set things up to get what we want?

I’m pretty damn sure the elites are—and have been—setting things up the way they want. That’s why we’re in this mess where women are paying up to half of their salary for child care.

…In a globalizing world, many senior jobs are already impossibly big. If they need to be restructured anyway (we're working on how), why not do so in ways that give folks the option to have a life? Skeptics should recall that everyone once "knew" that a weekend or a minimum wage would spell economic ruin, too.

It's time workaholic males took up this cause, because top jobs will never change unless we do.

Naturally I’m all for structural change at the top, but shouldn’t our priority be reworking things for women who have no choices?

...and have made my job a lot easier this morning:

Amanda at Pandagon tells John Tierney what women really want.

LiberalOasis on the filibuster deal. He's not loving it.

Tennessee Guerilla Women give an update on the spousal rape bill.

Jill at Feministe takes on the stem cell bill and Bush's bullshit.

Yesterday's Morning Edition on NPR covered the "controversy" over American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino's song, Baby Mama.

Critics say that the song promotes teen sex and--gasp!--portrays being a single mom as a good thing. The horror!

Check out one verse:

It's about time we had our own song
Don't know what took so long
Cause nowadays it's like a badge of honor
To be a baby mama
I see ya payin' ya bills
I see ya workin' ya job
I see ya goin' to school
And girl I know it's hard
And even though ya fed up
With makin' beds up
Girl, keep ya head up

Yeah, what a terrible message to send single moms! I guess young women should be shamed no matter what choice they make about children.

NPR also has links to related articles and audio to the song.

From USA Today:

Last month, a striking photo of a 25-year-old soldier named Dawn Halfaker appeared on the front page of USA TODAY. Lt. Halfaker was wearing an Army T-shirt and was missing her right arm, the result of a rocket-propelled grenade slamming into her armored Humvee in Iraq.

...As Halfaker matter-of-factly told USA TODAY reporter Dave Moniz: "Women in combat is not really an issue. It is happening."

Read the whole article...

The Independent Women's Forum (those gals we love to hate) is holding a gala dinner tonight in honor of Secretary of Labor, Elaine L. Chao, recipient of the organization's Woman of Valor Award.

Now I'm not so familiar with Chao's career, but I do know what's happened under her watch.

As of July 2005, the Department of Labor will no longer be reporting on women workers. Valor-iffic!

Considering the award comes from an organization that argues the wage gap doesn't exist, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

The National reports that young women are regularly being traded by their families and tribes for guns:

While no figures were given out, [Western Highlands Rural Zones Commander Inspector Billy Kombel] said authorities know these things are happening in many areas of the province where tribal fights have gone on for years.

Out of fear of reprisal, or of being seen as outcast, their mothers and other immediate relatives keep quiet about it.

The Young Women of the YWCA of PNG have come out against this recent news, demanding that the Ministers for Justice and Internal Security launch an immediate investigation.

The Young Women’s Desk Coordinator, Okera Amini, said trading young girls for guns is a violation of girls' rights and dignity: "Such actions contribute to an increase in violence in all forms against women and girls, and those responsible should be dealt with accordingly...It’s alarming to note that this trend is happening in various parts of the province with girls and mothers living in constant fear of threats."

Note: YWCA of PNG website unavailable; information via emailed press release. Contact me if you want more info.

The lovely Bill O'Reilly has a great suggestion of how Harvard can use the $50 million they pledged to recruit more women: buy them shoes.

"Any woman who signs on to work at Harvard gets 100 pair of shoes...to make it even more enticing, they're gonna give women shoes, because all women want shoes."

How right he is. I would so prefer a nice pair of heels over equality in academia.

Media Matters has the story and the audio clip.

Just in case you had any doubts that the men in your life own your vagina.

Forget-me-not panties, being marketed to men, have a tracking device planted in women's underwear that also monitors heart rate and body temperature:

These "panties" can trace the exact location of your woman and send the information, via satellite, to your cell phone, PDA, and PC simultaneously! Use our patented mapping system, pantyMap®, to find the exact location of your loved one 24 hours a day.

The technology is embedded into a piece of fabric so seamlessly she will never know it's there!

Cause if she did know, she'd get a fucking restraining order!

But the forget-me-not-or-I'll-fucking-kill-you panties don't just help crazy stalking boyfriends and husbands. Concerned (obsessed) fathers can also benefit from these privacy-invading undies.

Check out this testimonial from Daddy David:

When my daughter hit puberty I nearly had a heart attack. She started looking like a woman and suddenly she was wearing revealing clothing and staying out late with her friends.

They work wonderfully. My wife and I bought our Sarah several pairs so we can watch her around the clock, and if we see her temperature rising too high, we intervene by calling her cellphone or just picking her up wherever she is. My only comment is it would be great to have a video camera...

Eww. Eww. Nothing quite like dear old dad monitoring the temperature of your vagina. I'm sorry, but this is so creepy-incestuous.

How is this legal?

Via Trish Wilson.

Reuters reports that Canada is set to fund a $5 million study on the high rape and murder rates of aboriginal women in the nation.

The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), the organization who will do the study, says that more than 500 aboriginal women have disappeared or been killed in the last 20 years. Executive Director Sherry Lewis says "Young women leave the community and are never heard from again."

To learn more, check out the NWAC's Sisters in Spirit campaign.

For more information on aboriginal women in Canada and their progress over the last decade, you can also look to WEDO's publication Beijing Betrayed. (pages 149-154 in the Europe and North America chapter)

You’re going to love this. Really.

Early starts, late nights and endless meetings may be good for the bank balance, but professional women beware. You could be making your husband sick.

...Men's physical and mental health is "significantly poorer when their wives work full-time", say the authors of the study.

The report also contends that men are healthier when they earn more than their wives. Wow.

Is men's health so fragile that it's dependent on feeling superior to women? If that is the case, it seems to me that the problem isn't that women work, but that men are massively insecure. Not to mention, I don't know that feeling inadequate counts as a serious health problem.

Thanks to Kris for the link.

Salon has a horrifying article about the inhumane treatment of pregnant prisoners in California. Just a couple of examples:

Anna (not her real name), a prisoner at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, Calif., spent the last two weeks of her pregnancy in preterm labor, shackled to a hospital bed....

...Take Judith (also not her real name), another Valley State prisoner, incarcerated on a probation violation for saying "Fuck you" to a case worker in a drug treatment program. Desperate to get into California's Community Prisoner Mother Program, where children can stay with their mothers for up to six years in a residential facility, she was informed that she would first have to have an oral exam to prove that she had no dental problems, not even a cavity...In a cruel paradox, dental care is not provided to applicants to the program, other than extractions. No fillings, no cleanings. Nothing. Judith had myriad dental problems. According to [Karen] Shain [of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children], in order to be with her baby she had to have 15 teeth removed. She had no other choice.

Shain says this kind of treatment is not unusual. In fact, it's routine. That's right. Being shackled to a bed and having 15 teeth removed is routine.

Author Ayelet Waldman points out that most women in prison are not violent offenders--Anna for example, was serving a short sentence for drug possession and probation violation. But no matter what the violation, this shit is just obscene.

And sorry, but where is this reverence for the fetus now? Unnecessary shackling and tooth-pulling doesn't exactly scream "culture of life."

The Supreme Court agreed today to hear New Hampshire's appeal of two lower court decisions that struck down the state's law restricting young women's access to abortion:

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 2003 law was unconstitutional because it didn't provide an exception to protect the minor's health in the event of a medical emergency.

...Abortion laws are "entirely different than parental involvement laws, which obviously do not purport to ban abortions, but simply seek to promote the interests of minors in having the benefit of parental involvement," New Hampshire legislators wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.

Oh yeah, this isn't about restricting abortion at all. We're just...you know...looking out for the kids and stuff. You have to be fucking kidding me. If this is really about the "interests of minors," then why isn't there a health exception?

Bullying teenage girls is just an easy way to erode reproductive rights.

FYI: This will be the Supreme Court's first consideration of a minors' abortion law since the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision in 1992, in which Pennsylvania's one-parent consent law was upheld.

Sex offenders have been getting Viagra covered by Medicaid, but rape victims across the country can't even get emergency contraception when they go to the hospital.

Because choosing not to get pregnant through rape is so much more controversial than paying for a sex offender's hard on.

A new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that women are notably absent as sources in most news stories:

Researchers from the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that although women now make up more than half the U.S. population and hold positions of power in government and business, their opinions are absent from large swaths of news coverage, particularly reports about politics, the military and foreign policy. Women were most likely to be included in feature stories about children, celebrities and homemaking, among others.

Male sources were present in more than three quarters of all stories, while only a third of stories even had one female source. Nice.

More findings from the report:

In every topic category, the majority of stories cited at least one male source.

Newspapers were the most likely of the media studied to cite at least one female source in a story (41% of stories). Cable news, despite all the time it has to fill, was the least likely medium to cite a female source (19% of stories), and this held true across all three major cable channels.

Rox Populi also has the story.

Parental consent is hot shit these days:

If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets his special election this fall, California voters will have an opportunity to decide if parents should be notified 48 hours before their teenage daughter has an abortion.

...The initiative prevents minors from having an abortion until 48 hours after a doctor has informed their parents or legal guardians in writing, but they wouldn't need the parents' permission like in 19 other states.

Does that really make a difference? If your parents don’t want you to have an abortion, and they have 2 days to stop you--how much choice are you really going to have?

Related: To keep updated on the most recent legislation changes and to find out what the laws are in your state, NARAL's state legislation tracker is a great resource.

A restaurant in China was using two university students to serve sushi upon. The China Daily...

China's State Administration of Industry and Commerce issued a notice this weekend banning meals served on naked bodies, officially canceling the service offered by a restaurant in southwestern China that served sushi on unclothed female university students, a Beijing newspaper reported Sunday.

The Saturday pronouncement forbids the service because it "insults people's moral quality," according to the Beijing Times. Serving food on women's bodies also "spreads commercial activity with poor culture," the paper said, citing the administration's notice.

Hmm. Naked women immoral or objectification of body bad?

Awesome! Laura Bush is on a tour of Middle Eastern countries to inculcate them with her all knowing ideal of Western female liberation. Yes, because when I think emancipation of women from religious patriarchal fundamentalism, I think Laura Bush.

But why is she really doing this, other then being a run of the mill bra burner? A possible explanation in the UK based Telegraph...

Her official speech to the World Economic Forum was about women's rights and the importance of democracy in the Middle East, but the underlying message came through loud and clear.

With her husband's approval ratings in a trough at home and her country's reputation further sullied abroad, Mrs Bush - once seen as a shy librarian - is emerging as a powerful player with a brief to buff up America's image in the Islamic world. Her foray into sensitive Middle East terrain is not without its hazards.

Or maybe who know's...the little coutoured out first lady has a soft spot for all the third world women of the Arab nations violently dislocated by the war. What did they call the colonizer's wife?

The people of Uzbekistan came out on May 21st to speak against the unjust practices of the authoritarian government of President Islam Karimov, incidentally a key American ally. The protest also demanded the release of an Islamic rebel leader who sought to fight for the people's rights and questioned the authoritarian rule. Many women were involved in this protest. You can read about that here.

Prior to this, there had been a mass protest led mostly by women in nearby Andijon, demanding better jobs, homes, and a decrease in gas prices. Many claimed that the dwindling economy had made their lives unbearable. The reaction by the government was extreme. This happened on May 13. Radio Free Europe reports...

"Nobody [from the authorities] came [to speak to demonstrators]. There was [only] the prosecutor of Andijon and a representative of the SNB [National Security Service] who spoke to us. [Then] they started shooting at the unarmed women who were sitting around the square."

A camp was set up to provide shelter for the more than 500 who safely made it across the border to Kyrgyzstan. There they were provided blankets, food, and electricity. Around 20 people were hospitalized with injuries they sustained in the violence.

The government is denying the claim that approximately 700 protestors were killed in the open fire. Does anyone know more about this?

A new financial report found that current divorce settlements are damaging the retirement prospects of many women.

According to the BBC, only 1% of divorces involve a pension-sharing order (where a private or workplace pension is divided between a divorcing couple). These orders are designed to safeguard women who took time away from the office to raise children or care for family.

Malcolm Cuthbert, director of financial services at Killik, explains that, "After the matrimonial home, pensions are normally the biggest asset in a divorce settlement." Therefore, by overlooking the importance of integrating pensions into the asset-division process of a divorce settlement, many women are ending up *super* short-changed. (sigh).

The AP reports that, Rep. Heather Wilson, the only female veteran in Congress, is heading a fight against the provision in the latest defense bill that limits the role of women in ground combat zones. As Vanessa explained, the new bill attempts to implement a 1994 Pentagon policy that bans female troops from working in units whose primary mission is direct ground combat. Rep. Wilson notes simply that the provision is "both unnecessary and unhelpful." No joke.

Now let's just see who listens. (sigh).

In case you were wondering what the modeling world had done for you lately...

As part of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit settlement for price-fixing in the modeling industry, the Women's Cardiac Care Network received a million dollar grant to provide cardiac education for women. The money will be used to develop a database of women in studies on heart disease.

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of the Center for Cardiac and Pulmonary Health at Beth Israel Medical Center, explains that: "It is very important for women to empower themselves by becoming educated and to know how to prevent the development of heart disease. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer but women are included in only about 25% of the major research studies. We are hoping to develop a huge database of women of all races that can be used to help determine how to treat women best."

I'm not quite sure how this is linked to the price-fixing, but I'll take what I can get...

Bush seems ready to take on Team Red. That's right -- he's going to divide Republicans and veto federal financing of stem cell research. But he better be ready for a fight. Senator Specter already responded that, "I don't like veto threats, and I don't like comments about overriding the veto, but this issue is going to be the focal point of my subcommittee's appropriations bill."

Read all about it.

As an update to our recent post on the World Economic Forum (WEF) report, “Women’s Empowerment: Measuring the Gender Gap”, it looks like Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) got quite pissed that -- while the Nordic countries are at the top of the equality list -- their country was at the very bottom, reports Reuters.

The WEF report reflected gender disparities in almost 60 countries, while focusing on five areas: economic opportunity, economic participation, political empowerment, educational attainment and health and well-being. Along with Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey, Egypt was placed as having the largest gap in equality. While Dr. Sahar Nasr of the NCW didn’t deny that there are serious gender issues in Egypt that need to be addressed, she felt that their improvement is barely acknowledged.

"We're behind on political participation but there's a lot of work that is being done as part of comprehensive political reform. In terms of women's economic participation, Egypt has picked up significantly over the last five to 10 years," she said to IRIN in Cairo.

She also expressed that the labor statistics in the report could be inaccurate, for many women who own small businesses or work through the informal sector.

The compiled statistics do show a significance in equality between the sexes in Egypt, (and every other country, for that matter) and no one can deny the importance of the WEF report. Yet some may say it’s problematic to take a group of very diverse nations and a handful of issue areas, and determine that one is more equal or "better" than another.

Thoughts?

The Psychology of Women Quarterly just released a study showing that mind-body excercise, such as yoga, is associated with greater body satisfaction and less symptoms of eating disorders than the typical aerobic excercise.

"This heightened sensitivity and responsiveness to bodily sensations is associated with less preoccupation of physical appearance, more positive views of the body, and more healthy regulation of food intake," says author Jennifer Daubenmier.

As the number of hours per week of yoga practice increases, there is less self-objectification and greater body satisfaction, while the more hours a woman spends performing aerobic excercise, the more likely she is to have an eating disorder.

Inner peace, here I come!

While a wopping one in every five women don't receive pap smears, 307 New York women who decided to get theirs weren't notified that theirs was abnormal 16 months later, reports Advocate.com. That is some scary, fucked up shit.

New York City Jacobi Medical Center failed to notify 307 women dating back to December 2003 that their paps indicated potentially precancerous or cancerous conditions. A New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation spokesperson says that 30 of the women are considered to be high risk for cervical cancer.

The "mistake" happened when the hospital centralized its notification procedure for pap tests, and one clerical worker was put in charge of contacting all women who had abnormal test results. Yet a number of people above the cleric, including Jacobi executive director Joe Orlando, have been suspended while the HHS conducts an investigation.

The really horrifying part of this is that as of now, only one of the 307 women have been notified of their test results. Not like it's a priority or anything.

Check out this ridiculously sexist article from the Los Angeles Times titled, “Gals Have Innate Need For Pals”. Yes, that’s the actual title. It begins with an intro of sweet-talking:

“Across species and throughout human cultures, females have banded together for protection and mutual support. They have groomed each other, tended each other's young, nursed each other in illness and engaged in the kind of aimless sociability that has generally mystified male anthropologists.”

Can I fucking puke now? I love my female friends and all, but this is going a wee too far. And it goes farther, saying that while women’s friendships is correlated with the gender difference in longevity, the hormone oxytocin causes women to be more dependent on others, and seek companionship more so than men. Sigh.

“Stacy Anderson, a 36-year-old Culver City, Calif., mother of two young children, recognizes oxytocin's effects. That, she says, must be the chemical that delivers that ‘wash of love’ she feels when she sits down to breastfeed her baby. When she and her friend and fellow mother Terese Jungle leave the kids with husbands and take themselves out for an evening, there's a special warmth as well, she says.”

Once again, the sexists of modern science rear their ugly heads. If women do have stronger bonds than men, this makes me think of our previous post on how male intimacy is stigmatized. That seems to offer more concrete answers that this nonsense.

While we know that the new Pope is not the most ideal leader for Catholic women, the number of women in the ministry is at all all-time high, and they are not going away.

Newsday had an editorial by Angela Bonavoglia, author of the book, “Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading The Fight to Change the Church”, who discusses one of the Pope’s biggest challenges. As the Church has a steadily declining shortage of Catholic priests, more than 80 percent of the nearly 30,000 U.S. Catholics in lay paid parish ministry are women. This means that Benedict’s has got to get these ladies happy, and soon.

The fact of the matter is that women who work for the Church have their own issues, like low wages, little job security, sexual discrimination, and sexual exploitation by priests. And apparently, the Church has continuously ignored women’s rights, knowing what the consequences would be. “Parishes are closing by the score, testament to a hierarchy that prefers to see the church shrink rather than allow women in its sacramental ranks.”

So Bonavoglia calls for change from Pope Benedict, not only to erase the blatant gender inequality that exists in the Church, but to save the Church from, well, itself. I’m not Catholic, but knowing what I do about this dude, I wouldn’t hold my breathe.

Working Mother Magazine named eight companies as the best for women of color:

Allstate, American Express, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, General Mills, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, JPMorgan Chase and PriceWaterhouseCoopers were praised for exemplary efforts to train, support and promote minority women as part of a diverse workforce.

"Companies need to specifically address these challenges if they hope to retain these talented women," Working Mother said in an overview citing the benefits of diversity. Companies submit answers to 166 questions on their workforce, hiring practices and advancement opportunities to be considered for the list.

I wonder what the worst companies would be. Any nominations?

New York's City Council and Mayor Bloomberg are set to pass a measure oh-so-cleverly known as the "potty parity" bill, requiring many new buildings to have twice as many bathroom stalls for women as for men.

From the NY Post:

The measure — which will not affect existing places, just new ones or those that are rehabbed — requires bars, movie theaters, concert halls and other establishments that can accommodate up to 150 patrons have at least one men's room stall and two women's room stalls...Under the plan, places catering to between 151 to 300 people must have at least two bathroom stalls for men and at least four for women. Venues of 301-450 must have at least three for men and at least six for women.

Jeez, we get the point!

Private office buildings and restaurants aren't covered by the plan, but new arenas, bars, concert halls, movie theaters, theaters, stadiums, dance halls, convention centers and theaters are included.

Bloomberg officials pointed out that states such as California, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Washington have enacted "restroom equity" laws.

I'm glad they managed to do better than "potty parity." Gross.

As an update to yesterday’s post on women soldiers in combat, a watered-down ban was just passed which will bar women from engaging in direct ground combat, reports MSNBC News.

The House Armed Services Committee approved the narrower restriction after the Army and Democrats said that the original amendment -- which would ban women from combat support and service units-- would close almost 22,000 jobs to women, restrain operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and undermine women’s morale.

The amendment was part of a bill that approved $442 billion in defense programs for the next fiscal year that the committee approved 61-1 late last night.

It’s good to see that Democrats are still objecting, saying that the narrower amendment is confusing, unnecessary, and an insult to the women serving in Iraq. “Women don’t deserve the kind of shabby treatment this committee’s been giving them the last week,” said Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark.

While it is a good thing that the original amendment wasn’t passed, I’m so fucking tired of these “compromises” being made to appease us. It’s appalling that any ban was passed in the first place. In other words, ‘tis a pretty shitty day for U.S. female soldiers.

Check out Echidne's take on this as well.

Why get your lunch from a regular old delivery person? A new Colorado business, Toasty Chicks Delivery, plans to have women in "snug T-shirts" deliver lunches from area restaurants.

Even better: the company was formed in response to hundreds of construction workers coming to Aspen this summer to work on a large ski resort. Delivering lunches to a construction site in a snug shirt? Sounds like loads of fun.

I'm almost less disturbed about the tight tees than I am about the name of the company--what is so toasty about these women? Do they have super-human body heat?

Yes it's true. Texas teens soon may have to get a note from their parents to obtain an abortion. I guess the state's current notification law wasn't enough. They have to REALLY make sure young women can't make choices for themselves. In writing.

The bill is set to go to the state House.

Alysha Cosby, an Alabama high-school student, was banned from participating in her school's graduation last night because she is pregnant.

So she announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway. (I love it!)

Cosby, her mother, and her aunt were then escorted out of the room by police.

Officials from St. Jude Educational Institute in Montgomery, Alabama told Cosby to stop attending the school in March, due to "safety concerns." She completed her courses at home. And even though she met all of the academic requirements and received her diploma, the school refused to recognize her at the ceremony.

The kicker? The father of Cosby's child-- a student at the same high school-- was allowed to graduate with the class.

"I can't believe something like this is happening in 2005. I feel like we have regressed instead of progressed," Cosby's mother told reporters.

Thanks to Patrick for the link.

Reuters reports that a major union in Spain is making a push for sex workers' labor rights.

Jose Maria Fidalgo, general secretary of Workers' Commissions, says that prostitution "is a strong, powerful sector, and one that is growing...In a civilized country, we cannot tolerate a non-regulated sector where hundreds of thousands of people, particularly women and immigrants, are being exploited."

Workers' Commissions, who are also organizing a May 26 conference on sex workers' rights, said that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 prostitutes in Spain, more 90 percent of who are immigrants. The union hopes that organizing this conference will result in legislation.

Unfortunately I can’t imagine the oh-so-puritanical United States ever making a real effort for sex workers labor rights. Shit, here you can lose your job just for fucking your future husband!

For related info, check out The International Union of Sex Workers.

A measure approved today by the Oregon Senate would let women obtain emergency contraception without a prescription.

The bill would allow specially trained pharmacists to offer the "morning after" pill, which is a large dose of birth control hormones that can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

If the measure becomes a law, Oregon would join six other states that allow pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives without the usual doctor's prescription.

Sounds great, but a law won't make a damn bit of difference if pharmacists won't even stock EC, let alone dispense it.

The Boston Globe reports that the House Armed Services Committee is introducing a proposal today "to bar women from mixed-gender military support units operating in Iraq, expressing concern that female soldiers are engaging in direct combat despite US laws keeping them from serving on the front lines."

While the Pentagon argues that the military critically needs female soldiers, conservative groups like Center for Military Readiness (a fave of mine) are backing the proposal saying that mixed gender fighting units cause "dangerous distractions."

Sounds like the apron argument to me.

Philip Gold and Erin Solaro in their Seattle Post-Intelligencer column, Facts about women in combat elude the right, argue that conservatives are turning a blind eye to reality and that feminists are shamefully silent on the issue:

In all the articles, op-eds and interviews that have appeared, from National Review to Fox News and the cumulating output of the think tanks and advocacy groups, three aspects are clear.

Finally, the conservative campaign ignores, indeed contravenes military necessity and the desires of the service.

While I'm not a fan of the column's sentiment on feminists (what do you call us talking about this now?), they bring up perhaps the most important point surrounding women in combat:

But there is an issue at stake here greater than military necessity. The issue is citizenship, and it is the same issue behind gay marriage. Are all citizens subject to the same rights and responsibilities? Are some citizens more equal than others? Shall we treat each other as citizens or as members of groups, some of whom may be excluded from full rights and responsibilities simply because others don't like them?

Any thoughts?

UPDATE: Some more feminists who haven't been "sadly silent": Pandagon, Stone Court, Sisyphus Shrugged and The Sideshow.

I know all those proponents of abstinence-only education bristle at the idea of girls being taught how to put a condom on a penis, but a new study shows that practical sex ed cuts teenage girls' STD rates significantly. Imagine that.

At the start of the study, more than half of the girls said they'd had unprotected sex during the previous 3 months, and 22 percent tested positive for one of the three STDs.

They also reported fewer instances of unprotected sex than girls in either of the other groups, and were less likely to say they'd had multiple sexual partners in the past 3 months.

Can't really say the same for those sodomy-obsessed virginity pledgers, huh?

From the NY Times:

The long-awaited confrontation over judicial nominees began to unfold today, as Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, opened debate on the Senate floor on the nomination of Priscilla R. Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice. The move will set in motion a battle over rules that have enabled Democrats to block Justice Owen and six other nominees from confirmation votes.

And go check out these other fab ladies:

Echidne on the Politics of Women's Health.

Pandagon for an update on Tennessee's spousal rape bill.

Feministe on Orgasm Science. (Turns out the female orgasm could have no evolutionary purpose--it's just for fun!)

CultureCat urges us to Support Research by Eighth Grade Girls. (Seriously, go give them some cash.)

Because who knows when you're going to have to take a break from that math equation to cook something...

From Reuters:

Women teachers at a school in the Indian city of Bhubaneswar have been told to wear aprons so that senior male students do not get distracted by their bodies, Indian newspapers reported Tuesday.

"By wearing an apron, the quality of teaching could improve."

Offensive sexism aside, since when do aprons hide your body? My boobs just look bigger in them.

Today, many Massachusetts gay and lesbian couples are celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary. Since May 17, 2004, Massachusetts has granted marriage licenses to more than 6,000 same-sex couples.

Journalists and activists are using the occassion to issue status reports on gay marriage. A Boston Globe poll released today shows that in Massachusetts support for same-sex marriage has grown since the state legalized it. But the poll also reveals the country is pretty evenly divided when it comes to support for same-sex marriage and gay rights.

Public opinion aside, the legislative gay-marriage backlash has been significant. In May 2004, only 3 states had constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage. But 11 states amended their constitutions during the November elections to ban same-sex marriage. Gay men and lesbians are now denied marriage rights in a total of 18 states - and that number is likely to rise. Texas is part way through approving a gay-marriage ban. Several other states have proposals pending.

The Intelligence Report gets into the details of the gay-marriage backlash with its in-depth coverage of the anti-gay crusade. If you feel like getting riled up, check out the hate speech slideshow, in which pillars of the religious right repeatedly decry the evils of both feminism and homosexuality.

Nice huh?

That's the new ad for Durex condom's new fruit flavored condoms, which will be featured in our fave "lad mags" like Maxim and FHM. Now all you boys out there will be able to know the joy of faking oral with a magazine.

Via Adland and Nerve.

The World Economic Forum has just released a global report on the gender gap showing women in the Nordic countries are "most likely to be paid on a par with men and experience equal job opportunities." Not exactly a shocker, I know.

Also not surprising was that the report specifically criticized the United States for lagging behind. (Though according to Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush, the pay gap isn't a problem anymore. Hallelujah!)

Augusto Lopez-Claros, WEF Chief Economist and author of the report, said that "Gender inequality is one of the most prominent examples of injustice in the world today."

Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland were at the top of the list for narrowing the gap; the United States was ranked 17th.

The Associated Press reports that previously shamed Harvard Pres. Lawrence Summers has committed to “spending $50 million over the next decade on a range of programs -- from mentoring to child care to late-night transport -- aimed at improving the climate for women scientists, many of whom were angered by his remarks that questioned female aptitude for top-level math and science.”

Does $50 million get Summers out of the doghouse? It certainly seems like a step in the right direction to me.

But despite the significant financial pledge, some see Summers actions as coming way too late in the game. Elizabeth Ivey, former president of the University of Hartford and president of the Association for Women in Science said, “Mostly I see it as catching up...Much of what they're talking about has been done at other institutions for 30 or 40 years.”

So are Summers actions a genuine effort or expensive apology? Should we even care?

Cause everyone knows that whores don't make good teachers.

From the Associated Press:

A teacher at a private Christian school in Berrien Springs [Michigan] has been placed on administrative leave for getting pregnant out of wedlock.

Now she's considering legal action.

Via Pandagon.

It looks like Turkey is starting a nationwide campaign to end to honor killings,
the practice where a women is killed by her husband or relative for behavior that is perceived to disdain the respectability and status of her family, reports the New York Times.

In 2004, a report indicated that 43 women in Turkey were victims of honor killings. But human rights activists say the number is far greater, for families will report deaths as suicides or simply fill a missing persons report.

"Women's groups have been active in raising consciousness to prevent honor killings in the past few years but what they needed was a national campaign to support their work," says Nilufer Narli, a sociologist from Kadir Has University in Istanbul. “Panels and conferences reach the elite, but you need television and movies to reach people in the street." The television spots are scheduled to broadcast this week on at least 10 television stations and hundreds of radio stations.

Honor killings are most common in the rural southeast, where Diyarbakir -- the largest city in the area -- doesn’t have any shelters where women can hide from their families. There are a total of fourteen shelters in Turkey.

Yet there has been some recent improvement. A new penal code was ratified in September 2004, eliminating "protection of family honor" as a mitigating circumstance in murder trials, and stricter penalties have been put forth for honor killing convictions. Parliament also just passed a law that calls for the building of a women's shelter in every large municipality in the country.

Yet some say this is not making significant changes. While the family honor provision has been removed, the commission that made the legal changes left a loophole in the law, protecting "unjust provocation" as a defense that could be called forth in honor killing cases. And while shelters may be built, the women’s protection is not guaranteed. Reyhan Yalcindag, deputy director of the Diyarbakir Human Rights Association, says "Cities will be obliged to build more shelters, but it is the responsibility of the central government to ensure their security, and there has been no promise made on that."

From Reuters:

Kuwait's parliament passed a law on Monday granting women the right to vote and run in elections, for the first time in the pro-Western Gulf Arab state.

"We made it. This is history," said prominent activist Roula al-Dashti. "Our target is the parliamentary polls in 2007. I'm starting my campaign from today," she told reporters.

While it's too late for women to vote in the municipal elections next month, this is certainly a great step forward!

The second year of the All-Girls National Chess Championships in Chicago brought together 209 girls from 23 states—not too shabby!

The New York Times covered the event, noting chess’ history of low female participation:

Nine of chess's 950 international grandmasters are female, and there is just one woman, Judit Polgar of Hungary, ranked among the world's top 100 players (she is No. 8). Of the United States Chess Federation's 82,500 members, 8.5 percent are female; among the adults, it is 2.3 percent. At this weekend's tournament, more than half the players were age 10 or younger, and the teenage divisions had to be combined: just 13 girls ages 17 and 18 signed up, fewer than the 15 trophies set aside for each group.

"Girls by the age, let's say, of 11 or 12 are dropping out of chess, because they always compete against boys," said Michael Khodakovsky, president of the Kasparov Chess Foundation, the tournament's sponsor. "We have women who run companies, we have women who serve in the Army, so it's not impossible for them to play chess on the same level with men. The only thing is, we need to create an environment for them so that we can truly build up their stamina to compete equally."

Kind of makes me wish I spent a little less time as a kid trying to hone my Candyland skills.

The Texas legislation that prohibits "overtly sexually suggestive" cheerleading and dancing at school events won’t be passed by the Senate this year.

Cause what kind of senator wouldn’t like suggestive cheering?

NPR had a segment this weekend on conscience clause laws and our favorite extremist pharmacists.

A representative of the American Pharmacist Association is featured, and explains their policy: The pharmacist has the right to step away but not step in the way.

Thoughts?

There have been a recent series of rapes in India's two most rapidly modernizing cities, New Delhi and Mumbai. This has been shocking in light of the rapid economic progress India has been making. An article on Pacific News Service (which you all should check out btw, really good commentaries and articles on global issues), discusses the increased vulnerability of women in this new economy as they are outside the homes during "non-traditional" times.

PNS reports...

According to the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development, one woman is raped every hour in the country. One in every five victims has not reached adulthood. Over 90 percent of the cases take place in small towns and villages. A majority of rapes are unreported due to fears of further victimization by the accused, who fear being ostracized by society as well as the insensitive attitudes of investigative agencies. A survey done in the state of Punjab a few years ago found that for every rape reported, 68 go unreported.

Furthermore, the rapes have been extremely violent, including one rape committed by a police officer falsely bringing a women in for interrogation. Finally, something absolutely fucking appalling...

Two examples bear the distorted thinking that permeates Indian society. The Shiv Sena, a political party that acts as self-appointed cultural police, said that incidents such as the rape of the college woman by the police constable happen because modern-generation Indian girls have forgotten how to dress properly. Women wearing short skirts invite rape, was their explanation.

In the second instance, a judge summoned a nurse who was raped, her one eye gouged out, in Shanti Mukund Hospital in the heart of Delhi by a hospital employee. The judge wanted the woman to answer a strange request by the rapist: would she marry him, as now, presumably, nobody else would. The victim was outraged by the court's move.

The fact the court allowed this is INSANE!

There has been a lot of speculation about why the sudden surge of rapes have occurred. Such as expressions of male or community dominance, repressed sexuality or revenge by former lovers. But like the author says, there is a new line of thinking that perhaps it is the juxtaposition of modernization and traditional norms of sexuality.

Deeply disturbing.

M.I.A. has been all over San Francisco this weekend and I didn't get a chance to check her out, but I wanted to post on all the buzz. My friend just sent me an interesting article on Popmatters.com talking about the ways in which this British/Sri Lankan rap superstar to be has been able to engage pop culture and music with a seriously revolutionary edge. Have we truly imbibed MTV with revolution?

The superficiality of M.I.A.'s chosen media -- graffiti stencil art and popular music -- makes politics a risky business. Her approach is the opposite of that of radical artists like Fernando Solanas and Octavio Gettino, who followed Franz Fanon in calling for an art that documented resistance while breaking down the barriers between spectator and artist.

M.I.A.'s art and music, by contrast, are all spectacle.
What's more, the distance that comes from rendering real-world political conflicts in such a stylized, vibrant medium feels very much like the distance afforded by nostalgia, hero-worship, and romanticism. Graffiti -- like hip-hop -- is a superficial, ephemeral medium, with its own set of artistic risks.

I mean, think back, Rage Against the Machine was on MTV as well. But despite these negotiations her intent is clear. She is working to fight all the brainwashing images of Bentley's and bling that have overtaken pop culture. She says simply, "All I want to do is exist as a voice for the other people that you don't get to hear from. That's all."

I am definitely feelin it...I mean I still dream of being the next big South Asian rap sensation...feel me!

Shakespeare's Sister has the best shit ever concerning Hager. Really.

While I should be surprised by the blatant and galling hypocrisy of a man who repeatedly rapes his wife sitting on a panel arguing against a drug that may bring peace of mind to rape victims, I am so jaded by the nonstop parade of conservative fuckheads who want to roll back the rights of women and gays as punishment for their “deviant” behavior (such as having the unmitigated temerity to fuck someone without the express purpose of making a baby), but end up being revealed as perverted in ways of which most people wouldn’t ever begin to dream, that I can barely muster shock, no less outrage.

Love it...

Make sure to check out Salon.com's article, Everything you wanted to know about the "nuclear option for...well, the title says it all!

If you don't want to watch an ad to get into Salon, Truthout has the story available here as well.

And if it pisses you off (like it did me), take some action via NARAL Pro-Choice America.

As an update on the Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Oregon that we're a wee obsessed with, we had to spread the word and let y’all know that the bad-ass ladies have expanded to the big apple, and are ready to rock.

Here’s the New York camp’s mission statement:

The Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls is a non-profit educational arts program serving girls ages 8-18 from a range of socio-economic, racial, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds in New York City. The program will offer girls the chance to learn how to play musical instruments, write songs, perform, and participate in team-building activities in a supportive environment that fosters self-esteem, self-confidence, creativity, tolerance, and collaboration.

The camp session is only a week long during August, but they put on a kick-ass show on the 13th so the girls can strut (or should I say, strum) their stuff.

So if you're in New York and have a little lady at home that might enjoy some rocking out this summer, or would like to volunteer and join the fun, click here.

I know I’ll be in the front row come August.

Amnesty International released a report on Wednesday, urging Gulf Arab states to take some serious steps in improving women’s rights, reports Reuters.

The report asserts that social and legal practices continue to support violence against women, with domestic migrant workers facing particularly harsh abuse in the conservative Muslim religion. It covered Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates and Oman -- members of the oil-happy Gulf Cooperation Council.

There are no clear statistics on abuse of women in Gulf countries, which is a large reason behind the lack of action taken. In response, the report included a number of their own researched cases of abuse and discrimination.

Amnesty was actually not allowed to enter Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative Gulf states. While women run businesses and hold ministerial posts in most Gulf nations, Saudi Arabian women are not allowed to drive or open their own bank accounts.

“Good will intentions remain mere words until translated into action...Governments must not fall short of doing what they can to bring real change in the lives of women who continue to suffer in silence.” says Abdel Salam Sidahmed, a Middle East program director for Amnesty.

In response to yesterday's revelations about W. David Hager's role in keeping emergency contraception from obtaining over-the-counter status, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt urging him to launch an immediate investigation.

Unfortunately, no one seems to be calling for an investigation into the rape accusations.

UPDATE: Hager to Leave FDA Advisory Panel

You must check out Katha Pollitt's latest in The Nation, Virginity or Death. (And not just because it has to do with my favorite subject.)

Pollitt argues that conservative efforts to keep a vaccine for HPV away from women—much like emergency contraception—has to do with nothing more than keeping us chaste. I couldn't agree more.

A snippet:

As they flex their political muscle, right-wing Christians increasingly reveal their condescending view of women as moral children who need to be kept in line sexually by fear. That's why antichoicers will never answer the call of prochoicers to join them in reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available: They want it to be less available. Their real interest goes way beyond protecting fetuses--it's in keeping sex tied to reproduction to keep women in their place. If preventing abortion was what they cared about, they'd be giving birth control and emergency contraception away on street corners instead of supporting pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions and hospitals that don't tell rape victims about the existence of EC...How sexist is denial of Plan B? Antichoicers may pooh-pooh the effectiveness of condoms, but they aren't calling to restrict their sale in order to keep boys chaste.

The Washington Post released some depressing facts drawn from a new report yesterday on the tiny-ass percentage of women and people of color serving on corporate boards.

Despite the fact that the numbers are growing, it's going pretty damn slow and there's quite a bit to go, reports Catalyst, a New York organization. Just a few uncovered and infuriating facts:

- Women and minorities together account for less than one third of directors on more than 60 percent of the Fortune 100 companies examined.

- Minorities held 15 percent of director positions.

You do the math. Sigh.

From the Associated Press:

A mother of six claims a pharmacist refused to fill her prescription for an emergency contraceptive and berated her as a baby-killer, leaving her so traumatized she didn't seek out another pharmacist and ended up having an abortion.

Well done, asshole.

The students at Montana’s Bozeman High School’s got the shock of their lives when speaker Tina Marie Holewinski came to speak—it turns out that condoms cause cancer and STIs can be transmitted through skin contact!

Holewinski, a speaker for organization True Lies (nice name), also told students that birth control pills are only 20 percent effective, and cause cervical cancer and sterility. And of course she mentioned that if they stopped screwing, they could be virgins again. By the way, she was paid $1500 for relaying these gems.

What’s truly terrifying is that this talk completely contradicts the school’s existing comprehensive sex ed program. So even if your kid is lucky enough to go to a school where misinformation-laden abstinence only education isn’t taught, you still have to worry about crazy-ass speakers.

Thanks to Allyson for the story.

The government-created website for parents, 4parents.gov has taken a lot of shit because of its inaccurate information on sex and straight up bias against gay youth. (It should take even more shit for its cheesy/scary banner. What’s with eyebrow guy on the far right?)

Luckily, it seems the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has taken some of those criticisms seriously. After 145 organizations—including the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and SIECUS—sent a letter to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt voicing their concerns, the HHS decided to revise some of the site's language:

…the term “alternative lifestyle” was replaced with “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lifestyle,” which addressed the concern that the Bush administration was labeling sexual orientation as choice.

In addition, the portion telling parents of gay children to consider seeing a family therapist who shares their values was changed to say “counselors and other health professionals may be helpful to both teens and parents when addressing difficult issues.”

While this is a good start, advocates from the concerned organizations are quick to point out that the changes are minimal.

“We're thankful for the change,” said SIECUS Vice President for Public Policy Bill Smith, “But it's just a Band-Aid.”

Italy's Supreme Court ruled that a man who kept his impotence a secret until after his wedding has to pay damages to his (now ex-) wife because she was denied her "right to sexuality" and ability to have a family.

Now, I understand wanting to get the marriage annulled immediately and being pissed off about the lying, but is getting cash really necessary? Who knows, maybe she's on to something. If I had a dollar every time a guy couldn't perform...

W. David Hager has been outed today not only as the writer of a “minority report” that influenced the FDA’s decision not to give emergency contraception over-the-counter-status, but also as an abusive rapist. Yeah, I’m serious.

Hager, the controversial doctor who Bush appointed to the FDA’s Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs last year, was always known to be a religious misogynist. As a doctor he was known to give demeaning 'ethical lectures' before prescribing birth control to unmarried women and wrote a book recommending Scripture readings to treat PMS. (So you can imagine how pleased us pro-choicers were with his appointment to the advisory committee.)

The Nation’s recent article on Hager, Dr. Hager’s Family Values, reveals offenses much worse than diatribes on the bible and menstruation.

Linda Carruth Davis [Hager’s former wife of thirty-two years]...alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."

Read the whole article; it details emotional, financial and sexual abuse that Hager subjected his wife to for years. It’s completely appalling.

In less horrifying (but still disturbing) news on Hager, both The Nation and The Washington Post report on the doctor/rapist’s role in keeping emergency contraception from going over-the-counter:

In his sermon at Asbury College last fall, Hager proudly recounted his role in the Plan B decision. "After two days of hearings," he said, "the committees voted to approve this over-the-counter sale by 23 to 4. I was asked to write a minority opinion that was sent to the commissioner of the FDA.... Now the opinion I wrote was not from an evangelical Christian perspective.... But I argued it from a scientific perspective, and God took that information, and He used it through this minority report to influence the decision."

I'm speechless.

Pandagon and Echidne also have the story.

According to the Associated Press, language added to a defense bill Wednesday, sponsored by Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's military personnel subcommittee, would prohibit women from serving in combat support and combat service support units.

Opponents contend "that if McHugh's amendment became law, it would over time remove women from all but a few select functions like piloting helicopters and medical work," while McHugh insists that "very few women would be affected by the change."

They haven't voted on this amendment yet. And I know so little about the way the armed forces work. I'd really appreciate y'all writing in and letting me know how you feel or what you know. To me, on the face of things, this seems like an unbelievably sexist and terrible policy. Especially considering that the Armed Services chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., was quoted as saying, "The American people have never wanted to have women in combat and this reaffirms that policy."

Huh?????

Let us know what you think.

And for more in depth info, check these:

House Armed Services Committee: http://www.house.gov/hasc/

Defense Department: http://www.defense.gov

The Chicago Tribune reports that many sexual assault survivors are not getting emergency contraception. Terrific.

Only 60 percent of 156 hospitals surveyed "always" provide emergency contraception to women who want to terminate possible pregnancies after a sexual assault, the study found. Another 31 percent of hospitals "sometimes" supply the contraception.

"Some of the time isn't good enough for a woman who wants to protect herself after this profound trauma," said [Dr. Ashleta] Patel, who presented her findings in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. "We can do better."

I would fucking say so!

The state had recently made progress on emergency contraception availability when Governor Rod Blagojevich filed an emergency ruling that Illinois pharmacies “must accept and fill prescriptions for contraceptives without delay,” in response to a number of asshole pharmacists.

We all know that, in many states, your pharmacist can refuse to fill your contraception prescription on "moral grounds." But what if your pharmacist doesn't even keep EC in stock?

A report released today by Missouri NARAL shows pharmacists are avoiding the conscience clause debate by simply not stocking emergency contraception. And it's not only Wal-Mart they're talking about.

The results of NARAL's statewide survey of 920 pharmacies show:
* Almost 70% of pharmacies do not stock EC
* 38% of pharmacies do not stock EC and would not order the product if it is requested by a customer
* 90% of rural pharmacies do not stock EC
* Only 28% of those rural pharmacies reported they would order EC if it is requested by a customer
* Only 9% of hospital/hospital-affiliated pharmacies reported stocking EC.

Sure, pro-contraception governors like Blagojevich and Napolitano are standing up against pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraception. But we also need to hold pharmacies accountable for keeping EC in stock.

Should we really be surprised about the sexist age discrimination in Virgin's hiring practices? After all, this is the same company that thought a urinal shaped like a woman's mouth was a real hoot.

Virgin Blue in Australia is being accused of discriminating against flight attendants by using "selection criteria based only on looks and age," while ignoring experience:

Keely Bil, 43, said she received no reply [for weeks] from the airline after stating her real date of birth on an application form...

"I tried it, and got a response within an hour."

According to HealthDay News, nearly one in five women doesn't get a Pap smear. I know speculums aren't exactly fun, but come on now ladies!

The survey, published in the most recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, says that the main reasons women don't get tested is that they "simply hadn't thought of it" and their doctor hadn't brought it up. Yikes.

Considering more than 10,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year, getting a Pap smear needs to be a health priority. And since (unfortunately) women can't always depend on their doctors to understand how much of women's health care is based on preventative measures, we need to take matters into our own hands. And vaginas.

According to a recent survey, about 93 percent of physicians—including 87.5 percent of Catholic physicians—said that they would prescribe birth control to any adult patient. (Let's leave the 'adult' problem alone for now.)

90 percent of the Catholic doctors in the study also said they supported the distribution of condoms in developing countries struggling with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Dr. Albert Thomas, a Catholic OB/GYN and director of family planning at Mount Sinai Medical Center said, "There is a moral obligation for all physicians to be informed about all of the different methods of contraception and to refer patients away in cases of personal bias." Word.

Now if only we could do something about those pharmacists...

A small town in Northeast Brazil usually known for its conservative religious views declares Orgasm Day a holiday. The Mayor of town Felipe Santolia endorsed the May 9 holiday, which he said was intended to improve relationships between married couples.

SF gate reports...

"We're celebrating orgasm in all its senses. There's even a panel discussion on premature ejaculation. But from what I've seen, women have more trouble achieving orgasm than men, especially in marriage," Santolia said by telephone from Esperantina, 1,300 miles north of Rio de Janeiro.

"I've seen scientific studies that show when a woman is unloved, when her husband can bring her to orgasm, it affects all aspects of her life, her relationships with her children, at home, with the city and at work," Santolia said.

Like whoa!

Thanks for the article Stephanie.

The Village Voice has a really great piece on the Project Respect (or the Brooklyn John School), a "scared straight" kind of program that first-time offenders arrested for solicitation of prostitution.

The choice is stark in Brooklyn: Show up for the class, pay the $250 tuition, stay out of trouble for six months, and charges are dismissed. Or go to court and risk up to 90 days in jail. But most men, perhaps telling their wives and girlfriends they have traffic school, show up at the district attorney's office on Jay Street to get scared straight for five hours.

One problem I have is that police crackdowns focus on street prostitution, a small percentage of the sex work going on in New York. As the article points out, while only 2 program graduates have been rearrested since the school's inception in 2002, experts believe that johns who get caught "just turn to escort services or Internet hookups." So the program targets a small, specific group of people. (However, I was happy to see that Project Respect uses a video about underage prostitutes, a growing problem in New York--up to 30 percent of street prostitutes are under the age of 18.)

In addition to Project Respect's failings in terms of making these men change, I'm torn about this focus on the "john." Part of me is glad to see them faced with the reality of their actions, and that they are being shamed. But sex workers going to jail while their clients go to school seems more than a little unfair.

Similar john school programs exist in Washington, D.C.; West Palm Beach, Florida; Pittsburgh; Buffalo, NY; and San Francisco, whose program also focuses on helping sex workers. Remember them?

Cause raping your wife isn't as bad as raping a stranger, obviously.

Tennessee Guerilla Women explain this disgraceful law:

A bill that would remove the spousal exemption from the state's rape law is before the TN legislature - for the tenth year in a row. It's not illegal for a man to rape his wife in this state unless he "uses a weapon, causes her serious bodily injury, or they are separated or divorcing."

According to Kathy Walsh, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Tennessee is one of 15 states that treat spousal rape as less of a crime than other rapes.

Besides the law's obvious problem of qualifying what "kind" of rape warrants punishment, it also lends credence to the old (or so we thought) notion that wives are property. Awesome. I can't wait to get married.

Via Pandagon.

A Seattle police officer used a Taser on a woman who was eight months pregnant in an argument over a speeding ticket. That sounds worth it.

By the way, a police Taser delivers 50,000 volts.

Via Drudge.

From The Boston Globe:

Four months after the president of Harvard University triggered a debate on whether women had the right stuff to make it in science, the National Academy of Science has an answer: Yes. The prestigious science organization this year chose a record number of women among the 72 scientists invited to join the academy because of the quality of their research.

So there.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is set to sign the Woman's Right to Know Act today, a bill requiring a 24 hour waiting period to obtain an abortion. Not exactly surprising of course--Gov. Perdue is a known opponent of choice, and Georgia's record isn't exactly stellar on the issue.

The misleading name supposedly has to do with women learning about the "medical risks of terminating a pregnancy." I wonder if the Act mandates telling women about the medical risks of pregnancy. Doubt it.

In addition to the infuriating pro-woman rhetoric of the bill, the waiting period nonsense (naturally) doesn't take into account women who can't afford to take multiple days off from work, or those in rural areas who have to travel long distances to health clinics. And do anti-choice legislators really think that women haven't thought this through enough? Grrr.

The Boston Globe and The New York Times both chose an odd way to celebrate Mother’s Day this year--they published pieces on fathers and father’s rights. Nice.

The Fathers' Crusade in the NY Times profiles the UK group Fathers 4 Justice and several of its members. Unfortunately the article completely glosses over the misogynist foundation of the organization. And while author Susan Dominus mentions the group’s threatening activist techniques, the article as a whole glorifies the organization. Just check out this description of Jason Hatch, a Fathers 4 Justice activist who likes donning a Batman costume:

A cluster of boys in their school blazers waved wildly up to the men. Hatch put on his mask and twirled his cape. Six or seven teenage girls, also waving wildly, started screaming, Beatles-fan style, and blowing Hatch kisses. He blew a few back.

While The Daddy Dilemma in The Boston Globe isn’t quite as controversial, it still managed to push some of my buttons:

Feminists are clearly right in observing that the American workplace is still rife with double standards. But men face their own double standards. If my wife chooses to stay home with our daughter, for example, she’s fulfilling her calling as a mother; if I "choose" to, I’m being unmanly, or just rationalizing my unemployment.

I don't disagree that men face double standards in parenting, but I think this example is weak. It seems to me that whenever a man takes more than a fleeting interest in his kid, he’s seen as father of the year. Stay-at-home moms are seen as doing their motherly “duty,” while dads who do the same are seen as going above and beyond as fathers.

For more information on father’s rights, check out the very knowledgeable Trish Wilson.

Related: Amanda’s series on men’s rights at Pandagon.

UPDATE: Trish Wilson reveals that author Susan Dominus disregarded information that shows the darker side of Fathers 4 Justice.

The Boston Globe has a short interview with Barbara Ehrenreich—A woman’s place.

Ehrenreich, who is speaking at the Radcliffe Institute tomorrow, goes into capitalism, crazy-ass pharmacists and the trumping of religion over science. But it was this one snippet that stood out for me:

Oh, I think there’s just been enormous changes for the good, on the whole. A kind of feminist consciousness has permeated a lot of our culture and is not any more regarded as the property of "feminism." Women who aren’t self-proclaimed or self-identified feminists will still be opposed to unequal pay for unequal work, or will stand up against perceived insults to women.

But is this a good thing? Is having a “feminist consciousness” enough, or do women need to identify as feminists? Frankly, I find it infuriating when women who have feminist values steer clear of the f-word. I’ve had quite enough of the “I’m not a feminist, but…” disclaimers. You’re a feminist. Deal with it.

Any thoughts?

A man flashing high school girls in a Queens subway station was caught when one of the girls took his picture with her cell phone. She then ran to a nearby cop with the extremely incriminating evidence. Nice!

For some more masturbation/flashing fun: Some ideas on how to handle a gross train situation from craigslist in Boston.

Get over it. Seriously.

As I’ve said before, I don’t know that sex segregated cars are the answer. But it seems to me that men are the last people we should be worried about in this situation.

Growing up in NY, gross train experiences are all-too common. My fave was when a guy started masturbating on the other end of the train platform and proceeded to run towards me, dick out. Lovely.

Anyone want to share their street/train harassment stories?

...where abstinence-only education reigns supreme, some high school girls are taking sex-ed matters into their own hands.

Case in point: Two new films, "Toothpaste" and "The Education of Shelby Knox."

"Toothpaste" (a reference to teen slang for condoms) is a 16-minute educational film promoting condom use, produced by four teenage girls from south Texas in response to high teen pregnancy rates at their school. It features two teen girls' decisions on whether to have sex with their boyfriends. One decides to wait. The other has unprotected sex. The film is available to Texas public schools, and has been ordered by schools around the country.

"The Education of Shelby Knox" is a documentary that follows a Texas teenager's transformation from vowing "sexual purity" to realizing that many of her classmates are sexually active. Knox finds her calling: promoting comprehensive sex education in the “abstinence-only” Lubbock public schools. The filmmakers follow Knox as she takes on the town’s officials and religious leaders, challenging them from the bedrock of her own Christian beliefs.

Planned Parenthood of New York is screening "The Education of Shelby Knox" in NYC tonight. It's also airing on PBS on June 21.

"Toothpaste" will be shown at various film festivals and on Showtime.

With a crazy attorney general and anti-choice legislation every where you turn, Kansas hasn't exactly been a bastion of choice and progressiveness lately. But there's hope yet...

Despite an anti-abortion governor and overwhelming majorities opposed to abortion in both the House and Senate, two of Right to Life's pet bills are going nowhere this legislative session, and a third is being significantly watered down.

Good stuff. A small bump in the road, I know. But it's something.

The recent passage of the "nikhanama" by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has found little support by Muslim women's groups in India. Mainly, the law consolidates a man's ability to "taliq," which is the abililty to repeat the word taliq three times to divorce his wife.

The India Times reports...

Tearing up copies of the ‘nikahnama’ to mark their protest, Muskan Sheikh of Hukku-ke Niswah, a Muslim organisation of Mumbai said the it contained certain clauses that were against women and reflected a discriminatory attitude towards the female members of the community.

"The nikahnama was in the offing for a long time and we were hopeful that it would protect the rights of women. Unfortunately, the document is not only a retrograde step undermining the rights of Muslim women but also proposes further ghettoisation and isolation of the community," said Hasina Khan of Aawaz-e-Niswaan.

Raising strong objections to the omission of secular options like the judicial system, naari adalats, nyaya panchyats, lok adalats, when addressing marital disputes, Sujata of the Forum Against Oppression of Women, said that the ‘nikahnama’ promoted the concept of ‘Darul Qaza’, ‘Sharaiah Panchayat’ or the religious scholars to act as arbitrators.

"The entire secular judicial delivery system is left out", Noorjehan said. Moreover, the ‘nikahnama’ has no provision whereby a woman had the right to divorce a husband. Rather than banning the practice of the ‘triple talaq’ it glosses over it with a a statement that the practice of divorce in one sitting be discouraged, she added.

Thirty-seven women got together in Harlem yesterday to rebuild a house through Habitat for Humanity bringing awareness to wet-saw safety and women helping women.

In the New York Times...

"We're not here to show we're better than men," Gina Buffone, Habitat's project manager for the Harlem building, said, addressing the women, most of them volunteers, before work started. "We're here to show we can build houses."

The old red-brick building has been gutted, and on most days the work there is done primarily by men. Habitat sponsored the event yesterday as part of its expanding "Women Build" program, which connects female workers to female future tenants, while encouraging women to consider carpentry as a career.

The house is being renovated for a single mother with two kids. One of the motivations for the project is to preserve low-income housing in the community. Also, apparantly the number of female carpenters is growing and the hope is that through this project more women will realize that it is an occupation available to them.

Today is a good day (even though we should think about this everyday!) to recognize the status of mother's around the world and the connection between the conditions that mother's live within and how we can make a better world for mother's to come. Mainly, by encouraging girls to get an education before they have children. An editorial in the Star Post...
What's the best thing that can happen to any undernourished, uneducated, desperately poor child in a struggling neighborhood or developing country?

There is a direct, undeniable correlation between the welfare of moms and their children, and the success of nations. The index shows that where mothers survive and thrive, so do their kids and their country.

Happy Mother's Day!

Medical News Today reports...

Brazilian officials last week said that the country has refused $40 million in US. AIDS grants because of a Bush administration requirement that HIV/AIDS organizations seeking funding to provide services in other countries must pledge to oppose commercial sex work.

Furthermore, the Bush administration is demanding that groups working with HIV/AIDs that have nothing to do with sex work, must sign a pledge saying it is wrong. Also, the Bush administration is threatening to stop funding if the organization doesn't agree with Bush's social agenda on drug use and sexual abstinence.

Finally...
Brazilian officials last week wrote to USAID to explain its decision to refuse the remainder of a $48 million HIV/AIDS grant that began in 2003 and was scheduled to run through 2008. According to some HIV/AIDS advocates, Brazil has been a "model" for combating HIV/AIDS with its "accepting, open" policies toward commercial sex workers, injection drug users, men who have sex with men and other "high-risk" groups.

But I thought the US was more open-minded/liberal then the rest of the world? WTF...this is embarrassing. And why do we care so much about the morality of "other" nations? If we were really funding just to help out, then we would just fund, not put a bunch of morality codified stipulations into our efforts. What exactly is our (US) intent in our development/aid efforts? There are a million articles on this if you are interested.

The oh-so-progresssive evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family (you know, the ones who thinks Sponge Bob is gay and dangerous) has come out with a study that says having sex before you’re 18 makes you more likely to be poor and divorced. Wow.

The researchers analyzed data on 3,750 men and 3,620 women, approximately half of whom reported being virgins at age 18 and half reported having had intercourse by that age. The study found that 20 years after the initial data collection men and women who had reported being virgins at age 18 were about 50% less likely to be divorced, had completed one additional year of formal education and had annual incomes about 20% higher than people who were not virgins at age 18.

The study also found that women who were virgins at age 18 were half as likely to receive government assistance and more likely to have a positive financial net worth than women who reported having had sex by age 18. "It is very much as we suspected: that adolescent virginity has a significant impact on well-being in middle adulthood," Finger said, adding that the benefits were "inherent to remaining abstinent," not just to avoiding pregnancy (Hoffmann, New York Post, 5/5).

I guess it never occurred to the Focus folks that the people who wait to have sex also don’t get divorced because both decisions are affected by their religions. Not their hymens.

And I really like that jab about women and welfare. Nice.

I suppose I have to look forward to a life of poverty-stricken spinsterhood. And that Masters degree I have must be a mistake of some sort. Everyone knows that sluts can’t read.

Check out this article by The Southern that examines the statistics and trends of an urgent matter that apparently affects all woman: shoes.

That’s right. The article begins: “Some say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. But have a look in the average woman’s closet. Shoes appear to be the love of her life.” Well, no duh! It’s definitely what makes me get up every morning.

Specifically, the article focuses on the high heel and its growing popularity. Regina Haymes, market director at Marie Claire, offered her expertise. “A lot of women have major love affairs with shoes...Whether you feel fat or skinny, shoes are the one thing you can always fit on your feet for an instant perk.” That’s nice.

Cawley, a heel wearer, tells of her experience with the shoe. She wore her heels everywhere on her vacation in Spain, including pebbled roads and uneven pavement. "They are feminine and make you more aware of posture and your walk.” Um, are we in the Victorian era? And in case you didn’t notice, pebbled roads aren’t an ideal catwalk.

I’ll admit that I do love shoes, just as much as I love spaghetti. So does that make it necessary to do a study on it? In other words, is this article a harmless look at a popular trend or an obvious way of making women look and feel shallow and materialistic?

Finally, something that both sides of the abortion debate can agree on: This bill is a waste of time.

The Maine state legislature debated a bill yesterday that would
outlaw abortions of "homosexual fetuses."

The legislation seeks to "protect unborn babies from being aborted based on their sexual orientation, specifically if they are found to carry an as-yet undiscovered 'gay gene.'"

Rep. Brian Duprey, the bill's sponsor, opposes gay rights but titled the bill "An Act to Protect Homosexuals from Discrimination." He got the idea for the legislation from listening to Rush Limbaugh.

During his testimony, Duprey told the committee he thought his bill was "totally unnecessary" because he believed homosexuality was not genetic, but a chosen lifestyle.

This bill is Duprey's way of saying he thinks homosexuality is so abhorrent that even the most God-fearing parent would choose abortion if told their child might be gay. It's also a way to make progressive legislators choose between supporting abortion rights and supporting gay rights.

"This bill will do nothing to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination and trivializes the very real consequences of discrimination based on sexual orientation," said Kimm Collins, a board member of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Maine.

On the up side, Maine recently passed a law that really prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.

With Mother’s Day right around the corner, it’s nice to see some mama activists hitting the streets with their babies hitting the teets. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

Yesterday, dozens of moms and their babes held a “nurse-in” by the U.S. Capitol to support a legislation that will protect women who want to breast-feed or pump milk for their babies at the workplace, reports Reuters.

New York Dem Rep. Carolyn Maloney is the legislation’s chief sponsor, which would expand the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, assuring that a woman can’t be fired for pumping or nursing their baby on work breaks.

Maloney has been quite the hero for breast-feeding mothers. While she couldn’t get this legislation passed in the previous Congress, she has been successful with getting two other bills passed. One protects women from being harassed on federal property including museums and national parks, and the other encourages breast-feeding under a federal nutrition program for poor women.

Hopefully she will prevail in this project. We got your back, Maloney!

What the fuck?

From the Associated Press:

To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

"Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he's been celibate for five years," said Leland Traiman, director of a clinic in Alameda, California, that seeks gay sperm donors.

Thanks to Myra for the link.

The latest edition of the groundbreaking book on women’s health, Our Bodies, Ourselves, has been touted as targeting a new generation of readers while moving away from its “debut as an angry feminist booklet.”

Nothing like those angry feminists.

While this Seattle Times review claims that the authors of Our Bodies are downplaying the book’s feminist beginnings, the still-controversial content makes me think otherwise.

Chapter 1, titled, "Body Image," explores — and deplores — the way society defines women by their looks. It links the trend of Brazilian bikini waxing (which removes all but a wisp of pubic hair from the genital area) to the growing fetish to make women's private parts appear younger and more appealing.

The book deals unflinchingly, and some might say stridently, with issues such as abortion and domestic violence. It contains explicit photos of a victim whose boyfriend drove over her in his truck and the dead body of a woman who'd had an illegal abortion in the days before Roe v. Wade.

Still seems pretty feminist to me!

UPDATE: Bitch. Ph.D. and ms. musings point to the book's companion website.

Alternet has a great article on the military’s latest recruiting focus: young women of color.

Author Vanessa Huang points out that women of color already make up almost half of the young women in active duty, despite the overall decrease of new female recruits. Huang also notes that counter-recruitment activism rarely focuses on women.

Thankfully there are younger women out there trying to change that trend, like Walidah Imarisha. Imarisha, the editor of AWOL and a board member of the Central Committee on Conscientious Objectors, says that military recruiters will increasingly target young women of color in the coming months, a large reason why she’s become involved in counter-recruitment activities: “In addition to all the promises they make to everyone, recruiters play off young women’s fears of being trapped in the desperate situations that a lot of poor women of color are [often] left in.”

In addition, it seems that military recruitment strategies have appropriated feminist messages. Great. Aimee Allison, a 35 year-old who joined the military when she was 17, says that recruiters often appeal to younger women’s desires to be independent and successful: “But when it comes to military service, having the same options as men means being the torturer, being the purveyor of violence, the person who victimizes other women and families in other countries…We who believe that women shouldn't be limited on the basis of gender should be openly questioning whether we should be going down the same path as men in the military.”

Any thoughts?

Also check out INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, which just launched a national counter-recruitment campaign.

The recent failure to pass the Women's Reservation Bill by the Indian Congress has brought women together to protest. They set up a mock Parliment where they publicly pass the bill, in an attempt to raise awareness about the necessity for the bill to be passed.

The Hindu reports...
Women from all over the country gathered in the capital today to demand that the UPA Government fulfill the promise made in its Common Minimum Programme (CMP) to pass the 33 per cent Reservation Bill.

After the mock Parliament, the hundreds of women led by AIDWA President Subhashini Ali, took out a march towards Parliament.

What's up feminist activism in the 3rd?!

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, in 2002 an Irish woman was pregnant with twins -- one fetus stopped developing entirely, and the other developed a fatal chromosomal abnormality. She was forced to travel alone to Britain to have an abortion because, under Irish law, abortion is illegal except to save a woman’s life and providers are prohibited from fully discussing abortion with their patients or making full referrals for legal abortion services outside the country.

Now, this woman is taking on her country's abortion law, which goes against international human rights standards, the trend of almost all European countries, and of most countries in the world. She's bringing a suit in the European Court of Human Rights. Hard core!

We'll keep you updated on this story, as a change in Irish abortion law would be a huge development.

For more on this story, click here.

Sweet.

Thousands of working mothers will be able to claim higher maternity pay after a European court ruled that women are entitled to pay rises awarded during their maternity leave.

The judgment effectively closes a loophole in the Equal Pay Act that requires a woman claiming unfair treatment at work because of her pregnancy to show that a man in the same situation would have been treated differently — an impossibility as men do not get pregnant.

That's quite a loophole! Anyone here the U.S. ever experience pregnancy-related discrimination? Let's hear it...

A California winery has just released White Lie Early Season chardonnay; created with women in mind, it has about 4 percent less alcohol compared to other wines:

An all-woman research and development team worked on the wine, which is scheduled to start selling in major national markets in May for less than $10 a bottle…

"There were a bunch of us sitting around saying, You know what? We don't need all that alcohol," said Tracey Mason, director of global innovation for Beringer Blass. "We really wanted to create a wine for everyday consumption that tasted great."

Outside of the fact that women are affected physically more by alcohol, I’m not really sure why a “lighter” wine would appeal to women specifically. Personally, I like a full flavored wine. Damn it. Now I’m thirsty.

What is it about cheerleading that gets guys in such a tizzy? The short skirts? The pompons?

For Rep. Al Edwards (D-TX) it’s the gyrations. Oh, the gyrations. Edwards has actually gotten his Footloose-like bill—which restricts “overtly sexually suggestive” cheerleading—to pass the Texas House:

Edwards argued bawdy performances are a distraction for students resulting in pregnancies, dropouts and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Ribald performances are not defined in the bill. "Any adult that's been involved with sex in their lives, they know it when they see it," he said.

Edwards’ ability to be “involved with” and recognize sex most likely distinguishes him in the Texas legislature, but it’s his belief that dancing will somehow inspire a rash of pregnancies that really makes him special.

In such troubled times, it’s nice to know that our lawmakers are focusing on what really matters: whorish dance moves.

The AP reports that Oregon (just barely) passed a bill yesterday requiring that parents be notified before their child has an abortion. Cause teens don't have rights, of course.

While the bill does include an "opt-out" for teens with abusive parents, check out the hoops they have go through to qualify:

Teens who did not want to notify their parents of the abortion would have the option of having a confidential hearing with a lawyer hired by the state Department of Human Services, who would then determine whether the teen should be exempt from notification rules. Teens could be exempt if girl is determined to be "mature and capable of giving informed consent," or if it was in her best interest not to tell the parents, as in cases of abuse.

I'm sorry, but could they make this any harder on young women? If abused teens have to disclose their abuse to the state, how likely are they going to be to seek a legal, safe abortion? Yeah, I know it's confidential, but once a teen hears "state department," it's all over.

Not exactly shocking news, I know. Reuters reports that when Kuwaitis vote in local elections next moth, women will not be included because of a delayed voting rights bill in parliament:

In 1999, a bill to allow women to vote in parliamentary polls was narrowly defeated by conservative Islamist and tribal MPs who wield much influence in the current house.

"There is a group that is unhappy about our entry into parliament and they are playing with an issue ... pending for 40 years," Sheikha al-Nisf, who heads a leading women's society, told Reuters.
On Tuesday, parliament delayed voting for two weeks on the bill to grant women the right to vote or run in municipal polls after it failed to pass on Monday, when many Islamist and conservative MPs abstained.

Until last year—when Saudi Arabia joined the club—Kuwait was the only country where women are explicitly denied the right to vote.

Yes, that's really the name. Now I'm all for celebrating beauty at any size, but the fact that this contest aims to "raise awareness and money for Thailand's dwindling elephant population" makes me a bit wary.

This year's winner, Tarnrarin Chansawang: "I want to show people that just because I'm fat doesn't mean I'm any less beautiful or talented." Word.

Any thoughts? Is the contest a gimmicky exploitation or a lighthearted way to show all women are beautiful?

One of our readers brought this to my attention. The New York Times reports...

She's the geisha for the comic book generation: saucer-shaped eyes, voluminous black hair, hands demurely clasped in front of the starched white apron of her maid's uniform. For years, Japanese readers of manga, or comic books, and watchers of anime, or adult cartoons, have repeatedly told poll-takers that their No. 1 fantasy figure was the French maid.

Now this fixture of modern Japan's rich world of imagination from anime, manga and video games has become real. In Tokyo, on the edges of the Akihabara neighborhood, known as Electric Town for its concentration of electronics stores, real-life versions of these Japanese-styled French maids have stepped off the screens of computer games and into a new archipelago of cafes and restaurants.

Woah dude, fantasy and reality come closer and closer together...but not necessarily in a Lord of the Rings type of way.

Thanks Sarah and Melissa Lo!

Yorkie candy bar is “not for girls.”

Taking a lesson from the no-girls-allowed sentiment so well known from tree houses and boardrooms everywhere, this British chocolate bar is being marketed as the alpha-male of candy:

The campaign keeps to the male image, with messages such as "Don't feed the birds", "Not available in pink", and "King size not queen size".

“We're not saying Yorkie is "not for girls" to be offensive but to let the British male know that we are for him alone.”

Well, I guess we’ll always have Luna.

Via Nerve.

From the AP:

A judge has ruled that a 13-year-old girl at the center of an abortion fight with the state may terminate her pregnancy.

"He ruled that she is competent, that she has made a decision and that she has a right to act on that decision," said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the girl.

Kudos to Judge Alvarez for recognizing that blocking choice is no way to help young women. Finally.

UPDATE: Feministe reports that there has already been an appeal.

The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan is attempting to amend the constitution in an attempt to re-emphasize values of family and community. You know both of which are reliant on the inferior positioning of women.

Ms. Magazine Feminist News Brief reports...
Women’s rights advocates are worried that the emphasis on family could undo the advances Japanese women have made including attaining equal pay standards in many fields and entering senior level positions within the government and private sector.

A leading Japanese women’s rights activist, Hisako Motoyama, said, “There is a backlash against feminism, and the ruling party is campaigning against gender and sex education. They are saying feminism is breaking down our social foundation. They are against gender equality.”

A trend in "modern nations" perhaps?

I just love this shit. The Independent reported yesterday on the boom of college-run porn mags:

From Harvard to Yale, the University of Chicago to the University of New Hampshire, some of the nation's most august institutions of learning are home to sexually explicit periodicals - and in most cases the editors are female.

You mean girls are writing about sex?! Break out the chastity belts…

While I’m not quite sure why the news that geeks fuck too is so intriguing, the real quandary is why these magazines should garner more attention than your run-of-the-mill smut.

Because Ivy Leaguers don’t just have sex…they make sweet intellectual love. That's why.

University of Chicago's Vita Excolatur (Latin for "life enriched"), for example, combines photographs of half-naked gay couples in the library and an article on "How to be naked and look great doing it" with features on the Freudian analysis of the penis and "Psychoanalyse This: Sexual Overcoding and Discursive Limitation".

H-Bomb, published at Harvard, features poetry and articles on psychoanalytic theory and French structuralism alongside photographs of students with no clothes on.

Mmmm...throw in some Derrida and I’m likely to soak my panties!

Why oh why can’t porn just be porn? Is the only way to justify liking sex by pairing it with highbrow theory?

Democrat William Clay of Missouri, normally an advocate of a woman's right to choose, has flipped the script and decided to back a bill that demands parental consent. Kansas City Star reports...

Clay, a liberal Democrat from St. Louis, has opposed similar legislation in the past. But he said he would vote in favor of it Wednesday because "the bill is good" and Democrats need to be more "sensible" about some of the politically dicey issues that cost them support among rural and conservative voters in the last election.

"We have to start being flexible" on issues such as abortion and gay rights, Clay said. "Now, that's going to alienate some of my constituents in the pro-choice community. But look, it's time we start telling these constituency groups `Hey, don't be so rigid in your stance and hold us to such a litmus test that it costs us seats. ...'"

I am not really sure what he means by "flexible."

In another little piece I found that the bill includes some other interesting things.

Abortions may not be performed within clinics that receive public funds (excluding Medicaid payments).

Physicians who perform the abortions must have hospital privileges within 30 miles of their clinic.

Adults who assist a minor to have an abortion without parental permission can be sued.

A fund will be introduced to encourage women to carry their pregnnacies to term.

A license plate will be created that says "Respect Life" and $25 will go to the "alternative abortion" fund.

From Reuters:

Authorities have found the bodies of three Afghan women, one of whom worked for an aid group, who were raped, strangled and dumped with a warning for women not to work for such groups, an official said on Monday.

"This is retribution for those women who are working in NGOs and those who are involved in whoredom," said a Western security official, citing the warning, a copy of which he had obtained.

Terrifying.

Is Laura Bush taking lessons from Harvard's Lawrence Summers? While the news has been cooing over how charming and funny Laura was at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, some other hysterical banter from the First Lady got lost in the mix.

Last week while promoting her initiative to help young men in the U.S., she spewed this little tidbit:

I was not a very good math teacher. And I think that's kind of a problem in elementary schools, especially women teachers. They're great in the language arts, and not so great at math.

Check it out in this NPR report.

Thanks to Mike for the link.

It looks like the best gift we could give moms in the U.S. this year is a little respect and appreciation.

From USA Today:

Mothers across the country like being mothers, but they also tend to feel underappreciated and less valued by society, according to a study on motherhood being released Monday.

Those sentiments may not have changed much for moms through the decades, but these findings come at a time when women who work outside the home and stay-at-home moms are both stressed from parenting pressures and the need to better balance their lives. The research conducted in January and February by the University of Connecticut and the University of Minnesota, found that 81% are "very" satisfied with life as a mother. But of the 2,000 mothers surveyed (41% employed full time and 21% part-time), 33% said their ideal work situation would be working part-time; 30% said working for pay from home; and 21% said not working at all.

Nearly one in five (19%) also said they felt less valued by society since becoming a mother.

Ouch.

This article in the Houston Chronicle says it all...

Who would have thought Iran, for decades synonymous with repression and religious fanaticism, could offer a beacon of sensible discourse for the United States? According to the government news service in Tehran, Iran's Parliament passed a law permitting abortions in cases of danger to the mother or severe disability in the fetus. It's the first time since the 1979 revolution that such a measure could be debated, let alone approved.

Although this move is contraversial for several different reasons, it is in stark contrast to what is happening in Texas.

Meanwhile, in Texas, opponents of abortion rights resort to tactics such as the demonstrably false link between breast cancer and abortion. The so-called Right to Know Act requires even victims of rape, incest and fetal abnormality to receive pamphlets with this misinformation before receiving an abortion. This month, the Legislature is considering an array of bills that would further restrict or rescind women's rights to reproductive health care. In one pending bill, pregnant girls who feared physical abuse, rape or incest if they informed their parents prior to having an abortion would have to provide "clear and convincing evidence" that their fears were justified before they could get permission from a judge. Increased from the "preponderance of evidence," this standard would require girls to produce a paper trail or other evidence of their abuse.

This article also makes the point that a country's economic health is totally tied to a woman's control over her own reproductive health. Interesting stuff, eh?

In light of all our feverish discussions of women in Iran, I wanted to bring attention to the new book Embroideries by author/comic artist Marjane Satrapi. Satrapi known for two other works that discussed the sexual revolution both in Iran and the West and her struggles within its context, takes an intimate, hilarious and graphic look at what happens behind closed doors amongst women in Iraq.

Nerve discusses in an interview with the contraversial author...

In Embroideries, Satrapi documents the ways in which strong-willed women in Iran have fought back — in secretly gleeful silence or through overt rebellion — against misogynistic traditions and piggish men. The book is also a celebration of these women's resilience, their tough-mouthed, tender-hearted talk over tea. Satrapi spoke with me on the phone about geriatric sex, the appeal of the ass, and the promise of young women in Iran today. — Noy Thrupkaew

Some interesting tidbits from the interview:

It's very interesting how women make use of gender segregation in Iran — which definitely can have its disadvantages — to create such a powerful and private space for themselves. It has always been like that. Even before the Islamic Republic, we were always a very traditional country. When you have such strong traditions, you have very extreme reactions. In such societies, discussion between the women is the space for freedom. These stories don't present a complacent point of view about women, that they are all suffering, oh my god. They're not victims. And I refuse it completely, I hate that image. Even in the worst days under the Islamic Republic, I never saw myself as a victim. We always have the choice to do something else, to make a parallel life.

This brings up a lot of different questions about the context surrounding a woman's agency. I think this is an interesting and artistic way to paint a picture of what may actually be normative discussions of sex in Iran. Check out the interview and let me know what you think...