June 2005 Archives

The Equal Opportunities Commission recently found that one million pregnant women in the UK will face discrimination at work within the next five years, reports Reuters.

As we already know that 30,000 pregnant women lose their job every year, 200,000 (almost half of all pregnant women) face some sort of discrimination, including bullying, sacking and demoting. What’s worse is that seven out of ten of these women don’t even report it.

The EOC has called to the government to supply a written standard of maternity rights of pregnant women and their employers.

Crazy shit. What disturbs me is trying to imagine what bullying a pregnant woman entails.

From The New York Post gossip section:

A Christian group calling itself "The Resistance" wants Jessica Simpson to apologize for her "slutty" video of "These Boots are Made for Walking" and re-shoot a clean version. The group objects to Simpson's racy antics in the vid, especially because her father was a pastor and she's a Christian role model. "It's sad to see her whore herself out like this," declares the group's, rep "John Conner" (he won't divulge his real name). "She's a singing stripper." The Resistance has also blasted MTV for "celebrating the homosexual agenda."

Now I’m not into censorship, and I’m definitely not into wacky groups calling women sluts.

But honestly, this video is sooo depressing and terrible. It’s borderline pornographic, complete with Simpson washing (humping) a car in a bikini. I just can’t believe that 13 year-old girls are going to watch this.

Not to mention how Simpson has completely killed Nancy Sinatra’s original.

Then:

You keep playin' where you shouldn't be a playin
and you keep thinkin' that you´ll never get burnt.
Ha!
I just found me a brand new box of matches yeah
and what he knows you ain't HAD time to learn.

Now:

Strut yourself, come on, hey ya’ll come on, come see something, uh huh, uh huh, can’t touch, can I get a hand clap, for the way I work my back.

Tick tock, all around the clock, drop it, push ya tush like that, can I get a Sooey, can I get a Yee-haw!

God help us.

...The Nation on emergency contraception: Plan B for Plan B.

It’s a good background piece on all the FDA/Barr Pharmaceuticals craziness that--as we all know--ended up screwing women out of EC over-the-counter.

And of course an article on EC wouldn't be complete without a mention of everyone's favorite rapist, W. David Hager:

As The Nation first reported in May, an FDA staff member contacted Dr. W. David Hager--a controversial evangelical Ob-Gyn on the panel who voted against Plan B--and requested that Hager write a "minority opinion" to further elucidate objections he raised during the hearings; namely, that wider access to emergency contraception would increase "risky behavior" among girls as young as 11 or 12 [see McGarvey, "Dr. Hager's Family Values," May 30].

Despite an intense lobbying effort by physicians and women's groups, in May 2004 top FDA officials bowed to election-year pressures and denied Barr's application to make Plan B available over the counter. The rejection letter to the manufacturer echoed precisely Hager's concerns about the safe use of the drug by girls under 16.

I love that Hager is "concerned" about teen girls but not so worried about anally raping his wife. Lovely.

We've reported a lot on Walmart over the last year (mostly because they've done a lot of sexist shit). Here's a little cherry on that cake for you:

Womens E-News ran a great story yesterday about Walmart's struggle to break out of its rural, Christian mold and expand into urban areas. Turns out, their discriminatory history is catching up to them, and might actually end up hindering their success in more populated areas of the country. As the article states:

Political battles over proposed Wal-Mart stores in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago have demonstrated that what's acceptable in Arkansas isn't necessarily embraced everywhere. While the objections focused on the retailer's low wages, hostility to unions and damage to small businesses, the discount giant's antagonists also pointed to its [refusal to stock Plan B] as an issue.

Maybe, in an attempt to conquer more of the American terrain, Walmart will ease up on its anti-contraception stance.

Why is life always a tradeoff?

Don't you love those mornings where you're driving to work, minding your own business, and are confronted with a lovely billboard for Newcastle Beer reading:

NEWCASTLE BROWN ALE: Not Heavy, Never Bitter. Can you date a beer?

Ugggghhhhhhh.

I'm thinking of sending this to Ms.'s "No Comment" page.

Anyone else seen some sexist gems lately?

Writer Ruth Franklin at The New Republic takes on the recent barrage of books on being the bestest Mommy ever, and how hard that is, in The Missing Joy; and I have to say she does a pretty kick-ass job of it.

The article is ridiculously comprehensive, discussing the so-called “opt-out” revolution, the “mommy wars,” work/life issues and more, by focusing on three recent books: Perfect Madness, by Judith Warner; How She Really Does It: Secrets of Successful Stay-at-Work Moms, by Wendy Sachs; and White House Nannies, by Barbara Kline.

At the end of the piece, Franklin argues that it’s time that women just realize (and perhaps accept?) that motherhood is never going to be simple:

It is time to recognize that there is no inherently perfect balance of work and family, and that no amount of intensive parenting can take away the sadness of not being with one's children as much as one would like. Children's needs and desires, and parents' needs and desires, are constantly in flux. If we are fortunate, we will be able to adjust our lives in accordance with them; and like any contortion, it will require some stretching, some groaning, and some pain. The tension that we feel is not the problem afflicting mothers in America today. It is the solution.

Thoughts?

Related: Lynn Harris’ review of A Few Good Eggs: Two Chicks Dish on Overcoming the Insanity of Infertility. Best line ever: With friends like these who needs Sylvia Ann Hewlett?

It just keeps getting better.

In a N.J. abstinence class, kids are being taught the “facts” of life in a way that’s likely to make them morons:

Its main teaching tool is called "The Choice Game," an interactive computer program with fictional teen characters in situations involving sex, drugs and alcohol.

Later in the sequence, Ragana tells her girlfriend she has contracted gonorrhea from T.J.

Nothing worse than a breast-STD.

I understand that abstinence education is about discouraging intercourse, but are they really going to take away heavy petting too? That’s just cruel.

A friend of mine heard about this on Howard Stern’s radio show yesterday. Truly terrifying.

Lil' Markie--a grown man who speaks and sings in a child’s voice scary enough for its own horror movie--put out an album that takes on a number of issues (horrible, horrible sins!). But it’s his gross-out hit, “Diary of an Unborn Child,” that shows the anti-choice movement’s true, certifiable colors.

I can’t even get into how creepy this thing is; you should listen for yourself. So you know what you’re getting into, the first line that the fetus sings is “Why did you kill me Mommy, when God made me special for you?” Nice, huh?

RELATED: Seems MTV is big into singing fetuses as well.

A Scottish professor says that severe cases of anorexia (are any cases mild?) in women may be caused by autism.

Autism, characterised by defects in communication and social interaction, also makes many anorexic patients unresponsive to traditional treatments and may be responsible for anorexia's low recovery rates, according to Professor Christopher Gillberg, of the University of Strathclyde.

"Our research has shown that a small but important minority of all teenage girls with anorexia nervosa in the general population meet diagnostic criteria for autistic disorder, Asperger syndrome or atypical autism. I've seen quite a number of cases where the anorexia has become completely entrenched because people haven't understood that underlying the eating disorder is autism."

Gillberg says that this would explain why traditional forms of treatment used for eating disorders, such as family therapy, doesn’t work for some women.

I’ve known many women with eating disorders, and there certainly is a good amount of obsessive compulsiveness going similar to autistic tendencies. But it’s unclear to me whether that’s the cause or an effect of the eating disorder.

Any thoughts?

What do we think of the new American Apparel advertising campaign? Perverted pornography or a break from rigid "typical (read anorexic)" advertising? American Apparel is a t-shirt/other cotton goods company well known for its very fair labor practices. The owner Dov Charney seems to be a rather complicated character, well mainly he seems like a big pervert, but what do we make of this kinda contradictory politic? His recent hire for their ad campaign is porn star Lauren Pheonix. I was recently in the store and I couldn't get a hold of how I felt about it either?

An SF Gate goes into why...

There is, for example, no silicone. There is no collagen. No Botox. There is no obvious retouching and no major Photoshopping to eliminate bulge or nipple or shiny forehead and there is occasional body flab and stocky leg and there are plenty of "average" (read: nonanorexic) female body types, and as mentioned all the models are amateurs, real women and men, and each is funky and ethnically mixed and unexpected, and Charney even leaves in the red eye and the sweaty lips and the odd angles and there is an air of salty delicious intimate funk to the pictures that makes you go, now this is what T-shirts should really be all about.

Like obviously I see the goods and the bads here. Incidentally, the owner has several pending sexual harassment suits against him probably stemming from his desire for a free and sexually open workplace.

Tell me what you think?

John Ashcroft, not so much.

So it looks like women's breasts are no longer offensive. At least for now.

After more than a three year breast-ban, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has ruled that boobs are back in style:

The “Spirit of Justice” and the “Majesty of Justice,” which loom over the stage in the Great Hall, were blocked from view by curtains installed by the department in January 2002, when former Attorney General John Ashcroft was in office.

The curtains were quietly removed on Friday after a decision by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department spokesman Kevin Madden said.

In a more controversial decision, Gonzales announced that the Justice Department is starting production on the much-anticipated Statues Gone Wild video series.

Nearly two months after the Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal involving the ridiculous parental notification law in New Hampshire, it has recently rejoined the anti-choice protest debate.

Justices announced yesterday that they are going to consider whether an anti-choice group’s protest outside of a number of clinics 20 years ago may have violated federal racketeering and extortion laws, reports the Washington Post. The most recent ruling on this issue was in 2003, when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist removed a nationwide ban on protests that intervene with abortion clinic business. Now the appeals court is questioning whether the ban should be renewed on other grounds.

The 1998 ban was passed due to the National Organization for Women and abortion clinics filing suit with a law that actually intends to target organized crime. Due to the blatant effort that anti-choicers made to close down or disrupt clinics (including menacing doctors, harassing patients and trashing the centers), they were to be treated as racketeering.

Rehnquist said in 2003 that because there was no extortion of money at the clinics, the 1998 ban was wrongly ruled. Then the 7th Circuit of Appeal in Chicago renewed the case on the grounds that threats of violence and violent acts (for example, a patient was once beat until unconscious with a protester’s sign) may have been enough to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

The new cases are Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, 04-1244, and Operation Rescue v. National Organization for Women, 04-1352. They will both be addressed later this year.

More servicewomen have been killed in Iraq than in any other overseas action in the past 60 years. Good thing we're keeping women soldiers safe and out of "combat positions," eh?

Even though they are not assigned to ground combat units, 39 female soldiers have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. Four died and 11 were injured this weekend after an ambush in Fallujah. Military officials have said they believe the female troops may have been specifically targeted.

About 11,000 women are currently serving in Iraq. And even with the latest news that record numbers have given their lives in service to this country, some schmucks on the homefront are still focused on their baby-making capabilities.

Take it from Lemoyne Sanders of Jacksonville, NC, whose wife is a field medical corpsman in the Navy:

"You'll never get a woman to be as physically strong as a man," he said, adding: "Women get pregnant. It's just different."

Men die in combat. Women die in combat. I don't see how a uterus makes any difference.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the Castle Rock v. Gonzales case removed responsibility of local police departments to enforce restraining orders that protect domestic violence victims from their abusers.

The case centered on Jessica Gonzales, who had a protective order against her estranged husband. When he kidnapped her three daughters, Gonzales called police over and over and pleaded with them to enforce the order, which ostensibly protected her and her children. But officers wouldn't follow up on her calls for help. In the end, her husband drove himself to the police station and was killed in a shootout with officers there. They found the bodies of Jessica Gonzales' three daughters in the back of her husband's pickup truck.

Who really needed protection here? Apparently not Jessica Gonzales. According to the Court, it's the Castle Rock police department.

Statistics show that protective orders are sought by the victims who need them most. But a two-year study of batterers found that almost half (48.8%) re-abused the victims after a protective order was issued. Police clearly weren't jumping to enforce these orders, even before the Castle Rock decision came down.

The opinion (authored by my personal favorite, Justice Scalia) means that women will not be compelled to seek restraining orders if they know that police don't have to enforce them. And more domestic violence victims will be injured and killed as a result.

UPDATE: Amanda at Pandagon on the same.

Make sure to check out this Detroit Free Press column on Title IX, and new book on the law’s history.

Wall Street Journal editor and reporter Karen Blumenthal, author of Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, says that when she grew up in the early 70s, “boys were the crossing guards...they ran the movie projectors in class; they got the best playing fields. But with Title IX, all that began to change.”

I knew the “official” background on Title IX, but the real-life story behind the law was news to me:

According to Blumenthal's book, Ann Arbor activist and mother Marcia Federbush was first to file a Title IX complaint. It was against the University of Michigan, which in the early 1970s spent $2.6 million annually on men's sports -- and $0 for women's.

"I wondered whether it was bad for boys to play contact sports because of their delicate external organs," said Federbush.

Priceless. I need this book.

While it may piss me off that some celebrities have more political power than more intelligent and influential minds in this country, I must say that Ashley Judd kicks motherfuckin' ass in the feminist activist department.

Judd testified at a recent Congressional hearing on the urgency to address gender equality in the battle against HIV/AIDS in developing nations. While the hearing was primarily directed towards developing a vaccine, Judd said:

"Having an AIDS vaccine would be of great benefit to women of all ages because it could reduce their chances of becoming infected...As there is not a vaccine to prevent abuse of women, however, there is nothing more important in the struggle against this disease than reversing destructive social norms that endanger women across Africa and in other developing countries.”

As a Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, Judd has traveled through Africa and Asia to educate especially women and girls about HIV/AIDS. She is also on the Board of Directors of Population Services International.

From Reuters:

A love poem written 2,600 years ago by Sappho, the greatest female poet of ancient Greece, was published Friday for the first time since it was rediscovered last year.

"They seem to have had some sort of society in which they could be in each other's company quite a lot, rather cut off from men," he said. "But they were clearly able to have plenty of fun."

I bet!

Go check out Katha Pollitt’s latest column, If the Frame Fits...

Pollitt takes on the whole “reframing” abortion issue with her usual combination of thoughtfulness and smarts:

In the wake of the 2004 election, Democrats have embarked on an orgy of what the linguist George Lakoff calls "reframing"--repositioning their policies linguistically to give them mass moral appeal. Prime candidate for a values makeover? Abortion, of course.

...Perhaps I'm naïve, but I keep thinking that reframing misses the point, which is to speak clearly from a moral center--precisely not to mince words and change the subject and turn the tables.

Much agreed. I’m especially with Pollitt on the problem of discussing abortion in terms of rape, one of the four ways Lakoff thinks we should be reframing:

...Finally, they should talk about the thousands of women each year who become pregnant from rape: "Should the federal government force a woman to bear the child of her rapist?"

Is it the singling out of rape victims as uniquely deserving, which tacitly accepts the conservative "frame" of abortion as a way for sluts to evade the wages of sin? In fact, most American voters who favor abortion restrictions already make an exception for rape. The ones who don't--the 11 percent who would ban abortion completely--have already framed it to their satisfaction: Yes, the government should force rape victims to carry to term because the "child" should not be murdered for its father's crime.

Abortion isn’t wrong. Period. That’s the only frame we should be using.

Any thoughts?

Sigh.

Jerusalem authorities have said they are banning a gay pride parade planned for next week, saying the event would be "provocative" and set off unrest.

You know what I think is “provocative?” Assholes.

UPDATE: Never mind.

I had no idea it wasn’t illegal; scary.

The central government wants to ban sexual harassment as a draft amendment to a law protecting the rights of women was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing yesterday for first deliberation.

"It is the first time for China to forbid sexual harassment with legislation," said Wu Changzhen, professor with the China University of Political Science and Law, who was also the head of the draft team of the amendment.

Despite the fact that most women in China have been victims of sexual harassment--about 79 percent in one survey--the courts have only received 10 sexual harassment cases since 2001. Talk about an underreported crime!

But I suppose if there was no law forbidding harassment in the first place, there wasn’t really a reason for women to go the legal-route. The ball-kicking route is another story.

GO TO YOUR LOCAL PRIDE PARADE!

Check Jessica's post from yesterday for info in your local town.

What are you waiting for. GO. I am on my way right now to the SF pride!

Check out this interesting commentary on Chicago Sun-Times about the lack of attention paid by the Catholic church to the abuses against women.

Rape is a grievous sin, even spousal rape, especially spousal rape. Date rape is a mortal sin. Physical abuse of a spouse is a grievous sin. So is habitual verbal abuse. Incestuous abuse of daughters, sisters and nieces is a mortal sin. Sexual harassment in the workplace or anywhere else is a mortal sin. Vile sexual "locker room" conversation that demeans women is a serious sin. Job discrimination against women is a grave sin. Contempt for women is a serious sin. Treatment of women like they are sex objects is a serious sin. Sexual exploitation of women is a mortal sin. So too is the practice of the rich and famous of replacing a loyal, faithful wife with a new "trophy wife."

Is there a priest anywhere in the world who would argue publicly that any of these behaviors is not a mortal sin? A bishop? A cardinal? A pope? Then why is there so much silence about them? Surely they are not so naive as to think that such sins are infrequent. Read the survey data, talk to cops, consult with counselors of battered women, if you have any doubts.

What do you think?

She sucks. Rice just got back from the Middle East failing to comment on one of the most volatile and important issues facing the newly developing democracies of the Arab nations--the role of women.

Times online UK reports...

Her admission that there were “boundaries” to the US drive for democratic reform in the region — notably in Saudi Arabia, where she declined to take up the cause of women, who are barred from driving cars — spurred accusations of American hypocrisy.

Because it is hypocritical. But I guess this is how we see democracy develop. By putting the needs of women to the side.

But chatting to reporters as she flew from Riyadh to Brussels, Rice was asked why she had “very pointedly” declined to take a public position on the issue of Saudi women.

“It’s just a line I’ve not wanted to cross,” she replied. “The United States has to recognise that even after democratic processes have taken place, places are not going to look like the United States . . . I think it’s important that we do have some boundaries about what we’re trying to achieve.”

Middle Eastern feminists are outraged.

Her response fuelled complaints by human rights activists such as Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian feminist who won the 2003 Nobel Peace prize. Earlier this year Ebadi accused the administration of “hypocrisy” in its attitude to unfriendly nations such as Iran.

“Given the longstanding willingness of the American government to overlook abuses of human rights, particularly women’s rights, by close allies in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, it is hard not to see the Bush administration’s focus on human rights violations in Iran as a cloak for its larger strategic interests,” Ebadi said.

I don't wanna say I told you so, to those of you that have been on my ass for the US foreign policy as being feminist and how much those Arabs have to learn about feminism from us. But wake up, it isn't and it never was. Our motivation for democracy in the Middle East is NOT for the emancipation of women.

One step forward, four steps back.

After fighting for ten years, women's activists will finally have their bill heard at the monsoon session of Pariliment. Newindiapress discusses...

Women activists had objected to many points in the earlier drafts including the exception given to cases where men resolve to violence in self defence. Most of such exceptions are absent in the new Bill.

As a result of the recommendations of the National Commission of Women, several critical provisions have been included. “It has given a broader definition to domestic violence. According to it, a verbal threat to kill will also be considered an abuse. Moreover, single women can also seek protection, which is a very positive factor. Passing the Bill would mean that what has always been considered a private matter would now become a public-social issue,” says Aliyamma Vijayan of Stree Vedhi.

Oh snap!

Ampersand takes on the wage gap and those would argue it doesn’t exist;

Blackfeminism.org points out the gender (im)balance in black America;

ms. musings explains the Disneyification of Feminism;

Pandagon and Bitch.Ph.D. on call out the blaming-the-victim bullshit going on lately;

And the always-prolific Feministe puts this post to shame with a link dump so big it will make you dizzy.

For events in your area this weekend, check out Human Rights Campaign, Interpride and Gay.com.

An enterprising OB/GYN has invented a way for women to give themselves a cervical exam.

Dr. Arthur Fournier's cheap, simple home-testing device can be given to women in developing countries "who for financial or logistical reasons could not - or for social or cultural reasons would not - get a Pap smear."

Women in the U.S. may not love them, but Pap smears are certainly effective in reducing rates of cervical cancer. Since the procedure was adopted 50 years ago, cervical cancer rates in the U.S. have fallen by 80 percent. But the disease has remained the leading cause of cancer death among women in the developing world, where Pap smears are rare because they require a high level of training to collect and interpret, and also violate taboos in many parts of the world.

Fournier's plastic, tampon-like device will cost about 25 cents. It's designed to be inserted like a tampon, rubbed against the cervix and removed. The device's removable tip goes into a small container and is sent off for testing.

Product trials suggested the device is about as effective as a test in a clinic. After several years of testing and development, the at-home Pap smear is set to go into widespread use this fall in South Africa.

As an interesting addition to the discussion about transsexual and transgendered persons being included in women's institutions, an Australian transsexual was just cleared to play in a women's soccer league.

Martine Delaney, who used to compete as Martin Delaney, received approval from Soccer Tasmania this week. She had a sex-change operation more than two years ago. Officials said Delaney was allowed into the league because she is "legally classified female."

"It's not the primary reason I decided to play, but it's given transgender issues some profile — for sure," Delaney told The Associated Press by telephone. "I've had some wonderful reactions. An elderly lady recognized me and walked up to me, grabbed my arm and told me: 'Congratulations, you've done a good thing — go for it, girl!'"

I can’t believe that he ever really had it, but that’s besides the point…

A new survey by EMILY’s List shows that women are turning against the president and the GOP as they grow increasingly unhappier with the war, Bush’s plans for Social Security, and the repeated invasions into “personal or family” decisions.

Last fall, about 48 percent of female voters supported Bush -- 5 percentage points more than in 2000 and 10 points more than for Republican Bob Dole in 1996. But one-third of women surveyed who voted for Bush said they don't intend to vote Republican in the 2006 congressional midterm elections. Women favored Democrats over Republicans for Congress, 43 percent to 32 percent, which, combined with men's responses, would put Democrats ahead, 40 percent to 36 percent.

Anti-choice Republican Sam Brownback used his position on the Senate Judiciary Committee to convene a subcommittee hearing yesterday on Roe v. Wade.

Impeccable timing. A Supreme Court vacancy is looking likely in the very near future, and this was a perfect opportunity for conservatives to get Roe opponents on the record. Although both pro-choice and anti-choice experts testified, Brownback's star witness was Norma McCorvey, the former "Jane Roe" who reversed her abortion stance after converting to Christianity in 1995.

Brownback, who’s rumored to have presidential aspirations in 2008, said the series of hearings meant to "highlight the effect certain Supreme Court decisions have had on American life."

Ken Edelin, associate dean of the Boston University School of Medicine, testified: "If Roe v. Wade were overturned and abortion law authority sent back to individual states, you would end up with a country that would have a patchwork of laws that would put women at great hardship."

Hmmm... Authority to individual states. Patchwork of laws. Women at great hardship. Funny, I thought that's what was happening in America right now, even with Roe in effect.

CNN and CareerBuilder.com put out an oh-so-helpful guide for women on how to earn more money: ask for it.

I agree that part of the reason that women aren’t getting paid what they should be is that they may “lack the confidence to ask for more or because they fail to recognize their own self-worth,” but it’s not the driving force behind the pay gap.

And I certainly don’t know if it warrants a hokey step-by-step guide like this:

Step one -- Explore your beliefs: Miller encourages women to examine their beliefs about why they are not earning as much as they would like. She says that "In many cases your beliefs are what brought you to where you are today."
Miller says that to attain what you truly desire you need to break down negative programming you learned growing up -- those that made you feel that you were not good enough, or strong enough, or intelligent enough.

Step two -- Take care of yourself first: Women are far more likely to think of others first. "I tell women to stop taking care of others and take care of yourself," Miller says.
They may be concerned that the timing isn't right to ask because the company is going through financial difficulties, or may be afraid that it might seem selfish or greedy if they ask for more money. "You have to learn to put yourself first. This isn't about being selfish, it's about getting paid what you are worth."

It goes on with some useful info, but the Oprah-style language is too much for me to bear.

So how much of the wage gap can we really attribute to (blame on) women and their supposed inability to know what their worth?

Big fucking shocker:

USA Today reported that:

Women and some racial minorities are "significantly underrepresented" in the U.S. technology industry, according to a new study from the industry's trade group. Women made up 32% of the tech work force in 2004, a drop from 41% at its peak in 1996. That's largely because of the shrinking number of administrative jobs in the tech industry, the Arlington, Va.-based Information Technology Association of America said.

Niiiice! It wasn't depressing enough that women are underrepresented in the tech industry -- we now have the glorious explanation of a decrease in "administrative" jobs. I HATE being reminded of how many women hold secretarial positions while the men think and make it big.

Grrrrr.

As an update to our post on “john school” and the pics of men on billboards who had been arrested for soliciting prostitutes, it looks like a new strategy in Chicago has been used to humiliate their johns, reports the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago Police Department have begun to post names and pictures of the men on their new website. By the end of the first day that the site was up, they received more than 47,000 hits. Mayor Richard Daly says the intention is to shame them before their spouses, children, neighbors, and employers. The names of prostitutes have been on the site for some time, but “with little fanfare.” Glad to see they’re up in the popularity contest o’ deviancy. Ugh.

The police plan to update their site every day -- more than 180 men have been posted already. What I don’t understand is how they feel that “shaming” these men (more will always come) can make more of a difference than helping the prostitutes who want to get out of the business.

According to a recent NARAL press release, last night, by a vote of 34-27-1, the NY State Senate passed S.3661 --"The Unintended Pregnancy Prevention Act." This legislation allows a woman (regardless of age) to go directly to a pharmacist to obtain emergency contraception. Now, the women of New York can avoid unnecessary delays in getting birth control.

YAY!

UPDATE: Read more about the bill at BushvChoice.

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone made an outrageous comment to Danica Patrick, the Indianapolis 500 star. (For those of you who don't know, Formula One is a type of race car driving unlike that of the Indy 500 -- they have their own drivers, tracks, schedules, and championship).

Obviously race car driving has never been at the center of progressive feminist thought, but check out this blurb from Sports Illustrated:

Patrick received a telephone call from Ecclestone last week during which he congratulated the Indy Racing League rookie for her performance at the Indianapolis 500, but also reiterated remarks he had made during an interview at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the U.S. Grand Prix was being held. Among the comments Ecclestone made in the interview and to [Patrick] was that "Women should be all dressed in white like all other domestic appliances."

Classy. Real classy.

According to the Sports Illustrated article, Ecclestone has made controversial remarks about women before. He told Autosport racing magazine in 2000 that women could not compete in Formula One, but if one did, "she would have to be a woman who was blowing away the boys. ... What I would really like to see happen is to find the right girl, perhaps a black girl with super looks, preferably Jewish or Muslim, who speaks Spanish."

Eeeew.

I just love these studies. “Honey, make me dinner; my salary depends on it!”

Married men earn more than bachelors so long as their wives stay at home doing the housework, according to a report on Wednesday from Britain's Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER).

"However, our research established the wage premium is related to the wife doing the chores," said the academic who teaches at the University of Essex.

Oh please. Anyone--regardless of gender--would be able to concentrate on their career more if they had someone taking care of all their shit at home. This is just a thinly-veiled way of saying that women belong in the home. And if you think I’m being paranoid, check this out:

A marriage might allow a husband and wife to focus their activities on tasks to which they are most suited. Traditionally, this would result in the man concentrating on paid work enabling him to increase productivity and in consequence his wages.

Excuse me, I need to go puke now.

A newly released study has shown that women may be able to take a genetic test to determine the future of their fertility.

While a woman’s fertility drops more rapidly after the age of 37, Dr. Neri Laufer from Haddassah University presented his study at the European Fertility Conference, revealing that women who are able to give birth after the age of 45 have a special genetic profile that protects against DNA damage and early cell death (which both affect the ovaries).

So through a blood sample, it may be possible to tell a woman when she personally will lose her fertility. This is additional to a test that will be able to tell a woman when she’ll be getting the big menopause.

Bill Ledger, professor of reproductive and developmental medicine at the University of Sheffield in England said that the study makes sense, and can be of a great advantage to women who wish to have kids in the future.

“Right around the corner is hormone testing that gives you some idea of how many eggs you’ve got left. Do that when you’re 30, again when you’re 32 and again when you’re 34. Plot your individual graph and if it’s declining you...have a family.”

I thought it was interesting that on the same day that this story’s been posted, the Washington Times came out with an article titled, “Delaying Pregnancy Carries Big Risks”, which discussed the various physical and psychological damage (apparently called the "misery factor") that pregnancy can have on older women. Their study’s take on it was that “The 35-45 range is possible at a cost and motherhood after 45 is ‘only for the healthy and wealthy.’”

Our favorite crazy Congressman-- Rep. Tom Coburn-- is pushing a bill that would require parental notification before minors can get a contraception prescription filled.

The "Parents Right to Know Act" would require federally funded health clinics to notify parents at least five days before dispensing birth control. Parents do not have to consent, but the bill has no exceptions for teens whose parents are estranged or abusive.

"This bill does nothing but put parents back in charge of their adolescent daughters," said Coburn.

Shudder. I'd say this bill does a lot more than that, Tom. Like discourage teens from using contraception. Most teenagers say they would just have unprotected sex if parental notification were mandatory when buying contraception.

If the bill become law, it will affect about 4,400 health clinics nationwide.

A new women’s magazine has recently been launched that deems itself “somewhere in between MAD and Ms.” Hmmm.

Mamacita is a “female waterfront of humor, parody and satire.” There aren’t many magazines out there that are specifically geared towards women’s humor, and this magazine seems to think it can fill the position. (Although the article says that The Onion is a men’s mag, which I think is a load of crap.)

The publication is filled with random humorous stories, editorials, and special features, like “The Adventures of Ubermom: America’s Most Perfect Mom.” They also have a section devoted to Michael Jackson, which I found a bit strange.

Joan Conde is the brainchild of Mamacita, who labeled it “Humor, News and Entertainment for Women Who Can’t Be Fooled.”

Click here to check it out.

As an update on hating newly nominated (by Bush) FDA commissioner Lester Crawford (a known anti-choicer), and loving Senators Hillary Clinton and Pat Murray for blocking Crawford’s confirmation until the FDA comes to a decision on emergency contraception Plan B being sold over-the-counter, NARAL Pro-Choice America is asking peeps to take some action.

While Clinton and Murray are praised for their block, there are still many other democrats that haven’t done jack shit to stand up for our repro rights.

So take some action (it literally takes two minutes) and urge your senators to block this guy’s ass.

Whoa. This article on a random study of smells I just found is quite disturbing.

The study was conducted recently by the Smell and Taste Institute in Chicago, headed by director Alah Hirsch. Their findings revealed that the scent of a grapefruit on a woman makes them seem up to six years younger to men.

How did they discover this, do you ask? Apparently, Hirsch smeared several middle-aged women with broccoli, grapefruit, banana, lavender, and spearmint leaves. Ahhh! Then young men were asked to write down how old they thought the women were. Grapefruit was the only one that made a difference.

While working on my thesis, I’ve been learning quite a bit about research methods and the potential risks of harm that a researcher can impose on a subject, including psychological harm. Smearing older women with broccoli and making them stand in front of younger men to judge their age seems a wee sexist and mortifying to me.

What do y’all think?

Yikes. Anti-choice wacko Randall Terry is announcing today that he will run against Florida senator Jim King next year.

Make sure to check out Rachel Kramer Bussel’s article on bisexuality in the latest Village Voice. It’s good shit.

Something that comes up in the piece is whether men who are bisexual have it harder than women. Bussel argues that “it's worse for guys than it is for girls; at least we have that mixed blessing of widespread erotic interest in a heightened, tarted-up version of female bisexuality. For men, the demarcations are more highly charged.”

She goes on to quote a male friend who says that bisexual men are judged as “weak, confused, or cowardly.” I agree that bisexual men certainly are put through the stereotype mill, but is Bussel’s “mixed blessing” of being a bisexual woman really a blessing at all?

I don’t think that the Girls Gone Wild, male-gaze version of bisexuality is something to hold dear.

That being said, the article as a whole left me pleased as punch, particularly Bussel’s call for a more fluid definition of sexuality:

I understand the desire for labels and easy answers, but people are too complex for simple check boxes. When labels only inhibit us from acting on our true feelings, they become a hindrance...

Statistics can never relay the twisted, human, giddy, gorgeous, fucked-up sexual spectrum. “Bisexuality” encompasses a lot more than people who openly identify as bi. It might mean drunken makeout sessions, occasional flings, or looking at “forbidden” porn. We need to free ourselves from the idea that certain sexual thoughts are somehow taboo...

I want enough openness that I can embrace both my “dirty” and “bisexual” sides without being labeled slutty, confused, traitorous, "really straight," or any other epithet. I don't want to be proud of my bisexuality or queerness so much as have it be a non-issue whether I'm in bed with a guy, a girl, or both at once...

A birth control pill for men is (slowly) on its way.

What do you think the chances are that pharmacists will refuse to dispense this guy-friendly contraceptive?

If you’re in New York tonight, get your ass over to this fundraiser for the Willie Mae Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls.

We’ve told you about this kick-ass program for girls before, but here’s a refresher courtesy of their website:

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.

I wish I could go...for some reason three years of flute lessons didn't make me the rock star I always knew I could be.

Here’s the info for tonight:

The Girls Room (210 Rivington between Ridge and Pitt St.)
6-10 pm
DJ’s, drink specials, snacks, and a special appearance by radical marching band The Rude Mechanical Orchestra.
$10 donation at the door, cash bar.

Apparently slamming your girlfriend into a steering wheel or wire hanger-- hard enough to leave an imprint on her back-- is OK behavior. Sexy, even! So say these new ads for Axe body spray.

I know the ads are designed, in part, to piss off women like me. They're part of a larger advertising backlash against political correctness. But Axe's "anytime, anywhere" ads sink to a new low. They're not just sexist or politically incorrect. This "Axe Effect" is violence against women.

I understand the spirit of the ads. True, many women are thrilled by the prospect of spontaneously fooling around in a place where they can get caught. But a $4.49 can of drugstore cologne should not be license to throw those women against random objects.

The entire marketing schtick (which could be summed up as "It's not drugstore cologne, it's manly body spray, and it will make every woman want to have sex with you on the spot!") has been incredibly successful with the Maxim-reading set.

Sorry I couldn't find a still photo of the ad to post. But you can click to watch the Flash ad and TV spot.

Liberty University, an evangelical college in Virginia, states in their bizarre “Reprimands and Consequences” policy that abortion warrants a $500 fine and possible academic withdrawal.

This is the same consequence for sexual assault and “involvement with witchcraft, séances or other satanic or demonic activity.” Wow.

Outside of my shock that schools can actually fucking fine you at all, I have to wonder how a school would find out about a student’s abortion. And where’s the fine for a male student who impregnates someone?

By the way, racial and sexual harassment will only cost you $250.

Via Nerve. (Which also has some great stuff today, including the revelation that there’s a Hooters magazine and a link to a strange abstinence billboard.)

It looks like the Discovery Channel is letting people vote, American Idol-style, on the country's greatest American and the top Five Greatest Americans are all men.

It's undeniable that Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and George Washington made incredible contributions to country and to the world. (I'll bite my tongue about how much damage Reagan did to women, especially women of color, just this once.) Which of the men nudged Susan B. Anthony, who worked to empower half of the country to vote out of a spot in the top five?

And in the Top 100, why does Hugh Hefner make the list but not Gloria Steinem? And why Tom Cruise and Christopher Reeve but not Joan Baez or Marie Curie or Shirley Chisholm or Chief Wilma Mankiller or Ani Di Franco? AND WHY RUSH LIMBAUGH ON THE LIST AT ALL?

The initial 100 people on the Countdown were overwhelmingly men. Here's how the list breaks down as best as I could tabulate (thank you, biography.com):

- 19 of the 100 are women
- 6 male athletes and no women
- 6 male inventors and no women
- 5 of those 19 are first ladies
- only 3 of the 19 are of color and they're all African-American
- only 1 woman - 2 if you count Eleanor Roosevelt - is not heterosexual

Not that First Ladies haven't made awesome contributions to the country - like Jackie O helping to preserve great old buildings and Hillary Rodham Clinton advocating on behalf of healthcare, children's rights and choice - but I've never thought it was very feminist to pat a woman on the back for being married to someone else.

I probably shouldn't take these silly lists seriously, but these are NOT who I think a list of the greatest Americans should represent.

Contributed by Jess Wakeman

From Agence France Presse:

Grunting noises made by female tennis players as they strike the ball are getting out of hand, and rules should be changed to crack down on the practice, Wimbledon referee Alan Mills has said, according to a report.

"I don't like it at all. Today there is probably more grunting than there has ever been," he said.

I don’t really follow tennis (at all), but why is it that female players are being singled out? Is the grunting really all that offensive? Shit, I can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without some heavy breathing.

Women fake orgasms.

Areas of the brain that are affected during orgasm are unaffected when women fake it.

Yawn.

However, the first sentence of the Reuters article covering this duh-inducing study had me rolling: Women may be able to fool their partners by faking an orgasm but a brain scanner will catch them out every time, a conference heard on Monday.

Hear that ladies? Once they come out with bedside brain scanners, we are totally screwed.

Turns out they’re not big fans of gay people.

Finally! Now we can start getting into that whole “politics” thing.

The Detroit Free Press raises the idea of a woman as the next president in their TV & Radio section today. Cause what more appropriate place to talk about women in politics.

There's something in the political air, and it's not testosterone.

The possibility of a female president is heating up the Internet, not to mention bookshelves and TV schedules...

Clips of Davis in "Commander-In-Chief" show her with a hairstyle that's similar to Condi's power flip.

Author Julie Hinds also covers organizations pushing for Hil and Condi as the first female president. The “Condistas” (yes, I swear they call themselves this) scare me.

But what’s truly terrifying is that we can’t seem talk about a woman as president unless it’s framed by fantasy. Because there’s a television show and some books coming out, now we can dare to dream?

Is pop culture mirroring real life cultural acceptance a woman president, or is this “trend” just a reminder that people are only comfortable with the idea if it’s fake and easily dismissible? (“Oh how cute! That chick from Earth Girls Are Easy is pretending to be president!”)

I mean, even those who are working to put a woman in the White House don’t seem to think it can happen:

Like male underdogs who compete for their party's nomination, women could use a presidential bid to raise their profile and spread their message to a wider audience, [Mosemarie] Boyd [of American Women Presidents] argues.

Or they use a presidential bid to...I don’t know...run for president. I guess we’ll have to wait for Angelina Jolie to make a movie about it first.

If you thought that women weren’t judged on their looks anymore, here’s a nice smack down for you:

An increase in a woman's body mass results in a decrease in her family income and a decline in her occupational prestige, according to research conducted by New York University sociologist Dalton Conley and Rebecca Glauber, an NYU graduate student. The study was sponsored by the Cambridge, MA-based National Bureau of Economic Research.

In addition, the researchers found that the association between body mass and occupational outcomes was more pronounced among younger women, suggesting that it is body mass that affects occupational prestige rather than the reverse. By contrast, and consistent with past research, men experience no negative effects of body mass on their economic situation.

Huh.

I never put too much stock in studies like these, but I’m not really surprised by this one. Fat discrimination is insanely pervasive, not to mention accepted, particularly when it comes to women. (Clearly discrimination could be just one factor behind the study’s results, but you can’t discount it entirely.)

Shit, even celebs now say out loud that they don’t like the fatties.

Horrible.

Science says that emergency contraception isn't abortion. But does that really matter to anti-choicers?

Read the full post at BushvChoice.

My best friend just sent me this story and I am speechless, not to mention scared. A sixteen year old Pakistani girl from Queens became considered a threat to national security through a series of investigations.

The NYT reports, the story of how it happened - how Tashnuba was labeled an imminent threat to national security - is still shrouded in government secrecy. After nearly seven weeks in detention, she was released in May on the condition that she leave the country immediately. Only immigration charges were brought against her and another 16-year-old New York girl, who was detained and released. Federal officials will not discuss the matter.

Okay so WTF! This is the first terrorist investigation that is involving minors. It is has also received quite a bit of attention. ...the case reveals how deeply concerned the government is that a teenager might become a terrorist, and the lengths to which federal agents will go if they get even a whiff of that possibility. And it has drawn widespread attention, stoking the debate over the right balance between government vigilance and the protection of individual freedoms.

Apparently, one of the reasons she was investigated was due to her participation in a chat room where she was taking notes by a Islamic clergy man accused of supporting suicide bombings.

I suggest reading the article it goes into more detail (specifically into the demoralizing details of the investigation). What do we make of this? Is this really the current state of affairs in the world?

Ninety-two Indian women, who work at the grassroots level for justice, rights and good governance, are among a group of 1,000 women from around the world nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

"We officially submitted names of 1,000 selected women from across the world to the Nobel Committee in Oslo in February 25 to be given the Nobel Peace Prize collectively, because women's peace work has not been recognised, valued and celebrated," said Ms. Bhasin, coordinator of the association in South Asia.

They also mentioned that part of why they chose 1,000 women is to recognize that it is not just one person that works towards peace, but many collectively.

Excerpts from the Hindu.

Mukhtaran Bibi is a Pakistani women who last year was sentenced to a gang rape by a tribal council for a crime her brother had committed. A column in the NYT says, Four men raped Ms. Mukhtaran, then village leaders forced her to walk home nearly naked in front of a jeering crowd of 300. Ms. Mukhtaran was supposed to have committed suicide.

But she didn't. She instead fought back with the help of a local Islamic leader and convicted 6 of the rapers. She decided to open two schools in her village with the money she got for compensation (not that money could ever...) because she believes the best way to stop violence is through education.

Needless to say, her story got out and she was recently invited to the US by a group of Pakistani Americans to speak out against these abuses. Shortly after she was asked, she disappeared, apparantly kidnapped by the Pakistani government and disallowed to speak out.

On Thursday, the authorities put Ms. Mukhtaran under house arrest - to stop her from speaking out. In phone conversations in the last few days, she said that when she tried to step outside, police pointed their guns at her. To silence her, the police cut off her land line.

After she had been detained, a court ordered her attackers released, putting her life in jeopardy. That happened on a Friday afternoon, when the courts do not normally operate, and apparently was a warning to Ms. Mukhtaran to shut up. Instead, Ms. Mukhtaran continued her protests by cellphone. But at dawn yesterday the police bustled her off, and there's been no word from her since. Her cellphone doesn't answer.

Now given the close relationship between US and Pakistan, can't we take the focus OFF the "war on terror," and show the global community that we also stand against the raping, kidnapping and silencing of women in Pakistan!

A new scientific study coming out of Baltimore and Seattle finds that from 1999-2003 there has been a 15 percent increase in the infection of women with HIV, as oppossed to men who have increased approximately 1 percent. The report found that newly diagnosed men still outnumber women however the researchers emphasized that the disease is rapidly spreading in women world wide.

More specifically, [n]ationally, African-American women have been especially affected in recent years. The rate of AIDS diagnoses in African-American women was 25 times the rate for white women, and four times the rate for Hispanic women in 2003, reports the Seattle Times.

More than a third of the people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. acquired the virus heterosexually, and about one-fourth are women. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 60 percent of the infections are in women.

The study also found that women are more physically susceptible during certain parts of their lives...During the teen years, the cervix is still developing, and exposes more mucosal cells that are vulnerable to infection. Young women also have higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea and genital herpes, that make them more susceptible to HIV because those diseases cause lesions that make for easy HIV entry.

Damn dude. Finally the study looked into some of the cultural factors that may be causing higher infection rates in women globally. Some concluded that illiteracy, lack of access to birth control or condoms and lack of education were some factors in women's increased infection rates. Another reason is that sexual violence against women in many societies, if not all, is still considered acceptable.

I also think as cultural norms about sex change, young people are having more sex, but society is not keeping up and giving young people the access to education they need to make better informed choices or just promoting using protection. Many still feel (like some ahem religious fundamentalists we may have heard of) that we demand abstinence and ignore the fact that our young people are doing it like bunnies.

History was made Saturday, as Capt. Hanadi Zakariya Hindi, 27, became the first female pilot accredited to soar over this desert kingdom, reports Arab News online.

Prince Alalweed who sponsered Capt. Hanadi says that he will sponser any other women in the country interested in pursuing a career in flight. He said, "I believe that Saudi women are as capable, if not more capable than their male counterparts,”

Such firm conviction in the potential of working women has been amply demonstrated by the prince in his own organization which is an equal opportunities employer. Approximately half of his work force constitutes ladies, including several who hold key positions within several major areas.

Take to the sky ladies!

Then check out this dope female tribute band, AC/DShe.

They’ve been performing since 1999, and have been touring nationwide since. They cover Bon-era songs, and are dedicated to rocking as hard as they possibly can to salute the kick-ass band. They’re actually the first of the female tribute band phenomenon.

You can even check out video clips on the site to see if they’re worth the hype. Also look for them in this month’s SPIN magazine.

Thanks to Ray for the link.

As an update to our post on the recent study finding that birth control can result in a loss of libido, we found some more information that might be of interest.

Check out this story at Riba Rambles about a woman who lost her sex drive due to the pill. Apparently, she went for a hormone test (something I didn’t know existed) that revealed that her testosterone was low, as well as two specific hormones that are suppressed when on the pill.

Basically, getting a hormone check could be a safe thing to do before going on the pill. So many women have no clue what’s in their birth control; this could be way to begin to keep track of any possible risk that may exist.

Thanks to Amanda for the link.

You must check out this awesome online magazine, The F-Word, just launched by a Women’s Studies major from Temple University, Melody Berger. The magazine’s audience? Teens and young women.

The very first issue has just been completed, and now open for viewers to read. It has a ridiculous amount of kick-ass essays, articles, and artwork. They even have a couple of interviews with some of our fabulous famous feminists, like Gloria Steinem, who discusses a range of topics, from the third wave to the war. (My personal favorite section of the mag was the “Howling Harpies.”)

The dope thing about this magazine is not only does it mobilize young women and cover a crapload of feminist issues, but also dissolves the line between feminist theory and activism.

So check it out and show some love!

Wisconsin moved one step closer to being the first state banning EC on college campuses.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

The Republican-controlled Assembly passed, 49-41, a bill that would prohibit University of Wisconsin System health centers from advertising, prescribing or dispensing emergency contraception - drugs that can block a pregnancy in the days after sex. The bill goes to the state Senate.

Democrats said the bill was unconstitutional and, according to Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, so vaguely worded it could stop UW pharmacies from dispensing all forms of birth control to thousands of college students.

But isn’t that the point? To criminalize having sex for anything other than birthin’ the babies?

Rep. Daniel LeMahieu (Mr. Birth-Control-Makes-Girls-Whores) started this nonsense after a UW-Madison health clinic ran ads in campus newspapers for emergency contraception.

A notorious jerk off on choice, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney increased his asshole quotient yesterday when he said that he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

I’m totally disgusted. Especially given gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts for over a year.

Romney said, "My view is that marriage should be defined as a relationship between a man and a woman…I hope that this amendment will ultimately be the one which the citizens have an opportunity to vote on."

Romney also said that he didn’t believe in civil unions for gay couples, but would instead support "certain domestic partnership benefits like hospital visitation rights and rights of survivorship and so forth."

Gee, thanks a lot!

An 85-page report was released yesterday by Human Rights Watch concerning the serious restrictions on reproductive rights that women have faced in Argentina, and the problems that they continue to endure.

By law, one of the most common and effective forms of contraception -- sterilization -- often requires a husband’s consent. Yes, seriously. Many hospitals also require that a women have at least three children and be over the age of 35 to be eligible for the procedure.

Some that that even “pass the test” are refused. One woman, Laura P., has had five children by the age of 35 and was seeking the procedure due to poor health. “In the hospital they set up every possible obstacle. The head of the hospital told me that it was the same as having an abortion.” She appealed to a court and was still denied, despite the fact that she fulfilled all of the ridiculous requirements.

Additionally, abortion is illegal in Argentina. Yet because of these restrictions and lack of access to birth control, there’s an estimated half a million abortions performed annually. This is through unsafe and unregulated clinics or women who choose to attempt to abort the pregnancies themselves, which threatens their health and lives.

An whopping 40% of all pregnancies in Argentina is estimated to end in illegal abortions. This has also been the cause of maternal mortality in the country for the past two decades.

LaShawn R. Jefferson, the Women’s Rights director at Human Rights Watch had much to say:

"Argentina's restrictive abortion laws have a devastating effect on women's human rights, their health and lives...And the worst thing is that these effects are almost entirely preventable...These laws and practices effectively treat women like minors.”

I would even say that’s a nice word to use in this case.

To read the whole report, click here.

Make sure to check out writer Julianne Shepherd’s recent piece, Hip Hop's Lone Ladies Call for Backup, on the recent B-Girl Summit. It’s good shit.

Shepherd takes on a range of issues in the piece: the roots of the event; notions of competitiveness (battling) and how that affects women; how blogging has furthered the discussion of hip-hop and feminism; and why now is the time for a hip hop feminist revolution:

If it sounds a little utopian, it is: Uniting and empowering women in hip hop, and encouraging them to collaborate, is certainly the shiny, happy side of a coin where the other option is the mainstream's violence and naked, gyrating women as props. However, if there was ever a ripe time in history for an event like B-Girl Be to occur, it's now. Over the past year, the hip-hop feminist movement has congealed somewhat magically. About a year ago, Spelman College initiated a boycott of Nelly for his graphic, misogynistic video for the song "Tip Drill"; subsequently, the Ying Yang Twins were barred from performing at Florida Atlantic University for their women-degrading lyrics. Essence magazine launched a "Take Back the Music" campaign, printing a series of articles addressing "hip-hop's outlook on black women's sexuality." And recently, the University of Chicago hosted a Feminism and Hip-Hop Conference, which brought together activists, academics, and critics for three days of panels on the mistreatment and degradation of women in hip hop. To some, these events and activities look like signposts that the ladies are getting organized: It's too soon to call it, but the signs are there for a critical mass of hip-hop feminism, which could, ideally, change the way women--especially women of color--are viewed in the hip-hop mainstream.

While you’re at it, check out Shepherd’s other articles.

Via Can't Stop Won't Stop.

Thanks to Amanda for the link.

After more than 40 years, 13 pioneering women pilots are getting their due.

The women, known as the Mercury 13, were honored last night at a ceremony in Chicago. They trained rigorously in the late 1950s to be the first American in space. Then NASA and Congress cut the program. Nevermind that the women had logged more flight hours and were physiologically better-qualified than the seven men who were "really" competing. These women had the right stuff, and NASA told them to go home.

The result? The Soviets really beat us on this front, sending a woman into space by 1963. Americans had to wait another two decades for Sally Ride.

Maybe some of you had more inclusive U.S. history classes than I did, but this was the first I'd heard of the Mercury 13. I plan to check out this 2003 book, because I obviously didn't get the full story from Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff."

...are Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and Olympia Snowe, (R-ME).

Go to BushvChoice to find out why.

What better way to honor the women who were tortured and killed during the Salem witch trials?

Yesterday’s ceremony unveiling the statue of the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery (sitting on a broom, no less) kills two birds with one stone--it pokes cheeky fun at women who died AND is fantastic publicity for the "Bewitched" movie being released next week.

Just lovely.

An “Aware Alarm” created by security company ADT for domestic violence victims is being distributed for free in Maryland.

“By pressing the button, it sends a signal to the control panel, the control panel then sends a silent alarm to our national center,” said Peter Gioe, from ADT.

“It really helps create security and a sense of normalcy in a life that is just torn apart by domestic violence,” said Debra Young, a victim’s advocate, from the Jefferson Co. Prosecutor’s Office.

I don’t know how normal it is to have to carry around an alarm 24 hours a day just to be a little safer. But I suppose it’s better than nothing.

ADT is footing the bill for the device.

My only question is: does the Aware Alarm bring police to victims’ homes, or do they have GPS technology (like this one) to find women wherever they are?

This is a pretty funny commentary in SF Gate about Gillette's new vibrating razor (that Jessica blogged about a while ago). It is funny how they are marketing a vibrating razor and trying to act like there is nothing sex toy like about it. The ad says something like," Turn on soothing vibrations." Um, yeah this is for shaving and exfoliating. What I am not getting is the thought of a razor near my clit is not really turning me on, but I am assuming the round nobby part is what could be used as a vibrator, but still it is making me feel more queasy then turned on. And shaving has never ever ever, and prolly never will be an erotic experience. It is an annoying beauty standard.

Anyway, the article in SF Gate is pretty funny.

Another Hard, Hot Pink Shave
Ladies! Facing a long, lonely night alone with your stubble? You need a vibrating razor

It is also, of course, the closest thing to a legit sex toy you can buy without actually buying a legit sex toy

Isn't it cute? The multibillion-dollar Gillette monolith making a cheap-ass vibrator and selling it as a razor? Hell, maybe they didn't know. Maybe they honestly thought, with all their marketing savvy and all their billions and all those PR whizzes on the staff, that the Vibrance was just another innocent, sweet, virginal product for innocent, sweet, virgin women. You think?

How can we tell, by the way, that this thing is a vibrator in disguise? I mean, besides the hot smooth fleshy pinkness and the rounded penile tip and besides the fact that the portion of the razor's handle that vibrates most powerfully is actually the large, rounded end without the razor blades on it?

Apparently, the men's version looks like a racecar and the vibrating head is actually under the razor where you would think it would be for a vibrating razor. This is a good one, get one for your mom, but for us, how powerful can it really be? I might have to do a product test.

Thanks to my roomie Stephanie for the article.

While steroids has always been presumed as a problem among men, a new survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that up to seven percent of high school girls may be trying anabolic steroids in the quest for the perfect body. Wow.

While the effects can be damaging for anyone, young women who take the drug can stunt their growth and damage their reproductive system. Because steroid use is related to body image, doctors predict that young women who have eating disorders may now turn to steroids.

Despite the disturbing findings the CDC survey found, other experts think the percentage is exaggerated. For example, a study conducted by the University of Michigan suggests that the total number of users may only be about 20,000 high school females.

Regardless of what the correct number of cases are, this is obviously a problem that needs to be addressed. "The risk is so tremendous," said Dr. Todd Schlifstein of New York University School of Medicine. "In young females, it is catastrophic."

Remember the academic study that found virginity pledgers were more likely to participate in high-risk sexual behavior?

Well, prepare to be shocked. The Heritage Foundation has re-analyzed the same data and determined that the opposite is true. Apparently, those same statistics show virginity pledgers really aren't into oral and anal.

Unsurprisingly, independent experts "criticized the Heritage team's analysis as flawed and lacking the statistical evidence to back its conclusions."

According to the Heritage researchers, not only was the Columbia University study wrong, its authors "deliberately misled the press and public."

I just hate it when I'm tricked into believing academic research that uses accepted statistical methods and is published in a medical journal! From now on I'm only getting my sex-ed statistics from the independent, upstanding researchers at the Heritage Foundation.

Whoa!

The New York City Marathon will award its women's champion $30,000 more than its men's winner, which may be the first time a sports event pays more to a woman than a man in the same competition.

The head of the Women's Sports Foundation said she knew of no other event that paid female winners more than male champions. Donna Lopiano , whose New York-based agency monitors prize money and other aspects of women's sports, said it was a "stunning gesture."

The $130,000 prize will the be the largest for any marathon. My mom runs the NYC marathon...now if only I could get her to win.

While Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky wants to keep the ever-precious resource of Russian women from marrying outside their nationality, film star Jackie Chan thinks that marrying off Chinese women to foreigners is a great way to promote Chinese culture.

"We can encourage more foreigners to marry Shanghai ladies so their children will be able to speak Chinese," Chan said at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the South China Morning Post reported on its front page.

The paper reported that Chan didn’t say why his proposal singled out Shanghai women, and he offered no suggestions about how to implement his plan.

His plan? Jeez, let’s hope he’s not taking it that far!

This news is especially interesting (and coincidental) in light of Zhirinovsky’s racist remarks about Chinese men:

He saw the biggest threat coming from Chinese men, whose choice of potential spouses at home has been restricted by Beijing's "one child" policy. Many have settled in Russia's far east with Russian brides, who appreciate the fact that their foreign husbands tend to drink far less than local men.

"If we don't react now, in 50 or 100 years the Chinese and other Asian nations will be masters in our house and the Russians will become service staff," claimed the MP.

You know guys, we are actually people--not just a gaggle of uteri waiting to spread your cultural seed. Gross.

For those of you lasses who suffer from PMS, it looks like a new study has revealed that calcium and vitamin D may significantly decrease the risk of getting of the pre-period pain in the ass.

While previous research has suggested calcium and vitamin D supplements may decrease the severity of its symptoms, a more recent study in Archives of Internal Medicine says that a diet rich in both nutrients can actually lower of the risk up to 40 percent of developing PMS at all.

Although more research is needed to determine whether supplements or an actual diet is more effective in treating/preventing PMS, at least we know this much: calcium kicks mothafuckin’ ass! Not only can it prevent osteoporosis and possibly some cancers, but may also take away our premenstrual woes.

So ladies, get thee to GNC!

I love love love Ampersand’s take on the reframing issue (so much that I’m stealing it word for word):

For all the talk about “reframing” the abortion debate, the reframing I’d like to see never seems to come up. The issue is government-enforced childbirth. Right-wingers want government-enforced childbirth; lefties don’t.

The issue is not whether we favor or oppose abortion. Plenty of people who are personally opposed to abortion are still pro-choice. You can’t tell the difference between pro-choicers and pro-lifers by asking, “do you favor abortion?” You can tell the difference by asking, “should there be government-enforced childbirth for pregnant women?” Government-enforced childbirth is the defining issue; wanting government-enforced childbirth, not wanting abortion, is the difference between the opposition and us.

Well said.

Priceless.

Bob Jones University, the fundamentalist Christian college that until recently banned interracial dating, has the most complicated dress code ever. And some of the restricted clothes and styles reveal a lot more than just the school’s fashion sense.

Here’s just a little taste...

For Men:

Hairstyles should be neat, orderly, and feminine. Avoid cutting-edge fads and cuts so short that they take on a masculine look.

Outside of the school’s thinly-vieled “don’t look gay” policy, women also have to worry about looking to whorish.

Tops must be long enough that the midriff is never exposed; sleeves are required; hemlines and slits or other openings should never come higher than the bottom of the knee; all dresses, skirts, pants, and shirts must be loose-fitting, having a minimum of three inches of ease at bust and hips.

My head hurts.

Via Nerve.

Why, Madge, why?!

In an unfortunately-titled article, Madonna tells of sex shame, the material girl says that she regrets her sexuality infused image.

...Madonna has admitted that she pushed her explicit image too far.

...The Like A Virgin singer's admission comes just days after the publication of her fifth children's book, Lotsa De Casha, which she hopes will complete her makeover from raunchy star to demure mother of two.

Because you can’t be slutty and a mom. Choose just one, please.

I recognize that Madonna may genuinely regret her past “image” on a personal level, which I can respect. But it seems to me that Madonna has always been a savvy-ass lady and knows that a woman who posed in and produced a book called SEX is going to have hard time selling herself as a children’s book writer in this society. She needs to distance herself from her cone-bra days if she wants to be successful as a respected mommy/writer. And this sucks.

Compared to other women’s rights (and restrictions), the right to drive may not seem like such a big deal. Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz certainly doesn’t think it’s important:

Prince Nayef said he was surprised when a member of the consultative Shura council proposed last month that the driving ban be lifted.

"We consider [the question] to be secondary, not a priority...These matters are decided according to the general good and what is dictated by women's honour...”

You know what’s honorable? Allowing women freedom of movement. Obviously Saudi women are fighting for their rights in many areas, including the right to vote. But if you can’t move around as you see fit--without being able to drive or go out in public without a male relative--the whole world is a prison.

A new report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the “rate of family violence fell by more than one-half between 1993 and 2002, from an estimated 5.4 victims to 2.1 victims per 1,000 U.S. residents 12 years old and older.” Great news, especially with VAWA reauthorization (hopefully) coming up in September.

A couple of things to remember:

These stats reflect a general decline in crime;

violence against women is underreported;

and the BJS defines family violence as “all types of violent crime committed by an offender who is related to the victim and includes spouse abuse, parental violence against a child, and violence among other family members.” So much for abuse committed by partners, boyfriends, or anyone else you aren’t married to. And you can pretty much rule out any statistics on violence within same-sex relationships.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund has a good breakdown of the report, which President Esta Soler says “offers a sobering reminder that women are the victims in the vast majority of cases of domestic violence and homicide, and that it often goes unreported.” Soler also notes that “the resources we have put into services and solutions through the Violence Against Women Act...are beginning to work.”

Let’s make sure that VAWA continues to make a difference, find out more here.

This shit is just scary.

Scandalised by the fact that some of Russia's most beautiful women are opting to marry foreigners instead of Russians, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky is backing a bill that would make them think twice before exchanging vows with a non-Russian.

I'm sorry, is this guy's argument really "we're losing all the hot chicks?"

His party, the incongruously named Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), has drafted a draconian marriage bill that will now be considered by the Duma, the Russian parliament.

...It is proposing punishing such female "traitors" by stripping them of their Russian citizenship, deporting them to the country of their new husband and never allowing them to return. The LDPR also wants them to feel the pain in their pockets and is suggesting that their Russian assets be automatically distributed among their relatives or given to the state.

While this bill isn’t likely to pass, it serves as a nice reminder of what marriage is really about to some people...owning women (and their all important “resource” of a uterus).

Apparently Virgin Air aren't the only assholes who think the idea of urinating on or into women’s dismembered body parts is just hysterical.

And people have the nerve to ask me why I’m a feminist.

Via Gizmodo.

A California program has shed some new light on how drastically domestic violence is underreported.

Kaiser Permanente Northern California launched its Family Violence Prevention pilot program in 1998. Since 2000, when it extended the screening program to all 35 medical centers in the region, reports of domestic violence have increased three-fold among patients.

The comprehensive program takes domestic violence screening beyond the emergency room to other places in the hospital. When violence victims are identified, the hospital connects them with a network of resources quickly, both within the health care setting and in the community.

Kaiser has also set up a traveling exhibit called "Silent Witness," which highlights the stories of its employees who are survivors of domestic violence. The exhibit is on display at Kaiser facilities and at Macy's stores in Northern California.

So, Congress, how's about reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act? The legislation includes funding for enhanced domestic violence screening in health care centers.

Talk about inspiring.

From The New York Times:

Hundreds of women staged an unauthorized demonstration in Tehran on Sunday, protesting sex discrimination under Iran's Islamic leadership just days before the June 17 presidential election.

...Iranian women have turned out in great numbers in elections over the past two decades, often strongly supporting candidates who have promised more rights. But many advocates now say that they have given up hope that any president could change their status under the current constitution. And women are signaling that they are tired of being courted with promises of improved status that are quickly forgotten once the election is over.

This protest comes right on the heels of women crashing a soccer game last week, carrying signs that read "My right is also human rights," and "Freedom, justice and gender equality."

Awesome.

The Kansas Supreme Court will hear arguments on September 8 on whether Phill Kline should be allowed to continue with his privacy-invading madness.

The Washington Post covers MA governor Mitt Romney and his “faked stance” on abortion.

The Christian Science Monitor discusses rollbacks at the state level.

Note to all the folks before the election that told me I was just crazy to think that abortion would in jeopardy under Bush: I told you so. It’s not all about Roe v. Wade, idiots.

Parween Warsi aka the "Samosa Queen" just won the Lifetime Achievement Award for being one of the most successful business women in the UK.

From ChennaiOnline...
Warsi began humbly by making samosas and carting them to her local takeaway - Andy's Fish Bar in Derby - to see if they would sell. Her success at Andy's prompted Warsi to hire local Indian women - housewives who could do with some extra cash - to scale up her kitchen.

From there, she moved on to supplying Britain's largest supermarket chain ASDA. Her company now has an annual turnover of over 70 million pounds.

If I could just get the tamale lady's in my neibhorhood the same recognition!

I think this is a tabloid, but I thought this was really funny. I guess there was an alleged study done in Scotland to look at the gender imbalance in teaching. They found...

SEXUAL predator women teachers are chasing male colleagues away from the profession, says an official report.

In some schools staffrooms have become no-go areas for men because of the intimidation.

I am sorry, I thought this was funny. And probably unlikely.

I just found this interesting commentary on Alertnet taking about the "Housewife theory on History," and looks at some of the political moves women have made, using the label housewife to strategically get places and say things that would not otherwise have been heard.

One of the examples is the Women's Strike for Peace during the Cold War fighting nuclear proliferation. Solnit says...

I think of Women Strike for Peace, who faced down anticommunist authorities at the height of the Cold War to protest the nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, and the nuclear testing that was causing catastrophic damage to the environment and human health--particularly that of infants and children.

The members of WSP subversively used their gender and their genteel, housewifely image to suggest that being against what the government was doing wasn't radical but sensible, motherly, and kindhearted.

I think that the monikker of housewife/mother has been a cover for strategic activism in many global liberation movements. I think of Palestine, Algeria, India among others...

This might be the secret of the housewife theory of history: These women take the qualities that are supposed to render them irrelevant and use them defiantly as well as strategically. Starting with what they love, they cut straight through the quicksand of motives and purposes to point out that harm has been done and should be stopped. In some sense, they depoliticize politics, which is what makes them so politically potent.

What do we think about this? Is mother/housewife activism just something that is a "women's" version of men's politics of the given time (you know like lady's who lunch that want to help the blind; or Laura Bush pushing GW's agenda under the guise of "women's issues.")? Does this perpetuate the belief that caring is "natural" for a women?

Or is this a moment of activism that has totally gone under the radar? Taking into consideration as well all that women are differently affected based on issues of race, class and geographical/cultural location.

I recently watched Hotel Rwanda and felt compelled (and obviously tragically moved and upset by the story, despite its hollywoodization) to write about the women that were victimized in the rape camps during the Tutsi massacre. As most of us know this particular moment of genocide was not something the world payed a tremendous amount of attention to, until after the fact. So it goes the women victimized during this brutal time, where given that much less attention.

An article in the Chicago Tribune talks about the condition of these women violently and systematically raped during the massacre 11 years later.

The evil efficiency of the Hutu government and its militias is well known. What is not as well known is that tens of thousands of women and girls were raped as part of the horror. Some estimates put the number at 250,000 or more.

Now, 11 years later, many of the women who survived are dying of AIDS. For them, the genocide continues, murder on the installment plan.

The article traces the work of Dr. Mardge Cohen, a doctor from Chicago specializing in treating women with HIV, who has opened a clinic in Rwanda for women suffering from HIV. One of the women she is treating, Francine tells her story...

At age 36, Francine lives on less than a dollar a day, a typical existence for many Rwandans. Abandoned and alone, she is caring for her two young sons and two teenaged orphan girls. That, too, is typical.

"Sometimes," she said, "I wish they had killed me."

Sorry for all the text, I didn't want to leave anything out. I think this is something we should know about. Props to those in Rwanda recognizing the problem and trying to help these women, help themselves.

Whoo-hoo! This week the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was introduced in the Senate.

Originally passed in 1994, VAWA revolutionized the way society addressed domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. VAWA increased training for police, prosecutors, and court officials, and greatly improved the response of the criminal justice system to victims of violence. VAWA has also been successful at providing victims with emergency shelter, hotlines, and supportive services. VAWA will expire in September if Congress does not re-authorize it.

The new Senate bill enhances criminal justice responses, improves services and outreach to victims, and increases funding for rape crisis centers. It also better helps children and youth who experience or witness violence, addresses the needs of victims from communities of color, and increases services for tribal victims.

Want to get involved? To learn more about the history of VAWA and to see an overview of the bill visit VAWA2005.org. Check out the VAWA 2005 Action Guide for VAWA Talking Points and a Sample Letter to Congress Supporting VAWA.

The Senate bill was introduced by Senator Biden (D-DE), Sen. Hatch (R-UT), and Sen. Specter (R-PA). For a list of all co-sponsors and to see if your Senator is on the list click here. If your Senator is on the list call/write/or email and say thanks. If not, call and tell them that you want them to support VAWA reauthorization.

Hopefully, a similar bill will be introduced in the House next week. Stay tuned...

According to the BBC, a new report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) found that individuals under 30 accounted for 15% of all personal bankruptcies in 2003-2004. That figure was almost double that of the 2001-2002 level.

The study also found that young women are more likely to declare themselves bankrupt. Though men outnumber in women in the number of bankruptcies by nearly 2 to 1, the PWC study found that the number of women in irreversible financial difficulty rose more than 45% over the last two years.

The main culprits? Expensive college educations, overuse of credit cards, and rising interest rates. As a seemingly professional academic, I know the feeling. (sigh). But debt is one area where I definitely *don’t* want the ladies catching with the men…

A new taxi service scheduled to open in Britain will not only challenge stereotypes of the typical cab driver image, but serve as a safe mode of transportation for women. Launched by pop star Kerry Katona, this company’s drivers are all female.

The company, Pink Ladies, is due to open next week in Brighton, Newcastle and across northwest England. All the cars are pink Renault Kangoos, with pink leather interior. Now all we need is Rizzo in the front seat.

The service was actually founded by Tina Dutton (a family friend of Katona’s) and Andrea Winders. It will be operating on a membership basis, to avoid falling foul of equal opportunities laws. Dutton said:

“The vast majority of taxi drivers are safe and reliable, but there has been a rise in recent years in serious sexual assaults against women, who are often traveling in an unlicensed minicab, late at night...We want to provide women with the choice of having the extra piece of mind of a woman driver.”

A White House press corps reporter recently called out Bush for not calling on women correspondents.

At the June 1 briefing with Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan, a reporter asked:
Scott, at the press conference yesterday, approximately 25 percent of the journalists were women, and the President took only one question from a woman reporter. Can you explain this pattern?

McClellan's response:
Well, like I said, there are a number of major media organizations that were represented there. The President believes it's important to get to those major media outlets... And if it's a question of diversity within those organizations, I think it's a question to direct to those organizations, not us.

He has a point. Major news organizations don't exactly have an admirable record on hiring and retaining women journalists. A 2002 study showed women were 37 percent of newspaper reporters, even though they made up 60 percent or more of students in college journalism programs. Women accounted for only 24 percent of television news directors and 20 percent of radio news directors. As of 2004, those numbers hadn't changed.

So we all agree that today's White House press corps has a long way to go in terms of women's representation. But that doesn't let Bush off the hook for overlooking the female journalists who have succeeded in snagging coveted press corps positions.

“I Was a Teenage Feminist,” a new film by Therese Shechter, is being debuted at the Chicago Filmmakers event this Saturday. Though I definitely want to see the movie, while reading this review in the Chicago Sun-Times, I couldn’t help but succumb to some eye-rolling.

Shechter, who was a feminist as a teenager, found that as a 40-year-old that “she hadn't even thought about feminism in years.”

Shechter believed that whole line about being anything you wanted to be…Somehow, for those of us raised on the 1970s version of girl power, life feels surprisingly complicated. Because no one told about all the trade-offs and compromises and no-U-turn detours that are part of life as a modern woman.

I’m sorry, but this is feminism’s fault? Feminism somehow lied to women because we still have to make trade-offs?

It also seems like Shechter is trying to figure out where “her” feminism went:

…After meeting some serious "third-wave" feminists, who devote their lives to activism, vegetarianism and a few other -isms, Shechter declares in frustration, "If I'm not a queer woman of color on public assistance, I don't rate."

Cry me a river. Am I really supposed to believe that straight, white, middle class women are being marginalized in today’s feminism?

From this review of the film, it seems that Shechter wants a perfect-fit feminism that will sell itself to her. This just annoys the shit out of me. Is feeling comfortable and unchallenged more important than just getting in there and doing the work?

But I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, considering this movie comes from someone who “decides to stop asking questions about the socio-historic meaning of the women's movement and head to Pottery Barn.” Ugh.

Who knew there would two nurse-ins in one week...

A Grand Rapids woman says she was told to stop breastfeeding her baby at the Kent County Clerk's Office. That sparked a protest by other mothers.

"Nobody has the right to tell me how I can feed my baby and when he's hungry. I have to feed him," Seif told 24 Hour News 8.

I love these women. But I wonder why it seems that 'lactivism' gets more coverage than other kinds of activism done by women. Is it because being active about being a mom is ok, but protesting outside a pharmacy that won't give you birth control isn't?

UPDATE: The NY Times has a couple of letters to the editor on this. Have to love this guy: "It may be true that 'babies are born to be breast-fed,' as a lactivist's sign said, but does that mean it must be done in my presence?"

For those in the New York area...

My obsession with Sweet Action magazine is pretty well known, so you can imagine how disappointed I am that I won’t be in town this weekend for their fundraiser. It doesn’t help that the party is at my favorite neighborhood bar, the Tainted Lady. Sigh.

But if you’re lucky enough to be in New York on Saturday, go support this woman-owned and created porn mag for the ladies. It’s excellent stuff. Especially page 6 in the latest issue…

Here's the info:

Tainted Lady
318 Grand St @ Havemeyer
Saturday, June 11th, 7pm

Dick Readings by Madame Micole ($5 a head, you didn't think we'd be doing this for free did you!)

Lots of raffle prizes!

Note: Hands off the striped shirt cutie in the mag’s photo montage; he’s mine!

The White House Project, Fenton Communications and the Women’s Funding Network are taking on the lack of women in the media with the newly-created SheSource.

SheSource, which is still in its beginning stages, will provide an online resource of expert women who can serve as spokeswomen, pundits and sources:

Media presence is one of the most visible forms of political power – and women’s leadership, credibility and effectiveness in the public policy arena will increase in direct proportion to their influence in the news media. Despite their growing ranks as experts in fields ranging from national security and military spending to technology and health care, women are drastically underrepresented in the news media as shapers of policy and leading voices of experience and authority on critical issues.

SheSource will be available to print, broadcast and online journalists nationwide, offering reporters and editors numerous leading professionals on the economy, foreign affairs, health care and the environment – to name a few. Journalists will be able to solicit commentators based on issue expertise, regional location or background.

Pretty bad ass.

Note: I found about SheSource while speaking on a panel at the National Center for Research on Women's Power Matters conference this week (props to Gwen for the stellar organizing job). It seems like it's going to be a really great project, so take advantage of it. If you know someone who should be a spokeswoman, let them know!

A former nurse at Eastern Illinois University is suing the school's board of trustees and its director of nursing because she says that she was denied promotion to full-time work for believing it is morally wrong to dispense emergency contraception.

According to The Chicago Tribune, the director of nursing ended Nead's job interview after Nead said she could not dispense the morning after pill in good conscience. Another nurse got the job, presumably because she would dispense EC.

The American Center for Law and Justice, who settled a $40,000 lawsuit for someone who said they were denied promotion in the health care field for refusing to give abortion counseling, are representing Nead.

I wonder how much of this is actually someone who really believes her freedom of religious expression is being infringed on and how much of it is Pharmacists-For-Life-esque political posturing. I imagine the religious right LOVE LOVE LOVES nurses who refuse to give out the morning after pill!

I feel like saying, "Um, Nurse Nead? You're applying for a job on a college campus! What did you think you'd be dispensing?" Like it or not, students are going to come in asking for emergency contraception. A nurse who wouldn't dispense EC at a college campus is useless and irresponsible; unless, of course, she is being so kind as to pay for all the prenatal care and adopt the unwanted child.

Contributed by Jess Wakeman

Check out this New York Post article (free subscription) and interview with former stripper/dominatrix/porn director/performance artist/sex educator Annie Sprinkle. The fabulous sexpert discusses her experiences in the industry as well as her new book, "Dr. Sprinkle's Spectacular Sex: Make Over Your Love Life With One of the World's Great Sex Experts."

Sprinkle on, Annie!

From Ms. Magazine’s Feminist Wire:

A new poll commissioned by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) has found overwhelming public support for women's access to contraception. Eighty-eight percent of respondents supported women’s access to contraception, reports National Public Radio. Of self-identified Republicans, 80 percent supported a women’s right to use birth control, as did 80 percent of respondents who identified themselves as “pro-life.”

Interesting...Too bad we don’t know where Bushie stands.

Last month, the Financial Times printed the article "A Class Apart" by Craig Offman. The article outlined how women's colleges (Smith College in particular) are reacting to the growth of the transgendered population at their schools.

I am so relieved that people are finally abandoning a binary view of gender -- it's not only close minded but unrealistic in today's world. But what does that mean for historically all-women's environments? We've labored to protect women-only spaces, particularly in the classroom. What happens when a student in one of these colleges wants to become a man? Is it feminist to protect the "pure femaleness" of these schools or, as progressive and supportive communities, should we support women becoming whatever they want to be, even if that means becoming a man? What does it even mean to be a woman?

As an alumna of a Seven Sister's college, I'm a huge proponent of all-female colleges, and think it makes a big difference to preserve institutions where women (and only women) can prosper. I also value women-only spaces in my personal life. But I firmly believe that trans women are just as much a part of this community as anyone, and should be included as such. The problem is resolving the intellectual, administrative and legal issues. Basically, how would this work? Would we have to admit all men into these spaces if we accept women living as men? How do we distinguish?

What do y'all think?

French fashion says the macho man is so last year.

One in 10 pregnant women are abused in Hong Kong. (And guess who the perpetrators are?)

A member of Iran’s Guardian Council says women are "incompetent to take up presidential responsibilities" and "lack the intellectual capacity and understanding to stand as candidates."

Nine women from around the world plan to be the first female Catholic priests ordained in North America in a ceremony not sanctioned (obviously) by the Vatican.

Brazil is number one—in violence against women. Ouch.

You may recall the scariest tampon ever (above) designed by a Swedish woman "to contribute to the debate on men’s sexual violence against women in society."

Well, it looks like what was once an artistic concept may now be a reality in South Africa, where there are over 50,000 reported rapes a year:

The tampon-like device, invented by a woman, supposedly protects women from rapists by cutting into a man’s penis.

Women’s groups disputed her claims, which have reopened a debate over violence against women in South Africa. The country has been called the rape capital of the world. Lisa Vetten, of the Centre of Violence and Reconciliation, said: “This is like going back to the days when women were forced to wear chastity belts. It is a terrifying thought that women are being made to adapt to rape.”

I thought this could be a hoax, because the idea of a penis trap being sold alongside tampons is just too bizarre. Tried to get more info on the inventor, but I didn't come across anything. You be the judge...

Once upon a time women created fantastic stories and fables while men took the credit. Unfortunately this isn't a fairy tale (or a shocker):

The Brothers Grimm have received credit for "Cinderella," "Snow White," "The Frog Prince" and other famous fairy tales, but now some scholars believe women provided the German brothers with these stories and many others.

"Most scholars agree that women have been the source of this tradition for centuries, particularly because, lacking formal educations, they had no or limited access to expressing themselves in print on paper," said Valerie Paradiz, who will present her research on the Brothers Grimm at next year's Fairy Tale Conference at Kent State University in Ohio.

The fact that women haven't gotten credit for their work (in many areas, not just literature) isn't hard to fathom. The fact that there's actually a Fairy Tale Conference is a different story.

The Brothers Grimm did end up giving credit to one woman, an educated middle class woman named Dorothea Viehmann. But the brothers described her "as being an uneducated, kindly old 'peasant woman,' to reinforce a folksy charm that the brothers hoped to imbue their books with." Nice.

Paradiz says that other than the brothers' "folksy" crediting of Viehmann, they simply "referred back in time to other male editors, particularly Charles Perrault, who essentially did what they did: collect fairy tales from women, edit them and publish them with their names on the book as its compilers."

Mayor George Gant of Kissimmee, Florida was arrested yesterday after a year-long investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Gant—who is also a doctor—was arrested for inappropriately touching two female patients during gynecological exams.

You're going to love his defense. His lawyer, Harrison "Butch" Slaughter (nice nickname), said: "He does a very, not aggressive, but thorough examination and you have women of different backgrounds, different ethnicities, they may be thinking this exam was different for them. I don't know."

Am I imagining this? Is he actually saying that women who aren't white don't know what a proper gyno exam consists of? Because I'm pretty fucking sure that every woman knows that going to the doctor shouldn't include getting assaulted. What's also interesting/infuriating is that Gant and "Butch" don't know who the women bringing the charges are. So I'm kind of wondering where this genius defense came from.

UPDATE: Three more women have come forward claiming Gant abused them.

A slightly belated Happy Birthday to legalized contraception!

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established constitutional privacy protection for married couples' use of contraception. The case paved the way for Supreme Court decisions
extending the right to use contraception to unmarried women in 1972, and expanding privacy rights to encompass abortion in 1973. More recently, the court relied on Griswold in deciding Lawrence v. Texas, which protects the right to consensual homosexual sex.

In other words, Tuesday was a major holiday for all supporters of reproductive rights. Yesterday's opinion pages were full of great commentary on the Griswold anniversary. Sorry I'm a day late on this one!

UPDATE: Check out Amanda's "Not-so-Happy Birthday" post at Pandagon and NARAL Pro-Choice America's new report, States of Denial: 40 Years After Griswold v.Connecticut, Privacy and Birth Control at Risk Once Again.

This study published in Biology Letters found that 34% of the reason women do not orgasm is related to genetics. The study surveyed over 1000 sets of twins identical and non-identical. BBC News recaps...

Overall, orgasm frequency was higher for the identical female twins than the non-identical female twins, which the researchers said suggested there must be some genetic component.

"The fact that it's heritable suggests that evolution has a role."

Hmm. Can someone explain to me how this proves that it is genetic? Aren't twins exposed to differing life experiences and socializing processes despite sharing identical DNA composition?

The researchers suggested that one of the reasons that orgasm's are evolutionary is because it helps women pick long-term mates. Because that is exactly what we are all looking for! And because if he can make you cum, he can raise your baby. Which is exactly why lesbians have (better, he he:) orgasms.

No but really, what is up with male researchers trying to find *evolutionary* purposes for the orgasm outside of just fun? And perhaps the lack of them being due to un-fun sexual practices and discourses that prevent women from effectively realizing their orgasmic self. I know we have had this discussion before, but any thoughts? Am I totally misinterpreting data here or does this study have some serious validity threats?

A number of women artists from seven Asian countries are scheduled to come together in Seoul to present works that confront sexuality and the female body, reports the Korea Times.

The 3rd Women’s Arts Festival presented by the Feminist Artist Network is titled “Fantastic Asia -- New Relations Within the Invisible Borders” and will be running from June 16th to July 3rd at the Seonkok Art Museum.

The timing works well, for Seoul will also be holding the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women. It’s the first time for the conference to be held in Asia.

Thirty different artworks ranging from paintings to videos to installations from China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand will be presented. The works will exemplify the effects that social powers, customs, and traditions have on Asian women’s sexuality.

Good luck, ladies!

In response to Iran’s ban on women’s attendance at soccer matches, a group of Iranian women have petitioned the Iranian Football Federation and were allowed to attend their national team’s Group B Asian Zone 2006 World Cup Qualifier against North Korea.

Niloofar Ardalan, the best female player in Iran, was a part of that group. She once scored 23 goals in an international women’s tournament. This was the first men’s match that Ardalan has ever been allowed to attend.

“Many young women are in love with football but they are frustrated that they cannot come to watch,” she said.

Elaheh Moladoast, a referee in the women’s league, feels similarly. “We are defending our rights as women to come and watch rather than sitting at home and watching on television. There should be no limitations.”

Apparently, Iran’s ban on women’s attendance at football matches has been a hot topic in the recent presidential elections. The frontrunner, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has expressed his desire to remove the ban.

Let’s hope that match will drop kick some rights into the stadium.

No matter how we may feel about former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, her recent activity on choice should be lauded. She sees what the Bush administration is doing (or not, I should say) for women’s reproductive rights, and doesn’t like it, reports the Washington Post.

We all know by now about Bush’s threats to veto bills that permit US family planning aid to clinics that promote or perform abortions, as well as his barring funding to international groups that support abortion. Well, Albright is quite infuriated, and has made it known.

She spoke yesterday at a women’s health conference as the chairwoman of the Ministerial Initiative of the Council of Women World Leaders, where she assured that giving women power to make their own choices over their own bodies will result in healthier women and better societies.

“We need political leaders committed to giving women the power to choose,” she said in her speech.

Tell me about it.

Italian justice minister Roberto Castelli said recently that women wearing burkas should be "reported to the police and fined." Real nice.

Mr Castelli told a meeting in the northern town of Como: "No one may break the law."

He was referring to a decision by the local prefect to overturn fines imposed last year on an Italian convert to Islam from nearby Drezzo, who wears a burka. Two other women have been fined for wearing the garment elsewhere. Mr Castelli's remarks were condemned by leftwing parties. Marco Rizzo of the Communist party said they were "at the threshold of incitement to racial and religious hatred".

Ya think?

The Supreme Court refused to reinstate a lawsuit yesterday that blames Title IX for discrimination against male athletes. (Yes, it’s the wrestling coaches.)

The case involved claims that the government is forcing colleges to discriminate against male athletes, because of a requirement that the ratio of male and female athletes be similar to the overall student population.

"If unchecked, the gender quota ... will continue to cause sweeping injustices and discrimination in colleges nationwide, and is already being applied to public high schools," justices were told in a brief filed by the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund.

Right, cause giving women equal opportunities is a “sweeping injustice” to men.

Looks like the growing popularity of “nurse-ins” came to Barbara Walters’ doorstep yesterday, after the talk show host made a negative remark about public breastfeeding:

The protest, inspired by similar events organized by a growing group of unlikely activists nationwide in the last year, brought about 200 women to ABC's headquarters yesterday. They stood nursing their babies in the unmistakably public venue of Columbus Avenue and West 67th Street. They held signs reading, "Shame on View," and "Babies are born to be breastfed." Ms. Walters, who remarked a few weeks ago on the show that the sight of a woman breast-feeding on an airplane next to her had made her uncomfortable, said through a spokesman that "it was a particular circumstance and we are surprised that it warrants a protest."

But the rally at ABC is only the most visible example of a recent wave of "lactivism." Prodded by mothers who say they are tired of being asked to adjourn to the bathroom while nursing in a public space, six states have recently passed laws giving a woman the right to breast-feed wherever she "is otherwise authorized to be."

What is about breastfeeding that makes people so uncomfortable? I just don’t get it.

Everyone knows the whole feminists-are-anti-sex argument, and I think that most people familiar with feminism know that it's bullshit. But Adam Ash at Blogcritics says that the public perception—whether true or not—of feminists as anti-sex is the main obstacle for the movement. In his book review of Catharine MacKinnon's Women's Lives, Men's Laws, Ash says what we're lacking is a "feminist who digs cock."

Why do so many women not want to call themselves feminists? I sincerely think it's because the word carries the stigma that feminists don't like bonking—least of all bonking guys.

...Until some sexy cock-happy feminist appears to gainsay this stereotype, feminism will remain lurking in the shadows of popular culture. It needs a poster child bad.

Let me just say that Ash does give MacKinnon props for her work and, outside of all the cock-loving talk, presents a thoughtful analysis. I'm just focusing on his call for a new poster child.

Is having a sexpot spokesperson the only way for feminism to be socially acceptable? Would seeking out a potential pundit based on looks be a strategic move or selling out?

Billboard magazine just came out with its first Top Women in Music list.

From label executives to digital gurus, publishers to artists, the women included have not only helped shape the music business, they are the architects of its future. The criteria used to decide the ranking weighed accomplishments during the past year, power to greenlight projects, status in their respective companies and overall career achievements. The artists listed were chosen based on their business prowess and ability to transform their fame into a multi-layered brand.

This is a definitely a good thing, but I don’t know how I can get behind a list that rates Jennifer Lopez as the number one artist (and higher than Queen Latifah!).

You'll be happy to know that Carey Roberts at Men's News Daily has figured out why Amnesty International is no longer a respected human rights organization—those crazy feminists.

Roberts bitches about Amnesty's reports on women in Afghanistan not paying enough attention to men, and claims that the organization is anti-male:

Amnesty’s 1999 report, Women in Afghanistan: Pawns in Men’s Power Struggle, opens with this anti-male diatribe: “While the ‘battles of death are played out by men, women have the responsibility for the battles of life.’” Try telling that to the Afghani men who were risking their all trying to protect the lives and honor of their women from the Taliban marauders.

Uh, yeah. Roberts continues with his girls-are-icky-and-ruin-everything theory by arguing that Irene Khan brought mayhem upon the organization with her radical call for an end to domestic violence:

...It’s hard to imagine a human rights organization, of all groups, pandering to a one-sided gender ideology. And it’s difficult to believe that things could get any worse at AI. But they did.

Pay a visit to the Amnesty International website and you will learn that Ms. Khan has recently unveiled a campaign to stop violence. The campaign, Stop the Violence Against Women, aims to publicize the problem of domestic violence.

Wow, he’s right—that is radical! Imagine the nerve of this chick trying to actually end violence against women. Next thing you know, those crazy bitches will be able to vote. Oh wait…

I love how Roberts manages to get all his misogyny and U.S.-centric crap packed into one article. Bravo!

Texas governor Rick Perry signed anti-choice legislation yesterday in a "ceremony filled with religious references." Not surprising, considering Perry signed the bill in a frigging church school gymnasium! At least we know where Perry stands—there's no mistaking his disdain for choice:

"It has been a tragedy of unspeakable consequences that for decades activist courts denied many Texas parents their right to be involved in one of the most important decisions their young daughter could ever make—whether to end the life that was growing inside her," Perry told a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered at the Calvary Christian Academy. "For too long, a blind eye has been turned to the rights of our most vulnerable human beings—that's the unborn in our society."

Sigh.

But just one atrocious bill wasn't quite enough for Perry. He also signed a resolution to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages: "A nurturing home with a loving mother and loving father is the best way to guide our children down the proper path."

Yes, you too can put your kids on the proper path of discrimination and hate! God wants you to!

Via Pandagon.

A new report from Harvard’s School of Public Health shows that at tobacco companies spent a hell of a lot of energy trying to figure out the best way to get women to smoke.

Apparently it’s through chocolate-flavored and/or “diet” cigarettes. And of course, the ladies love skinny, long, sexy (cough, cough) cigs:

the industry exploited the common misconception that these products were safer than regular cigarettes—one reason women tend to choose the slim styles. These cigarettes also matched female taste preferences, with a mild flavor and easy smoke draw.

“Most smokers have little notion of their brand’s tar and nicotine levels,” the 1987 report reads. “Perception is more important than reality, and in this case the perception is of reduced tobacco consumption.”

Lovely.

To update on last week's post about Mayor Jim West caught up in a scandal and being "outed" despite his homophobic beliefs has said he will not resign.

A little ditty on Salon quotes West...
"This has been an embarrassing, humiliating and painful experience, but it does not distract me from doing my job, from leading, and it doesn't need to distract the city," West said at a news conference.

Um yeah it does when you openly condemn gay/lesbian rights, but then wonder why those same injustices may perhaps affect you after you are "revealed."

West told reporters he was "incredibly at peace" now that his sexuality is public, but maintained it's none of the public's business.

I am sorry. Yes it is the public's business if you clearly are attempting to regulate other people's "personal" choices through homophobic legislation. This is just really sad.

As we have discussed before on this site, women have been making considerable progress in Kuwait for increased women's rights.

Reuters tells us...
Kuwait appointed two women to its municipal council for the first time on Sunday, in another historic move after the Gulf Arab state granted women suffrage last month.

"The six Municipal Council members have been appointed and they include two female personalities," Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah told state news agency KUNA, which said the move was the first in Kuwait's history.

Women were not able to vote this round of municipal elections because the law passed too recently. However, women will first be allowed to vote in the 2007 parlimentary elections.

Stunned by my own ignorance on this topic, I thought human trafficking already WAS a felony, but apparently it is not. California just approved a Bill that if passed will make human trafficking illegal.

An article in San Jose Mercury News discusses...

Proposed by Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, the bill -- which passed 57-10 -- defines the practice as forced labor using coercive tactics such as threats of abuse or blackmail. The victims are often forced into prostitution, though the wording of the bill would apply to other types of labor.

AB 22 would make human trafficking a felony punishable by six years in prison if the victim is an adult and up to eight years for a minor. It would also compel convicted felons to pay restitution to victims. Human trafficking is already a federal crime, but a state law would make it easier to prosecute those who do it in California, supporters said.

An estimated 20,000 people are brought into the United States each year and forced into prostitution, domestic service, factory work, farming or other kinds of work, Lieber's office said. California, with its large immigrant population, has one of the highest incidences of trafficking in the country.

This is like my backyard. I am horrified. Hopefully the bill passes, yes?

The last decade or so have shown a significant decrease in US community/family run farms. International and global policies of creating "cash crops," have driven a lot of these smaller farms under. Despite this overall decrease in farms the number of women running farms has actually increased.

An article in the New York Times talks about a women, Ms. Rogowski in upstate New York who built a farm starting with a crop of chili peppers seeded in her bedroom and planted in a remote field. Ms. Rogowski has transformed Rogowski Farm, raising 250 varieties of produce and forming intimate connections to its customers and employees. For her innovations, she won a $500,000 "genius award" last year from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the first given to a full-time farmer.

Ms. Rogowski, 43, is one of thousands of women who have changed the face of American farming. Though American farms have steadily declined in jobs and capital for years, the number of farms operated by women has more than doubled since 1978, from just over 100,000 to almost 250,000 today, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

Farming in the 3rd world context is a HUGE issue that stems from systemic global policies that have displaced women farmers (historically and globally the people usually on the fields) by buying out there land and raising prices on seeds that they have cultivated themselves. Check out Vandana Shiva for some background on this global phenomenon. Much of the produce/poison sold in chain super markets are grown at the cost of horrible labor conditions and low wages where people have been disenfranchised from their own land!

Almost 15 percent of American farms are now run by women.
It is pretty cool that in the States middle class folks have the ability to support local farms because of their preference for organic or locally grown produce. For those of you in the states: SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARM!!!! Not to be too preachy but this is a huge feminist issue and a little talked about global injustice.

Whoo-hoo! Yesterday, the 4th Circuit appeals court struck down a Virginia law which barred late-term abortions. The Court held that the law was unconstitutional because it did not provide an exception to safeguard a woman's health.

While this is good news (as it demonstrates that the super-conservative 4th Circuit is willing to follow legal precedent), the majority made clear that were unhappy with their decision. The panel wrote: "Even if abortion [is] offensive to our most basic principles of morality . . . that cannot control our decision, for our obligation is to apply the Supreme Court's definition of personal liberty, not to mandate our own moral code." (sigh).

Virginia Attorney General Judith Williams Jagdmann said that she is reviewing the ruling, and may ask the entire 4th Circuit to review it. Priscilla Smith, legal director of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, which challenged the law on behalf of a Richmond doctor and a Richmond medical center, feels confident in the victory. In regards to any subsequent reviews, Smith explained that, "As long as the court follows Supreme Court precedent, we should have no problem."

Thank God for stare decisis.

According to the BBC, a recent study by a British financial website found that women investors are consistently better at investing in shares than men.

In a sample of 100,000 portfolios, the average woman's share portfolio grew by 17%, while the average man's rose by just 11% (Over the same period, the British stock index climbed by 13%).

So what does this all mean? The study speculated that women were more successful because they favored a balanced portfolio-strategy instead of more risky stocks. In contrast, men tended to go for "fad" stocks and riskier investment strategies.

These kinds of observations are interesting. On the one hand, here we have the propagation of old gender norms, in new financial language (i.e. women are nurturers and caregivers who won't take risks).

On the other hand, if you have ever been approached by a meat-head financial services guy in a bar, it does not take a great mental leap to think that testosterone is directly linked to herd-mentalities and reckless behavior.

Thoughts?

-- Contributed by Brendan Sweeney

The AP reports that Jennifer Bier, a rape counselor facing jail for refusing to provide a military court with records of her sessions with a former Air Force Academy cadet, filed for a temporary restraining order yesterday.

Bier's attorney, Wendy Murphy, said that she hoped to protect Bier from being arrested and keep private the records from the sessions Biers had with her client. The restraining order would prevent her arrest by the military.

Airman Joseph Harding, who is accused of sexually assaulting two women at the Air Force Academy, subpoenaed Bier. Harding's attorney claims that, "his client's right to a fair trial overrides the alleged victim's right to privacy." (sigh).

While I believe in zealous representation by the defense, I think the right of victims to speak confidentially to advocates *far* outweighs the defendant's right to interview an advocate. Let's just hope the judge sees it this way.

You must check out Rebecca Traister's latest at Salon, Morning gory, on our obsession with woman-on-woman fighting and the frenzied coverage of a (much-desired) Sawyer-Couric showdown.

The whole piece is great, but I think Traister hits the nail here:

Painting powerful women as long-nailed, sharp-toothed competitors -- which, incidentally, they sometimes are, just like their male peers -- is a digestible way of dealing with them. We can marginalize them as shrieky playground girls, thereby turning them from real-life professionals into familiar and unthreatening caricatures of femininity.

And as Traister so acutely points out: Nothing sells like girl-on-girl action.

(By the way, this piece inspired Pandagon's Amanda to figure out how female bloggers can garner more attention: "an all-out Jello wrestling competition." Genius.)

Protesters in Cairo demonstrate against what they say are government-sanctioned attacks against women.

Danish researchers find that "curvier" women will live longer.

Despite Vicente Fox's desire not to "reheat" the Juarez murders, a special prosecutor has been assigned to investigate the killings.

Men in Saudi Arabia get in a tizzy over the possibility of women being allowed to drive: "Driving by women leads to evil."

More than 25 percent of women executives in the UK would consider cosmetic surgery in order to improve their career.

Two Iranian women climb Mount Everest; they are the first Muslim women to do so.

Ah, Prudie. You never fail to amaze me.

In her latest advice column, a woman writes in about having to constantly clean up after her boyfriend and being "burned out being the only one to clean the house." Prudie's advice? Suck it up!

Dear Sick,
Given the fact that you're in a two-year relationship with a swell guy, Prudie would advise you to pick your battles. Because the beloved is an inveterate slob and you've had no luck getting him to pitch in around the house, there are really only two options open to you. One is to sit him down … not like a 3-year-old, but like a partner to whom you're making a plea for help. Tell him you feel like the maid and that's not the way you want to feel. Lessons are not required to remember to take your clothes off in one place, use hot water instead of cold, or learn that the top of the fridge is not the proper place for whatever he's putting up there—merely a serious request. The other alternative is what Prudie's mother taught her: It is sometimes easier to pick up the guy's socks than to make continual "requests." Given that he is slothful and chaotic around the house (and may also have retro ideas about men and women), it might be easier on you to bear in mind what a great guy you have while you pick up his socks. Don't ask Prudie how she knows this.

—Prudie, efficiently

See ladies, all you have to do is think happy thoughts while you pick up after your man. It's so much "easier" that way. I love that not only does she find it acceptable for this woman to continue to play maid, but she also seems to have no problem with the guy possibly having "retro ideas about men and women." (By the way, the word 'retro' makes being an asshole seem way too trendy.)

B-Girl Be, started by a group of Minneapolis women, will hold its first summit on Women in Hip Hop this weekend:

B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women In Hip-hop will be a place to make connections, build confidence, sharpen skills, and to gain access to the tools to create music, film, poetry, rap, aerosol art, and dance.

For these women, hip-hop is about gender, politics, or even body image or abortion, instead of the violence portrayed in mainstream hip-hop.

Awesome. If you're in the area, make sure to show your support. The line-up of artists and events looks amazing. All of a sudden I kinda wish I lived in Minnesota.

I never thought I'd be able to use a billboard image twice in one week.

In New York, men who are arrested for soliciting prostitutes are sent to "john school." Oakland, California has more of a tough love method--they're putting up "shaming" billboards with pictures of the men who have been arrested. Yikes!

"This idea came out of just thinking about new ideas, doing something to deal with this increasing problem, especially with the exploitation of underage women," said Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who champions the approach.

Critics say the technique -- which De La Fuente said has been used in Texas -- recalls medieval public humiliations.

"It doesn't seem to us to be appropriate for Oakland to be using shaming as an additional and extrajudicial punishment to single out this group of offenders," said Alan Schlosser, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union for Northern California. "We don't think this is good public policy."

But it's a great way to get famous. Just think, you too can be in the company of celebs like Hugh Grant!

From The Boston Globe:

Governor Mitt Romney's top political strategist has told a prominent conservative magazine that his client has been "faking" his support of abortion rights in Massachusetts.

"The quote in the National Review article was not what I meant to communicate," Murphy's statement said. "I was discussing a characterization the governor's critics use. I regret the quote and any confusion it might have caused."

Yeah, sure.

Romney, while pledging in a 1994 run for Senate to keep abortion “safe and legal,” has recently backtracked, saying he is “personally pro-choice” and “in a different place” on the issue.

Check out this article in the New York Times today about the subculture of women who choose midwifery and home care as an alternate option to the IVs and epidurals that women in labor endure at a hospital.

One group that supports natural childbirth in the home is Birthnet, a New York-based organization whose mission is to improve the quality of maternity care. Their information implies that the need for a hospital is rarely needed, and how pregnancy is stigmatized as a disease that needs “treatment”, such as technology-intensive care from a hospital. Issues such as the harms of epidurals, the unnecessary rise of cesarean births, and the impersonal, invasive procedure of hospital births are raised.

They say that 90% of pregnancies are natural births that need no hospital assistance. They encourage the use of registered midwives, who visit homes for checkups and eventually give birth at home as well.

I’ve never given birth, so I’m not really sure how I would handle a full-term pregnancy. But 'tis an interesting issue to think about.

Thoughts?

Check out this article by Ann Arbor News on a study conducted at Eastern Michigan University on the impact of college binge drinking on young women. The article, “Study Says Some Women in College Drink for Parity, Researchers Identify News Forms of Feminist Behavior.” Feminist drinking behavior? Hmm.

The study was lead by Amy Young, an assistant professor of psychology. She believes that the study showed how college women believe that “bad boy” behavior demonstrates gender equality. The fifty undergraduate female students studied felt that binge drinking or “drinking like a guy” showed they were holding their own and not weak, or were perceived as “really hot” by their male peers. In other words, the harder they party, the more respected they are.

Young seems to believe that this is caused by the generation being raised under Title IX and the image of tough girls showing that they can do anything boys can. “It’s not surprising to see them trying to compete with boys in terms of how rowdy or outrageous they can be.” says Young. Yet they also have to look good while doing it, which Young calls a “a noteworthy blend of old and new roles.”

Yet some disagree, like senior Joselyn Garcia, who says that women drink in college not to appeal or show up the guys, but for their own personal enjoyment. “I just think that women always wanted to (drink), but didn’t want to be looked at as rebels...It’s a liberation kind of thing.” I don’t know if a lemon drop shot is the path to liberation, but it’s hard for me to believe that college women drink solely for the frat boys.

While Young does mention the more dire consequences of binge-drinking like the serious problem of college rape (which needs a hell of a lot more attention, I might add), she concluded that college women are trying to meet two flawed standards of drinking like men and being liked by men (which has its own heterosexist issue).

What do y’all think?

While we’re facing just about the crappiest administration in American history, a Kansas senator who once shit on women’s suffrage is looking to be the state’s top elections official, reports the Seattle Times.

Sen. Kay O’Connor made a statement yesterday that she is seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state next year. In 2001, she made the following remarks concerning the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote:

“I think the 19th Amendment, while it's not an evil in and of itself, is a symptom of something I don't approve of...The 19th Amendment is around because men weren't doing their jobs, and I think that's sad. I believe the man should be the head of the family. The woman should be the heart of the family."

I’m a bit disturbed this woman is an actual state senator. She dismissed the controversy yesterday as “silliness,” saying that she doesn’t think the voters will consider it a significant issue. HA! “I am who I am. You don’t have to agree with everything I say.” said O’Connor. Double HA! But we’ll happily make you secretary of state, just ‘cause!

I think it may be time to click her ruby red slippers and get back to reality.

Ghada Jamsheer a prominent women's rights activist in Bahrain and heads the Women's Petition Committee, a network of activists demanding the codification of the kingdom's family laws and the reform of its family courts, is on trial for speaking out on behalf of women's rights in courts that hold up shari'a rights.

An article via Reuters discusses...
She faces three trials for publicly criticizing family court judges; the first is scheduled to begin in the capital Manama on June 4. She was indicted earlier this year before the High Criminal Court for three incidents of alleged "slander." She is accused of slander on the basis of calling family court judges in Bahrain "corrupt, biased, and unqualified" and calling a specific judge "rude and unfair." She is also being criminally charged by the ex-husband of a divorced woman whose case was adopted by the Women's Petition Committee.

"Ghada Jamsheer is being punished for exposing the injustice that women face in the courtroom," said LaShawn R. Jefferson, Women's Rights director at Human Rights Watch. "These lawsuits are a blatant attempt to silence her and undermine the reform efforts she spearheads."

Human Rights Watch is saying that all the charges should be dropped. Part of the problem is a significant portion of shari'a are just understood, not actually written, so the interpretation is up to some "moral leaders" in the courts and within the community.

Por ejamplo,
Since 2001, the Women's Petition Committee has documented hundreds of cases in which these judges misinterpret religious jurisprudence and deny Bahraini women their rights arbitrarily. For example, several judges have denied women custody of their children simply because they work or are pursuing higher education.

As y'all well know, feminists don't share one, collective view on sex work. But it looks like the Belgian government might.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the Belgian government recently legalized prostitution in the city of Antwerp, as "a case study in the benefits -- and limits -- of legalization."

The article reports that legalization has "helped reduce prostitution-related crime -- including drug trafficking, assault, rape, murder and vandalism -- by 44% overall since 2001...[and] also has brought in nearly $800,000 in tax revenue to the city." Yet it thankfully also presents the other side of the debate, discussing the ever-present problems of degradation and increased trafficking that prostitution inevitably brings.

Check it out ASAP.

Thanks to Gary (again)!

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio has just launched an abstinence-based sex education billboard campaign. Awesome.

The campaign is funded by state health department and being supported by Clear Channel Communications, who is donating billboard space—about 45 of them across San Antonio.

One of the abstinence-based slogans: “Respect yourself -- Save sex for marriage.”

I think we can do a lot better. Any ideas?

Not only do those crazy gays want to get married, but they also want to—get this—have jobs and families and buy cars. Hide your heterosexual daughters!

The America Family Association (AFA) is calling for a boycott of Ford for "supporting the homosexual marriage movement." And what are some of the company's family-killing actions that necessitate a boycott?

Ford...

Sponsored the "family area" in the 2005 Gay Pride Day in Ferndale, Michigan;

Has been on the DiversityInc "Top 50 Companies for Diversity" list in each of the four years the rankings have been published.

Are we really supposed to think that these are bad things? The boycott's website also features some of Ford's oh-so-horrific advertisements (like the one above) that have the nerve to actually recognize that gay people exist.

But don't worry, the AFA insists they don't hate The Gays: It is that love that motivates us to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture. AFA has sponsored several events reaching out to homosexuals and letting them know there is love and healing at the Cross of Christ.

Because when I think scary conservative Christian organizations screaming for an end to the "radical homosexual agenda," I think love. It just washes over me.

Related: The Washington Blade, How to respond to anti-gay Ford boycott

A judge has ruled that an Indiana Planned Parenthood must turn over the medical records of 84 patients to the state in yet another “I-swear-we’re-only-looking-for-rapists” investigation.

Jeb Bush signed a bill yesterday increasing state regulations and oversight of women’s clinics offering second-trimester abortions. The Governor (why does it pain me to call him anything but asshole?) said that he signed the bill “gladly, with pride and conviction,” and did so in an effort “to create a culture of life in our state.”

Blue Cross Blue Shield has fixed a glitch that mistakenly made the company cover the costs for women’s contraceptives in a Montana clinic. Damn it.

But on the bright side…

An anti-choice protest falls through at the University of Washington. Cause pretty much no one was going to show.

Sex columnist Dan Savage takes on anti-choicers. On Wisconsin lawmaker Danny LeMahieu, who wants to keep the University of Wisconsin from advertising or providing emergency contraception:

Danny LeMahieu's bill wouldn't stop the student health centers in Wisconsin from passing out condoms to male students. So the gay boys at UW will have all the condoms they need for virus control, while heterosexual students have to go without birth control. The bill discriminates against heterosexual students exclusively—see, straight people? The American Taliban is after your asses too.

Does this assault on straight rights piss you off, my heterosexual readers? Then pick up your damn phones and call Danny LeMahieu at 608-266-9175 and tell him to stick his bad bill, AB-343, right up his pasty white ass. Or better yet, call Danny on his dime, and often, at 888-534-0059.

From Reuters:

The National Council of Women's Organizations said on Tuesday it would introduce a resolution at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shareholder meeting to make the company offer equal pay for equal work regardless of gender.

"This resolution allows Wal-Mart to do the right thing -- release information on stock option and restricted stock awards by gender and race to let the public know how these valuable forms of compensation are divided among employees."

Women make up 72 percent of Wal-Mart's employees but only one-third of management jobs; those women who are managers make almost $5,000 less than male managers, and women hourly workers make 40 cents less an hour than men.

Let's just hope this latest venture by Burk doesn't encounter the same insane backlash that the Augusta controversy did.

There's nothing like coming home after a long day at work, taking your shoes off and settling into a cozy placenta cushion. Ahhh...just like mom used to make.

Designed by Batti, an Argentinean designer too cool for two names, the Placentero chair "got its name from combination of two words linked to the pregnancy period, 'placenta' and 'pleasure'." Yeah, cause nothing says pleasure and comfort like afterbirth.

Via Gizmodo.