August 2006 Archives

Colorado Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez is getting in trouble for spouting off about black women and abortion without actually researching the issue.

On Colorado Public Radio on Monday morning (audio here), he said, "in some of our ethnic communities we're seeing very, very high percentages of babies, children, pregnancies end in abortion... I've seen numbers as high as 70 percent, maybe even more, in the African-American community that I think is just appalling."

Beauprez obviously hadn't "seen numbers." According to the CDC, the abortion ratio for black women is 495 per 1,000 live births, or 33%. The Guttmacher Institute elaborates:

Black women are more than twice as likely as women overall to have an abortion, and Hispanic and Asian women have abortion rates slightly higher than average: Five percent of black women have an abortion each year, compared with 3% of Hispanic women, 3% of Asian women and 1% of white women.

Yes that's right. Abortion is illegal in Kenya and as a result thousands of girls and women die every year from back alley abortions. Now I don't know much about the government of Kenya, but I do know that part of Bush's foreign policy in Africa (in general, recognizing the Western bullshit of discussing Africa as though it is one whole country itself) is one that supports abstinence instead of actual reproductive rights, but anyways. . .

One organization – Family Health Options Kenya – says it’s time to “break the silence� about illegal abortions. Dr. Joachim Osur is assistant programs director. From Nairobi, he spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about illegal abortions.

“The maternal deaths that are related to pregnancy are still very high. About 590 per 100,000 live births. One-third of these deaths are caused by unsafe abortions. So, for every third woman who dies from pregnancy related problems, the death is because of an unsafe abortion,� he says.

Dr. Osur describes one graphic scene attributed to illegal abortions. “A few months ago, we had a lot of fetuses thrown in the streets. These fetuses had been aborted. And what it looks like is that someone was doing it illegally and did not know where to take these fetuses. So they were thrown somewhere and the public came across them.�

He says that some women who want abortions trigger them by inserting sticks, knitting needles or spoons, for example, into their uteruses. Others may go to traditional healers or people with some medical knowledge, but who know little about abortions. The result can be infection and sterility or even death, according to Dr. Osur.

Need I say more?

via VOA.

I had wanted to write about this, but Jill at Feministe beat me to it. The New York Times discusses the revival of Islamic teachings in the secular state of Syria predominantly led by women. Naturally, this is a complicated issue between the growth of religious conservatism and clear empowerment of women through learning, reading and spreading the teachings. Do we have a handful of empowered young women or a serious *threat* to secularism?

Jill says,

Emracing religion is one thing; the regressive religious politics that we’ve seen sprouting up from Idaho to Istanbul are troubling, whether their Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, or whatever else. Religious conservatism is certainly nothing new, but it does seem to be taking hold in countries that were previously more moderate. And it seems directly related to U.S. foreign policy — as we invade Muslim countries, and set our sights on others, Muslims in the Middle East feel threatened. When we position all Muslims as the enemy, we aid in establishing a collective religious identity that trumps nationalism.

The issue no one wants to talk about. How is US foreign policy DIRECTLY linked to the growth of Islamic conservatism in countries vulnerable to US invasion imperial overthrow? Plus I am pretty sick of Islam being discussed as a threat period and especially a threat to nationalism, as if nationalism is some picnic to women's rights or international foreign policy.

via NYT.

Women in the de facto soveriegn republic of Somaliland are challenging their expected role as subservient.

Hargeisa's marketplace is teeming with female workers, challenging assumptions about the subservient place of women in Islam.

"Of course women are working, they are strong, they do not have the luxury of being anything but strong," said Edna Adan Ismail, Somaliland's former foreign minister and founder of a women's hospital in this overwhelmingly Muslim region of the Horn of Africa.

The role of women in Somalia changed dramatically after the country's longtime dictator was overthrown in 1991, prompting the collapse of the economy and leaving scores of men unemployed. Women began earning money in large part by doing small tasks that men are too proud to perform, such as selling fruit, tailoring clothes or running beauty salons, said Shamis Barre, who works for the humanitarian group CARE International to help train Somali women in marketable skills.

via AP.

So I've recently become obsessed with finding feminist-related graffiti on Flickr. I love it. It makes me happy. So if anyone has anything they want to share (pics, sites, whatever), pretty please send it my way.

H/t to dpwolf for the above pic.

Now, why would ANYONE be disengaged with the political process these days? (laughs with anger and tears)

Rhode Island women tend to be disengaged from politics and many don't regard political activity as an effective way to influence their world, according to interpretations of a poll released yesterday by the Women's Fund of Rhode Island.

The telephone survey of 507 women, ages 18 to 75, conducted last week, found that Rhode Island women are focused on their local communities, willing to volunteer, committed to voting -- but "cynical" about the political process, pollster Anna Greenberg said in presenting the results yesterday.

Quite frankly, you should be cynical of the political process (non-process) as it is right now. But being cynical and doing something about it and being cynical and disengaging are two separate issues.

A key reason, Greenberg asserted, is that Rhode Island has had few women elected to statewide office. This leaves women with the sense that their elected representatives do not have personal experience with the "kitchen-table issues" that worry women, Greenberg said.

Kitchen table issues? Women worry about a variety of issues, whether they are given the avenues to appropriately address them is a different issue.

Now this one really got me.

Additionally, women around the country tend to be less informed about politics, because they have more responsibility and less leisure time, Greenberg said. "When men get home from work, they sit down and watch the news. When women get home from work, they make dinner," she said.

Now in the places where this maybe true, what is this about? This 1960's attitude split between men watching the news/being engaged with the political process verses women cooking dinner/disengaged and worried about kitchen table issues.

I am finding this very hard to believe, but again I am a feminist blogger.

via Providence Journal.

Religious leader is Saudi Arabia want to restrict how much women can pray at the Grand Mosque in Makka. Women activist have vowed to fight any such attempts.

At present, women can pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure inside the mosque, believed to have been built by Ibrahim (Abraham) - seen by Muslims as a prophet - and his son.

Osama al-Bar, head of the Institute for Haj Research, said: "The area is very small and so crowded. So we decided to get women out of the sahn [Kaaba area] to a better place where they can see the Kaaba and have more space.

"Some women thought it wasn't good, but from our point of view it will be better for them ... We can sit with them and explain to them what the decision is."

Uh, it was too crowded so we told the women to leave? That doesn't sound like a good enough reason.

Suhaila Hammad, a Saudi woman member of a body of world Muslim scholars, said: "Both men and women have the right to pray in the House of God. Men have no right to take it away. "Men and women mix when they circumambulate the Kaaba, so do they want to make us do that somewhere else too?

"This is discrimination against women."

Nuff said.

via Aljazeera.

In response to the violent murder of a woman by a man that was obsessed with violent internet porn, the British government ruled that violent internet porn is now illegal. Now, I am glad that the government took a stance on the issue and responded to the outcry, but I don't know how much the banning of internet porn is going to actually stop violent behavior. Violent imagery may incite violence, but is far from the cause of it. What about a culture that normalizes violence for men? What are they going to do to stop that?

It is already a crime to make or publish such images but proposed legislation will outlaw possession of images such as "material featuring violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in serious and disabling injury".

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker MP said: "Such material has no place in our society but the advent of the internet has meant that this material is more easily available and means existing controls are being by-passed - we must move to tackle this."

The move by the government would close a legal loophole.

"It is great news that the Government has not only listened but has responded to calls to outlaw access to sickening internet images, which can so easily send vulnerable people over the edge."

I agree that this stuff is nasty, but banning it may seem viable in the short term. But I think the ban ignores the circumstances under which it is made and the greater cultural factors that contribute to it's production. What is producing such images and what is creating a situation where they would be distributed and consumed?

That is all I am asking.

via BBC.

The Detroit Action Network For Reproductive Rights is planning to picket a local crisis-pregnancy center to raise awareness about the misinformation spread by these places. In case you're in the area, here are the details:

Saturday, September 9 at 10:30 a.m.
at "Pregnancy Aid," 17325 Mack Avenue
(on Detroit's Eastside, directly across from Staples)
Email danforr@sbcglobal.net OR
Call (313) 378-2369 for more information

It's awesome that some local activists are taking on this issue. I'm not usually excited about clinic protests, but this one sounds pretty good to me.... Probably because places like "Pregnancy Aid" aren't really clinics. That term applies to places that provide actual health care, not just propaganda.

In comments about the Purity Princess Survivor Kit over at Pandagon, Auguste links to what the Virgin-Property-of-Daddy tee should really look like:

Hilarious, especially in light of research on virginity pledgers.

A few days ago, a lawyer friend sent me a daily law journal article about the paucity of female Supreme Court clerks this year-- 19% of the 2006 clerks are women, down from 37-41% over the five previous terms. Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Souter hired only male clerks this term.

Somebody must have sent Linda Greenhouse the same article, because she's all over it today. (Legal Times covered this back in May, when the clerkships were announced.)

It's really depressing that not only are there almost no women on the actual court, but the clerks (the people who actually write opinions and screen new cases) are also mostly male.

In a brief telephone interview, Justice O’Connor said she was “surprised� by the development, but declined to speculate on the cause. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed no such surprise. In a conversation the other day, she knew the numbers off the top of her head, and in fact had noted them in a speech this month in Montreal to the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, during which she also observed with obvious regret that “I have been all alone in my corner on the bench� since Justice O’Connor’s retirement in January.

Justice Ginsburg, who will have two women among her four clerks, declined during the conversation to comment further on the clerkship numbers. Why not ask a justice who has not hired any women for the coming term, she suggested.

Souter explains that this is "no more than a random variation," which is a really annoying excuse for his lack of female hires. I suppose the fact that there's only one female justice on the bench is also just a "random variation"?

The dearth of female clerks is certainly not for lack of women at prestigious law schools-- in fact, schools are where women in law have made the most progress. American Bar Association data shows about half of recent law grads were female, and the percentage of women in tenured positions at law schools increased from 5.9%5 to 25.1% between 1994 and 2002. Women are making professional progress, too, but the numbers aren't as dramatic when you start talking about positions of power after graduation.

It's also worth noting, as the Legal Times article did, that there are very few minority clerks, too:

Eight years after attention was first called to the dearth of minorities among high court clerks, it appears that only three of the 37 clerks serving at the Court this term are nonwhite. [...] It appears that the current number of minorities is substantially lower than in recent years. The three minorities this term compare with five last term, eight the previous term and a record nine in 2002. ...if the proof is in the pudding, the pudding, this term at least, is vanilla.

Male vanilla.

See Feminist Law Profs and the Volokh Conspiracy for more.

You still have shit to worry about. Like those office whores who make better coffee than you.

Wow. Looks like teeny tiny Katie Couric just isn't skinny enough for public viewing. CBS thinned her down (significantly) for its "Watch" Magazine in the grossest Photoshopped diet ever. TVNewser caught the altered image via a reader.

Via HuffPo.

You may remember the fab time Samhita and I had at the WAM! conference earlier this year, so we're super excited to go again in 2007. And you should be too.

The Center for New Words is accepting proposals for the conference now, so hop to it! Here's a (very) shortened version of the call, get the full one here.

Women, Action & the Media: Making Noise, Making Change

MIT’s Stata Center, Cambridge, MA
March 30 - April 1, 2007

We invite you to submit a proposal for a workshop, panel, strategy meeting, multimedia presentation, or other conference session. We want to hear your ideas whether you’re a media producer or a PR strategist, a journalist, an activist, an academic, a community organizer, a funder or philanthropist, a “citizen� media watchdog, a media policy advocate, an alternative-network-builder, a blogger, writer, teacher, artist, technology trainer, deejay, (etc!) — we welcome any progressive concerned about women’s voices and power in the media. We especially encourage proposals from women of color, women under 25 and over 65, low-income women, professionals/producers working in broadcast and online media, and students.

At WAM!2007, we’ll share facts and ideas and develop skills and action plans to transform the media environment and amplify progressive women’s public voices—as analysts, opinion-makers, community members , and influential participants in civil society. But to do that, we need you. What questions, issues, and concerns do you want to hear debated? What thinking, strategizing, planning or skill-sharing work should happen at WAM as a step forward in building the movement to “make noise and make change�? What should we know, what should we be doing, and what should we be preparing for?

The deadline is for submission is 10/13/2006.

Again, get all the info here. Hopefully, see you there!

Love it.

The Purity Ball industry appears to be expanding. Cee Cee Michaela, star of UPN's Girlfriends and Purity Party planner extraordinaire, is selling the Purity Princess Survivor Kit. At $65, it includes:

Over 50 items enclosed including the Purity Pledge, the Pink Abstinence Card , valuable information on STD's and your worth as a girl created by God! From nail enamel quick dry spray, a cute polka dot shower cap to nail glue, a pre-threaded sewing kit, and a dual make up sharpener...this kit is for you! Great for going off to College the Birthday Girl or even a COMING OF AGE gift for when she finally gets her period.

Because nothing says COMING OF AGE quite like a dating ritual with daddy and learning to properly clean the house. And is it just me, or does the use of the word "survivor" in conjunction with the Purity Ball concept make it sound like a veiled reference to child sexual abuse? (Cee Cee does call herself a "Survivor," but not in that sense.)

In related news, one of our favorite purveyors of purity gear is back with ever-more-offensive designs. This one (below the jump) is surely marketed at Purity Ball princesses:

Ortho-McNeil has announced that it's rolling back the $18 price hike for birth control pills. Which is great news, because the price increase impacted 4,500 family planning clinics nationally.

The company has not said how much it will be lowering the price, but an official pledged Ortho would "be the lowest cost provider of oral contraceptives to public health services." Nice.

Vermont teens will be able to get emergency contraception over-the-counter despite the FDA’s decision to only provide the drug to adults.

The FDA ruled on Thursday that Plan B, also known as "the morning-after pill," can be sold to women 18 and older without a prescription, but women 17 and younger must still get a doctor's prescription to get the drug.

Nancy Mosher, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said Vermont legislation passed this year set up a third track for acquiring the drug, aside from getting a doctor's prescription or purchasing medicine over the counter.

The bill set up a "collaborative practice" process allowing pharmacists who receive special training to dispense Plan B to women without a prescription. Physicians would issue the pharmacists "standing orders" allowing them to dispense the medication to women who fill out a health screening questionnaire.

This means that that women in Vermont who are 18 or over can go with the FDA ruling allowing them to get EC over-the-counter, and women who are under 17 can just take advantage of this new law. So everybody wins.

And this is why I heart Vermont.

From U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris:

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

Genius.

Just wanted to give a birthday shout out to my little sis (she hates when I call her that) Vanessa. She's 26 years-old today, such an old lady. It seems like only yesterday we were fighting in the backseat of the car over staying on our respective sides. Love you, Viso.

Show Vanessa some birthday love in comments...she's stressy these days.

And thanks to all the blogger folk who came to celebrate last week!

No shit. I love how these articles talk about women working like it happened yesterday, as though working class women haven't been working for a while (not to mention that work in the house is WORK). But let me not digress. This study found women are not feeling too good about their financial state.

When asked "How secure do you feel financially?" just 10 percent of the women respondents said they felt extremely secure, the survey found. Fifty-seven percent said they felt somewhat secure, and 33 percent said they didn't feel secure at all.

Women's feelings about money are important because they are increasingly likely to find themselves responsible for managing their own financial affairs. Some never marry, others outlive husbands and divorce is a common phenomenon in American society.

No kidding!

Asked what the barriers were to getting involved in managing savings and investments, more than 40 percent of the women surveyed said a lack of knowledge was the biggest impediment. Others said they found finances to be confusing or said they were too busy with families or their careers.

I don't find finances confusing. I just don't make any money. But I do think this is something young women need to be talking about. Women are never taught about finances because it is assumed they will marry someone who will worry about it. Now what if we aren't gonna do that?

via AP.

Dave
i learned a new word
» vaginomite!

Samhita
oh damn
haha
i should blog about that one
what does it mean?

Dave
as in, that girl is ~

Samhita
omg, that is totally getting blogged
sorry dave

Dave
lol, if you must

Samhita
i must

Seriously, how can we fight patriarchy if we don't know what the newest derogatory slang to describe female genitalia is?

*This post was inspired Pinkko a committed AIM blogger.

Like most things, immigration is a feminist issue, so when I read this I had to write about it. Not that I would expect anything better from Pat Buchanan, but to say on CNN that immigrants are making the United States "a polyglot boarding house for the world, a tangle of squabbling minorities" is just not okay. Sorry.

via Media Matters.

This is just too funny (and a little sad).

Of women who took part in a "Fantasy Survey" promoted by a drinks company, 45% said they valued shopping over sex. Only 26% voted the other way round.

Three quarters of the women who took part described themselves as having a shoe fetish while 70% said they did not have enough clothes in their wardrobes. Almost half (48%) of women surveyed said men had no real understanding of their needs and desires.

Capitalist desire to replace dissatisfaction in sexual desire. Tragic! The survey also found that 63% of respondents felt that the world would be a more peaceful place if women were in charge. I think the world would be a more peaceful place if we actually tried, you know, peace.

via BBC.

Feminist Law Profs points to this truly disgusting excerpt from the Economist's obituary for Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda.

The Americans, fed up at last with his wiliness and his human-rights abuses, began to part company with him in the late 1970s. Paraguayans as a whole, however, were much slower to be disillusioned. It was true that he treated the country as his fief, to the point of picking out teenage girls for himself when he presented school diplomas; but he paid for the girls, set them up in houses, and gave their relatives money.

Get that? So long as you provide housing and pay for your teenage sex slaves, it's not such a big deal. Good to know.

This is just weird.

Russia is to create its first women-only traffic police unit because commanders believe they are less corrupt than men, a newspaper reported on Monday.

The male-dominated traffic police routinely forgive traffic violations in exchange for bribes. Many believe this culture helps make Russia's roads among the world's most dangerous: about 35,000 people are killed in accidents each year.

Regional police chief Mikhail Tsukruk says that "there is research which proves that women are not inclined to bribe-taking." Um, huh?

This is the view from my desk/deck.

I know it has nothing to do with feminism, but I'm from NYC and I got all excited to see deer. Apologies.

Check out Infertile in a baby-crazed world in Glamour, by Lynn Harris (a contributing writer at Salon among other things). It's great stuff.

I have to admit, I find the whole "bump watching" thing completely fascinating. A full uterus is the new black, it seems.

Ok, I have no idea why I find this so appealing...but I do.

Pepperface is designed "to provide dependable, effective self-defense without compromising style or convenience."

Shit, you don't even need the pepper spray part--the Bedazzled exterior is enough to blind an attacker!

Via PopGadget.

Now. Please.

The discussion board for the infamous Forbes article has taken a nasty anti-feminist turn. Just check out some of these oh-so-clever comments:

I guess the feminazis have the power now to censor all opinion that does not suit them.

I'm grateful for Forbes to publish this - very few western media outlets would even dream to publish something like this - such is the anti-male grip on society.

I'm quite sick of the anti-male hysteria that is generated by the media and by government bodies.

There's nothing wrong with dating career women, except the obnoxiously loud one's or the ugly one's.

And this is just the first couple of nasty comments I saw. There are a ton. So please, go stir shit up over there.

South Dakota becomes abortion focal point

The Washington Post has a piece up on the renewed focus on South Dakota’s proposed abortion ban, now that November is creeping up on us. (You may remember, pro-choice activists collected more than twice the signatures necessary to get the ban on ballot.)

South Dakota is the unlikely home of this year's most intense duel over abortion, a Nov. 7 referendum to decide the future of HB 1215, a measure that would institute a broad ban on the procedure. No exceptions would be allowed for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest -- abortion would be permitted only when the mother's life was in jeopardy.

..."This has become the focal point in the country for the choice debate," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which is channeling cash into the campaign. "The stakes are very high, especially for us to win in November and again say America is pro-choice, America doesn't think politicians should be involved in these private decisions, and enough is enough."

A fresh poll suggests voters are inclined to oppose the law as too severe. In a late-July sounding, opponents of the ban held an eight-point lead, with 14 percent undecided.

Good stuff. Here’s an interesting part of the article though. In describing the abortion ban, the piece says “there is no exception for rape, although rape victims would be permitted to take morning-after contraceptives.� Um, gee thanks. You know, for the permission to take a legal contraceptive. Since when did birth control come into this picture? I’m sure it’s not because anti-choicers are also anti-birth control. Nah, that couldn’t be it.

Yeah, I'm still bitter.

On Friday night, ABC World News ran a segment about the Forbes kerfuffle.

Reporter Nancy Weiner interviewed several "career girls" about their response to Michael Noer’s bizarre anti-working woman diatribe. It's good stuff.

ABC news also reported that Steve Forbes, the editor-in-chief of Forbes issued an apology about the article:

"The piece was intended to be part academic and part humorous...Instead, it profoundly offended hardworking career women everywhere. We deeply regret having done so."

Eh, kind of a half-assed apology if you ask me...

In any case, WIMN's Voices is asking that people thank ABC World News for running a piece that went to female sources and "properly contextualized the Forbes article as offensive and inaccurate."

Erotic dancers entertain Marines in Iraq.

A lesbian candidate won the Democratic primary for an Alabama state senate seat. The party initially announced it wouldn't run her as the Democratic candidate, but later reversed its decision. If Patricia Todd wins the election, she'll be the first openly gay elected official in Alabama's history.

Unsurprisingly, polls show Katie Couric is the most divisive of the major network evening news anchors.

29 per cent of married Canadian women earn more than their husbands.

A New York judge has ruled that the state's human rights law's prohibition on discrimination on the basis of gender also prohibits discrimination against trans people. (The full decision is here.)

The Mexican government has dropped its investigation into the Juarez maquiladora murders.

Post-war psychological trauma affects men and women equally.

The LA Unified School District will make the HPV vaccine available to girls as early as this fall.

Meghan Daum explores the horror that is Jill FM: Radio for Women.

This year's fall TV lineup is looking straighter than last year's.

Michigan companies must now have insurance plans that cover birth control.

Clamor Magazine explores trafficking and the return of domesticity.

Austin Young

Standup comic diva Margaret Cho has been working the burlesque scene since April in her show “The Sensuous Woman.� It plays the third Wednesday of every month in Los Angeles at El Cid, and monthly in San Francisco at The Plush Room. She hopes to take it monthly to New York City starting in October, and is working on booking a Minnesota show with local burlesque troupe Foxy Tann and the Wham Bam Thank You Ma'ams for December 8th.

Margaret is also still doing standup, and incorporates comedy in all of her burlesque shows. She spoke to me from her home in Glendale, California. Here’s Margaret…

Time to add another obstacle to reproductive health!

Check out this Slate piece which points out that while we've been spending so much time stressing about all of the other struggles that repro rights are dealing with right now, many have failed to notice the huge price hike on birth control that's quickly spreading across the nation.

Pretty upsetting shit.

In celebration of Women’s Equality Day tomorrow (did y'all forget?), Women’s Rights are Human Rights is holding an event, Feminists Moving Forward: Our Past Is The Future, at NYU Law School.

The day’s agenda is packed with feminist speakers from home and abroad, including Barbara Ehrenreich and Ronnie Eldridge, as well as live music and workshops. One workshop in particular I'm interested in seeing is being given by Words of Choice, a pro-choice theater group. Interesting stuff.

If you're feeling super-celebratory, make it into a whole Weekend O’ Women’s Equality by going to this event tomorrow and then heading to GGE’s festival on Sunday! (That’s the last time I’ll mention it, I promise.)

Ah, life never gets boring for a feminist.

So Senator George Allen (R-VA) publicly apologized to S.R. Sidarth, the 20-year old Democratic campaign staffer for his recent racial slurs:

"I take full responsibility. I'm not offering any excuses, because I said it and no one else said it. . . It's a mistake. I apologize and from my heart, I'm very, very sorry for it."

Blah, blah, blah. Later that day, Allen’s boy George W. headed a fundraiser for him. White House spokesperson Dana Perino said Bush didn’t hesitate to support Allen because, “Sen. Allen apologized, and I think it’s in everyone’s best interest ... to accept apologies when they’re offered.�

That’s funny, I would think it’s in everyone’s best interest to not have a blatant racist in the U.S. Senate.

NPR had a segment yesterday on the FDA’s approval of over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.

Listen to it here.

This is just a 'lil reminder about Girls for Gender Equity's Festival for Gender Equality on Sunday! It's going to be a great time: speakers, performers, workshops, food, prizes and a shitload of people.

So if you're going to be in NYC and want to experience some serious (but fun!) social justice in action, here's the info.

I'm really enjoying conservatives' reactions to today's Plan B news-- they're like spoiled children who aren't used to hearing "no." They're pissed at the FDA, and even more pissed at Bush for saying he supports the agency's decision. In response, they're threatening to sue and working hard to get people to confuse emergency contraception with RU-486, the abortion pill.

Perhaps my favorite reaction is from Concerned Women for America, which argues that, because the FDA finally acknowledged that science shows Plan B is safe for over-the-counter sale, the agency has "overstepped its authority."

In related good news today, the Kaiser Report says bills to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions were introduced in nearly half of the state legislatures this year. But not a single state has passed the legislation. (I'm going to temporarily ignore the fact that all of that legislation is being reintroduced in the coming year...)

Delightful. Now does anybody know where I get in on some hot teen sex cult action?

The badass gals of the Morning-After Pill Conspiracy are gathering in NYC today to demand over-the-counter access to Plan B for women of all ages. If you're in the area, here are the details:

What: Picket at the Department of Health
Why: To protest their limited approval of the Morning-After Pill only to women 18 and older
Where: Federal Plaza, Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. Sidewalk in front of main entrance on Broadway between Duane and Thomas Streets.
When: 5:30 p.m. today

For more info, email birthcontrolproject@gmail.com.

Mother Jones recently announced that the magazine will now be run by two editors-in-chief. Both happen to be women, so I suppose it was only a matter of time until this sort of reaction surfaced:

Does anyone really think that Mother Jones appointing two editors-in-chief (Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery) will actually work? (Cue the cat reorws and hisses!)

This stereotype must be the reason publishers are always leaping to print books about how to get along with those bitchy, unmarriagable "career girls" in the workplace.

Clara and Monika's joint leadership of Mother Jones actually puts them in a very tiny group of women who are top editors of national liberal/political publications. (There's also Katrina vanden Heuvel at The Nation and Joan Walsh at Salon.com.) Maybe if we got more women in top editorial positions, the numbers of women writers at these publications wouldn't be so dismally low.

(Full disclosure: I'm an editorial fellow at Mother Jones-- until the end of the month, anyway, when I'm leaving to be the managing editor at AlterNet.)

In response to this piece on Alternet in my eyes, no marriage is not rational. But then again, I am only 28 and have never even considered marrying anyone. My belief is straight up if gay people can't get married, neither can I. But that is me. What is the general (or I should say, mainstream) attitude from young people on marriage?

None of my close friends are getting married and we are all close to 30. But rumor has it that due to all the homophobic dialogue around gay marriage there has been an upsurge of hetero-marriage (something I believe is an extension of homophobia) among young straights.

Zachary says,

In the context of my own cynicism about marriage, the current fervent pursuit of the right to marriage by gays and lesbians is perplexing. But equally perplexing is the defense of heterosexual-only marriage by judges and religious conservatives. In the debate over who can marry, both sides imbue the institution of marriage with sanctity and an importance that it neither deserves nor possesses.

Now as Chris Rock notes, how is marriage sacred in the land of who wants to marry a millionaire? OKAY! I know it works for some people, but from what I have seen/heard/experienced heterosexual monogamous marriage takes everything that is fantastic from two people interacting and attempts to instituionalize it (and thereby usually destroys it). imho.

Not to mention the whole social construction of romance and fetishization of unequal power relationships between men and women (with diamonds and anniversaries and all that other bull shit). I feel like when I am dating I am spending the majority of my time trying to unbrainwash myself and just try and enjoy shit, but it is so hard with the hegemony of dating/hetero-marriage/homophobia paradigm.

The article on Alternet goes into more of the legal oppressions, but I am also interested in these cultural underpinnings. How our brains are infected with this ideal of marriage that is entrenched in patriarchy, homophobia, and classism. I agree with the article and want to add to it, that it is different when a woman is against marriage as opposed to a man. Our relationship to the machine is different.

For example, men can say, "oh I don't want to marry", so they can screw around as much as possible and escape the brainwash of, but you will be alone forever and you must find a partner and feel pretty okay about it. Women are taught that their worth is based on who they are dating and if they can marry. If you are a woman against marriage and want to just be yourself you are forced to feel like a *slut* about it and constantly having to question yourself since society has no space for you.

That being said, Zachary says,

I pine away from the good old days when it seemed marriage was doomed as a legal institution and a social ideal. Obviously, the challenge to marriage has receded, if not vanished altogether. As a ceremony and a social reality, marriage reigns supreme. But, rather than celebrate the hegemony of marriage, I submit that we are rather stuck with this peculiar institution in much the same way as we are afflicted by death, disease and taxes. In the battle over who gets to marry and who doesn't, we would be wise to remember that, wide or narrow, the circle of marriage brings pain as well as joy and sometimes more of the former than the later.

This is clearly a very complicated issue but instead of starting a battle about how your hetero-marriage worked for you, I am interested in hearing from folks that actively work against this brainwashed bullshit. What strategies do you use to date while working against the romantic industrial complex (if you will. . . )? How do you get around the inevitable where is this going aaahhhh MARRIAGE, issue?

And is it possible or are we doomed to a life of sex toys, cheating and one night stands?

USA Today reports that there has been a growth in black female entrepreneurship. There have been more businesses started by young, black women since the government started counting (which quite frankly, was not very long ago), but anyways...

As women take entrepreneurship's lead, marketers from banks to tech companies are tapping black women as a new source of revenue. "It's a huge opportunity," says Angela Burt-Murray, editor in chief of Essence, a leading lifestyle magazine for black women.

Black women are launching companies for many of the same reasons spurring other women. They've gained corporate experience, but a glass ceiling keeps them from rising to the CEO's office. They're better educated. Self-employment offers more flexibility to care for children and aging parents.

Start-up costs have fallen as computers and other technologies grow cheaper. And the economy is shifting even more to retail and service businesses well-suited to corporate refugees.

Research from the Small Business Association found that black women owned 547,341 companies in 2002, up 75% from five years before. For men the jump was only 29%. It is predicted that soon more black women will be owning businesses then men. Now as mentioned above this is also due to the glass ceiling which stops black women (disproportionately) from being able to reach top corporate jobs.

But I prefer small businesses anyway.

via USA Today.

A study found that women that are in committed monogamous relationships are still being infected by HIV/AIDs. They tend to not use condoms, but that doesn't protect you from a cheating husband.

Numerous independent studies on HIV and AIDS have found many cases in South Africa where women who practise monogamy in relationships and remain faithful to their partners have nonetheless become infected with HIV.

Scientists involved in several of these studies have also cited the difficulties that women have in persuading longstanding male partners to use condoms, explaining this by profound discrepancies in equality between men and women on the interpersonal emotional and psychological level.

According to the United Nations AIDS Programme (UNAIDS), 13.2 million women in sub-Saharan Africa alone are HIV infected, accounting for 76 percent of all women living with HIV.

In Africa, 77 percent of new infections occur in women.

That is upsetting.

via AllAfrica.com

From The Onion:

National Organization For Women Turns 39 Again

With members of its closest sister organizations insisting that "it doesn't look a day over 30," the National Organization For Women once again honored its 39th year of feminist activism Monday with a small celebration.

Come on, it's funny.

Forbes freaks out.

Forbes does damage control.

Slate's Jack Shafer is a dumb-ass. Jill explains why.

Salon's Rebecca Traister is awesome, per usual.

The Hipster Pit weighs in.

Amanda suggests How To Capture And Contain Your Very Own Wife.

A victory for women, not so much for teens.

Women may buy the morning-after pill without a prescription -- but only with proof they're 18 or older, federal health officials ruled Thursday, capping a contentious 3-year effort to ease access to the emergency contraceptive.

Girls 17 and younger still will need a doctor's note to buy the pills, called Plan B, the Food and Drug Administration told manufacturer Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Lets remember that the drug has been proven safe for women of all ages, and that it’s young women who need easy to EC the most. But, enough with the negativity--we finally got an answer, and that’s something to be super happy about.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, says “Finally, the FDA put sound science before politics and made this safe, effective birth-control option more accessible to women,� said Keenan. “The American public overwhelmingly supports increased access to the ‘morning-after’ pill as a way to prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion. “

And really, it’s about damn time.

UPDATE: Ann's take, over at the MoJo Blog.

On the heels of the revelation that at least 80 military recruiters have been disciplined for sexual misconduct, Shakespeare's Sister points to a new survey of students at The Citadel. It shows almost 20 percent of female cadets reported having been sexually assaulted at the military college.

Of the 27 sexual assaults against women at The Citadel mentioned in the survey, 17 were never reported to authorities. About half of the women who did not report assaults said they feared ostracism, harassment or ridicule if they did, the survey found.

A survey of the U.S. military academies released last year found that more than 50 percent of female respondents and 11 percent of male respondents experienced some type of sexual harassment since enrolling. That survey also found 64 incidents of sexual assault among the more than 1,900 females at the service academies.

Looks like it probably wasn't such a great idea for the Department of Defense to scrap its plans to create an Office of Victim Advocate. The special office was proposed in March after the DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Office reported 2,374 alleged assaults during 2005, up from 1,700 alleged assaults in 2004-- an increase of almost 40%.

The Citadel recently instituted a Respect and Values Program "to educate cadets on such topics as sexual harassment, alcohol abuse, the honor code and racism." I can't say I'm optimistic that it'll be sucessful in changing things, but at least they're doing something. Robin Morgan's piece on militarization and masculinity should be required reading.

UPDATE: The article has seemed to have disappeared from the Forbes site. Interesting...

I just wanted to point out--as others have in comments--that Michael Noer, the author of Forbes' Don't Marry Career Women, has also written The Economics of Prostitution. Sounds somewhat innocuous, until you get to gems like this:

Wives, in truth, are superior to whores in the economist's sense of being a good whose consumption increases as income rises--like fine wine. This may explain why prostitution is less common in wealthier countries. But the implication remains that wives and whores are--if not exactly like Coke and Pepsi--something akin to champagne and beer. The same sort of thing.

Yeah...he doesn't have a problem with women at all.

Also, Gawker offers a "condensed version of why you shouldn't marry those ball-busting, cash-making whores." WIMN's Voices and Shakespeare's Sister also weigh in.

On this week's episode of Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days reality TV show, a pro-choice woman goes to live in a faith-based center for young pregnant women in California. (We posted their casting call back in February.)

I'm not likely to see it tonight because the show airs at the same time as my beloved Project Runway. Ahem. But a friend is going to TiVo it for me, and I'll be weighing in later. If anyone happens to catch 30 Days tonight, feel free to post your thoughts in comments. I'm definitely curious.

You know, I shouldn’t be surprised that an article like this exists...but damn.

That’s the real headline of the article, by the way. Seriously.

First of all, I don’t know how pissed I can be about anyone who calls women who have jobs “career girls.� I mean, have we rocketed back in time? Fucking “career girls?!�

Ok, calm. The content of the article is as bad as the retro language. Basically, the piece outlines all the reasons why your marriage will suck if your wife works.

...While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women--even those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

...If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).

Jill at Feministe does a great job skewering the nine reasons why marrying a dreaded “career girl� is a bad idea...so make sure to check it out. My favorite of the nine reasons though is the “she’s more likely to cheat� point. Apparently if you let a woman out of the house she’ll head immediately for the nearest cock. In this case, office cock.

When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase they'll meet someone they like more than you. "The work environment provides a host of potential partners," researcher Adrian J. Blow reported in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, "and individuals frequently find themselves spending a great deal of time with these individuals."

So keep her reined in, boys! (I guess men cheating with coworkers isn't a big deal.)

Also genius is the accompanying slideshow highlighting all the reasons not to marry women with jobs--complete with pictures of sad looking men and crying women:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go ignore my household chores and fuck a coworker.

UPDATE: I've been alerted that this piece originally came from the Women's Media Center, which incidentally, is an amazing site/resource.

Robin Morgan has an interesting piece in The Guardian, Their Bodies as Weapons. Morgan uses the recent rape and murder of a 14 year-old Iraqi girl as the jumping off point for a larger analysis of militarization and masculinity.

One training song (with lewd gestures) goes: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun." The US air force admits showing films of violent pornography to pilots before they fly bombing raids. Feminist scholars have been exposing these phallocentric military connections for decades. When I wrote The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, I presented evidence on how the terrorist mystique and the hero legend have the same root: the patriarchal pursuit of manhood.

Make sure to read the whole thing...thank goodness someone is making the bigger connections.

A professor says the problem with liberals is that we just don’t have enough babies.

And this failure to replenish their ranks is a reason why they lose elections. Call it a fertility gap.

"The political right is having a lot more kids than the political left," Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks says. "The gap is actually 41 percent."

Studying numbers from the General Social Survey -- a government survey of social trends -- Brooks found that 100 unrelated liberal adults have 147 children, while 100 unrelated conservatives have 208 kids.

That makes a difference, Brooks says, because "80 percent of people that express a political party preference are voting like their folks."

Hence, more Republicans.

Naturally the conservatives are jumping on the study, throwing out theories to why liberals are going to die out:

"They're for abortion policy, they're for same-sex marriage, they're for many of the agenda items that eventually mean you probably don't have children in the household," [conservative pollster Kellyanne] Conway said.

Liberals hate babies! Brooks sees the results of the study as a call to procreate: "Have babies! Forgo the cat, have kids." Yeah, but I like my cat. Sigh.

The New York Times had a story recently about an altercation after a man made harassing comments to a group of women walking past him on the street. If you take it from the Times, 28-year-old Dwayne Buckle merely said, “Hey, how’re you doing?� to one of the women, and then was attacked by the group and stabbed in the stomach with a steak knife.

But unlike the Times, which only talked to Buckle, the NY Daily News interviewed police and others who were at the scene. Turns out it the fight probably wasn't caused by a violent response to a "harmless" catcall, but by an anti-gay comment and threat. (The women were reportedly lesbians.)

"He called us [homophobic slur] and he said he was going to f- us all," one of the women said hours later as cops led the seven suspects out of the 6th Precinct stationhouse.

"He spit on us and threw a cigarette," another woman said. "This is a hate crime."

Buckle, though, claims he was the victim of a hate crime.

"It was a hate crime against a straight man by a ton of lesbians," he said. "This is what the world is coming to."

It's clear that there's probably more to this story than the Times reported. No matter what Buckle really said to the women (I'm willing to bet, homophobic or not, that it was more offensive than "How're you doing?"), I don't think violence was an acceptable answer. But it's easy to understand how a group of women walking at 2 a.m. could feel threatened by harassing comments from a man on the street. And the Times' headline was absolutely inexcusable: "Man Is Stabbed in Attack After Admiring a Stranger." After reading the Daily News' quotes from the women, and having been on the receiving end of some "admiring" comments on the street myself, I call bullshit.

[via Broadsheet.]

Via PEEK, Washington Whispers provides some insight into what makes our Groper-in-Chief tick:

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior.

He should be worried. Do you think it's the "paranoia" that has made him pursue such an anti-woman agenda... and (until recently) prevented him from speaking out in favor of contraception and Plan B?

But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that.

So that's what Bush meant when he pledged to "restore honor and dignity to the White House."

...but not for teenage sluts, of course. At yesterday's White House press conference, Bush said he's all for over-the-counter sale of Plan B to women ages 18 and up.

Q: Thank you very much. Mr. President, some pro-life groups are worried that your choice of FDA Commissioner will approve over the counter sales of Plan B, a pill that, they say, essentially can cause early-term abortions. Do you stand by this choice, and how do you feel about Plan B in general?

THE PRESIDENT: I believe that Plan B ought to be -- ought to require a prescription for minors, is what I believe. And I support Andy's decision.

Bush only recently announced his support for contraception, saying it was acceptable for "responsible adults" to use birth control, because we all know irresponsible people make the best parents. Maybe Bush is opposed to making Plan B available to women under 18 because he's concerned, like some FDA officials, that it would create teen sex cults. In reality, all medical evidence says the drug is completely safe for over-the-counter sale to minors-- and has no effect on their sexual behavior. But anti-choice groups are predictably incensed that Bush is supporting the morning-after pill at all.

And speaking of anti-choicers, supporters of the South Dakota abortion ban are saying it's a-OK to criminalize abortion because, hey, EC would still be legal. They declined to mention that pharmacists in South Dakota are allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for Plan B. Typical.

Cause who wouldn't want their first time to be carefully planned out and publicized?

Jane magazine is trying to "help" a 29 year-old virgin have sex for the first time. Readers can send in potential guys, vote on who she should go out with and read all about it on her blog. Seriously.

This is just too weird for me to deal with.

This is pretty horrible stuff.

Breastfeeding mothers are being separated from their babies for several days in the government's drive to deport failed asylum seekers, Guardian Unlimited can reveal today.

Immigration officials have been accused of flouting several UN conventions by detaining mothers away from pre-weaned infants in at least two cases this spring.

One Vietnamese woman, who was married to a British citizen, was taken from her home and locked up without her six-month-old baby for four days.

And it’s not an isolated incident, at least one other mother has been detained without her infant and officials are looking into possible other cases.

A group of Irish women boxers are looking to participate in the Olympics, but skeptics are being douchey about the idea.

But former world flyweight champion Dave Boy McAuley, from Larne in County Antrim, has his doubts.

Flat noses, cauliflower ears and possible brain damage - it's a tough, rough sport, he said, and women just are not built for it.

...But to Dave 'Boy' McAuley, women boxing is a step too far.

"It is a tough, rugged sport, punches are not vitamins, women are not built to take that sort of punishment," he said.

Unless it's domestic violence of course. Sorry, not ok.

But Anya Norman, who works with the Irish Amateur Boxing Association, calls bullshit.

" Girls have not been out of boxing, they have had a pause since the 20th Century, we had female boxing in the Olympics in 1904," she says.

Norman hopes that the 2012 Olympics will step up...as do we.

My friend Laurin noticed this creepy ad for pube-sculpting product Naughty Nad's. The packaging reads:

Surprise that someone special or simply indulge your wickedness by personalising your most intimate region. Bikini designs are Landing Strips, Bermuda Triangle, Heart and Thunderstruck.

Ew. As Laurin says, "i'm not anti-grooming per se, but i can't help but get creeped out by this new marketing ploy for nads. i'm thinking of crafting a giant middle finger out of my "private" hair, snapping a photo and mailing it directly to ms. ismiel herself." Maybe I'll do the same.

And as if the "pussy" ad wasn't disturbing enough, the company initially asked women to send in "real-life images of pubic hair grooming." The worst part? More than 400 women actually responded.

See also: The Great Pussy Debate of 2006, and its accompanying ad.

The latest issue of Clamor Magazine hits newsstands September 1, and features extensive coverage of American Apparel's "co-opting of progressive values to hype an otherwise less-than progressive workplace." It features parody ads like the one above, which reads:

Kristina, born to an Iranian mom and Belgian pop, is a native Ohioan. She’s seen here sporting an emerald 100% cotton racerback tank. Unfortunately, her brand devotion to AA could never land her a spot in their ads: Dov Charney thinks short hair on girls is “unnatural.�

Indeed, Kristina would never make the cut at AA. Female employees/models must be fully waxed and stripped down to their tube socks. Sure, the company's sexed-up ads feature half-naked and provocatively posed men, too. But the female ads are far more condescending. Compare these two ads, both selling AA's "Summer Shirt":

Meet Melissa. She won an unofficial wet T-shirt contest held at the American Apparel apartment in Montreal. Her prize for winning was a travel mug from McGill University, and the satisfaction of a job well done. Melissa is wearing our new ultralight Sheer Jersey T-Shirt, AKA "The Summer Shirt," available at our stores and online.

And the male version?

Meet Memo. He's a 31-year-old creative director living in Mexico City (where this polaroid was taken). Memo is wearing our Summer Shirt with bootleg Playboy Bunny briefs from a street market down there.

Yeah. As John Straub writes in Clamor, "The company possesses a downtown textile factory straight out of the ’40s, a sexploitation ad campaign from the ’70s, and a marketing strategy so sophisticated it almost seems to come from the future. Old-world manufacturing paternalism meets sexy transnational marketing: has American Apparel vertically integrated different eras of capitalism?"

Charney & Co. are less than pleased with Clamor's coverage, and are threatening the tiny indie magazine with legal action. I think this means the folks at Clamor have struck a nerve and are doing something right. Props to the editors/writers for pointing out that AA's non-sweatshop stance doesn't make up for its proto-porn advertising campaigns or the fact that Charney reportedly thinks sexual harassment is OK as long as you're a hipster.

The Guardian took a cue from our very own the REAL hot 100 and started a list of super talented women out of the UK. Cool, huh?

Yeah, so they could only list 15 women...but I'm still pleased as punch.

There really are some great posters at I Choose My Future, a New Mexico abstinence program. (Including this somewhat-baffling one with a pregnant boy.)

But my favorites are the "Abstinence is my choice..." line of posters. They start off innocuous enough:

But then I saw this one (pic after the jump) and I just lost it. Is that wrong?

No, she didn’t get pregnant out of wedlock or volunteer for a pro-choice organization. All that Sunday school teacher Mary Lambert did was be a woman. Off with her head!

The First Baptist Church fired Lambert--who had taught at the church for 54 years--in a letter saying that the church had recently adopted an interpretation that bans women from teaching men.

The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."

The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman.

"I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

So long as she is “silent� of course. WTFuck?

Jail, shmail. Wouldn't you rather see your rapist just write a letter of apology? No? Well, tough shit.

A judge saved a sexual attacker from jail after making the man promise to write a letter of apology to the victim.

Millionaire's son Prashant Modi, 33, faced up to 18 months in jail for sexually assaulting a Swedish student, but was given a six-month suspended sentence.

Old Bailey Judge Jeremy Roberts said there were exceptional circumstances, such as Modi being a "geeky" Indian not being used to Western ways.

Nice, huh? And since when is not raping someone only a Western or non-geeky value? Just wondering.

Via Feministe.

In a win for women, the provincial government has been ordered to reimburse 45,000 Quebec women more than $13 million in abortion costs. Wow.

Ruling on a class-action lawsuit, Quebec Superior Court Justice Nicole Benard said the women should not have been charged extra for the procedures, as abortions are covered under the Quebec Health Insurance Act.

The award could apply to about 45,000 women who paid $200 to $300 in supplementary fees to have abortions elsewhere than in a hospital or a CLSC community health clinic.

"It's good news for women's rights," said Anabelle Caron, of the non-profit Centre de sante des femmes de Montreal.

"Now, women can choose where to go for an abortion without having to pay if they choose a women's centre or private clinic."

Ah, Canada. The government has 30 days to appeal the judgment.

This is pretty horrifying stuff. An investigation done by the Associated Press found that “more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined last year for sexual misconduct with potential enlistees.� Over 100 women who wanted to join the military this year were abused by recruiters--raped, assaulted, and groped.

...The cases occurred across all branches of the military and in all regions of the country.

"This should never be allowed to happen," said one 18-year-old victim. "The recruiter had all the power. He had the uniform. He had my future. I trusted him."

Check out these stats:

The Army, which accounts for almost half of the military, has had 722 recruiters accused of rape and sexual misconduct since 1996.

At least 35 Army recruiters, 18 Marine Corps recruiters, 18 Navy recruiters and 12 Air Force recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior with potential enlistees in 2005.

Some of the recruiters say that the misconduct was nothing more than consensual romantic relationships--not assault. But the power differential--not to mention the ages of the women (most were between 16-18 years old)--makes that kind of a lame-ass excuse.

...Recruiters insist the victims were interested in them, and sometimes the victims agree. Sometimes they even dated.

"I was persuaded into doing something that I didn't necessarily want to do, but I did it willingly," said Kelly Chase, now a Marine Corps combat photographer, whose testimony helped convict a recruiter of sexual misconduct last year.

Anita Sanchez, director of communications at the Miles Foundation, a national advocacy group for victims of violence in the military, bristles at the idea that the enlistees, even if they flirt or ask to date recruiters, are willingly having sex with them.

"You have a recruiter who can enable you to join the service or not join the service. That has life-changing implications for you as a high school student or college student," she said. "If she does not do this her life will be seriously impacted. Instead of getting training and an education, she might end up a dishwasher."

..."Any recruiter that would try to claim that, 'Oh, it's consensual,' they are lying, they are lying through their teeth," said former Marine Corps recruiter Ethan Walker. "The recruiter has all the power in these situations."

After an Indiana National Guard recruiter was charged with 31 counts of rape and misconduct charges, military officials in the state actually implemented a "No One Alone" policy. Male recruiters can’t be alone with any female enlistee--anywhere. It remains to be seen if other states will follow suit.

I don't know what the answer is here, but there has to be something better than just attempting to keep recruiters away from teen girls. Cause I'm guessing if they really want to, they'll figure out a way to get these girls alone.

In Essence this month, Kelis says not to call her a feminist: "Whenever you say that word, people think of some crazy, hairy lesbian. God bless all the hairy lesbians, but that's not what the word means to me. I'm a woman's woman. I have no penis envy." Nice.

The newest muppet on Sesame Street is a "girly-girl" seeking to gain acceptance.

An E! news anchor tries desperately to convince us that The Rules aren't dead. Barf.

The Journal of Medical Ethics explains that the rhythm method is a veritable embryo holocaust.

Lakshmi Chaudhry points out that if “chick-lit� were defined as what women read, the term would have to include most novels, including those in the espionage/thriller, general, mystery/detective, and science fiction. Also, "This Is Chick Lit" vs. "This Is Not Chick Lit."

Republicans are losing their hold on the "security mom" vote.

Microsoft's annual "DigiGirlz" camp seeks to get more girls interested in tech professions.

ABC News has a target=newlovely story warning female Capitol Hill "skinterns" that, unless they cover up, they might end up like Monica Lewinsky. Whaaa?

A tearful farewell to Sleater-Kinney.

The Teen Endangerment Act is most likely unconstitutional.

The California Labor Federation is traditionally silent on choice issues. But after dozens of people spoke out against California's proposed parental notification law at its recent convension, federation members voted to oppose it.

The F-Files radio has audio interviews with several prominent feminists.

The UN Special Envoy on AIDS says the Bush administration is undermining global efforts to fight the epidemic.

Anti-choicers Feminists for Life purchased Susan B. Anthony's home for $164,000.

June 5th marked the 25th anniversary of the first report of what is now known as AIDS. I spoke with Shelagh Johnson, Youth HIV Prevention Coordinator at the Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) in Portland, Oregon, a couple of weeks after this historic date.

No one from CAP was in Toronto for the 16th International Conference on AIDS that took place this week, but they were following the conference’s developments, Shelagh informed me over email:

“When Bill Gates talks about women being the key to stopping the HIV pandemic, that could directly affect the future of funding, programming, etc. It’s fascinating. Plus, any International AIDS Conference puts HIV/AIDS back in the media, which is needed!�

Here’s Shelagh…

Via Feministe.

The Federal Pension Protection Act was signed by George W. Bush yesterday, in which two provisions will extend financial protections to same-sex couples.

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese's statement on the bill:

“For gay couples and all Americans with non-spouse beneficiaries, death and taxes weren't only certain, but also times of great and unequal financial difficulty. . . In a challenging political climate, we persevered and helped to secure critical federal protections that will make difficult times for domestic partners a little easier."

While this is definitely good news, I can’t help anticipating that when gay marriage supporters come-a-knockin’, Georgie Porgie will use this to say, “But I gave you some rights!�

Here’s details on what the bill does exactly for the LGBTQQ community.

"Y is for Yummy," and S is for Sweatshop, and C is for Christian propaganda...Yet another reason why it's not OK to shop at Forever 21.

Apparently it's now socially acceptable not to wax your eyebrows. (Phew! I'm relieved.) But what about other parts of your body? More than 300 Salon readers have an opinion on that issue.

"I am woman, hear my ankles break as I attempt to walk in 5-inch heels." ...Brought to you by Ginia Bellafante, who's apparently come a long way since declaring feminism dead back in 1998.

Women in Ghana are turning female condoms into fashion accessories.

And Betty White tells dirty jokes. (via Nerve.) The video clip prompted me to dredge up this essay comparing the Golden Girls to Sex and the City. Which is your favorite fictional female foursome?

Problem: Your FDA-approved breast implants are causing you to have suicidal thoughts... [Breast implants linked to suicide, but not cancer]

Solution: Find that special someone who's into fake tits and get married! [Marriage Likely To Help Depression, Study Says]

Sigh.

I’m proud to announce that Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), the organization I work for, is holding a huge festival in Brooklyn next Sunday for gender equality.

While GGE generally focuses its programming on girls aged 9-14, this particular event is for all people who want to come support. (And even learn a bit too!) The festival is featuring over 70 organizations, in which 45 of them are holding workshops on varying issues such as street harassment, health care rights, body image, HIV/AIDS, trans-bias in schools, democratic education, and police brutality.

We’re also going to have a number of speakers and performers including NYC councilmember and Congressional candidate Yvette Clarke, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, and Piper Anderson.

So please feel free to spread the word/come by/bring friends and be a part of the movement. Here’s the info:

NYC Gender Equality Festival
Sunday, August 27th
11 AM – 3 PM
Von King Park – Tompkins and Lafayette Aves, Brooklyn, NY

Hope to see you there!

Yes another suspect has been arrested on Tuesday for at least ten of the 400+ women in Ciudad Juarez who have been brutally raped and murdered since 1993.

Edgar Alvarez Cruz is one of many who have been arrested for the crimes; usually the suspects either die in prison or are eventually released due to a lack of evidence. In other words, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cruz is the next scapegoat on the list; it was only a few months ago that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill condemning the murders.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza called the arrest “a major break� in the investigations. I’ll believe that when I see it. (Hard proof, that is. And I’m not holding my breath.)

P.S. I love the fact that this article says only “over 100 women� were killed. Sigh.

We tallied the votes (drum roll), and it looks like the winner of Feministing’s Second Annual Disturbing Product Poll is the misogynist monstrosity above!

It seemed like a lot of folks had difficulty deciding between the �battered" shirt and this one. Either way, they’re both pretty puke-worthy.

Other favorites were the “doggie style" table and the Vulva cologne.

We had a tie for runner up, see after the jump...

I interviewed her before she headed out for Chicago to participate in the Gay Games back in July.

I just heard from her, and there's good news and there's bad news. Bad news, first. Nancy never made it out to Chicago because her oldest brother was diagnosed with lung cancer in June. In addition, Nancy also wanted to participate in the first World Outgames in Montreal, and because of financial restraints, Nancy chose to compete in Montreal.

Good news. She just got back and she won 2 gold medals! One gold for the Women's Grand Master's Division (ages 45-59), and the other gold for the Overall Women's Master's division (ages 35-59). Alright!

Women hold 48 percent Rwanda's legislative seats. The impact of this on public policy and reform has been profound.

Women and girls, who used to have no inheritance rights, now inherit equally with men. Rape, once rarely prosecuted, now is commonly punished with sentences of up to 15 years in prison. And if a girl drops out of school, social workers now show up at the family home to try to get her back in class.

"We are having a kind of revolution," said Sen. Odette Nyiramilimo, head of the Rwandan Senate's committee on social affairs and human rights.

Rwanda seems to be the leader in Africa with regard to women in leadership, but it is interesting to note that after the atrocities and genocide of 1994, Rwanda was left with a population that is 70 percent female.

The increase of women in leadership has called for serious reforms in laws. For example,

Previously, a woman caught in an adulterous relationship automatically was divorced from her husband and lost rights to her children and home, while a male adulterer received no punishment. Today neither faces legal sanction and "it's up to the couple to decide what to do," Nyiramilimo said.

Read more via Seattle Times.

The UN is investigating peacekeeping troops in the Congo for potentially using child prostitutes. Lovely, peacekeeping troops having sex with minors.

A UN probe last year found that peacekeepers in DR Congo had sexually abused girls as young as 13. Afterwards it banned its troops from having sex with locals. The investigation revealed that UN peacekeepers had used food and money to pay girls to have sex with them.

That is so fucked. There are some 17, 000 peacekeeping troops in the Congo currently.

In the latest allegations from South Kivu province, the girls involved are reported to have said that most of their clients were government troops and civilians, but that they also included peacekeepers.

I mean I suppose it was lofty to believe that peacekeeping troops would somehow be different from other troops, who tend to be very comfortable engaging in local *comforts* if you will.

via BBC.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has filed a complaint against three pharmacists who refused to refill prescriptions for emergency contraception. Yeah--refill. Get this:

What makes this case different from many other similar cases in the U.S. is the pharmacists weren't objecting to filling the initial prescription, just the refill, said Elisabeth Benjamin, Director of the NYCLU's Reproductive Rights Project.

In most similar cases, pharmacists wouldn't fill the prescriptions at all based on religious and moral grounds, Benjamin said. "But these refusals seem to just be based solely on moralistic assumptions of women's sexuality."

Doctors will often give women advance prescriptions for EC because most of the time you need the drug--on the weekends or evenings--a pharmacy isn’t open.

According to the complaint filed, CVS pharmacist Matt Weaver not only refused to provide EC refills, but he also “altered the valid prescription so that it listed no refills.� Wow.

When Claudina Ashelman-Owen, who was trying to obtain her EC, complained to Weaver’s supervisor Andrea Barcomb she was told that women who needed EC were “irresponsible.�

Read the whole article, there's even more nonsense...

In the New Republic on Tuesday, Elspeth Reeve offered a defense of Ann Coulter:

Yes, yes, Coulter has said some terrible things. But I don't think it's the terrible things that really bother liberals. Coulter makes us cringe not when she lies, but when she says things we wish weren't true.

No, actually she does make me cringe when she lies. And Reeve's other main point-- that Coulter is funny, dammit!-- would be relevant if Coulter were a comedian. But she's not on the hate-speech stand-up circuit, she's on cable news, which isn't exactly the same thing-- not yet, anyway. Even if she were a comedian, I personally don't find gay-bashing jokes (or First Amendment-bashing jokes, for that matter) all that funny. But I think Reeve does get one thing right:

I love Ann Coulter because, in her, I see a loudmouth on the assembly line, fighting not to be squished and whittled and boxed into the shape Washington seems to think fits a girl just right.

I wouldn't go as far as to say I love Coulter for those reasons, but when her critics focus on her looks and her "unladylike" behavior, I'm almost tempted to take her side. I'd prefer to see lefties ignore her completely. If that's not possible, we should at least discuss the offensive bile she spews all over talk radio -- not debate whether she's slutty, mannish, or fuckable.

Ezra Klein, who correctly calls this "the TNRiest piece of all time," agrees:

That the response to Coulter so often focuses on her looks also deserves some examination. It's not clear why the venom from a blond, leggy snake should be treated any different than the bile Hugh Hewitt spits out, yet rare is the soliloquy on how desperate the writer would have to become to hit the Hewitt. It's a fair point, and I'd extend it by wondering why liberals seem to have so few aggressive female flacks.

Shakespeare's Sister notes that conservatives can use female pundits to say sexist things... then claim they aren't sexist because, look, she's a woman and she doesn't want reproductive rights or equal pay! Liberals, on the other hand...

Conversely, aggressive liberal women who endeavor to combat sexism as part of their overall politics are just as likely to call attention to the sexism among their own ranks as those of their opponents (and I daresay I don’t need to provide evidence that there is still sexism on the Left). The possibility of a “circular firing squad� created by liberal women who have the temerity to expect better of their brethren leaves them regarded as “loose cannons,� not nearly as reliable as someone like Coulter, who will never accuse a fellow conservative of betraying tenets of equality—since ignoring, unless to ridicule or subvert, said tenets is their stock in trade. [...] If Coulter is undesirably aggressive, it’s because she’s just “gone too far,� but if I am, it’s because I’m a liberal feminist.

I couldn't agree more. It comes down to the fact that a liberal woman is likely to speak up for women, even if it conflicts with other aspects of the liberal agenda. The good ol' liberal boys' club isn't always happy when women don't like being called a "special interest" group. That aside, are there women out there that you think would make great, aggresive liberal flacks?

The TNR story is subscriber only, so I'll post the full text below the jump.

It's State Fair season! That means it's time for deep-fried Oreos, the manure toss, aging entertainers, and butter sculptures. Apparently it's also time for sex-segregated cooking and baking competitions:

“We learned that men wanted to enter in baking but were intimidated by the skills of the regular competitors,� said Lyn Jarvis, culinary supervisor of the Champlain Valley Fair in Vermont, which offered its first men-only contest in 1990. “Now they are winning best in show ribbons.�

"Regular competitors" = women.

Guy-friendly cooking contests have also begun padding the entertainment schedule at many fairs. Formal judging of canned and baked goods often takes place out of the spotlight, or before a fair begins, but chicken wing cook-offs and barbecue contests have been accepted as spectator sports.

So let's get this straight. Now that cooking is no longer simply a survival skill, it's seen as an art. Which means it's no longer strictly housework... which means it's now socially acceptable for men to participate. And if we're talking about a type of cooking that's stereotypically done by men (grilling, for example), then it's not only an art, but a spectator sport. Nobody's holding an Iron Chef-style pie-making competition.

Interesting. Especially because certain professional kitchens come with a glass ceiling for women: female chefs hold less than 4 percent of the top jobs in the US.

BBC asks.

In a word. YES.

Colonizing buggers. As they say in the article on Common Dreams, funding should not be dependent on ideological in/consistency. But that seems to be what our foreign policy is ALL about. Faulty and inconsistent ideology.

If you are in San Francisco be sure to come check out the 10 year anniversary party for Bitch Magazine! Yeah go Bitch! It is also the release party for the anthology Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine. It is going to be awesome. Come show your love and support. I mean seriously, where would many of us be without Bitch?

The info:

Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell St at Van Ness
August 16th, 2006

$15 advance tickets, $20 at the door

Both Ann and I will be there!

Lynn Harris at Broadsheet (who, like me, was on vacation last week) links to a modest proposal for truly enforcing the "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act."

If it becomes law, the bill will require doctors to tell women seeking late-term abortions that a fetus can experience "pain" starting at 20 weeks. Writes Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women:

It must be admitted that--in addition to violating ethical principles of informed consent and lacking scientific foundation--the bill is disappointingly incomplete. It states that "there is a valid Federal Government interest in reducing the number of events in which great pain is inflicted on sentient creatures," yet covers only "unborn children." It leaves unprotected millions of born Americans who suffer chronic pain--including those blocked by draconian drug laws from obtaining medication to alleviate unrelenting suffering.

Hey, that's right! What about those of us who are sentient, "post-born" creatures? Doesn't the federal government have an interest in reducing the number of events in which great pain is inflicted on us? Oh, right. Sorry. This is an administration that's far more concerned about fetuses (and embryos) than it is about the health of grown women and men. Moving on...

Even if the legislation is limited to the unborn, Paltrow points out there are numerous ways that pain could be unintentially inflicted (during certain prenatal tests, etc.) on a fetus that a woman has chosen to carry to term. And the legislation might also suggest we should avoid causing the fetus the "pain" of vaginal birth. Harris asks, "haven't entire areas of psychoanalysis -- or at least pop-psych legend -- risen up around the inherent trauma of leaving the womb at birth?" Indeed.

It's also worth mentioning that the legislation defines a woman as a "female human being who is capable of becoming pregnant." If this bill becomes law, it's going to be rough notifying my grandmother that she isn't a woman.

Crazy, right?!

I'm baffled. A reader sent this in--apparently she was on vacation and stopped to have some pizza. When she opened the menu she saw that the prices were different for men and women. Huh?

I've been trying to figure out what's going on here. Is it the assumption that women will eat less and therefore should pay less? If that's the case, how did they estimate that women eat about a dollar less worth of food? Are the proprietors of said pizzeria making a statement about the wage gap? (Wishful thinking.)

I've never seen this before on a menu--does anyone know what the deal is?

New research done by NARAL Pro-Choice America reports that Americans support candidates who oppose government interference into personal decisions and who will get behind commonsense measures to prevent unintended pregnancies.

The poll...also shows that voters are much more likely to support candidates who emphasize practical prevention measures like birth control and honest, realistic sex education. Voters are much less likely to support incumbents or candidates who oppose these commonsense prevention measures, which include making emergency contraception, often called the “morning-after� pill, available in emergency rooms for rape and incest victims or ensuring that pharmacists fill birth-control prescriptions.

NARAL President Nancy Keenan says, “This new poll reaffirms that Americans support the values of freedom, privacy, and personal responsibility, and that means they don’t want politicians interfering in personal decisions...We’re going to do everything possible to make sure voters know that the current anti-choice Congress is out of step with their values when it comes to protecting a woman’s right to choose. Voters want solutions, not politically motivated attacks – and the best way to achieve this goal is by helping to elect more pro-choice candidates to the House and Senate this November.�

Some numbers from the poll:

77 percent of likely voters agree that the government and politicians should stay out of a woman’s personal and private decision whether or not to have an abortion.

61 percent of voters disapprove when they hear Congress has voted 145 times in the last 10 years to restrict reproductive-health services, including abortion and birth control.

Two-thirds of voters disapprove of the laws, such as the one passed in South Dakota and Louisiana that would ban abortion in nearly all circumstances, even for victims of rape and incest or women whose health is at risk.

65 percent of voters feel less favorable toward candidates who support allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions.

61 percent of voters feel more negative toward a candidate who opposes making emergency contraception available in emergency rooms for rape and incest victims.

For the full report, click here.

A mousepad with a picture of a topless woman is being placed in internet cafes all throughout Hong Kong by a breast cancer organization. (Pic after the jump for work safeness.)

The mousepad encourages women to examine themselves. Clever awareness-raising or too much tit? (At least it's better than this one.)

Via Gizmodo.

I guess that would be a hint that your sex ed program is less than successful.

In Canton, Ohio, a school board decided to expand sex education to allow for discussion on contraception after realizing that 13 percent of one high school's female students were pregnant. Yeah.

There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported.

The new Canton school board program promotes abstinence but also will teach students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, bringing the city school district's health curriculum in line with national standards.

I guess better late than never?

They totally do. You see, skinny is out in Hollywood. "Fat" is in and totally sexy, as evidenced by the very flattering pig in high heels picture accompanying the article.

And who are the "curvy" actresses that prove that fat chicks can be hot? In addition to the ones listed in the article, check out some of the hot heiffers at Pandagon. (Oh, you don't think women like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Rachel Weisz are chunky? Silly rabbit.)

Via Broadsheet.

If you haven't heard about Senator George Allen (R-VA) happily hurling racial slurs at an Indian American man...well, just watch the video. Gotta love a racist with a smile.

Allen calls the man "macaque" (pronounced muh-CA-cuh) and says "welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." 'Macaque' is a French racial slur for North Africans--Allen's lame excuse?

"I don't know what it means."

Really? From Ryan Lizza:

Allen would have good reason to know it is [a racial slur]. His mother is French Tunisian (yeah, that's in North Africa), and Allen speaks French.

And of course, Allen is no stranger to racist bullshit.

The Abstinence Clearinghouse is selling a Purity Ball Planner. Because no little girl should go without the pseudo-incestuous joy of promising her virginity to daddy.

The planner includes everything you need to have a successful event and encourage "purity in a way that will be remembered forever." Most notably in therapy.

This is cool stuff. A new study says that the wage gap can be narrowed by having more women in high-ranking positions.

The study, which was announced at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, reports that U.S. women earn more money if other women in their company are in senior-level positions.

The study answers for the first time what happens to workers when women break through the glass ceiling, and is based on 1.3 million American workers in nearly 30,000 jobs and 79 metropolitan areas.

"The glass ceiling is about all women, not just women who become managers," said Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who announced the study here Friday at the 101st meeting of the American Sociological Association. "If women break through the glass ceiling, it helps other women."

...Cohen and University of California at Irvine sociologist Matt L. Huffman found that women earn about 81 percent of what men make, and that figure remains unchanged when the number of junior-level women managers rises from 2 percent to more than 50 percent. But when women become senior managers, female workers earn 91 percent of men's salaries.

The whole article on this study is a good read, so check it out.

The piece also has a (somewhat) unrelated quote from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in there that made me all sad. Ginsburg was speaking at the meeting about getting more women in the judiciary and said that since Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement, “I have been all alone in my corner on the bench.�

Both Broadsheet and Pandagon have taken on Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's article about how grossly unsexy breastfeeding is and how it can destroy your marriage. (Seriously.)

Since both blogs analyzed the piece so well and with such intelligence, I figured I'd give you the short version. Check it after the jump.

A new survey released by the U.N. says that violence against Afghan women is widespread and “hugely underreported.�

“Acts of violence (against women) are happening with impunity,� said the report, conducted by the U.N. Development Fund for Women, or UNIFEM. “It appears that the government, communities and families are not doing enough to prevent violence against women.�

...Domestic violence, which accounts for 82 percent of the cases, is the most prevalent form of violence against women reported, according to the survey. Partners are responsible for nearly half the cases, said Meryem Aslan, the country director for UNIFEM.

The report says that the shame that’s associated with reporting domestic violence and rape contributes to “the fact that women often suffer in silence.� Depressing.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced last week that he’ll make EC available over-the-counter even if the FDA doesn’t. “Plan B is a safe and tested form of emergency contraception, and women deserve access to it,� he said in a press release.

His opponent in the upcoming election, Republican Judy Baar Topinka, says she supports the sale of EC without a prescription--but only to women of a certain age. Yawn.

You may remember that Gov. Blagojevich has already shown support for EC by requiring pharmacists in his state to fill women’s prescriptions--even if their “conscience� doesn’t want them to. (You know, the kind of conscience that says premarital sex is for whores.)

For some reason, this made my day.

UPDATE: YouTube is down, hence the blank space above. Give it some time, I promise it's worth it.

Check out the latest from Ellen Goodman, Reproductive Rights Victory -- in the Bush Era?!

The always fabulous Goodman takes on the bittersweet Plan B "victory."

A recent survey shows that almost a third of young people in the UK lost their virginity when they below the age of consent--most respondents were 16 years old their first time.

The survey, done by the BBC, Durex and MTV, also reported that 43% of young people (16-24 years old) had had at least five sexual partners and over half had one night stands.

Honestly, when I see these studies I don’t get what the big deal is. Kids have sex--they always have, they always will. And who cares? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with young people having sex so long as it’s consensual and safe. I’m tired of the argument that teenagers don’t understand the emotional consequences of sex--sex can be emotionally confusing at any age. I really believe it depends on the person.

That being said, this portion of the survey disturbed me immensely:

But many of the youngsters, who made up two-thirds of the 29,623 who responded to the online poll, said they did not always use condoms with new partners.

Some 38% of young people do not always use a condom with a new partner, with being too drunk cited as one of the most common reasons.

Alcohol was also strongly linked to a young person's first experience of sex, with 37% saying they had had a drink before having sex for the first time.

I find this so sad. Not only about the lack of condom use--which seems to be related to lack of sex education--but this drinking thing is just crazy. People should have sex when they’re ready (even if they’re young) but if you can’t do it sober you shouldn’t be doing it at all. I’m not saying there’s something wrong with having a few drinks--but if you’re so smashed that you can’t figure out how to use a condom than how good will the sex really be anyway?

Maybe I’m out of the loop, but most of my friends had sex for the first time without boozing it up. I know the hookup scene is super bar-oriented, but I didn’t think it was quite that bad when it came to virginity loss. Is this new (or UK specific?) or do I just have friends who are more sober than most?

The cumulative events for the REAL hot 100 were this weekend, and they were awesome. In addition to a benefit art show, we also had an honors brunch for the winners and a super fun party on Saturday night.

It was completely amazing to meet so many incredible women--all in one room! If you want to see some pics of the weekend's events, click here. Cartoonist (and real hottie!) Mikhaela Reid also has some photos.

Thanks to everyone who came to show their support; we had a fantastic time and were thrilled with the turnout. Now it's time to start thinking about nominees for the 2007 list!

I'm a little late on this one, so forgive me. Ms. magazine recently launched their second "I had an abortion" campaign and petition. The first one was in 1972 in the debut issue of the magazine when over 50 well-known women declared that they had abortions—even though it was illegal at the tim.

Kind of sad that we're in such bad shape that another petition is needed so many years later.

We recognize that, still, not every woman will be able to sign today—33 years after Roe—even though abortion is a very common, necessary and important procedure for millions of women in the U.S. But if a multitude of women would step forward publicly—and more and more would continue to join them—we would change the public debate.

We know that women who have had abortions have spoken out many times during the last 33 years … and millions of women and men have marched in countless rallies and demonstrations.

It is time to speak out again– in even larger numbers —and to make politicians face their neighbors, influential movers and shakers, and yes, their family members. We cannot, must not—for U.S. women and the women of the world—lose the right to safe, legal, and accessible abortion or access to birth control. Just as in 1972, Ms. will send the signed petitions to the White House, members of Congress and state legislators.

Sign the petition here, if you're so inclined. Naturally, this is a controversial campaign--a shirt that declared "I had an abortion" drew criticism a couple of years ago from both anti- and pro-choicers. Any thoughts?

This is pretty bad ass.

An assistant professor of chemistry is developing a tiny testing kit that women can carry in their purses and use to quickly detect date-rape drugs.

Andrea Holmes, who teaches at Doane College in Crete [Nebraska], said "this seemed to be a really, really relevant topic."

Holmes says that because rohypnol and other drugs used to rape women aren’t always detectable by the time a woman gets to a hospital, this test is particularly important. "Many women do get raped and cannot prove it afterwards...What we want to do is determine the presence of the drug before it ever enters the body."

The test would be a small strip or stick that would change colors if it was dipped into a drink that had been tampered with. Ideally, it would be something small and simple--something that could fit into a woman’s pocket or purse.

Holmes is in the process of applying for funding. Here’s hoping she gets it.

South African Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi says that women have a duty to be subject to--and carry out--virginity tests in the name of curbing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Interestingly enough, Buthelezi shrouded his women-need-to-remain-chaste argument in feminist rhetoric.

In a Women's Day speech yesterday Buthelezi ventured into the controversial topic of virginity testing, a cultural practice that could soon be outlawed. He was addressing a rally of the IFP Women's Brigade in Durban and raised the issue in an effort to "dispel the myth of virgin cure" - the belief that sex with a virgin could cure a man of HIV and Aids.

"I want to see the women and men of our party campaigning to dispel this myth," Buthelezi said, adding that women were already bearing the brunt of the HIV and Aids pandemic.

"I want to see women taking the lead to educate and empower other women to control their sexual relationships. In African society it was always women who safeguarded the chastity of virgins before marriage. It is older women who carry out virginity tests on younger women. It was not done on an order from any man."

..."It was women's duty then and it is women's duty [today] especially now that we are being overwhelmed by the pandemic of HIV/Aids."

Uh huh. So this is about empowering women...to remain virgins and to ensure virginity? Virginity tests aren’t about dispelling myths of a “virgin cure,� they’re about the (false) idea that women’s virginity will prevent HIV/AIDS. And the men? Apparently they don’t have any "duties" when it comes to disease prevention.

Jen Chau and Carmen Van Kerckhove first met in 2002. Four years later they run their own diversity training company, New Demographic; a blog, Mixed Media Watch, that focuses on the intersection of race and pop culture; and the biweekly podcast, “Addicted to Race,� that explores America’s obsession with race with a specific emphasis on mixed race and interracial relationships. And all while both holding full-time jobs!

Here’s Jen & Carmen…

Of course this is FDA approved.

A conception kit.

You know sometimes I wonder where the news gets these titles for articles. This piece talks about the growing trend in S. Africa of obesity. Obesity studies confuse me because what is considered obese is different for different people. Plus they tend to feed into the over obsession with thinness. Having said that, this is interesting.

"Regretfully, there is also a perception that if a black woman is thin, she might have HIV/AIDS or that her husband can't afford to feed her well," van der Merwe said in a statement.

Studies show that South Africa has weight problems across all race groups, with half of women and one third of men overweight. Those levels are just 20 percent lower than in the United States, regarded by many as the world's fattest country.

But black women are the most seriously affected and 30 percent are now clinically obese, van der Merwe said, adding that for many regular exercise was not an option.

I just want to say first off, big is beautiful. Secondly, because of poor access to nutritious food, poor people suffer from obesity. For most "modernizing" nations good food, excercise, healthy lifestyles have somehow been commodified and are only accessed by the well off.

But the deeper issue here is the panic caused by the AIDS epidemic in South Africa is intense to the point where folks are afraid to be thin because it makes them look like they have AIDs. That is messed up for so many reasons.

WTF?

via CNN.

Check out Slate’s take on the recent slew of books rejecting gender equality with a call for women’s return to the household and men’s return to the stoic “manliness� that they’re born to have.

Jess Row addresses the lovely anti-feminist Caitlin Flanagan’s book To Hell With That: Loving and Loathing Your Inner Housewife and our favorite Harvey “Misogynist� Mansfield’s Manliness. Then he adds:

What's most distressing about these books, however, isn't that they play on ancient prejudices and dredge up empty stereotypes, but that they aren't being met by a fusillade of other, better books—books that examine contemporary relationships and gender roles without panic, dread, or shame. This is particularly true, of course, when it comes to books about men.

As an example of one productive book on manhood that’s lacking at the moment, Row introduces Iron John by Robert Bly, published in 1990. The book essentially addresses male stereotypes and discusses the struggle with male identity as they exist in a culture that teaches them to be unemotional and aggressive.

While I agree that we need a book that would challenge Mansfield’s and deconstructs the history of what it means to be a man, I wasn’t digging Bly’s thoughts that women and men have to “acknowledge that their inner lives, and needs, are different� and that “the feminist movement. . . needs to encourage this kind of self-understanding among men, not fear it.�

I don’t think it’s a matter of fearing an existence of this kind of male solidarity, it’s the “recognition� of our different needs that personally puts me off. I’d like to know exactly what kind of different “needs� he's talking about here. It’s one thing to recognize and study your gender role as it’s portrayed in society, but embracing “differences� (as well as talking in binaries) seems a wee problematic to me.

Thoughts?

Check out this article on Saudi Arabian women journalists and the struggles they’re subjected to while working in the media, from the morality police to the “impropriety� of giving interviews to males.

One great thing to see was that Saudi women journalists seem to be the most fearless in the field; writing on topics such as prostitution among foreign workers is quite taboo, but they’re willing to take the risk in order to expose the issue. It’s just sad that the magazines which allow those particular stories to be published are considered tabloids.

Regardless, these women are doing some amazing things. Muchos kudos!

Okay this is indeed inspiring. Check out diva Kudah Samuriwo bringing the heat to Zimbabwe and fighting against homophobia and bringing attention to the impact of AIDS/HIV in the gay communties.

During the 1990s, Kudah courted controversy in Zimbabwe, where homosexuality is illegal, when he became the first black drag queen to win the Jacaranda Queen beauty contest - a crown usually worn by coloured transvestites.

At more than 1.8m (six feet) tall, he models himself on African pop divas such as Brenda Fassie and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, whose name he used as his original stage name.

This in-your-face attitude put him on a collision course with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who regards homosexuality as un-African. Mr Mugabe infamously described gays as "worse than pigs and dogs" at the opening of the Zimbabwe's International Book Fair in 1995.

Worse then pigs or dogs? Shortly after this Kudah was forced to exile in Great Britain, but now she is back with vengeance working on a new play and raising awareness.

Read more at BBC.

In light of the breaking news yesterday that the British foiled a terror plot (I don't want to fly anymore, I really don't) Echidne takes on the effect of increased security on people with disablities. She makes some really good points along with publishing the list of things that can no longer be brought on airplanes.

It is just ridiculous.

If you are in San Francisco be sure to come check out the 10 year anniversary party for Bitch Magazine! Yeah go Bitch! It is also the release party for the anthology Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine. It is going to be awesome. Come show your love and support. I mean seriously, where would many of us be without Bitch?

The info:

Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell St at Van Ness
August 16th, 2006

$15 advance tickets, $20 at the door

I will be there. This is plenty of advance notice so go buy your tix!

I'm on vacation, so I'm a little late in catching this: After meeting Tuesday with the FDA, officials at Barr Laboratories are saying Plan B emergency contraception could be available over-the-counter within weeks-- but only to women ages 18 and up.

Barr had hoped to sell Plan B to women and girls of all ages, Mr. Downey said, “but I don’t have the ability to get all that I want.�

Like the rest of us, Barr is sick and tired of the FDA jerking them around. So they're giving in on the age issue. I guess this is a step in the right direction. But it's frustrating because the science overwhelmingly shows that EC is safe for women of all ages. The good news is that even if the FDA expands Plan B access for women ages 18 and up, the lawsuit against the agency will continue. This issue isn't going away.

As we've recently learned from depositions in the lawsuit, FDA medical official Dr. Janet Woodcock (seriously, that's her real name) said early on that Plan B should not be sold over-the-counter to adolescents, not because of the science but "to appease the administrations constituents." You'd think that conservatives-- who are worried about fictional teen sex cults but not about very real teen pregnancy rates-- would be thrilled at this 18-and-up news. But they'll only be satisfied with an out-and-out rejection of over-the-counter sale.

Remember the lovely town of Black Jack, Missouri that doesn’t allow unmarried couples to live together?

Well the ACLU is fighting back on behalf of a couple who were denied housing.

“The City of Black Jack’s behavior is both pompous and unconstitutional,� said Brenda Jones, Executive Director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. “Black Jack’s attempt to criminalize people’s choice to live together as a family has earned international ridicule for Missouri.� Fondray Loving and Olivia Shelltrack live in a 2,300-square-foot home in Black Jack, a suburb of St. Louis, with their three children. Because Loving is not the biological father of Shelltrack’s oldest child, the city has denied the family an occupancy permit for the home that they purchased. The family now faces fines of up to $500 every week for living in their home without an approved occupancy permit.

What the fuck?

Emily Martin, Deputy Director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, says “the government is using housing laws to impose its ideas of morality on residents, but there is nothing moral about denying a home to a family.� No joke. The ACLU has brought forth a lawsuit, Loving v. City of Black Jack, filed in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County.

Damn straight. As we have talked about before, South Africa is (like the rest of the world) plagued by absurd amounts of violence against women. In protest of the oppression of women and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1956 march for women's rights, women gathered and marched yesterday on South Africa's capital.

Some comments from the president. . .

As long as SA was plagued by domestic violence and the rape and abuse of women, it could not claim to have achieved the full emancipation of women, President Thabo Mbeki said at the Union Buildings in Tshwane yesterday to mark Women’s Day.

Mbeki called on the leaders of all sectors of society to participate in a programme to eradicate “the sickness that results in the abuse and murder of women and children�. Other challenges that he cited were to defeat poverty and the poor access to resources suffered mostly by women.

“We have to ensure that the economic wealth we generate is shared in a manner that benefits the poor, including the women in the rural and urban areas of our country … we must uphold the perspective that none of us is free unless the women of our country are free — free from race and gender discrimination, free from poverty and loss of human dignity, and free from fear and violence.�

Most institutions professed commitment to gender equality and the emancipation of women. However, their actual practices were often worlds apart from the stated policies, he said.

Granted talk and action are two different things. But Westerners are so quick to talk shit about women's rights in other countries. If Dubya EVER actually addressed the issue of inequity and gender in the US, well we might all just fall over and die.

via BusinessDay.

I heart Bitch Ph.D.

Tired of dumb-dumbs that would have you believe that emergency contraception is akin to abortion, Bitch Ph.D. has started an awareness-raising campaign in fashion form.

So go buy a shirt now and support telling the truth about emergency contraception.

As a South Asian child of immigrants, the issue of skin color was a BIG deal in my family. Not only did my mom get extra attention because she is light skinned, but I was constantly yelled at for being in the sun (not good advice for a street hustlin tom boy). It was not until I was older and read a thing or two about colonization, especially mental and cultural, that I began to realize perhaps the idea so prevalent in 3rd world cultures that lighter skin is more beautiful, is maybe not so healthy. In the South Asian community I have been exposed to, fair skin was looked upon highly. Seems that Sudanese women hold similar beliefs, only to be perpetuated by the unstable situation in the country (you know genocide and war).

In many countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia lighter-colored skin is considered prettier and paler women are believed to be wealthier, more educated and more desirable.

This attitude has led to a boom in the use of skin-lightening products in Sudan, a vast country torn by war where skin color also has political connotations.

The worst part is a lot of these products have long term health consequences involved with them.

Obviously, skin color is intensely political. It is unfortunate that the immediate effect on the psychology of people of color tends to be the belief that lighter skin is somehow better (I mean I guess the clear domination/colonization of the world by people that are light-skinned may quite possibly perpetuate this belief). But I also think it is more complicated then that.

In rebellion, I remember I would (and still do) tan as much as possible, just to piss mommy off. But what is the real issue? Is this internalized colonization?

via Reuters.

Democrat Jack Billion held a press conference today to clarify his position on South Dakota's sweeping abortion ban.

Jack Billion called the ban a "rigid and unforgiving law" that leaves women and families no option.

He said South Dakota already has some of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws and the new measure's lack of exceptions for rape or incest "further victimizes the women of South Dakota."

Listen to the statement here.

But get this: Apparently Billion has a douchey brother who showed up at the press conference to oppose Billion's position.

"I support this courageous act by our S.D. Legislature and Governor Rounds, because it recognizes the scientific and moral truth about human life in the womb," Stephen Billion read.

The why don't you run for governor, asshole? What kind of a person crashes their brother's press conference anyway? Sheesh.

In any case, go show Billion some love.

The latest Cary Tennis column at Salon takes on the old "to shave or not to shave" debate. Well, Tennis actually defers to his readers for their opinions...so I guess I'll do the same. Thoughts?

One question though--does anyone else find Tennis' use of the word "pussies" totally creepy?

Remember our friend Nirpal Dhaliwal, who thinks the answer to the "problem" of feminism is a big hard dick?

Well check out this column from his wife, Liz Jones, that was published a year ago. Mostly it makes me want to cry because she seems so beaten down from being with someone who treats her like complete shit.

But there is one saving grace in the article--apparently Dhaliwal isn't so "manful" in the sack after all.

From Dhaliwal: "My wife is older and more successful than I am, but the bedroom has always been the arena in which I have brought her down to earth."

From Jones: "I am watching telly and he turns over without a word. I get his back in bed. I had more sex when I was dating, which, considering my track record, must be grounds for divorce. The last time we did it was on Christmas Eve."

I guess he only gives it up when he needs to write an article about how cock-strong he is.

Obsession with virginity is deadly public policy, The Seattle Times.

UPDATE: If MTV doesn't think there's anything wrong with the cartoon, why was the episode, Woofie loves Snoop, removed from the website?

MTV is getting flak for running a cartoon "depicting black women squatting on all fours tethered to leashes and defecating on the floor." Gee, I wonder why anyone would be upset about that.

Critics say MTV showed especially poor judgment because the weekly animated program, "Where My Dogs At?", appeals to young teens and airs at an hour, 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays, when many children are watching television.

...In it, a look-alike of rap star Snoop Dogg strolls into a pet shop with two bikini-clad black women on leashes. They hunch over on all fours and scratch themselves as he orders one of them to "hand me my latte." At the end of the segment, the Snoopathon Dogg Esquire character dons a rubber glove to clean up excrement left on the floor by one of the women.

The article reports that a statement released by cable network president, Christina Norman--who is black--"defended the episode in question as social satire." See? A black woman says it's okay, so no worries about the whole "leash" thing.

Could anyone who has seen this show shed a little light on how exactly this could be seen as social satire?

Vibe also has the story.

Read this with caution; it’s pretty fucking horrible.

A military court in Baghdad heard testimony recently about the rape and murder of a 14 year-old Iraqi girl, and the murder of her family.

Special Agent Benjamin Bierce recalled that Barker described to him how they put a couple and their six-year-old daughter into a bedroom of their home, but kept the teenage girl in the living room, where Barker held her hands while Sergeant Paul Cortez raped her or tried to rape her.

Barker then switched positions with Cortez and attempted to rape the girl but said he was not sure if he had done so, Bierce told the hearing.

Barker also told the special agent he heard shots from the bedroom and shortly afterwards Private Steven Green emerged from the room, put down an AK-47 assault rifle and raped the girl while Cortez held her down.

Barker told Bierce that Green then picked up the weapon and shot her once, paused, and shot her several more times.

...Cortez said Barker told the young girl to "shut up" after she was raped, Griesmyer said.

Bierce said Barker told him he poured kerosene from a lamp on to the girl. It was not clear who set her on fire.

The five men involved could face the death penalty if they’re found guilty. Also, can someone tell me what the hell this is all about?

Defense Attorney Captain Jimmie Culp was blowing chewing gum bubbles while Yribe, sitting to his left, began sucking on a red lollipop during the testimony.

Charming.

Not to mention, I'm still waiting for some substantive discussion about rape as a weapon of war.

In an effort to encourage commuters to give their seats to pregnant women, Tokyo rail companies are giving out badges to pregnant women.

The pink and blue badges reading: "There is a baby in my belly" are being handed out at stations around the region to try to make commuting and other train journeys easier for pregnant women, who are often left standing. No proof of pregnancy is required.

"Especially in the early stages, it is difficult to tell from someone's appearance whether they are pregnant," said an official at the Health Ministry which came up with the idea. "But these early stages are rather unstable and it is important to take care."

I've never been pregnant, so I have no idea if standing is a pain in the ass in the early stages--but I always thought that you should give pregnant women a seat because they're carrying a heavy load. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but do we need to treat women who are only a couple of months pregnant like they're infirm?

I guess you could get knocked around a bit on a train though... Anyone with more experience in the pregnancy-department want to weigh in?

I got my first anti-feminist prank call! Unfortunately, it's the lamest thing ever.

You would think that someone who went through the trouble of finding my phone number would actually leave an interesting message. But no, I get "girls are silly," and "they get their periods." What a fucking letdown.

Click here if you want to watch a video of Ani at this year's NOW conference announcing her pregnancy and such...

The Guardian ran an interesting story up about "male feminists" yesterday. Do they exist? Should they?

But can a man ever really be a feminist? Some say it is inappropriate for men to call themselves feminists, arguing that feminism is a movement developed by and for women, and that men can never really understand what it is like to be a woman. Furthermore, critics claim that by jumping on the feminism bandwagon, men could eventually dominate the movement.

I'm all for men joining in on the fun--feminist and gender issues affect men as well, and I believe we need male allies.

"Now," argues Michael Kimmel, a US academic and spokesman for the National Organisation for Men Against Sexism, "groups such as Amnesty and Oxfam - the heirs to the pro-feminist men's groups in the 60s and 70s - are also developing projects around men and masculinity, because we have found that gender equality is not going to be possible without men."

I can understand, however, the hesitance from some feminists to include men. As the article points out, there is a fear that men wouldn't be willing to learn more than lead. And I have many friends who take issue with men calling themselves feminists. They think that women need a word all their own and that only someone who experiences life as a woman can truly understand feminism.

The article uses another term, one I've heard before: pro-feminist. From discussion with others, I've come to gather that people (mostly men) use "pro-feminist" as way to stand in solidarity with feminists, without co-opting the word/movement.

What do you think?

By the way, I heart my male feminist, er...pro-feminist, friends.

H/t to longlostcousin for the pic.

It's that time again! The lovely pic above is last year's winner. I don't know if woman-torso-toilet will ever be beat.

After the jump you can find this year's nastiest, dumbest, and most sexist consumer odes to women. And email me with more products--I know I've missed some. Vote in comments.

Let the fun/horror begin...

Nirpal Dhaliwal tells us in the Daily Mail about "How feminism destroyed real men." Don't worry, it's chock full of hackneyed anti-feminist nonsense: claims that feminism makes big pussies out of guys; words like "bossy," "nagging," "prissy" and "Amazon"; and the author claiming that he alone is a "real man."

But what makes this article different is Dhaliwal's assertion that he has the secret to taming those wild Amazons otherwise known as autonomous women: The Cock. Yup, Dhaliwal can fuck the feminist right out of his wife.

The female orgasm is the natural mechanism by which men assert dominion over women: a man who appreciates this can negotiate whatever difficulties arise in his relationships with them.

Last Christmas, my wife threw me out after discovering I'd been cheating on her. On the night we got back together, I made strong, passionate love to her. Unfaithful as I'd been, I was not going to let her have me over a barrel for the rest of our marriage. I needed to keep a sense of self and not allow her to mire me in guilt and a desperate quest of forgiveness.

I needed to let her know what she would be missing if we broke up for ever. I gave her a manful bravura performance that night, and at the height of her passion, I asked her: 'Who's the boss?'

The question threw her. Initially she wouldn't give me a reply, but I enticed it from her. 'You are,' she finally gasped. 'You are!'

Puke. I hate to be the one to clue Dhaliwal in, but raging orgasms don't equal domination. If that were the case, you'd see a generation of women setting up the First Church of the Vibrator and making The Rabbit president. (Would probably be an improvement, but still.) You just have to love a guy who thinks the answer to the battle of the sexes is a good old-fashioned banging.

A new report says that teenagers don't use condoms. Awesome.

Just because you don't support women's rights doesn't mean you can't profit from them.

Anti-choice Senator George Allen (R-VA) owns stock in Barr Laboratories, makers of Plan B.

Via HuffPo.

If you're tired of conservative dumb-asses telling you about Emergency Contraception, then check out the end of this segment from Mother Jones Radio.

Our very own Ann reports on Plan B's progress (or lack thereof) in the FDA.

What is it about young feminists that turn even the most levelheaded people into maniacs?

Deborah Solomon, who I generally like, interviewed Andi Zeisler of Bitch magazine in The New York Times Magazine yesterday. And, well, look for yourself.

I think Zeisler comes off funny and smart--and as Amanda points out, way nicer than she had to be.

Check out this from Solomon:

It seems as if [feminism's] original vision of social equality has been undermined by third-wave feminists like yourself, who limit your critiques to, say, Tori Spelling’s breasts. Doesn’t the obsession with pop culture risk trivializing feminism?

What?! First of all, Bitch (which according to Solomon is too "unappealing" a name) is a pop culture magazine. It isn't indicative of all the work younger feminists are doing. That aside--so fucking what if feminists discuss pop culture?

Pop culture is relevant to younger women and reveals larger societal trends; isn't that important enough? Not to mention, discussing pop culture is a powerful tool for reaching younger women and making feminism accessible to them. But I guess Solomon wouldn't want the movement "undermined" by that sort of thing.

If you haven't read this amazingly written--though terrifying--profile of Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, go do it. Now.

Not only does Francis physically assault reporter Claire Hoffman...

Joe Francis, the founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" empire, is humiliating me. He has my face pressed against the hood of a car, my arms twisted hard behind my back. He's pushing himself against me, shouting: "This is what they did to me in Panama City!"

It's after 3 a.m. and we're in a parking lot on the outskirts of Chicago. Electronic music is buzzing from the nightclub across the street, mixing easily with the laughter of the guys who are watching this, this me-pinned-and-helpless thing.

Francis isn't laughing.

He has turned on me, and I don't know why. He's going on and on about Panama City Beach, the spring break spot in northern Florida where Bay County sheriff's deputies arrested him three years ago on charges of racketeering, drug trafficking and promoting the sexual performance of a child. As he yells, I wonder if this is a flashback, or if he's punishing me for being the only blond in sight who's not wearing a thong. This much is certain: He's got at least 80 pounds on me and I'm thinking he's about to break my left arm. My eyes start to stream tears.

...It also looks like he rapes a drunk 18 year old.

Eventually, [Jannel] Szyszka says, Francis told the cameraman to leave and pushed her back on the bed, undid his jeans and climbed on top of her. "I told him it hurt, and he kept doing it. And I keep telling him it hurts. I said, 'No' twice in the beginning, and during I started saying, 'Oh, my god, it hurts.' I kept telling him it hurt, but he kept going, and he said he was sorry but kissed me so I wouldn't keep talking."

Charming, huh? And to think, this man is dictating what sexuality is to a generation of young men!

Both Pandagon and Feministe have up great analyses of the piece, and I don't know how much more I can add.

I will say this: Francis' behavior--his violence against women, his rage at Hoffman for daring to write an honest piece, and his belief that he’s doing all this in good fun--is the scariest combination of privilege, money and misogyny that I’ve ever seen. It's like male privilege on crack.

The only thing that's as disturbing as Francis' sense of entitlement to women's bodies (and anything else he wants) is the "boys will be boys" forgiveness poured on him by his friends, fans, coworkers, and even police.

And folks think there's no such thing as a rape culture?

TAKE ACTION: One of my favorite stations, Comedy Central, airs Girls Gone Wild commercials. This is bullshit. Here's the contact info for Comedy Partners, the company that owns Comedy Central. Let them know that they shouldn't support this asshole. (Now that I think of it, are they still showing army recruiting commercials?)

Bands formed at the Ladies' Rock Camp start playing live shows.

Why aren't there more women film directors? Because Hollywood's studio system is just another old boys club.

Utah may soon consider it's own abortion ban, to take effect the moment Roe v. Wade is overturned. And Louisiana moves one step closer to banning abortion.

Anti-choicers plan to fly a giant banner picturing an aborted fetus in the air over Cleveland.

The FDA will meet with Barr Pharmaceuticals (maker of Plan B) on Tuesday to discuss selling EC over-the-counter to women age 18 and up. Meanwhile, the Center for Reproductive Rights is seeking to subpoena White House officials over their involvement in the Plan B hold-up.

Turkish feminist and author Duygu Asena passed away.

Women typically drop out of Wall-Street jobs when they hit their 30s, and they have a hard time if they decide they want to return.

My pals Rebecca and Ryan created an amazing documentary about maternal health care in the Peruvian Andes, and is taking her show on the road this fall.

Hir books Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us and My Gender Workbook are taught in more than 120 colleges and universities around the world. Ze has performed hir work live on college campuses, theaters, and performance spaces across the United States and in Canada, the UK, Germany and Austria. And renowned author, playwright, performance artist, and gender activist, Kate Bornstein is at it again. This time with a new book just released last month for youth titled Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws. Bornstein’s alternatives range from “#2: Take a deep breath and touch yourself� to “#22: Moisturize!� to “#79: Take drugs� to “#81: Starve yourself.�

I caught up with Kate during hir busy tour of the book. Here’s Kate…

According to a survey conducted by a UK woman’s magazine, binge drinking has become a bit of a trend among older women.

Prima conducted a survey which showed that a quarter of women aged between 35 and 44 years old said they got drunk over the weekends, mostly due to stress.

While this is definitely something relevant to discuss, it irked me that they threw these statistics in:

Twenty-four per cent of mothers said their children had seen them drunk. Twenty per cent admitted driving while over the limit and 14 per cent had missed work because of a hangover. Thirteen per cent had blacked out from drink, 10 per cent said they had drunk secretly and seven per cent had been unfaithful while drunk.

Additionally, Marie Fahey, the editor of Prima said, "We find time and time again that stress is a huge problem for modern women, working mothers especially, and a glass of wine at the end of the week is an attractive option. But it seems that one glass is not enough any more for many women."

Is it just me, or does this reek of the whole “working mothers do too much� bit? What does a married working woman with kids equal? A drunk, unfit mommy and unfaithful wife!

I guess we shouldn't be surprised considering it's coming from a magazine whose slogan is "Making life simple" and most recent article is titled, "Was life better in the 1960s?"

Check out the Guttmacher Institute’s latest report on the soon-to-be end of the abortion decline in the U.S.

Between 2000 and 2003, the abortion rate declined by an average of only 0.8% per year; the 0.6% decline in 2002–2003 was the smallest in those three years. By comparison, the abortion rate declined by 3.4% per year in the early and mid-1990s.

Gee, I wonder why we’re losing our ability to prevent unintended pregnancies?

Additionally, there’s been a significant rise of the number of abortions among poor women.

Via Alternet.

The Guardian had a story today on a resort in Italy that has closed off a section of their beach for women only to respect sharia law.

Due to a number of requests from Muslim tourists, the Council of Riccione on the Adriatic riviera altered its bylaws to allow a section of the beach to be closed off so Muslim women could enjoy the sun without violating sharia law by “displaying their bodies� to male beach-goers.

While this effort was made purely for tourism, in response to the increase in Riccione visitors from the Arabian peninsula, what would this type of change be in a non-tourist area: a gesture of pluralism or merely catering to a patriarchal culture? At the same time, it may be problematic to attempt to label such a murky issue.

Regardless, a good thing did come out of this: Muslim women are now able to get their beach-on when they couldn’t before.

Thoughts?

A 39 year-old polygamist from Arizona (one of seven that are on trial for plural marriages to minors) was sentenced to 45 days in jail for having sex with his 16 year-old “bride.�

Fischer has stated regarding his trial, “I can say for my life and my family that there’s no one that’s been pressured into doing anything they didn’t want to do. . . Every single person is happy. There’s no pain.�

Easy for you to say. And this now sets precedent for the six other sentences to come.

But please bear with me today as I’m beyond exhausted after a long, long trip back from Pittsburgh last night.

I was there for a training by the Youth Outreach for Victim Assistance project, but ended up sitting in a plane with no air conditioning for over 3 hours before we even took off to return to New York (the actual flight was supposed to be one hour). Damn you, US Airways!

At least the training was amazing, where youth groups from across the nation came together to learn about how to combat teen victimization. One of the groups, the Madras High School Youth Development team from Oregon, made an actual film to bring awareness about child sexual abuse, Silent Message. Check out the trailer; it’s pretty damn amazing what youth can achieve when given the opportunity.

View image

Pro-Choice/Pro-Fashion, a fashion show to raise money and awareness for pro-choice organizations, will have its second edition (remix!) on Saturday, August 19 at 7 p.m. in the outgoing location of Columbia, MO's Maude Vintage, 801 N. Broadway.

The show will feature local designers and their fashions as well as some marvelous tunes brought by a fantabulous DJ. In addition, there's a lot of good loot to buy, and all the proceeds go to the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Access Project, and Planned Parenthood’s Women in Need Fund.

Feministing, along with a whole lotta cool ass people and companies, is supporting this event with donations and love. Featured here are examples of stuff from people that embody "pro-choice/pro-fashion" (but these, along with Devendra, aren't necessarily going to be at the show). Contact Meredith Fraser if you want to help by donating money, goods or advice. Also, if you're anywhere near Columbia, MO, you should think about coming to the show. After the jump, peep the links to all the places that have supported the show this year.

Big ups to Elizabeth Pickens, Meredith Fraser, Jillian Markwith and Aaron Richter, who are largely responsible for all the lovelies available for the show, along with countless others.

Every now and then you come across a story that is just too much. And it makes you wonder how do people do this kind of shit?!

A coach in a Maryland highschool is being accused of pimping out a highschool student.

According to a charging document, the girl told police that Burroughs -- who is also a Metrobus driver -- repeatedly took her to the District to engage in prostitution beginning in September. She said Burroughs, 35, also had sex with her, starting when she was 14, the document says.

The girl was a student at the high school, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity because that information has not been revealed in public documents.

Finally, he admitted that the two had had sex in the bus yard and on other occasions, beginning when she was 14, and that he brought her to the District for the purposes of prostitution.

This is really upsetting.

via WashingtonPost.

Thanks to Nate for the link and all the other links you send me and go unthanked for! You rock.

Oh but she is. This is funny, a dating site dedicated to wealthy men and beautiful women. Where women can go to find wealthy men. Because that is exactly what I am spending my days and nights doing, finding a rich husband.

I swear.

Sure, The Rabbit had a cameo on Sex and the City, but can it dance?

The OhMIBod "automatically vibrates to the rhythm and intensity of the music." So you get down while you get off.

From the website:

More than just a pleasure toy, OhMiBod harnesses the iPod movement and popularity to bring a higher level of acceptance and openness about sexuality in a fun and liberating way.

I don't know about all that, but I dig anything that goes with my iPod. Now I just have to work on my "alone time" playlist...

Via Gizmodo.

Some depressing results of a survey of women's knowledge about emergency contraception:
* Only one in five women knows about EC.
* One-third of those women confuse Plan B with RU-486, the abortion pill.
* Less than 8 percent of women really understand how EC works and when it should be used.

It's no wonder women are confusing Plan B with RU-486. It's something that reporters and researchers certainly have a hard time getting right.

For the record...
Plan B can be taken up to 72 hours after sex, and works by preventing pregnancy. If a woman who takes Plan B is already pregnant, it does not cause an abortion.
Mifeprex (RU-486) is taken between 3 and 10 weeks after a woman is confirmed to be pregnant, and causes an abortion.

If women don't know these things, I wonder how clueless most men are?

The research also contained some insight into women's opinions about Plan B:
* 76% think EC will reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies
* 21% think EC is immoral
* 44% think it will increase unprotected sex

Sigh.

The Hudood Ordinance, which is a law in Pakistan that criminalizes adultery, rape and theft, is up for re-draft in Parliment. This is good news as the Ordinance demands that when a woman is raped she must have four (pious) male witnesses testify. WTF?

The new laws would change the 27-year-old laws, said the minister, adding the new laws deal with amendments to the Hudood Ordinances, as the existing laws are controversial.

Hudood Ordinances, which was promulgated in 1979 by then President General Zia ul-Haq, stipulate harsh penalties for extramarital sex. The laws require a woman who claims she was raped to produce four pious male witnesses. Otherwise, she stands to be charged with adultery -- an offense that can carry a death sentence by stoning. The ordinances have also been used as a weapon against women who defy marriage choices made by their families.

"It will remove hurdles to the provision of justice to women," Durrani said.

The bill is expected to go before parliament next week. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz last week said the government would change laws where necessary to ensure justice and security for women and bring the legislation more in line with Islamic teachings.

via People's Daily Online.

Injustice between borders. It is amazing the abuses that occur both outside, inside and around the watchful eye of the border patrol. Brothels that cater to *undocumented* (I hate that word) workers using/abusing immigrant women, predominantly from Mexico and other parts of Central America.

Brothels in the Austin area and Oklahoma City that used immigrant women and catered mostly to undocumented workers were part of a multistate prostitution ring that federal agents have partially broken up, court documents say.

Women from Mexico and Central and South American countries worked in the prostitution houses and in some cases reported being held against their will, documents show.

Ultimately, I must ask what happens to these women after the prostitution rings are busted up?

via AP.

I've been enjoying BITCHfest, the anthology of writings from 10 years of Bitch Magazine. In particular, "The New Sexual Deviant," Carson Brown's 2001 essay on virginity, really made me think.

Virginity bias tacks a confusing corollary onto historical social opinion about the sexual behavior of women. Not so long ago, a woman had only to hold a nickel between her knees to avoid slut status. Easy enough. But since the sexual revolution, she can also be slapped with the equally damning "prude" label. We've strayed from the original intent of women's liberation and limited women again, trading in the old prescription (sex will ruin a woman) for one that seemed more modern (lack of sex will curdle her).

It's certainly true that modern feminists (on this blog, admittedly, and elsewhere) love to mock the abstinence movement, especially virginity pledgers who keep their hymens intact by enjoying oral and anal pleasures or, should that fail, becoming "revirginized." But, Brown points out, if we as feminists fight for the ability of all people to define their sexual identity however they want, shouldn't we favor people being free to identify as "revirginized"? Is that so different that someone who's biologically female identifying as male? If sex-positive feminists mock women who choose not to have sex, are we just as bad as conservative groups that rail against women who enjoy it?

While some feminists may be guilty of shaming virginal women, any woman who enjoys her sexuality has historically been (and is still today) labeled a slut by much more powerful and broader social forces. And Brown doesn't really delve into this. I heartily support any person's choice to not have sex. But (much like the decision to have sex) only if that choice is made because it's what the individual truly wants, not because of pressure from family, religion, and even government--which makes its opinion known by funding abstinence-only education but not family planning programs.

While it's true that commercial forces do tend to be more validating of sexually active women, the country isn't run by fashion magazine editors and TV executives. Until it's widely accepted that women who like sex aren't sluts and are the norm rather than the exception, I won't consider virgins sexual deviants. But I'll try not to mock them, either.

In light of von Eschenbach's FDA confirmation hearings and the FDA's meaningless move toward over-the-counter approval for women 18 and up, check out the detailed timeline of events related to Plan B I compiled for Mother Jones.

I'll also be on MotherJones Radio this weekend, discussing the same topic.

California’s Proposition 73--a parental notification amendment that was voted down last year--is back, but this time it’s got a new name.

Now the parental notification measure -- which would require doctors to inform a parent or guardian before performing abortions on girls under 18 -- is back on the Nov. 7 ballot, as Proposition 85. And this time, Democrats and supporters of legal abortion hope the measure -- endorsed by Schwarzenegger in 2005 -- will help boost his opponent, Democratic state Treasurer Phil Angelides.

"I think it is a real issue and it will be able to help us," said Bill Carrick, a senior strategist for the Angelides campaign. "Pro-choice women will know that they can count on Phil, but they can't count on Arnold."

Angelides said of the proposal, “There is now an effort by anti-choice extremists to roll back the clock to a much darker day...The fact is, voters of California rejected a similar measure (last year) and said it was wrong for anti-choice extremists and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to jeopardize teen safety.�

Proposition 85 differs from 73 in that the definition of abortion as causing the “death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born� has been revised.

The New York Hall of Science is hosting an exhibtion on artificial women, Alluring Androids, Robot Women, and Electronic Eves.

Lara Croft, the Japanese robot Repliee Q2, and the Stepford Wives are a few of the artificial women pictured...Exploring artists’, filmmakers’, and photographers’ long-time fascination with images of artificial women that seem alive, Alluring Androids, Robot Women, and Electronic Eves contains large images of female robots, androids, automatons, dolls, mannequins, and other artificial women. These include images from films, photography, intermedia art, animation, and video ranging from early automatons to the life-like female androids in today’s video and computer games.

I'm all for exploring the fascination with the dehumanization of women--but positing the exhibition as "alluring" and sexy truly disturbs me.

Remember classy Fox New VP Joe Chillemi who liked to comment on employees' “melons?�

Well thanks to folks like him at Fox News, the network has agreed to pay a $225,000 settlement to end a sex discrimination suit.

How do you like those melons?

Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, Bush nominee for head of the FDA, at his confirmation hearings yesterday:

Von Eschenbach said he decided to consider allowing women 18 and older to buy the pills without a doctor's prescription "not on a political ideology, but on a medical ideology."

Uh huh.

Looks like someone is giving Abercrombie a run for their money. Through Rebecca Traister at Broadsheet, we find out that American Eagle Outfitters has a bit of an underwear problem.

No, their girls' undies don't say "Who needs brains when you have this," or "The carpet matches the curtains." (Good one, right?) But they do have a set of "yearbook" panties that say things like "Biggest Flirt" and "Most Likely to Succeed." I can only wonder what your undies will help you succeed at. Ahem.

But it's actually the boys' underwear that concerns me most. (Per usual, ha!) Traister points out one pair of boxers that "with pictures of cute little pigs in little coats-of-arms all over them...Above the piggy heads is 'Male' and, in the banner below them, 'Chauvinist.'" Ugh. Then there are the--brace yourself--Beaver Fever boxers. Yes, they're stupid. (Not as stupid as the Helmet Head boxers, but whatevs.) But just because they're stupid--does that mean we shouldn't be a little worried?

From Rebecca:

People write us all the time about how these little things don't matter, and why we should have a sense of humor about them, but I think they do matter, and that the threat that if we take them seriously we are humorless and shrill is exactly why they matter.

They're certainly not as offensive as the A&F grossness, and I'd like to think I'm a funny gal, but I just don't think these are harmless and goofy--particularly the Male Chauvinist Pig boxers. What do you think?

Yesterday the New York Times ran another article in its "The New Gender Divide" series that contained a graphic about how working and non-working men and women spend their time... turns out unemployed men do less work around the house than women who are employed full-time.

Those numbers could be partially explained by the fact that most non-working men are single and live alone. But the Times doesn't really explore the division of household labor. Or many other gender issues. It's mainly about what these Dude-like guys do all day now that they don't work.

The loss of manufacturing and tech jobs does have interesting gender implications. Most manufacturing employees are men. Female-dominated fields-- which, the Times fails to point out, are traditionally low-paying with little growth potential-- aren't suffering the same job loss. But this is just ridiculous:

Women are also making inroads in fields where they were once excluded — as lawyers and doctors, for example, and on Wall Street. Men still make significantly more money than women, but as women become more educated than men, even more men may end up out of the work force.

Are we really to believe that women, who are finally getting a foothold in certain high-level professions, are to blame for these "missing men"? I could see offering up some numbers about how many women are taking manufacturing and tech jobs (which would, presumably have more impact on the men interviewed for this story). But are female doctors and lawyers really threatening to put millions of men out of work? Uh, no. This isn't mainly a story about "what has happened to men and women several decades after the women's movement began." It's about what has happened several years after the loss of manufacturing jobs began.

Yesterday I had an email forwarded to me by my old colleagues at WEDO; it was from the Coalition of Women for Peace.

Over the weekend they held vigils and marches in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv to protest Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.

The above photo is from a Saturday march in Tel Aviv where 3,000 people (including men) participated, from 17 different women’s organizations.

Click here for a short video of the march (it’s in Hebrew).

The email also noted how important the action was “in a society in which the voices of women are always marginalized – and entirely erased during times of war.�

For more information on how you can support the Coalition of Women for Peace, click here and here.

Check out this Salon piece on the recent anti-choice siege on Mississippi's last clinic. If you thought this protest was just about abortion--boy, were you wrong.

[Operation Save America Director Flip] Benham then produced a rainbow gay flag. As he lamented the way homosexuals "stole the colors of the rainbow," several men in attendance grabbed pieces of it and ripped it to shreds. Then he held up a paperback copy of the Koran and said, "We have one more issue that we must deal with. With this issue we have three choices. We can either kill them, be killed by them, or we can convert them to Christ." Several cheers went up in the crowd, and then, after several more minutes of preaching, Benham began to tear the Koran apart. He offered pieces of the book to the men in the crowd -- hands seemed to reach out from all directions to take them -- and they destroyed the pages further, throwing the scraps onto the grill.

I don’t know whether to laugh or be terrified. Luckily, the docs and workers at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization aren't easily intimidated. Go read the whole piece--get freaked out, get inspired.

Just wanted to give a shout out to the California chapter of the National Organization for Women who made this kick-ass shirt I bought at the NOW conference. I love it. (Vanessa even bit my styles and bought the same one. It's that cool.)

The latest genius from Mikhaela Reid, What to expect when you're pre-expecting!, takes on the pre-pregnant nonsense. Check out the whole cartoon here.

According to The New York Times, the FDA is considering approving emergency contraception for over-the-counter status.

Discussions between the government and Barr Laboratories, which manufactures the drug, known as Plan B, are set to begin immediately and could be completed “in a matter of weeks,� the agency said in a statement.

The move could end a standoff between the Bush administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY)--who said they would block the confirmation of Bush nominee Andrew von Eschenbach to FDA until the FDA steps up--say that this recent announcement is nothing more than a "delay tactic." (Von Eschenbach's confirmation hearings are set to start tomorrow.)

I tend to agree. After all, it's not like the FDA has a great track record on this.