November 2006 Archives

If you have the time, check out my interview with Rha Goddess and JLove Calderon, editors of We Got Issues! A Young Woman's Guide to a Bold, Courageous and Empowered Life. They have lots of powerful things to say. Happy Thursday!

UPDATE (Jessica): Hey, just wanted to say that I just started reading this book and it's fucking awesome. I'm planning on doing a full review, but just wanted to sing it's praises here as well.

You've gotta love it when the National Catholic Register says "the future looks grim" for anti-choice legislation. The antis are worried that a Democratic congress won't support riders such as the disastrous Hyde Amendment, which eliminated Medicaid funding for abortion. I think that's unlikely to happen. But they also say the more pro-choice congress will increase Title X family planning funds, which is well within the realm of possibility. Wheeee!

Until then, the lame-duck congress will be trying to push through a few more anti-choice bills. Specifically the ridiculous and scientifically unsupported fetal pain legislation:

Abortion providers would be required to inform the mothers that evidence exists that the procedure would cause pain to the child [and offer the mothers anesthesia for the baby. The mothers would accept or reject the anesthesia by signing a form.

The legislation would require the consent form after 20 weeks gestation. But research shows it's highly unlikely the fetus could feel anything before the 28th week, by which time abortion is illegal, anyway. And it's worth mentioning again that, on top of being based on junk science, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act defines a woman as a "female human being who is capable of becoming pregnant." Shudder.

Yeah, babe.

I've spent most of the past few weeks packing, moving and driving across the country to start my new job as associate web editor at The American Prospect in D.C. So I missed my chance to write a timely post about the FDA's eased restrictions on Plan B sales.

This month Barr Labs finished repackaging the drug, and some pharmacies are starting to sell it without a prescription to women over 18. So most of the press coverage has incorrectly stated that Plan B is available "over-the-counter". It’s not just the local news outlets that are getting it wrong. The Washington Post did say that, "Unlike many other OTC medications, it will not be sold at gas stations and convenience stores." But it failed to come right out and say that "over-the counter" isn't literally true -- Plan B will still be sold only by licensed pharmacists, behind the pharmacy counter.

To be sure, I love any press for emergency contraception. After all, only 20% of women know what Plan B is or how it works. But the morning-after pill hasn’t begun “appearing in drugstores nationwide.� Most of the pharmacies that declined to stock it before the FDA status change are still failing to provide it. For example, ColoradoConfidential.com conducted an informal survey of pharmacies in the state, and nearly half of them didn’t keep the drug in stock. One Walgreens questioned whether Plan B was even legal. I know of no national surveys of EC availability, but a May 2005 survey of Missouri pharmacies also showed that 70% didn't stock emergency contraception.

Pharmacist refusals become a non-issue when stores refuse to carry Plan B at all. NARAL's got a form letter you can send to pharmacy chains asking them to publicly pledge to keep the drug in stock. In the meantime, everyone should keep a dose of EC at home. And if your local pharmacies aren't carrying it, there's always Planned Parenthood or Emergency Kindness, the EC service.

What to say? This study finds men are wired differently then women and this results in women talking more.

In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day - 13,000 more than the average man.

Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat - and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests.

The book - written by a female psychiatrist - says that inherent differences between the male and female brain explain why women are naturally more talkative than men.

In The Female Mind, Dr Luan Brizendine says women devote more brain cells to talking than men.

And, if that wasn't enough, the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high.

I am a talking addict!

Call me a skeptic, but most studies that claim women are one way and men are another are a) geared to make women look like they are at fault for some constructed difference and b) usually have flawed methodology with little literature or cultural analysis to back up their view point. WIthout EVER interrogating that their findings are sexist, because the researcher themself might actually be sexist.

That said this researcher is a woman and a self proclaimed feminist. But either way, some thoughts. . .

What about women that don’t talk a lot and men that do. Are they acting outside of their gender role? Where do they fit into such a sweeping study? Are they just variables?

There are, however, advantages to being the strong, silent type. Dr Brizendine explains that testosterone also reduces the size of the section of the brain involved in hearing - allowing men to become "deaf" to the most logical of arguments put forward by their wives and girlfriends.

But what the male brain may lack in converstation and emotion, they more than make up with in their ability to think about sex.

That is just a little too convenient isn't it? What about women that have more testosterone? Do they also lose their ability to process their emotions as well?

Any study that functions in sweeping generalizations about how men are and women are inherently, are usually overlooking too many variables to actually be effective research, in my VERY humble opinion.

Seriously, how do you account for actual biological differences and differences in socialization? If we start to believe that women just naturally talk more then men, then don’t men benefit from not having to talk, when in a lot of circumstances they need to be talking. Like tell me he is just wired to talk less, not that he is an asshole wielding male priviledge through silence.

The only benefit I see of this study is that when men tell women to shut up they need to check themselves. “Baby, I was just wired that way. . . �

I don't really know if it is biological differences that may cause some women to be more talkative then some men, but again I think biology is one part of a much bigger story.

Thoughts?

via DailyMail

Nigeria seems to have turned into a hotspot for women being smuggled into the sex trade. This shit is crazy.

Trafficking women for prostitution became a problem in Benin City in the mid-1980s when free-market economic reforms led to massive job losses and impoverished many Nigerians.Today, the Nigeria-Italy prostitution trade has become a sinister, self-propagating cycle.

Now, more than 80 percent of Nigerian women trafficked abroad to work in the sex trade come from Edo state, where Benin City is located, according to United Nations estimates. The main destination is Italy.

The reality is some women choose this, but many are smuggled not only for sex work, but for forced labor and domestic help. But this is the part that really got me. Women are being manipulated using local traditional oaths to scare them and force them into sex work.

Before they leave Nigeria, women are taken to traditional shrines where they swear to pay their debts to their madams and not to denounce them to the police.

The women leave fingernails, pubic hairs, soiled underwear and other intimate items at the shrines. These, according to traditional beliefs which are strong in Benin, give the priests power to harm them wherever they are in the world.

Finally, the article talks about this notion of sacrifice and how in this particular culture sacrifice is a sign of femininity. I think that unfortunately is a global phenomenon. The gendering of sacrifice and its connection to women's work.

via Khaleej Times.

This is amazing. The Center for New Words (home of WAM!) is holding a benefit online celebrity auction.

Some of the items up for bidding:

Katha Pollitt edits your manuscript
Novelist Thisbe Nissen names a character in her next book after you
Former Head Writer for Six Feet Under Jill Soloway edits your script
A shooting script from SCRUBS, signed by all the lead cast members
Legendary cartoonist Jennifer Camper designs your tattoo
An evening of conversation with Cynthia Enloe
A signed limited edition broadside from Margaret Atwood

Hot shit. Go start bidding!

Just wondering what folks thought of this:

For 10 years, New York state gave $42,000 a year to the Vera House battered women's shelter to run a program for abusive men.

But state officials discovered the Syracuse agency had committed a serious breach of contract: It tried to change the bad guys. So for the last three years, the state cut off the money.

The state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence forbids any state-funded batterers programs from trying to rehabilitate abusers.

This is a hard one for me. I'm all for trusting the experts in the violence against women field, but any program that could be seen as encouraging women (even indirectly) to stay in abusive relationships because the abuser might change...ugh. Thoughts?

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is a tremendous feminist success story. The legislation, which was passed in 1994 and reauthorized in 2000 and 2006, allows for $3.9 billion in funding to help survivors of intimate partner violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Feminists were the driving force behind the drafting and passage of VAWA--it's our baby.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I found out the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) (where VAWA lives) is going to be run by yet another wacky Bush appointee.

Mary Beth Buchanan, US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, is set to be OVW's Acting Director.

Buchanan’s claims to fame?

She’s an enthusiastic cheerleader of the Patriot Act. (It preserves civil liberties, she says!)

She spent $12 million on "Operation Pipe Dreams," taking down 55 people for selling bongs. This included actor Tommy Chong--in the courtroom, Buchanan introduced his fictional pot-smoking characters as evidence of his "frivolous" attitude towards drug laws.

She’s an anti-obscenity crusader, prosecuting people for written stories on the internet and going after any and all porn. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of violent porn and the like, but Buchanan strikes me as more interested in enforcing morality than the law.) The legal director for the Pittsburgh ACLU once called Buchanan "the vanguard of [former U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft’s attempt to impose his morality on others." Yikes.

So basically, this sucks. I can see it now...VAWA funds being diverted to conservative anti-obscenity groups under the rhetoric of protecting women. I am completely freaked out.

The Kaiser Network reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is standing by their man Eric Keroack. You know, the “doctor� who likes cartoons but thinks birth control is icky.

Christina Pearson, spokesperson for HHS' Office of Population Affairs and Administration for Children and Families, said Keroack is not opposed to birth control…

Keroack "has expressed to us that he will fulfill his programmatic responsibilities in accordance with the law, and we believe him," Pearson said, adding that Keroack's work for A Women's Concern accounted for only 20% of his time and involved providing ultrasound examinations to pregnant women and not counseling to women who were not pregnant.

Yeah, somehow that doesn’t make me feel better. By the way, Kaiser has an amazing roundup of editorials and opinion pieces on Keroack. Check them out.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I frigging love All My Children. I started watching it when I was a toddler and my Nana took care of me—we had to watch her stories all afternoon long. For some reason, AMC stuck.

It was fab enough when the soap featured the first-ever lesbian smooch on a daytime drama, now they’re going to introduce a transgendered character. Nice.

The character, a flamboyant rock star known as Zarf, kisses the lesbian character Bianca and much drama ensues. The storyline begins with Thursday's episode of the daytime drama.

…The show wasn't interested in doing something just to be sensational, she said. GLAAD and some transgenders were brought in as consultants in shaping the character, teaching the producers when it is appropriate to call a character "she" even before surgery, she said.

Damon Romine, a spokesman for GLAAD, said he hasn't seen the show yet but feels people involved were genuinely interested in telling the story with dignity.

…"I think it's groundbreaking and breakthrough television for daytime to put a spotlight on transgender people and tell their story," he said.

It’s just too bad that my beloved soap is slipping ratings-wise. Boo.

The Liberal Women's Caucus in Canada has put out a set of party policies that they feel are the most pressing issues women face in Canada. In doing so they called out what they called the conservative government's war on women.

This is some hot shit!

British scientists have developed a revolutionary pill that men could take as a one-off contraceptive just before a date.

The tablet would prevent a man from being able to impregnate a woman, but within a few hours his fertility would return to normal.

This would make it much more acceptable to men than other 'male pills' under development, which alter hormone levels and have to be taken over the long term.

The hormone-free contraceptive (it actually prevents ejaculation) can be taken a few hours before sex, or every day like women's birth control pill. Sweet.

Contributed by Jess Wakeman.

Police in Nigeria use rape as a means of intimidation and torture, Amnesty International reported today.

According to the Associated Press, the report outlines cases of "soldiers raping women in front of their husbands and children, detainees being sodomized with broken bottles, and toddlers assaulted after their parents had been arrested," as well as a 2004 incident where two teenagers were gang raped by three policemen.

And there are few, if any, consequences that befall the perpetrators.

...most rapes are never reported because victims fear the security forces or fear being rejected by their families or communities, Amnesty said. When rapes are reported, "widespread failures throughout the judicial system result in only an estimated 10 percent of cases ever being successfully prosecuted," the report said. "The perpetrators invariably escape punishment, and women and girls who have been raped are denied any form of redress for the serious crimes against them."

In addition, it's an unwelcome climate for reporting sexual assault because it is made near-impossible to prove. In northern Nigeria, where Islamic Sharia law is practiced, it's a crime to report a rape without sufficient evidence--including four male witnesses.

Of course, under-reported rape statistics and perpetrators evading prosecution is not just a Nigerian problem. According to the Rape Abuse Incest National Network, 61 percent of rapes in the U.S. are not reported and only one out of 16 rapists will ever spend time in jail.

The thing is, I think Nip/Tuck is a pretty interesting show. But this ad...wow.

Random: Check out Flickr comments for an appearance by my bud Alice Tiara.

Pic from dianayorkblaine.

Well we can hope at least. Women in Pakistan have been working hard to get this bill passed and signed in Congress, so if the government is actually going to support its implementation, that will be a good step.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that the women’s rights protection bill will be enforced throughout the country at all costs. Talking to media personnel at the PM’s Secretariat after attending the fourth Altaf Gauhar Memorial Lecture on Monday, the prime minister rejected statements by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s NWFP government about resisting enforcement of the bill in the province.

"The bill is aimed at protecting the rights of women and no one can stop its implementation in all the provinces," he said.

He said no political party or provincial government had the right to do politicise the matter. "No one should make it a political issue," he said.

Unfortunately they have made it a very political issue and passage has been delayed for months, due to half of Parliment saying they would walk out if the bill was even put on the table.

via Dawn News.

UPDATE: Here is the actual text of the 15 page Women's Protection Bill via Eteraz.org.

Check out this article on the growing number of women funeral directors, which has historically been a male-dominated profession.

While I was happy to see the increase in female directors being addressed, I knew it was only a matter of time before the reasons behind the increase would include our “natural� tendencies of compassion and caretaking.

“We have that innate ability to show our empathetic side. . . Women can become more emotionally attached when they need to. That’s an asset in this business,� said Rosemarie Au, a funeral director.

But emotional detachment is an asset as well, don't you think? I can see some sexist assholes anticipating female funeral directors to be too emotional to handle grievance counseling or squeal when witnessing an embalming. If anything, being a woman who is a funeral director should dispel more stereotypes than not.

Or at least tries to. The UN Gender Theme Group in commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women demanded an end to violence against women and some practical solutions for it.

The event kicked off a 16-day international campaign against gender violence, which includes domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape.

"Fundamentally, it is time for us to make the commitment publicly and personally," Malik said.

About 34.7 per cent of families suffer from domestic violence, according to a survey conducted by the Domestic Violence Network in nine cities of three provinces between 2000 to 2001, the latest figures available.

About 80 to 90 per cent of these victims are female, said Chen Mingxia, chair of the board of the network.
The picture is gloomier in rural China, where more than 170,000 women die of suicide every year.

Of these suicide cases, 66 per cent were a result of domestic violence, said Xie Lihua, director of the cultural development centre for rural women.

More than one third of rural women suffer from physical violence every few months, Xie said. Her figures were based on 10 years of investigation in rural areas of China.

Some not so happy stats. Also Saturday was International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Hope you all celebrated, because I was so distracted by writing my thesis, I shamefully forgot about it. But I guess we should really be fighting violence against women and celebrating its elimination everyday.

via China Daily.

Sean gets real about smacking up bitches.

I don't know what is worse, this video or this sexist thread that followed it.

You know we just needed an excuse to talk about boobs.

Here you can learn how to be crafty and make prosthetic breast(s) for yourself or a friend. And it’s chenille!

Via Nerve.

So I know this news is a little old, but worth mentioning: Looks like the New Yorker has booted anti-feminist Caitlin Flanagan. Hopefully they'll replace her with another female contributor who does actual reporting rather than steal others' work and spew anti-feminist bile.

Now instead of producing articles about teenage whores who have oral sex, Flanagan says she'll be focused on writing books on the subject. As Gawker put it, "Cum-Guzzling MySpace Sluts should be available sometime in 2008."

These commercials kill me. First of all, the husband is clearly the meanest fuck ever. But I especially love that the wife is so dumb that she doesn't know what a mountain is without some sort of explanatory hand gesture.

Women who bicycle regularly may have a harder time getting off.

While past studies have shown a correlation between erectile disfunction and genital numbness in men, a new study shows that it’s common for women cyclists to have a decrease in genital sensation.

"However, there were no negative effects on sexual function and quality of life in our young, healthy pre-menopausal study participants," said lead author Marsha K. Guess, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale.

Okay, but that doesn't change the future outcome. With about 13 million women in the U.S. who bicycle on a regular basis, I would think (or hope) something could be invented to avoid this. Some sort of crotch cup?

It looks like Massachusetts Republican Governor Mitt Romney is using his remaining time in office to push a homophobic angle so he can get the anti-gay “badge of honor� from conservatives nationwide.

Shortly after the state legislature recessed to vote on the proposal that would make gay marriage illegal, Romney asked MA’s highest court on Friday to force the legislature to make a decision.

The co-chair of Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, Arline Isaacson, says that Romney is pushing for the vote mostly for political gain. (There’s been talks of his possible candidacy for president in 2008.) "Romney is pursuing this aggressively because he seeks to keep his name front and center at the national level as an anti-gay zealot in order to court conservative voters around the country," said Isaacson.

I’m not surprised; after all, he does have a history of being a faker.

About five years ago, I bought this shirt for a boyfriend (cough, Rob, cough) and he wouldn't wear it. I should have known then it wouldn't work out.

UPDATE: I just got an email from said ex-boyfriend who insists the shirt was in fact worn, and remains in his drawer to this day. I'll believe it when I have photographic evidence...

Pic from forest fire.

The World Economic Forum has released this year’s Global Gender Gap Report where the U.S. ranks number 22 as far as its efforts to decrease our “gender gap,� or inequalities that exist between men and women.

The report focuses on four different areas concerning the gender gap: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival. The Nordic countries Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland (in that order) came in first with Germany, the Philipines, New Zealand, Denmark, the UK and Ireland (in that order) as the last of the top 10 nations with the smallest gender gap.

Looks like we have a bit of catching up to do.

Ontario has launched a $1.4 million campaign to educate girls about dating violence and sexual harassment.

Scott Lemieux on the Supreme Court's consideration of the two "partial-birth" abortion cases.

A Brazilian model died of complications related to anorexia.

There's a new anthology of women's writing about science and technology.

A key adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton told pro-choicers that the Democratic Party "has to be big enough to accommodate a wide range of views on this issue." (UPDATE: Some pro-choicers are calling this article misleading. I'm posting a letter to the editor after the jump.)

A new report indicates Bush's funding of abstinence programs to prevent AIDS in Africa may have actually reversed progress made in curbing the disease.

The Chilean congress rejected a bill to reconsider the country's draconian abortion ban.

According to the BBC, 60% of Japanese women experience "Retired Husband Syndrome," meaning that retired Japanese men "having spent years 'married to their jobs,' are having an extraordinary effect on the health of their partners."

The Guttmacher Institute has a new report (PDF) on women who have more than one abortion.

The Nairobi East Aftican has a story on illegal abortions in Uganda.

The police department in Madison, Wisconsin will pay $35,000 in restitution to a woman who was raped. When she tried to report the crime, officers told her they didn't believe her and refused to pursue an investigation. On the same day the city council ordered the restitution, it also mandated pharmacists to give notification to customers if they are out of emergency contraception or don't carry it.

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu employs all-female police battalions that specifically focus on crimes against women. The state has also had some all-women police stations since 1992.

You can hear her voice every last Thursday of the month at 2 p.m. on KPFK, Pacifica Radio for Southern California, on the radio show "Some Of Us Are Brave." It has been listened to by people the world over, including Brazil, Turkey, Syria, Korea and Singapore. The show is titled after the revolutionary book edited by Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, But Some Of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: Black Women’s Studies.

Long-time media activist Thandisizwe wrote her first short story when she was 5 years old, and learned about journalism when she was 7. Now, she’s working to share her media activism skills with a new generation of women through the founding of the Ida B. Wells Institute. Here’s Thandisizwe…

This bird is giving the ill stare-down.

Feministing is taking today and Friday off for the holiday and will resume posting on Saturday.

Attention all (straight) women in Russia! Do you want to get the man of your dreams?? Do you want to be "successful in a man's world?" Then it might be time to take some courses in "Bitchology." No joke.

A growing tend in Russia are "bitch schools" that essentially teach women how to manipulate their way into a man's heart. Vladimir Rakovsky, a motivational speaker, and his wife, Yevgenia. are the founders of this new "study." Rakovsky's definition of what a "bitch" should be:

"A smart woman gets what she wants by pretending to be weak. . . A bitch should be strong and self-confident but should remember to use feminine wiles, such as her attractiveness and, whenever useful, she should try to come across as a helpless creature."

Because there's nothing more unattractive than a confident woman. Yuck.

Students swear that the technique works and gives every Russian woman what she wants, which is apparently "Great sex, money and a man who looks after you."

Well, the first two don't sound so bad, but wow. I don't even know what to make of this. Thoughts?

Ok, folks--time to party for feminism. I'm on the Host Committee for this benefit, which means I need to be selling some tickets. Do me proud. I know it's a little pricey, but if you know the amazing work that the Third Wave Foundation has done on behalf of young women, then I'm sure you won't mind ponying up.

So pretty please buy a ticket! There's a fantastic line-up of women speaking, and if that doesn't tempt you just think about watching the Feministing gals get inebriated and stumbly. (Just kidding, Third Wave!)

The info is below; if you want to buy a ticket contact me or Vanessa at Third Wave (but make sure to say Feministing sent you!). Hope to see you there.

Join us as we honor two women who have paved the path for us:

Helen LaKelly Hunt
leader in the women’s funding movement

Vivien Labaton
founding director and board member

with guest speaker
Eve Ensler
playwright and activist

Enjoy music, drinks, hors d’oeuvres and our silent auction to toast our joint commitment to young women and transgender youth leaders!

Wednesday December 6, 2006
6:30 – 9:30 program and auction
9:30 – 11:30 after party

The Prince George Ballroom
15 East 27th St.
New York City

Ticket price: $100
Sponsorships and Advertisements are also available for purchase

Dress is festive

For more information, contact:

Vanessa
212-675-0700 ext. 11
vanessa [ at ] thirdwavefoundation.org

I told you that Keroack was just a ten-year old pretending to be a doctor!

Check out the last lines in this WaPo piece on the wacky non-doc:

Pearson also acknowledged yesterday that Keroack is not currently certified as an obstetrician-gynecologist. That is not a requirement for the job, but HHS officials had cited Keroack's expertise in defending his selection.

Hells yeah they did!

The Washington Post, 11/21/2006:

An HHS spokeswoman said Keroack is a skilled doctor and a nationally recognized expert on preventing teenage pregnancy. "We have confidence that he'll perform his duties effectively and in accordance with the law," HHS spokeswoman Christina Pearson said by e-mail.

The Washington Post, 11/17/2006:

John O. Agwunobi, assistant secretary for health, said Keroack "is highly qualified and a well-respected physician . . . working primarily with women and girls in crisis."

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Fortunately, folks aren't taking this quack's appointment sitting down. Letters from both the House and Senate (spearheaded by Rep. Henry Waxman and Sen. Barbara Boxer) were sent to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt, urging him to reject Keroack's appointment.

Related: Check out this great cartoon about Keroack in The Boston Globe.

I shamelessly stole this one from Amanda, who used it in her post about John McCain remarking that he would support Roe v Wade being overturned.

I think the picture really sums it up nicely, no?

PIc from jocieposse.

Well this is just lovely.

A Tennessee teen has filed a lawsuit after she was dismissed from a weightlifting class--the principal of her school removed her, saying he was afraid the male students might try to rape her. Seriously.

[Then-prinicpal Bob] McCracken said in a deposition that he was afraid [Ambrea] Phillips might be sexually assaulted in the class.

"Having a female with 35 or so male students in an isolated area from the school, it sets a very liable situation in my opinion," McCracken said in the deposition.

Three days after kicking Phillips out of the class, McCracken changed his mind and reinstated her.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley asked [school attorney Arthur] Knight if the principal was wrong in removing Phillips from the class.

"She is up there with a bunch of football players, a 24- to 25-year-old coach, the only girl — there is a safety issue there. It was a hard call for the principal to make," Knight answered.

Okay, assuming that the fear of rape was actually the principal's reason for removing the student (which I really don't know that it was), then why punish the potential victim rather than the potential rapists? By the way, it seems kind of terrible that this prinicipal has such a low opinion of young men--does he think any group of guys presented with a woman will just go into rape-mode? Disgusting.

Every time I see this scene, I cry like a baby. Hey, we all have our soft spots.

Don't let an anti-choice, abstinence-only nut head up the country's only federal program devoted entirely to family planning and reproductive health!

Through NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, or the National Organization for Women, you can send a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt, urging him to reject Dr. Eric Keroack’s appointment.

I'm buying it in poster form!

I’m late on this one; sorry about that.

23 year-old Specialist James P. Barker plead guilty last week to raping a 14 year-old girl and then killing her and her family.

Specialist Barker and three other members of Company B of the First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, were charged with raping the girl and killing her, her parents and her 7-year-old sister in the family’s home in Mahmudiya, southwest of Baghdad. It is a volatile area known to American soldiers as the “triangle of death.�

Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, Pfc. Bryan L. Howard and Sgt. Paul E. Cortez are also charged with rape, premeditated murder and arson; military prosecutors accused the men of burning the girl’s body using kerosene in an effort to conceal evidence. A fifth soldier, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, is charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report the crimes.

The plea means that Barker will not face the death penalty, though he will most likely be given a life sentence.

But abstinence hasn't.

While Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief focuses on fidelity and abstinence, condom use among women in Africa is increasing. Results from a study that covered 18 African countries from 1993 to 2001 showed that condom use has more than tripled.

"It's not rapid enough, but if that increase continues or even accelerates, it's bound to make a dent on HIV transmission," said John Cleland, a professor at London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Cleland and Dr. Mohamed Ali of the World Health Organization conducted the study.

The study also suggested that a way to further increase condom use was to put emphasis on family planning. (Sixty percent of single women in Africa use condoms to avoid pregnancy.)

In the meantime, the rate of abstinence has stayed more or less the same. That could be a sign, guys...

Feminism can be cured...if diagnosed early.

I know we are just so humble. This is just silly, but whatever. Isn't bloglebrity really hard to say?

Yeah you heard it right. It still scares me, but I wouldn't get breast implants ever and I think it is sad that so many women do. And that big companies benefit off of low self esteem. But I guess that is what our culture is all about, innit.

via CNN.

Finally.

The New York Times Magazine had an article yesterday, “The Real Marriage Penalty� on how straight married couples are increasingly on the same level, educationally and economically.

The author basically refutes the “marriage penalty� idea which implies that highly educated straight women can’t find a partner because, you know, men want someone to take care of, not talk to. But according to the study cited in the article, that’s just not the case. For example, among women born after 1960, a college graduate is more likely to get married than less-educated women.

According to the author, this is partly due to "assortive mating" (mating with a partner similar to you), and "modern society," which makes assortive mating more possible for both women and men. But despite this, the fact that people are now selecting mates with the same educational and economic background may also contribute to the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

It's an article definitely worth reading. The last section is my favorite:

Of course, men and women don’t choose each other on the basis of education and income alone. Putting love aside, as men’s and women’s roles continue to shift, other standards for selecting a partner may come to the fore. Indeed, the sociologist Julie Press recently offered what she called ‘a gynocentric theory of assortative mating,’ moving the focus from what men now desire in a marriage partner to the evolving preferences of women. What would-be wives may be seeking now, she proposed in The Journal of Marriage and Family, is ‘cute butts and housework’ — that is, a man with an appealing physique and a willingness to wash dishes. Could this be a feminist slogan for our time?

It has a nice ring to it.

Yet another reason to kick the habit, ladies.

According to a recent study, women who have HPV and smoke have a greater risk for “cervical cancer in situ,� or CIS, meaning that the cancer is confined to the surface layer of the cervix.

The risk of CIS is particularly high in women who have HPV-16, just one strains of the STI that causes cervical cancer. According to their findings:

Current smokers positive for HPV-16 were more than 14 times more likely to have CIS than HPV-negative current smokers. In nonsmokers, HPV-16 positivity only increased the risk of cancer by 5.6-fold.

Current smoking coupled with a high HPV-16 load raised the risk of CIS by 27-fold compared with HPV-16-negative smokers. In nonsmokers, the elevated risk with a high HPV-16 load was just 5.9-fold.

So if you have HPV (by age 50, at least 80 percent of women acquire it) and are a smoker, it may be about that time. You know, to quit.

Oh my god, I love this song. It's from a band called Dites Donc out of Wisconsin...I'm crushing hard.

Thanks to Christopher for the link!

Remember the horrendous synonyms I found from Dictionary.com for the word “girl�? Well, "woman" isn’t too far off:

Main Entry: woman

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: female

Synonyms: Mrs., babe, bird, bride, broad, chick, chicken, companion, dame, debutante, doll, gal, gentlewoman, girl, girlfriend, inamorata, kitten, lady, lass, love, lover, maid, maiden, mama, mate, matron, miss, mistress, moll, nymph, old lady, paramour, partner, pigeon, rib, she, skirt, spinster, spouse, squaw, sweetheart, tomato, tootsie, virgin, wife

Antonyms: man

Virgin, rib and the animal references are bad enough, but the fact that half of the synonyms basically define “woman� as some sort of companion pisses me the fuck off. So according to dictionary.com, our identity is based solely on our relationships to other people.

It was also nice to see that when I looked up “man,� the definition for the word is “human.� Lovely.

Excuse me while I go cry into my coffee.

Check out this French commercial that equates boobies with bumpers.

This is a wee overdue. Over thirty people protested in front of Delta and Freedom Airlines in Burlington International Airport last week due to an incident the previous week when a woman was kicked off a plane for breast-feeding.

Even though Vermont state law allows breast-feeding in public, Emily Gillette was asked to leave a plane after she refused a blanket by a flight attendant. Gillette soon thereafter filed a complaint against both airlines, although they seem to convey that the action was one taken by the flight attendant alone.

I second Amanda at Pandagon's sentiments:

This is my complaint to all the assholes who give women a hard time about breast-feeding in public: What is your fucking problem? Do you like fussy babies disturbing the peace with their crying? There’s a lot of things that a baby stuck to a tit might be, but what she’s definitely not is a crying baby. Whenever I’m on a plane and a baby starts crying, I count the seconds until the boob is out and the nipple shoved in the baby’s mouth so I can resume napping or reading or whatever. What is wrong with you that you can’t see the benefit of rapid-fire baby placating?

Indeed.

Former U.S. Congresswoman and member of the Nixon Impeachment Panel, Elizabeth Holtzman, joined forces with journalist Cynthia L. Cooper to publish, The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens.

Elizabeth is the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress and won national attention for her role on the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate. Reflecting on her past experiences, and the present actions of the current administration, Elizabeth states there are many similarities between the impeachable offenses of President Nixon and President Bush.

Here’s Elizabeth…

We feel very fancy.

If you turn to page 68 in the December 2006 issue of Marie Claire, there's a very complimentary review of Feministing. Thanks, MC editors!

Pic of our 15 minutes of fame after the jump.

Brought to you by the same folks who created the doggy-style table.

The Washington Post covered the appointment of Dr. Eric "bad science" Keroack, noting that folks aren't too pleased about his being in charge of family planning funding.

Marilyn Keefe, interim president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents 4,000 family-planning clinics, said Keroack's work "seems to really be geared toward furthering anti-choice, anti-contraception policies." She added that despite the congressional election results, the appointment "goes to show you the importance of controlling the White House and how important federal agencies are in the delivery of health services."

...Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called Keroack's appointment "striking proof that the Bush administration remains dramatically out of step with the nation's priorities."

Sounds about right. Some more info on the scariness that is Doc Keroack...

He has said that "pre-marital sex is really modern germ warfare," that "sexual activity is a war zone," and that women "die emotionally" from having abortions.

That's bad enough, but the pics that Alternet has from his abstinence presentation make me completely convinced that Keroack is actually a ten year-old boy posing as a doctor. This would explain his comparing women to cars, the fact that he finds sex icky, and the strange obsession with cartoons and drawing his scientific explanations out with crayons. (Seriously, check the presentation out.) The only thing it doesn't explain, in fact, is his mustache. But those aren't that hard to come by.

I don't know how I missed this one!

A new study says that most Americans favor comprehensive sex ed (you know, the kind that tells the truth) over abstinence-only bullshittery.

Of the nearly 1,110 U.S. adults they surveyed, 82 percent supported programs that discuss abstinence as well as other methods for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Half were in outright opposition to abstinence-only education.

Even among self-described conservatives, 70 percent supported comprehensive sex ed., while 40 percent opposed the abstinence-only strategy.

The study is published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Evan covered this craziness earlier this month, but man do I love to watch it.

Woo hoo!

Ségolène Royal won the Socialist Party nomination this week in a landslide:

With most of the vote in, Ms. Royal, 53, a regional president and former minister, won 60.6 percent of the vote of the party’s nearly 219,000 members in an unusual party primary.

Her closest rival, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 57, a former finance minister, received 20.8 percent of the vote, and Laurent Fabius, 60, a former prime minister, 18.5 percent.

That’s what I call a win!

The victory helped validate Ms. Royal’s standing as the only candidate capable of beating the right’s frontrunner, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister who is seeking his UMP party’s nomination for the 2007 presidential election.

An Ipsos opinion poll released on Thursday put Ms. Royal and Mr. Sarkozy in a dead heat if they were to face off in a second round of voting.

Apparently Royal’s campaign was filled with lots of mudslinging and sexism. Shocker. Even more shocking? Folks can’t help but talk about her looks and clothes:

Even her opponents agree that her good looks help. Published photos of her in a turquoise bikini while on vacation last summer underscored her youthfulness and glamour, while in poll after poll, her telegenic smile and elegant profile have appealed to a French public yearning for a new style of leadership.

You know...the hot kind. In all seriousness though, check out the whole article for more info on Royal, her politics, and the campaign history. Just try not to be distracted by her “youthfulness and glamour.�

And we love it back!

Pic from Mind the Gap Cardiff Feminists.

This is crazy. A doctor inserted a contraceptive implant in a woman's arm. She finds out she is pregnant after it is too late to have an abortion. She takes the man to court and the German courts have said he must pay child support until the child is 18.

The precedent-setting ruling by Germany's Federal Court gives both parents, who are not married, the right to receive child support from the doctor until their son reaches adulthood.

Germany's highest court has now demanded the gynaecologist pay the equivalent of around £400 a month until the child turns 18.

Justice Gerda Mueller of the Federal Court refused to take into consideration the fact that the woman has had a second child since she filed the original complaint.

Justice Mueller said: "The existence of the child is not a damage in itself, but the need to support it financially is."

Thoughts?

The growing number of millionaires in China has increased a need for more attractive women to mate with them. Because of course the millionaires are all men. Uh huh. So anyway, here we have who wants to marry a millionaire, love boat style.

The love boat service is being launched in Shanghai later this month, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.

It quoted organiser Xu Tianli as saying that the men had to be worth at least 2m yuan ($250,000; £130,000), and that 20 had signed up so far.

They were looking for women attractive in every category, and only approved 30 out of 1,000 applicants. They also noted that a lot of these men meet women through business and lordy knows, we don't want no working girls.

via BBC.

But hey, after the shit I took a couple of months ago I think I'm entitled. Read the last couple of paragraphs of this post.

Hold on to your hats. I hear from a little birdie that the Bush administration has hired Dr. Eric Keroack to oversee Title X funding—the only federal program devoted entirely to family planning and reproductive health.

Keroack, who is currently the medical director of a Massachusetts pregnancy crisis center (you know, the folks that lie to women), will be the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs.

Keroack is not only a well-known anti-choicer, he’s also a major proponent of abstinence-only education…and when I say proponent, I mean fucking insane person.

At the Annual Abstinence Leadership Conference in Kansas, Keroack defended abstinence (in an aptly titled talk, "If I Only Had a Brain") by claiming that sex causes people to go through oxytocin withdrawal which in turn prevents people from bonding in relationships. Seriously.

[Keroack] explained that oxytocin is released during positive social interaction, massage, hugs, “trust� encounters, and sexual intercourse. “It promotes bonding by reducing fear and anxiety in social settings, increasing trust and trustworthiness, reducing stress and pain, and decreasing social aggression,� he said.

But apparently if you’ve had sex with too many people you use up all that oxytocin: "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual.� Hear that? Too many sexual partners and you’ll never love again!

The good doctor has also explained his use of ultrasounds in anti-abortion counseling by stating, “even Midas lets you look at your old muffler before they advise you to change it.�

And this is the guy who is going to have control over hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding meant to provide access to contraception and reproductive health information—specifically to low income Americans.

I'm trying to figure out who the best folks are to contact to oppose this douche--apparently there's no confirmation process for this position, he just shows up to work. On Monday.

There’s some serious fucked up street harassment going on Cairo and women are fed up. The New York Times had an article up yesterday on the continued violence against women on Talat Harb Street, a popular block in the city.

Recently, reports surfaced on Egyptian blogs, on television and in newspapers that groups of men had roamed the city streets during a holiday weekend and attacked young women — actually chased them down in packs. There were accounts from witnesses and victims.

…“All of a sudden, these guys attacked us and came in between us and harassed us,� a reveler told Al Ahram, the semi-official newspaper. “They groped us in a way that is worse than anyone on the crowded street could imagine.�

There is still uncertainty over what exactly happened in the streets that day. What is certain, though, is that the police have been adamant that very little occurred, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is degrading Egypt’s reputation. (Emphasis added)

That’s real sweet.

One young man who posted pictures of the attacks on his website actually had to hide for days after receiving a threatening phone call. And yet, the police continue to say that nothing happened.

In response, groups of women have been holding demonstrations against the attacks and the lack of police intervention.

One protestor, Nesreen Khaled, says “This is not the first time this has happened, but the dangerous part is that it is the first time that it happened in such a collective way…Where are the police that are always there at the mosques? Where are the regular people to stop this from happening?�

Pic from Nora Younis, who has a whole set dedicated to the protest.

Also check out Global Voices Online, which highlights how Egyptian bloggers brought the story to light.

This is good, or I should say better. However, I am finding my mouth gaping open that people were sentenced to death for extra-marital sex.

Pakistan's lower house of Parliament passed amendments to the country's rape laws Wednesday, ditching the death penalty for extramarital sex and revising a clause on making victims produce four witnesses to prove rape cases.

Consensual sex outside marriage would remain a crime punishable by five years in prison or a $165 fine, said a parliamentary official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

What they will reform the law to look like is yet to be seen. Musharraf was supportive of this decision.

Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, praised lawmakers for approving the amendments and criticized fundamentalists for their "unnecessary" opposition and their claims that his government was acting against Islam.

"I have taken a firm decision to change these unjust rape laws as it was necessary to amend them to protect women," Musharraf said in a televised address to the nation. He urged the Senate, dominated by government allies, to swiftly approve the measure.

As the article mentions, Pakistan's rape laws came under question after Muktar Mai was sentenced to gang rape and came out with her story, gaining the support of international rights activists to abolish Hudood.

via WaPo.

John Tierney, our fave love-to-hate-him columnist, has announced that he's leaving The New York Times' Op-Ed page. Such a shame. Who else will be there to tell us that smart women won't find husbands and that scrabble proves women aren't competitive? Oh well, I guess we'll always have David Brooks.

Rebecca Traister at Broadsheet takes a look back at some of Tierney's proud moments:

Jan. 3, 2006: The successes of feminism have allowed women so much educational and financial success that they'll have a hard time finding husbands. "You could think of this as a victory for women's rights, but many of the victors will end up celebrating alone."

Jan. 10, 2006: Should men have greater say in women's decisions about abortion? "I'd rather stick with the current system, unfair as it is." But worth writing a column about nonetheless, just to hammer home the point that the whole abortion thing really sucks for ... guys.

March 1, 2006: "What makes a woman happy with her marriage?" When her husband brings in two-thirds of the family income. Leaving her economically dependent on him.

March 28, 2006: Do American boys need an affirmative action program of their own to help them get into college? No. But all those silly programs for girls that Tierney sneeringly lists, including ones that "encourage African and Slavic girls and women in Oregon to pursue careers in science," help "women in West Virginia overcome 'traditional, outdated 19th-century attitudes' by pursuing jobs in blue-collar trades" and "motivate women at the Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y., to study math" Well, those are all "noble" distractions from the real problem in the education system -- "the shortage of men."

So, ta ta Tierney. Have fun science blogging.

This has to be some kind of new, I don't understand Fox programming, November fools joke, right? I mean, there's no way in the actual world that OJ Simpson would write a book about how he didn't murder his ex-wife and her friend, but if he did it would have gone like this. And no one would ever put an interview about this on television, certainly not a two-night special. Right? Right? Someone debunk this for me. Hurry, I'm getting scared.

Good news: A panel of the Court of Appeals in Ohio ruled to strike down the section of a state abortion law that would have given teen girls only one chance to seek a judicial bypass to obtain an abortion without parental consent. (Okay, so that’s only semi-good news since they still have to deal with parental consent laws, but I’m attempting to be optimistic today.)

Bad news: The same panel ruled to uphold the section of the state’s abortion law that requires women to receive “counseling� before obtaining an abortion. (As if a woman who has an unwanted pregnancy has actually though about anything but what her options are.)

The event last night at Barnard went pretty well, IMHO--especially the conversation following the panelists. But soon you'll be able to judge for yourself; folks from the Barnard Center for Research on Women videotaped the event and are making it into a videocast. We're so fancy.

Pic from Liz Henry.

W00t!

The controversial Civil Union bill was passed by 230 votes to 41.

The legislation was introduced after the Constitutional Court ruled last year that the existing laws discriminated against homosexuals.

The ruling African National Congress ordered all MPs to turn up and vote for the bill, despite the opposition of church and traditional leaders.

The bill provides for the "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnised and registered by either a marriage or civil union".

The bill is indeed controversial and gay rights activists have pointed out that officials don't HAVE to perform ceremonies if they are religiously opposed to the contract. And of course the Christians are pissed, claiming this will be a threat to democracy. Eh, whatever. The ANC demanded all MP's to vote for this bill based on the constitution, the first constitution in the world to address discrimination based on sexual preference.

via BBC.

Well, if you ever wondered if your vagina had a divine purpose, wonder no more. Kathryn Joyce at The Nation has an amazing exposé on "Quiverfull mothers." And yes, it's as disturbing as it sounds.

They borrow their name from Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." Quiverfull mothers think of their children as no mere movement but as an army they're building for God.

Quiverfull parents try to have upwards of six children. They home-school their families, attend fundamentalist churches and follow biblical guidelines of male headship--"Father knows best"--and female submissiveness. They refuse any attempt to regulate pregnancy. Quiverfull began with the publication of Rick and Jan Hess's 1989 book, A Full Quiver: Family Planning and the Lordship of Christ, which argues that God, as the "Great Physician" and sole "Birth Controller," opens and closes the womb on a case-by-case basis. Women's attempts to control their own bodies--the Lord's temple--are a seizure of divine power. (Emphasis added)

And if that sounds like a direct contradcition to feminist tenets, well, damn straight. That's exactly what the Quiverfull (ick, everytime I write it I shudder) movement is about.

"Our bodies are meant to be a living sacrifice," write the Hesses. Or, as Mary Pride, in another of the movement's founding texts, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality, puts it, "My body is not my own." This rebuttal of the feminist health text Our Bodies, Ourselves is deliberate. Quiverfull women are more than mothers. They're domestic warriors in the battle against what they see as forty years of destruction wrought by women's liberation: contraception, women's careers, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and child abuse, in that order.

Pride also says that feminism is a "system aimed at rejecting God's role for women." Well you know, if God's role for women means that my uterus is supposed to be a halfway house for transient fetuses, then damn straight I'm rejecting it. (I'm a good feminist!)

South Dakota Attorney General has launched an investigation into the $750,000 anonymous donation to the abortion ban campaign.

The Secretary of State says the law is clear that campaign donors must be revealed. The VoteYesForLife campaign won't reveal their primary donor, and so broke the law. Now if only someone would bring a false advertising suit against them, my day would be made.

Interior minister Prince Nayef concluded in an interview that women may be given the right to vote, but will most likely be denied the right to drive.

"Women have the right to own a car or anything else. But driving a car in our desert regions, where distances are large between one district and another, would expose women's lives to danger, and this we cannot accept," he said.

Powerful religious scholars fear driving would encourage women to mix with men outside their family. The ban is enforced in cities and on main roads, where women rely on non-Saudi chauffeurs, but reports say it is sometimes flouted.

"We need to secure more important rights for Saudi women, such as the right to vote ... We will look into the possibility of women participating in next municipal elections," Prince Nayef said. Saudi Arabia last year held elections for half the seats in local councils after calls for political reform at home and abroad. Women were barred from voting or standing for office but officials have said they could take part in future polls.

"Need to look into the possiblity", doesn't sound very hopeful. Funny the state most closely aligned with the United States, is also one of the MOST fucked up. Prince Nayef's approval is needed to pass any of these laws. Now perhaps, it is dangerous is some places for women to be on the road, but I don't think keeping women off the road is going to solve that. Maybe asking Saudi women what rights they think are important might not hurt.

via Arab Times.

“Bob Sherwood’s seat [in Pennsylvania] would have been overwhelmingly ours, if his mistress hadn’t whined about being throttled.�

Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, speaking about Rep. Sherwood's mistress who locked herself in a bathroom and called 911 claiming that the Congressman was hitting her and trying to strangle her. (You know, "whining.")

Given my obsession with Corner Bistro, this was not an article I was ready to read.

According to a new study out of Harvard, younger women who regularly eat red meat face an increased risk of breast cancer.

The study of more than 90,000 women found the more red meat the women consumed when they were in their 20s, 30s and 40s the greater their risk for getting breast cancer fueled by hormones in the next 12 years. Those who consumed the most red meat faced nearly twice the risk of those who ate red meat infrequently.

Read the whole article for the details, in the meantime I'll be trying hard not to run to Peter Luger for comfort.

Republican representatives in the great state of Missouri have decided to sign on to a committee report declaring legal abortion is to blame for illegal immigration.

Just try to follow their logic:

"We hear a lot of arguments today that the reason that we can't get serious about our borders is that we are desperate for all these workers," [Rep. Edgar G.H. Emery (R)] said. ... The immigration report estimates that there are 80,000 fewer Missourians because of abortion, many of whom now would have been in a "highly productive age group for workers."

Got that? Illegal immigration is a result of a shortage of American workers, and this shortage is due to legal abortion. So all we have to do is outlaw abortion, and immigrants will stop crossing the border illegally.

I'd have to agree with the six Democrats on the committee who chose not to sign the statement, calling it "ridiculous," "embarrassing" and "a little delusional."

Beauty image obsessions are just going WAY too far. Indian Airlines has been suspending their female flight attendants for being overweight. Their justification is that they need to save the company image. One company exec actually said, why would you fly with us, if other airlines have better looking staff. I don't know about you, but I am usually looking for the cheapest ticket and couldn't care fuck-all what the flight attendants look like. But I guess creepy businessmen flying around Asia may feel differently.

Eleven employees, recently grounded for putting on too much weight, claim that the airline has changed its vision of the Indian feminine ideal - abandoning the more buxom prototype in favour of a more westernised, skinny model, which staff see as 'unattainable'.

Indian Airlines will argue that this is a case of selecting the 'best ambassadors' to represent the national airline, and the country as a whole, and will also claim that thinner employees are more agile and better equipped to tackle terrorist incidents and other emergencies.

'They want to discard the heavier women and bring in newer, thinner models,' said Sheela Joshi, an air hostess who was grounded after a spot weigh-in found she was 1.9kg over the prescribed limit for her height.

Distressed at the prospect of losing her job after 25 years with the company, she went on a crash diet, and now eats only one meal a day to try to keep within the limit. She has been allowed to fly again, but describes the process as demeaning. 'This is our national carrier and should represent the dignity of Indian culture. These new policies are humiliating to women.'

I am sorry. That is just wrong. What the hell does thinness have to do with agility? Hopefully, the Indian Supreme Court will know what's up and Indian Airlines will LOSE.

via UK Guardian.

Mike Newell, manager of the UK’s Luton Football Club, verbally attacked a woman official on Saturday simply for being a women. When football official Amy Rayner made a call that Newell wasn’t happy with, Newell commented at the post-match press conference:

“It is bad enough with the incapable referees and linesmen we have but if you start bringing in women, you have big problems. . .This is Championship football. This is not park football, so what are women doing here? It is tokenism, for the politically-correct idiots. . . I know that sounds sexist but I am sexist, so I am not going to be anything other than that."

Newell publically apologized to Rayner today, conveniently on the same day that Luton has called an emergency board meeting to discuss his status. Let’s hope they can his misogynist ass.

A local YMCA in Montreal, Canada had its windows frosted because the women working out were a distraction to the teenagers next door at a Hasidic Jewish synagogue.

Due to women excercising in the Y across the alley where the studying kids and teenagers “have a full view of sweaty, spandex-covered bodies, stretching and bouncing in all manner of ways.� So last February, the gym was paid to have the windows frosted.

"You can see people dressed in some ways that we don't believe in dressing and we don't believe in our kids dressing and we don't believe in them seeing people (dressed that way)," said Mayer Feig, director of the Jewish Orthodox Council for Community Relations.

But why would the gym have to make the alterations rather than the actual synagogue, who has the issue in the first place? YMCA member Renee Lavaillante wasn't too happy about the decision, and has started a petition with a friend to “let the sunshine in.� “Above all it's the principle, not to be hidden because we represent something bad." Lavaillante said.

The YMCA director Serge St-Andre, however, is supporting the synagogue in keeping the windows frosted, saying that there are many gym members that prefer the privacy as well.

Thoughts?

*Thanks to Raffia for the link.

There was an interesting piece in The Washington Post yesterday on whether the country is "ready" for a president like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Viewers of the election returns late on Tuesday, after all, got an early start on the iconography of the next presidential race. The cable networks' cameras cut between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, thanking her supporters for an overwhelming victory in the New York Senate race, her husband standing pointedly behind, and a smiling Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, giving cautious, professorial analysis to the television viewers. Nobody noted the significance, but it stared us all in the face: The two presumed leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination are a woman and an African American.

Author Benjamin Wallace-Wells straight up asks, "is the country more racist or more sexist?" Wallace-Wells gives analysis on both gender and race in politics, and you should check it all out. But there was one part of this article that made me insanely angry (like take-off-my-jewelry-and-put-vaseline-on-my-face-so-a-bitch-can't-scratch-me-up angry):

Of course, the civil rights and women's rights movements of the 1960s have left vastly different legacies. No political figure would dare deny the saintliness of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; Betty Friedan's name is a political dirty word. Repression of blacks was the stuff of massive state-leveraged cruelty -- the police dogs and fire hoses -- while repression of women in this country was made of quieter stuff: bras, aprons and constitutional amendments.

While the characterizations of the civil rights and women's movement are both generalized to the umpth degree...bras and aprons?! Bras and aprons?! Seriously?

It's nice to know that a movement that helped women obtain the right to control their own bodies, created a national discourse on domestic violence and rape, and challenged sexual harassment and workplace inequity (just to name a few accomplishments) can be reduced to two words--pieces of clothing, at that!--bras and aprons. Lovely.

Opponents of gay marriage gathered over 170,000 signatures in hopes to create legislation that would ban gay marriage in Massachusetts, only to be pretty much ignored by state lawmakers.

Their refusal to vote on the issue (although they’re scheduled to meet again on January 2nd) basically means that there’s little or no chance that the proposal will be on the 2008 statewide ballot.

While I’m still pretty depressed over the fact that seven states banned same-sex marriage last week, it makes me feel a wee better to see that at least this one is standing strong.

A small Spanish town council has decided to fight machismo through altering half of all road signs and traffic signals to “feminine attributes.�

While all of the street signs in Fuenlabrada have always consisted of boxy male figures, the council is requiring the town to change half of the signs to show female silhouettes with ponytails or a skirt.

While I’m not too keen on using a ribbon, ponytail and/or skirt to define what a woman looks like, sometimes something as simple as identifying women as pedestrians can stick it to (even in a small way) a sexist system. And I’m all for it.

Dubai is cracking down on men who ogle or photograph women on public beaches.

Hilariously, the American Family Association is pissed at Wal-Mart for being too "pro-gay."

Dahlia Lithwick on the "partial-birth" abortion Supreme Court hearing. I caught some of the arguments on C-SPAN yesterday, and transcripts of both Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood and Gonzales v. Carhart are availble online (PDFs).

A woman recounts her election-eve meeting with Gloria Steinem and Cecile Richards while doing get-out-the-vote work in Ohio.

In These Times reviews Laura Kipnis' "The Female Thing," as well as a new book about single women ages 30-60 that's a study, not a self-help guide.

Companies are finally paying attention to girl gamers.

Repro-rights activist Jane Hodgson and feminist/rock critic Ellen Willis died this week.

A long-awaited memorial service for Betty Friedan also honors Bella Abzug.

There are more than 20 million unsafe abortions worldwide each year. And 75% of deaths from those abortions are preventable with more liberal abortion laws. For example, South Africa recently broadened access to safe abortion, and its mortality rates from unsafe abortion dropped 90 percent almost immediately. Something for the Global-Gagger-in-Chief and countries like Nicaragua to keep in mind.

A new survey shows 82% of adults favor comprehensive sex-ed. Half are flat-out opposed to abstinence-only. (Look for the anti-sex crowd to start distorting these poll numbers soon...)

A Dartmouth studeent draws a not-so-amusing cartoon in which Nietzsche encourages drunken rape. And students have been speaking out against it.

Dan Savage comments on the ouster of his least favorite frothy senator.

An Indiana town wants to ban sex toys.

Photo by Rosalia Rivera

Caridad De La Luz, whose name translated in English from Spanish means “Charity of Light,� is a slam poet, screenplay writer, actor, hip hop artist and reggaeton artist, and social justice activist. I saw Caridad perform as La Bruja this fall at a human rights forum provided by Breakthrough, an international human rights organization. She’s also married, and the mother of an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl.

Caridad has appeared on HBO’s Russell Simmons’ “Def Poetry Jam.� Is the author of the highly successful one-woman comedy show, “Boogie Rican Blvd.� Was Cuca in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled� in 2000. And played Lucky in the Sundance-winning 2004 film “Down to the Bone.� She just released her latest CD, “Brujalicious.� It’s all about hip hop, reggaeton, social justice, and good beats.

For non-Spanish speakers, “La Bruja� means “The Witch.� I’ll let her explain. Here’s Caridad…

Care Net--the organization that brought us the purity ball video that makes most want to wash their eyes out with bleach--receives federal funding. Woo hoo!

For those of you in NYC, the Bowery Poetry Club is having an all-star line up of women poets reading in a fast-moving ensemble piece with music and multimedia elements. Check it.

Friday, November 10, 2006
7:00 to 9:30 p.m.
Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery (bet. Bleecker and Houston) New York, NY
212-614-0505
Free admission, 2 for 1 drinks

Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) is a non-profit whose mission is to "empower young women, ages 12-21 years, who have experienced sexual exploitation and violence to exit unsafe and abusive lifestyles and to develop their full potential."

A five minute video featuring GEMS was chosen as one of six finalists for Current TV competition. If they win, the organization will receive $15,000 for their work and the video will be featured on Current.

Please vote for their video, "The Making of a Girl." It's really touching and sad...but great.

So go vote and help get the word out!

Pic from Jeff Taff.

Tuesday’s election results were a huge win for women…so why the sour grapes?

With the Dems taking control of the house, Nancy Pelosi is set to become the first female Speaker of the House—the closest a woman has ever come to the Oval Office. Hillary is frigging everywhere, with rumors of a presidential run. Claire McCaskill and Amy Klobuchar’s wins put women’s representation in the Senate to 16—an all-time high. The list of wins for women goes on and on.

Clearly, American voters are taking women politicians seriously. Too bad everyone can’t do the same. Some men have been coming out to describe their displeasure with women’s wins in what can only be described as a “girls are icky� line of argument (whining).

Echidne points to a report from Media Matters; during MSNBC's election coverage, Chris Matthews said that that Senator Clinton gave a "barn-burner speech, which is harder to give for a woman; it can grate on some men when they listen to it -- fingernails on a blackboard."

He also said that Pelosi will "have to do the good fight with the president over issues" and asked: "How does she do it without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?"

Nothing like the sound of an uppity woman, huh Chris?

Dennis Miller’s appearance on Hannity & Colmes may take the cake though. Miller rambled off a list of reasons why Pelosi would be a terrible Speaker of the House, most of which could have been summed up with, “But she has a vagina!�

My favorites:

"To think that a C-minus, D-plus applicant like this, who no doubt would have been drummed out of the Mary Kay corps after an initial four-week evaluation period, might have a seat at the table of true powers, the speaker of the House, is absolutely insane.�

"Every time I see Pelosi in her little Chanel suits — a latter day “Wacky O� — regurgitating the Democratic talking points that she had to learn phonetically because the word “grasp� is not even vaguely in her vocabulary, I shake my head so badly you could blend paint colors in my mouth.�

(Amanda has a great rundown of the whole appearance with sexist screen shots and all.)

Then of course, the latest dig came from President Bush himself, who in speaking of Pelosi said "in my first act of bipartisan outreach since the election, I shared with her the names of some Republican interior decorators who can help her pick out the new drapes in her new offices."

Mary Kay, Chanel, and drapes—yup, that about covers what the lady politicians are into.

Of course, taking sexist swipes at women is nothing new. But it seems that the higher in political rank women climb, the bigger babies some men become. So grow up, boys. We’re not going anywhere.

Well, your last chance is actually on Sunday, which officially marks the last day of Girls for Gender Equity's Online Auction for Gender Equality.

So get to it and bid your little heart away!

Some shameless self-promotion...

I’m speaking at a panel next week on—what else—feminism and blogging. The panel is a lead-up event to the spring issue of Barnard’s The Scholar and Feminist Online, which the lovely Gwen Beetham and I guest edited. If you're interested, all the info is below.

Tuesday, November 14
7pm
Altschul Atrium, Altschul Hall
(Barnard is located between 116th and 120th streets on the west side of Broadway)
Free & open to the public

From the Barnard Center for Research on Women:

Cyberspace . . . will have important effects in encouraging women to participate in designing and implementing models of economic development, constructing stable democracies, ensuring that different cultures can exist side by side without violent conflict and providing the sense of trust, partnership and solidarity that are necessary to any society in which people cooperate for mutual well-being. - Lourdes Arizpe

Of the internet's viability as a tool for political change, we ask, is there a better example than the blog? Young and youthfully minded feminists have learned that blogging allows them to carve out personal and political spaces where their lives, their issues, their analyses of the world can come into sharp focus. Outside the confines of mainstream media, where women are addressed (usually exclusively) as consumers, feminist bloggers have become the cultural producers blazing some of the most radical and rousing paths toward revolutionary social change.

This spring, The Scholar & Feminist Online, will publish issue 5.3 - "Blogging Feminism: (Web)Sites of Resistance." On Tuesday, 14 November, guest editors Gwendolyn Beetham and Jessica Valenti come together with select contributors to discuss how feminists are fulfilling the promise of creating a cybercommunity dedicated to securing a more just and peaceful world. Panelists include Lauren Spees and Michelle Riblett, BC '05 (Hollaback), Liza Sabater (Culture Kitchen), and Alice Marwick (Tiara). Join us for a spirited discussion of feminism in the 21st century.

Okay, this makes me crazy. Rob Stein at The Washington Post wrote an article this Tuesday on the concerns parents are having about getting their daughters the HPV vaccine.

Some of the concerns are truly understandable—it’s a new vaccine and some parents feel uncomfortable with not knowing about future problems with the vaccine. Others are concerned about the high cost, a full three-shot series can cost between $400 and $500. That’s frigging expensive.

But this just kills me:

Amy Groff has heard all about the new vaccine that guards girls against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. But the Cincinnati mother has no interest in getting her 11-year-old inoculated.

"We haven't even talked about the birds and the bees yet," Groff said. "She needs to be innocent a little bit longer."

…"It's almost an assault on their innocence to be talking about those things when they do not even know what I'm talking about," said David Castellan, a Lewisburg, Pa., pediatrician.

Yeah, cause “lost innocence� is so much worse than, you know, cancer. Oh wait, I forgot…to some folks that’s really true. Ugh.

Alessandra Stanley noticed the same thing I did on Tuesday night: Apparently the news networks think only men can analyze election returns. As a commenter here noted, Katie Couric's presence made CBS slightly better on this front than other networks. But Stanley breaks it down:

* NBC: Brian Williams, Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw "formed a triumvirate of pinstripes and percipience."

* ABC: Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos "were so cozy and old-school" that they only perfunctorily turned, via satellite, to Cokie Roberts.

* Fox News: Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, Juan Williams, Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke, "a funereal barbershop quartet."

* CNN: "Anderson Cooper did turn for help to Candy Crowley, who was sandwiched between John King and Marcus Mabry of Newsweek, but the panel behind them, CNN’s so-called “brain trust� (Bill Bennett, J. C. Watts, James Carville and Paul Begala) looked like a police lineup on Mount Athos."

* MSNBC:Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, with correspondent Andrea Mitchell wedged in alongside Joe Scarborough, Eugene Robinson and Howard Fineman.

Yep. I also noticed that CNN predominantly turned to female correspondents like Dana Bash for the "color" commentary from the DCCC headquarters and sent Abbi Tatton and Jacki Schechner for some fluffy interviews at the blogger event, but relied heavily on the same old group of dudes for serious analysis.

I agree to some extent with Dana Goldstein, who says we'll have more influential female journalists when we have more women in politics. But that's no excuse for producers sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. For what some people are calling "another 'Year of the Woman' in congress," the coverage didn't match up. Even if there had been only men running in this election, every network should have made a concerted effort to have more women on their panel of experts.

Listen to Planned Parenthood senior attorney, Eve Gartner, who is arguing Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (the "partial birth" bullshit) before the Supreme Court.

Gartner gives an interview on the Supreme Court steps--she talks about the history behind the case and shares her reactions and thoughts...check it out.

UPDATE: Sorry, I originally embedded the podcast, but it restarting everytime I refreshed the page was making me fucking insane.

The Argus Leader, the largest paper in South Dakota, has a poll on their website asking readers if they think the state should push for another abortion ban--one with rape and incest exceptions.

I heard from some folks that the anti-choice people in SD have a habit of flooding the polls on the paper's website...so go give them a run for their money.

Bahrain is holding their elections at the end of November and has 18 women running, including one that is running unopposed. This means that the Gulf Region will have its first female parlimentarian. W00t!

In October 2002, Bahrain held its first parliamentary election in decades. There was strong participation by female voters in that election, but none of the female candidates won a seat.

Bahrain is a "healthy model for the region," said Under Secretary of State Hughes. "Statistics show that, as you educate and empower women, almost every other aspect of a society improves - from its economic prosperity to its health to its general welfare." Ms. Hughes also said that the United States favors the presence of international observers during Bahrain's elections. "We think it's important not only that [elections] be free and fair, but that the public is satisfied that they are free and fair," she said.

I agree. But you gotta love when US officials get on their high horse about women participating in democracy. I mean we just got our FIRST female speaker of the house.

via VOA.

As elated as I was to see Kansas AG Phill Kline ousted, the newly elected Democrat Paul Morrison isn't making me feel a whole lot better. He said he opposed Kline's investigations of the state's abortion clinics... but then more or less pledged to continue them:

Morrison said he will look at the evidence collected by Kline’s office and determine whether any crimes need to be prosecuted.

“I’m not sure that it would be right or fair to just turn them back over (to the clinics),� he said.

At least he's not saying it would be "right or fair" to leak them to Bill O'Reilly. Still, not the most encouraging thing I've read today.

Well wonder no more.

The creepy incestuous stuff aside, I especially like the part where the girl pledges to stay abstinent so she can "give herself as a wedding gift" to her husband. And here I thought a toaster would suffice.

UPDATE: These jokers get federal funding.

One of the many ways women implicitly or explicitly dodge the nefarious influence of global capitalism. These women have started a system of informal banking from lack of access to credit. The best part is it is community based.

Oumar Diene works at a Senegelese non-governmental organization and has studied informal banking in Yoff village, near Senegal's capital city of Dakar.

He explains that, instead of bank accounts, Senegalese have developed a variety of local strategies to save money and raise capital. Examples include what are known in local languages as maases, tontines, and tekks.

A maas is a support group based on local traditions. Where once that meant helping a sick neighbor plow his field, today this has evolved into various forms of economic support.

Tekks are a simpler form of informal saving, in which a group of children turn over their collected change to a trusted adult for safekeeping.

But it is the second method, tontines, that have become particularly popular among women on Carabane, Ndiaye explains.

She says groups of women formed to help each other, and her group of seventeen women contributed 1000 local francs per month. That is the equivalent of about two dollars.

The idea is a sort of group savings plan. Originally developed in Europe in the 1600s, members would contribute a sum to be invested jointly, and dividends were shared equally until the last surviving member took all.

Two dollars? Global capitol flow and the way it fails to reach *certain* people makes me sick. But still people do what they must to survive.

via VOA.

Although, we are indeed happy with (most) of the election outcomes, I just wanted to mention all the folks that were not able to vote because of "something" tampering with their ability to do so.

You can read about them here
via Election Protection 365.

Not yet. But Bill Scher breaks down six reasons we should be glad we didn't.

My favorite being. . .

Any notion that Democrats won because they ran a field of candidates who lean right on social issues is bunk (as both the NY Times and the Washington Post suggest, apparently following the lead of Rep. Rahm Emanuel.)

Yes, there are candidates like Sen.-elect Bob Casey (PA), Rep.-elect Brad Ellsworth (IN) and Rep.-elect Heath Shuler (NC) who are anti-abortion.

But Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown and Sen.-elect Claire McCaskill support reproductive freedom and won in Ohio and Missouri. Rep.-elect Harry Mitchell is pro-choice and beat prominent conservative Rep. J.D. Hayworth in Arizona.

And South Dakota voters rejected a statewide ban on abortion.

(Montana's Jon Tester, who is leading as of this writing, is pro-choice too.)

It's not a problem if the Democratic Party embraces candidates with differing views on moral questions. (It has never been a problem that anti-abortion Harry Reid leads us in the Senate.)

It is a problem if the party wrongly believes it must do so, and must marginalize liberal moral values, in order to win -- because that attitude will fracture the party and compromise core principles.

And it's a really big problem if these guys don't help the Democratic team stop Bush from shoving our judiciary even farther to the right-wing.

And as he mentions, our (and by that I don't really know who I mean, because I don't feel that much solidarity with the Democratic party yet) work is just beginning. . .

(The very appropriate image borrowed from Bitch Ph.D.)

Sadly, the real policy isn't quite as funny.

That's the number NARAL is reporting.

NARAL also has a letter you can send to new Democratic representatives, congratulating them on their victories and letting them know you expect them to vote pro-choice. Definitely send it. A lot of these candidates had really vague responses when asked about choice during their campaigns. Simply saying they "support Roe v. Wade" doesn't guarantee they'll vote against all manner of abortion restrictions... or that they'll vote against anti-choice judicial nominees.

So write them a letter and let them know what you expect from them.

Also, we won't fuck you.

During his testy press briefing about Rumsfeld's departure, Bush shared many examples of how he wants to work with Democrats.

But my favorite one was when he offered, in the spirit of bipartisan togetherness, to recommend some republican decorators to Nancy Pelosi to help pick out drapes for her new office.

Because she's a woman. And we looove to decorate. Ha ha, Georgie, ha ha!

With all the post-election excitement going on, it's easy to forget about other stuff going on. So don't.

Today the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the federal "partial birth" abortion ban.

The Washington Post has a good article on the case today, focusing on how important Kennedy is.

Four liberal justices are considered certain votes against the law, legal analysts said, and four conservatives are expected to uphold it. The pivotal figure in the biggest Supreme Court abortion battle in half a decade is Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the 70-year-old centrist with an 18-year record of eclecticism on abortion and other social issues.

Abortion rights advocates believe that, despite his past support of a state ban on the late-term procedure that opponents call "partial birth," he may now assume the moderating "swing vote" role that retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor formerly played.

What do y'all think?

Holy resignation batman!

It feels good to beat down a campaign of misinformation.

Sarah Stoesz, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota says that “the most impressive thing about this victory is that it was truly a grassroots effort...We had a coalition of men and women, faith leaders, business professionals and healthcare professionals that came together and sent a strong message to their legislators – don't use our state to push an extremist agenda.�

Casey Murschel, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota, said: "Now, it is time for the same South Dakotans - Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - who defeated this ban to call on legislators and the governor to end these attacks and unify behind commonsense ways to prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion, without threatening women's health or jeopardizing access to safe, legal abortion."

My response:

What I imagine anti-choice, anti-sex nut Leslie Unruh is feeling right now after the jump.

After last month's hoopla in the UK over the suggestion of the firing of a Muslim teacher for wearing the veil, we find a judge in Pakistan seems to have similar sentiments. Chief Justice Tariq Pervaiz Khan has ordered women lawyers not to wear veils in the courtroom.

He stated, "You are professionals and should be dressed as required of lawyers. . . We (the judges) cannot identify veiled woman lawyers and suspect that veiled lawyers appear to seek adjournment of proceedings in other lawyers' cases."

Raees Anjum was the lawyer that Pervaiz ordered at a hearing to take off her veil. "I was embarrassed when the chief justice asked me not to wear veil in courtrooms," said Anjum. "I feel more confident in my hijab (veil)."

While Pakistan is a Muslim Republic and this is obviously not the same situation as the UK's veiling debate that's so politically charged as of late, how different are they really? When it comes down to the fact that a woman is being forced to remove the clothes that she (regardless of her religion) may simply feel safe in for the sake of "professionalism," are the situations really all that disparate?

on the elections once we sleep off last night's election parties. Any new thoughts or comments on the current status?

Lots of the seats that went from red to blue tonight also went from anti- to pro-choice. Check out the wave of incoming lawmakers who want to protect your right to choose:

In the Senate:
* Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
* Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
* Ben Cardin (Maryland)
* Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota)
... and (fingers crossed)
* John Tester (Montana)
* James Webb (Virginia)

And the House:
* Dave Loebsack in IA-02
* Ed Perlmutter in CO-07
* Harry Mitchell in AZ-05
* Mazie Hirono in HI-02
* Tim Walz in MN-01
* Nick Lampson in TX-22 (He's not staunchly pro-choice, but much better than DeLay.)
* John Hall in NY-19
* Steven Kagen in WI-08
* Bruce Braley in IA-01
* Nancy Boyda in KS-02 (She's generally pro-choice but in favor of abortion restrictions. Probably as good as we're going to get from Kansas. And better than the alternative.)
* Carole Shea-Porter in NH-01
* Gabrielle Giffords in AZ-08
* Chris Murphy in CT-05
* Tim Mahoney in FL-16
* Ron Klein in FL-22
* Phil Hare in IL-17
* John Yarmuth in KY-03 (Says he supports abortion rights, but isn't NARAL-endorsed)
* Paul Hodes in NH-02
* Kirstin Gillibrand in NY-20
* Mike Arcuri in NY-24
* Zack Space in OH-18
* Joe Sestak in PA-07
* Peter Welch in VT-AL

Of course, a lot of these politicians are nominally pro-choice but would vote for a slew of abortion restrictions. But they're better than the handful of incoming anti-choice Democrats:
* Charlie Wilson in OH-06
* Jason Altmire in PA-10
* Joe Donnelly in IN-02
* Brad Ellsworth in IN-08
* Baron Hill in IN-09
* Heath Shuler in NC-11
* Chris Carney in PA-11
and, infamously:
* Bob Casey (Pennsylvania) Though it's not as if Santorum was any better...

I'm sure there are Feministing readers in lots of these districts who know more about these candidates' positions on choice than I do. So feel free to comment and let us all know about their repro rights records.

It's not only the House, but likely the Senate, too. (Fingers crossed for the Montana and Virginia tallies.) Plus a majority of governors to boot.

I was leaping off the couch at McCaskill's victory speech. Fun times. And I couldn't be happier about how the tight race in my home district turned out. In fact, all of the results out of Iowa were just great.

Guess it's time to start draining the GOP swamp.

First off, there's that overturned South Dakota abortion ban (!). It also looks like both California and Oregan will reject parental notification for abortion. And Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and Montana voted overwhelmingly to raise the minimum wage. Plus, Missouri looks like it will approve stem-cell research.

However, seven states (Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin) banned same-sex marriage. At this writing, Arizona was leaning that way, too. Arizona also made English its official language. And Michigan voted to restrict affirmative action.

UPDATE: Now it looks like Arizona will reject the gay marriage ban. Awesome.

My slow thought process, upon hearing that Nancy Pelosi will be the new, and first female Speaker of the House.

Wahoo! First female Speaker!

[long pause]

Wait. First female Speaker of the House? That's fucked up.

Goodbye to one of the worst state attorney generals in the nation.

I may be a little drunk, but damn am I happy!

South Dakotans have rejected the ridiculous abortion ban that left no exception for rape, incest, or women's health. Take that, assholes!!

Yeah, too much red wine.

At least it's looking that way. Sweet!

CNN just characterized the Allen/Webb race in Virginia as a "battle of the sexes," with early returns showing men are voting primarily for Allen and women for Webb. They then speculated that maybe men tend to like Allen because his father was a big Virgina football coach. Barf.

Thank you, Paula Zahn, for consequently pointing out that Webb a total misogynist.

It's hard to get excited about Bob Casey winning in Pennsylvania, but that doesn't mean it wasn't fun to watch Rick Santorum's concession speech.

Huzzah!

I'm at the Park Avenue Country Club (not nearly as fancy as it sounds; it's just a bar) watching the election results with Jill from Feministe, Vanessa and a ton of random Dems.

I'm drinking for democracy; what are you guys up to?

So I'm watching CNN, and every single one of their "election experts" is a man. Even their expert on women voters.

Sigh.

Some light non-election day stuff for you.

Scientists say that promiscuity can increase women’s chances of having healthier babies.

Promiscuity in some mammals results in greater competition between sperm, with the winner having the best genes.

In controlled tests, each of 17 female marsupials mated with the same three males. In another group, 19 females were forced to be monogamous and take only one mate.

After the offspring were born, the more polyandrous females were found to have young attached to every teat.

The proportion of each litter that survived was three times greater for the females that had mated with several partners.

In fact, and this is hysterical to me, “scientists claim that, in chimpanzees, the female reproductive tract becomes a battlefield between competing sperm…There is even evidence 'kamikaze sperm' sacrifice themselves by blocking other sperm.�

So, for all you ladies out there slutting it up for the good of the kids, and for the sperm fighting it out for genetic victory, I dedicate this video to you...

SD state Rep. Roger Hunt is in some trouble over failing to disclose who funds his shell corporation, which gave $750,000 to the abortion-ban campaign. Failure to properly file a campaign finance report is a class 2 misdemeanor.

Local pro-choicers are thinking the anonymous donor is Steve Kirby, a wealthy anti-choicer who ran a failed campaign for South Dakota governor. He gave huge amounts of money to the initial push to pass the abortion ban, but his name shows up nowhere on the VoteYesForLife campaign finance filing.

Ms. Magazine reminds us that the campaign has been in trouble over its funding before. Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint against Leslee Unruh's crisis-pregnancy center and the Abstinence Clearinghouse for using federal dollars to campaign for the abortion ban.

In other SD election day news, subscribers received today's Sioux Falls Argus Leader wrapped in VoteYesForLife campaign materials.

This has nothing to do with politics or feminism, but I had to share.

I just got what is like the unicorn of New York real estate--a pre-war, rent stabilized apartment.

It's a frigging miracle.

Check out the pro-choice women candidates endorsed by Emily's List.

Will 2006 be another "Year of the Woman," mirroring 1992, when five female Senators were elected?

Election ads are reframing the abortion debate.

Who are the most crucial female voters this election? (All of them, I'd argue. But this article gets a bit more specific.) Another piece argues it's the young women voters that matter most.

"Kick Ass, Claire McCaskill." Indeed. She's run an awesome campaign to defeat Missouri Senator Jim Talent.

Cool news out my lovely hometown…

Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.

Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.

People wishing to change their gender will have to have changed their name and prove that they’ve been living under the proposed gender for at least two years, but there wouldn’t be any medical requirements.

“Surgery versus nonsurgery can be arbitrary,� said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner. “Somebody with a beard may have had breast-implant surgery. It’s the permanence of the transition that matters most.�

If approved, the new rule would put New York at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender.

No joke.

Click here if you don't know where your polling place is, or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Also, Jill has a massive election day post up so go check that out.

Check this piece on Wiretap (!) about all the feminist organizing that has been going on around the elections by Feminist Campus and Planned Parenthood among others and the students that are mobilizing to "Get Out Her Vote!" Some polls are even saying that outreach to young women in South Dakota may actually work and young women may vote to block anti-abortion initiatives. Good shit.

A special voting event held last week at Black Hills State University laid bare the fierce competition going on throughout South Dakota to sway Election Day votes on the measure that would continue the state-wide abortion ban.

It was the Genocide Awareness Project, an anti-abortion outfit sponsored by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, versus the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA), the group affiliated with the Feminist Majority Foundation and Feminist Campus, a nonpartisan pro-choice network of students around the globe.

And this midterm election season, Feminist Campus is mobilizing hundreds of its members at campuses nationwide in a deeply inspired voter outreach program as part of the "Get Out Her Vote" campaign.

"We are working on a big voter registration drive," said Kate Neilson, an East Coast Organizer with Feminist Campus. "Only about 20 percent of 18-to 24-year-olds vote in midterm elections. It is such a difficult process to go through, and we want to take one step out of it for them."

Go out and get your feminist vote on!

Your ass better be voting tomorrow.

Pic from Matt.

I’m a little later than I wanted to be on this, so apologies.

The decision last week by a Maryland appellate court that women can’t withdraw consent once it’s given and intercourse has started has gotten a lot of attention online. Some of it good, some of it fucking terrifying.

The Happy Feminist reveals that the case, Baby v. Maryland, concerns a young woman who really never consented to begin with.

Q. [ASSISTANT STATE’S ATTORNEY]: And what else did he say?

A. He, after that we sat there for a couple seconds and he was like so are you going to let me hit it and I didn’t really say anything and he was like I don’t want to rape you.

Q. So when Maouloud said I don’t want to rape you, did you respond?

A. Yes. I said that as long as he stops when I tell him to, then -

Q. Now, that he could?

A. Yes.

Sounds to me like she was trying not to get hurt—not consenting to sex. Jesus. But besides this obvious lack of initial consent, the jury asked during deliberations, “If a female consents to sex initially and during the course of the sex act to which she consented, for whatever reason, she changes her mind and the man continues until climax, does the result constitute rape?� The short version: The trial court declined to answer, the jury convicted, and the defendant appealed. The appeals court then says that trial court made a mistake based on prior precedent, a case called Battle v. State.

Battle basically says that once the woman (property of father or hubby, of course) is penetrated, “the damage is done.�

It was this view that the moment of penetration was the point in time, after which a woman could never be "re-flowered," that gave rise to the principle that, if a woman consents prior to penetration and withdraws consent following penetration, there is no rape.

Sweet.

Happy believes that the appeals court outlined all of the wacky misogyny in Battle to “encourage the Maryland Supreme Court to set new precedent and overrule the old common law.� I hope she’s right.

I thought that this insane decision was enough to make me depressed…but then came the reactions to the case.

More after the jump.

Wow. Scott Lemieux links to this mailer sent out in upstate New York on behalf of Republican candidates.

Her eyes are wide open as if she's scared and trying to scream. And the (obviously male) hand is darker-skinned than the face it's covering. Which is enough for me to conclude that this is a racist ad. This is par for the course for Republicans this election cycle. The message seems to be "Vote GOP. Democrats want to allow dark-skinned men to rape your daughters."

I suppose the ad could be taken other ways, too. The hand could be covering the mouth of a woman who's not in danger of being assaulted, but who wants to speak out about something. Which is just a weird message coming from Republicans, who have never equated women's voices, opinions and rights with conservative "family values."

How does everyone else interpret this ad?

I know, it may not seem like big news, but considering the fact that miniskirts and "short shorts" have technically been illegal In South Korea for over the past thirty years, it’s good to know that their indecency law is being revised.

While the law is rarely (if at all) enforced these days (it was enacted when the authoritarian government ruled in the 1970s), it’ll be a relief to simply know that the language is omitted.

Yay!

Journalist Jeff Sharlet, who wrote a lengthy 2004 profile of Ted Haggard and New Life Church for Harper's Magazine, recently linked to an essay he wrote for Nerve in 2005 about the "man manuals" of the Christian Right... and themes of homosexuality in those books.

He makes some great observations about how fundamentalist Christian perspectives on gender have fueled the movement's obsession with gay men.

Women must submit to their husbands, but their husbands in turn must commit to "serving" their wives. The phrase that comes to mind is "separate but equal."

But with Christian womanhood restored and redeemed, a crucial character in the Christian conservative morality play has gone missing: the seductress. It is no longer acceptable to speak of loose women and harlots, since sexual promiscuity in a woman is the fault of the man who has failed to exercise his "headship" over her. It is his effeminacy, not hers, that is to blame. And who lures him into this spiritual castration? The gay man.

Shorter version? The Christian men's movement's obsession with homosexuality has fetishized it to the point where gay men are more seductive than whorish women. Whoa. Read the whole thing. It's really interesting, and not only in light of recent events.

(In case you've managed to miss out on some of the details... Ted Haggard, an extreme opponent of gay marriage and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned on Saturday over allegations of a sexual relationship with a male prostitute and meth use. Check out Pandagon for some more info and thoughts on the “homo hypocrite.� And here's a YouTube video of him preaching against homosexuality.)

Want to buy do some online shopping while supports girls’ and women’s rights?

For its 5th anniversary, the organization that I work for, Girls for Gender Equity, is holding an online auction on Ebay through all of this week. We have some awesome stuff to auction, and all of the proceeds will go towards GGE’s mission to fight for gender equity in the New York City education system and organize in communities to create opportunities for girls and women to lead self-determined lives.

Some starting bids will be as low as $1. Check out the auction here between today and November 12th and click on the “Items for Sale� on the left-hand side of the page.

You can also check out our website to get more of an idea of where your money will be going. In solidarity, we will level the playing field!

On Friday, over four hundred people from around the world gathered in Barcelona for the 2nd International Conference on Islamic feminism.

The two-day conference covered a range of issues, including the “macho� interpretation of the Koran, polygamy, discriminatory family laws, domestic violence, and women’s leadership.

Check out an interview with the event director, Abdennur Prado, for more info on Islamic feminism, its goals as well as its challenges.

Campaign finance reports from South Dakota show that the abortion ban campaign has cost a total of around $4 million -- $2.2 million spent by the coathanger club, and $1.8 million spent by pro-choicers. The abortion-banners have been chirping that most of the money they've used to produce lying ads has come from inside the state:

The group campaigning to keep the ban boasts that 65% of its money has come from state residents — another sign, [Leslee] Unruh said, that South Dakotans are behind her.

But included in that 65% is a $750,000 check from an anonymous donor via a shell organization in South Dakota. That's right. More than a quarter of the anti-choice funds have come from a single undisclosed source, who made a donation to Promising Future, an organization recently set up by Republican legislator Roger Hunt.

Vote Yes campaign manager Leslee Unruh said that Promising Future is no different than groups such as Working Assets and Planned Parenthood, which donated to the Campaign for Healthy Families.

Well, actually, it is. Planned Parenthood and Working Assets are established groups that do not solely exist for the purpose of funneling money into the abortion ban campaign. And the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families never claimed their donations were from inside the state.

Every time Unruh is confronted with the reality that she and her coathanger cohorts are losing in the polls, she loves to talk about how the amount of in-state donations prove that people of South Dakota are really on her side. But Unruh says she's never actually asked who donated the $750,000; she just takes Roger Hunt's word for it that these people are from South Dakota. Which is better for her, I suppose, is better than losing your only argument that the polls are misleading.

The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families has filed a complaint against Hunt and the recipients of his anti-choice charity for failure to reveal the donors.

Here are the campaign finance filings for both the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families (PDF) and VoteYesForLife (PDF). It's not shocking that the anti's are primarily funded by religious groups, raking in more than $99,000 from individual churches, $150,000 from the American Family Association, $60,000 from Focus on the Family and $80,750 from the Knights of Columbus. $70,000 of the K of C funds were wired from an "undisclosed location," but wanna bet that Unruh is classifying it as South Dakota cash, too?

For more see Coat Hangers at Dawn, Talk To Action. And Clean Cut Kid has a guess on who the anonymous anti-choice donor is...

I have an article in the latest issue of Mother Jones about DIY abortions.

A study shows female teens are very accustomed to seeing hyper-sexualized images of women in the media. (Aren't we all?)

The First Baptist Church of Leesburg just got a $2.5 million federal grant to preach abstinence in public schools.

Des Moines Register columnist Rekha Basu reports from Ethiopia on back-alley abortions, the story of one 16-year-old prostitute, and the effects of Bush's funding restrictions on HIV clinics.

Human Rights Watch condemns Nicaragua's decision to criminalize abortion.

A new study by the World Health Organization shows that worldwide sexual and reproductive health is declining.

A great post on how pro-choicers do not use the same extreme tactics that anti-choicers do.

The first comprehensive global study of sexual behavior was released this week.

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has received the redacted abortion records of all women in the state who have had late-term abortions since 2004.

The It Happened to Alexa Foundation helps victims of sexual assault and their family members afford to go through with a trial.

One analysis shows most teens who seek judicial waivers for parental-notification laws aren't abuse victims, but say they fear their parents' reaction to their unwanted pregnancy.

Congressman John Sweeney's wife called 911 to say he was abusing her.

NBC won't run a Dixie Chicks ad that criticizes Bush. And a review of the new Dixie Chicks documentary says that they wouldn't have been hit with as hard a backlash if they weren't women.

A New York Times photo

Andrea Batista Schlesinger has been the Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI), a think tank for the progressive movement, for five years. Under Andrea’s leadership, DMI has released several important policy papers to national audiences, including “Middle Class 2004: How Congress Voted,� “People and Politics in America’s Big Cities,� and “From Governance to Accountability: Building Relationships that Make Schools Work.�

And just in case you need an extra boost to help get you to the polls on Tuesday, here’s Andrea…

The Center for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) is suing the Dept. of Health and Human Services for failing to respond to a request for information on federal abstinence-only and crisis-pregnancy center funding. (The complaint and exhibits are available online.)

So why is CREW trying to get info on both the Waxman Report and crisis pregnancy centers? Because these fake abortion clinics are getting federal dollars that are earmarked for abstinence-only education.

Currently, there are an estimated 2,300 to 3,500 CPCs currently operating in the US, while there are only 1,800 abortion clinics. ... Millions of dollars of federal and state-level abstinence-only funding is granted to CPCs each year. CPCs are also being granted government funding to purchase ultrasound machines and even to provide pregnancy support and reproductive health services, despite the fact they do not offer contraceptive services and the vast majority of CPCs are not medical clinics at all.

(Sidenote: Check out Legal Momentum's detailed report (PDF). on national crisis-pregnancy center chains.)

Enter Rep. Mark Souder, who is on a mission to discredit the Waxman Report -- which, you'll recall, drew widespread attention the misinformation and gender stereotyping rampant in abstinence-only programs. Souder released a report this week called "Abstinence and Its Critics."

In it, he makes the same old unsupported arguments that abstinence-only works, trots out the same old bunk statistics, and makes the same old distortions of polling data about what sort of sex-ed most parents would like to see. What he doesn't address are the Waxman Report's charges of gender stereotyping in abstinence-only curricula, which leads me to assume that he's probably all for messaging like "wear longer skirts, you sluts" and "boys can't control their urges."

Souder first surfaced on this issue back in May, when he managed to place abstinence-only advocates on a CDC conference panel about STDs. He's now running for re-election and the Cook Report recently downgraded his race from a "solid" to "likely" chance he'll be reelected. The Republicans had to start giving him some money to buy ads. Clearly he expects to gain some political ground with the timely release of his anti-Waxman Report.

Focus on the Family is already fellating Souder for his report, calling him a "defender of life and purity." I think "defender of gender stereotyping and teen pregnancy" is probably more accurate.

Thanks to 24-hour feminists Madeline and Ashley for your research.

The Kaiser Daily Report tells us pro-choicers are ahead in the South Dakota abortion ban craziness:

About 50% of likely voters in South Dakota oppose a state law (HB 1215) banning abortions except to save a woman's life, while 41% of likely voters support the ban and 9% are undecided, according to a poll conducted earlier this week for KELO-TV, the AP/Kansas City Star reports (AP/Kansas City Star, 11/2).

The bad news? 36% of people polled believed the ban allowed for legal abortions in cases of rape or incest (which it doesn't) and 10% weren't sure. I guess the anti-choice misinformation campaign is working to a certain extent. Terrifying.

Freud v. Rosie. I love it.

Pic from huxleyesque.

Bob Herbert has once again (swoon) written about misogyny in Punished for Being Female.

Bride burnings, honor killings, female infanticide, sex trafficking, mass rape as a weapon of war and many other hideous forms of violence against women are documented in a report released last month by the United Nations.

The report, a compilation of many studies from around the world, should have been seen as the latest dispatch from that permanent world war — the war against women all over the planet. Instead, the news media greeted its shocking contents with a collective yawn.

Yup, that sounds about right. Herbert is sure to address the common argument that stuff isn't so bad for women--after all, men get killed too.

While it’s undoubtedly true that men maim and kill other men in astonishing numbers, what I’m talking about here is the way that women, by the millions, are systematically targeted for attack because they are women. (Emphasis mine.)

Thank you.

Herbert ends the piece with a call to action, bringing up all of the women's movements on the ground around the world that are underfunded and often go unnoticed.

There was a time when activists cried out for our consciousness to be raised. It’s not too late. We can start by recognizing that the systematic subordination and brutalization of women and girls around the world is, in fact, occurring — and that we need to do something about it.

And thus, the crush deepens.

Today in my Women and Public Policy class we were discussing female genital mutilation. My friend and colleague Helen spoke up about the work she did for an NGO in Kenya (she is from Kenya) educating folks about the harms and ills of FGM. She concluded that FGM is such an ingrained part of the culture and people are very resistent to change. She also mentioned that in many cases women themselves force their daughters to have female circumcision, as it is integral to their participation in society.

In light of this, what do we do when these same practices are brought to diasporic immigrant communities in the "West"? Culturally relativist perspectives demanding a notion of the "savage African" don't help (afterall we circumcise men, but are not called savage for it). Yet, even reading this article I am having a guttural reaction to what happened to this little girl.

Khalid Adem, an Ethiopian immigrant, was found guilty of aggravated battery and cruelty to children by the court in the state of Georgia.

Prosecutors said he used scissors to remove his daughter's clitoris in 2001.

A US women's rights group described the verdict as a victory against female genital mutilation worldwide.

He is going to jail for 10 years. And is this a win for Western feminists? Or will practices go underground? Is this the ongoing battle of the "past" with the "future"? Practices that are considered "pre-modern" and a feminism that is trying to establish a life in the "post." Both are intimately tied to modernism as they try and grapple, dismantle and reject the cultural norms that come with modernism (whether they be patriarchy or Westernization). How do we rememdy these junctures to create a working dialogue and real solution for these types of violence against young girls?

via BBC.

South Dakota filmmaker Charlie Call made this 4-minute short about the abortion ban. Check it out:

As I find myself enraged by what is happening in Oaxaca I did a few searches to see what we "the feminists" are writing about the situation and the reality is not much. Now she may kill me for this, but brownfemipower has an amazing post up about why we NEED to be paying attention and take a stance on what is going on in Mexico.

It is fucked.

Girls Write Now's fundraiser is coming up on Sunday for the ING New York City Marathon.

Their goal this fall is to raise at least $26,200 representing the 26.20 mile marathon each person will run, so please go support the cause, and/or come check out the runners Sunday!

Planned Parenthood of Illinois has a little interactive web game that "simulates" some of the difficulties women (and their partners) face in trying to obtain EC. Called "The RX Zone" (a nod to the Twilight Zone), the game also promotes the reelection of Illinois Governor and EC-supporter Rod Blagojevich.

Some anti-choice Christians are calling it bigoted, saying the game portrays them as Neanderthals.

They're referring to the fact that, in the game, the characters must pass a group of protesters who are holding signs that say things like, "I miss the 50's!"; "Keep women BAREFOOT & PREGNANT"; "Conditions for sex: married, procreating, missionary position"; and "Birth Control is for LOOSE WOMEN."

If I'm not mistaken, these are all things the anti-choice crowd believes. So by complaining the slogans make them out to be Neanderthals, are they admitting that their views are incredibly outdated? Because it sure sounds that way to me.

Make sure to check out this book just out by South End Press (they rule!) by the amazing organization Incite! The Color of Violence is an anthology of essays written by visionary women of color discussing the impact of violence in communities of color world-wide and the difficulties and successes of racially just feminist organizing around violence.

In addressing state violence they demand:

• reconsider a reliance on the criminal justice system for solving women’s struggles with domestic violence;

• acknowledge how militarism subjects women to extreme levels of violence perpetrated from within, and without, their communities;

• devise new strategies for cross-cultural dialogue, theorizing, and alliance building;

I just started reading it tonight, but I am already feeling inspired!

The fine state of New Jersey is really on a roll. First the courts back same-sex marriage, and then comes the news that the state has refused federal funding for abstinence-only education. Why? Because the state believes in teaching teens about contraception.

"Some of the elements required are inconsistent and violate our own educational standards," state Health Commissioner Fred M. Jacobs told The Star-Ledger... "Monogamy is not a bad idea, but having the government of New Jersey dictate these things for families is not something we wish to do," Jacobs said.

Awesome.

Hey all, below is an excerpt from a great post the fab Elana Levin did on universal preschool (something I think is a hugely important feminist issue). Read away....

Contributed by Elana Levin.

Think a proven to work progressive public policy like universal access to high quality preschool education is just a pipe dream for New York? At this morning's Marketplace of Ideas panel New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said she's so certain of the public's force of will on this issue that expanded pre-k access will be a reality before the 2009 Mayoral Elections.

In case you missed DMI's panel on Promoting Access to Pre-School Education with retired Oklahoma State Senator Penny Williams the room was simply packed. That's standing room only at 8am on a Monday so clearly this IS an issue with momentum.

The panel began with an introduction by the President of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. She explained that educators know intuitively "in their guts" that universal preschool is essential to giving kids the level playing field they need when entering school. Luckily we don't have to rely on guts alone to show the benefits of pre-k, The Pew Charitable Trusts have issued numerous studies demonstrating the lasting value that preschool education gives children and society as a whole (they have some excellent fact sheets including this one on Economic Benefits of Quality Preschool Education for America's 3- and 4-Year Olds and this one on Why All Children Benefit from Pre-K).

Speakers on the panel where New York Council Speaker Quinn, Nancy Kolben, Co-director of the Winning Beginning NY Campaign and Adelaide Sanford, Vice Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents (a woman deserving her own chapter in Bartlett's Book of Quotations, her words where so incisive).

Offering universal pre-k isn't extremely controversial, yet it never quite seems to happen in New York despite its huge success in Oklahoma. This is bound to change because the payoff for any elected that made universal preschool a reality would be huge. Speaker Quinn explained that providing more preschool classes shows families that government can do something concrete to help them. The importance of pre-k for working parents was underlined by her explanation that there are currently vacant spots for children in half-day pre-k but none left in all-day preschool because parents need their children cared for all day, not just for a few hours. She emphasized the connection between pre-k and workforce issues saying:

"this is about working people and children...[providing access to pre-K] recognizes the daily struggles and challenges people have in their lives."

Read the full post at DMIBlog.

I was super duper scary and evil, roaming the streets of the Castro, looking for prey.

oooogly boooogly!

Contributed by Courtney Martin.

Almost every time someone learns that my boyfriend and I have been together for seven years, I get a raised eyebrow and the proverbial question: “So when are you getting married?�

The good news about this bland, predictable question is that it usually leads into an interesting conversation about marriage, love, eroticism etc. I’m opposed to marriage for a lot of reasons that feminists who read this blog would be familiar with: its sexist history, its contemporary state as a hetero-only institution, the outlandish wedding industry that preys on debt-ridden young people etc.

But another more nuanced objection, and one that isn’t always readily apparent to even my most feminist of friends, is that I am opposed to marriage and the more traditional trappings of romantic relationships—flowers, nightly phone calls, wedding rings—because I am opposed to obliteration. I don’t want to take part in one of those relationships where the line where you end and I begin is erased. I don’t find that romantic; I actually find it revolting.

Psychotherapist and sex expert Esther Perel writes about gals like me, and the men and women they crave, in her new book Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic. I think its brilliant—a brave and sharp book that points out that the conditions necessary to create domestic bliss are actually in opposition to those that turn us on. She writes, “The challenge for modern couples lies in reconciling the need for what’s safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what’s exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring.�

It’s so ridiculously refreshing to read the words of an older woman who isn’t convinced that two people must bear all and be all to one another in order to have a fulfilling relationship. Instead, Perel deconstructs all the impossible expectations society sets up around romantic relationships and invites readers to rediscover their own individual sensual identity. She writes, “Erotic intelligence is about creating distance, then bringing that space to life.�

Her vision of a healthy relationship is radical in a world that tends to make people feel inadequate if not hitched, balled, and chained.

Next time one of my feminist mentors asks why I’m not interested in getting married to my boyfriend I’m going to confidently recommend that they read Perel’s book. Thanks Esther.

'Twas an eventful day when Jessica was born. She's an inspiration to many, especially me. I can't list all of her accomplishments on one post, all I gots to say is that I'm incredibly proud to have this phenomenal feminist as my sister (sniff, sniff).

You rock like no other, Jess. Happy birthday.

Ok, so the background music is kinda bad...but the message is good!

Cause why should teens be the only ones who get fed lies about sex?

The government is planning on spending millions of federal dollars on abstinence programs for unmarried adults. Seriously.

"They've stepped over the line of common sense," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that supports sex education. "To be preaching abstinence when 90% of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health."

Real shocking, coming from this administration.

The National Center for Health Statistics says well over 90% of adults ages 20-29 have had sexual intercourse.

But Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the revision is aimed at 19- to 29-year-olds because more unmarried women in that age group are having children.

Ahem. So even among adults, it’s women who are being targeted for abstinence. Unbelievable. Rebecca Traister puts it best:

Hey asshats, maybe that has something to do with the fact that you're also chipping away at our ability to get birth control and safe and legal abortions. Maybe if you considered throwing some of that government money toward making sex education, birth control and healthcare more widely available, you'd have more luck in ensuring that each and every one of those pregnant unmarried women is pregnant because she wants to be.

Indeed.

By the way, Horn is the same guy leading the charge to push women welfare recipients to get married rather than get jobs. So you know he has women’s best interests at heart. Ugh.

Because it's never too early to start breeding women to be good little consumers.

Pic from optionthis.

Check out the French version after the jump.

That is right, you heard it. If you get divorced, not only do you lose your piece of the heteronormativity pie, but you also become mentally ill. Sometimes, I wonder if these people write in a bubble of reality that has yet to be touched by feminist scholarship.

Anyway, according to this study, women that get divorced suffer long-term mental health problems. The problem here of course being that they are now single, not that we live in a society that doesn't support single women, especially older ones. I don't doubt that these findings are true, I am just wondering why they are true.

The study, spanning 10 years, focused on what happens to rural women's health after their marriage ends, compared with women who stay married, said Fred Lorenz, who co-authored the report.

"What we found was that the act of getting a divorce produced no immediate effects on (physical) health, but it did have effects on mental health," Lorenz said. "Ten years later, those effects on mental health led to effects in physical health."

The findings came from data gathered from rural Iowa women who were interviewed three times in the early 1990s, and again in 2001. All 416 women interviewed were the mothers of adolescent children when the study began. Among them, 102 women were recently divorced.

Furthermore, if you get remarried, you are less likely to suffer these problems. Furthermore, they found that divorce had long-term physical health effects but they do in fact recognize the role of finances in the maintenance of health. Poor, mentally ill, physically ill, with child and SINGLE.

Is marriage our only solution here?