April 2007 Archives
A 17-year-old girl who is four months pregnant and whose child cannot survive outside the womb has gone to the High Court to challenge a decision by the Health Service Executive to stop her leaving the State for an abortion.The girl is in the care of the HSE and is challenging its decision to contact gardaà and not to let her travel for the abortion unless she presented as a suicide risk.
After hearing this news, the girl made a decision to travel to the UK for a termination but the HSE asked gardaà not to permit her to leave the jurisdiction.
So this girl will literally be held by the police (gardaà ) if she tries to leave. It's sickening. She's challenging the ruling in court tomorrow; our thoughts are with her.
It’s a well-known fact (at least, to Slate’s William Saletan) that pregnant women who seek abortions actually have no idea what abortions are. Let alone what a fetus is.
Enter Saletan’s Rules for Girls. Cleverly disguised as an article about the increasing popularity of ultrasound bills among the anti-choice sect, Saletan’s article is more like a manifesto about why us absent-minded gals need laws (and men like him) to remind us what happens in a pregnant uterus.
Critics complain that these bills seek to "bias," "coerce," and "guilt-trip" women. Come on. Women aren't too weak to face the truth. If you don't want to look at the video, you don't have to. But you should look at it, and so should the guy who got you pregnant, because the decision you're about to make is as grave as it gets.…The image on the monitor may look like a blob, a baby, or neither. It certainly won't follow some senator's script. All it will show you is the truth.
Because obviously women who have made the decision to end a pregnancy won’t understand the “truth� unless it’s put up on an easy-viewing screen. As Amanda so aptly noted in an email exchange: "If women only knew that they were getting abortions when they got abortions!!!!!"
You can’t get much more repulsive than Saletan’s rhetoric. He claims to “trust women� while simultaneously making the case that women don’t understand what they’re doing when they get abortions; that we’re incapable of making an informed decision without a helping hand from the state.
My favorite line in this mess of an article, though, has to be this: “Ultrasound has exposed the life in the womb to those of us who didn't want to see what abortion kills. The fetus is squirming, and so are we.� Are we, now?
Also see a bird and a bottle, Lawyers, Guns and Money, Feministe, Echidne and Newscat.
The New York Magazine featured “The Lesbian Bride’s Handbook� yesterday, which is not necessarily a handbook but more of a way-too-adoroble story of Ariel Levy's wedding. (Reminder: Levy is the author of the oh-so-controversial Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture.) Congrats to Levy and her wifey. (And that hot-ass dress!)
Last week, Governor Eliot Spitzer introduced the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, a bill that would ensure New Yorkers’ right to choose.
Although New York is generally viewed as a “safe state� in regards to reproductive rights, its actual current legislation is totally outdated. Abortion is even technically criminalized under New York’s homicide statute.
Not only would the bill make sure that women will be able to make decisions about their own health and private decisions, it could serve as an model to other states. There’s not much we can do to change the SCOTUS decision, but we can at the very least we should do what we can to protect the rights we have left.
Check out the actual bill and the Governor's memo here.
P.S. Spitzer also introduced a bill last week that would legalize gay marriage. Go, Gov.
I just wanted to give a big old thanks to everyone who showed up to our third year bash on Friday. I think everyone had a fantastic time. (As evidenced by the pics here, here, and here.)
And I wanted to say a special thank you to my sister, who worked her ass off to plan an amazing night; and to Gwen and Gwynn (and again, Vanessa) for the speeches that made me cry. Now if I could just lose this lingering hangover.
Just a week after the Supreme Court’s abortion ban, serious threats are beginning to unfold for women’s clinics across the country.
On Wednesday, a bomb was found right outside of a women’s clinic in Austin, Texas. The good thing is that at least one culprit of the attempt was caught.
Reproductive rights organizations have been alerting abortion providers of potential acts of violence due to the decision:
"We know that when abortion is in the news, we also see clinics targeted for increased violence and disruption," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation.
Like we haven’t had enough upset lately regarding choice. Sigh.
NPR had a segment on the new Amnesty campaign to end violence against Native women. One of the shelters they featured, Pretty Bird Woman House, is holding a fundraising campaign. Click here to donate.
Caryl Rivers on how the news media scare women.
A man is arrested in the attempted Austin Women's Health Center bombing.
A new bill would make sure EC is available to women on military bases, who currently have to drive off-base to get the pill.
The debate over Kabul Beauty School.
One of the men who used the services of the "D.C. Madam" is... one of Bush's abstinence appointees. Yep, the guy that Bush hired to push abstinence-only programs abroad was, uh, engaging in extramarital sex here at home.
Who really benefits economically from marriage?
Shocking headline: "Condom Information in Abstinence Programs Called Inaccurate."
Ellen Bravo talks to Maria Hinojosa on PBS's Now.
How Russell Simmons missed the point.
Somebody needs to fill Pat Robertson in on what Women on Waves actually does...
Riverbend (of the Baghdad Burning blog) is leaving Iraq.
Remembering a vocally pro-choice woman who led the Republican party in the late '70s. (Kind of like the anti-Schlafly?)
The New England Journal of Medicine says "both health care providers and patients should be alarmed" by the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion. And Cynthia Gorney explores what this will mean for doctors.
...and in the wake of the ruling, the Supreme Court returns a handful of related cases to the states.
A sports columnist announces his upcoming surgery to make his body match his brain, which he says is "wired female."
Daisy Hernandez is the Managing Editor of ColorLines, a bimonthly progressive magazine based in Oakland, CA that takes the issue of race in America to the forefront of national debate. It is published by the Applied Research Center based in New York City.
Daisy is the co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Today’s Feminism. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Ms., Newsday, National Catholic Reporter, The Progressive Media Project, Bitch, Curve, Criticas, and In These Times.
Here’s Daisy….
"I don't know where Lydia gets off acting like the big cheese all the damn time," said James Halterfeyer of his boss, whom he described as "bossy." "She acts like what she says goes, even if I don't agree with it entirely."Roughly 65 percent of Bernoldini employees echoed Halterfeyer's sentiments, specifically mentioning her refusal to be addressed as "Lydia" and the fact that female employment had swelled to 35 percent of the company since Bernoldini took over from her father in 2002.
Amazing.
Hey y'all. So Huffington Post decided to excerpt a part of Full Frontal Feminism as part of their iVillage/Fearless Voices Mother-Daughter campaign. So if you want a sneak peak at the book, and an explanation of my cryptic dedication (To Miss Magoo), click here.
UPDATE: A savvy reader made a very good point about Amazon. If folks who have read the book want to leave a review...it would be super helpful. Thanks!
Anyone who has been tortured by some of the really bad movies getting way too much play at the local theater these days probably wasn't surprised to read the New York Times story yesterday about the shortage of female power in Hollywood. Despite the fact that women make up 51% of movie goers, three of the four women who held top jobs at Hollywood's major studios have left in the past 14 months. All have been replaced my men.
I'm no fan of essentialism (i.e. women always make movies other women like because they share some innate sensibilty a.k.a bad romcoms), but there is something unarguably frightening about one of our nation's most powerful messaging industries being in the hands of only men. There seems to always be a heavy line up of unnecessary sequels, horror and violence at the box office, usually with a little sprinkle of objectification of female bodies throw in for misogynistic measure. Certainly this has something to do with who is holding the purse strings.
I want less Steven Seagal and more Jane Campion, Kimberly Peirce, and Zana Briski. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently Nintendo DS has a game out called Doki Doki Majo Saiban. And what is the object of the game? Touch the scantily-clad prepubescent looking girl to see if she is a witch! And the description from a gamer blog:
It's the most infamous DS game we've never played. And we know surprisingly little about Doki Doki Majo Saiban. Intertube reaction has run the gamut of amused (us) to critical (others) and in denial (others). Some are claiming the title is flat out porn, while some state that there's no way Nintendo would let that happen. We doubt that the game is at either end of the pole and still giggle at the newly minted touch-a-girl-to-see-if-she's-a-witch sub-genre.
Yes, because there is nothing cuter than young gamers who already have fucked up ideas about women because of the weird ways they are depicted in most video games to connect the dots from young and *slutty* to witch-ly.
I am laughing OUT LOUD.
An Indian judge today issued arrest warrants for Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty for contravening the country's public obscenity laws by embracing and kissing at an Aids awareness event, a report said.
Not only are people totally freaking out about this in India, including burning effigies of Gere (wtf) but Shetty is being constructed as the "virgin" of the Hindu nation (who must be protected from the nefarious influence of Western influence, which, I think is too late to do, since she was on the UK version of Big Brother, but I digress). I mean I understand inappropriate displays of affection may make some people uncomfortable, but to make such a huge media spectacle out of it is a little over the top. It must be a publicity stunt.
Thanks to Tze from PublicAddress for the heads up.
This video, "A Little Too Late," features Toby Keith singing to this tied-to-a-chair-in-the-basement-girlfriend. He threatens her with a shovel, then it looks like he's going to drown her, or maybe bury her alive. It's fucking sick and scary.
It was nominated for Best Video at the Country Music Television Awards. Nice, huh?
After the strip a while back that implied that feminism is no longer needed, perhaps Trudeau is attempting to make amends by talking about women's beauty standards in a recent strip.
Thoughts?
This week's video is up early because I'm going to be heading up to New York for the big Feministing Birthday shindig tomorrow.
P.S. Trust me, my taste in television shows is the least of hundreds of embarrassing things about me. Come to the party tomorrow and I promise you'll see at least a dozen.
Jessica will be on the Kojo Nnamdi Show at noon today, talking about her new book! The topic is "Feminism Today":
It's the "f" word you don't hear as much anymore -- feminism. But issues that confronted women thirty years ago remain as pressing as ever, whether it's reproductive rights, equal pay or the challenges of balancing childcare and work. We assess how feminism is responding to those challenges, and how attitudes differ among generations of women.
Tune in to WAMU (the DC-area NPR affiliate) -- 88.5 fm. Or you can listen to the segment online (any time after 1pm) here.
Also, feel free to call or write in with questions: 1-800-433-8850 or kojo@wamu.org.
Some people never learn. Some people are douchebags. And then there's Joe Francis...who just defies category.
Joe Francis, the millionaire founder of the “Girls Gone Wild� video empire, was charged Wednesday with misdemeanor sexual battery for allegedly groping an 18-year-old woman.Francis allegedly touched the woman’s breast and buttocks repeatedly despite pleas to stop, said city attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan.
By the way, it was just Monday that Francis sentenced to 35 days in jail in Florida for criminal contempt.
I'll admit it, I miss Sassy. It was the first magazine I read that made me feel "cool," like maybe I was right to be skeptical of the beauty industry and mags like Seventeen and YM (which I continued to read anyway, but what can you do). So I was pleased as punch when I got a copy of How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, by co-authors Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer. I've yet to read it, and when I do I'll make sure to review it.
But in the meantime, NPR has an excerpt from the book and talks with Jesella and Meltzer. So listen up...
The always-controversial (and damn smart) Linda Hirshman had an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, Off to Work She Should Go. Hirshman cites a recent study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to argue that the women "opting-out" is real--and that it's not just the "elite" that are doing it.
The piece is pretty compelling stuff...what do you think?
Note to college boys who think rape is funny: it's not. And using it as an April Fools' Day joke isn't even clever or fucking original--it's telling. Assholes.
From the Associated Press: Man sentenced to 25 years after impregnating 9-year-old girl
Can someone please tell me why the words 'rape' or 'assault' aren't used once in this article? Seriously.
A little birdie tells me Dr. Phil did a show this week about purity balls. Please tell me someone has the video.
A new report from Amnesty International USA shows that Native American women are more than twice as likely to be raped as other U.S. women. The report also noted that at least 86 percent of the reported rapes of Native American women are by non-Native American men.
The human rights group said Tuesday that at least one in three Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted, compared with fewer than one in five U.S. women overall.Confusion about whether state, federal or tribal police should respond means victims might not see a police officer or a nurse for hours or days, if at all. Even if a rape victim is taken to an Indian Health Service clinic, almost half lack staff trained to provide emergency services to victims of sexual violence, researchers said.
"What this amounts to is a travesty of justice for the tens of thousands of indigenous survivors of rape," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. He contended the U.S. government's treatment of Indian rape victims is a violation of human rights.
Cox said they would be pressing Congress to fully fund VAWA for $683 million; tribes would get about 10 percent of different grant programs under the act.
Amnesty International USA has more info, including ways to take action and a slideshow.
Feeling down about the Supreme Court decision? Well pick up the phone.
Take action for reproductive justice by joining NARAL Pro-Choice America's National Call-In Day to Support the Freedom of Choice Act.
Here's all you have to do...Call 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to both of your senators and your representative. You can even use the following script:
“Please cosponsor the Freedom of Choice Act (H.R.1964/S.1173) to codify Roe v. Wade and guarantee the right to choose for future generations of women.�
Word.
Turner County High School in Georgia had their first-ever integrated prom. This year. Lovely.
Adkinson's sister, Mindy Bryan, attended a segregated prom in 2001."There was not anybody that I can remember that was black," she said. "The white people have theirs, and the black people have theirs. It's nothing racial at all."
Obviously.
Apparently this bizarre segregated prom thing has gone on for so long because the school never officially sponsored the prom--the parents did. Somehow, that doesn't really make me feel better.
This, though, has to be my favorite part of the whole debacle: some folks just weren't comfortable with the new school prom, so the "white prom" still went on.
Nichole Royal, 18, said black students could have gone to the prom, but didn't."I guess they feel like they're not welcome," she said.
Hmm. Wonder why.
Nichols said while her parents were in support of the integrated prom, some of her friends weren't allowed to go."I've asked, 'Why can't you come?' and they're like, 'My mommy and daddy -- they don't agree with being with the colored people,' which I think is crazy," she said.
Seriously?
Again. I remember writing about this last year or maybe even the year before. Only this time I noticed something in the way this article was written suggesting that perhaps an increase in the possibility of military conflict with the US, there were crackdowns happening at home.
The campaign in the streets of major cities is the toughest such crackdown in nearly two decades, raising fears that hard-liner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to re-impose the tough Islamic Revolution-era constraints on women's dress that had loosened in recent years.The move highlighted the new boldness among hard-liners in Ahmadinejad's government, which has used mounting Western pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program and Iraq as a pretext to put down internal dissent.
So let me get this straight. Increased pressure of military invasion from the US leads to a crackdown on women's rights? Interesting. Maybe we can remember this when Condaleeza Rice or Laura Bush try and use feminist rhetoric to justify military invasion.
Now what is all this about?
Obviously a joke, but is this a trend that just blew right past me?
via Racialicious.
And to respond to this stupidity, we the ladies of Feministing have created our own stupidity. See after the jump if you dare.
Contributed by Kay Steiger
I attended a hearing this morning held by the House's Education and Labor Committee that examined the Paycheck Fairness Act on this, Equal Pay Day. Though the PFA has been introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro 10 times, this is the first time the committee held a hearing.
A report released yesterday by the American Association of University Women found that women one year out of a 4-year college earn 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. When the report looks at women 10 years after graduation, women are earning 69 cents to every dollar that men earn. The most significant finding of the study, though, is that controlling for all factors, including "educational and occupational choices, as well as demographic and personal characteristics," an "unexplained" 5 percent gap exists one year out of college which widens to a 12 percent gap 10 years after college. Furthermore, as Catherine Hill, research director at AAUW testified, attending a highly-selective institution does little to boost a woman's pay, and educated women experience a greater pay gap than women overall.
Some more conservative committee members denied the credibility of the study, but as Rep. Carol Shea-Porter put it, the pay gap is "easily noticed by those who live it."
Cross-posted from Tapped.
The super amazing Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls is holding an online auction until May 7--and damn do they have some great stuff!
The “So You Wanna Be A Rockstar� Online Auction is an opportunity for you and yours to get the hottest rock star hook ups – all for a good cause! Awesome items are on the block, including a guitar signed by the Beastie Boys, a bag by Marc Jacobs, weekend getaways, recording studio time, and much much more. The auction runs April 23 thru May 7. 100% of every winning bid will go straight to scholarship fund.
There's an item on there I'm dying to get (though I won't tell you which one, in case you fuckers decide to bid against me!)...I must have it.
So the craziness begins. My book is officially out, and I'm officially freaking out. There's something completely unnerving about putting yourself out there for anyone to read. And this book is definitely very...me. That said, of course I'm fucking psyched and insanely grateful to all the folks who have been so supportive.
If you're interested, I did a Q&A with Salon's Rebecca Traister (interesting title choice) which was super fun and one with Alternet's Laura Barcella, which also includes a excerpt from the book. Oh, and the letters at Salon are predictably anti-feminist and annoying and could really use a good dose of Feministing commenter goodness. Just saying.
I find it interesting that they never choose to do these studies across race and class, but either way this study by the American Association of University Women found that as soon as one year after college, women earn less then men.
"By looking at earnings just one year out of college, you have as level a playing field as possible," said Catherine Hill, the director of research at AAUW. "These employees don't have a lot of experience and, for the most part, don't have care-giving obligations, so you'd expect there to be very little difference in the wages of men and women. But we find that women already earn less – even when they have the same major and occupation as their male counterparts."
And interestingly (but not shockingly) the wage gap widens as women get older.
Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning 69 per cent of what men earn. By that point, college-educated men have more authority in the workplace than do their female counterparts. For instance, men are more likely to be involved in hiring and firing, supervising others and setting pay.
They also looked at how majors in college are then reflected in the real world (i.e. 79 per cent of education majors are women and men make up 82 per cent of engineering majors and then in the workplace, women make up 74 percent of education workers and men make up 84 per cent of the engineering and architecture fields). But this got me to thinking, what about those of us that have other majors?
My favorite album used to be Biggie Smalls Ready to Die. I loved this album so much that I wrote my entire undergraduate women's studies thesis about sexism and hip-hop and tried to find ways to justify my love for an album that is practically an ode to misogyny. Along with other feminists of color and hip-hop lovers we looked for new ways to talk between our feminism and our love for hip-hop. It is really hard work.
Now, about fifteen years later, mainstream hip-hop seems to have reached it's height of misogyny. I can't even watch music videos without cringing and thinking how little they get paid. I am all for sexual expression and empowerment, but it is a fine line between the clear exploitation of women's bodies and overt sexuality as a site of women's empowerment. As Pam takes on Nelly's video "Tipdrill" my feeling is that right now we are on a exploitation tip.
I never liked to criticize hip-hop culture for anything. I didn't want the wing-nuts to appropriate our feminist words to conflate with racist ideas and suppress black voices. I don't support that. But still we need our own language and our own strategies to counter the misogyny in mainstream hip-hop. So I was delighted to get this email about an interview with Byron Hurt director of the fantastic Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes. He is right on the money with some ways we can deal with, understand and work against the misogyny, violence and homophobia in hip-hop. I say just read it, but some stuff I loved included:
Now the conversation is about hip-hop, misogyny, and sexism, which are indefensible—and I don't defend them on any level—but I think the conversation should continue to be not only on Don Imus and his comments and the impact that it's had, but also on sexism and racism in American culture, not just hip-hop, because both of those things, including patriarchy, predate hip-hop.
He also says that if we stop buying the albums and buying into the messages, maybe it will change. Who knows, it could work. But I just want to know, is it ever OK to dance to hip-hop that has a bad message (cuz maybe I do that sometimes)?
I heard this incredibly sad and disturbing story on NPR this morning about a recent spate of forced abortions in southwest China. The descriptions of women being packed into a hospital, with some forced to undergo abortions in the 7th month, was heart-wrenching.
But I found it equally upsetting that NPR referred to the perpetrators as Chinese "family planning" officials. I'm sorry, but "family planning" is about empowering women and couples to decide and plan for the number of children they want to have. It is NOT about the government deciding an appropriate number of children per family and forcing women to comply. What's happening in China is "coercive family planning."
It's also worth mentioning that Bush has used the fact that the Chinese government commits these crimes against women as justification for defunding the United Nations Population Fund, hampering its ability to help women and couples truly plan their families in countries around the world. (I recall a passage in Chris Mooney's book, The Republican War on Science, that thoroughly debunked the allegations that the UNFPA supported the Chinese government's "one child" policy. But now I can't find the book...)
Bottom line? Despite what U.S. anti-choicers say, no one who is pro-choice is pro-forced abortion. We are against government intervention in personal reproductive decisions -- whether it be by the U.S. Congress in banning abortion or by the Chinese government in forcing it.
Awesome.
Fresno High School senior Cinthia Covarrubias is believed to be the first transgender student to run for prom king:
"School officials this week added the 17-year-old's name to the ballot for prom king, reversing a previous district protocol that allowed only males to run for king and females for prom queen.Gay youth advocates called it a landmark victory for campus gender expression and said they believe it's the first time in the U.S. that an openly transgender student has run for prom royalty."
Covarrubias didn't make the cut when the winner was announced on Saturday, but achieved far more by running. "I'm happy I actually made a difference about changing the law and the policy so you can run for your choice," said Covarrubias.
You're a king to us, Cinthia!
Via Nerve.
RANDOM UPDATE: I couldn't help it; the lovely Feministing contributor Gwen Beetham pointed out a line in the article that I would have to deem the Ignorant-Ass-of-the-Week quote (which also made me laugh out loud): "I like lesbians, but they shouldn't be allowed to run for king," said senior Erich Logan, 18. Classic.
This is a wee late, but I thought it was necessary to cover.
Much hoopla has been brought about at the University of Western Ontario since the student newspaper released a spoof April Fools’ Day issue that included a female student being raped by the chief of police. You know, because rape is so funny and all.
“The article spoofed Take Back the Night, a campaign to raise awareness of violence against women. It described a fake event called ‘Take Back the Nighties,’ during which feminists march through the streets of London, Ont. wearing their nighties while on-looking men masturbate.�
Later, a character with a similar name of a member of the Women’s Issues Network (WIN) and the Miss G Project, a women’s group on campus, is not only raped by the London Chief of Police, but whose vagina ends up taking on a life of its own and says “I love it when a man in uniform takes control.�
Not surprisingly, WIN has called for the resignation of editor-in-chief Ian Van Den Hurk, who says that the newspaper’s goal was to create satire:
“We crammed in every possible feminist stereotype and we thought that it was so ridiculous that no one could think we were being serious.�
Ha! And what kind of satire is this? Doesn't sound like satire to me. And what stereotypes are you talking about? That all feminists wear nighties? It seems obvious to me that Van Den Hurk and whomever wrote the article used the excuse of the spoof issue to publicize their own heinous misogyny. Yes, there can sometimes be a thin line between what’s funny and what’s offensive to people, but it sounds like this article was a very obvious and serious offense to WIN and to all women, particularly women who have been raped.
Apparently the university has allowed Van Den Hurk to keep his position as editor-in-chief, but is working with him to “implement several changes for the next publishing year,� including a new study group that will take students’ concerns and suggestions when publishing each issue.
Spoof issue or no, to allow a story to be published that makes humor out of the portrayal of women not only as merely bodies in lingerie to jerk off to but, more importantly, dehumanized as body parts to be raped (and enjoy it in the process) is horrific and merits an immediate sacking. I’m pretty appalled this guy was let off with what only seems as a slight misdemeanor.
Check out Zuzu's coverage of the story from a wee back.
My friend sent this to me from Post Secret.
It just gave me pause. No analysis, I think it speaks for itself.
Bob Herbert never disappoints. Check out his column, A Volatile Young Man, Humiliation and a Gun, which links misogyny, masculinity and the Virginia Tech shootings.
In response to the terrifying Supreme Court decision last week, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) are promoting the The Freedom of Choice Act, which was introduced in the House and Senate on Thursday.
The legislation would codify the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and bar states from limiting abortion rights. It was introduced in 2006 and 2004 but never made it out of either the Senate or House judiciary committees.That could change in the House this time with a clear Democratic majority, but it's uncertain if there are enough votes on the Senate side.
Here's hoping. To support the Freedom of Choice Act, and to urge your representatives to do the same, click here.
Oh, how I love my favorite misogynist David Usher’s headlines, especially when they couldn’t be farther from the truth:
"Lifetime TV Becomes Mouthpiece For Radical Feminist Lobbying Machine"
Lifetime?? You can give us a little bit more credit than that. Sheesh.
The Washington Post has a whole section today devoted to feminism and art.
Wet nurses are getting popular again.
More women are becoming leaders of Mexico's drug cartels.
The drop in breast cancer rates is likely due to decreased use of hormone-replacement therapy (HRT). And in related news, in 2005 the Federal Trade Commission sent warning letters to 34 companies who sell "alternative" HRT drugs and bill them as safe. But 19 of the companies are still selling HRTs.
More evidence that conservatives only care about unborn babies.
Bjork says feminism is a major them of her new album: "It's sort of trying to put out some good vibes for the little princesses out there. There are actually other things than losing a glass slipper. I mean, part of it was having a little daughter and realizing, what are we telling girls? All these books out there about finding your prince. All these little girls, all they want to do is be pretty and find their prince, and I'm like, what happened to feminism here?"
The number of women murdered in Guatemala grows ever-higher.
How the Democratic machine keeps women out.
Complications from unsafe abortions are straining Kenyan health clinics.
An excerpt from Courtney Martin's new book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters
Dozens of girls were turned away from a high-school prom in Louisiana for showing too much cleavage.
Merck applies to sell Gardasil as a preventive treatment for vaginal and vulvar cancers.
A new study shows that, when you consider both work at home and work for pay, men and women work an equal number of hours, on average... in rich countries. In poor countries, women do vastly more work.
AlterNet reminds us why poverty is a feminist issue.
Iranian Kurdish women give new meaning to the term "guerrilla girls."
World Bank policies are undermining family planning efforts.
A review of Ellen Bravo's new book, Taking on the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism Is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation.
Where hip-hop culture meets the Brooklyn lesbian scene.
In a New Yorker piece on how Wal-Mart is trying to woo liberals, one of the women in the class-action suit describes her experience as a Wal-Mart employee: "Kathleen MacDonald joined the suit after she learned that a male counterpart, who, like her, was stocking shelves, earned more than she did. When she raised the issue, she told me, “my immediate supervisor said, ‘Well, God made Adam first, and Eve came from him.’ I was, like, what? That’s when I decided enough was enough.�"
Arizon considers similar legislation to South Carolina's bill that would require women to view an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion.
Jess hits the high points from her new book in a piece for the Guardian.
And more on last week's Supreme Court decision upholding the Federal Abortion Ban:
Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women describes how this ruling will affect all pregnant women, not only those who choose abortion.
Why "informed consent" abortion laws are much, much worse than you thought... and how they relate to the "partial-birth" abortion ban.
The Freedom of Choice Act is revived.
Jill writes that this decision won't save fetuses, it will only limit women's options.
Doctors are pissed.
Dahlia Lithwick on Kennedy's creepy paternalistic language.
More state-level abortion restrictions to come.
ACOG: The ruling "leaves no doubt that women's health in America is perceived as being of little consequence." (via Ema)
Amy Goodman interviews the ACLU's Louise Melling about the decision.
How Ginsburg's dissent could provide a jumping-off point for abortion jurisprudence that's based on equality rather than privacy.
Time's totally inane take on the ruling... that both sides are too extreme, and that this decision won't matter much. Writes Karen Tumulty,
The fact is, where the two sides of the issue are at war over abortion and always will be, most Americans long ago decided what they think about it. They want abortion to be legal, but they don't want it to be easy. And their qualms about it grow as a pregnancy progresses. As with everything else about this debate, the absolutes will always give way to the individual.
Um, Karen honey, letting individuals make personal decisions about abortion is not the "middle ground." That's a flat-out pro-choice position.
Teen Voices is an international feminist teen women’s magazine based in Boston that is by, for and about teen women. The magazine and website, Teenvoices.com, publish writings and artwork by teen women from all over the world on issues that matter to them.
I became a volunteer editorial mentor for the magazine back in 1997, and became the magazine’s Senior Editor shortly thereafter. I couldn’t wait to graduate and be its Senior Editor full-time! I worked at Teen Voices for six glorious years, and then it was time to move on.
One of my comrades and close friends, Tori Costa, who I met at Teen Voices, is now its Marketing Director. She started out as an editorial mentor back in 1999 and became a full-time staff person when she graduated in 2000.
Here’s Tori…
And not just because it's by Feministing contributor Courtney Martin. Buy it cause it's damn good.
It is no longer enough for girls to be good, says journalist and teacher Martin in her debut book. Girls must now be perfect, and that need for perfection is played out in women's bodies. But beneath the high-achieving 'perfect girl' surface, seven million American girls and women suffer from an eating disorder; 90% of high school–aged girls think they are overweight. Drawing on more than 100 interviews with women and girls ages 9–29, Martin constructs a cultural critique of a generation of girls steeped in the language of self-control.
On a personal note: Courtney is literally one of the nicest people I've ever met. Being the ever-skeptical New Yorker, I'm always baffled by people who never have a mean word to say about anyone and who are genuinely just lovely. So congrats, girl. I'm looking forward to many more nights of feminist dance parties doing the running man and waxing philosophic about the superior fashion stylings of Cross Colors.
And the piece I did on the Virginia Tech shootings for Wiretap Magazine.
Ezra points out something simple about Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling: It was 5 wealthy dudes effectively making a medical decision for 150 million women.
I'd go further to note that Supreme Court clerks play a huge role in writing opinions, and that's an almost exclusively male group, too.
It's also an appropriate time to review this classic photo of the architects (and gleeful signers) of the federal abortion ban:
("Let's all applaud for the lack of health exception!")
So this is what Justice Ginsburg meant when she diplomatically commented that her male colleagues lack "certain sensitivities."
No one should be surprised about the topic of this week's report.
The other ladies have been talking about this too. Go read them:
BREAKING: Supreme Court Upholds Federal Abortion Ban
"Today's decision is alarming."
More on today's SCOTUS decision
Quick Hit: Supreme Court upholds ban on "partial-birth" abortion
Anti-choicers dizzy with joy
Wanna know why we're talking about this? Very simple. Here's another quote from the decision.
Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception.What do I think of that? Well, watch the video.
A new study found that women have less access to health care due to the high cost of health insurance.
The researchers analyzed data from three national surveys. They found that women typically had greater health needs -- but lower incomes -- than men.The report also noted that 38 percent of women are struggling with medical bills, compared with 29 percent of men.
The high cost of insurance and health care services are forcing many women to go without needed care, the researchers said. Their report found that 33 percent of insured women and 68 percent of uninsured women don't get the health care they need, because they can't afford it, compared with 23 percent of insured men and 49 percent of uninsured men.
Having health insurance is a privilege. I downloaded the study here but didn't notice anything specifically about race as another factor. I think, in general poor people and people of color probably have less access to health care, but I can't say. I know a lot of people that work as consultants and they too don't have health insurance.
It is a national problem. As the study finds and as many of us realize the solution can really only be universal health care initiatives.
I just needed to smile a little. Keep watching it just gets better.
Why can't I dance like that? Clearly, Beyonce is NOT just a role model for little girls. OK?!
Leslee Unruh reacts to the SCOTUS ruling curtailing your abortion rights:
"I'm ecstatic," said Leslee Unruh, an antiabortion activist in South Dakota. "It's like someone gave me $1 million and told me, 'Leslee, go shopping.' That's how I feel."She spent the day conferring with lawyers on how to leverage the ruling to maximum effect in the states. "We're brainstorming, and we're having fun," she said.
Imagine all the goodies she could buy with a million dollars at Heritage House '76, the crisis-pregnancy center supply superstore! And gee, planning out various ways to trample on women's bodily integrity sure sounds like a fun time. Almost as good as a day full of abortion clinic protests topped off with a Purity Ball.
A big thanks to my boy Ben (he's single, gals!) and all the other folks who came to Union Square yesterday to show their support for women's reproductive rights. More pics from the rally here.
Lynn Harris has a great piece at Salon about the craptastic decision yesterday by the Supreme Court. Make sure to check it out.
With all the horrible news yesterday, I needed me some laughs. So thank goodness for Marc Rudov, who provided me with coffee-spitting humor this morning in his piece, "Is Your Son Safe at College?"
Rudov warns parents against sending their "actively heterosexual" sons to co-educational colleges--or as he so tenderly calls them: gynoversities.
America's institutes of higher learning are bastions of socialism and misandric feminism. Go to the Website of your son's university. Do a search on "rape." Pages and pages of information, right? Lots of help and programs for female students. Now, do a search on "false rape accusations." What do you find? Nothing, I'll bet. That's because he attends a gynoversity.
Rudov continues on his diatribe, making numbered lists for young men on how to survive around all that...vagina: "Never go out or have sex with a vindictive girl who blames everyone else for her problems."
Interesting. As you can imagine, I was skeptical of Rudov. That is, until I found out that he's an "internationally recognized author." I mean, how could you not trust a guy that wrote "Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables." Nuff said.
Check out the fabulous Jennifer Pozner on PBS discussing sexism in reality television and advertiser-driven sexism. Good shit.
Us at NARAL Pro-Choice New York (I started working here about a month ago) are holding a rally in response to today’s Supreme Court decision:
Place: Union Square Park, South End
Time: 5:30pm
If your city is holding a rally or event in response to the decision, please post in comments!
Feminist Law Profs on the scariest line in Kennedy's opinion.
For background on the fight over the "partial birth" abortion ban, see Cynthia Gorney's piece, "Gambling with Abortion" (Harper's, November 2004). I think it's the best in-depth article ever written about abortion politics.
More recently, Scott Lemieux explained why this case matters. (He also warned us that Alito's confirmation pretty much guaranteed results like today's decision.)
The Center for Reproductive Rights (via ACSBlog) speculates as to what this means for the future of women's health.
Bean writes about what a motherfucker Kennedy is.
Dana Goldstein notices that as of 12pm, this story had yet to be major news on CNN.
John Edwards says he could not disagree more with the decision. Silence from Clinton and Obama. Rudy Giuliani says the court came to the "correct conclusion." UPDATE: NYT has all the candidates' statements. (Thanks, spark329.)
Planned Parenthood is planning a rally on the steps of the Supreme Court at 3pm today.
Justice Ginsburg penned a moving dissent from today's Supreme Court opinion upholding the Federal Abortion Ban. Some highlights:
Today's decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.
She goes on to note that the court's previous ruling, in Stenberg v. Carhart, struck down a "partial-birth" abortion ban because it lacked a health exception. And Congress ignored that opinion when passing the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003 without an exception for women health. She points out that lower courts have found that the "congressional findings" underpinning the law (much like the findings of the biased South Dakota task force that formed the basis of the state's abortion ban legislation) do not pass muster. Ginsburg lambastes the congressional findings underpinning the ban:
- For example, Congress determined that no medical schools provide instruction on intact D&E. But in fact, numerous leading medical schools teach the procedure.
- Congress claimed there was a medical consensus that the banned procedure is never necessary. But the evidence 'very clearly demonstrate[d] the opposite.'
- Congress found that '[t]here is no credible medical evidence that partial-birth abortions are safe or are safer than other abortion procedures. But the congressional record includes letters from numerous individual physicians stating that pregnant women's health would be jeopardized under the Act, as well as statements from nine professional associations, including ACOG, the American Public Health Association, and the California Medical Association, attesting that intact D&E carries meaningful safety advantages over other methods.
- No comparable medical groups supported the ban. In fact, all of the government's own witnesses disagreed with many of the specific congressional findings.
She also points out that, with this decision, the Court is upholding the bullshit premise that all women are harmed by their decision to have an abortion.
Revealing in this regard, the Court invokes an antiabortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence: Women who have abortions come to regret their choices, and consequently suffer from '[s]evere depression and loss of esteem.' Because of women's fragile emotional state and because of the bond of love the mother has for her child,' the Court worries, doctors may withhold information about the nature of the intact D&E procedure. The solution the Court approves, then, is not to require doctors to inform women, accurately and adequately, of the different procedures and their attendant risks. Instead, the Court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety.This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution ideas that have long since been discredited.
Thank you, Justice Ginsburg.
Fantastic. Bruce at Crablaw is hosting a Take Back the Blog! Blogswarm on April 28, 2007.
As announced, this page will host the April 28, 2007 Take Back the Blog! Blogswarm in support of the rights of women to participate fully in all aspects of our society, including specifically online in the world of blogging but indeed everywhere and at all times, day and night, without fear of harassment, intimidation, sexual harassment, online stalking and slander, predation or violence of any sort.
Word.
Dividing 5-4, the Supreme Court on Wednesday gave a sweeping victory to the federal government and to other opponents of abortion, upholding the 1993 law that banned what are often called "partial-birth abortions." Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the first-ever decision by the Court to uphold a total ban on a specific abortion procedure.
From Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health."
More details to follow. In the meantime, blog outreach is necessary so get the word out and start mobilizing, damn it.
Dozens of female students from a Lousiana high school were turned away from their prom this weekend because a teacher believed their dresses were too revealing. The claim was that the "offensive garb" displayed too much cleavage.
What's even more infuriating is that school district officials are backing the teacher, since all she was doing was enforcing a dress code that's apparently been in effect for years. (Since the Victorian era perhaps?)
While I think they should have been allowed to wear whatever they damn well please, the kicker is that the dresses were barely anything to make a fuss about (the article has a slideshow). Just plain ole prom dresses. Sigh.
Buthayna Nasser is a Saudi newscaster, and goddamn she is awesome. Not to mention brave.
Thanks to Sand gets in my eyes for the link!
Other than because of Ugly Betty, of course.
Hayek in an upcoming issue of Marie Claire on women being pressured to have children:
“I think it’s terrible women are put in that position. Motherhood is not for everyone — it is for me, but there’s no reason women should feel rushed to have a child...I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but society thinks if you don’t have children, you’ve failed as a woman, even if you are CEO of a company. You’ve got to be beautiful, smart, skinny, tall, rich, successful at your job, married to the right guy — and have genius children.�
There's not really much I can say about the horrendous tragedy at Virginia Tech yesterday, but I'm sure that all of our thoughts are with the victims and their families.
Some reports say that the now-identified gunman was looking for his ex-girlfriend. As Jill said, "it’s worth noting the theme of misogyny that permeates so many of these shootings."
But Mom, if you don't buy him for me who will teach that bitch Barbie that you can't just go around wearing miniskirts and not expect something to happen?
You know what's not funny at all? Rape. So it makes sense that dolls of rapists wouldn't be fun or funny either. But I guess I'm not a movie marketer, so what do I know.
Apparently Quentin Tarantino's character from the new Grindhouse movie Planet Terror, Rapist Number One, is being made into a toy and sold at Toys R Us stores across the country. Seriously.
Garance doesn't buy that the doll will be widely avaiable, and thinks that this is "a manufactured outrage over a disgusting action figure based on a failed movie — all designed to generate publicity at one of Hollywood’s biggest online draws, while also turning rape into a joke."
Well, any way you slice it, my breakfast is still ruined.
While I posted on a study not too long ago which found that women react to erotic images just as strongly as men, a newer study showed that when shown sexual images with women in them, men looked far more at the woman's face than the female subjects, who looked primarily at the body.
Contributed by Mandy Van Deven.
During time off from her book tour, Jennifer Baumgardner invited me to talk about her new book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. Her previous books, Manifesta and Grassroots: A Field Guide to Feminist Activism (both co-written with Amy Richards), resonate with many young women who are searching to establish their own feminist identities. Look Both Ways combines an examination of how the social and political gains of the second wave feminist movement contribute to the ability of younger women to claim their own sexualities – and all of the complexities that come with it – while featuring the personal stories of many well-known bisexual women across generations. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to dig deeper into these issues with this prominent third wave writer and activist.
Well this sucks.
UK women may soon have a serious problem with access to abortion due to an apparent growth in National Health Service (NHS) doctors refusing to perform the procedure.
While anti-choice pharmacists in the U.S. have created their own "conscience clause" movement by refusing to dispense birth control and EC, a new breed of "conscientious objectors" has birthed in England.
There has also been a general decrease in the number of abortion providers because of the fact that doctors can choose to specialize in a field of medicine and many see abortion care as unappealing.
Ann Furedi of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service predicts that "within five to seven years, a woman's ability to get an abortion will be more shaped by the service's ability to provide them rather than the state of the law."
Not. Good.
The Washington Post allowed Laura Sessions Stepp -- a woman who has made her personal views on teen sex widely known -- to cover the new report on the failures of abstinence-only education.
Check out this piece that discusses the latest progression of experimental research being done on the possibility of all-female conception; in other words, women may soon enough have the capability of producing their own sperm. And from their bone marrow tissue. Craziness.
This is one of the biggest feminist-blaming crocks I’ve seen in quite a while.
BBC News had a piece this weekend about the growing media coverage on girls and violence; not girls being the victims of violence, but being the perpetrators. And apparently some are suggesting a “kind of twisted feminism� is to blame.
Dr. Sally Henry, a researcher from Brunel University who was featured for most of the article, is way too much to take. Check out a few of her “professional observations� on the subject:
‘It's not surprising these things are happening because girls are witnessing scenes on TV, in films and in music videos where it's not just men committing violence, but women too. . .These girls think physical violence empowers them. It is feeding their aggression and they are misinterpreting it as some kind of feminism.
. . . It's a bit like the Spice Girls' 'girl power' thing. Kicking and lashing out is seen as a way of empowering yourself, but it's not.’
This one is my favorite:
‘And it's not a way of attracting boys either like some girls might think. Boys might find aggressive women in music videos attractive, but they don't want to take them home and marry them.’
Spice girls? Marriage material? “Girl power� corrupts young female minds? You have go to be kidding me. And the fact that she talks like it's some sort of new fad to impress boys totally trivializes these girls’ situations and dismisses the idea that, perhaps, there are bigger issues involved here.
Faye Driscoll is a daring and thought-provoking choreographer who is currently an artist in residence at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange in NY. She has toured internationally as a dancer and has taken her choreographed shows on the road across the U.S.
Her new show, “Wow, Mom, Wow,� will make its world premiere at Dance New Amsterdam in New York City, April 26-29. Faye will also be performing the show at the Michigan Womyn’s Festival August 7-12.
I spoke with Faye over the phone. Here’s Faye…
After years of research, Mathmatica Research, Inc. just released their 164-page report not only proving that abstinence-only education is totally ineffective, but that it has been totally carried by the Bush administration.
This is big, people. Read the report. Spread the word. Seriously.
That didn't take long.
Oh, this is rich: The Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America are suing the FDA over the agency's approval of Plan B emergency contraception for over-the-counter sale. Their complaint? The FDA's decision was politically motivated.
"It's very clearly caught up in political dynamics and I would go so far as to say there is electoral politics involved here," said [FRC's Charmaine] Yoest.
Indeed! I share Mrs. Yoest's assessment. In fact, women's rights advocates have been pursuing a lawsuit over the politicization of Plan B since January 2005. They've subpoenaed White House officials, and depositions in the case have already revealed a lot about conservative politicians' meddling in the FDA's decision-making process:
As far back as 2003, then-FDA commissioner Mark McClellan agreed to an unprecedented meeting with a White House domestic policy adviser to discuss the Plan B application. And Dr. Janet Woodcock (who also warned that Plan B would create teen sex cults) came right out and said Plan B shouldn't be sold over-the-counter to teens -- not because of the science but "to appease the administration's constituents."
Those constituents are folks like the FRC and CWA. You'd think they would be thrilled by political interference at the FDA. After all, medical research says emergency contraception is safe for women of all ages. Sadly for Yoest and her ilk, science isn't equally supportive of the claim that EC access leads to the formation of teen sex cults.
[The conservative groups'] lawsuit charges that the FDA had no authority to approve the same drug and labeling for simultaneous prescription-only and over-the-counter distribution and that the FDA cannot treat the drug differently based on the age of the buyer because "FDA lacks the authority to enforce Plan B's age limitations."
Here's another point on which I agree with the conservative groups. The FDA's decision to assign Plan B special "dual label" status -- over-the-counter for adults and behind-the-counter for teenagers -- was totally ridiculous. Thousands of pages of research said it was safe for women of all ages. And an independent advisory committee voted 27-1 to allow sale of Plan B over-the-counter with no age restriction. The conservative groups are correct that younger women can still access Plan B without a prescription (they're free to e-mail me; I'd happily purchase the drug for any woman under 18). Which makes it all the more apparent that labeling Plan B differently for sale to teens was not a practical or science-based decision, but a purely political one.
Remember the street "admirer" who was attacked by a group of women after he allegedly called them "dykes," spit on them, threw a cigarette at them, and grabbed one of the women by the throat? Well check out the oh-so-classy headline the New York Post came up with after the jump.
The New York Times ran an editorial yesterday on the resignation of crazy-ass Keroack. (Yes, that's his official name.)
"A Bad Choice, a Quick Exit" says that Keroack "was always a disturbing choice." That's putting it mildly.
Here's the inaugural edition of Jen's Hungover Feminist Weekly Report. I'm calling it that because I'm usually hungover, which makes me crabby, and prone to ranting about things. Check it out.
[Story]
If anyone has ideas or stories for me, send them over to jen@feministing.com
Oh, and in case you're wondering about this week's hangover, it wasn't so bad. Two Advil, lots of water, and eggs for breakfast cleared it right up.
I have gotten email upon threatening email to rescind what I said last year about the Duke Women's Lacrosse Team and their uninformed support for the accused rapists in the Duke rape case. The case that was mishandled, manipulated and finally dropped on Wednesday.
I usually ignore emails that intend to *put me in my place* but I think we owe it to our supportive readers to say something outside of "black strippers are lying whores" and the "we won" mentality that seems to have overtaken the public imagination with the dreaded interplay of rape and race.
I just want to say first and foremost, I still stand by what I say and have said. It does look bad for people to support accused rapists, at that point we didn't know the facts either way. Furthermore, women of color are in fact OFTEN sexually assaulted and usually the criminal justice system and/or the media either overlook it or mishandle it. Women of color often have a higher burden of proof that they are not lying about rape. Case in point (as Amanda and others stated ): when the lack of DNA evidence was announced -- before we even knew whether the players were innocent or not -- people were quite quick to accuse the accuser of being guilty of lying. So be it.
The charges were dropped. Does this mean that they are innocent? None of us actually know what happened that night. Sorry, unless you were there, you don't know what happened. Now for the rest of you that have such a die hard belief in the criminal justice system and evidence, well quite frankly I pity you. This is a system that arrests a disproportionate number of people of color, subjecting them to unfair trials, inadequate representation and longer sentences (in a prison system that resembles slavery) SORRY, I don't trust the courts. When you're a woman of color who's a sexworker, up against white kids with money that can afford *good* lawyers, the outcome is not looking so good.
“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,� CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. “That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.�
I SO needed some good news today:
A legislative panel on Thursday dropped a measure from an abortion bill that would have made South Carolina the only state to require women to review an ultrasound images of the fetus before terminating a pregnancy.
Word.
It's always nice to see our "progressive" brothers taking misogyny and violence against women seriously.
Markos on Kathy Sierra and female bloggers being harassed and getting death threats:
Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats".
So let me get this straight: blogging about the oh-so-controversial world of software development means you should expect to get death threats. After all, nothing brings out the crazies like tech-talk. And besides, she probably made it all up anyway.
...Email makes it easy for stupid people to send stupid emails to public figures. If they can't handle a little heat in their email inbox, then really, they should try another line of work.
I mean come on, if you can't handle your address and social security number being published along with threats of rape, hanging, suffocation and death--you're a fucking lightweight.
Seriously though, it's one thing to argue--as Markos does--that a blogger code of conduct would be ineffective. Fine. But dismissing online misogyny and Sierra's experience (without even bothering to do any research on the subject, to boot) is reprehensible. Though predictable given the source.
Implying that women are "whining" about harassment or violence against them and mocking them for taking these threats seriously is just such a sexist cliché. I think the progressive blogosphere deserves better.
Zuzu has the short and snappy version. Also see Shakes, Bitch PhD, Ampersand and Echidne.
Damn, The Washington Post sure does love their anti-feminists recently! First they feature Carrie Making-Less-Money-Than-Men-Sure-Is-Fun Lukas, and now they've given space to Kathleen Parker--who likes to blame female soldiers for their own rapes. Lovely.
Parker penned an article for WaPo this past weekend, "Mother Of All Blunders." And what is the blunder, you ask? Well letting "our" women near combat of course. Honestly, the sexist bullshit that comes out of her mouth is so obvious, I don't know what to write other than just feature some of her best quotes:
We can debate whether they're right until all our boys wear aprons...
Cause then they'll be like women (ew!), get it?
Women may be able to push buttons as well as men can...
But not when they're on the rag, then they're too cranky.
Rape...is a consistent argument against putting women in or near combat. While advocates for women in combat argue that men are also raped, there is an important difference. Women are raped by men, which, given the inherent power differential between the sexes, raises women's rape to another level of terror.
Let me see if I get this. Sexism creates a hierarchy of rape? Uh huh. And men are tough and are equal to their rapists, so they can handle a little sexual assault every once in a while? Charming.
This is truly my favorite bit, though:
What kind of man, one shudders to wonder, is willing to allow his country's women to be raped and tortured by men of enemy nations? None that I know, but our military is gradually weaning men of their intuitive inclination to protect women -- which, by extrapolation, means ignoring the screams of women being assaulted.
I think my head just exploded and Cynthia Enloe popped out.
Cool shit. Looks like Feministing has been nominated for Best Political Blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards! So go show your support and vote for Feministing--let them know that women's issues ARE political issues. Word.
Should be really interesting stuff. For a larger image click here.
Well done, Feministas! TIME magazine issued the following correction after being called out for identifying emergency contraception as an abortifacient.
The original version of this story inaccurately described morning-after pills being distributed free by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet as "abortion-inducing." Though pro-life advocates claim the pills effect a kind of abortion by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus in the first 72 hours after unprotected sex, the pills are more accurately considered an emergency contraception by the medical community since they technically prevent a pregnancy from occurring in the first place.
This is just...ugh. Apparently American Airlines has launched a special website for women travelers. The site is chock full of woman-things like "girlfriend getaways" and pink search boxes with less of those confusing functions that just confuse our poor little girl minds.
Thanks to the always-vigilant David for the tip!
If you're looking for something to TiVo tonight, try this on Nightline:
From a modest suburb of Cairo, Egypt, Heba Kotb is starting a revolution.Kotb is a devout Muslim who has one unique mission for the Arab world: have more sex.
Sounds like a smart lady.
We’ve been getting some comments and emails from you guys saying that you’d like to see us do more video blogs, so here we are. In fact, Jen is hard at work right now taping her first Weekly Feminist Hangover Report. Seriously.
So please be patient with us as we figure out the snazzy world of video blogging--and if anyone knows how to get my iMovie to stop zooming in on the Feministing logo, help a sister out. That shit is making me dizzy. And to Andrew, who thought I should do another take because I'm reading too much from the screen: Bite me, I'm tired.
By the way, here's the article I mention in the video. And also check out Ann's recent column on the subject.
Yesterday, Portugal's president Anibal Cavaco Silva ratified a law allowing women to obtain abortions until the 10th week of pregnancy.
The abortion law, which the Roman Catholic church in Portugal fiercely opposed, will come into force when the government publishes it in official records, probably next month.The old law was among the most restrictive in Europe. It allowed the procedure in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy only if a mother's health was at risk; in cases of rape, a termination was permitted up to and including the 16th week. The government hopes the new law will put an end to dangerous illegal abortions.
Women’s health organizations say that approximately 10,000 women in Portugal need to be hospitalized every year with complications from illegal abortions.
Happy tampon says mind your own damn business!
The only person I tell the details of my cycle to is my gyno and my Anne Taintor calendar. So I would be pretty heated if I had to start filling the government in as well.
Female civil servants in India are furious with new government guidelines that force them to list intimate details, including their menstrual history, in appraisal forms, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.The All-India Services Performance Appraisal Rules 2007 -- which apply to senior government workers -- ask female employees to record their last menstrual period, as well as when they last took maternity leave, the Hindustan Times said.
And this relates to job performance...how? Well, it doesn't. Apparently the head of the personnel department, Satyanand Mishra, was quoted in the Hindustan Times newspaper as saying the questions were based on advice from the Ministry of Health: "We sought the ministry's help to draw up a health-history format. I assume this will help evaluate the officer's fitness." Uh huh. Sure it will.
News flash of the day you already knew: diets don’t work.
The world's largest study of weight loss by a group of researchers at the University of California has proven, once and for all, that two-thirds of those who diet gain the weight back and put themselves at risk for a host of scary side effects—like heart attack, stroke, and diabetes—in the process. Diets also commonly lead to eating disorders, afflictions which affect 10 million Americans and rising.
The fact that the diet industry holds steady at $35 billion a year with such a ridiculously low success rate and such obvious side effects is not only criminal, it’s pathetic. How do we let ourselves get duped in this way?
For starters, we live in an extreme makeover culture. We are socialized to believe that if we just had enough will power and/or money, we could all look like Mischa Barton. Reality shows feed this delusion daily—The Swan and I Want a Famous Face being my personal anti-favorites. Women aren’t happily pear shaped or curvy or petite anymore. We aren’t aware of our “set point�—the weight range which your body automatically adjusts your metabolism to stay within. We conflate thinness with happiness, success, power, when really it is just a number on a scale. It is your emotions about those numbers, not the numbers themselves, that have the power to make or break you.
Currently in Brazil women can only get abortions if there are complications to the pregnancy or if they were raped. Cultural relativism to the side, I am not OK with this. Brazil's abortion laws are dictated by a very stringent following of the Catholic church.
The new Minister of Health, Jose Gomes Temporao, feels that the debate should be moved from a religious and moral one, to one of public health.
Mr Temporao says that around 200,000 women are treated for complications following abortions every year, the vast majority of them believed to have taken place in illegal clinics involving a high degree of risk for the women.An opinion poll released at the weekend suggests 65% of Brazilians are against changing the existing law.
Mr Temporao says that result is not surprising as he believes the question has always been debated in a superficial way.
He told the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo he wants Brazil to treat the discussion as a matter of public health.
Backlash from the church is expected, but at least he is talking.
This is interesting. Even when Latina women have the same access to health resources they still seem to have a higher risk of breast cancer.
University of Denver researcher A. Tyler Watlington, M.D., M.S.P.H., and colleagues looked at data on 139 Hispanic women and 2,118 non-Hispanic white women enrolled in a Kaiser Permanente health plan for at least three years.Earlier research has suggested that Hispanic women get more aggressive breast cancer. But most experts thought that in the United States, Hispanic women's lesser access to health care explained this disparity. Women who do not get appropriate breast cancer screening tend to have later-stage disease by the time they find out they have cancer.
But Watlington and colleagues found that the differences between Hispanic women and other women persist even when they get exactly the same health care.
The conclusion seems to be that different ethnicities have some biologically determined reasoning for this. I am naturally apprehensive of these conclusions. Regardless of access to health care, studies have shown that women of color are less likely to go to the doctor if they have a problem, or go in later stages of health ailments. Also what about diet, nature of work, social environment?
I am always wary of science that tries to biologically determine racial/ethnic differences.
Hey all, below is an appeal from the lovely Gwynn Cassidy, director of the REAL hot 100--a project you all know is close to my heart. So please, take the time to read this and help support a truly amazing project.
Last year, the REAL hot 100 celebrated the accomplishments of 100 women from around the country – all of whom are breaking barriers, fighting stereotypes and actively working to make the world a better place. This year, we’ll recognize 100 more women but first, we need to revamp our website by installing an automated nomination process and networking features to provide REAL hot winners -- past, present, and future -- with an interactive, online network of supportive, like-minded, action-oriented women – all while revolutionizing the way that young women are portrayed in the media. But, in order to do so, we need your help.
How can you help? The REAL hot 100 is entered in an online contest to win the chance to be one of twenty social change projects invited to the NetSquared Conference where we could be awarded financial and technical resources we desperately need. Vote for us here.
Find out more about the voting process and the REAL hot 100 proposal after the jump.
I've long been annoyed with books marketed toward women that tell you that you aren't getting ahead financially because you can't stop spending money on your appearance. A perfect example is this piece in Sirens Magazine, which tut-tuts women for blowing their retirement savings on a beauty binge at Sephora: "It's a tough financial landscape we're facing, ladies, but apparently we’re more worried about our future wrinkles than our financial security."
But this week's TIME magazine lays waste to that myth. Fewer than 5% of Americans -- equal numbers of men and women -- are compulsive shoppers. There's only a $100 difference between single men's and women's median annual credit-card debt. And what about the argument that our spending on bikini waxes, footwear, and facial moisturizer is what's setting us back?
Women do spend $1,069--$246 more than men do--on clothing every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004-2005 Consumer Expenditure Survey. But that's chump change compared with what single men spend on car ownership ($846 more than single women), eating out ($752 more), alcoholic drinks ($280 more) and audiovisual gear ($143 more).
Authors like Suze Orman, who sell guilt-based financial self-help books, are aptly dubbed "financial frenemies." Because the real problem is not that women buy mascara and our male counterparts don't. It's that we make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.
In today's NYT op-ed section, PBS NewsHour correspondent Gwen Ifill takes Don Imus to task for his racist and sexist comments:
For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s� — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke� — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before.
I know, because he apparently did it to me.
Go read the whole thing. Ifill strikes the perfect tone for dealing with assholes like Imus.
Women in Saudi Arabia have been filing for divorce because they have been raped and abused by their husbands. As sex is not talked about in the same way, women have a harder time coming out against violence they are facing in their marriages.
An Internet poll conducted by a local newspaper showed that 42 percent of married Saudi men say they do not have sexual problems. Meanwhile, 93 percent of married women surveyed said they were experiencing sexual problems.“Saudi society admits the existence of partner rape. A comprehensive survey of Saudi society about the issue and how serious it is has not yet been conducted,� Dr. Madeha Al-Ajroosh, a woman activist and psychologist, told Arab News.
“It’s difficult to carry out any scientific survey, as few women are willing to open up and discuss their sexual lives,� she added.
Marital rape is not recognized by most countries in the world. The article says that UNICEF found in 1997 that only 17 countries actually recognized marital rape. This coupled with the plethora of reasons women are afraid to come out or leave abusive relationships, is only compounded with courts that will not grant permission to divorce.
Mattel is featuring their new line of cars at today's New York International Auto Show: toy cars designed especially for girls.
While you would think it might be a positive thing to create a toy car line for girls in order to help eliminate the stereotype that women aren't interested in cars, but this line of product does anything but. Polly Pocketâ„¢ recently created Polly Wheelsâ„¢, which includes a "Race to the Mall" race track. The finish line is a shopping boutique, I kid you not. Apparently after two years of research of what girls would want from a toy car, this is what they came up with.
Women get discriminated enough at car shows, it's sad to see such a ridiculous display being featured at this one.
With Administration for Children and Families head Wade Horn's resignation effective Sunday, groups like the Abstinence Clearinghouse and the Family Research Council are sad to say goodbye.
“We would like to offer our heartfelt thanks to Dr. Horn,� said Leslee Unruh, Founder of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse. “He has spent his time proving himself a true friend of abstinence education, and has shown a real understanding of the importance of marriage and responsible fatherhood in particular.�
Horn has indeed been cozy with hardline social conservatives. His achievements include:
- overseeing multi-million-dollar funding increases for abstinence-only education programs and crisis-pregnancy centers
- promoting abstinence-only programs for not just teens, but for adults, too
- running the National Fatherhood Initiative before he became a government employee, and then funding his organization with millions of federal dollars
- shunting federal dollars toward various other religious groups and right-wing organizations he is personally affiliated with, such as Marriage Savers
- deciding that low-income women need a husband more than they need job training, and funding "marriage promotion" programs with welfare dollars
- once arguing that Head Start programs should only admit children of married couples
(See Talk2Action for the complete lowdown.)
Horn's temporary replacement, Daniel Schneider, seems to be ideologically in step with him. At a recent congressional hearing, Democrat Barbara Lee questioned Schneider about why the only federal sex-ed funding goes to abstinence-only programs:
In a recent TIME magazine article about the pro-choice movement in Mexico, writer Tim Padgett writes that the morning-after pill causes abortions:
As a result, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, a socialist, late last year sanctioned the free distribution of abortion-inducing "morning-after" contraception pills at government-run hospitals.
Problem is, it doesn't. Emergency contraception is not abortion and will not cause an abortion.
Please, please, please write a letter to the editor and demand a correction--just got to the article and click on the author's name.
Our friends over at the Abstinence Clearinghouse are holding their annual Leadership Conference, and this year's theme is amazing...if only because it completely reveals just how backwards they are.
As you can see from the lovely image above, Abstinence is a Black & White Issue: Purity vs. Promiscuity. There's no in-between, ladies. Just incredible.
Though I have to say, nothing beats last year's Wizard of Oz theme.
CNN's Reliable Sources featured Arianna Huffington, Joan Walsh of Salon and Mary Katherine Ham from Townhall talking about online misogyny. Ham was predictabley wack, but it's worth a watch anyway.
Fucking hilarious.
Oh Louis CK, how I love thee. Via Nerve.
Sweet.
The Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative recently released what they believe to be the perfect porn book for straight women: 98 pages of aproned men.
The book is simply titled, "Porn for Women," and consists of hot, sensitive men who are supposed to be a woman's wet dream. For example, one page features a guy reading the sports section of the paper saying, “Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we'll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair.� Yes, there are also speech bubbles. Hot.
So according to them, what turns women on is simply “men who clean the bathroom without being asked, or make a gourmet dinner, or bring home flowers for no reason, or volunteer to watch the kids.�
While a part of me feels like I need to get my hands on this book, it’s sad that we would need pictures and descriptions of “considerate men� to jerk off to rather than expect it or have it from the men in our actual lives. Porn generally consists of sexual fantasy; making me dinner should be a standard, not something I fantasize about.
On the other hand, there's also the thought that porn should imitate real life, not some unrealistic idea of what sex is supposed to look like; at least this kind of porn is emulating a realistic standard for once.
Picture via AP.
On Saturday, thousands of protesters took to the streets of LA in response to a White House draft plan which could potentially require undocumented immigrants to pay up to $20,000 in order to become a U.S. citizen.
The news of the plan leaked last week for a potential new “Z� visa that would allow immigrants to apply for 3-year work permits, which would cost $3,500 each. Then they would have to return home country, apply for a permanent residency from there and pay a fine of $10,000. Obviously, this is barely an option for low-wage earners.
Maria Lopez, an undocumented immigrant who works as a seamstress and sends $200 a month home to family members in Mexico, says of the plan: "We have no way to come up with that much money, and Bush knows that. . . He is doing this on purpose so we don't ever become legal residents."
Martha Diaz is the president of The Hip-Hop Association, and producer of the H2O International Film Festival and Hip-Hop Education Summit, amongst many other projects. An educator, organizer and filmmaker, her impact in hip hop can be traced to her early days as a young and aspiring production assistant for the late Ted Demme, the groundbreaking producer and director behind "Yo! MTV Raps. "
The H2O International Film Festival is taking place May 31-June 15, 2007 in New York City and its theme is "The World Is Yours?" It “highlights the Hip-Hop community of the early/mid 90’s; a time when youth in the community began demanding money, power, and respect.�
I caught up with Martha over email. Here's Martha...
What is it with asshole judges and rape cases today?!
A senior Maryland lawmaker this week invoked a 17th-century English jurist who instructed juries to be suspicious of women's claims of rape, infuriating women's advocates and some lawmakers who say the comments were insensitive.
Now I need to go find something to cheer me up.
Check out this piece in New York Magazine about teen sex workers and how the law in New York punishes them instead of helping them.
If Lucilia were a 13-year-old Chinese girl smuggled to New York and made to work in a Queens brothel, she would not be seen, in the eyes of the authorities, as a prostitute at all. She would be a sex slave, a victim of human trafficking, and if she had the good fortune to be discovered by the police, she would be given federal protection and shielded by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. But she’s not.In this city, a U.S. citizen like Lucilia is seen by the law as a prostitute.
Some disturbing stuff.
Remember the short film, A Girl Like Me, by teenager Kiri Davis (above)? Well, along with two other films by young women, it's up for a $10,000 prize given my CosmoGirl.
Warning: you may want to vomit after reading this.
A judge in Wales has let a 20 year-old man who raped a 10 year-old off with no jail time because the man was "acutely embarrassed and ashamed" and "his belief that she was over 16." Yeah.
Liam Edgecombe, from Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, was given a conditional discharge by the judge, saying he could see why he thought the girl was 16.The court heard Edgecombe, who admitted rape, was "visibly traumatised" when he was told the girl's real age.
Mr Justice Roderick Evans, at Swansea Crown Court, said the girl "was looking for a man and got what she wanted".
Oh, but the class doesn't end there. The judge also brought up that "it was not [the girl's] first sexual experience."
Well I guess that makes raping a 10 year-old all good then.
Oh this is charming.
On the April 4 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning, host Don Imus referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team, which is comprised of eight African-American and two white players, as "nappy-headed hos" immediately after the show's executive producer, Bernard McGuirk, called the team "hard-core hos." Later, former Imus sports announcer Sid Rosenberg, who was filling in for sportscaster Chris Carlin, said: "The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the [National Basketball Association's] Toronto Raptors."
Media Matters also has the video, so make sure to check it out.
Check out my latest in The Guardian, "How the web became a sexists' paradise," which talks about the Sierra craziness, misogyny online, and my own experiences. Lemme know what you think.
Well I know what I'm drinking tonight!
Douchebag extraordinaire and accused rapist Joe Francis was ordered to jail today for contempt of court.
Joe Francis, 34, has until noon Thursday to turn himself in to authorities, The News Herald of Panama City reported. A federal judge ordered Francis jailed on Wednesday after lawyers suing him complained that unbeknownst to them he had substantially changed the conditions of an offer they'd agreed to.U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak found Francis in contempt of court last week after lawyers for seven women complained he shouted obscenities and threatened them during civil suit settlement negotiations.
Why can't someone put this fucker in prison? Seriously.
Here's some good news: The adultery law in Uganda has been struck down by the Constitutional Court because it was sexist.
The law made it an offence for a married woman to have an affair, but it allowed a cheating husband to have an affair with an unmarried woman.The attorney general said the move may encourage immorality and promiscuity.
In the same ruling, the court also scrapped parts of the Succession Act which gave more rights to men on the death of their wives, than to widows.
Under the previous law, women who were found guilty of adultery could be fined or even sent to prison.
Here’s some crazy news from Scott Swenson at RHReality Check:
Using membership dues paid in part by federal tax dollars, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) hired the Washington, DC, public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, best known for the 2004 "Swift Boat Veterans" ads against John Kerry, to launch a public relations effort supporting the failed and unpopular abstinence only education policies.
Whoa! Well, I guess when your programs fail and put teens at risk, you have to do something. As Earl Pike, executive director of the Cleveland-based AIDS Task Force, says in Swenson’s post: "It begs the question: If abstinence-only programs are actually effective in reducing long-term rates of sexually transmitted disease and unplanned pregnancy, why hire a PR firm to spin the message?"
Swenson thinks—and I agree—that the spin won’t be about promoting abstinence as much as it will be about attacking supporters of comprehensive sex education.
Specifically, the membership recruiting letter from NAEA outlines "unlimited legislative lobbying" and mobilization in "key Congressional Districts" as well as a "Rapid Response" initiative that is intended to "counter attack negative attacks on abstinence education". That last part makes one wonder if at one time a memo circulated outlining the Swift Boat ads as "rapid response to negative attacks on George Bush's military record", broadly interpreting "negative" as John Kerry simply discussing his exemplary service in Vietnam.
Never mind that advocating for silly things like the truth isn’t attacking abstinence-only education. It’s fighting for a sex education that’s honest and that works.
Shorter Kathleen Parker: Women in the military are raped because they're stupid enough to be around men.
Oh, and the ladies are probably exaggerating anyway. No, seriously. Check out these gems:
No serious person doubts that sexual harassment and even rape occur in a war zone. But the degree to which sex is consensual or forced -- often a question of he-said-she-said -- is further complicated by military hierarchy and the extenuating circumstances (and passions) of war....Clearly, some of what is considered sexual harassment falls into the category of harmless sport -- the usual towel-snapping that is, in fact, a way to neutralize sex.
This one is my all-time fave though:
But more overt sexual aggression may be the product of something few will acknowledge, at least on the record: resentment.Off the record, in dozens of interviews over a period of years, male soldiers and officers have confided that many men resent women because they've been forced to pretend that women are equals, and men know they're not.
And clearly, the best way to put us bitches back in our place is with a good raping, huh?
Contributed by Courtney Martin.
Props to Vanessa for pointing out the ways in which the recent treatment of perfect girls in the NY Times does not represent the plight of most girls across America. I’d like to take issue with it from a different angle.
While I respect Sara Rimer’s structural choice to let the girls speak for themselves, I fear that she produced something more akin to PR than investigative journalism. Sure hanging out with a few upper middle class white girls from the northeast will provide you with a flurry of shocking quotations about ambition run amuck and some great scenes with overly involved parents. But that story is obvious, already reported, on the surface.
The underbelly is what we need to be talking about. Nine million girls and women in this country—of all different classes and cultural backgrounds—have diagnosable eating disorders and countless others obsess over food and fitness. Panic disorders are twice as likely for females. About 75% of autoimmune illnesses occur in women.
These are serious health concerns in large part caused by a society that systematically socializes women to take the weight of the world on their shoulders and try to look graceful while doing it.
When I was researching and interviewing for my book— Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body (out in a couple of weeks on Simon & Schuster’s Free Press)—I couldn’t believe how much pressure girls and women put themselves under. Whether it was the Armenian-American girl in the course I teach at Hunter who felt completely shameful that she’d gained weight in college despite the fact that she was the first in her family to go, or my beautiful younger cousin from a tiny town in Colorado who spent much of college feeling on the edge of an eating disorder (as did I), women are just flat out deteriorating as a result of their own determination to be everything to all people all the time.
It’s not just about Ivy League admittance or extracurriculars. It is about a nation of women buying in to the idea that their wellbeing is not as important as achievement and beauty.
When sentencing a man on child pornography charges, Carson City District Judge Bill Maddox said that "these kinds of offenses are problems with impulse control...When I say that, it's my understanding that most men are sexually attracted to young women. When I say young women I don't just mean women that ... you should be attracted to. I mean women from the time they're 1 all the way up until they're 100."
Reuters reports that lawmakers in Mexico City will vote on April 24th on whether to legalize abortion.
Most are expecting the legislation to pass--check out this piece from The New York Times for more.
And as always, Scott from Lawyers, Guns and Money brings the focus back to what really matters: "The key question of abortion policy is always not whether women will get abortions, but whether non-affluent women will have access to safe abortions."
Wow, Axe sure does know how to woo the ladies, huh? I mean between dismembered leg towels and mouse pad skirts, what woman could resist?
The politics of feminism are so complicated. As we continue to define and re-define what feminism "looks like" for a new generation of women, communication and alliance building is more important than ever. The assault against feminism continues from the outside and we are forced to be defined by opposing forces. As we all know, feminism isn't just one thing, it is many things, depending on where it is happening and who you ask.
So where do women of color go? How are they included? I have recently been asked to be on a lot of panels and of course as I am wanting to expand my career and meet as many cool people as possible, I have taken the opportunities. But almost all of them have been because I am a feminist blogger of color. Of course I do think that it is important to include voices of color, and I love conferences and being on panels with amazing people, I have some really intense thoughts that I am trying to figure out.
First of all, if the inclusion of people of color is SO necessary to change content, what does that mean? That people of color bring certain thoughts and white feminists bring other (racist) ones? I also recognize that people of color DO bring alternative experiences, but everyone brings different experiences. You just can't generalize, right?
Also, if I am ONLY included because I am a voice of color, why is that? Is it to make people feel less bad for the overwhelming over-representation of white voices in publishing, panels, conferences and blogs etc.? Isn't that a type of objectification as well?
This is a really challenging post to write. I do think that my contributions to writing as a woman of color are important. I believe that we have to continue to fight for the inclusion of voices of color and I appreciate the recognition on behalf of progressive folks to insist on the actual physical representation of women of color.
But I have also been feeling like women of color are over objectified in progressive spaces, because it is our race (as it is embodied) that makes us so important to be there. A type of hyper-objectification, but it still re-centers white-ness. We are still by and for white people.
I don't think this is anyone's fault necessarily, I think it is the structure of identity politics and of feminism. The politics of exclusion that haunted previous definitions of feminism, continue to harm us, continue to reproduce themselves and it is up to us to be very very observant.
I am still noticing overall that voices of color are left at the margins and called upon when we need *diversity.* I can almost never escape my performed role as a woman of color. Does that make my opinion on issues that affect all women's lives (or about music, food and other things) less valid? Am I forever tied to the embodiment of my race?
The reality is I have a lot of really good relationships with white feminists (and people) where we talk about race and it is much more than just the inclusion of my voice, but an integration of all my talents to the content and production of the work (like feministing!). And there are some women of color that I don't work so well with. And then of course the people of color I am on the same page with. They all hold special and meaningful places and in different ways.
But in some spaces I still don't want to ruffle feathers and bring up the race question to disrupt otherwise seemingly well intentioned things. Moments that seem race-less, that seem neutral, but race is still functioning in really integral ways.
So many questions, but quite frankly my feeling is that conversations about racism need to grow up and include all the multiple ways we interact whether they be reproducing hierarchies or transgresssing historical problems. Maybe we need a new vocabulary, I don't know.
Thoughts?
Contributed by Suzanne Grossman
I first met Hugo Orozco and Zora Sicher of the band Magnolia at the inaugural Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls in August 2005. While most girls returned to the post-camp real world of school, friends and typical after-school activities, these girls kept at their rock band with rehearsals, songwriting and soon, performances all over NYC.
The 11-year-old girls of Magnolia have songs like "Miss Scream-a lot" and "Whatcha Gonna Do"; how can you not find them adorable? But the drum and guitar-playing duo are more than just super cute. These girls write their own songs, each sing and play two instruments in the band, and are now seasoned performers at classy NYC rock venues like the Bowery Ballroom (opening for indie rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at a Rock Camp benefit in January), the Knitting Factory, and CBGB's, performing at the latter the weekend it closed. They are preparing for a show hosted by the Wilie Mae Rock Camp for Girls this weekend at the Brooklyn Museum's First Saturday, April 7.
Hell no. Let me say again, HELL NO.
Joan Sewell's new book sure is turning heads. Teaching women about how to love their low libidos and I see why. While malestream media applauds her efforts, clearly the intervention must lie with those of us that really can't relate to this low libido crap. This piece by Danielle Egan on Alternet breaks down some of the scientific and socio-cultural problems with her theory.
"Women's sexual motivation is far more complex than simply the presence or absence of sexual desire," writes Dr. Rosemary Basson of the B.C. Centre for Sexual Medicine in an intriguing 2005 Canadian Medical Association Journal paper. Diagnostic categories reflect a genitally focused model of sexual function, she says, while in the real world, "women describe overlapping phases of sexual response that blend the responses of mind and body." So, many facets of women's sexual function don't jive with the diagnostic model.
Making women's sexual desire a pathology ignores greater issues that might cause women to have low sex drives. She goes into a lot of the incentives that pharmaceutical companies have for marketing low sex drive as neurological. Also,
Hormones, like testosterone, can also increase a woman's sexual arousal, but studies have also found that "environmental changes" also do the trick, including a new partner.Basson contends that the reported prevalence of "hypoactive sexual disorder" in women of around 30 to 40 per cent may be wrong and misleading. She expects the numbers of women diagnosed to decline "when (or if) it becomes widely known that lack of spontaneous or initial desire" does not by itself mean there's a sexual disorder.
Sewell herself briefly argues against the medicalization of women's sexuality and comes to reject the notion that she's abnormal. This is where her story could get interesting and educational for others, particularly considering the controversies in the medical field. But Sewell prefers the sugar-coated quick-fix Cosmo-friendly stuff, and when these tactics fail to rev up her libido, she falls back on the biology argument.
I mean the reality is that there are a variety of reasons that contribute to low sex drive such as low self esteem, bad partners, unrealistic expectations, repressed homosexuality and the list continues. But if material like this continues to surface and used to help unhappy women justify their crappy sex lives, well that just really sucks for them. *Feminist do it better.*
Like Egan says, have sex AND chocolate (and at the same time dammit!) and whatever else you want. It is all so good and it is all possible. Or maybe try and love yourself the way you are and not use flawed science to justify problems that could be cultural and interpersonal. I am not suggesting that some people aren't more into sex than others, but don't let them get off the hook that easy. Make 'em work for it.
"Paper money is just so...masculine. I prefer my pay in easy-to-count coins!"
Did you know that making less money than men is a good thing? Oh, you like paying the bills and feeding your kids? Well don't fret, Carrie Lukas is here to set you straight!
Lukas, the vice president of the anti-feminist organization the Independent Women's Forum, has a column in today's Washington Post assuring women that the wage gap is "a bargain." No seriously, she swears.
Yes, the Labor Department regularly issues new data comparing the median wage of women who work full time with the median wage of men who work full time, and women's earnings bob at around three-quarters those of men. But this statistic says little about women's compensation and the influence of discrimination on men's and women's earnings. All the relevant factors that affect pay -- occupation, experience, seniority, education and hours worked -- are ignored. This sound-bite statistic fails to take into account the different roles that work tends to play in men's and women's lives.
Lukas goes on to note how throughout her 10 year career she's "made things other than money a priority." You know, like babies and "good woman" stuff.
I sought out a specialty and employer that seemed best suited to balancing my work and family life. When I had my daughter, I took time off and then opted to stay home full time and telecommute. I'm not making as much money as I could, but I'm compensated by having the best working arrangement I could hope for.
Now, something tells me that Lukas--who has a BA from Princeton and a MA from Harvard, btw--probably isn't struggling. (In fact, I'm on a mission to find out her salary if anyone wants to help a sister out.) But that's not the point. What is the point is that Lukas is full of shit.
She argues that the wage gap exists because women "choose" to make less money by taking time off or working in jobs for "personal fulfillment" over pay. (Because there's nothing fulfilling about making money, I guess.)
But in fact, last year on Equal Pay Day, The Washington Post ran an article debunking nonsense theories like Lukas':
So let's just get this straight right now, says [economist Evelyn] Murphy: That 23-cent differential is not because some women take time off to give birth or raise children. The pay-gap figure measures only women and men who work full time, for a full year. It does not include women who took time off during the year or worked part time.
But don't tell that to Lukas, her oh-so-unimportant paycheck depends on convincing people that sexism is actually good for women.
And if you have any lingering doubts about Lukas' agenda, I'll leave you with these gems from her recently published book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism:
Careers can be baby-deniers.Research shows that women still tend to prefer men who are breadwinners...who they can consider intellectually superior.
"Baby-deniers." Nuff said.
According to a study done in New Delhi women have been and continue to be mistreated after the tsunami in South Asia 3 years ago. I write about this as there was another tsunami yesterday and I immediately thought about what happens to women in times of stress.
The report finds that women from South East Asia who survived the December 26th 2004 are subjected to abuse and violence by their husbands who waste economic aid on “alcohol and gambling�, but also by the sexual tourism industry which exploits their poverty forcing them to prostitute themselves.Sriyani Perera, Action Aid International’s women rights coordinator for Asia, explains that “The men would often beat their wives after getting drunk and would force them to have sex sometimes in front of children, in the camps,� where many tsunami homeless still live. Sriyani recalls the tragedy of widows from Tamil Nadu, Southern India, who sell their kidneys to buy food for their children, but never receive the promised sum.
I is pickin' on the Times lately. It's yet another NYT piece about the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but this time, it's the lesbian rich and famous. Dinah Shore Weekend is the oh-so-fabulous lesbian party that some claim is "'getting us closer to civil rights.'" Huh?
Dinah is more-or-less a party that is attempting to emulate the parties often shown at the end of L-Word episodes, and is actually frequently attended by cast members. (The Dinah party was shown in the first season of the series and its attendance has skyrocketed since.) While the article does call the party out for what it seems to be, which is "Girls Gone Wild for Girls (and Marketing)," it used that to push the whole "hot lesbian sex" element enough to make me nauseous; for example, featured pictures of the party include two attractive women making out, as well as - I kid you not - a close up of two women's chests. Now I realize why they covered this story!
Need I say more?
The Center For Reproductive Rights, Ipas and NARAL Pro-Choice New York organized a talk on Thursday with Mónica Roa, an international champion for women's reproductive rights and the lawyer who challenged the lawsuit against Colombia's restrictive abortion law. (And ultimately helped change it.)
Challenging Abortion Law in Colombia with Mónica Roa, Director of Gender Justice Programme at Women's Link Worldwide
Thursday April 5th, 7:00 PM @ The Center For Reproductive Rights, 120 Wall Street New York, NY
RSVP Required for Admission Please RSVP by April 3rd to RSVP@reprorights.org IDs Required to Enter the Building
This is nearly a year after Colombia voted to legalize abortion in the case of rape, incest or if the woman's life is in danger. Roa originally filed the lawsuit to legalize abortion if the woman's life was at risk. Colombia's highest court decided not to rule on the case, so they went all the way and filed another suit requesting the legalization of abortion in general. Shortly thereafter, the law was changed.
Dopeness. Tomorrow is the deadline, so make sure to RSVP if you'd like to attend.
Due to an increase in multiple births from the use of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), the UK is to put restrictions on the amount of fertility treatment women can undergo.
In short, the majority of the 30,000 women who receive IVF each year will only be allowed to have one embryo implanted as opposed to two or three, which is typical, particularly for older women. This decision comes from the fear that risk is being taken to babies’ lives during multiple childbirths, as well as the health risk posed to the mothers. (But mostly the babies.)
This is causing quite a stir, as many women who have had IVF or intend to get it believe it will significantly reduce their chances of getting pregnant, essentially taking a step backward.
I’m no expert on IVF, but this doesn’t seem right. How can you cut these women’s chances of getting preggers in half because there’s a slight chance she could -- gasp -- have twins? Shouldn’t that be her choice? Any people with experience or extensive knowledge on the issue in the house?
Check out the full set of pics here. (Okay, maybe not the full set.)
And I swear we did work. It wasn't all dancing and hotel after-parties. Those just make for the best pictures.
The front page (and most emailed) article of the Times yesterday was titled, “For Girls, It’s be Yourselves, and Be Perfect Too.� I was really looking forward to reading the piece but will admit I ended up a bit disappointed.
The article began a discussion of what female teens endure in terms of the pressure not only to be pretty and popular, but also to get into the best school, have the best resume, be a part of most of the school clubs, etc. But as the piece continued, I found that the article was focused more narrowly on privileged population of girls at one of the best high schools in the country and their pressure to get into an Ivy League college. One small example:
High-priced SAT prep has become almost routine at schools like Newton North. Not to hire the extra help is practically an act of rebellion.
Now that’s tough. I personally felt really fortunate to have the opportunity to take courses at Kaplan when I was in high school. Don’t get me wrong; going to a “specialized� high school in NYC definitely came with a lot of academic pressure, and I don’t doubt that these girls endure this as well as overall pressure from everyone to establish themselves as successful young women in the world. At the same time, I find it interesting that an article that really just boils down to a few rich girls’ experiences of applying to Ivy League colleges would attract so much attention. There also seemed to be a lack of discussion on the difference between male teens’ experiences and these young women, besides their expensive fashion sense, of course.
With television and pop culture becoming so engrossed with America’s rich (ex. Laguna Beach, Paris Hilton, etc.), I’d personally prefer not to see the same obsession with the dramatic and sooo stressful lives of the upper class leaking into mainstream news as well. We have bigger stories to cover.
UPDATE: What's Good for Girls has more.
Salon’s Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh discusses the Kathy Sierra madness. Here’s a snippet:
"Attitudes toward women have improved dramatically just in my lifetime, but still the world has too many misogynists, and the Web has given them a microphone that lets them turn up the volume on their quavering selves, their self-righteous fury, their self-loathing expressed as hatred of women. And yet, mostly, women on the Web just have to ignore it. If you show it bothers you, you've given them pleasure...But it coarsens you to look away, and to tell others to do the same. I've grown a thicker skin. I didn't want skin this thick. And what does it mean that women writers have to drag around this anchor every time they start to write -- that we reflexively compose our own hate mail, and sometimes type and retype to try to avoid it? I can honestly say it's probably made me more precise and less glib. That's good. But it's also, for now, made me too cautious. I write less than I would if I wasn't thinking these thoughts. I think that's bad. I think Web misogyny puts women writers at a disadvantage, and as someone who's worked for women's advancement in the workplace, and the world, that saddens me."
This particularly reminded me of the conversation we had yesterday at the WAM! conference about this assumption that women threatened on the internet should be thick-skinned and just deal with the trolls that come our way rather than talk about the seriousness of the issue, that violence can actually exist on the internet.
South Carolina police bust a sex-slavery ring.
Mexico City holds hearings on legislation to decriminalize abortion.
California law prohibits HIV-positive men from donating sperm, even though the virus can be "washed out" of sperm.
Catholics for a Free Choice filed an IRS complaint against Priests for Life.
What's life really like for women on active duty in the military?
Glamour explores the issue of opting-out.
In These Times reviews Jennifer Baumgardner's Bisexual Politics. And our gal Courtney Martin discusses Baumgardner's theory of "gay expectations."
Major women's clothing retailers in Spain have partnered with the government to standardize clothing sizes, and create garments that are a better reflection of real women's bodies.
Clinical trials in the UK are testing a new brand of emergency contraception called Ella.
Complaints of pregnancy discrimination are on the rise.
Wanderlust with Rhonda is a cross-country bike ride to promote reproductive autonomy and increased access to health care, and to combat negative images of female sexuality.
A Massachusetts woman who self-induced abortion won't be charged with homicide.
I wrote about the gathering momentum for comprehensive sex ed, at both the state and national level.
How cyberstalking disproportionately targets women.
...and how teen girls are bullied into stripping for webcams.
Shocking research: Women feel bad about themselves after looking at models' bodies.
The Chicago Tribune reports on crisis-pregnancy centers.
The LA Times corrects its misinformation about Margaret Sanger's views on race.
I've been looking forward to this panel all weekend, maybe because Samhita is on it, as well as Deanna and the lovely Jennifer Pozner, director of Women in Media and News (WIMN).
Jenn discusses the efficacy of blogging in breaking stories, Deanna makes sure to tell us that women need to start editing sites such as Wikipedia in order to create more of a presence on the web, and Samhita questions the stakes that feminist bloggers take when they begin their journey into the blogosphere.
They also discuss the "new boys' club" that has seemed to have transferred from mainstream journalism to political blogs, the ways that power and inequality replicate themselves in this way, and how can we, as feminist bloggers, approach this problem. (One way -- for women in tech, at least -- is BRA Camp. Sweet.)
Also, what is a women's blog as opposed to a feminist blog? What are the problems that feminist bloggers have as opposed to bloggers that are women, like the severity of sexist trolling for feminist blogs as opposed to blogs written by women, etc. At the same time, if you're a woman blogging about a typically male field, like in Kathy Sierra's recent case, shit often goes down just as badly, to the point where you're life is actually threatened.
Intense stuff, but certainly a productive conversation. Intense weekend, but certainly a great one. Time for an excruciatingly long, hungover ride home.
