June 2007 Archives

Deborah Siegel, PhD is a writer and consultant specializing in women's issues. She is a Fellow at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership and co-editor of the anthology Only Child. She has written about women, sex, families and popular culture and has been featured in Psychology Today, USA Today, The New York Times, Time Out New York and Ms.

Deborah took time out from her participation in the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) Conference, June 28-July 1 in St. Charles, Illinois to email the answers to my questions on her new book, Sisterhood Interrupted, From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild.

Here's Deborah...

Disney sucks. Click here for a full view of this employment rejection letter, and you'll see why.

Thanks to Charles for the link.

Yesterday, Egypt announced they are banning all forms of female circumcision just days after a 12-year old girl died from the procedure.

It was actually officially banned in 1997, but doctors were allowed to do the procedure for "exceptional cases." Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali has now announced that every doctor or medical professional is banned from carrying out any form of circumcision, and if the act is committed, it "will be viewed as a violation of the law and all contraventions will be punished."

But despite the "exceptional cases" rule from 1997, a 2000 study showed that the procedure was still carried out on 97% of the country's women. So how much will actually change now?

Does anyone know more about the history of FGM in Egypt?

"Girls," huh?

I'll be honest, I really am hungover today, so this is going to be quick. And trust me, you do not want to look at me on video today. The Supreme Court session has ended until the fall. Let's take a moment to enjoy some of the lowlights from the last few months of decisions that we've covered here at Feministing. Feel free to add others in comments.

April 18th - Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood

The Supreme Court decides that outlawing abortion methods is fine, even if a woman's health is at risk.

Vanessa summed it up well. "We're fucked." From the decision:

Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act […] imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception.

May 29th - Ledbetter v. Goodyear

The Supreme Court decides that you can't file a pay discrimination complaint more than 180 days “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.�

Ann breaks it down, " 180 days isn't much time to figure out a pay disparity exists. How many people -- especially, for example, women in nontraditional professions -- talk openly with their coworkers about how much they're earning?"

June 28th - Parents Involved v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education

The Supreme Court strikes down, K-12 voluntary integration programs in public schools. The consideration of race for admissions was determined to be constitutional in colleges a few years ago. I guess they figure kids can wait.

Chief Justice Roberts said, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Pissed off me says the way to make schools more racially diverse is to fucking make schools more racially diverse.

Samhita notes:

The policy, cultural mindset and economic racism has been in place for a long time, but today the Supreme Court made the few slightly effective attempts at desegregation, that much less possible.

Of course it did.

I have. About 12 years ago I traveled to Topeka, Kansas with my debate team (yes I was on the debate team, c'mon now). I was a teenager from upstate NY and had experienced racism in schools already. I was really curious about this high school that was used as the symbol for one of the greatest victories for people of color and their rightful access to a fair and equitable education. The high school was empty when we were there, but for some reason, we sensed the tension that was clearly still plaguing the school. Posters demanding that one support diversity and multiculturalism were everywhere.

It was not until I was a MA student in Equity and Social Justice in Education that I read that 50 years later, things hadn't really changed much at the Topeka School District. That state by state, throughout the country in "high risk" places, it was almost impossible to counter segregation policy that disguised itself with benign terminology and strategically (busing, shutting down schools) created policy used to keep certain children out and away from their constitutional right to a fair education.

A few years later, I became a school teacher and worked for a public school district for 5 years in predominantly black and Latino schools. The conditions were atrocious, the curriculum was demeaning, the wages deplorable and there was not a white child in sight (unless they were mentally or physically disabled or very very poor). In the land where every child is left behind, schools are segregated right now whether the Supreme Court says so or not. Whether they take another tool in placing some of these kids out of these schools or not. This country survives on the miseducation of brown and poor boys and girls, essentially to have a labor force that will not become doctors, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and business folk. Their failure is built into the system.

The policy, cultural mindset and economic racism has been in place for a long time, but today the Supreme Court made the few slightly effective attempts at desegregation, that much less possible. Despite any small scale recognition of the *positive* influence of diversity, the main staples of good old fashioned racism shine through. Helping a school out of the warped and fucked up history of injustice against black and brown people by modest proposals of "maybe we can help you out because you are brown, but ONLY if you are as qualified" crap is a drop in the bucket, when you are talking about a system that survives on the suppression of your voice.

Roberts weakly argues, that integration initiatives are somehow racist towards white children. I am so profoundly struck by the racism implicit in this statement and all I can ask is, when was the last time you stepped foot inside a school?

I did it, I taught in the trenches, I saw how bad it was, how bad it still is. Nobody listens to these teachers, to these communities, to these students, when their toilettes are overflowing and they are using history text books that still say "USSR." Nobody gives a fuck about this nations children that go to school everyday and are afraid to walk down the street, afraid on the school yards and afraid of going home.

What these kids and communities do know is that no one wants them. No one wants to go to school with them, no one wants them in their schools and no one wants them in their communities.

So thank you, newly appointed SCOTUS, for doing so much worse than we thought you could. And for forgetting those of us in the schools and in the communities working so hard against years of racist and classist policy that has pushed us to the farthest points of our national imagination and rendered us invisible. Thank you for letting us know, we don't need your help anymore. Because, quite frankly, we never noticed we were getting your help in the first place.

Yeah, can't really say anything after that.

There are women-only train cars, hotels, beaches...and now political parties.

The first Senate candidate for a political group targeting women's issues says the time is right for such a party. The What Women Want Australia party was launched in Brisbane today along with the Senate candidacy of party member, Anne Bousfield.

Ms Bousfield says the major parties have done a poor job of tackling issues that impact families.

"As most mothers know, there's issues with paid maternity leave," she said. "Then there's issues with finding affordable, quality child care.

"Then there's issues about educating their children, then after that, there's issues about training them in the tertiary sector and the environment that they'll grow up in."

Do we really need a women-only political party to get voters to care about women?

To Chicago! I'm attending the National Women's Studies Association Conference. I'll be doing a panel with the ever-fabulous Courtney Martin and then a workshop by my lonesome. If you're there, come say hi.

PS. I hate traveling this much.

Katha Pollitt takes on Knocked Up [SPOILER ALERT] on her new blog (yay!), And Another Thing.

One comment: I'm sorry, but am I the only person in the world who thinks Seth Rogen is frigging adorable?

Yes, yes--I know that a lot of Feministing readers don't expect much from women's magazines. But I'm an optimist. And lately it seems as if magazines like ELLE, Glamour and Marie Claire have stepped it up; they're covering hard news issues, talking about feminism, and supporting great women's organizations.

So I was more than a little disappointed when I looked at this month's Marie Claire only to find a bevy of squirm-inducing stories. Check them out after the jump.

Oh, Louisiana. The state legislature approved a late-term abortion ban this week with no exception for women's health. Louisiana is the first state to do as much since the Supreme Court upheld the federal abortion ban.

The procedure would be a crime in all other cases [other than to save the woman's life], including situations where the pregnancy is expected to cause health problems for the mother.

The measure goes to Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who describes herself as anti-abortion but has not indicated whether she plans to sign the bill.

Sigh.

Apparently, feminism is bad for the young'uns .

Some old fashioned woman hate for your Wednesday.

Farida Nekzad began receiving menacing calls on her cell phone a half hour after arriving at the funeral of a fellow female journalist assassinated by gunmen.

"'Daughter of America! We will kill you, just like we killed her,'" she quoted the man on the phone as saying as she stood near the maimed body of Zakia Zaki, the owner of a radio station north of Kabul.

I won't go as far as the article to say that women's lives have "vastly" improved since the fall of the Taliban. The condition and lives of women in Afghanistan are deplorable, but it seems to be a new trend that journalists and other media related women that are in highly visible spaces are being targeted with violence and murder.

"They want to make news, and targeting the journalists is a way to make news," Naderi said. "They're showing the world, 'We're here and we're still in charge of this country.'"

Women have played a large role in the country's media advances the past six years, and several women work on TV news programs as reporters and newscasters. They are typically modestly dressed, with their hair and necklines carefully hidden under scarves.

Still, some Afghans think it is inappropriate for women to appear before the public.

via AP.

Hey folks, just a reminder that today is National HIV Testing Day, an annual campaign produced by the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA-US) to encourage people to receive voluntary HIV counseling and testing.

The National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC), a part of the Ms. Foundation, has put out a statement commemorating the day saying that targeted testing isn't enough. Check it out.

Broadsheet has the unfortunate news that an amendment may be tacked on to the immigration bill that would make women's immigration status known to federal authorities if they report domestic violence to local police.

Currently the Violence Against Women Act protects women by preventing local law enforcement from disclosing immigration status to the feds. But this amendment would essentially junk that portion of VAWA in the name of facilitating "information sharing between federal and local law enforcement officials related to an individual's immigration status," as the amendment's authors, Republican Senators Norm Coleman and Pete Domenici, put it. Broadsheet reports,

"This is an extraordinary attempt to punish the undocumented immigrants in our country," said Olga Vives, NOW's executive vice president, in a phone call with Broadsheet just now. "Their lives are at stake here, in particular those women who are dependent on the immigration status of their partners. For victims of domestic abuse, this is a double whammy."

Immigrant women are more likely to face additional language and cultural barriers to reporting domestic violence and accessing services. They are more likely to be isolated and abused economically, and many of their abusers use deportation as a threat. So without the special protections in VAWA, it's a safe assumption that these women would be even less likely to report domestic violence

NOW has a detailed letter on why this amendment is bad news, and also an action item so you can ask your Senator to say NO.

This is not new, but the last few months the US has been urging the Japanese government to apologize for the forced sexual slavery of women during WWII. Yesterday, a resolution that demands this apology passed overwhelmingly in the Foreign Affairs Committee and will be going to the House.

Japan ``has actively promoted historical amnesia; the facts are plain,'' the committee's chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said. This resolution ``seeks admission of the horrible truth, in order that this horror may never be perpetrated again.''

More than 140 lawmakers from both political parties have agreed to co-sponsor the nonbinding resolution, which urges Japan to ``formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner'' for the suffering of so-called ``comfort women'' during the 1930s and 1940s.

Now I am all for this, these women deserve more than an apology. I also think that a conversation about what happens to women's bodies in a time of war is necessary. But I really think it is absurd for the US to be claiming that another country has a problem with historical amnesia. I mean really, when was the last time you heard a bill being voted on that apologized for the genocide of natives or reparations for slavery. Or for that matter an apology for blatantly racist immigration policies that continue to this day.

We are in no position to be calling another country out for its inability to remember events correctly.

This is pretty sweet. Concerned Women for America lashes out at Code Pink for not being demure and ladylike enough. How dare they wear pink, the color of quiet femininity, while aggressively demanding an end to the war?!

[Crouse] said Code Pink members "talk out of both sides of their mouths."

"They emphasize their femininity but advocate policies that are very aggressive and more often associated with men," she said.

Does CWA really think pro-peace positions have been historically associated with masculinity? Did I miss the part of the recent Republican debates when all the manly-man candidates were clamoring to assert their commitment to peace? I mean, sure, I'd love to see conservatives (and everyone, really) saying the peace is a strong and masculine goal to work towards. Don't see that happening any time soon, though.

"They cloak it all in a soft pink covering, when underneath they are hard as nails," [Crouse] said. "They advocate for the most radical of leftist positions," such as impeachment of the president.

Sounds like an awesome compliment.

via RightWingWatch, which notes that "Back in 1998, of course, Concerned Women for America called for the impeachment of President Clinton." Who's talking out of both sides of their mouth?

In reference to Samhita's mention in a recent post of Jessie Davis, a pregnant woman in Ohio who was murdered, I had to bring attention to its media coverage on the murder and accused boyfriend: Why isn't anyone talking about intimate partner violence? Let's look at some stats:

On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.

Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men.

Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause, and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.

On the other hand, some conservatives think the bigger issues involve blaming the victim for being a mother out of wedlock, among other "immoral" life choices. Amanda and Jill have more.

Watch as she gives Ann Coulter a good spanking. Oh, and this. Bad-ass indeed.

Hey folks, please be patient if we're a little slow getting posts up today. I'm going to be in transit, going back home from the very fun Campus Progress conference in DC. (Thanks to Dana for setting up our super cool feminism panel!)

Doctors in the UK have voted in favor of giving women easier and quicker access to abortions. Find out more at BushvChoice.

Someone in the ever-growing street harassment thread mentioned that this issue would make good documentary fodder... Well, a Penn State women's studies student made a video of what harassment is like for women on campus. Check it out:

I am very sad to report that I will not be attending the United States Social Forum this year. So cheer me up! Tell me who's going, what you are doing there and what you are excited about!

Promote yo self!

UPDATE: If you are feeling shy (and I think many people are already in transit to USSF), look out next week in our "voices of. . . " series, where we will be featuring activists, organizers and writers from the USSF.

No, this isn't about the case we reported on several months ago, where a 20 year-old man who raped a 10 year-old off with no jail time because of "his belief that she was over 16." This is a whole new load of bullshit.

Oxford Crown Court heard that [Keith] Fenn raped the girl in a park on 14 October, before an accomplice, Darren Wright, 34, took her home and sexually assaulted her.

Judge Hall said in sentencing he faced a moral dilemma as the fact they had sex within 45 minutes of meeting was an absolute crime.

But he said the girl had dressed provocatively and looked as though she was 16. (Emphasis mine)

Well it's nice to know that the way a 10 year-old dresses has bearing on whether or not she was assaulted. Fucking disgusting.

This one totally passed me right by, but today is a "Day of Silence" to save internet radio. Why should we care about the corporate takeover of web radio? Because people that can't get radio stations on the airwaves anymore and folks (community run women and people of color stations) that have been put out of business by companies like Clear Channel, have gone to internet radio. But now internet radio is at risk as well.

via Wired News.

Barring Congressional intervention or the success of one of the many appeals of the Copyright Royalty Board's decision, Internet radio will die on July 15th, when payments under the new scheme are due, though SoundExchange recently back-pedaled a bit by exempting small webcasters until 2010. (It's worth noting that SoundExchange collects royalties for all artists and labels, so webcasters can't even stay online by refusing to webcast music from RIAA bands.)

However, no music doesn't mean that all webcasters will go offline completely. For instance, KCRW plans to air a loop of an hour-long discussion of the copyright royalty situation called "D-Day for Webcaster (there was talk of me appearing near the beginning of the show to introduce the situation, but the timing didn't work out -- bummer).

Also according to the Media Action Center at YMC:

The new rates mean fewer outlets to get the music and diversity we don't hear on broadcast radio. Putting webcasters out of business will only hurt artists more. They depend on Internet radio to get their music out to fans and build new audiences. When the webcasters go off the air, so do artists.

This is particularly alarming for youth, women and communities of color that have been pushed out of any meaningful participation in broadcast radio. A recent study by Free Press found that despite compromising 51% of the U.S. population, women only control 6% of commercial radio stations. Racial or ethnic minorities make up 33% of the population but own just 7% of radio stations. For our communities, saving Internet radio is a matter of maintaining power in a media system wherein we have so little already. It means making sure we have choices and control over who and what we hear. It means radio belongs to everyone, not just who can afford it.

You can take action here.

I am a little late to this, but since the media seems to be spending more time covering Paris Hilton's experience with the criminal justice system over anything else (only to be replaced by the murder of a pregnant woman--a seeming trend--which is a whole different post on how the media has to stop trying cases on TV) it seems that a conversation has failed us about the actual problems in the criminal justice system. And specifically in California, home to proposals that seek to expand prisons as opposed to schools, but also home to several prison abolitionist campaigns.

My colleague, Jeremy Bearer-Friend from Justice Now and Movement Strategy Center, pointed me to a piece he wrote about the fact that the actual problems with the criminal justice system and the populations targeted by it are being ignored for the fate of a famous woman (whether the coverage be unnecessarily cruel or not).

He writes,

“it’s imperative to bring in an abolitionist angle.�

The real scandal here is that women of color are the fastest growing population of incarcerated people in the US, yet this story is never told or reported on. The current media frenzy over Paris demonstrates only the apartheid state we currently live under, with a media that is absolutely uninterested in reporting on the mass incarceration of people of color.

“De-incarceration has been a central goal of prison reform and prison abolition work in California. That Paris has the opportunity to remain within her community and recover from her substance abuse amongst her family is an opportunity that all addicts should be able to enjoy. The reaction to this story is not to lock up everyone for longer and prevent addicts from accessing treatment. The solution is to shut down a broken system and replace it with public health money that can treat addiction and substance abuse in an effective and healing way.�

So, people only want to hear about celebrity gossip? I just want to add to this the media LOVES to highlight the incarceration of people of color, just not from an abolitionist perspective. Often MSM is more focused on recreating some mythical monster beast that must be put behind bars to keep our good white children safe.

Am I wrong?

I figured after that last post, we could all use some giggles.

Via Wise Bread

This will certainly brighten your Tuesday morning.

A woman in Phoenix had the word “snitch� branded across her face because she helped police in an intimate partner violence case.

Don’t you just love the double whammies? Sigh.

Thanks to Jenn for the link.

So I am finally getting a chance to sit down and reflect on the last few days. I just got back from Detroit (late last night, into work first thing this morning!) where I attended the Allied Media Conference. Inspiring would be an understatement and I am only sad for all the great panels I ended up missing. AMC is one of those conferences where you can't pick which workshop to go to, so you try and go to more than one at each time slot.

Since I was there with and for youth and racial justice media organizers, I unfortunately missed most of the INCITE led woman of color against violence track, for which I am most sad. I know there were several amazing women of color blogger there leading the workshops and panels (some of whom I met via a last minute ride to the airport--HI FABI, ALEXIS and SERENA) and I wanted to highlight their amazing panels that I was very depressed to miss. I luckily did catch the very end of NO! The Documentary which produced and directed by Aishah Shahidah Simmons and looked at "the international reality of rape, other forms of sexual assault and healing through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism, and cultural work of African-Americans." Excellent.

Finally, the workshop I was part of dealt with the movement technology collaborative which is in the baby stages of collaboration, but the integration of 3 amazing websites (youthmediacouncil.org, future5000.com and mybloc.net). They are called movement technology because they hope to be guided by on the ground organizing (as opposed to organizers chasing technology). This is technology for activists, change makers, students, idealists, non-profit workers, so they can network, collaborate, and find ways to work together nationally. These technologies hope to aid in what (certain) progressive blogs have hoped to do from day one, support and connect on the ground organizing efforts.

Granted that blogs are a tremendous tool for organizers and activists, how many community organizers do you know that read blogs regularly and have the time to comment and interact? Does what we do online connect to the work that we do offline and if so, how?

Italy recently opened its first women-only (almost) beach. Great? Uh, not so much. The article says,

"Italy’s long-standing tradition of male chauvinism has been delivered a bitter blow with the opening of the country’s first women-only beach."

The man ban is accompanied by a restriction on loud disco music and traditional beach food such as deep-fried squid and chips.

lessons in deportment, manicures, pedicures, keep-fit classes and cookery lessons from a well-known chef are the order of the day.

"The lifeguard must be a man. You clearly need a man to save women in the sea. It’s a question of muscles."

Thanks, Sunshine, for sending me the link.

A 25-foot high inflatable blue elephant, of course!

This "elephant in the pew" was presented by a Christian campaign that aims to confront the "porn problem" that exists within Christian churches and homes. The National Porn Sunday Elephant (yes, there is a National Porn Sunday and it's October 7th) is going on a 20-city tour to spread the word about how pornograhy corrupts families. Because, um, that's what elephants do?

When you get sick of sharing your street harassment stories on this thread, and are tired of snapping Hollaback pics, here's another bit of street-harassment-related action you can take -- a London-based feminist group is collecting items of clothing you were wearing when you were harassed:

Based on similar campaigns in India we are launching an “I DID NOT ASK FOR IT UK� campaign. We are asking women to send us garments they were wearing when they were sexually harassed, in any way. We would like you to add the message “I Did Not Ask For It� to the garment, sew it onto a tee-shirt or marker pen it onto a pair of jeans, embroider it onto a dress or boiler suit… Or draw, paint or digitise the message “I Did Not Ask For It� and then pin the drawing onto your chosen garment, photograph it and send it to us at our e.mail address or send with a comment to our myspace. Feel free to add other messages of your choice, be as creative as possible.

They'll be making an exhibit of all the photos and articles of clothing. So ladies, grab a magic marker, find those sweatpants and baggy T-shirts you've been harassed while wearing, and get to work.

I'm guessing it's ok to submit even if you don't live in the UK. But this also seems like a great local action for college campus feminist groups in the run up to their annual Take Back the Night march.

via DollyMix.

Check out this interview with the fearless and awe-inspiring activist Malalai Joya. As a vocal advocate for women's rights in Afghanistan, she was elected to parliament, only to be ousted last month after criticizing the government.

Joya calls her suspension "an illegal act" and doesn't regret her harsh words. "I stress that most of these parliament members are worse than an animal stable, because they massacred 65,000 innocent people and [committed] lots of violence against women," she says, referring to fighting that took place in Kabul in the 1990s when ethnic militias battled for control, killing, maiming and raping civilians in the process. Several of those responsible for the violence now hold high-level posts in Hamid Karzai's government.

Joya admits, "it's more risky than ever" for her to return -- one parliament member said he would put a bomb on himself and kill her, she alleges. After at least four assassination attempts, other documented incidents involving threats of rape, murder and water bottles being thrown at her within the Parliament, Joya vows to return.

"Even with these risks that I face -- for example, I'm going outside wearing a burqa, I must have bodyguards, I'm changing houses, I can't live with my family -- but just because of that, I want to go back to this warlord-ism, druglord-ism Parliament to tear their masks off in front of them in their own house, because nobody dares to."

For more on the film about Joya, Enemies of Happiness, click here.

This weekend marked the 35th anniversary of Title IX being passed. Check out this HuffPo ode to the law.

Let's also not forget the other areas surrounding Title IX that are generally overlooked by the media (because sports is, ya know, more gripping?): sex discrimination within higher and career education, employment, math and science, technology, learning environment, standardized testing, education for pregnant and parenting students, and sexual harassment.

Happy Anniversary, Title IX!

I was ridiculously disappointed that I missed the pride parade in New York yesterday. The closest I got was passing through the festivities in a cab on my way to Penn Station. (I'm in DC now.) Sigh. Anyone have fun weekend pride stories that they want to share?

Well, maybe not a good thing, but an indicator of a good thing. According to new research, nausea during pregnancy may mean a 30 percent reduced chance of developing breast cancer.

The study of 3,000 women found that those who got sick during pregnancy had a 30 percent reduced chance of developing breast cancer than the women who were sick-free.

The belief by researchers is that this may be due to the changing hormone levels that affect breast tissue while triggering the nausea. It’s no cure, but it could help us understand what biological factors effect woman’s risk for the disease.

Last week, a bus agency made a formal apology to two girls in Portland who were kicked off of a bus for kissing.

Apparently a passenger complained about the girls, and shortly thereafter the bus driver stopped at the side of the road and forced them off the bus, calling them “sickos.�

The 64 year-old driver will face disciplinary action - which is unknown of what extent that will be - for breaking several agency policies, particularly removing minors from the bus without calling for assistance (potentially endangering them). Oh, and also for being a total homophobic prick.

The parents of the girls have yet to decide if they will file a lawsuit. I wouldn't blame them if they do, because it seems like the driver’s discipline is going to be minimal.

The fact that another passenger sparked the action makes it all the more infuriating. “Sickos� indeed.

Portugal legalizes abortion.

The House is still on track to remove the abstinence requirement for receiving international AIDS relief funds.

A man who was angry with his girlfriend for having an abortion was recently sentenced to life in prison for killing her toddler.

Thailand passes a bill criminalizing marital rape.

On pro-choice politics in Kansas.

Arizona rejects a parental consent bill.

Good luck finding emergency contraception in North Carolina.

Only one Nashville hospital treats sexual assault victims.

Elected officials in India call for a national sex toy ban.

A British teenager sued her school for the right to wear her chastity ring.

A new study compares the NuvaRing to the Pill.

Radar mag satirizes summer fashion photo spreads.

One in five diverse workers reports workplace discrimination

What's so mesmerizing about Nancy Drew?.

Britain considers national mandatory HPV vaccination.

Apparently single men are all on the West Coast, and single women congregate on the East Coast. This map looks like a junior high dance.

Sam Brownback vows to nominate only anti-Roe justices, while Bill Richardson pledges the opposite.

Should it be legal for women to walk around topless in public?

A woman's family is suing a Planned Parenthood in Southern California because she died after having an abortion.

Photo by Niesha Studio, copyright 2006.

Audacia Ray is an executive editor of $pread, a magazine by and for sex workers, and is a contributor to the porn blog Fleshbot. She is also the director/producer of a bisexual feature adult film, The Bi Apple and head of her blog, WakingVixen.com. Audacia describes herself as "a sex nerd in both bookish and salacious ways."

Here's Audacia...

I am here repping Youth Media Council and Feministing at the Allied Media Conference and can I just say, wow. I have been to so many conferences this year, and they are always inspiring, but not always in a positive way. Usually, I get mad and have to write scathing reviews about the lack of vision from or understanding of disenfranchised voices.

This is not the case at the Allied Media Conference. After getting in late to Detroit last night and getting over some jet lag, I made it over to the opening ceremony. The strong presence of radical thought filled the air around me and was only heightened by the powerful words of the presenters. Three Detroit activists--Grace Lee Boggs, Charles Simmons and Elena Herrada--discussed the role of media in activism, but also focused on what is happening on the ground in Detroit. I was so inspired I wanted to just move on in to the D.

Following this included some profound spoken word poetry by Versiz, Angela Jones and D. Blair. If you don't know, get familiar.

For a minute the MC passed the mic around for youth voices to speak about the media that they want to see. Most of the folks that spoke out were from Detroit Summer (please get familiar) and spoke about a media that needs to highlight their voices, educate future leaders, train youth to feel comfortable in front of the camera and to feel confident about their voice and their communities. Some folks talked about how the media needs to highlight local activists and local artists and a media that tells the truth.

What do you think? We are all clearly not happy with the way the media treats our respective communities and organize in a variety of ways to fight misrepresentation, that is probably why you are here reading at all. What kind of media do YOU want to see?

update: Check in through out the weekend for more updates. I am here with Kristina of Wiretap Magazine and Jessamyn director of Future 5000. Both amazing so please check out and get in touch if you want more info.

My workshop is on Sunday, if you are around and want to stop by and say HAY!

D.C.'s alt-weekly, the City Paper has a package of stories this week on street harassment. One, a catcall diary a woman kept for a year. Two, a very poorly-written essay by that same woman about how now she's a racist because of all the harassment she gets from Latino men. And three, a piece by some dude who was apparently totally unaware that your average woman experiences street harassment on a daily basis. It also has a companion video, in which exactly two people (a male harasser and a female harass-ee) are interviewed. Taken as a package, it's a real trainwreck. [Warning, massive post to follow.]

What I found most remarkable about the catcall diary is that she is careful to record what she's wearing when she's harassed on the street. While it's true that short skirts can sometimes bring a different type of harassment, I find that I get unwelcome attention even if I'm wearing dirty jeans and a bulky winter coat. But I suppose it's nice for those who don't regularly experience street harassment (i.e. men) to read and take note that a short skirt and low-cut top do not necessarily correlate with catcalls. (In fact, it seemed like the subtext of the diary was: Hey guys, this is what it's like to walk outside as a woman.) The male writer seems shocked by this. In his piece, he writes,

I am leaving the Chinatown Metro station when I see a blond woman standing well over 6 feet in platform heels. Her tight black dress hangs inches below her ass and drops deep in the front, exposing a good portion of breasts that are surprisingly large for her rail-thin body. Catcall bait for sure. I step in behind her as she walks.

Isn't his tone disgusting? It's as if he wants to find a slobbering harasser to channel what he wishes he could shout at this woman. And he's then astonished when no one -- not homeless men, not construction workers, not dudes in power suits, not young men at the bus stop -- calls out to her.

Remember the nasty animal-ridden Vagisil commercial that got me going? Well here it is for your viewing...well, not pleasure that's for sure.

Thanks to John for sending us the vid!

I'll be doing a reading and panel discussion with two other fab women tonight: Mikhaela Reid and Amber Madison. So come on by...

The event is sponsored by Planned Parenthood NYC, all the info is here.

Sometimes I give anti-choicers too much credit. This week, when articles started cropping up on pro-fetus websites about how a government study showed comprehensive sex ed programs disseminate false information, I was actually kind of concerned. After all, the whole "false information about condoms" thing is the abstinence-only folks' area of expertise -- not ours.

So I wasn't exactly surprised when the Washington Post reported yesterday that the research was conducted by two right-wing organizations -- the Sagamore Institute (which has close ties to Bush's faith-based initiatives office and the Hudson Institute) and the Medical Institute for Sexual Health (remember them? they "train" med students to promote abstinence-only). It's shocking, I know, that Republicans would ask abstinence-only groups to evaluate the comprehensive sex-ed programs they oppose.

The analysis -- requested two years ago by Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.), both conservative Republicans -- concluded that nine widely used curricula contained misleading statements about condom failure, focused too little on abstinence and were only marginally successful in persuading young people to use condoms or, better yet, to delay having sex.

Our pals Coburn and Santorum! No shocker there.

Let's say up front that, for all the anti-sex crowd's crowing over the findings, eight of the nine programs evaluated contained NO misinformation about condoms. So already we've got a better track record than the abstinence-only crowd. Doesn't mean the evaluated curricula were perfect, though. WaPo summarizes:

I want.

Pic from Home Made T-shirt.

But it's a good news, bad news kinda thing.

The good news:

The House voted narrowly on Thursday to reverse a ban on contraception aid to groups overseas that offer abortions, a pillar of President Bush’s foreign aid policy.

The bad news:

Mr. Bush is likely to veto the proposal, and the veto is likely to be upheld by conservative lawmakers.

The U.S. Naval Academy is hoping that a new sexual harassment program beginning next fall will not only quell the rash of harassment and assault at the school, but that it will improve their not-so-hot image.

The academy's athletes have been accused of sexual misconduct, a former medical officer was charged with taping midshipmen having sex, a link was made between an instructor and a prostitution ring, and a group of midshipmen was blamed for raunchy behavior on a spring break cruise.

Critics say the academy is struggling to get recommendations aimed at addressing sexual harassment through to students in their late teens and early twenties.

Supporters, including women who graduated this spring, say the bad publicity indicates the academy is pushing forward to make changes at the 162-year-old institution.

Debby Tucker, executive director of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, says of the program, "[Peer training has] been shown to make a difference, so they are starting to experiment, so I'm optimistic on that level...There is stuff happening. I just think we all want it to happen faster."

Women only make up 20 percent of the student body, and the academy has struggled with sexual harassment issues for more than 30 years.

By request, here's a round-up of my posts from Take Back America this week. I'm definitely glad I went, got to see some old friends, did a little netroots networking, and got some free food and drink. But overall, as I said a few times, the conference was frustrating.

It's upsetting to see progressive people (when we're alone together) get so bogged down in winning that they don't talk about who is always losing. And it's disappointing that issues like equality and justice are addressed for people in the Middle East, but not people in the Mid-West.

If the democratic party wants to be the party of progressive politics, it needs to recognize that "single issues" are about creating freedom for all of us, and are central to the fight. Maybe you can win elections against conservative republicans by using their tactics, but what have you really won? And, who still loses?

Here's a list of all the posts I did from the conference:

Apparently not. This woman is actually supposed to disgust you.

Apparently this is just one in a series of Brazilian ads for light yogurt that takes iconic images of women and replaces them with "fat" women. The tagline? Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.

Excuse me while I go dispose of all the yogurt in my fridge. Fuckers.

Via tigtog and the f-word.

Poor Christina Hoff Sommers. She's so hard up for stuff to write about that she's trying to revive the old feminists-don't-care-about-Muslim-women argument. Sorry, Christina--that shit is so five years ago.

Submitted without comment, found via Racialicious:

Ok, two little comments. First, how impressively offensive. Second, divide and conquer has always been an excellent strategy.

Update: Wow, I really didn't think we still had the have this conversation. The use of the phrase bros before hos (the correct spelling for the plural of ho, I believe) in this shirt is racist and sexist. Just because it's also in common usage doesn't make it less so. The general usage of this phrase is also sexist. Calling a woman a ho is calling her a prostitute, and is meant as an insult (I don't believe it should be used as an insult, but it is).

And just because you might think it's funny doesn't make it less racist and sexist. Sure, I get the humor. Doesn't mean it's not offensive.

It's not enough that rape survivors are re-victimized in the courtroom by having their sexual histories brought up or are accused of "wanting it." Now they can't even call their assaults, well...assaults.

From Dahlia Lithwick at Slate:

...a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

The first trial resulted in a hung jury last year, and in the retrial the words will once again be banned. The only word left to use by both the defense and the prosecution to describe what happened? Sex. Uh huh, that's lovely.

Bowen testified for 13 hours at Safi's first trial last October, all without using the words rape or sexual assault. She claims, not unreasonably, that describing what happened to her as sex is almost an assault in itself. "This makes women sick, especially the women who have gone through this," Bowen told the Omaha World-Herald. "They know the difference between sex and rape."

The article points out that judges have been known to keep certain words out of the courtroom, like 'victim', because it implies that crimes was committed. Safi's lawyer, Clarence Mock, argues that the word rape is similar: "It's a legal conclusion for a witness to say, 'I was raped' or 'sexually assaulted.' … That's for a jury to decide."

Lithwick hits the nail on the head: "The fact that judges are not rushing to ban similarly conclusory legal language from trial testimony—presumably one can still say murder or embezzlement on the stand—reflects not just the fraught nature of language but also the fraught nature of rape prosecutions. We as a society still somehow think rape is different—either because we assume the victims are especially fragile or because we assume they are particularly deceitful. Is the word rape truly more inflammatory to a jury than the word robbery?"

Even worse? Jurors won't be told about the banned words.

They are not merely too emotional to hear the phrase rape kit. They are also evidently too emotional to know it's been hidden from them in the first place.

And apparently, this is becoming a trend. What if this happens in all rape trials? For some women, it's hard enough to name what happened to them as "rape" at all. If we're banned from calling it 'rape' in the courtroom, when will we stop calling it 'rape' in our lives?

Can I just say that I fucking LOVE Wanda Sykes? Feministing tech goddess Deanna gave me a DVD of her Sick and Tired performance, and it's my favorite thing ever. Ever.

If lipo and vaginal "rejuvenation" surgery isn't quite enough body hatred for you--you can always look further down.

It is 8 o’clock on a serene blue morning in Beverly Hills and Dr Ali Sadrieh, a podiatrist, has just performed a 45-minute operation on a client, cutting a section of bone out of her toe to shorten it. She was awake during surgery, watching a film; next week Sadrieh will do the same thing to the second toe on the other foot. There was nothing medically wrong with the toes, but his patient didn’t like the way they protruded over the lip of her high-heeled Manolo Blahniks.

Welcome to the wilder shores of La-La Land, where cosmetic surgery has finally travelled the full length of the female form. Down the phone line from California, Sadrieh’s voice is upbeat: “Toes are the new nose,� he tells me happily.

Now I like heels as much as the next gal, but generally I look for shoes to fit my feet--not feet to fit my shoes. Just saying.

On the monkey bars.

Sorry, it's Wednesday and I needed a break. Not that I dance around my apartment to this song wearing a fifteen-year old Cross Colors shirt. No, that couldn't be it.

(Lovingly dedicated to my junior high school peeps.)

This is lovely. In a bizarre sexism-ridden PR effort, Israel is collaborating with Maxim magazine in order to improve the country's image among U.S. men. How? Oh, by publishing pictures of half naked former soldiers.

The pictures are part of a public relations drive to improve the image of the country within the US.

Maxim said it was "pleased" with the result of its collaboration with the Israeli consulate in New York, which came up with the idea.

But of course, not everyone is so pleased. Women members of Israel's Knesset are, well, pissed:

"This pornographic campaign sponsored by the Foreign and Tourism Ministries is an outrage," said MK Colette Avital, who was formerly Israel's consul-general to New York. "It's unfortunate that the Israeli consulate chose to emphasize Israel's relevance with a portrait of a half-naked woman, instead of with one of women of substance and accomplishments," adds MK Zahava Gal-On.

Well, what fun would that be, sillies?! Obviously you can't have a good PR campaign for a country without militarization, women's bodies and consumerism colliding in a big ol' misogyny clusterfuck!

Do you think this is what Cynthia Enloe's nightmares look like?

A ring of web based pedophiles have been busted. This is so disturbing that I won't write anymore. This article contains very explicit and disturbing information. Click at your own risk, because this story will completely fucking ruin you day.

Do you ever get that beer-battered not-so-fresh feeling... down there?

We love you, Manhattan Mini Storage.

Thanks to MAC for finding this!

When eagle-eyed reader Melissa informed me that there was a Facebook cause called Full Frontal Feminism, I was confused. When she told me it was using my book title and cover image to raise money for the most gross anti-feminist organization ever--the Independent Women's Forum--I was livid.

I'm hoping the creator of the cause just made an honest mistake. I've sent her a message to ask that she change the recipient of any funds raised to an actual feminist organization--or take my book off of there.

If it is in fact some sort of bizarre IWF conspiracy to mislead folks into giving them money using my book...well, I then I know some ladies who'll be getting an early Christmas present.

Uh, there’s an unexplained moment of silence. I thought I’d blacked out for a minute. Kucinich sees peace as the central issue of our time. That would be nice. Code Pink seems to like Kucinich. A lot.. He’s fired up. It’s a little early for me. He wants to create a cabinet level department of Peace and Non-Violence, including dealing with domestic violence and child abuse. This isn’t just a political matter, it’s a spiritual principle. Damn hippies (I’m kidding, settle down patchouli breath).

I was just kidding yesterday when I mentioned the songs each of the presidential candidates played. But, CNN this morning had an entire story about Hillary Clinton’s campaign song “finally revealed.� What’s a stronger word than pathetic? Though, I do have to say that the use of a Celine Dionne song entertains me. When I went to Montreal last year, every tour I went on mentioned her. I think I sprained my smirk muscles.

Anyway, Clinton’s actual speech. She starts off with the information that Bush is planning to veto the stem cell research bill today. Asshole. That’s what I call him, not what she said. But, you can tell she was thinking it. She also gives some of the progressive political orgs a shout out. She also talked about the recent Supreme Court pay discrimination case.

One of the less talked about side effects of the unjust and continued US led military campaign in Iraq is the subsequent displacement of people, mostly women and children, that are forced to flee from persecution and become refugees in neighboring countries. According to a study produced by the United Nations, the current number of refugees world-wide has risen for the first time in 5 years.

The total number of refugees rose by more than 14% last year to nearly 10 million, the UN refugee agency says. The number of internally displaced people also reached a record high of almost 13 million, the report says. Besides Iraq, conflicts in Lebanon, East Timor, Sudan and Sri Lanka were blamed for the rise in refugee numbers.

Furthermore, this doesn't include the 4.3million Palestinians currently displaced as well.

The report said the conflict in Iraq was largely responsible for the rise. Some 1.5m Iraqis are now estimated to be living as refugees in other countries, mostly neighbouring Syria and Jordan.

Considering that the next largest group of refugees are from Afghanistan, I think it is pretty safe to say that US military campaigns, not only kill people, but also displace them. But the bigger question for me is, what are the consequences of this displacement? What happens to people when they are forced to leave the place they know as home, go homeless, run in fear and look for protection from neighboring states, where the economy can rarely sustain them?

While our "leaders" sit pretty with greedy fists full of food.

via BBC.

If I asked you which was the first session I attended where I heard the words feminism and misogyny, what would you guess? Or, what wouldn’t you guess? Hip Hop Activism, maybe? One of the self-organizing sessions (meaning not included in the main program, but created and submitted by someone, and it happens in the corner of the exhibition hall) was on just that, Hip Hop Artists and Activists. One of the speakers started off apologizing for the low number of women on the panel, because the moderator was stuck on a train. I didn’t hear any other panels doing that.

Throughout the last day and a half I’ve listened to a lot of progressives talk about uniting the movement. But they mean uniting under what they decide is politically successful for the movement. In fact, I spent some time in between sessions grumbling with other attendees about it. And the one session for/about women was, frankly, kind of weak. Someone asked in comments why the presidential candidates should “pander’ by talking about women’s issues. They shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be pandering to talk about reproductive justice and poverty and racism to a progressive audience. It should be central to the movement.

A big congratulations to Amy in South Carolina who answered our e-newsletter trivia question correctly and done won herself a signed copy of Linda Hirshman's Get to Work.

I also wanted to give a shout out to Jessica Hicks and Chrissy Hennessey who lost by mere seconds.

Curious about what the trivia question was? Well, then I guess your ass should sign up for the Feministing e-newsletter, huh? (Upper right hand corner. You know you want to.)

My colleague Sarah Blustain noticed an ad on the Americans United for Life website, claiming that they're planning a deluge of anti-choice litigation in the wake of Gonzales v. Carhart -- so much so that they're in the market for two new attorneys.

Depressing.

John Edwards is introduced by Kate Michelman, and I can’t think about what she said becaue there’s this gigantic Edwards sign to the right of her. I’m not sure what his song is, it wasn’t familiar. Shockingly, he’s talking about Iraq. And some other issues, especially heathcare and poverty here and around the world. He and Obama both focused on the need for America to reestablish itself as a force of good. I found it a little odd that Michelman introduced him, but he didn’t talk about “women’s issues.�

Like Sandinista said in comments, so much for how important women are to the campaigns right now. They talked yesterday about the fact that polls show women share the same top issues as men in the upcoming elections, but damn, throw us a bone fellas.

tba2007

If anyone still thinks we should refer to the anti-abortion movement as "pro-life," this event next week should change their mind. The forced-pregnancy movement is holding a four-day rally to honor Paul Hill, who murdered abortion provider Dr. John Britton and his clinic escort in Pensacola, Florida in 1994.

Why Milwaukee? Why not? There are people here who recognize Paul Hill as a hero, and we would love to welcome others from around the country who share our belief. Hopefully, in the future, others will host events in their cities.

The event will feature a re-enactment of the day Hill murdered Britton. Fun for the whole family!

For a compelling read on Dr. Britton's life and death, check out Tom Junod's National Magazine Award-winning feature, "The Abortionist." This is how Junod describes Paul Hill and his life's work:

His church "excommunicated" him. Hill is not without a congregation, though; there are others who believe as he does that Christians have to live above the laws of man, answering only to the laws of God; who believe that the Bible not only allows them but asks them, commands them, to kill in the cause of Christ. [...] There is a movement, by God, and Hill, by virtue of his residence in Pensacola, is at its center. He is in the vanguard of a historical inevitability, yes, and now, with the trial of Michael Griffin about to begin, they will gather together, all the Christians who envision the gun as the tool necessary to reconfigure our society in accordance with God's laws, and they will announce themselves.

"Coming out here in front of the clinic used to be considered outrageous," Hill says as the cars go in and out of the clinic's parking lot. "Now it's old hat. Rescue used to be outrageous. Now it's old. The next thing will be the use of force. Right now it's the focus of a lot of attention, but pretty soon it will be old hat and we'll wonder why we didn't think of it sooner."

Clearly Hill's "congregation" of homegrown terrorists is alive and well.

They did this weird thing where supporters of the candidates are in a roped off area on the side of the room. Kind of like the dog pound from Arsenio Hall. I can’t believe I just made that reference.

I’ll be honest, it’s hard to not get swept up in the excitement and energy. But, I’m a cynical bitch, so I can manage. Obama’s music is “Think.� He also did a good job of working the phrase “take back america� into his speech. He mentioned one of the things that inspired him, images of the civil rights movement, “young people, straight backed, clear eyed.� Watching sections of Eyes on the Prize a few months ago reminded me of the same thing. There’s just something inspirational about those images of people who look like you, achieving something extraordinary. That’s one of the great things about having a back person and a woman running for president. They both look more like me than any candidate before. I’d say that’s pretty extraordinary too.

tba2007

This image is from a positive review of the book. Yeah.

Remember that book, The Surrendered Wife, that came out a while ago and got all sorts of press because it basically told women that the key to happiness in marriage was to shut-the-fuck-up?

Well it seems that some folks are taking it wa-ay seriously. This Australian version of 60 minutes covers women "who really do love, honour and obey. Especially obey." Yeah. Watch the video--it is fucking disturbing.

The short version: Women in "surrendered" marriages are just SO much happier because they don't have pesky things like opinions. Much better that only one person in a marriage have decision-making abilities.

The video features women who essentially have husbands that run their lives: one husband picks out his wife's outfits and hairstyles, another insists that she shave his face and put his toothpaste on his toothbrush, there is even one woman who is blindfolded when she and her husband drive so she's not tempted to offer help with directions.

But here's my truly favorite part (from the video transcript):

PETER HARVEY: But these rules don't stop at the bedroom door, no, sir.

SKYE: One of the basics of surrendering is that your husband always takes the lead when it comes to sexual intimacy. And another thing is that the woman always says yes to sex. And sometimes you might not feel like it but then when you start being together and kissing and hugging and just being together and getting that closeness, then, generally, I want to anyway.

PETER HARVEY: Oh, that's okay then, isn't it, Frank?

FRANK: Right now when they say, 'No', that might be true. But women are very much in the moment and what is true right now might not be true two minutes from now.

SKYE: He knows he will just keep pursuing me, you know? And he knows I'll give in eventually. (Emphasis added)

How romantic! And if she always has to say yes to sex, than it's not rape, right? Right? And I'm with Amanda on this one, who says:

I’m not going to diss on people who have some sort of consensual dom/sub relationship, because I do believe strongly that people can use sexual games and fantasies as a catharsis. But that’s not what’s going on here. This submission is real. The wife doesn’t get to say, “Okay, playtime is over, I’m not your servant anymore.� She’s always his servant.

It seems to me that these are just abusive relationships gussied up with language like "surrendered." After all, it's all about power and control. Maybe by naming the relationship "surrendered," these women don't have to think of themselves as abused. Just a thought.

By the way, for you single gals who just can't wait for a hubby to boss you around, you can get another book by the same author: Surrendered Single: A Practical Guide to Attracting and Marrying the Man Who's Right for You. Woo hoo!

Related: I came across this great resource while writing this post from the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence: “Wheels� Adapted from the Power and Control Wheel Model

Hey look, I found the black people! The panelists are: Arlene Holt Baker – AFL-CIO, Rinku Sen – Applied Research Center and Color Lines magazine, Maude Hurd – ACORN, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Peter Edelman – Center for American progress and Georgetown Law School, and Vanessa Gueringer – ACORN.

My favorite quote of the whole conference so far is "No one will pay attention to you if you don't make noise." Damn skippy.

I think Bill Richardson has more experience than all of the presidential candidates combined, so it is sad that he’s “second tier� like Gravel, and thus relegated to the early morning session. He’s also part of the diversity trifecta among the democratic candidates with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, which is pretty cool.

Richardson is introduced by three members of the only family with four brothers to serve in Vietnam. They all volunteered. Richardson enters the stage to a huge standing ovation, and opens with a pretty good joke. He definitely gets points for using the phrase “take back america� the most. He’s standing in front of them at the microphone like the Jackson 5. You know, if there were five of them.

War, war, global warming, war, Kyoto, corruption, emissions, yadda yadda. I imagine most of the speeches will go similarly. He makes the first reference of the day to women, his wife and how they conserve energy. His tie is crooked, and I’m preoccupied wondering if it’s on purpose. Grassrootsy. Oh, and his song is "Right Now."

(I was going to title this "Bill Richardson is Michael Jackson, but I didn't want to go there...)

Just got audio of both speeches. I'll try to put them up at some point, but in the meantime, drop me an email if you want them.

tba2007

Too cool. This pic, from Tennessee in 1943, is from an online exhibition, Bound for Glory: America in Color.

Thanks to Lydia for the link!

The first presidential candidate to speak to day is Mike Gravel, everyone’s favorite crazy guy. Ralph Nader is introducing him, bold choice. There was cheering andd booing. The woman next to me is muttering about him under her breath. Gravel comes on to “Power to the People� amid more Ralph-related cheering, and newly enthusiastic booing. Ah, Nader.

Gravel is disturbed about the lack of action by the new democratic leadership in congress. He outlines his plan to end the war, and again expresses his belief in his theme song, power to the people. He notes that the constitution is not a very democratic document, so we need to be guided by the declaration of independence instead.

Apparently they've misplaced Bill Richardson. Oops.

tba2007

Today is the day the democratic presidential candidates are taking the stage, so I’m going to try and write a little something about each of their speeches. It’s 8:37 and we’re already behind schedule. I love conferences.

Even though I’m usually at work, and in theory, working by this time of day, this is a tough morning. I don’t know how well the Living Liberally party went last night because we only stayed for five minutes. No free drinks, and a glass of crap wine at $6 did not excite me as much as going to bed. I hope it kicked up afterwards, but at 9:45 there were 20 people and no music.

There was a town-hall discussion going on when I got here, and they got to the point of my eternal struggle with progressive politics. How do we win together without marginalizing issues? The reason progressives don’t fall in line like conservatives is because we’re progressives. Duh. Other opinions matter. Let's see if anyone offers a solution to this problem, aside from suggesting we al fall in line until we win.

tba2007

Sexist Reality TV extraordinaire Jenn Pozner talks about the newest FOX show "Anchorwoman" that’s placing a WWE Wrestling and beauty queen with no journalism experience to anchor for a CBS affiliate so that they can show just how incompetent she is and make fun of her. Awesome.

Pozner’s also looking for some concerned Texans who might want to help WIMN’s Voices get some footage of the show; check out the post for more info.

Just kidding. I'm sickeningly full, and waiting for the 8 pm plenary session to start. Seriously, 8 pm? Can't deal. I'm here with my friend and co-worker Molly, and we're a little punchy(thus the suggestion that I attend this evening's program sans dress). The next session (which still hasn't started even though it's 8:07 - make it 8:12), is a panel discussion with Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders. There are ice cream treats from Ben and Jerry's, and because the panel is moderated by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, there are many copes of the July 2 edition which, ahem, includes a quote from yours truly.

Two major broadcasting companies have rejected a new Trojan ad along with a new campaign because it focuses on pregnancy prevention rather than "health-related issues" such as STIs.

I will admit the ad is your typical mainstream condom commercial; heterosexual and model-like women wandering through a bar surrounded by a bunch of a pigs...literally. Well, I'll just let you watch it.

So do I like the commercial? Not particularly, but I looked through the website of this new campagin Trojan is launching titled "Evolve," and it definitely sounds like one I'd be willing to support: they discuss the misinformation that abstinence-only programs put forth about the inefficacy of condoms, the fact that often ideology is often promoted over real information, and their intent to put forth the message that "sex isn't an unhealthy thing needs to be policed or demonized."

The ad is being aired tonight on a number of networks, except FOX and CBS who refused to air it. Fox's reasoning was that “contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy,� and CBS wrote, “while we understand and appreciate the humor of this creative, we do not find it appropriate for our network even with late-night-only restrictions.�

Funny thing is that while even the New York Times piece on this contends that TV networks restrict ads with a somewhat sexual nature like Viagra for late night and early mornings, every year the Superbowl manages to stick in a Cialis, Levitra or Viagra commercial or two in there; in fact, both Levitra and Cialis ads were featured in Superbowl XXXVIII which was - what do you know - aired on CBS.

Or what about this year's Superbowl (also aired on CBS) and their GoDaddy.com ad of a large-breasted woman having beer poured all over her tight white tank top by a room full of men while they rate her with score cards? Or Fox airing another gross GoDaddy ad for Superbowl XXIX?

I like Ansell Healthcare's (who make Lifestyles condoms) VP of Marketing Carol Carrozza's comment on this ridiculousness, which really says it all: "We always find it funny that you can use sex to sell jewelry and cars, but you can’t use sex to sell condoms.�

But it's actually not funny. At all.

A hat tip to MAC and Amy for the link.

The first small group session I’m attending at Take Back America is called Women Rising: The Issues That Count. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the room is half full and of 75 participants, only 7 are men. So, women are rising among ourselves, I guess.

The panelists are: Irasema Garza from Working America, Ellen Bravo, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner from Moms Rising, Cecile Richards from PPFA, Maren Helsa from EMILY’s List and EJ Graff from the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center.

More as the session continues...

tba2007

Lovely.

I haven’t heard about this before so I don’t know how prevalent it is, but regardless it’s not good: a new trend has been developing among young diabetic girls who are skipping or reducing their insulin injections as a means of losing weight.

“Diabulimia� is apparently on the rise, and is extremely dangerous not only obviously because of the severe weight loss often involved with having an eating disorder, but the risks of a decrease in insulin, including blindness, damage to the kidneys and limbs, and could eventually result in a coma and/or death. Veronica has more.

Does anyone know more about this condition?

Ann linked to this story yesterday in WFR, but I just had to delve a little deeper and point out just how depressing this is.

Partnerships of Mattel and the cosmetics industry is no new thing; their “Barbie Loves MAC� collection this past Spring was MAC’s largest and most successful collection they’d ever had. (After all, who could resist looking like the "Barbie Loves MAC" scary doll-woman to the left.)

Now they’re collaborating with Bonne Bell to market a new line of makeup aimed at 6 to 9-year old girls. Mattel included in their announcement of the partnership:

"The Barbie and Bonne Bell partnership will bring girls a fun, feminine and unique beauty experience, leveraging the unparalleled popularity of two globally loved brands."

Because what’s the most unique and useful growing experience a girl could have? Placing beauty standards on her at an early age, of course! What's more rewarding than learning about the wonders of femininity?!?

We all know this is much more important than, say, the “I Can� campaign that came out of Mattel’s partnership with Girls Inc. This project was aimed to tell girls to believe in themselves, in their strengths and that they could make a difference in the world. But of course, that relationship wasn’t so “successful� because of the sexist, anti-choice and homophobic American Family Association’s disapproval of the organization; Mattel cut ties from Girls Inc. shortly after the AFA launched their attack.

So we've gone from “I can be myself, follow my dreams and always do my best,� to “I can apply make-up.� When will young girls be given the positive messages they need which tells them they can be more than...well, a doll?

This vid is just chock full of scary purity ball goodness. Whether it's the creepy pseudo-incestuous dad, the mom remarking that women were "created to feel accepted by men," the girls offering themselves "as a priceless gift" in the purity pledge, or the headless bride and suit of armor behind Leslee Unruh--the message is clear. Girls' worth and value as people is determined by their sexuality. Great morals, folks.

NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina has found that about 40 percent of the state's pharmacies don't carry emergency contraception. About a third of the pharmacies don't stock the pill because they refuse to order it.

Get the full story at BushvChoice.

In a few hours I'll be heading up the street for the Take Back America progressive politics conference. I'll try to give updates as often as possible. Most of the sessions are standard political issue based, but there are a few sessions on the ever-changing agenda that look very interesting. I'm particularly looking forward to We've Got Issues: Young People in Action and Women Rising: The Issues that Count (today, at the same time of course, damnit), Poverty and Politics: Katrina's Clarion Call (tomorrow) Hip Hop Artists and Activists: Politically Empowering a Culture of Resistance (also tomorrow), and Diversifying the Progressive Candidate Pool: Addressing Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation (Wednesday). And, of course, all of the events involving free food and booze.

If any Feministing readers are attending the conference, drop me an email at jen@feministing.com.

tba2007

The Democratic-controlled Congress has not proved to be particularly choice-friendly. (Not surprising news, given they recently dropped the ball on ensuring EC access for servicewomen and amped up abstinence-only funding.)

A new film profiles Malalai Joya and the state of women's rights in Afghanistan.

The International Criminal Court has finally begun prosecuting rape.

Toy and cosmetic companies are starting to market makeup for 6- to 9-year-old girls.

...and at what age do kids start taking notice of gender roles?

Illinois residents complain and get a sexist billboard ad taken down.

Will a new up-close photo feature of Google Maps be used to target women entering abortion clinics?

Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline says its new HPV vaccine, Cervarix, has been proven effective for older women -- up to age 55.

What it's like to be a man with breast cancer.

A new documentary on attitudes about abortion across the country.

Jessica Lynch tells her story in her own words.

Republican candidates woo the forced-pregnancy movement.

Wonder women! There's a new book out about feminism and superheroes.

Hillary courts women of color... and young women.

Colombia passes new gay rights legislation.

Madeline has a nice takedown of a Foreign Affairs article about women's political leadership.

Is the color pink infantilizing? (a.k.a. "Should you feel guilty about coveting a magenta Razr?")

A California man has been sentenced to probation for plotting to kill an abortion provider.

In a move sure to bolster Jess's love for the state, today it becomes officially illegal to discriminate against transgendered people in New Jersey.

Queercents, founded and headed up by Nina Smith, is a personal finance blog serving the LGBT community. Launched in April 2006, Queercents is produced by a variety of writers, including Nina.

Nina has a strong background in finances and financial planning. By day she sells software and conducts her own real estate investments--fixing and selling properties for hefty profits--and by night she runs Queercents. Nina started blogging because she was looking for a creative outlet in her life.

Here's Nina...

I swear, I just saw the most offensive commercial about vaginas ever. I was watching F/X, and all of a sudden a Vagisil ad comes on with a woman's voice over talking about how much she hates it when she has itching "down there." (Yes, she actually said "down there.")

But worse than Ms. Voice Over's inability to say the word vagina was the fact that while she was talking about this down-there-itch, the only image on the screen is a porcupine. Followed by a spiky blowfish.

And then...sigh...Ms. Voice Over says that she feels like "everyone knows" because of "the smell." Cut to picture of, I shit you not, a skunk. Followed by a lobster. Followed by a picture of a box of Vagisil, which apparently will cure our stank pussies of their animal nature.

Fuck you, Vagisil. You don't even deserve to have "vag" in your name, let alone ever come in contact with one.

I will heart anyone who can find this video online for me. It really needs to be seen.

Yes, I know. We've talked about the engagement ring thing before. And it's certainly something I go on about in my book (shameless plug alert!). But it's been a while, and this article in Slate has seemed to hit a nerve across the blogosphere.

Meghan O'Rourke doesn't pull any punches:

But there's a powerful case to be made that in an age of equitable marriage the engagement ring is an outmoded commodity—starting with the obvious fact that only the woman gets one. The diamond ring is the site of retrograde fantasies about gender roles. What makes it pernicious—as opposed to tackily fun—is its cost (these days you don't need just a diamond; you need a good diamond), its dubious origins, and the cynical blandishments of TV and print ads designed to suggest a ring's allure through the crassest of stereotypes.

It's always been the consumerism behind engagement rings that bothered me most. As if you can't really be in love without spending a substantial sum of cash. I guess it just always struck me as..well, unromantic.

I have guys friends who have grudgingly dropped thousands on a ring just so their eventual wife could have something to show off to her friends. I have friends who have shocked me with their expectation of a bauble that cost more than a down payment on a house.

This isn't to say I'm against rings altogether. When my friend Lauryn (a Feministing founder!) got engaged, her boy bought her this amazing art deco sapphire ring that he spent forever looking for, and made a little book about the ring's history and how he came to find it. It was from the heart, not the wallet.

Thoughts?

Our very own Jen definitely deserves a prize for her fantastic quote in Lakshmi Chaudhry's article, "What Women See When They See Hillary."

As women sign up to work with anyone but Senator Clinton, of course, they're being asked why. That's the bad news. The good news is they're all giving the same answer. Being a woman does not get you the automatic support of women. There's no vagina litmus test, people.

I wonder what a vagina litmus test would look like.

Here's some cool news to cheer up your weekend. A female horse has won the Belmont for the first time since 1905.

The fabulous filly outdueled Preakness winner Curlin in a breathtaking stretch run and won the Belmont Stakes by a head Saturday, becoming the first of her sex in more than a century to take the final leg of the Triple Crown.

"My hat is off to Rags to Riches," said Curlin's trainer, Steve Asmussen, who never gave up hope his chestnut colt would prevail in the dramatic final strides.

"It's a special feeling now matter when you do it, but when you do it with a filly for the first time in 102 years it's really special," [trainer Todd] Pletcher said.

I don't know much about horse-racing, but this put me in a good mood regardless.

Via Roni.

A Wisconsin bill that would require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape survivors has been held up, despite overwhelming support from voters. Get the full story at BushvChoice.

So much for the city of sisterly love.

Philadelphia is no longer officially a "pro-choice city."

By a vote of 13-4 today, City Council rescinded last week's symbolic declaration making Philadelphia a "pro-choice" city that supported "women's reproductive rights and freedom" and defended "the right to choose a legal and safe abortion as a final but critical option for women."

Sigh.

Andy Samberg sported a California NOW shirt to the Spike TV Guys Choice Awards this week. Feministing is unsure how we feel about this. Was he making fun of Spike? Making fun of NOW? Or perhaps some meta hipster combination of both?

(Of course another option is that us Feministing gals have way too much time on our hands.)

Thanks to Zoe for the pic!

Check out this piece from In These Times by the fab Beccah Golubock Watson, on the Dems screwing military servicewomen out of EC.

Contributed by Patti Binder

Three fifth grade girls had no idea what they were in for when they went summer book shopping at Barnes & Noble last Sunday, June 10.

Instead they got an introduction to the power and awesomeness of feminism in action. Twenty-nine teen authors from Girls Write Now shared their original writing on subjects ranging from boys and body image to racism and writers block while guest speaker Jessica Valenti gave an entire floor of Barnes & Noble a full frontal view of feminism.

Despite the occasional mention of erections in the poetry, or the “f-bomb� from Jessica, the fifth graders in the front row were spellbound, like the rest of us. When the mom of one of the girls approached us after the reading, we thought we were in for a few harsh words about how the reading wasn't quite “family friendly�. Instead, the mom told us the fifth graders’ response was “What’s feminism?� creating a great opportunity for discussion.

Wish you made it? Catch a glimpse (above) of one of the girls reading her original piece "Words Unspoken." Watch later this month for a “Voices of Girls Write Now� series with more clips from the reading and our general girl-awesomeness.

Girls Write Now is the only New York City based non profit that matches high school teens with professional female writers who serve as their mentors. Through the course of a year, girls build 7-genre portfolios which they use for college admission, scholarships, publication, and their own enjoyment. Girls meet with their mentors once a week and all mentors and mentees gather once a month to workshop memoir, poetry, fiction, journalism, and more. Volunteer driven, Girls Write Now is a vibrant community of women in action.

The annual reading is also a Girls Write Now fundraiser—we raised over $5,000 at the event, which is great! But we need your help to ensure Girls Write Now is still going strong when those fifth graders--and girls like them from across NYC--start high school.

Girls Write Now is a labor of love, but we can’t run on love alone—check out our website to donate.

I fucking love this judge.

A judge has ruled that a 24-year-old Canadian man is not allowed to have a girlfriend for the next three years. The ruling came after Steven Cranley pleaded guilty on Tuesday to several charges stemming from an assault on a former girlfriend.

He tried to prevent her from phoning the police by cutting her phone cord and punched and kicked her.

Doctors say Cranley has difficulty coping with rejection and runs a high risk to re-offend if he becomes involved in another intimate relationship.

Justice Rhys Morgan ruled that Cranley "cannot form a romantic relationship of an intimate nature with a female person...That is the only way I can see the protection of the public is in place until you get the counseling you need."

Okay, I'm generally not for the courts prohibiting folks from relationships...but excuse me if in this case I just don't give a fuck. And as reader Shelby, who sent in the link, put it: "At last, a judge that places the blame where it belongs!"

First it was Sen. Sam Brownback's lovely comments about how survivors of rape shouldn't have access to abortion.

Now it comes out through an interview with Mormon feminist Judith Dushku that Mitt Romney--who can't seem to stop changing his mind about abortion--once bullied a woman who was on her sixth pregnancy to carry to full term despite the fact that her life was in danger.

The whole interview really is a must read, but this part is just classic:

So then Mitt came in to the hospital. X thought Mitt had come to be comforting because that’s what bishops do. They have a pastoral role. But she said that instead he was critical.

He said – What do you think you’re doing?

She said – Well, we have to abort the baby because I have these blood clots.

And he said something to the effect of – Well, why do you get off easy when other women have their babies?

Well that's just charming.

Thanks to Kombiz for the link.

Ah, the March for Women's Lives. Good times. And great poster.

Pic from big_annie.

What Jill said.

New Yorkers (us in the city, anyway) have a certain level of disdain for all things New Jersey. Not quite the same level as for, say, Long Island--but there's an expected amount of mocking of the garden state. Don't ask me why, it's a NY thing.

Well mock no more, my NYC brethren. Cause NJ just took it up a notch.

A pharmacy would be required to fill prescriptions for any drug it stocks such as birth-control pills regardless of a pharmacist's moral beliefs under a bill that cleared the Legislature on Monday.

The bill, approved 56-18 by the Assembly, establishes a pharmacy's duty to fill lawful prescriptions without undue delay and without consideration for a pharmacist's moral, philosophical or religious beliefs.

If a pharmacy doesn't have a prescription in stock, the pharmacy would have to either obtain it under expedited ordering or find a nearby pharmacy to fill the prescription.

NJ, I knew I loved you for a reason.

Mocking those who take the whole last name thing so seriously is definitely hugs-worthy. (Especially when it's mocking assholes who resort to sexist crap when it comes to female candidates.)

Thanks to Thomas for the link.

What's the best way to protest both women's bodily autonomy and the rights of gay couples to civil-unionize?

Clearly, it's to do an interpretive dance dressed as sperm.

Check out Rachel Kramer Bussel's piece in HuffPo, "Is There Really Such a Thing as 'Porn for Women'?", which takes on a book that seems to think aproned men are the ultimate turn-on for straight women.

Random sexist factoid: This is the shirt that Wal-Mart found so offensive that they pulled it from store shelves.

When oh when will this buillshit end? On the June 11 edition of Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes, conservative pundit Dick Morris said that if Sen. Hillary Clinton became president, she wouldn't withdraw from Iraq. Because she's a woman. Seriously.

Think Progress has the video.

Naturally. Speaking to the National Catholic Men's Conference in South Carolina, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Sam Brownback spoke out on rape survivors and abortion.

"Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that's been raped? We need to protect innocent life. Period."

Charming.

I know I shouldn't give this any light, but I just had to because sometimes things--so perfectly-- capture some of the darkest corners of Western patriarchy. A friend just sent me a link she found with the search terms "Vietnamese women." It is attached to a bigger site called No Marriage, a site for why men should not get married. Let's just say the reasons offered are not because marriage is an inequitable, homophobic and sexist tradition.

It is because American women are aggressive (raceless?) bitches and Vietnamese women are quiet, subservient and, you know, stay in their place.

An American woman has several fundamental problems that will never go away and that will get much worse a few years after she is married:

1. Her inherent anti-male bias and pre-occupation with fairness that was drilled into her at high school, college, and through the media. Her constant confrontations and trying to prove herself and to make a point.
2. Her self-centeredness, her ridiculously high expectations, her sense of entitlement, her high-maintenance, superficial, and stuck up attitude, her snootiness and her sense of superiority. This "princess" syndrome means that she will always think that she is better than you, and that she deserves and she is entitled to whatever she wants from you.
3. Her general mental instability and psychological disorders.
4. Her using sex as a weapon and reward to get things.

Vietnamese women generally don't have any of these problems. Marrying an American woman simply does not make sense. The ONLY reason men stay with American women is because they did not have enough exposure to Vietnamese women. Any man who spent a few months in Asia will not even look at American women again.

I will not state the obvious and give anymore credence to the specific arguments. What is amazing is that this sounds ridiculous to us, but in some circles this is an acceptable narrative (in fact in a lot of circles). A type of racism that just falls between the cracks and outside of dominant racial discourse, aka, the seemingly harmless "desires" of the Asiophile (white boy with the Asian fetish usually found saying things like, "if you want to get laid, Thailand is the place to go!").

I would like to thank this idiot for giving me the opportunity to talk about one of my biggest peeves.

I can't wait to see this movie. Health care is a major feminist issue and one of the main issues, for me, with regard to who I will be voting for. I know so many people that are uninsured, so many people that get hurt and can't do anything about, people that have gone bankrupt from getting into accidents, women that are raising babies and are uninsured. The lack of access to medical care in this country is truly deplorable.

via Racewire.

Thoughts?

The Politico is on quite the feminist roll. (Sighs.) Apparently not only are feminist bloggers big ole hussies, we're also indistinguishable from each other.

(Screenshot after the jump in case they get their shit together and fix it.)

I hope this is not a recurring feature. Mike Huckabee doles out fashion advice for Marie Claire readers:

Q: I read that you're against miniskirts.

A: If a person dresses provocatively, they're calling attention -- maybe not the most desirable kind -- to private parts of their body.

Q: What about a burka?

A: No, that hides everything. I think a person's hair, arms, shoulders, legs are an appropriate display of who they are. I want people to be attracted to me because they find me interesting, not because I'm wearing something ... well, I doubt I own anything provocative.

Q: How about a miniskirt?

A: A thong.

Hear that, ladies? Best to aim for that gray area in between "virgin" and "whore."

Via Matt.

TPM cutie Andrew Golis reports on my favorite Thursday night spot, Drinking Liberally. And since Andrew featured an interview with Feministing techgoddess Deanna, I'll forgive him for not interviewing me. Even though I was at the party. Sniff.

via Gulf News.

A law passed unanimously by the Kuwaiti parliament on Monday means that women in the country are no longer allowed to work at night.

The law means that any job (with the exception of those working in the medical profession) between 8.00pm and 7.00am will be closed to the women of Kuwait.

The government also banned women from working in jobs that "contravene with public morals and in all-men service places at any time."

To address the last part of the article; no it is not acceptable to ban women from working at night. According to one article the purpose of the ban was to stop women from participating in "immoral" activities. Restricting women's physical mobility may seem like a quick fix, but it puts the blame on women while the much deeper problem of violent patriarchy and a sexist economy remains or even intensifies.

This clip makes me depressed on so many levels.

Check out the NY Times magazine schmoozing with our favorite former Harvard president in a piece titled, “Larry Summers’ Evolution�. Of course, that “evolution� didn’t involve any mention of his teensy weensy sexist boo boo.

Feministing fan Deborah Siegel's new book Sisterhood Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild comes out today. I have to admit that, though I teach gender studies at Hunter College, my knowledge of feminist history was a few acronyms (FURY, NARAL, WAC, WHAM, YELL, NOW...) short of an alphabet. Deborah's book spells it out--especially second wave stuff from the 60s and 70s--in an entertaining and fresh way.

But what is even more exciting is the way this book could open up a new dialogue about intergenerational communication within the contemporary feminist movement--i.e. it generally sucks--and even more broadly, between older and younger women generally. I've written a lengthy post about what the book sparked in me with this regard over at Huffington Post. Let's just say, I'll probably never write for Ms. Magazine....

Oh, how I hate these.

The title deceived me into thinking this piece is going to be a critique of the wedding industry, yet ended up being anything but.

Apparently in our “post-feminist� world, women aren’t giving up their identity by having a traditional wedding, but are in fact demonstrating their wealth and independence.

While I obviously agree with the contention that wedding culture is obsessed with consumerism, the article is saying that this somehow negates the belief that it’s a sexist industry. Rebecca Mead’s argues this in her book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding.

Getting married used to mark the bride's transition from the parental home to the marital home; from adolescence to adulthood. But today, brides are no longer demure virgins in white lace quivering at the altar; rather, they are professional, self-supporting 30-somethings - more often than not masterminding the operation.

...this fairytale fantasy doesn't make a wedding anti-feminist, says Mead. On the contrary: ‘This is the moment where women can enact this Cinderella fantasy - but it is a safe enactment,’ says Mead, ‘You can look like a virgin princess, but no one expects you to be a virgin, and the next day you can go back to being your strong, liberated self.’ She argues that the modern wedding is not a repudiation of feminism, but partly a result of it.

But why would you want to look like a virgin princess? Shouldn't we be talking about why that's still appealing to people rather than welcoming it with open arms?

I’m not trying to knock on people who want to have a traditional wedding, wear the white dress and even spend a lot of money on it, but to not only downplay the history of a sexist ritual (the bride’s “transition� should actually be "ownership") but say feminism is partly behind the consumerist-driven wedding industry because women are now capable of being self-sufficient?? Please.

Let's also not forget that not all women make enough money (or have the "right" partner, for that matter) to afford the fairy tale wedding. All this looks like to me is an extravagant way of telling women that the more they spend on their weddings, the more empowered they are. Blegh.

While there’s been quite a few pride festivals going on all weekend across the nation from San Jose, CA to Brooklyn, NY, it looks like we have some competition; Brazil’s Pride in Sao Paulo attracted more than one million people, potentially making it the largest pride parade in the world.

Anyone been to good pride events this weekend?

Mikhaela Reid is having a slideshow and launch party in New York tomorrow for her new book, Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela!: Cartoons by Mikhaela Reid. She's extremely talented and we love her so you must therefore go.

Hey folks, because MovableType hates me, a bunch of comments got caught in moderation for Friday's Shameless self promotion thread. They should be there now, so I just wanted to encourage readers to go back and check out the thread again for more great blogs...

A side note: Sometimes shit happens and comments get caught in our junk filter if there are too many links in there. If you don't see your comment appear after a couple of minutes, feel free to email us here and let us know.

I find it interesting that out of all of the things that you can make a stun gun be disguised as, some thought a tampon was the most appropriate.

The Pink Stinger looks like a tampon but is an actual stun gun, can dispense up to 50,000 volts of power and shoot up to 14 feet away.

Next up: Pepper spray maxi pads. Word.

Oregon State Sen. Vicki Walker added an amendment onto a bill that will redesign marriage license applications so they're not so...well, sexist.

The new-look application would include room for a box where the man and woman could write what they'll be called after their wedding day.

The applications now have boxes for the bride's and groom's current names but no place to put what they want their new surnames to be.

Walker's amendment clears up laws to state specifically that either party can take the other's name or they can choose a hyphenated combination.

"We are no longer a patriarchal society," Walker said. "This simply makes it fair." Word.

Even before identifying as a feminist, the whole changing your name thing never really made sense to me. I mean, what's the point outside of upholding an antiquated sexist tradition? You want to share a last name with your partner for feeling-like-a-family and kid purposes? Ok. What about hyphenation? Or taking the woman's last name? And I'm sorry, I don't buy the "it's just easier" argument. What's easy about changing your name and all that paperwork? Ugh.

I'm in the minority opinion on this one, 81 percent of women getting married intend to change their last names. (An aside: Can I just how much I love that National Review writer and IWF's token young woman Alison Kasic says that I'm crazy radical for my opinion on name-changing? The day the National Review doesn't think I'm radical, I'll have a problem.)

But seriously, if there wasn't sexism still involved in the last name conundrum, why would there still be laws that prevent hyphenation in children's last names because it's in “best interests of the child� only to have a father's last name? Why would a couple in Washington, DC be denied a birth certificate for their child because they gave their baby the mother's last name? Just saying.

OK yeah so maybe I know some of these people, but I had to give a quick hit to my friend Olivia's new website, Wiretap Music, about local San Francisco music. It is innovative, interesting and employs multimedia (documentaries of featured bands!), so if in the Bay or just a music nerd, please check it out.

That said, first band to be showcased, the very locally popular, slightly feminist, ladies delight, Boyskout.

Well this sucks: 83,000 pregnancy tests in the UK and Scotland are being recalled due to a distribution of faulty pregnancy test kits.

This was brought to the tests’ manufacturer’s attention when a women who got a negative test result at the hospital found out she was actually pregnant from a test that came from a different batch of kits.

The batch of faulty tests have been circulating since March. Eek.

Click here for more info.

From left to right: Sharon Kedar and Manisha Thakor.

Sharon Kedar and Manisha Thakor both have extensive experience in the financial services industry. At various points of their careers they have each worked as financial analysts, portfolio managers, and client servicing/marketing executives for leading investment management firms with billions of dollars in assets under management. Both Manisha and Sharon earned MBA degrees from Harvard Business School and are Chartered Financial Analyst (“CFA�) charterholders.

Manish and Sharon dedicate their newly released book, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl's Guide to Personal Finance to all women.

Here's Manisha and Sharon...

Have a post you think Feministing readers would be interested in? Link to it in comments. Happy Friday, folks!

Brazilian supermodel Gisele speaks out against the Catholic church and their stance on premarital sex, contraception and abortion. I am not really into the supermodel thing--like wow who cares, feminists say this shit all the time--but I guess we can't deny the influence super models have on young women world-wide.

Bundchen tells the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, "Today no one is a virgin when they get married ... show me someone who's a virgin."

Referring to pregnant women, Bundchen says they should be given the right to choose whether or not they have the child.

She says, "If she thinks she doesn't have the money or the emotional condition to raise a child, why should she give birth?"

"It's ridiculous to ban contraceptives - you only have to think of the diseases that are transmitted without them. I think it should be compulsory to use a contraceptive."

"How is it possible to not want people to use condoms and also not have abortions? It's impossible, I'm sorry."

Brazil is very much influenced by the Catholic church and women can only get abortions if it is a risk to their health or they are raped (which is more than Brownbeck would allow, eek). I only hope more and more celebrities speak out, because maybe people will listen to them more or something. I don't know.

via WENN.

This vile piece of work is presented without comment. Because Shakes says it all. I feel like crying.

I really am kind of speechless on this one. I mean, dismembered feet? Vaginas on feet? Pussyfoot?!

But if you want a worse image than the one above, go to the website and scroll all the way down. Yeah.

Feministing with Gloria Steinem.

Full disclosure: We totally conspired to wear our sunglasses in the picture. Apparently Vanessa did not get the memo. For a picture that's not so too-cool-for-school, click here.

Check it out: Philadelphia is officially a pro-choice city.

[Yesterday the City] Council proclaimed Philadelphia a "Pro-Choice City," which supports "women's reproductive rights and freedom" and defends "the right to choose a legal and safe abortion as a final but critical option for women."

The resolution won't do anything concrete--it's really just a declaration--but it still garnered a lot of controversy.

...it was strongly opposed by eight of 17 Council members and generated an immediate and sharply worded rebuke from Cardinal Justin Rigali, who urged "people of good will" to reject the "divisive and erroneous label that Philadelphia City Council has forced upon the citizens of Philadelphia."

The resolution was sponsored by Blondell Reynolds Brown, who refused to withdraw the resolution despite pressure from colleagues.

"At the end of the day, we decide what we want the city to look like and be about...We as Council members will speak to our hearts and our minds and vote accordingly...When you make it clear that the city cares about pro-choice as a reproductive issue, it sends a powerful message," she said. Indeed.

Last night I was excited to attend a dinner as part of the Women's Information Network (WIN) Women Opening Doors for Women event. The topic of our group dinner was Netroots: Women & the Internet Movement, all about the growing community of women doing progressive online work. Hey, that's what I do! What was so great about the dinner (aside from the amazing food spread and the special cocktail) was being surrounded by women who work in technology for a lot of great causes. There was networking, venting, some commiserating, and a great show of support for each other.

I asked the willing to share their thoughts towards the end of the evening. And as you'll notice from the background noise, there was a lot of fun had by all. So, take a look at what some of these great progressive women have to say. It was great to spend some time with peers, with different skills and experience, brought together by a desire to kick ass online. Many thanks to all of you fantastic ladies who shared your thoughs for this video and at the dinner.

For more information about the event and WIN, click here.

* The "series of tubes" is how the always wacky Ted Stevens described the internet last year.

Other titles i came up with were "when men close a door women open a WINdow edition" (get it? WIN, window?) and "Sisters are Doing for the Internet Edition." See? Those suck even worse.

The House Labor-Human Services subcommittee approved a $27.8 million funding increase for Title X family planning programs.

...they also approved an identical funding increase for abstinence-only education.

In other words, "Yes! Contraception is important and it works! But shhhh... don't tell the children."

Check out Birth Control Watch, whose tagline says it all: Contraception without exception. Word.

An organist for a Catholic church was fired for selling sex toys, saying that her side job was not "consistent with Church teachings."

Linette Servais, 50, played the organ and sung with the choir for 35 years. Much of her work as choir director and organist was done without pay. When her parish priest asked to meet with her, she thought it was to say thank you.

Instead, she was told to quit her sales job with company known as Pure Romance or she would lose her position in the church.

Pure Romance in Loveland, Ohio, is a $60 million per year business that sells spa products and sex toys at homes parties attended by women. It has 15,000 consultants like Servais.

She said her decision was not hard: She began working with Pure Romance after a brain tumor and treatment left her sexually dysfunctional. The job allows her to help other women who have similar problems.

But who cares about brain tumor patients who have the audacity to want sexual pleasure?

Servais said that she "feel[s] that Pure Romance is my ministry." the good news is that many choir members have quit in support of her, and some gather at her home on Thursdays to sing hymns.

Speaking of sex toys, don't forget about this fantastic video on the sex toy ban in Texas that features Molly Ivins!

Kate has a moving post about the abduction and murder of an 18-year-old woman in Kansas, the De Anza rape case, and other assorted "crimes" of Living While Female:

i thought about her on the train ride to work. and by this, i mean i thought about her and i thought about myself, in that we're both women. as far as we know at this point, she was merely a young woman in a parking lot - i am that woman a lot of times too. and these horrible moments in time, regardless of how long the odds of them happening to any given woman are, exist for all women in the sense that we know it could happen to us. that we could walk out of a Target at 7:10 pm on a saturday and not make it safely to our cars. that we could be the victims of such terrorism, such pointed destruction, such punishment.

Read the whole thing here.

You know, something that has been getting on my nerves lately is that it seems that every woman BUST magazine interviews these days won't call themselves a feminist. Gwen Stefani I could deal with. But imagine my disappointment when I read an interview with Patti Smith in the June/July issue and she says, sigh, "I never was really concerned with the idea of feminism." Then she goes on the predictable "humanism" kick. Nooo!!!

Now watching her on video is just bittersweet. Or maybe just bitter.

On Tuesday, the three leading democratic presidential candidates, Obama, Clinton and Edwards, attended a forum hosted by Sojourners. I didn't get to see all of it, but one thing stuck out to me. Maybe I didn't get enough sleep last night, but this quote from Clinton really bugs me.

"In talking about abortion being safe, legal and rare, I mean rare. The pro-life and pro-choice communities have not been willing to find much common ground."

Uh, Hil, you're listening to too much anti-abortion rhetoric. The pro-choice community is the common ground position. Fighting for access to sex education and birth control, including Plan B, does precisely what you claim to want. The leadership in the pro-life community wants to control what women do with their bodies. Well, actually they want to control what everyone who's not them does with their bodies, but that's another post.

This isn't just a problem with Hillary Clinton. Every story is always the same. That there are two opposite sides in the "abortion debate." (Damn, do I hate that term.) Here's the reality, folks. If you want less abortions you have to give women the tools to avoid getting pregnant when they don't want to be. See? Not complicated. I really wish people would stop pretending that the two sides of this are no abortions ever and all abortions always.

By the way, I said "leadership" in the pro-life community because I do realize there are people who consider themselves to be pro-life but are not out to control women. However, in my experience, most of those people do support sex ed and birth control, so I consider them pro-choice.

So there's been a recent trend of articles and books about putting the "play" back in playtime for kids. Generally aimed at boys, these pieces--like the NY Times article titled "Putting the Skinned Knees Back Into Playtime"--argue that little boys need to get out of the house, stop playing video games and hanging out on the internet, and learn to be kids again.

Apparently for girls, it's not so much about getting out into the fresh air and playing. It's about staying in and shopping. From the recent NY Times piece, "Doll Web Sites Drive Girls to Stay Home and Play":

Presleigh Montemayor often gets home after a long day and spends some time with her family. Then she logs onto the Internet, leaving the real world and joining a virtual one. But the digital utopia of Second Life is not for her. Presleigh, who is 9 years old, prefers a Web site called Cartoon Doll Emporium.

The site lets her chat with her friends and dress up virtual dolls, by placing blouses, hair styles and accessories on them. It beats playing with regular Barbies, said Presleigh, who lives near Dallas.

“With Barbie, if you want clothes, it costs money,� she said. “You can do it on the Internet for free.�

Presleigh is part of a booming phenomenon, the growth of a new wave of interactive play sites for a young generation of Internet users, in particular girls.

That sounds healthy. Maybe soon they'll have online pick-up-after-your-husband game, complete with virtual vacuum!

Via the incredible Mikhaela Reid. Click on the image for a bigger version...

Yesterday was Blog for Domestic Workers Day -- in support of the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights. The legislation is particular to New York State, but the issue certainly isn't. In several of the states that passed ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage last fall, legislatures have introduced bills that would ensure the wage increases don't apply to certain employees -- including domestic workers. Why is this a feminist issue? Roughly 98.5 percent of domestic workers are women. Plain and simple.

Seems like the perfect time to link to this Mother Jones profile of Juana Nicholas, a former nanny and housekeeper who is now an activist and organizer with the Household Workers Project, "a grassroots labor group made up of immigrant women who clean houses and care for children across the Los Angeles region." After getting the state assembly to pass legislation (which was later vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger -- hissss) mandating overtime pay for domestic workers, the women who comprise the Household Workers Project set their sights on organizing a union. Says one of the women involved in the effort,

"If we've managed to write a bill, why can't we start our own union?" asks 62-year-old Rosa Gonzalez. "So many of us are treated like animals, like robots. But the things that matter most to our employers, the things that they love most -- their children and their homes -- are literally put in our hands. And still they treat us this way. We have to know our rights, and we will stand up for ourselves."

Also check out the ACLU's report on how migrant domestic workers are treated by diplomats and staff of international organizations. It's chilling.

I'm doing a reading/book-signing thing tonight in Manhattan if anyone is interested. Two other fabulous ladies from Seal Press will also be there: Helen Boyd, author of She’s Not The Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband and Audacia Ray, author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration.

Come and say hi.

Jill has the goods on yet another reason why it's a pro-birth movement, not a pro-life movement.

U.S. international AIDS programs: Now with 33% less bullshit? Well, hopefully: Via Naina at RH Reality Check comes the welcome news that Democrats are hard at work to remove funding for abstinence-only programs in PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan For for AIDS Relief).

Today, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced groundbreaking legislation, the HIV Prevention Act of 2007, a bill that would remove the ideological 33 percent abstinence-until-marriage earmark from HIV prevention programs in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The earmark is the primary culprit in denying young people in PEPFAR countries from receiving honest, comprehensive HIV prevention programs.

When Congress passed legislation establishing PEPFAR in 2003, they included a provision that an independent evaluation of the program be conducted after 3 years. Well, the resulting evaluation called on Congress to remove the abstinence-only earmark. And it looks like the Democrats are paying attention.

Meanwhile on the home front... Congress is also reconsidering its funding for domestic abstinence-only programs. But in this case, the House Labor-Human Services subcommittee is set to increase one of the funding streams for "no-sex" education by between $20-27 million. I was all excited when it appeared Title V abstinence-only funding was going to dry up, and now this? One step forward, two steps back...

SIECUS has issued the following action alert:

TELL SPEAKER PELOSI AND REPRESENTATIVE OBEY: IT IS UNCONSCIONABLE TO INCREASE FUNDING FOR ABSTINENCE-ONLY-UNTIL-MARRIAGE PROGRAMS

Tomorrow, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are poised to give the Community-Based Abstinence Education program the second largest increase in the history of this program.

TAKE ACTION NOW
- Call Speaker Nancy Pelosi at 202.225.4965 and email her at sf.nancy@mail.house.gov.
- Call the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative David Obey, at 202.225.2771 and email him here.

Call NOW and demand NO MORE MONEY for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

All of this made me wonder where Pelosi and Obey stand on abstinence-only. Not sure about Obey, but Pelosi seems a bit confused:

Democrats including Pelosi contend that abstinence should be taught as part of a broader sex-education curriculum.

“The Speaker supports funding for both abstinence and comprehensive sexuality education,� Hammill said. “We must get at the root of the problem by reducing unintended pregnancies through sex education and access to contraception.�

The thing is, comprehensive sex ed programs DO teach abstinence -- and then they teach about what to do if abstinence fails... that would be, use contraception. Pelosi seems to have fallen into the conservative trap that the only programs that mention abstinence are the ones that discuss abstinence-only-until-marriage exclusively. Let's hope she gets the picture in time to torpedo the abstinence-only funding.

I have some pictures up from backstage at The Colbert Report. So fun. Everyone who works on that show is frigging awesome and so nice.

Oh, and a big, huge, enormous thanks to Darcy, Brooke and the other folks at Seal Press for hooking it up, calming my nerves and picking up the tab for the great post-show dinner and drinks!

Classy.

State Attorney General Jerry Brown's office has announced that they will review the Santa Clara County district attorney's decision not to file charges in the alleged gang rape of a teen girl by De Anza College baseball players.

"We will review to determine if the district attorney abused her discretion in finding not to prosecute," said David Kravets, a spokesman for Brown. "We have no evidence that she did, but we will conduct a thorough review of the evidence in this case and come with an independent decision. ... We will look at their entire case file and do any investigation of our own that we determine is appropriate."

Kudos to all of the amazing activists out there who brought attention to this case and put the pressure on!

A new study published in the American Journal of Sociology reports that having sex doesn't harm the mental health of older teenagers.

The latest analysis by Ann Meier, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, found that those who are most vulnerable to depression or low self-esteem are girls who had their first sex before 15 and boys under 14.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health of 8,563 students in grades seven through 12 during the mid-1990s, Meier compared mental health measures of teens who were virgins during the study with teens who lost their virginity during the study.

"Among those who had sex, only about 14 percent experienced increases in depression or decreases in self-esteem," she says. "In terms of depression, these are relatively modest increases. For 86 percent, it had no big effect."

This study is likely to put a thorn in the side of the abstinence-only folks, who are already likely freaking out over states refusing funds rather than lie to students.

James Wagoner, president of the amazing organization Advocates for Youth, says that the study is "the most definitive peer-reviewed research we have to date." Word.

Just wondering what folks thought about this:

An Anthropologist Wannabe on hymenoplasty. “But how do we turn our backs on these women who in all likelihood could be killed by their fathers, brothers or husbands (Honor killings) if it is found out that they are not virgins? Aren’t doctors morally bound to help these women who could face certain death if they are discovered to be non-virgins?�

Via Global Voices.

Did you miss Jessica on the Colbert Report last night? Check out the video here.

In a major demonstration in Toronto this weekend, hundreds of women occupied an abandoned building to demand more affordable housing. They called on the government to raise social assistance, revamp national housing policies, and use some of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's $5 billion in reserve funds to renovate deteriorating buildings and create more livable space -- particularly for women, who are statistically more likely to be hungry and homeless. Not only did the women garner media attention, their actions were cited in a speech in the House of Commons. Awesome.

Check out the video here.

Via brownfemipower.

UPDATE: The Politico is promoting a live chat about feminist blogosphere politics, and the headline makes it seem that I'll be participating. I will not be. Just wanted to put that out there.

Seriously, you have GOT to be fucking kidding me. From a post profiling Althouse:

Biggest dust-up: “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts,� a post about a female blogger who posed for a photo in front of Bill Clinton. Jessica Valenti, who runs and blogs on feministing.com, is standing at an angle with a slight arch in her back, making the focal point of the photo, whether intentional or not, her breasts.

Valenti isn’t shy about her body; she just published a book called “Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters.� (Emphasis added)

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

It's taken me forever to get around to posting this, but Beth Ditto's bare-it-all cover of British music mag NME has got everyone talking.

My initial reaction? YES! She looks fabulous. It's so incredible to see a mainstream music magazine put a sexy, anti-sizist, feminist artist on the cover, who stands apart from your typically emaciated covergirl and presents an entirely different beauty standard. Size-positivity! Armpit hair! It's as if NME declared May "Love Your Body Month." Ditto has long been an ambassador for all the girls who don't fit the media construct of "perfect female form" -- she's also posed nude for the Sunday Times of London and is fond of stripping down during her live shows.

But I've got a few reservations, too. I'm not generally in favor of serious female musicians having to get naked in order to make it onto the cover of a mainstream magazine. It's worth noting that NME is not Maxim. It's not even comparable to Rolling Stone in terms of fleshy photos. It does not regularly publish cover shots of any naked woman. (I wonder if they considered shooting Ditto with her clothes on?) This post speculates that NME would have come in for more criticism if it had published a naked cover photo of a thinner woman, possibly facing accusations that it was turning into a lad mag when it supposedly focuses on music. But because Ditto does not have the body of a conventional, skeletal cover model, NME was shielded from this argument. (Thoughts?)

Ditto has had some interesting interactions with super-skinny stars who we typically see on magazine covers. Back in February, Ditto complained that she was up against Kate Moss for the "Sexiest Woman" title at the NME Awards, saying "I don't even know why she's here. Just because she's sleeping with a singer and sings a few backing vocals she thinks she's it." But after a serious heart-to-heart, now Ditto and Moss are apparently best pals. Ditto said recently:

"Kate is amazing. I spent one night talking to her and she just said the most amazing things about bodies," explained Ditto. At first I didn't think I was going to like her, but she just turned up to one of our shows and said, 'Do you know what I hate Beth? I hate it when people tell my big girlfriends, 'You have a beautiful face...' I mean, that's a really radical concept."

Ditto was also praised by Keira Knightly in a recent issue of In Touch, where Knightly said, "Oh my god, that woman is so sexy. She has the most amazing body." Check out the photo juxtaposition that accompanies the quote. It's that image that convinces me to quit fretting and celebrate the nekkid NME cover. Her cover photo is transgressive. It's groundbreaking. And putting on the newsstands an alternate version of what is normally presented as SEXY is incredibly important. So kudos to NME. And Ditto rocks.

(Thanks to Becky for the link, long ago.)

Remember our favorite anti-feminist Mike Adams? Well he's back with a kick-ass definition of feminism. (Because who better to define feminism than a conservative, anti-feminist douchebag?)

Feminism is a minority social movement, whose members murder innocent children in order to obtain sexual gratification.

...

Oh, I'm sorry, I was just rubbing one out to pictures of dead babies. Back now.

Seriously though, check out his logic. (Love it.)

My understanding of (and disrespect for) the underpinnings of modern feminism was actually fostered by a biologist who once made a very candid remark about the foundation of his support of Darwinism. When asked about the lack of evidence supporting Darwinism – the fossil record, etc. – he confessed there was a very human reason for his faith in evolutionary theory despite the lack of scientific evidence. He confessed that if Darwinism were not true, he wouldn’t be able to sleep around.

As I think about the candid remarks of the freely fornicating biologist, I am reminded of a sociology professor’s response to a film showing an ultrasound of an abortion being performed on a fetus during its so-called first trimester of development. Without addressing the issue of when life actually begins she pleaded for the preservation of a woman’s right to choose by reminding people that a woman who gets pregnant “might not know� or “might not even like� the man who got her pregnant.

The similarities between the remarks of the freely fornicating biologist and the slut-sympathizer-slash-sociologist are analytically indistinguishable. And the remarks of the latter are a grim reminder that the feminist mantra that a “woman has right to control her body� is not a reference to the fetus at all. It is simply a reference to her own body and her desire to share it with those she “might not know� and “might not even like.�

Short version: Feminists want to have sex without getting pregnant and therefore are murdering whores. Yeah, that's a new one.

Though I have to say, what never ceases to amaze me about these bizarre anti-feminist diatribes is how transparent the misogyny is:

I have come to the firm conclusion that I’ve not been nearly harsh enough in my treatment of feminists. And today I plan to start treating them the way they deserve to be treated.

Yeah.

I'm going to be on The Colbert Report tonight. I am freaking out a bit. So send good vibes my way between 6 and 7pm tonight--that's when we'll be taping.

And if anyone is in the NYC area tomorrow, I'm doing a reading with a couple of other authors from Seal Press...

Not to mention it's racist as fuck. Thank god the ad was recently pulled.

A perfume priding itself as “The World’s First Spiritual Perfume," apparently takes the scents from the Bible and puts them in a bottle of the oh-so-holy “Virtue.� Because spending the $80 per bottle will make you a true Christian woman!

Additionally, Kentucky has finally opened their $27 million Creation Museum, in which the story of the Bible can apparently be defended by science. Check out Salon's tour of the museum, where they found one room dedicated to condemning abortion and homosexuality. (Aw, a whole room dedicated to us 'lil ole heathens? You shouldn’t have!)

So if you had to, which one would you spend your money on? I would normally say I'd be interested in going to the museum but the pictures in the Salon article scare me a little.

After we posted a link to the story about Alison Stokke, the high-school track athlete who has been unwillingly turned into an internet sex object, sharp-eyed reader Evan emailed with the observation that Stokke's father is the same guy who earlier this year defended a cop who jerked off on a stripper during a routine traffic stop. “She got what she wanted,� Al Stokke said, of the stripper. “She’s an overtly sexual person.�

The hits they keep on comin'. Stokke also defended a sheriff's son who was convicted of participating in a videotaped gang-rape. From the OC Weekly's account of the sentencing hearing:

The defense niceties vanished immediately. Defense lawyer Al Stokke, who replaced lead trial attorney Joseph G. Cavallo, questioned any link between the rape and the victim's claim of mental anguish. Stokke also mocked the girl's physical injuries, finally conceding she was unconscious but then trying to use that against her. "There's [no pain] that is felt," he said, "because she was unconscious."

Wow. To be perfectly clear, this is NOT to say that Alison Stokke has been in ANY WAY deserving of the harassment that has been heaped upon her for simply participating in a high-school track meet. But it's noteworthy that her father, who is understandably deeply concerned for his daughter's safety, has defended several men who have done things far more reprehensible than link to or post photos on the internet without permission.

Her father, Allan Stokke, comes home from his job as a lawyer and searches the Internet. He reads message boards and tries to pick out potential stalkers.

"We're keeping a watchful eye," Allan Stokke said. "We have to be smart and deal with it the best we can. It's not something that you can just make go away."

In other words, it's his daughter, and of course he's doing all he can to ensure she's safe now that her photo is plastered all over the internet in a sexual context. But he seemed to not only lack concern but to show outright disdain for the woman who was sexually assaulted by a traffic cop and for the girl who was gang-raped. From his previous comments, he seems to desire a world in which reprehensible treatment of women (sexual assault, harassment, rape) is a-OK. But maybe, just maybe, his views will change now that he is forced to consider the fact that his own flesh and blood -- his wife, his sister, his mother, his daughter -- could be a victim of that violence.

Sweet.

A number of Evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic groups are brawling with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson for praising the Supreme Court's Federal Abortion Ban. Some are even accusing Dobson and other anti-choice leaders of building a "pro-life industry" of misleading information and "relentless fundraising."

Dobson has been declaring the ban a victory while other anti-choice groups are saying it's more of a disappointment, claiming it serves merely as a "manual" of late-term abortions and condones them "as long as you follow its guidelines." A group even released a letter in a full-page ad to Dobson saying that he's giving inaccurate information to other anti-choicers and should be called out for it. In response, Focus on the Family's Vice President Tom Minnery commented that they celebrated the ban "because we, and most pro-lifers, are sophisticated enough to know we're not going to win a total victory all at once. We're going to win piece by piece."

Oh, so you're the sophisticated pro-lifers, huh? Where does that leave the rest of y'all? You're just going to let them call you classless like that? Fight! Fight! Fight!

Between the fact that a quarter of a billion dollars has been raised towards the ban and Dobson's perpetual shmoozing with SCOTUS judges makes it apparent that the "true" pro-life agenda may not necessarily be Dobson's priority anymore (or never was, for that matter). And it's not like this is anything new for right-wing politics, but the difference now is that the anti-choice masses are catching on; some say it could be the biggest split in the anti-choice movement in over a decade. And we like this.

It looks like men now can get take-home tests for their fertility; a new at-home screening test called Fertell is now on the market that allows men to measure the concentration of motile sperm.

While the test is being pitched as a reminder that not only can men contribute to infertility, but that women shouldn't have to do all the work, Dr. Isaacson from Harvard still predicts that women will be the ones initiating the purchase, “My guess is the female partner is the one who’s going to buy this and encourage the guy to use it.�

Because it's not like the guys care about getting pregnant or anything. (Not to mention our own obsession with sperm!)

Contributed by Anna Weichselbraun

As joyously reported in November, France had the chance to elect its first woman president this year. Ségolène Royal fought a long and hard uphill battle against her opponents as the Socialist Party’s candidate, starting with beating out Socialist heavyweights for the nomination.

But the majority of France rejected Royal’s bid for the presidency and the next five years don’t look so good for immigrants, women, students, and the rest of the non-wealthy. 53% of the French voted right wing authoritarian Nicolas Sarkozy of the UMP (Union for a Popular Movement), also known as the French Bush, into highest office. The new president is well-known for his short temper, “tough on crime� policies, and for pandering to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s extreme-right voters, among other lovely things:

Sarkozy, sworn in on May 16, achieved international notoriety as Minister of the Interior during the civil unrest in Fall 2005 for promising to clean out Paris’ troubled French-Arab suburbs of its “scum� with a power hose.

He has also stated, in a conversation with public intellectual and philosopher Michael Onfrey, that he believes pedophilia or suicidal tendencies to be genetic, also implying that homosexuality is genetic and, by association with the previous conditions, a mental disorder. He is against same-sex marriage.

Sarkozy’s campaign slogan, Travailler plus pour gagner plus (Work more to earn more) intended to make it easier to work overtime has been criticized by the feminist group Coordination des Groupes de Femmes Egalité. They argue that this proposition disregards the realities of women working part-time jobs at the minimum wage (8€/hour) for whom overtime is not the happy reward of a free market economy but a necessity of survival.

Another campaign promise which attracted the immediate ire of human rights organisations was his proposal to start a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity and was seen as a clear play to Le Pen’s voters.

France, which has one of the most generous pre-school child care programs in the world (state-funded programs accept children as young as two and there are also public programs for infants starting at three months), long maternity leaves, and a 35 hour work week, nevertheless boasts the greatest gender pay gap in Europe. Men are paid 20% more than their female equals at equal time. If you factor in that many more women work part-time, the pay gap mounts to 40%.

Think Progress talks about Carl Bernstein’s new book on Hillary Clinton, which reeks of sexist “commentary� on her intelligence (or lack thereof), femininity (or lack thereof), and yes, her fat ankles. There’s also a quote by Bill Clinton's nemesis Dick Morris who equates giving advice to Hillary with feeding a dog. Here are a few featured quotes:

“‘At first, she didn’t wear stockings. … Her hair was friend into an Orphan Annie perm. … There wasn’t one…feminine thing about her.’� (p. 130)

“Hillary’s weight was a regular topic of conversation, spurred by her inability to shed the few pounds that would have made her more attractive.� (p.130)

“Many colleagues of the Clintons had concluded that Hillary was not as intrinsically bright as her husband.� (p. 274)

“Her ankles were thick.� (p. 32)

Why people like this actually get book deals is beyond me.

I was away last weekend cavorting around the fabulous city of Milwaukee, so I've got two weeks' worth of links for you today....

Speaking of Milwaukee, a guy there robbed a bank, then hung around to harass one of the female tellers. Shockingly, she said no.

Women are leading the fight for indigenous people's rights.

Celebrating the Pill's 40th birthday.

How dudes with websites turn a high-school athlete into an unwilling internet sex object. I feel absolutely terrible for this girl: "She felt violated. It was like becoming the victim of a crime, Stokke said. Her body had been stolen and turned into a public commodity, critiqued in fan forums devoted to everything from hip-hop to Hollywood."

A fight is brewing over how much HIV/AIDS funding will be dedicated to pushing abstinence at the expense of real preventive measures.

How Monica Goodling tried to get off the hook by referring to herself as a "a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing," and other thoughts on the chick-factor.

California now allows conjugal visits for gay inmates.

UN Dispatch talks to a unit commander in Liberia's all-woman peacekeeping force.

How religion affects teen sexual behavior.

A chat with Seattle's queer feminist electro duo, Team Gina.

Further evidence of the huge toll the war has taken on Iraqi women.

The L.A. County Department of Health reports that women of color have higher rates of chronic disease than white women in the area.

Gay-rights activists are detained by police in Russia, after the cops refused to protect them from a rioting crowd.

A new report on the "celluloid ceiling" found U.S. female directors made only 7% of the 250 highest-grossing films in 2005.

Illegal abortions are putting poor women in Brazil at risk.

"Life within the woman" now trumps life of the actual woman.

The first Carnival for Radical Action.

A Q&A with performance artist Sarah Jones.

Exposing the millionaires who helped push Bush to fund abstinence-only education at such exorbitant levels.

Stern College, the women's college at Yeshiva University, won't provide birth control, condoms, or emergency contraception.

How to "use your breast power responsibly." Gross, right? Even worse, it's ABC News, not Cosmo.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius rejected a bill that would have opened abortion-related medical records to the public.

Sexual assault of female foreign corrspondents is all too common.

Louisiana House passes a bill banning D&X (or so-called "partial-birth") abortions.

In another blow to the abstinence-only-until-marriage crowd, the American Journal of Sociology publishes a new study showing sex is NOT harmful to older teens' mental health.

Erica Jong urges female fiction writers to not let their work be branded as "chick lit."

On the politics of "ghetto" and mainstreaming stereotypes.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announces plans to subsidize contraception.

Frances Kissling dares the church to excomminucate her.

Michelle Obama discusses mommy-tracking.

The New England Journal of Medicine weighs in on Gonzales v. Carhart. And the antis are getting ready to start harassing doctors who they suspect are continuing to perform D&X abortions.

Britain offers men up to six months of paid paternity leave, but new figures show that very, very few men have taken advantage of the policy.

Sexist hotel "sex kits"?

Horrors! Feminism has masculinized women, and now poor guys don't know how to assert their manliness. Somebody call Harvey Mansfield, stat! (Brought to you by Laura Sessions Stepp, of course.)

Tennessee rejected a bill that would have required ultrasounds for any woman requesting the abortion pill, RU-486. The legislation was redundant -- all doctors already must perform an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy before administering RU-486.

Teen girls' reported satisfaction with their own bodies decreased after only 10 minutes of watching music videos.

Why diversity training isn't enough.

Future abortion providers face a long road.

A New York City Council report says there are few barriers to EC access in the city.

Prepare to be courted during the '08 presidential campaign.

Contributed by Kate Harding.

NOTE: Here's Kate reporting from the second day of the SisterSong conference...

Wow. Dr. Joycelyn Elders is so fucking cool.

For the young'uns around here, in 1993, she became the first African-American and second woman U.S. Surgeon General. After she publicly (at a UN conference on AIDS) stated that masturbation "is a part of human sexuality" and "perhaps should be taught" (as, you know, a healthy alternative to the kinds of sex that transmit disease and cause pregnancy -- go figure) the wingnuts went so insane that Clinton asked for her resignation.

She's 74 years old now, and as she puts it, "I'm not agin', I'm sagin'." I don't even know where to begin covering everything she just said as today's keynote speaker.

How 'bout a few -- or several -- quotes of the day?

"We're sexual beings from the time we're born until we die, and we need to make sure we understand our sexuality and realize that sex is about more than procreation."

"If men went through menopause, we'd know everything about it, but we still don't even know if we should be taking hormones."

"I want every child that's born in the world to be planned and wanted."

"People tell me girls want to have babies so they can get a welfare check -- have you ever known anybody to get rich on a welfare check?"

"If you say children wouldn't know anything about masturbation on their own, you've never changed a little boy's diaper."

"If you can't control your reproduction, you can't control your life."

On why we should be focused on promoting contraception: "I never knew a woman who needed an abortion who wasn't already pregnant. Let's get real."

On people who say condoms aren't 100% reliable: "Condoms will break, but I can sure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms."

On politicians who promote abstinence-only education: "They are boycotting common sense."

And, finally: "It's like dancing with a bear. When you're dancing with a bear, you can't get tired and sit down. You have to wait for the bear to get tired."

She got a standing ovation, twice.

Kate Harding is a Chicago-based writer who blogs about feminism and fat acceptance at Shapely Prose and about books at The Bibliophilistines.

Avideh on right.

Avideh Moussavian has been the Director of Immigration Policy and Advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition, since late 2004. Prior to joining the Coalition, she practiced law in the private sector for four years, where she gained pro bono experience working with and representing asylum seekers.

Avideh said, "Immigrant rights work has been a wonderful way to combine my interests in law and social justice and working with an international community."

Here's Avideh...

Thanks to Gwen for taking a pic of this priceless graffiti in Chicago.

Well this is just lovely. A pharmacy in Montana, Snyder Drug, has come under new ownership and now has a new policy of denying women birth control. Allyson Hagen, the director of NARAL Pro-Choice Montana, reports...

The new owners have ties to the anti-choice community and now own two pharmacies in Great Falls. My organization is in the process of working with local activists in Great Falls to do more research into their policy and what they are telling consumers about birth control, what other drugs they dispense (Viagra anyone?), see what other pharmacies in Great Falls are refusing to fill birth control or EC prescriptions, and come up with an action plan.

NARAL Pro-Choice Montana believes pharmacies have an ethical obligation to honor valid, legal prescriptions and avoid jeopardizing their patients' health. In Montana's rural communities, there may only be one pharmacy in town. What if that one pharmacy was refusing to fill birth control prescriptions? Since when does a pharmacist have the right to decide whether or not to fill your prescription and interfere in the doctor-patient relationship?

Read Hagen's full post at Left in the West.

Given my undying love for Freaks and Geeks (and, by extension, Judd Apatow), I'm totally seeing Knocked Up this weekend. In her review for Slate, Dana Stevens answers a question that occurred to me after watching the preview: Do they discuss abortion?

Allow me to briefly divagate here on the nonexistence of abortion as an option in Knocked Up. This omission smells of the focus group, and it's a disappointment in a movie that otherwise prides itself on its unsentimental honesty about the realities of unplanned parenthood. It's just not believable that, in Alison and Ben's upper-middle-class, secular L.A. milieu, abortion would not be matter-of-factly discussed as a possibility in the case of a pregnancy this accidental. If she doesn't want one, great -- obviously, there'd be no movie if she did -- but let's hear about why not. Otherwise, her character becomes a cipher, a foil for Ben's epiphanies about growing up, without being allowed any epiphanies of her own. The biggest unanswered question about Heigl's character is one the movie never tiptoes near -- why does she decide to keep the baby?

Seems like a glaring omission to me. This is the key point in Stevens' excellent critique of Apatow's failure to write female characters who are quite as real as their male counterparts. I'll reserve judgment until I see the movie. But Knocked Up, however touching and entertaining it may be, certainly seems to fit with Hollywood's long history of professing pro-choice beliefs and then writing scripts in which women with minimum-wage jobs and no support system make last-minute decisions to not have an abortion, unplanned pregnancies end with deus ex machina miscarriages, and characters who do choose abortion are killed off in subsequent episodes. Most often, though, the A-word isn't even mentioned.

This is often an unwelcome surprise, but none of these fictional characters, unlike their real-world counterparts who might agonize over the choice to have a baby, will choose to end their pregnancies. In fact, we might as well be living in an era before Roe v. Wade as far as TV is concerned. Characters these days rarely even say the word abortion when confronted with an unplanned pregnancy -- let alone have one.

Premium-cable shows like Six Feet Under have done a slightly better job of portraying women struggling with and making a variety of choices about pregnancy. And it's worth noting that this year's Palme d'Or prize-winner at the Cannes Film Festival was a movie about illegal abortion in Romania. But I have a hard time thinking of many films or TV shows that have realistically portrayed women making choices about unplanned pregnancies -- and living with those choices. Nominations for best/worst portrayals of choice on-screen?

The wonderful women at California NOW protested yesterday in front D.A.'s office in San Jose, speaking out against the office's recent decision not to bring charges in a case where three women witnessed a young woman being gang raped.

Click on the image above to go to the video. Thanks to Mandy and Zoe for keeping us in the loop.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour says that she is appalled by the level of sexual and gender-based violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi.

Read the full post at UN Dispatch.