Recently in Technology Category

This is just so unbelievably disturbing. A new Japanese augmented reality (AR) software program features a "virtual girlfriend" that literally allows you to hit her with a paddle her until she cries.

All she seems to do is sweep the floor until you undress and paddle her until she cries herself into a fetal position, in which then you give her a teddy bear so she'll become happy again.

(Possible trigger warning)

This isn't a virtual girlfriend at all; this is a virtual torture victim.

h/t to reader Trish

In honor of Google's 10th birthday, they have made their oldest available archive from 2001 available once again. So go here, google yourself, and find out if you had an internet presence way back at the beginning of this century.

One fun prepost-debate exercise: google all four of the nominees on the two presidential tickets. Can you guess which one of the candidates had no internet presence in 2001?

Via DCist

This is too neat. Blogs can now embed books available on Google Books for readers to peruse. I hope Feministing can use this to highlight awesome feminists texts... So in honor of Samhita's recent post, check out Barbara Smith's great book, Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, after the jump. (And don't forget to support feminists by buying their books!)

It doesn't look much like a breast, but apparently this new application for the iPhone lets users simulate touching a boob. (If your boob was two-dimensional and malleable like a mofo.) You can also find the simulation here.

It never fails to amaze me how fascinating people find breasts - especially breasts that you can change the size, shape, and firmness of with the click of a mouse. Ick.

Thanks to Garret for the link.

I'll admit it, I get a little weepy before my period. Even snippy at times. But I'm pretty sure that the dudes in my life don't need an email alert to warn them of this. But PMS Buddy disagrees.

PMSBuddy.com is a free service created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter, or any other women in your life are closing in on "that time of the month" - when things can get intense for what may seem to be no reason at all.

For women, this is a great way to give people in your life a heads-up of when you might be feeling a bit irritable without having an awkward conversation.

Right, because sending an online notification about menstruation is much less awkward than just...not.

Via Shiny Shiny.

Variety has recently released their 2008 "Women's Impact Report," which profiles influential women in movies, television, music, business and technology. Apparently there are only a handful of influential women of color...ugh.

Being from this neck of the woods, I had to post on this hogwash. Apparently a Wyoming police officer shamed young women in a high school assembly by analyzing their MySpace profiles as "slutty" and fodder for inmates' masturbation sessions.

The officer, John F. Gay III of the Cheyenne Police Department, picked out six or seven Windsor High School students' MySpace page and began to criticize photos, comments and other content until one student left the room crying

"He told the entire student body that he had shared her info with a sexual predator in prison," said Ty Nordic, whose daughter Shaylah Nordic's MySpace page was put on display.

I imagine Officer Asshole thought he was utilizing one of those scared straight approaches. Instead he demonstrated what an insensitive and sexist person he really is. When the adult who is both in a position of authority and charged with "protecting" teenagers manages to blame them for their own vulnerability, sexually harass them, and, even more, elicit (or at least pretend to) sexual predators...well, it just seems like grounds for firing and a major re-education effort among fellow police officers.

Has anyone seen non-sexist interventions that educate teenagers about online safety? I imagine a lot of the current curriculum on this stuff tends towards the "blame the victim" mentality.

Thanks to Erin for the heads up.

Anything that's going near your delicates shouldn't have any razor-like abilities. Seems pretty logical to me. But don't tell that to the creators of the Womaniser, the sex toy that opens up to reveal it's a shaver. *Shudder*

If a vibrator is going to be a transformer, there has to be something better it can change into...any ideas?

Story and pic via Shiny Shiny

So this might be a little bit shameless, but hey it is for a good cause. I have submitted a panel to the annual interactive conference in Austin called South by South West. It is where creative tech people, bloggers and other web folk get together and share some of the brightest, newest and innovative ideas in technology and how to apply it to the work we do. I have gone before and it was great, but it was also clear that there needs to be more conversations about the way that women are treated online. So I put a panel together about best practices of beating down online misogyny and you can go vote for it so it is approved. It is pretty competitive so the more votes we get the better. Support women's voices! You know we should be there!

You can vote here!

/shameless promotion

Let's say it for Dell, all at one time now: Women + technology ≠ pink products.

The recent marketing push for the new colored Dell laptops is pretty unreal; I saw this new commercial yesterday and nearly spit out my cereal.

Lovely how literally the only woman in the commercial who doesn't have a pink laptop (red is close enough) puts on lipstick to match the color of her computer. I don't know about you, but my new Dell laptop is just the perfect substitute for a compact mirror!

h/t to Tracy.

I know we generally reserve our "fuck you"s for Fridays, but this one can't wait till the end of the week. (Especially since I'm already coming late to this one!)

From Mighty Ponygirl at Feminist Gamers:

A new game about to be released for the PSN called Fat Princess is a TF2-like capture-the-flag game where the point is to feed your princess enough cake so that she grows really fat so that the opposing team can't carry her back to their castle.

...Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry.

Oh, but that's not as "cute" as cake and fat chicks. Right.

Fuck you, "Fat Princess." And fuck you, Sony for putting out this garbage and perpetuating fat-hating. Seriously. Fuck. You. Sorry I can't be more articulate on this one, I'm just too pissed.

Holly and Melissa (who had a awful but oh-so-telling influx of trolls) has more.

via community blogger x364173.

I am sitting in the panel "Totally Wired Hip-hop: Reaching Urban Youth." Lynne D Johnson is moderating this panel that features MC Hammer, Adisa Banjoko from the Hip-Hop Chess Federation and Jesus Lara from MTV Latin America. I guess you are wondering why I am sitting at a panel on how to market to the hip-hop youth. Since my job is supporting strategic communications in disenfranchised communities, I am interested in how marketing is important in the hip-hop urban youth community.

Lynne asks "when we talk about hip-hop youth, we mean black and Latino youth, how is this relevant?" Panelists respond discussing how hip-hop is a lifestyle and culture along with a form of musical expression. Hip-hop is global and always mixing with other forms of music and reproducing new and unique sub-cultures.

I think it is very important to think about and strategize how to reach youth of color, but I have more questions about what kind of content we are pushing and what behaviors we are asking of youth. How is simply reaching youth effective or important if they are being hand fed content that is ignorant, racist, sexist or merely marketing product?

But this is not a call for increased censorship. I completely support the flow of diverse forms of content. As Lynne just said, "sometimes the only way to get your message across is by using profanity." I definitely do not fall in the camp of "turn off that profane rap music!" I think the bigger question is what does the messages in mainstream hip hop tell us about lived conditions about urban youth of color? What marketers don't care about is the images that sell the most are glamorized visions of "ghetto life" which is not that glamorous in real life.

MC Hammer smartly asks, "How do we change the conditions and environment that are producing these songs?"

My bigger question is what is the role of gender in marketing to youth via hip-hop? Why is sexist and homophobic music the most popular and what does tell us about current conditions for youth of color? And finally, how does feminism need to broaden to understand how to address the representation of women of color in mainstream hip-hop that is heavily marketed to youth?

Image by Drew Burrows

NYU student Drew Burrows showed off his new girlfriend at the Tisch School of the Arts show, in which she was the art, via the Daily Intel:

It's simple to behold — a single mattress, tucked into a dark, curtained back room of the showcase space. On it: a lithe brunette. She's perfectly quiet, but once you sit or lie down, she responds to your every move. Lie on your back, she snuggles up right next to you in a log position. Curl up in the fetal position, she spoons. The only hitch: She's 2-D. 'Yeah, you can't feel the girl. That's the thing,' Burrows explained as he demonstrated his invention, an "infrared sensitive" light projection (meaning it reacts, and the projected woman moves, based on an infrared sensor) called INBED. 'Still, it's so nice if you're tired and worn out to have someone to curl up with.' (Emphasis mine)

Shudder. And that's just the tip of the iceberg:

Burrows suggests his new alternative to a full-body pillow or (ugh) blow-up doll could provide late-night comfort for traders, lawyers, or any other single guy in Manhattan who simply works too hard to keep a girlfriend.

Just...wow. Some are defending this as a simple art project addressing intimacy and loneliness, but Burrows seems to have created this - and is blatantly pitching it - not as art, but seriously as an adequate substitution for a woman. Not okay.

Via Boing Boing. (h/t to reader Austin)

Can we please stop calling every attempt at analyzing pop culture "outrage"? Kthx, moving on.

Annalee Newitz's piece from the San Francisco Bay Guardian last week embarks on the task of justifying the violence and misogyny in Grand Theft Auto 4.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is lobbying to get the video game rated "adults only" (effectively killing it in the US market, where major console manufacturers won't support AO games) because there's one scene in the game where you have the option to drive drunk. Apparently none of the good ladies of MADD have ever played GTA, since if they had they might have discovered that when you try to drive drunk, the video game informs you that you should take a cab. If you do drive, the cops immediately chase you down. Which is exactly the sort of move you'd expect from this sly, fun game, which hit stores last week.

I actually stand at a different point than MADD and I don't necessarily support the censorship of the game, I don't really think censorship works. The more ratings and labels you put on something, the edgier and sexier it becomes. Censorship doesn't change the fact that violence and misogynist sex scenes make up the bulk of edgy popular culture or that violence is a serious problem for youth today and so is the sexualization of women, along with violence against women.

On some level, I do agree with proponents of GTA 4. Several of my friends have said, "but it is just fun." I don't deny that advances in video game technology are in fact mind-blowing and down right incredible and the they are fun. Hello, I am a blogger, I get the nerd new-cool-fun-fangled-technology thing.

What I can't get down with is justifying blatant misogyny by calling it art.

If GTA4 were a movie, it would have been directed by Martin Scorsese or David O. Russell, and we'd all be ooohing and aaahhing over its dark, ironic vision of immigrant life in a world at war with itself. But because GTA4 is a video game, where players are in the driver's seat, so to speak, it freaks people out. Earlier installments of GTA-inspired feminist and cultural-conservative outrage (you have the option to kill prostitutes!), and concern over moral turpitude from Hillary Clinton (you can beat cops to death! Or anybody!).

I think it is really problematic to lump all criticisms of GTA4 together. I believe at some point, I was written about along with a conservative writer (shudder to think) and that is not giving the full range of view points space to air their concerns. I am pretty sure if a movie had prostitute killing in it, I would write about it, but that is besides the point. GTA4 is not a movie, it is bigger than a movie. In fact, movies switched around their release dates for the release of GTA4. In the first week out it has grossed 500 million dollars. Furthermore, it is played, repeatedly and it is a role playing game, where you are the person engaging in violent acts. It is a fantasy, your fantasy. Perhaps there is a moment of identification like this with movies, but it is different then actually acting something out yourself.

Facebook is on a roll today. Reader Adrienne alerted us to an ad for a crisis pregnancy center on Facebook, so I decided to do a little more research on the site’s advertisements.

Sure, there’s a range from shoe brands to social justice organizations, but pretty offensive weight loss ads are more common. And then we find the ad for “A Woman’s Concern,� a center that, according to their website, provides a variety of services including “pregnancy testing, ultrasound testing, information on abortion procedures, mentoring…� You can guess what the "information" on abortion is.

Another ad I found was a pitch to recruit egg donors. Not to say that egg donation is necessarily a bad thing, but the egg business has become one of many ethical and political questions. The Center for Genetic and Society, Choice USA and the Pro-Choice Public Education Project have been conducting research on egg donation and reproductive justice, make sure to check it out.

These should serve as a reminder that we need to pay attention to what's being marketed to young women online. In the meantime, Facebook may not strictly moderate their ads, but you can; report an ad you think is offensive. And as a first step, let’s get deceptive CPC advertising off of Facebook.

(And join our Feministing group!)

Several readers wrote in to tell us about this horrific "piece of flair" that you can send to friends on Facebook through this application. Now, users can create their own buttons so I'm going to assume that the creators of this application didn't make this - a user did. But that's not excuse. Contact the developers of Facebook's "Pieces of Flair" and let them know that rape isn't funny.

UPDATE: The developers of this application have emailed us to let folks know that they've taken the button down and are committed to their program being free of offensive, violent buttons like the one above. Kudos to them.

Except totally not cool, because they decided to link to someone who thought that the best way to counter-act my argument about patriarchy and Grand Theft Auto, was to make fun of the fact that I think patriarchy exists. Huh?

The girls at Feministing weren't having it: "It is no question that GTA is merely reflective of the bigger misogyny embedded in capitalist patriarchy, but the question is why is a game that depicts such violence towards women so popular?" (Jesus Christ, if this is what degrees in gender studies hath wrought, polysyllabic bloggers still carping about the patriarchy, please fucking stop handing them out.)

I don't think polysyllabic is an insult. And yeah omg, patriarchy is SO ten years ago. . . except these stories (among the many many others posted on Feministing and around the feminist blogosphere, this was just a quick google search) are testament to this assertion being false.

But Reverse Cowgirl continues (and ya know some feminists like doing the reverse cowgirl too, you don't have to shed feminism to enjoy different sexual positions, but I digress and sorry mom) with a very common anti-feminist argument about political correctness being outdated.

This guy wants to feel your boobs.

So apparently at a software convention called ConFusion, a bunch of guys were standing around and talking about how awesome the world would be if they could just reach out and grab any woman's boobs. And a woman near them piped up that they could touch her breasts, and they all proceeded to grope her. Then, according to a post by some dude who calls himself the Ferrett, pictured above, they asked other women:

"It was exciting, of course. I won't deny it was sexual. But it was a miraculous sexuality that didn't feel dirty, but clean.

Emboldened, we started asking other people. And lo, in the rarified atmosphere of the con, few were offended and many agreed. And they also felt that strange charge. We went around the con, asking those who we thought might be amenable - you didn't just ask anyone, but rather the ones who'd dressed to impress - and generally, people responded. They understood how this worked instinctively, and it worked.

Did you catch that? "The ones who'd dressed to impress"? Almost as if they were "asking for it"? That because they were wearing a tight shirt, their breasts were practically public property, anyway?

By the end of the evening, women were coming up to us. "My breasts," they asked shyly, having heard about the project. "Are they... are they good enough to be touched?" And lo, we showed them how beautiful their bodies were without turning it into something tawdry."

Because what could be more intoxicating than the approval of a room full of tech dudes?

We talked about this. It was an Open-Source Project, making breasts available to select folks. (Like any good project, you need access control, because there are loutish men and women who just Don't Get It.) And we wanted a signal to let people know that they were okay with being asked politely, so we turned it into a project: The Open-Source Boob Project.

For those of you not technologically inclined, "open-source" software means the code is available for anyone to use. All-access. Everyone has a right to it. Just like women's bodies! (Get it? They're so clever!)

Oh, but it doesn't stop there...

Miki Fujiwara, aka Urban Envy, is a self-employed visual artist/community activist based in New York City.

Born in Hiroshima, Japan, Miki is known to be one of the original members of the New York Tributary Art Movement. The majority of her work, mostly paintings, has been categorized as "Cultural Surrealism," often said to be in the "tradition of Cynthia Tom and Frida Kahlo."

Urban Envy's works can be seen in local galleries of New York City.

Here's Miki...

The New York Times had an article yesterday about the rise of teen girl bloggers, which is great news. But it doesn't come without some predictable stereotyping.

According to a study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, only 20 percent of boys blog, compared to 35 percent of girls aged 12 to 17. Plus that doubled increase in blogging activity from 2004 to 2006 by teens was mostly attributed to female bloggers. Awesome, right?

Yet the article focuses on the lack of girls and women interested in computer science and technology, and seems to argue that girls' interest in blogging is purely to express their own "girly" selves, and that they probably won't contribute much of an increase to the current 27 percent of women in computer and mathematical occupations:

It is possible that the girls who produce glitters today will develop an interest in the rigorous science behind computing, but some scholars are reluctant to draw that conclusion.

'Girls are trained to make stories about themselves,' said Pat Gill, the interim director for the Institute for Communications Research and an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

From a young age they learn that they are objects, Professor Gill said, so they learn how to describe themselves. Historically, girls and women have been expected to be social, communal and skilled in decorative arts.

'This would be called the feminization of the Internet,' she said. (Emphasis mine)

And so this build-up continues with the cattiness between blogs by teen girls (equating hotlinking with showing up at a party with the same dress on), that their content includes mother's day cooking recipes and even refers to those who make money as "would-be Martha Stewarts." Of course they happen to leave out that the same site is currently featuring a post on sexual harassment.

Am I saying there's something wrong with the trend of glitter graphics or a primarily pink website for girls? Absolutely not. But saying girls are dominant in blogging because of "cultural expectations" and assuming that the only reason girls like blogs is because they're naturally more "creative" and want to express their feelings seems to moot the amazing fact that not only are teen girls possibly becoming more blog-savvy than boys, but also that they're creating far-reaching online communities. In other words, why should the "why" matter?

Either way, it's awesome to see female teen bloggers kicking ass. Link to your own in comments!

According to a recent survey, the wage gap between men and women in the tech industry is growing.

Men are making more money than women in technology jobs, about 12% more than they did last year, according to a salary survey by career site Dice.com.

The survey found that salaries for men increased by 2.4% in 2007 but stayed flat for women. The average salary last year for men was $76,582, and for women, it was $67,507, according to Dice. The gap widened last year: In 2006, the difference between salaries paid to men and women was 9.7%.

The gap was highest for workers in retail, mail order and e-commerce industries - where men make 15 percent more than women. Yikes.

Anyone in the tech industry want to weigh in?

Tiara included!

We should be excited that there's a new book coming out specifically reaching out to young female gamers, but not with this cover and pitch:

Do you want to take on the boy's at their own game and beat them every single time? You want to prove that games AREN'T just for the guys anymore! Are you, your daughter, your niece or your best friend a Nintendo DS or DS Lite girl gamer? Tired of other gaming publications ignoring all your favourite games in favour of the latest big boy's toys? So you want all the latest gaming gossip and the hottest hints and tips especially written for you? So do we, and its about time. The Girl's Guide To Gaming! is the must have accessory for all Nintendo DS and DS Lite gaming girls, just like you. (Emphasis mine.)

It doesn't get much worse than this.

While it's no big shocker to most of us that women feel patronized by pink gadgets marketed to them, this is the ultimate blood-boiling "girly" gadget I may have ever witnessed.

Marie Claire's October issue asked PopGadget's founder to create the most "dream" cell phone for women -- yes, the shePhone. (Look below the jump.) So according to this Phone of Fabulousness, women are drug and sex-addicted, neurotic (yet tanned, fragranced and flossed) alcoholics. Regardless of whether this is supposed to be humorous or not, it's not.

Via The Underwire.

The New York Times reports that NARAL Pro-Choice America has been banned from using their text-messaging program to communicate to their activists because their messages are "controversial or unsavory."

Text messaging has been increasingly used by political organizations and groups as a means of sending alerts or information to their members, yet Verizon has chosen to discriminate against the organization for sending messages such as "End Bush’s global gag rule against birth control for world’s poorest women! Call Congress. (202) 224-3121. Thnx! Naral Text4Choice.� How unsavory.

Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson says they're (of course) "neutral" on the issue of abortion and their decision wasn't because NARAL is pro-choice, but claims “It is the topic itself that has been on our list.�

So I have a request to all of you with Verizon cell phones: text all of your friends with Verizon cell phones, "Abortion should be legal and uncensored." Then have them forward it on and cancel their account.

Huffington Post has more.

Full disclosure: Jessica has a working relationship with NARAL.

So I am on my way to Cortes Island, off the coast of British Columbia for the annual Web of Change conference to talk about technology, politics, and social movement building. But really I am going because I hear there is a hot tub on the beach.

I will be presenting on how to build and maintain integrity and political credibility in developing technology projects. What this means exactly, I am going to have to get back to you (LOL), but if people have initial thoughts, please let me know.

So anywayz, wish me luck and expect some live blogging!

How sexism keeps women from participating in the YouTube vlogger culture.

Via Slashdot, I read an article today in Computer World summarizing the experience of four women and how the thrived in IT. It was definitely interesting, but I have some issues with the framing of the issues.

The first profile about Monique McKeon who eventually worked for the Chubb Corp ( a woman friendly place apparently where she is happy) experienced in her early career in IT a struggle between her home life and having a flourishing career.

At the consultancy, her travel schedule kept her out of town more than she was comfortable with. Then, when her first child was born, the bottom fell out. “I heard through the grapevine that one of the partners said I wasn’t as committed as before I had children,� she says. “That was the day I started looking for a job.

Please don't tell me the work place doesn't discriminate against working mothers. If a male employee showed affection or interest towards one of their children, would they be called out for a lack of commitment to the job?

At the end of every profile there is a little bit of advice:

You can balance an IT career with your home life, but it means making choices that are true to your priorities and understanding the trade-offs. “Having it all� is a fantasy.

That's right ladies, get used to it. You will not have the same choices, so be happy with the ones you have. I am sure the author of this piece did not intend for this article to denigrate the success of these women in anyway, but actually wanted to highlight some of the experiences of women in IT. However, it is clear that thriving doesn't mean actually beating boys at their own game. It means learning how to balance home and career, which is not something that men have to do.

It appears, at least to me, thriving means making strategic choices that may not always be the most career savvy, but allows you relative peace and minimized discrimination. I guess in order to thrive you have to forget that you want to get to the top and "refocus" your energy to where a woman's energy ought to be, on her family! I mean imagine you were a woman that didn't care about having kids and just wanted to make it to the top? What are you then?

There is a lot more to the article I am not getting into here, but really grim aspect for me is the significant decrease in the number of women that are going to college for computer science. I guess in light of Cara's excellent analysis of sexism in tech culture, why am I NOT surprised?

Coping strategies to make it in any workplace are great, but let's not cover up the deeper issues here.

A case is hitting the California Supreme Court about whether doctors can refuse to provide IVF or other fertility treatments for single women or lesbians for religious reasons.

Guadalupe Benitez filed a lawsuit against San Diego two doctors who refused to artificially inseminate her because, she alleges, she is a lesbian. Those doctors worked at the only facility covered by her insurance plan. So it wasn't like she could easily find another clinic after their refusal.

The doctors are now claiming they did not deny services based on Benitez's sexual orientation (which is illegal in California and several other states), but because she's not married. (Never mind that she lives with her partner of 11 years.) As if it's somehow better to discriminate on the basis of marital status than on the basis of sexual orientation? Yes, sadly, in most states, marital status is an acceptable reason for denying people medical services. Seriously. Ugh.

The court is being asked to decide how to accommodate a physician's religious views without violating California's anti-discrimination laws. [...]

What distinguishes the case of Guadalupe Benitez is that the physicians involved refused to provide a medical procedure to one patient that they readily provide to others, says Jill Morrison, legal counsel to the National Women's Law Center, an advocacy group that works to protect women's rights in the workplace, schools, sports, and health care. "Usually, providers who object to certain services object to them for everyone: 'I won't provide contraception.' In this case, they don't object to the service, just the patient. You can't pick and choose. You can't say, 'I will perform it for white people, but not for black people.' "

I disagree somewhat. I know Morrison wasn't saying that refusing to provide contraception is ok, but that's sort of the implication. (Which is unfortunate, because the NWLC does a lot of good work around pharmacy access issues.) Of course, we can all agree it's bad to provide a service to one group of people that you refuse to provide to another group of people. But pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraception to women, then happily ring up condoms for men, are doing the same thing. Providing services to one group but not another. If that fairy-tale day ever arrives when they start selling hormonal contraception for men, I'd be shocked if there was the same level of pharmacist resistance to dispensing it.

Mother Jones has a more in-depth look at the Benitez case, and the larger issues it brings up. It asks, "Should there be a right to reproductive assistance?" And, following from that, "Should infertility be viewed as a medical problem?"

Says University of Wisconsin Law School bioethicist Alta Charo, “For many years infertility was not regarded as something sufficiently serious that it necessitated care. Treatment was discretionary, not necessary.� RESOLVE and other infertility rights groups have worked hard to change this, as have [Assisted Reproductive Technology] clinics. Yet defining ART as a medical treatment is a bit forced, because “if you use the classic situation of a fertile woman with an infertile male spouse, she never had a fertility problem to begin with,� notes Charo. A more logical line of reasoning might be to view her as having a social, not a medical, dilemma. She does not want to have sex outside her marriage -- that’s why she can’t get pregnant. Should society step in to help her? Should this be covered by insurance?

To get around this dilemma, those in favor of greater access to ART like to position infertility as a disease of a couple -- a rather unconventional diagnosis. But even if “an infertile couple� gets under the umbrella of medicine, there’s no guarantee of particular services. “You have to start with the fact that in the United States of America, in terms of health care, with certain limited exceptions, you have a right to nothing,� says [Northeastern University legal scholar Wendy] Parmet. “If I want a hip replacement and I don’t have the money� -- be it through insurance or otherwise -- “I don’t get a hip replacement.� And, except for “certain no-no reasons,� Parmet notes, all doctors, including fertility clinicians, are free to choose whom they want to treat. “Anybody can deny me care because my name is Wendy, but they can’t deny me care because of my religion or my race.�

In some states, like California, where Benitez was seeking care, doctors also cannot turn patients away due to sexual orientation, even if the doctor’s objection stems from her own religious beliefs.

But that's the issue that the California Supreme Court will be examining shortly. The excuse that providing treatment violates the doctor's religious beliefs is one that's not only used against gay men and lesbians, but also single women. I love this quote from Benitez, which puts the whole religion angle into perspective,

"People ask me, 'Why are you doing this? You have your kids,' " she says. "I want to make a difference. These doctors are not God. They cannot manipulate who can have children and who cannot."

Amen to that.

The New York Times has a piece today about how a number of typically male-played video games are now featuring options which allow them to "dress" their characters. And the boys are absolutely loving it.

Of course, this has to be cloaked in what some would call hypermasculine games like World Wrestling Entertainment and even the oh-so-controversial Grand Theft Auto. But nonetheless, it's nice to see men being portrayed in the media as fashion-conscious for a change.

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.

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.

This week the FDA approved Lybrel, contraception designed so you don't get a monthly period. Some of the reactions to the pill have been really revealing as to just how little many women know about how hormonal contraception works. As Ema writes, "Imagine the women's surprise when they find out (hopefully) that, since the 1960s, every single Pill brand allows them to avoid their monthly menstrual period indefinitely." She also links to this gem from ABC News:

It's unclear whether women will embrace this new pill, which contains the same formulations of estrogen and progestin used for birth control pills for decades, but its arrival marks yet another step toward the blurring of the genders.

Panic in the streets! How will women know they're women if they don't have to ride the cotton pony once a month? You've got to be kidding me.

And speaking of condescension, (via Ann Bartow) in a post that should be titled, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Eugene," Eugene Volokh seeks to understand the mysteries of biological womanhood by requesting "input from people who have actually menstruated":

When you menstruate, do you feel that you're part of the "in crowd"? If you chose to stop -- not because of menopause, which is a marker of age and of lost fertility, but voluntarily and reversibly -- would you feel "out"? Do you smile and talk to your friends about the cramps, the mood swings, and the like? Do you feel you derive meaning from the fact that you share menstruation as an experience with other women? Would you feel meaning subtracted if you stopped menstruating, because menstruation is so "central" a "female experience"? Do you find menstruation to be similar to pregnancy in any emotionally positive way?

CNN's Reliable Sources featured Arianna Huffington, Joan Walsh of Salon and Mary Katherine Ham from Townhall talking about online misogyny. Ham was predictabley wack, but it's worth a watch anyway.

Crooks and Liars has the video.

Check out my latest in The Guardian, "How the web became a sexists' paradise," which talks about the Sierra craziness, misogyny online, and my own experiences. Lemme know what you think.

Salon’s Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh discusses the Kathy Sierra madness. Here’s a snippet:

"Attitudes toward women have improved dramatically just in my lifetime, but still the world has too many misogynists, and the Web has given them a microphone that lets them turn up the volume on their quavering selves, their self-righteous fury, their self-loathing expressed as hatred of women. And yet, mostly, women on the Web just have to ignore it. If you show it bothers you, you've given them pleasure...

But it coarsens you to look away, and to tell others to do the same. I've grown a thicker skin. I didn't want skin this thick. And what does it mean that women writers have to drag around this anchor every time they start to write -- that we reflexively compose our own hate mail, and sometimes type and retype to try to avoid it? I can honestly say it's probably made me more precise and less glib. That's good. But it's also, for now, made me too cautious. I write less than I would if I wasn't thinking these thoughts. I think that's bad. I think Web misogyny puts women writers at a disadvantage, and as someone who's worked for women's advancement in the workplace, and the world, that saddens me."

This particularly reminded me of the conversation we had yesterday at the WAM! conference about this assumption that women threatened on the internet should be thick-skinned and just deal with the trolls that come our way rather than talk about the seriousness of the issue, that violence can actually exist on the internet.

I've been looking forward to this panel all weekend, maybe because Samhita is on it, as well as Deanna and the lovely Jennifer Pozner, director of Women in Media and News (WIMN).

Jenn discusses the efficacy of blogging in breaking stories, Deanna makes sure to tell us that women need to start editing sites such as Wikipedia in order to create more of a presence on the web, and Samhita questions the stakes that feminist bloggers take when they begin their journey into the blogosphere.

They also discuss the "new boys' club" that has seemed to have transferred from mainstream journalism to political blogs, the ways that power and inequality replicate themselves in this way, and how can we, as feminist bloggers, approach this problem. (One way -- for women in tech, at least -- is BRA Camp. Sweet.)

Also, what is a women's blog as opposed to a feminist blog? What are the problems that feminist bloggers have as opposed to bloggers that are women, like the severity of sexist trolling for feminist blogs as opposed to blogs written by women, etc. At the same time, if you're a woman blogging about a typically male field, like in Kathy Sierra's recent case, shit often goes down just as badly, to the point where you're life is actually threatened.

Intense stuff, but certainly a productive conversation. Intense weekend, but certainly a great one. Time for an excruciatingly long, hungover ride home.

The panel is actually titled New Media Distribution 202: Empowering Communities Through Online Tools led by the fabulous Deanna Zandt, and girlfriend knows her shit. (Which is exactly why she's working with us.)

Here is a del.icio.us (indeed) resource list of some of the tools she went over.

I've been charged with helping Feministing evolve into the wonderful world of Web 2.0, and you might notice a few changes that we are just pleased as punch to share with you all.

First, there's a set of links at the end of each post now where you -- yes, you! -- can save your favorite Feministing items and help spread the word to the rest of the world. Second, there's a link to a service called "Spotlight" where you can send posts right to local and national media outlets.

What? Why? How? OK, here's a little primer...