September 2004 Archives

It looks like the League of Women Voters have created a randy new program that has a great potential to mobilize young people to vote -- when they turn 18, that is! The News Review reports.

The League of Women Voters of Oregon are seeking high schools and middle schools across the country to participate in a mock election that will take place next month. More than 10 million students took part in the mock elections during the last two presidential years. The purpose of the program is to get youngsters interested in politics and the electoral process, as well as motivate them to get out there and vote when they turn eighteen.

I think this is a fantastic idea that can really inspire young voters and future voters. So if any of y’all are teachers (or students) and wish to participate in the nation's largest voter education project, click here to get more information about getting your school involved!

There was a great article on Women’s eNews yesterday about voters in Berkeley, California that are considering the possibility of decriminalizing prostitution, which would greatly increase social services to the prostitutes in the city. Many people, however, consider it even more of a risk and claim that the measure would only give more business to pimps.

Robyn Few -- a former prostitute and founder of the Sex Workers Outreach Project -- is one of many who are reaching out to voters to think about this measure, which would essentially put prostitution at the bottom of the police department’s list of priorities of city crime. With this in effect, violence and rape against prostitutes would decrease, health care would increase, and it would enable prostitutes to get off the streets and stimulate statewide reform. "We want to show the state that Berkeley believes that prostitution should be decriminalized to save the lives of women and to end discrimination against women." states Few. Berkeley would be the first city in the country to decriminalize the profession.

How would all of this reform take place? If prostitution is decriminalized, the city would be required to direct a good amount of the $ 1 million it spends annually on enforcement of prostitution towards social services for prostitutes. The city council would also lobby new state leaders that oppose current prostitution laws.

Many are arguing against this possible measure, including the city’s police department. They claim that pimps will become businessmen and prostitution will only spread. They also complain that under decriminalization, even more valuable street time will wasted on complaints of discarded condoms and open sex acts. Wasted time? This is their job, is it not? And we wonder why prostitutes never go to the police when they’re raped or abused...

What we should think about is the 2,000 prostitutes that are murdered every year. Murder is the number one cause of death among street-walkers. Decriminalizing prostitution would be giving prostitutes some power over their lives, like the power and freedom to go to a health care clinic that will test them for HIV, or to the police if they are raped and/or beaten. The lives of these women should be priority, no?

Everyone’s always screaming about young Americans' political apathy and our inability to make it to the polls. But what about election officials—instead of supporting youth participation—try and make it more difficult for us to vote?

The NY Times reported in an op-ed yesterday about the recent trend of discouraging student voters from registering in their college’s state—even though the Supreme Court says they have the right to:

In Texas this year, a county district attorney threatened to prosecute students from Prairie View A&M University if they tried to register. The students had to file a lawsuit before he withdrew the threat and apologized. A student at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., was told that he was not a "permanent resident" and had to vote from his parents' home in another state.

The Feminist Daily News Wire also reported recently that after a group of feminist activists at University of Arizona organized a registration drive on campus, they were warned by a Fox News reporter that they were committing a felony by registering out-of-state students. The Tucson Fox affiliate later carried a report with the same inaccuracy.

In addition, the NY Times op-ed also points out that election officials also are generally averse to putting polling places on campus and have very few registration drive resources—steps integral to making student voting easier.

This strikes me as more than a little hypocritical: young people are disparaged for not voting, but those in charge are actively trying to make it harder for us to do so! Craziness.

Some random food for thought: Why is it when talking about the “youth vote,” everyone concentrates on college students? A lot of young folks don’t go to college, it’s a privilege not everyone can afford—where’s the discussion of those voters? Just wondering…

According to a new book, young women want nothing to do with feminism or politics. Here we go again…

“The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy—Women, Politics and the Future,” says that young women today don’t want to be labeled by their political beliefs, especially by being called a feminist.

A Seattle Times review of the book says, “It's a tough pill for some of us to swallow, but ‘feminist’ is a near-insult to many young women today.”

For fuck’s sake—what is so crazy about calling yourself a feminist?! I know the debate over young women shying away from the f-word has been done a million times over, but it never fails to baffle me.

Author of “The F-Word,” Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, seems to posit that it’s not anti-feminist views driving women away from “feminist,” but rather a disdain for being labeled at all—by “political party, sexual preference, ethnicity, religion, race or physical ability.” And that includes feminism.

Maybe so. But I still think that it’s the stereotypical notion of feminists that is scaring young women off. It pains me to say this, but it seems that so many young women are afraid of making waves, or of not being considered attractive to men that it’s keeping them from speaking out about their political beliefs. How many times do I have to hear, “I’m not a feminist, but…” followed by some insanely intelligent feminist perspective!

Ladies, I love you all—but what the fuck?! Why is “feminist” so off-putting? Please, someone tell me…

In a not-so-shocking move, the Justice Department said yesterday that it will appeal the Nebraska ruling which struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf declared the ban unconstitutional earlier his month, following similar rulings by federal courts in New York and San Francisco.

As predicted by NARAL interim President Elizabeth Cavendish, these rulings striking down the bogus act have become “just a speed bump on the fast track to eliminating women’s right to choose entirely.”

These were a big hit at our fundraiser this summer, so we've decided to make them available online. We apologize for the poor quality of the pic; our scanner is a little outdated!

To buy our Feministing magnets, just click on the image...

A new survey released today by Women’s Voices, Women Vote (WVWV), a non-partisan project, says that Bush and Kerry are not discussing issues that resonate with unmarried women--like health care and equal pay. And guess what: despite what the media has been feeding us lately, 40& of unmarried women want to hear less about terrorism.

Almost two-thirds of the women polled (61 percent) want to hear more about affordable healthcare, and nearly three-quarters want to hear candidates talk more about equal pay between men and women (73 percent), and about a higher minimum wage (75 percent). Two out of three women polled also want to hear more from presidential candidates about retirement security (64 percent) and more educational opportunities (63 percent).

Page Gardner, co-director of WVWV says, "The security issues these women want to hear about are economic security, health care security and retirement security. The candidates are missing an important opportunity to engage and mobilize this huge cohort of 22 million non-voting women who overwhelmingly say they are certain to vote this year. Unmarried women are a most important voting bloc and candidates cannot afford to ignore them."

Word. Let’s hope they listen.

If you're a decent artist and looking to get active, you should check out the National Organization of Women's 2005 Love Your Body Campaign. It's a poster design contest with the intent of responding to society's negative body images that effect women's and girl's esteem and health. They are looking for the following in their art-eest:

"Winning images will provide a visual response to advertisers who attempt to link smoking, drinking, and dieting to women’s liberation; fashion magazines who imply that anorexia is the path to beauty; and marketers who tell us that more expensive cosmetics will improve a woman's sense of self worth."

The grand prize winner recieves $600, and a her/his poster with be part of a national campaign that challenges the industries that prey on women's insecurities with their bodies. Sounds dandy to me! (Now, if only I could draw...)

Wal-Mart's latest attempt to appear woman-friendly in the face of their class action sex discrimination suit is just sad.

For two days Wal-Mart stores will host their Speaking of Women's Health Community Event, which is "designed to inform and educate women about living well."

Cause who knows better about women's health than those that hold business meetings at Hooters?

The best part: the main information about women's health that will be available at their event is The Book: Recipes for Living Well, "a book packed full of tips and recipes on healthy living and eating."

Yeah, bitches--get cooking! Apparently equal pay won't make you healthy, but getting your ass to the kitchen will.

I had both a relieved and angry reaction to the article in yesterday's Times, Men, Women More Different Than Thought. Turns out the medical profession is finally acknowledging that there is more to "women's health" than what goes on in our uteri. As the article says, there is a "quiet but revolutionary change infiltrating U.S. medicine as a growing number of scientists realize there's more to women's health than just the anatomy that makes them female, and that the same diseases often affect men and women in different ways."

HELLOOOOO? What year is it? I'm glad this transformation is finally happening (because for years women have been misdiagnosed and mistreated for lack of female-specific research on disease), but I can't help but feel angry that it took them until 2004 to do this. Think of how many women have suffered as a result!

I'm super thankful for women's involvement in the medical profession. Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association,
"became the journal's first female editor in 1999, [and] says she has made it a mission to publish only research in which data are broken down by sex unless it involves a disease that affects just men or women."

YEE HAW! Final-fucking-ly!

For more information on women's health (NOT JUST REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH!) see our Health issue page.

From Nerve.com:

The Porn For Kerry DVD claims to be the "hottest political porn ever shot!" The summaries on the website are priceless: "Scene 1: After a particularly heated TV debate, blonde bombshell conservative Ann Cunter and quirky comedian Al Frankenbeans blow off some steam in the dressing room ... Scene 3: Jorge Bush thought his hot tub business meeting with King Fahk of Sexy Alabia would be, well, all business. But his highness always knows how to entertain guests with his personal squad of sex minions!"

Plus, all proceeds go to the Kerry campaign.

Any thoughts? Strategic humor, or tasteless activism run amok?

Yikes! The Bush administration announced a new plan last week that would offer federal employees a Catholic health plan that deliberately excludes coverage for birth control, abortion, sterilization and artificial insemination.

This “faith-based” insurance plan, while touted as a way to “empower” employees to have greater control over their medical care, is just another way the Bush administration is attempting to blur the line between Church and State.

…some critics expressed concern that this trend in health care might grow into a wider phenomenon. Is this "explicit denial" the first step in "denying federal employees a normal benefit that has been traditional for 30 years?" asked Philip R. Lee, a professor of social medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a former assistant secretary for health in the Clinton administration. "Is this simply the opening wedge?"

Of course it is! And that’s exactly what Bush wants; he isn’t offering this plan because he wants Americans to have more insurance options, he’s putting it in place as part of his larger agenda to limit our options concerning reproductive health. What could be more obvious?

Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) told the NY Times: “Medical care is a science. Getting medical care and religion mixed together is just as bad as getting church and state mixed together.”

I would say it’s not just as bad—it’s the same thing.

Feministing was on Air America!

I got the chance to go on Janeane Garofalo's show The Majority Report on Friday night...super exciting. If you didn't get the chance to listen, you can hear the archived show here. You have to create a user name and password to listen, but it takes but a second...

Feministing's segment is about 1:34 into the show.

Bus drivers in Swaziland have said that they will rape any female passenger wearing a miniskirt. No, I'm not shitting you.

Check this out:

They have banned women from wearing revealing clothes on buses after three men were arrested for allegedly gang-raping an 18-year-old schoolgirl at a bus station in the town of Manzini.

When about 1,000 women demonstrated against the attack, drivers and conductors threatened to do the same again. One conductor said: "Women who wear miniskirts want to be raped, and we will give them what they want."

Ah, yes. Didn't you know that the universal "fuck me" fashion was wearing a miniskirt? Completely appalling.

A new ballot measure in California calls for the state to spend almost $3 billion dollars in stem cell research over the next ten years—particularly the kind of research that cannot receive federal funding because of Bush’s current policy. Go California; you guys aren’t screwing around! This kind of cash is pretty much what is being spent now by the federal government on embryonic stem cell research.

According to the NY Times, the ballot measure—Proposition 71—“would expand embryonic stem cell research far beyond the 20 or so cell lines that can be studied with federal support under the Bush policy, thus allowing the fuller range of research that most scientists deem important.”

What’s even better news is that Proposition 71 is likely to pass in November. A survey by the LA Times showed that after reading the proposal, the majority of voters supported the measure; 54 percent of voters in CA said they were inclined to vote for it.

The NY Times asks an interesting question, however: whether the nice folks in CA want to pay for advances in science that will benefit not just their state, but the whole of the country. That’s a mighty big burden to take on—one they wouldn’t have to shoulder alone if Bush would start supporting science that could save lives instead of pushing regressive policies. Just another reason to vote…

Courtesy of CommonDreams.org, some of my fave headlines in case you are looking for some good Sunday reads...

Mark Morford's What's Wrong With John Kerry: Is it the Hair? The Lack of Charisma? Or do we just wish he was more Angry and Ruthless?

Katha Pollitt's Fox Hunts Student Voters

Stephen Zunes' Bush’s UN Speech: Idealistic Rhetoric Hides Sinister Policies

Jonathan Freedland's Still No Votes in Leipzig: US Policy Now Affects Every Citizen on the Planet. So We Should All Have a Say in Who Gets to the White House?

The AP has a VERY FRIGHTENING article about the evangelical Christian get-out-the-vote movement. These people want Bush back in office, and they want it bad. Don't believe me? Check out this quote from Thomson, an active member of the Christian Coalition.

"Never allow the enemy to block you. Get around them, run over the top of them, destroy them -- whatever you need to do so that God's word is the word that is being practiced in Congress, town halls and state legislatures.''

Wow. And aren't those the same people we just gave access to assault weapons?

One of the legislative lobbyists for the Christian Coalition explained: "If you asked people in this group their top priority, the first thing they would say is changing the U.S. Supreme Court. These people want Roe v. Wade overturned and that authority returned to the states."

The Christian Coalition has created voter guides which outline politicians' views on a Constitutional marriage amendment to ban gay marriage and abortion. In the 2000 election they distributed 70 MILLION voter guides--they plan to increase circulation this year. Scary, huh?

If you haven't yet, PLEASE register to vote. Thirty-two states have voter registration deadlines between October 2 - 8. The Right is ridiculously mobilized, so we have to FIGHT BACK! If they are going to do everything they can "so that God's word is the word that is being practiced in Congress, town halls and state legislatures'' then I'm going to do everything I can to preserve and promote a feminist-friendly/queer-friendly/person-friendly progressive agenda!

Anyone have any recommendations on progressive voter guides?

I am absolutely obsessed with a new selection of ecards I've found, thanks to BUST.com. When a birthday or holiday comes up, or even when you just feel like you've been a shitty friend, ecards can be a perfect and convenient way of reaching out to loved ones in the midst of our crazy lives. And I don't know about you, but I feel like most ecard sites out there, well, suck. BUST cards are a damn good choice to use.

For example, one of my favorites to send to a friend simply says, "You're the Breast!" I'll let you check out the pic yourselves! They also have a choice of music you can put with your card, examples being "I'm Too Sexy", "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Into The Groove". I love it!

For anyone inclined to think that the play-nice, feel-good pretensions of the GOP is a harbinger of a new moderation, check out Dr. Tom Coburn, Republican Senate candidate from Oklahoma.

In 1990, Dr. Coburn saved Angela Plummer’s life, removing a fallopian tube in response to ectopic pregnancy. However, she was "stunned" to learn that he also removed her other fallopian tube. Dr. Coburn claims she gave him oral consent for the procedure. Ms. Plummer has publicly disagreed:

"Dr. Tom Coburn sterilized me without my consent -- verbal or written -- and I know he's stating that he got oral consent. That is not true… I'm not up here to smear him. I'm up here because I wanted to have more children, and he took that away from me."

Is oral consent enough for decisions like this? Given the stress and duress Plummer was under in this situation, what kind of judgment skills does this guy have? More profoundly, what entitles someone to be so flippant about the reproductive rights of a woman?

While Coburn’s campaign has dismissed this story as a smear campaign, it is important to view this as the flip-side of a broader debate about the ability of women to control their own bodies. Coburn and other Republicans have rhetorically grounded their anti-choice politics in the language of “compassion” and “protecting life.” And yet on the flip-side he has shown little respect for his patient.

In a radio interview this week, Dr. Coburn was asked to clarify whether this was an isolated incident, to which he replied: "I've done this lots to women who have come in with emergency things who have asked me to sterilize them, under-age. When they've already had three babies." What the hell?

Oh yeah, and then there is that whole problem of America’s legacy of FORCED STERILIZATION, particularly of women of color, but I’m sure that clearly has nothing to do with this story…

What this case reminds us is that while the Republican party can talk a good game about being “pro-life” and promoting a “culture of life”, the history of right-wing America reveals its profound disrespect for the rights of women.

--Contributed by Brendan Sweeney

Remind me never to get old in Romania....This shit is just mean!

If you get the chance, tune into tonight's show "The Majority Report" on Air America Radio with Janeane Garofalo and guest host Bill Scher of LiberalOasis. Jessica will be a guest tonight, on the air and doing her thang between 9 and 10 PM, eastern time. Hope you get to check it out!

Click here to listen live.

Check out Newsweek's article It's About Abortion, Stupid on John Kerry and his supposed inability to make a moral argument.

The article explores Kerry's lag in the Catholic vote due to his pro-choice platform. A recent Zogby poll found that in key swing states (including Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, & Pennsylvania) Catholic voters are far more likely than the general public to vote to re-elect President Bush. While the article is somewhat obnoxious with quips about how democrats should "stop marginalizing their own pro-life members", it raises an important discussion about whether Kerry's campaign is effectively targeting issues that Americans are voting on.

Critiquing the supposed Clintonian legacy of never striking a moral issue, the article notes that: "Democrats stick to the uninspiring and oversimplified notion that people reliably vote their pocketbook, period...Republicans make the economic pitch, too, of course—tax breaks, come and get ’em!—but are smart enough to know that we want our vote to count for more, much more."

And it's true. While the rich undeniably seem to vote largely based on economic interest, I think for middle & low income voters it's not such a clear-cut decision. Republicans have done an amazing job of creating this hegemonic fantasy where Bush stakes claim to the moral "high road." While it's all clearly bullshit (as the Bush administration has done nothing but marginalize and disenfranchise women, people of color, etc.), Democrats need to actively AND strategically deconstruct the Bush regime's fascist social policies.

Check out this kickass commentary from Kerry that I somehow missed. “Four years ago, this president came to office calling himself a ‘compassionate conservative.’ Well, in the story of the Good Samaritan, we are told of two men who pass by or cross to the other side of the street when they come upon a robbed and beaten man. They felt compassion, but there were no deeds. Then the Good Samaritan gave both his heart and his help. For four years, this president has talked about compassion, but he’s walked right by. He’s seen people in need, but he’s crossed over to the other side of the street. For four years, we’ve heard a lot of talk about values. But values are not just words. They’re what we live by.”

Whoo-hoo! I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this passion and moral fortitude will make a primetime appearance in the debates next week.

The AP reported today that an Austin Planned Parenthood abortion clinic that had its construction delayed for two months last year after anti-choicers organized a boycott will open on time in November.

Last year anti-choicers targeted local suppliers of building materials and construction workers (including plumbers, air conditioning & dry wall installers) and encouraged/intimidated them not to participate in the construction of the clinic. The boycott stopped construction within six weeks.

But Planned Parenthood fought back! They stepped in and took over as their own general contractor.

What's so disturbing is that the right is embracing construction boycotts as a new national tactic. Chris Danze, the Texas contractor who organized this boycott, told the AP that: "He has been contacted by anti-abortion groups across the country seeking advice on how to conduct similar boycotts. He said one is being waged against a Planned Parenthood clinic project in Houston."

Wow. Talk about scary. I nominate Danze as asshole of the day. Any thoughts on how to strategically take on the tactic?

If you've seen the very funny “Shrek 2”, you might all remember that there was a lot of sexual humor present in the movie. And a lot of that sexual humor included transgendered characters. For example, there is an evil bartender with a five o’clock shadow and boobs -- the voice being that of talk show host Larry King. Well, it looks like some people are making a stink about these “abnormal” characters in the movie. Sigh.

The Traditional Values Coalition have written a report titled, “A Gender Identity Disorder Goes Mainstream”, where there is discussion of the transgender agenda to deconstruct the biological existence of male and female, using “Shrek 2” as a perfect example.

I’m sorry, but give me a fucking break. The report is quite hysterical actually. The horror of Pinocchio wearing women’s underwear! Or a joke made about the wolf wearing granny’s dress and his gender confusion. My favorite is when they describe a scene at the end of the movie where the evil bartender expresses that he’s got the hots for Prince Charming, jumps on him, and they “both tumble to the floor.” Gasp! And we all know what tumbling to the floor always leads to!

They continue with pretty upsetting claims concerning transgender issues that I really can’t even repeat, it’s so infuriating. All that I know is that they’re using a light-hearted, humorous animated movie to make their point -- they’re super smart, those crazies!

Accord to a recent study by Harvard University, there's been a decline in their Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ senior jobs to women within the past couple of years. Boston.com News reports that it seems the dilemma began when Lawrence H. Summers became president of the university.

During the last term of former president Neil L. Rudenstine’s of 2000-2001, 36 percent of Harvard’s offers of tenured jobs were to women. Yet last year, women received only 13 percent of offers. Yeah, that number went down just a wee bit! Out of a total of 32 offers of tenure last year, only 4 were made to women. Only one female candidate accepted the offer.

“When you see statistics like that, you have to wonder whether the president of the university takes women scholars seriously," said Ingrid Monson, a music professor. Yet Summers claims that a lot of responsibility lies in the university’s departments. They review and nominate the candidates for senior positions, but still need the okay from Summers.

Regardless of how this happend or who is responsible, something obviously has to be done about this. it's good to know that 26 professors have signed and sent a letter to the president stating that the school will suffer a continuing decline of female professors if action is not taken. Summers and the professors are scheduled for a meeting on October 6, so hopefully they’ll be able to do something about this. After all, this is Harvard!

Rebecca Traister from Salon.com asked the question that some of us ladies have been wondering during this political season’s campaign for female voters. “Do activists have to resort to gyno-talk to get our attention?” We check out her thoughts in the hysterical article provided by the Guardian Unlimited titled, “Enough with the Vaginas!”

Traister discusses her experience at last week’s Vaginas Vote, Chicks Rock concert at the Apollo Theatre, which was sponsered and planned by a variety of organizations, including V-Day, and the head of the organization, Eve Ensler, including “her blessed freaking vagina”.

Traister describes the event, for the most part, to be quite impressive and inspiring. She praises various speakers such as Gloria Steinem for their words of wisdom and inspiration. It was just the moments of vagina-crazy talk that caught her off guard.

"’Are there are any registered vaginas in the house?’ Ensler asked the mostly white crowd at the Apollo. No, actually. But there are registered women. ‘I have never been so afraid in my being,’ Ensler said, urging the audience to ‘pull out that other paradigm living inside of us waiting to be born.’ What? ‘Step into your vaginas and get the vagina vote out.’ Aaaaah! What does stepping into your vagina mean? It sounds like it would hurt! And since Ensler wants us to be frank about our bodies, let me tell the truth: My vagina's role in voting will be pretty minimal compared to the effort my hands and eyes and brain are going to put in.”

I should hope so! Yes, we do have vaginas. They’re just swell. But do we really need to use them as a strategy to get women to vote?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know that both Bush and Kerry are earnestly courting women’s votes. But what I didn’t know is that the press can’t seem to make up their mind over who’s doing a better job.

Recent articles would have you believe that Kerry's lead among women is slipping, but despite all this brouhaha, the fact remains that the Ladies Love Cool Kerry. (Forgive me; I couldn't help myself...)

But apparently there’s one thing the press can agree upon: it’s no accident.

From the NY Times:

It was no accident that John Kerry appeared Tuesday on "Live With Regis and Kelly'' and recalled his days as a young prosecutor in a rape case. Or that he then flew from New York to Jacksonville, Fla., to promote his health care proposals. Or that on Thursday in Davenport, Iowa, he will preside over a forum on national security with an audience solely of women.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

It's no accident: First lady Laura Bush, at seven campaign stops in the last eight days, has employed exactly the same phrasing to pound in an important theme to the women who crowd her events.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Isn’t there such a thing as an original lead anymore?

Repetitive media aside, I’m getting a little tired of these articles saying that women’s fears over terrorism are leading them to Bush. I would hope at this point, women know about Bush’s incessant war on women and that his claims of being a champion of women are, well, complete and total bullshit. What really gets me is when the administration claims that Bush’s actions in Afghanistan freed women from the Taliban. Umm, I’m pretty sure that feminists were going nutty over the treatment of Afghan women for years and no one did squat. But when you need to pull out that ladies-love-me card, the issue is quite useful.

The moral of my incensed-story? Prove this recent media nonsense wrong! Kerry is the only choice for women this November. So let’s get to it—register if you’re not already; if you are, send this along to friends.

Click here to register to vote.

The UN organized a conference this week on “Gender Justice in Post-Conflict Situations,” where women from around the world gathered to talk about the growing problem of sexual violence used in warfare.

…from systematic rape to intentional transmission of the AIDS virus has become a standard weapon of modern warfare, used in conflicts from Sudan, Iraq and Rwanda to Russia...

“The nature of conflict has changed, and the battlefields are now women's bodies,” said Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

While the use of sexual violence against women as a war tactic isn’t exactly news, women need to make sure it is at the front of our minds—and our activism.

Some places to get started:

UNIFEM

UNIFEM special Web portal on ''Women, Peace & Security''

Rape as a War Crime Website (International Centre for Migration Policy Development, ICMPD)

International Alert: Women Building Peace Campaign

This is some freaky shit.

Apparently cigarettes are the new date rape weapon of choice in the UK, where a woman was recently assaulted after smoking a cigarette laced with embalming fluid. Ugh.

Has anyone else heard of this before? Because it's news to me...

Democratic superstar Barak Obama may have his invitation to speak at an Illinois Catholic school reneged because of a recent uproar by anti-choicers.

The American Life League says it is “outraged” that Obama is scheduled to speak at Benedictine University next month due to his “radical support of abortion.” Since when is believing in an established constitutional right radical?

American Life League is "urging the administration of Benedictine …to put an end to this scandal by forbidding Mr. Obama from speaking on the Catholic campus."

Uh yeah, having a Senate candidate speak at a public affairs symposium sponsored by the school’s political science department is just so freaking scandalous… Oh my gosh, what would the neighbors say?!

Now this is just going too far. A university—religious or not—is there to teach students. What kind of political education will come from banning Obama from speaking? This just pisses me off; instead of promoting an informed debate at the school, this group just wants Obama to go away. Guess what though, folks? He’s on the ballot whether you like it or not.

And I like it.

Apparently a new Victoria’s Secret marketing campaign that targets college women is pissing some people off. Um, why? Is this really news?

I’ll tell you though, while the idea that Victoria’s Secret wants young women to buy lingerie isn’t exactly a shocker, their weird campus-invasion technique is insulting in a do-you-really-think-I’m-that-stupid kind of way. I mean come on now, they’re trying to lure us with little pink doggies for fuck’s sake.

The new collection for 18- to 22-year-old women, PINK, is designed with sexiness and youthful energy...The models who wear the sexy apparel belong to a diverse group of all nationalities...

Because didn’t you know? College girls—unlike the rest of women—are diverse!

Rebecca Lehmer…of Christian Student Fellowship, said she’s not against the clothes, but questions the message Victoria’s Secret is issuing by marketing on campus...

Lehmer said some of Victoria’s Secret’s advertising is explicit and provocative. In some ways, it might be selling sex, she said.

Wow, really? Selling sex? She’s a sharp one. (Forgive me, my mood is cruel today.)

While marketing to a supposedly new demographic might help sales, we at Feministing once again suggest not making cheap-ass underwear that falls apart after two washes.

As the New York Post recently reported, a bunch of new magazines are debuting this season, and some of them target us ladies.

Many of you have heard about Suede, the "first-ever fashion and beauty magazine to be inspired by the young, contemporary woman of color". I am (cautious but) excited about this. It's about time someone recognized the women of color out there -- you'd think when reading Lucky or Jane (lets not even get started on Cosmo) that every young woman was white! It's also great that streetwear is being recognized as a legitimate form of fashion - it's already one of the most influential. (Suede is especially focused on what women wear "on the block"). But I really, really hope this magazine is run by intelligent people. The potential here for exploitation of an already exploited group is high. I also hope Suede capitalizes on its own great idea. Not all women of color are from "the block" -- some are from the suburbs, other countries, etc. If Suede is smart enough to touch on all these angles, I think the magazine could be an important and rad addition to the racks.

Then there's All You, Time Inc.'s new monthly women's magazine. According to Isobel "Bella" Price, the magazine's editor, All You "will talk to women as they really are -- recognizing all they accomplish every single day -- instead of telling them they could do better.... We want to inspire, not patronize, our readers with affordable, down-to-earth ideas tested by real women just like them. And because we also know that women are looking for quality as well as value, All You will feature the very best design and photography in a unique package to enrich every aspect of our readers' lives, no matter what their budget."

Now, that sounded good to me until I heard this: During its initial distribution phase, All You will be available at Wal-Mart stores only.

WAL-MART???? Has Time, Inc. been reading the newspaper? I am all for a magazine that recognizes women's tight budgets and inspires rather than patronizes. (I am also aware that many women in this country shop at Wal-Mart.) But I can't really get over the hypocrisy of selling a pro-woman magazine exclusively at a women-oppressing retailer. This seems to me the first sign that All You is not all that.

Let's keep a (critical) eye out for these and other mags coming our way this fall.

I love my city, but this is just ridiculous...

New York magazine is running a piece on pregnant NYC women who are way too concerned about their weight. But wait--aren't you supposed to pack the pounds on when with child? Apparently not in Manhattan. (I refuse to let my precious Queens and Brooklyn take the blame for this one.)

An extra odd element? The main woman interviewed in the piece is Margot Tenenbaum. But she's not an eyeliner-heavy Gwyneth Paltrow, just a New Yorker who was friendly with The Royal Tenenbaums director. Freaky.

In any case, check it out--it's not pretty. It's sad enough that so many women are constantly psychotic about their weight, but to be all nutty when you're pregnant is too upsetting for words...

In relevance to a recent post on video game characters being debuted in Playboy next month, Women's eNews wrote a more optimistic article Sunday on the first women's gaming conference last week, which hopes to result in the recruitment of more female designers in the industry.

The five ladies that organized the conference last week in Austin, Texas believe that the more female designers there are, the less objectification of women will exist in video games. It can also increase the numbers of female gamers themselves, for the typical male designer primarily creates games that appeal to men.

For more feministing info on women gamers, click here.

You've gotta love assholes like this...

"What do you want in a female companion? What is the first thing that attracts you. Her ability to cook and keep house or is it the way she looks? It's not politically correct, GM hates it when I draw that analogy. But it's absolutely correct."

--General Motors Vice Chairman BOB LUTZ likening women to an automobile's exterior design.

In the tradition of dumb-as-shit court cases: a man in Spain tried to charge his wife with domestic abuse because she refused to have sex with him for five days in a row. The horror!

Generally my dry spells are accompanied by furious masturbation, not court cases and domestic violence accusations. But hey, I'm an old-fashioned gal.

The judge shelved the case, but the idea that this was even allowed before a judge is a little creepy.

Bibliofemme.com had a pretty interesting article on Saturday about the growing popularity of pornography and erotica books in mainstream bookstores. The author seems surprised by the leniency of the public condoning the sale of these books. "The baring of Jackson's breast during the Super Bowl in February fed a week of outrage and prompted a crackdown on broadcast indecency, but bookstores are now selling material reminiscent of a sex shop." Not a problem with me!

Infamous porn star Jenna Jameson recently released her book, “How to Make Love Like A Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale”, a 580-page volume that is now in seventh place on the New York Times’ best-seller list (I did a double-take too). The book describes her life, her climb to stardom, as well as personal strifes such as her drug addiction and being raped by her ex-boyfriend’s friend. Rape and drug addiction? Sounds pretty pornographic to me!

Regan Books, which is Jameson’s publisher, also released a book by the Vivid Girls (a group of 15 porn stars) called “How To Have A XXX Sex Life”, basically giving advice on how to excite your sex life, including tips about how to use vibrators, lubricants and sex toys in “creative ways”.

Even mainstream American authors are beginning to fall for the trend. Tom Wolfe wrote “I am Charlotte Simmons”, which was about “a university where students spend their time drinking, having sex or both simultaneously.” Ah, the goods old days!

The fact of the matter is that porn and erotica books have been published, sold, read and enjoyed for quite a long time in this country. I would say the difference now is that people aren’t ashamed to buy them (or put them on their store bookshelves). Good for them.

Salon.com has a great piece today on the new surge of pro-choice activists and their not-so-traditional methods.

Author Laura Barcella focuses primarily on the controversial “I had an abortion” t-shirts put out by feminist Jennifer Baumgardner (who also is working on a film of the same name).

While this new unapologetic attitude has gotten a lot of criticism, I think it’s about goddamn time. The longer women give into the notion that abortion should be accompanied by shame and secrets, the harder the fight will be to protect choice.

The amazing Kathleen Hannah of Le Tigre says, “It sounds fucked up, but having an abortion was one of the best things I ever did…It was one of the first things I did on my own; I worked at McDonald's, raised the money and did it. I'm really, really passionate about pro-choice, because I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if I'd had a kid at 15.”

Now, why should that sound “fucked up?” Making a decision about your body and your future isn’t something that should be looked down upon.

The Salon article also discusses websites, such as imnotsorry.net, that provide a space for women to talk about their experiences openly. Founder of the site, Patricia Beninato, says that “it's the positive experiences that are being silenced, not the negative ones.”

Clearly the decision to have an abortion is a private one, and some women are just not going to want to talk about it. But by creating spaces and opportunities for open discussion, and by fostering an environment where we don't have to feel shame over our constitutional right, we are making an invaluable contribution to the fight for choice.

Turns out that a new poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that men know more about the upcoming election than women. In fact, the NY Times reports that men were more likely than women to answer every question right on the quiz.

Well, the biggest gender gap was on the question asking which candidate supported moving American troops from Europe and South Korea to other places. (60% of the men correctly answered Bush, while only 43% of women knew the answer). Seems that the ladies also had double-digit gaps on questions about Social Security and taxes. Hmmmm...I wonder if our [mis]information could have anything to do with how ridiculously alienating electoral politics are these days?

Kate Kenski, a senior analyst that conducted the poll, believes that the difference is a result of reporting. She notes that: "Reporters' obsession with the horse race rather than the substance of politics is likely to be more of interest to men, who pay more attention to sports than women." Huh? So while I'll agree that election reporting is largely skewed, I'm not sure that I'm buying her sports-theory logic. I find it hard to believe that by cheering for TEAM KERRY I'd gain new insight into his too-hawkish foreign policy.

My advice: talk about issues that women care about (i.e. the stagnant economy, the growing gender wage gap, reproductive rights, declines in education, inabilities to access healthcare, etc).

OH. And check this out. A recent NY Times/CBS Poll revealed that when asked whether Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 29% of men said he was versus 47% of women. (sigh). Any thoughts on this disturbing fact?

MAN hunt mastodon. Woman sweep cave, suckle young. Fast forward to 1950. Man hunt paycheck. Woman vacuum cave, suckle young and drive to Little League. Progress painfully to 2004. Man and woman both hunt paycheck. Woman still suckle young, vacuum cave, etc. Man hunt remote control.

So if you haven't yacked yet, I'd recommend checking out the NY Times Real Men Don't Clean Bathrooms for a follow-up on Jessica's Duh-Article of the Week. While the pithy anthropological exploration of the gendered division of housework leaves a lot to be desired, it provides a bit more insight into the latest depressing Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In a surprising move yesterday, CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into legislation The Battered-Partner Bill which will allow individuals convicted of killing their abusers to challenge their sentences.

The Mercury News reports that, "The battered-partner bill, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, will expand a law that allows women convicted of killing their alleged abusers before 1992 to file court petitions seeking a new trial or a reduced sentence." The law also changes language about "Battered Women's Syndrome" to be more neutrally termed "battering and its effects."

The law will go into effect on January 1, 2005. Prisoners convicted before August 29, 1996 (when the California Supreme Court ruled that domestic-violence victims have a right to have an expert on battering and its effects testify in their defense) will be able to challenge their sentences. Survivors can petition the court for writs of habeas corpus on the basis that expert testimony on the effects of battering could have changed the outcome of their cases.

To learn more about the history of this bill and why it's so important that it was passed, check out Free Battered Women (a project of the CA Coalition for Women Prisoners).

Feministing wrote back in August about the chance of safe sex being legislated in porn after the HIV outbreak in the industry early this year.

Looks like we're one step closer:

The Associated Press reported today on California state officials who are fining two adult film companies for allowing actors to have unprotected sex:

The companies received citations for violating the state's blood borne pathogen standard, a regulation that requires employers to protect workers exposed to blood or bodily fluids on the job. The companies have 15 days to appeal the eight citations.

...The Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, a nonprofit group that conducts sexually transmitted disease testing for the porn industry, said only about 17 percent of actors use condoms on a regular basis.

I'm all for safe sex--but should people be able to sue over it? Is this a workplace health issue or a personal one? I'm open to suggestion...

The NY Times reported this week on a Department of Labor study that shows women spend twice as much time as men on household chores and caring for children. You don't say...

The average working woman, for example, spends about an hour and a half a day caring for other members of the family, the average working man barely 50 minutes. Likewise, the average working woman spends more than 1 hour 20 minutes on household chores, the average working man less than 45 minutes...two-thirds of all women said they prepared meals and did housework on an average day, compared with only 19 percent of men who said they did housework and 34 percent who said they helped with meals or cleanup.

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that Kerry is losing the support of women voters:

In the past month, the president has started whittling away at a gender gap that has long provided an essential lifeline to Democrats running for the White House. Less than seven weeks before Election Day, strategists from both parties say there are a growing number of suburban, independent-minded voters who believe Bush would do a better job securing America...

That is precisely the sentiment the Bush campaign is seeking to spread among married suburban women...

Yeah--a sentiment of fear.

What kills me about this article is that author Jeff Zeleny seems to assume that women are scared little girls, looking for a protective-father figure rather than a socially-aware and just president:

Teresa Conway...doesn't mind parting ways with the Republican Party on abortion and gay rights, explaining: "We really can't get into those things until we are safe..."

"...People want somebody who is really strong as their president," Laura Bush said in an interview.

Please. While naturally women are concerned about security, there's a lot more at stake this November. My favorite woman of the moment, Elizabeth Edwards, puts it quite nicely.

"What they have generated is not a sense of security among women but a sense of fear of John Kerry...You can't just say `W is for Women' and have that be the beginning and end of the conversation. Has he improved their lives? What has he done?"

Um, a big fat nothing as far as I'm concerned. Unless you count taking steps backwards which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be a bad thing...

Now this is just low. Americas PAC—headed and funded by right-wing nut Richard Nadler—has been running the most insanely offensive election ads ever, targeting African-Americans.

Check this out:

Today, one third of African-American pregnancies end in abortion. Black babies are terminated at rates triple that of white babies. Under Title X, schools can council scared kids to abort their babies without even consulting their parents.

Learn the racial truth about America's abortion laws. Don't buy the Democratic lie. Killing unborn babies is no way to help those in poverty.

Huh. Reading this ad for the first time almost rendered me speechless. Almost.

Outside of the outrageousness of using accusations of mass murder as a campaigning tool, this Nadler guy doesn’t exactly have a squeaky clean record on race.

Check out this description of an ad that Nadler produced for the 2000 presidential election:

The ad, running on television stations in Kansas City, promotes the GOP and its policies that would help parents who send their children to private schools. Seated on a couch, an actress playing a worried mother says her son Ralph was "hanging with the wrong crowd" at his public school.

"We didn't want him in a place where drugs and violence were fashionable," she says. "That was a bit more diversity than he could handle." On the screen, a white teenager at a cafeteria table pulls a pistol on a racially mixed group of students. Then the message flashes: "Vote Republican."
(From The Washington Post, Everybody Can Get Into the Act With Issue Ads, 9/19/00)

A bit more diversity than he could handle? That’s just lovely. So in 2000 Nadler can spew racist bullshit, but then in 2004 he wants to appeal to African-Americans using prevaricating faux-concern about “black babies?” Please.

Click here to join NARAL Pro-Choice America in calling on the White House to renounce these disgraceful ads.

Check out Alternet's The Women of Wal-mart for a frightening look into the insane discrimination that women had to endure on a daily basis.

As an update to Jessica’s 8/19 post on BushvChoice, we have discovered some disturbing news concerning a proposal created by anti-choicers allowing hospitals, doctors and pharmacists to refuse women of their right to abortion and birth control. Two years ago the House passed the bill, but it didn’t pass the Senate. It was reported by the Guardian Unlimited today that this time, however, the revival of the proposal has been sent to the Senate as a part of the broader appropriations bill and it will, at the least, go to a House-Senate conference committee. Sigh.

In July, Mississippi passed what they call the nation’s largest “conscience clause”, which allows all health care professionals and institutions to refuse to perform any service on religious or moral grounds. Many women have already started to travel to Alabama or Tennessee to get an abortion. “We have doctors who won't even issue birth control prescriptions,” says Nsombi Lambright of the American Civil Liberties Union's Mississippi branch. “It's not their job to impose their beliefs on others.”

So who would this effect if the Senate passes the bill? Oh, mainly just low-income women who depend on federally subsidized health care and use Roman Catholic hospitals. Hospitals would have the authority to refuse abortion even to rape victims or women with serious medical conditions. And they’re saying this bill is about morality?

Lourdes Rivera, director of the Los Angeles-based National Health Law Program, brought up some good questions. “Yes, we need to respect individual freedom of religion. But at what point does it cross the line of not providing essential medical care? At what point is it malpractice? If someone's beliefs interfere with practicing their profession, perhaps they should do something else.” Amen to that.

You have got to be kidding me. Reuters reported yesterday that "slutwear" (yeah, you heard me right) is so last year:

Now you see it. Soon you won't. In a trend sure to be a relief to some and a disappointment to others, women will cover up instead of baring it all next season as the "slutwear" look comes to an end.

"The slut is out now. She's dead," said Godfrey Deeny, senior fashion critic at Fashion Wire Daily.

Um...is it just me or is the Deeny guy just a tad scary?

A group of 9/11 widow activists have announced their endorsement of the Kerry campaign, and their determination to get George W. Bush out of the White House.

In a press conference yesterday, Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown, NJ stated that "in the three years since 9/11, I could never have imagined I would be here today, disappointed in the person I voted for, for president."

She went onto to note that she plans to travel around the country to campaign for Kerry: “I have not flown on a plane since 9/11. I have now committed myself to get on a plane and fly wherever I have to fly...I don’t know if it’s going to be successful, because I have serious anxiety about getting on a plane, but that is how committed I feel.” Breitweiser voted for Bush in the 2000 election.

The main reasons behind the endorsement was the women’s feelings concerning the Bush administration’s actions (or lack thereof) after the 9/11 attacks, and the absence of support for funding of the commission to investigate the attacks. Many of the women also feel that the administration used 9/11 to justify the war in Iraq while Osama bin Laden remained at large.

Salon covered this story in a comprehensive article today:

The endorsement was a sword clanging against Bush's political armor. Polls show that voters rate Bush high on his handling of 9/11 and its aftermath, and Republicans have been quick to exploit that approval with television ads and their recent convention, held in Manhattan around the theme of Bush's leadership against terrorism…

… the widows cited the invasion of Iraq as one of their top reasons for supporting Kerry. "Unfortunately, before the work in Afghanistan was complete ... this administration moved our most precious resources, America's sons and daughters, into Iraq, without the support of our allies. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and that is what we learned from the 9/11 commission's final report," said Lorie Van Auken of East Brunswick, N.J. "Sept. 11 was an enormous intelligence failure, and yet nothing was done to fix our intelligence after 9/11, and that same intelligence apparatus took us into Iraq. So it's doubly frustrating to learn that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11." Van Auken said she is also worried that with military forces stretched thin, her 17-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter could be called up in a draft.

I’ve been griping for some time about Laura Bush’s push for women’s votes with the bogus “W Stands for Women” campaigning, but some other folks took it a step further than just talk.

When Laura was in Maine last week, a group of people protested outside of her speaking venue, taking sex education into their own hands! Around twenty women lined up and demonstrated the proper way to use condoms by using a banana. The action was directed at the dangerous abstinence-only education programs W wants to double funding for with a whopping $273 million in the next budget. Yikes...

If anyone knows of any other creative protests going on in your area, make sure to let me know!

The NY Times reported today young people's interest in the upcoming election is the highest it has ever been since 1972, when 18- to 20-year olds got the vote: “State election officials say registration of new young voters is coming in at levels they have not seen in years.”

Nice!

The article looks at the reasons behind this increase in registration, and notes that it’s not just due to the hard work of organizations—young people are actually interested in politics. Imagine that!

Nothing better than a happy ending. The woman from Alabama who was fired over having a Kerry sticker on her car now has a new job...with Kerry!

Because of the bad publicity, Lynne Gobbell's former employer offered her job back. But later that same day, Kerry himself gave Gobbell a call.

"He was telling me how proud he was that I stood up," Gobbell told me. "He'd read the part where Phil said I could either work for him or work for John Kerry. He said, 'you let him know you're working for me as of today.' I was just so shocked."

Gobbell accepted Kerry's job offer, "so I reckon I'll be working for John Kerry."

Good stuff!

Via Daily Kos and CE Petro.

JOURNEY FROM THE LAND OF NO
Roya Hakakian (Crown, August 2004)

This is the haunting memoir of Roya Hakakian's Jewish coming-of-age story during the brink of revolution in Iran. The writing is lyrical and evocative, pulling readers into her intricately woven tale of family, Judaism, Middle-Eastern politics, and self-realization. Roya tells her story of her youth in pre-Revolutionary Tehran, home to the largest community of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel. A year after the Ayatollah Khomeyni's return, two-thirds of that community would be gone. She bears witness as swastikas are painted on the walls in her previously peaceful alley, and watches as her classmates are escorted from school by Islamic Morality Guards, accused of reading blasphemous books, never to return to class. Hakakian is spared because her teacher likes her writing, which we sample along the way.

Overall, I found THE JOURNEY OF NO to be a wonderful portrait of Jewish life in Tehran and of a one girl's quest to find herself while her country is falling into the hands of fanatics. Roya was 12 in 1979 and escaped from Iran at the age of 17 in 1984. Roya Hakakian has written and produced programming for some of the most prestigious documentary units on network television, including 60 Minutes and ABC Documentary Specials with Peter Jennings. She is also the author of two highly acclaimed collections of poetry and has been the recipient of the prestigious MacDowell Fellowship in writing.

Contributed by Alli

An Alabama woman has apparently lost her job because of her support for Kerry. Compassionate conservatism in the workplace, I suppose...

Lynne Gobbell claims that her boss fired her because of the Kerry-Edwards campaign sticker on her car.

Her boss, Phil Gaddis, hasn't responded to the allegations as of yet.

Gobbell said, "We were going back to work from break, and my manager told me that Phil said to remove the sticker off my car or I was fired...I told him that Phil couldn't tell me who to vote for...When I told him (Phil) that, he told me, 'I own this place.' I told him he still couldn't tell me who to vote for."

Another manager later told Gobbell, "I reckon you're fired. You could either work for him or John Kerry."

Apparently this oh-so-cool boss had also distributed a flyer outlining (in a slightly threatening way) the pros of the Bush administration--specifically tax cuts:

Just so you will know, because of the Bush tax (cut):

You got the benefit of the Bush tax cut. Everyone did.

Jesus, this guys makes Lumbergh look like a good supervisor...

Remember my rant about ABC's upcoming prime time lineup? If not, check it out HERE.

Turns out I'm not the only one who thinks "Desperate Housewives" and "Wife Swap" are culturally significant and indicative of the role feminism and femininity play in our society. Sunday's NY Times Week in Review section featured an article on these shows, claiming that this new trend in television is not as coincidental as it may first appear.

The article's author, Alessandra Stanley, writes:

It's been a long time since married women made much of a mark on television. Yet suddenly the fall season is all Emma Bovary all the time.... And the swing of the pendulum is particularly timely given the undercurrents of this election year. The country is once again examining wifely roles through the prism of the candidates' wives: Laura Bush and Teresa Heinz Kerry are pitted against each other in a replay of the Barbara Bush/Hillary Clinton clash. This time, however, the issue is not career woman versus stay-at-home mom....Instead, it is the women's style of wifeliness that contrasts so starkly: Mrs. Bush is the calm, self-effacing helpmate; Mrs. Heinz is the high-strung, powerful consort. They are not the two faces of feminism as much as they are dueling notions of femininity.

Interesting and alarming. Stayed tuned for further analysis once these shows are underway.

Check out the Village Voice's Defeat Bush: The Guide for great ideas and resources for action.

Then send it around to friends...we need all the help we can get!

Check out this article by WomenseNews from last week on the Department of Education's ruling on Georgetown University's policy concerning campus sexual assault and the survivor's freedom to speak out.

The school policy had required that a rape victim sign a confidentiality agreement before receiving the outcome of any disciplinary action against the assailant. The Department of Education, however, ruled that this policy was illegal. Hell yeah it is!

The thing to think about is, how many more schools still have this policy in effect? Frightening.

As soon as next month, you can buy your very own 'Girlie Man' doll--a Schwarzenegger bobblehead in drag.

Reuters reports that Democratic lobbyist John Edgell, who previously developed a Schwarzenegger bobblehead sporting business gear and a gun (apparently as a statement against his violent films), is in the process of putting out the new doll, dressed in a "hot pink dress and matching pumps."

"If there is a perfect example of a girlie man it's Arnold," said Edgell.

While I'm all for making fun of Arnold and his repeated bullshit sexist comments on "girlie men," I think this doll-guy is missing the point.

Throwing a dress on Schwarzenegger as a way to shame him just feeds into the notion that being a woman is somehow a terrible thing—the same sentiment that the "girlie man" comment conveyed in the first place.

Personally, I like the idea of a pregnant Schwarzenegger bobblehead as a tribute to the timeless classic Junior.

Please immediately go check out Katha Pollitt's latest piece for The Nation, The Girlie Vote, and revel as she hits at the heart of the presidential election as it relates to progressive ladies.

"Through clever stage-managing and endless iteration of the discredited Saddam/Al Qaeda connection, the RNC managed to attach to the reckless and inept Bush presidency the qualities Americans admire in men--optimism, confidence, fun, resolve, determination, single-mindedness, strength, will, foresight. Kerry and the Dems were the opposite--pessimistic, weak, indecisive, effeminate Breck girls and girlie men...In the contest between real men and girlie men, women don't exist."

And she's absolutely right. We spend so much time railing about overtly misogynistic language by the right and attempting to locate ourselves [with]in the margins of discourse by the left that I think it's easy to forget that these politicians should feel compelled to speak to the needs of women.

"Since when are women--51 percent of the population--a special interest? Kerry, after all, has no problem appealing directly to veterans, to hunters, to NASCAR fans. What are those if not special interests? Why is it OK to sidle up to gun-owners but not to talk about your support for battered women? "

Kerry shouldn't be content to take the female vote based solely on our opposition to Bush. Kerry MUST reach out to American women and let us know exactly what he stands for. It's great that he has such a great record with reproductive rights and I'm glad that he was an original supporter of the Violence Against Women Act, BUT he needs to stop being so scared of Bushie and his crew.

"Politicized liberal women can read the tea leaves; they know, for example, that Kerry's pro-choice even if the word "abortion" was missing from his acceptance speech. The problem is the disengaged and disaffected women, especially single women, who say neither candidate speaks to their lives. Kerry needs to make the case; he needs to talk about the threat to legal abortion and access to birth control, because unless a woman is a repro-rights maven, she very likely thinks abortion will always be there--at least for herself. He needs to talk about pay equity, which polls consistently show is the number-one issue for women."

Come on Kerry, we know you have a platform--so why don't you start using it?

Ever considered dating a Republican? A feature article on CNN this week explores the politics of inter-party relationships, and the ever-looming question: How to Meet Mr. or Ms. Right (or Left). According to CNN, there has been an explosion of online dating services catering to people searching for a soul mate with like-politics. After reading the article's amazing descriptions, I felt that I had no option but to do some research myself.

* RepublicanSingles.com which welcomes websurfers with images of Old Glory & a bald eagle, unabashedly claims that it's "The community to meet the 'Right' person." OH GOD NO. (There is also a DemocratSingles.com, though I'm sad to report that there is no catchy tagline AND the american eagle has been replaced which leaves democratic daters looking a little less virile).

* My fave tagline hands down belonged to ConservativeMatch.com--"For sweethearts, not bleeding hearts." WOW. And in case you were wondering: "ConservativeMatch is not simply another dating site, we are a real community of people who share conservative values." Scary, huh? Oh yeah, and in case you need any dating advice, Rush Limbaugh is there to help: "...despite the liberal lads you've been dating, there is hope out there." Oh God NO.

* Not to be outdone by the conservatives, the lefties have stepped in with ActForLove.com. They want you to, "Take Action, and Get Action." In case you are looking for someone to get hot & steamy with, check out frdmfghtr who will try and lure you in with the sexy calls of, "The last great book I read: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere." (My god, i mean it's clearly a great book, but not really much of a pickup line).

* There is also LiberalHearts.com, "Uniting Democrats, Greens, animal lovers & environmentalists who are like in mind and liberal in love." They gained a lot of notoriety last year after they launched a contest to win a date with bachelor presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. (To see pictures of Kucinich on a date with his online match, click here).

And, if you wonder just how far the envelope should be pushed, check out FucktheVote.com. This activist art project claims: "FtheVote.com encourages liberals to use their sex appeal to seduce and bed George W. Bush supporters in exchange for a vote against the incumbent in the November Presidential election. FTV’s strategy is to encourage visitors to download or print from the site a Pledge Sheet to be signed by any potential sexual partners before or after relations pledging to not vote for George W Bush in November 2004."

Well, all is fair in love & war, right? (ha!)

Check out the NYT op-ed today by two pollsters on What Women Voters Want.

They explain that if you've been sitting around and watching with bewilderment as Bush has seemingly zoomed past Kerry in the polls, you've only got other women to look to for answers. "Gallup polls among likely voters showed women favoring Mr. Kerry by five points (51 percent to 46 percent) immediately following the Democratic convention. After the Republican convention, however, the Bush-Cheney ticket closed to a virtual tie among women (49 percent for Mr. Kerry to 48 percent for Mr. Bush). At the same time, according to the Gallup numbers, Mr. Bush's huge lead among men (57 percent to 42 percent) remained stable."

Okay, so before I get into their analysis of why women voters are swinging towards Bush I'll preface it--these are Republican pollsters.

"[At the RNC] for the first time, the president was able to broaden his appeal to women not just by discussing social issues. He also found a way to talk about terrorism and the war in Iraq in a way that resonates with women. The president's speech...overlapped with some of the work we did this year analyzing the women's vote for a conservative women's group. Our work...with focus groups among undecided Republican and independent women voters...[made it] apparent that Mr. Bush's popularity among women would hinge on three critical elements: his building an emotional connection, humanizing himself and portraying himself as the candidate who can keep America safe." GAG ME.

Hmmm...so the Bushies want us to believe that American women just wanna be safe, and Bush makes them feel safer than Kerry. I'm not sure that I'm buying. The ladies I know are very concerned about Bush's admit-no-wrong foreign policy and how his perpetual state of war leaves us racking up the foreign enemies. And in case reading this makes you feel crazy, you haven't lost your mind--Bush's RNC speech didn't offer anything positive for women.

The good news: "To be sure, the president did not erase Mr. Kerry's lead among women with one speech." So let's get to work.

Check out Laura and her sad attempts to woo women in Maine.

What really pissed me off:

Laura saying that "the little girls of Afghanistan are now in school" because of W. Yeah, like feminists weren't screaming bloody murder about women in Afghanistan pre-9/11. Didn't see him doing anything about it then. You have to love the Pres. appropriating feminist causes as an excuse to bomb the shit out of someone.

Carrie Lukas at the National Review awkwardly declares that there is a The Feminist State of Emergency, and that feminists are "rapidly sliding toward irrelevance." Haven't they been saying this shit forever? And we're still here...imagine that.

My favorite stupid line:

Professors of women's studies complain that "society" views women as baby machines, but it's the feminists who obsess about reproduction. According to Gallup, just one in twenty women says that abortion will affect her vote. Listen to NOW, and you'd think that abortion is the top priority of nearly every American woman.

Yeah, I guess women don't care about reproductive health. The million women in DC this April must have been there to sightsee.

Oh, and of course Lukas comes to us from the Independent Women's Forum, where you can benefit from feminism while bashing it. Awesome.

Check out Katha Pollitt's latest,The Girlie Vote, which asks "Since when are women--51 percent of the population--a special interest?" Indeed.

The National Organization of Women (NOW) had a great article today on a seemingly paranoid but definitely possible situation that may arise for this upcoming election -- that it will postponed or cancelled. It can’t be paranoid at all, considering the fact that Bush administration officials were asked to create guidelines in the event of a possible terrorist attack on election day.

Apparently, the chair of the Election Assistance Commission, DeForest B. Soaries, (appointed by Bush, of course) sent letters to National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and Homeland Security Advisor Tom Ridge to consider the possibility of a terrorist attack on or close to the day that we are to elect our new president. The September 11, 2001 attack was on election day in New York.

Not only did Soaries inquire about this, but also requested from Ridge for Congress to pass legislation giving him the power to reschedule elections. Should I be surprised?

Yet after this information was leaked to the public, Soaries was quick to make a statement, assuring us that "no circumstances could justify the postponement or cancellation of a presidential election in the United States." This statement included some pretty vague indications of the development of a contingency plan.

Following this, a resolution (H. Res. 728) was created by Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, in order to appease the lingering worries that Republicans might try to devise a plan to postpone or cancel the election. The resolution passed 419 to 2 on July 22, stating that national elections will never be postponed in the face of terrorist threats or attacks, "nor will any individual or agency be given the authority to postpone the date of a Presidential election."

Good for Ney! The thing is, as NOW pointed out, is that resolutions are merely statements of a particular view and do not uphold the law. Let’s cross our fingers, because I sure as hell wouldn’t put anything past this administration.

The recent upsurge in risqué election-inspired fashion has caused a bit of controversy among women.

Is it possible for us to have fun with our activism, or does cleverly-worded underwear just strengthen the perception of women—especially young women—as politically immature?

Womensenews reported recently on this recent fad of political clothing, and how it galvanizes—or offends—women.

Some of the more in-your-face fashion statements are a turn off to some women--especially those of the older and more modest variety.

But some of these makers of political street wear are not concerned with social acceptability. Their mission is subversion, turning women's sex appeal--much exploited by conventional retailers and advertisers--in an anti-establishment and defiant direction.

Companies like Axis of Eve (pictured above), use their product to make a statement in a very nontraditional way. At the RNC in New York, they planned “Operation Depose and Expose,” a mass flashing (where a group of women flashed their politically motivated undies) that garnered a ton of media attention.

But what does this say about women’s political participation? Are we really only able to vote if a pair of cleverly-worded underwear tells us to? Or is this just a smart, strategic way to get more women excited about politics?

In a July Alternet article, author Bella DePaulo bridled at the trend, noting that it came in tandem with young women becoming a desirable demographic:

The combination of startling statistics and the usual need to anoint a new election year demographic has proved irresistible. The media instantly came up with catchy monikers: Sex and the City demographic, lipstick liberals etc. Pollsters like Kellyanne Conway offered advice on how to get us to the polls: "Pretend it's a hair appointment we would not miss." A rash of new organizations with names like Axis of Eve and Running in Heels sprang up across the nation, offering colorful thongs emblazoned with slogans like "Lick Bush" and "Bush Free Zone."

...Yet as a progressive single woman, I am troubled by this kind of hype. The lipstick and panty pitch trivializes and caricatures the very people liberal-leaning activists are out to recruit.

Ok, I agree that women's issues need to be taken more seriously, but I'm sorry; I really like a lot of these products! I think they’re funny and smart, and frankly I’m down with anything that will get young women to the polls in November.

Playboy is taking on a whole new level of ludicrous. This coming October’s issue will be featuring video game characters posing in the nude. Oh, and that’s not all! In the months following, they plan to have an issue posing McDonald’s employees as well. They are currently looking for some sexy models to “serve a little shake with thier fries.” Ugh.

Apparently the centerfolds of the video game vixens include bios to create a realistic fantasy. “We treated these women just like they are celebrities.”, says Scott Alexander, the senior editor for Playboy. “We treated them real, as if they had turn-ons and turn-offs.” They must feel so special! The absolute grossest part of the article was when Alexander stated, "There's a funny kind of almost paternal feeling that a lot of these game creators have about their creations," he said. "'Are you going to let your little girl pose in Playboy?' is the question we were asking.” Can I say, ew?

As for the McDonald’s ladies, Playboy has been going for the whole “girl next door” theme, already having posed Walmart and Home Depot employees. I wonder how they’re going to pose the ‘hamburger honeys’. Perhaps serving up a small fries using their tits? Or maybe they could bring Ronald McDonald into the scene for a little orgy clown action? That would be HOT.

It seems to me that Playboy is getting a wee bit desperate for gimmicks that are lacking in the taste department. Well, maybe if there’s a free happy meal involved.

The Indiana Statesman's "Dubya" doesn't stand for women.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Catholic Church has given folks some leeway in voting for pro-choice politicians. The catch? It’s only under “special circumstances.”

A statement issued by the Vatican came out recently saying that it is wrong to vote for a politician because of their pro-choice position. But if a Catholic votes for a candidate despite their pro-choice views—because they like them for other reasons—it’s okay (but not exactly looked highly upon.)

Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis—the guy who earlier this summer contented that a Catholic who votes for a pro-choice politician couldn’t receive communion—clarified his position after this sentiment was put forth by the Vatican:

Burke now says that, in theory, there could be "proportionate reasons" that justify voting for someone who does not share the church's position against abortion -- though in practice, he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "it is difficult to imagine" what such reasons would be.

Um, I could probably come up with a few...

For even more puke-worthy ladies for W, check out The Village Voice article The Women Who Stand for Dubya.

My favorite quote--from 19 year-old Bush supporter Rebekah Staples:

"Some people might think the Republican Party oppresses women...But I think it allows us to uphold our morals and still pursue our goals. It gives us another route. You don't have to be a feminist to be a successful woman." Who said you did?

These chicks are scary.

Obviously the National Review has never exactly been a bastion of progressive (or even reasonable) thought, but this one article made me want to crawl out of my skin.

In “Convention Girl Talk” (don’t you already want to puke a little?), Myrna Blyth takes the ‘W Stands for Women’ crap to a new extreme.

Discussing a RNC event for women, Blyth practically creams herself writing about how wonderful it was being with like-minded ladies. Now don’t get me wrong—I know that there are a lot of smart conservative women out there. But Blyth’s article makes it seem like the most women have to offer in the GOP is fashion sense and motherly intuition.

Referring to Jenna and Barbara Bush as the “Bush babes” and describing how “hip” they looked in their spiked heels—while noting that they didn’t say a word—doesn’t really give the impression that young women’s voices are valued in this party.

(Oh, my favorite line about the twins: “Obviously young Republican fashionistas wear stilettos, not flip-flops.” Obviously. Flip-flops are sooo liberal.)

On W’s mom, Blyth mentions how the former first lady depends on needlepoint and books on tape to calm her nerves after the media disparages her son. (I guess she’s not watching Fox all that often…) She also brings up how Lynne Cheney likes being called “Grandmother of the United States.”

These are just snippets of the stereotype-heavy banter that seemed to take over this event. But while Blyth’s coverage of this event is discouraging, it certainly mirrors how the Bush administration views women.

So tell me—am I wrong on this one? Was this just strategic planning on the part of republicans to appeal to women who are into traditional roles? Or is this just another clear example of how the administration doesn’t take women seriously? I’m open to discussion…

Just because your body may be ready for some kiddies, it doesn't mean it's the best time to have them. Duh, right? Apparently not.

What seems like the most obvious logic--it's best to wait until you're a little older to start popping out offspring--needs a university study to back it up before people will believe it.

The Associated Press reported a couple of days ago on a University of Texas study that says that women who wait to have children “enjoy better health, live longer and end up having healthier babies.” Tell that to Sylvia Ann Hewlett.

Author of the study, John Mirowsky, says that while younger women are more “biologically fit,” older moms are more mature and better off educationally, financially and emotionally. Word.

Now if we could only relay this idea to all the folks who try to scare women into thinking that if they wait too long, they’ll never have kids at all.

The Associated Press reported today that a federal judge in Nebraska ruled the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional.

This comes right on the heels of a similar ruling by a federal judge last month.

But let's not get too giddy. If Bush is elected in November, there's no way a couple of federal judges are going to stand in the way of his anti-choice agenda.

In case you missed it, the NY Times magazine had "Question for Elizabeth Edwards" this past Sunday. I've gotta say, the more I hear from this woman, the more I like.

On women and voting:

There are 22 million unmarried women who did not vote last time -- women who would not let someone else order their food in a restaurant or pick out their clothing. So why would they let someone else choose their president?

On Lynne:

I don't think it's possible to find very many women with whom I disagree on so many subjects as I do with Lynne Cheney.

On if she finds it hard to play the "submissive wife" role:

I didn't know I was.

Nice answer!

Check out this great site, www.teresaforpresident.com, which (with great articles and links) aims to "add some flavor to American politics." Even if you're not a Teresa fan (and if you're not--shame on you!) it's worth a visit to the site for the great shirts...

Thanks to Nick for bringing it to our attention!

Due to the upcoming election, I think we can all agree that this is not only the time to be speaking your mind, but wearing it. For some dope feminist (and anti-Bush) apparel, posters and products, check out the Northern Sun. Their stuff is not only witty and creative, but pretty cheap as well. So go buy your very own “Lick Bush” t-shirt and wear it like a rock star!

Here are some other examples of their ditties:

"Somewhere in Texas there's a village missing an idiot."

"Fuck your fascist beauty standards."

Awesome.

In the NY Times yesterday Frank Rich pitched a provocative story: How Kerry Became a Girlie-Man.

The story opens with, "Only in an election year ruled by fiction could a sissy who used Daddy's connections to escape Vietnam turn an actual war hero into a girlie-man." And ends with: "Mr. Kerry doesn't seem to understand that it takes a certain kind of talent to play dress-up and deliver lines like 'Bring it On.' In that race, it's not necessarily the best man but the best actor who will win."

And in between is a blow by blow account of the performance of masculinity in this year's election campaign. My favorite recount: "For Memorial Day weekend, the redoubtable New York Post published hypothetical barbecue memos for the two contenders, with Mr. Bush favoring sausage and beer (albeit nonalcoholic) and Mr. Kerry opting for frog legs, chardonnay and creme brulee." (sigh). It's all just so pathetic.

So why would I take issue with this witty satire? Perhaps it's the observation that: "With the high stakes of an election at hand, it's not enough to stuff socks in the president's flight suit. Mr. Kerry must be turned into a girl. Such castration warfare has been a Republican staple ever since Michael Dukakis..."

Ummm, what? As I watch Kerry struggle to be "manly" (giving interviews to GQ about how hot he finds Charlize Theron), I can't help but say "ewwwwwwwwww." Is it me, or does it seem like the whole scene was scripted by Judith Butler?

Here's my advice to Kerry: quit playing the game. By continually trying to look tough, you're just making yourself look like an asshole. You don't fit the mold of the Republican "man"--embrace that. Voters will take you a lot more seriously if you start talking about campaign issues and quit trying to prove that your war record makes you "man enough" to take on Bush.

Deep down, it's the misogynistic dichotomy of this situation that I take issue with. If Kerry isn't manly (i.e. strong, committed, logical), then he's girly (think weak, wavering, emotional). Well fuck that. I'm 100% grrrlie and I'm as tough as they come (well almost). So come on Kerry, toughen up and take it like a grrrl. ha!

This November Florida voters won't just be casting a vote for a presidential nominee. They also have to decide whether or not to support a proposed constitutional amendment that will require parental notification of a minor's abortion. The amendment requires that at least one parent be notified for a woman younger than 18 to obtain a procedure.

Women's eNews explains that: "The Florida Legislature has twice passed parental involvement laws. Both times the state Supreme Court struck them down as violating young women's constitutional guarantees of privacy. Because they couldn't craft a law that passes constitutional muster, Florida lawmakers this year are trying a different tack--to get voters to loosen the state constitution instead."

Last week the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the entire parental notification amendment must appear on the ballot, not just a summary of it. WOW. Imagine that--actually informing voters of what they're voting on...

To read more, check out my post on BushvChoice.com.

So hopefully you're all busy watching baseball, BBQing and enjoying your labor day. BUT in case the hurricane has you inside, here is a bit of recommended blogging...

Check these out out:

Alas, A Blog's rant on "Feminists for Life" (a.k.a. anti-choicers) and "Is a Live-In Boyfriend More Dangerous than a Husband?"

Feministe's analysis of Kobe's case being dropped

The Liberal Oasis rundown of Dubya's acceptance speech

And for all the stories you missed last week, check out Pacific Views Curling Up With the News

Pinko Feminist Hellcat's The False Hope of First Ladies

Oh, and The Well-Timed Period will be sure you Know Your Pill

A very interesting (and disturbing) NYT editorial yesterday explored the Hidden Swing Vote of Evangelicals.

If you are anything like me, you probably thought that Bush had all the evangelicals in his back pocket. Well, it turns out he only has the rich ones.

The editorial explains that: "In the last two presidential elections, about 62 percent of white evangelicals voted Republican - or about 7.5 percent more than among other American Protestants. A majority, clearly, but nowhere near unanimity."

"Polling data show that President Bush's real base is not religious but economic, the group he jokingly referred to as "the haves and the have mores." And in fact: "if recent patterns hold, a majority (about 52 percent) of poor Southern white evangelicals will vote for Mr. Kerry in November, while only 12 percent of affluent Southern white evangelicals will. Most poorer Americans of every faith - including evangelical Christians - vote for Democrats."

On the surface this seems like good news--as in "yeah, more votes for Kerry." But when you take a step back, the trend is actually pretty disturbing. My question is what would happen to the democratic platform if democrats began to actively court this swing voter group?

The vast majority of evangelical Christians are anti-choice. It's bad enough that Kerry is spending all his time out hunting to lure in the conservatives...but can you imagine what the impact would be to women's rights if Dem's tried to bring on board a constituency that "believes in the literal, word-for-word interpretation of the Bible"? (sigh). So where do we go from here?

While yesterday's recap of the Deadly Impact of W's Global Gag Rule showcased a largely pessimistic view about the international state of women's reproductive rights, it's always good to be reminded that there are a few countries making some progressive strides for women.

The Houston Chronicle reports that, "23 countries, including Zambia, Bangladesh, Guatemala and Paraguay, [have] made especially significant improvements in conditions for women, particularly regarding reproductive health and education." AND within these countries, "The number of girls in school and women in parliaments has risen, and their overall access to contraception has improved in the past decade."

To check out the full report by the U.N. Population Fund, click here.

At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), 179 United Nations members set goals of increasing access to reproductive rights and decreasing women's mortality rates from unsafe abortion by 2015. Well, that was back in the good 'ole days of pro-choice President Clinton.

ICPD experts have spent the last week in London assessing progress made in the international movement to increase women's access to reproductive rights...and the news doesn't look good. In fact, according to Reuters, experts are blaming President Bush directly.

Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, explains that, "As the U.S. attacks the efficacy of condoms, as the U.S. refuses to put its shoulder behind making sure that women have the ability to protect themselves, it is becoming responsible in effect for the deaths of tens of thousands, in fact of millions, of women."

International Planned Parenthood Foundation head Steven Sinding expands on this noting that, "We've seen policies emanating from this administration that have led to more unwanted pregnancies around the world, more deaths from pregnancy-related causes and more HIV infections and more unsafe abortions." He concludes that Bush's policies amount to "a global gag rule that stifles the free speech of healthcare providers who try to help women in the poorest countries decide how to deal with unwanted pregnancies."

Why? In 2001, on the anniversary of Roe v Wade, President Bush signed the global gag rule, effectively prohibiting any U.S. money from going to organizations that perform or counsel abortions or provide post-abortion counseling.

(sigh). W's war on women continues...

The following election analysis is contributed by Brendan Sweeney. Brendan has been involved in grassroots media activism for the last six years. He has worked as a producer and reporter at WBAI, Pacifica Radio and Free Speech Radio News.

On Thursday, the NYT ran an insightful piece on word usage by prominent speakers at both national parties’ conventions, tallying the number of times flash language and concepts were referenced in speeches. Click below for an abridged version of this NYT analysis, expanded to include terms more directly tied to feminist movement.

Surprise, surprise nobody appropriated the term “feminist” or even mentioned “reproductive rights”, “abortion” or even being “pro-choice”. I suppose that Democrats view this as a rail-splitter issue, and Republicans, well, just look at their party platform.

Ten of the twenty Republican mentions of “women” were some derivation of “men and women of the armed forces” (compared to nine out of seventeen by Democrats). The Republicans did not mention “class” once. While Democrats mentioned “class” 13 times, twelve of these references were to the “middle class” (it appears that they prefer to use vague terms like “two Americas” rather than more direct terms like “class war” and “class-exploitation”… one can dream can’t they?).

“Sex” appeared only once, in an offhand opening comment by VP Cheney: “People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal, and his great hair. I say to them - how do you think I got the job?” Funny line… asshole.

Finally, we can witness a clear Orwellian-logic behind the signature speeches of the RNC. It is striking that Republican speakers used the term “peace” almost as many times as they did “war” (of course with no mention of peace protesters detained by the NYPD). Indeed, the GOP has consistently returned to “war-is-peace”, “aggressor-is-victim”, “misogynist-is-liberator” narratives. Mr. Orwell would be impressed…

In the NY Times, from Medea Benjamin of Code Pink Women for Peace on how easy it was to crash the RNC and get floor passes:

"I'm shocked by how easy this has been...I am shocked by how many passes we can get...We have some very nice-looking women in Code Pink that have been hanging out in some nice bars, and these delegates like to impress the women..."

Ha! Stupid horny republicans!

I have to say, it took all of my patience to watch Bush speak last night. (And all of my roommates' patience as I almost broke the TV after throwing things at it intermittently.)

Outside of the obvious gross misuse of Sept. 11th as a campaigning tool and the out and out lies of a better economy, what really pissed me off was what Bush had to say about women (which was obviously minimal), abortion and gay marriage.

After disingenuously parading out moderate speakers at the convention while the GOP platform remained insanely conservative, Bush finally spoke out on his agenda of intolerance—though it was naturally masked in “compassionate” jargon.

Because a caring society will value its weakest members, we must make a place for the unborn child.

Yes, it’s very “caring” to push for a constitutional amendment ending the right to choose, effectively guaranteeing women will die getting illegal abortions. Very compassionate, indeed. There’s no “place” for choice here...

And in all we do to improve health care in America, we will make sure that health decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.

Really, now? Cause that’s not what your platform calls for…And you might want to relay that sentiment to your boy Ashcroft, who tried to seize women’s private medical records.

Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges.

Hmm. I didn’t realize that supporting people’s right to love each other was activist.

For a great analysis of the whole speech, check out LiberalOasis.

Thank god I can have my city back. No more freaky GOP ladies with Saks bags knocking me over on my way to work. What a week.

For a great round-up of photos and news on the convention and protests, check out Gothamist.

And make sure to stay tuned for Feministing's take on W's speech. You can probably guess that we weren't big fans...

It was released last Thursday to the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia that levels of concentration of the metal platinum are three times higher in women with breast implants than in women without, reports Women’s eNews. Eek.

Platinum is used in the production of silicone breast implants. The metal helps the silicone oil turn into the gel that gives the silicone a more “breasty” feel. The study was lead by S.V.M. Vaharaj, who discovered that not only were the concentrations high in these women, but were also evident in their children who were breast-fed after their mothers received their implants. The children that were tested also had problems with their eyesight and hearing. (but the researchers say it may or may not be linked to the platinum)

The women had a more obvious reaction to the metal. High levels of concentration can short-circuit communication with the brain. Some women had nervous tics, impaired eyesight and hearing and faulty perception. “You see green, but you perceive a full moon.” says Ernest Lykissa, co-author of the paper. “All of a sudden, your brain system is not working right.” Yikes!

The Associated Press reported yesterday on Bush's push for the Catholic vote.

As the BushvChoice blog wrote yesterday, Bush has working the conservative Christians hard-core--with secret rallies and all.

But it seems he's also focusing on Roman Catholics, putting forth the idea that John Kerry (who is Catholic) doesn't really have Catholic values. Real nice.

From a rally held yesterday near the convention:

The rally, attended by 300 party workers at a hotel, highlighted Republican Party stands opposing gay marriage and abortion and supporting federal money for religious social programs and school choice issues mostly ignored during the formal convention sessions televised from Madison Square Garden...

...Minnesota Rep. Mark Kennedy told the activists that a 2003 Vatican pronouncement on Catholics in public life meant "we're no longer allowed to believe one way and vote another way," in particular on abortion.

Curious that none of this was brought up on the convention floor, huh?

Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa) has never been known as a particularly nice guy, it still pisses me off when I hear his ignorant shit.

If you didn't catch his remarks at the RNC on welfare reform, here are some gems:

When I was in the House, I helped author the landmark welfare reform bill. And when I was elected to the Senate, I didn't just want to make it possible for poor women to work; I wanted to give them a job...So I hired eight welfare recipients to work in my office...

(Wow, what a nice guy, letting poor people be around him! Puh-leeze.)

The key to a richer culture is a strong family, and the key to a strong family are strong marriages.

He says he is concerned about the separation of church and state. Senator Kerry should worry more about the separation of children from their fathers.

Huh. Yeah, our biggest problem is that folks aren't getting married enough. Straight folks that is...

What Santorum doesn't mention about welfare reform and Bush's push for marriage promotion is that it is dangerous for women.

Not only do these programs essentially tell women that they’re better off married than employed, it also provides coercive financial incentives to women to stay in marriages that may be abusive--up to 60% of women on welfare have been in abusive relationships.

For some other, much dirtier, takes on Santorum, click here.

As the GOP continues to front compassionate to lure swing-voters, its homophobia continues unabated. In fact, the conservative gay-rights group Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is so angry with the GOP that it has threatened to withhold its endorsement. This is not an insignificant move. According to the RNC one million gays and lesbians voters cast ballots for Bush in 2000. (How SCARY is that?).

Gay-rights issues have played out in a range of recent stories that have been less prominent in the media. Late last month, VP Cheney spoke of his gay daughter and inferred that he disagreed with the Bush position on supporting a constitutional amendment to prevent gay marriage.

Then this Wednesday, the hate-mongering Alan Keyes described homosexuality as "selfish hedonism" and called Cheney's daughter a sinner. (And, yes, this is the same guy who compared abortion to slavery last month).

Less publicized still has been the shocking resignation of uber-conservative Virginia Congressman Edward Shrock, an outspoken critic of gay marriage and supporter of the Federal Marriage Amendment, after a gay-rights activist and blogger released a recording of a phone call allegedly placed by the congressman to a gay dating service several years ago. While there is some savory irony to this twist, the tactics and implication of outing public figures, no matter what their politics, is EXTREMELY problematic.

Naturally there are many reasons, but Michael Crowley over at The New Republic makes my case for me with a couple of lovely examples.

I just got to boo George Sr. and Barbara on 38th and Park Ave. Apparently W is at a church there for a service with Giuliani. Unfortunately, Pres. Bush wasn't smoked out of his cave and didn't get to see the super cute Young Republican-looking kid with a "Bush Sucks" sign. Sigh.

Here is the most recent coverage on the Kobe Bryant case being dropped:

NY Times: Prosecutors Drop Kobe Bryant Rape Case

Washington Post: Rape Case Against Bryant Is Dropped

Chicago Tribune: Judge drops rape charge against NBA star Bryant

San Francisco Chronicle: Bryant rape case ends in dismissal

USA Today: Bryant saga is a case without any winners

Boston Globe: Case against Kobe Bryant dropped

LA Times: Rape Case Against Bryant Dismissed by Prosecution

Bloomberg: Bryant Rape Charges Dropped by Colorado Prosecutors

Reuters: Judge dismisses Kobe Bryant rape case

The Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health released a report yesterday that ranks the states in terms of women's health.

Check it out here.

Depressing, but it looks like this is the end. From ABC News:

Prosecutors will file a motion this afternoon to dismiss the sexual assault charge against Kobe Bryant, according to sources familiar with the case.

The motion will say that the request is based on an agreement between the prosecution and the alleged victim.

Prosecutors will ask that the charge be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it can never be brought again.

There is a hysterical article at Salon on a new brand of feminine products called Dittie, where there are actual "ditties" on each tampon and pantyliner wrapper expressing the wonders of the menstrual world. It's genius--in a slightly freakish way.

"It's a movement. It's a culture of women coming together. It's a friend in the bathroom with you," says president Barbara Carey. Yeah--a friend who says weirdly inappropriate things about your period. The small company is located in Orinda, California, where all the doors in the office are replaced by bathroom stall doors. Oh my.

Dittie argues that women are taught to be ashamed of their menstrual cycles and are usually embarassed to buy tampons. Dittie shows women how to be "proud of the cycle, the blood, the whole shebang -- in a very posed, stylish way." Here are a couple of examples of the "ditties":

"Once a month, my power source will not be ignored."

"Today's the day I'm going to paint the town red!"

Wow. The kicker for me was the reaction from Dr. Susan Basow, a psychology professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, whose research includes gender and body image. "I think these might sell -- it's not your mother's tampon." Whaa?? Let's hope not...gross.

Nothing says romance like the RNC. At least, that's what delegate Marc Lucca thinks. He used this oh-so-special time to propose to his girlfriend Stacy Pannas (also a delegate).

It's bad enough that this guy thinks the RNC is a GREAT event to use as a springboard to get married, but his proposal is just scary:

"I learned from the Bible that freedom occurs within a certain context...The Old Testament says that if you obey the law, things will go well. Freedom without restrictions is not really freedom. And for me, your love has allowed me to be free."

Um, excuse me? If I was this chick, I would think long and hard about what the fuck "restrictions" he's talking about here. Even when it comes to love, those wacky republicans want more limitations on freedom...Creepy.

Last night Arnold Schwarzenegger gave yet another enlightening speech full of wonderful insight to determine whether or not you're a Republican.

In case you're wondering, it turns out that Republicans hate the United Nations (which definitely makes sense considering how well the Iraq war is going), want to terminate terrorism (i.e. civil rights) and aren't "economic girlie men." YEP, that's right! I guess Schwarzenegger found this misogynistic decree so successful the first time that he couldn't resist reviving it at the RNC.

Check it out:
"There is another way you can tell you're a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people ... and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men!"

Are you fucking kidding me? First of all, can someone please explain to me how an elected official can get away with dropping this rhetoric on prime time? And call me a "sissy" but I think we need to provide real tax cuts & social services for the low-and-middle income, address the rising deficit, stimulate job recovery and tackle the declining wages of women. (sigh).

The only thing I have to say is THANK GOD for Austria.

Check out this great article from Democracy Now yesterday that covered a “W Stands for Women” event at the Waldorf Astoria lead by Laura Bush and Lynne Cheney, as well as a interview with radio host Laura Flanders.

The article includes the transcript of the speeches given the First Lady and Mrs. Cheney, which I must say are pretty corny and lacking of substance. The interview with Flanders, however, was quite interesting.

Flanders is the author of Bush Women: Tales of a Cynical Species, and her latest book, The W Effect: Bush's War on Women. You can hear her on public radio, KALW FM, and on Air America. In her interview with Amy Goodman, she has some really great and informative views on the event and Laura Bush’s campaign, “W Stands for Women”. Even though I recommend you read the whole interview, here is a bit of what she has to say:

“This is a woman from a family who models disdain for facts and reality. She wants to be doing her needlepoint, she says, instead of paying attention to the news; and she really counts on the people of America, I think, to show the same kind of lack of interest in what's really going on...This event yesterday became a kind of grandmother contest. The substance of the -- the biggest substance was: Who is the grandmother of America? Is it Lynne Cheney or is it Barbara Bush? It was a very, very, kind of pathetic display.”

Me like Laura -- Laura Flanders, that is.

For Feministing’s take on the “W Stands for Women” campaign, check this out!