"I love feministing.com and always learn from it." Katha Pollitt, The Nation
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"Feminism is fun again! Every bit as edifying as your women's studies books from college, but with a biting sense of humor that keeps things punchy, not preachy." Marie Claire, December 2006
As we already know that 30,000 pregnant women lose their job every year, 200,000 (almost half of all pregnant women) face some sort of discrimination, including bullying, sacking and demoting. What’s worse is that seven out of ten of these women don’t even report it.
The EOC has called to the government to supply a written standard of maternity rights of pregnant women and their employers.
Crazy shit. What disturbs me is trying to imagine what bullying a pregnant woman entails.
A Christian group calling itself "The Resistance" wants Jessica Simpson to apologize for her "slutty" video of "These Boots are Made for Walking" and re-shoot a clean version. The group objects to Simpson's racy antics in the vid, especially because her father was a pastor and she's a Christian role model. "It's sad to see her whore herself out like this," declares the group's, rep "John Conner" (he won't divulge his real name). "She's a singing stripper." The Resistance has also blasted MTV for "celebrating the homosexual agenda."
Now I’m not into censorship, and I’m definitely not into wacky groups calling women sluts.
But honestly, this video is sooo depressing and terrible. It’s borderline pornographic, complete with Simpson washing (humping) a car in a bikini. I just can’t believe that 13 year-old girls are going to watch this.
You keep playin' where you shouldn't be a playin
and you keep thinkin' that you´ll never get burnt.
Ha!
I just found me a brand new box of matches yeah
and what he knows you ain't HAD time to learn.
It’s a good background piece on all the FDA/Barr Pharmaceuticals craziness that--as we all know--ended up screwing women out of EC over-the-counter.
And of course an article on EC wouldn't be complete without a mention of everyone's favorite rapist, W. David Hager:
As The Nation first reported in May, an FDA staff member contacted Dr. W. David Hager--a controversial evangelical Ob-Gyn on the panel who voted against Plan B--and requested that Hager write a "minority opinion" to further elucidate objections he raised during the hearings; namely, that wider access to emergency contraception would increase "risky behavior" among girls as young as 11 or 12 [see McGarvey, "Dr. Hager's Family Values," May 30].
But the FDA had on hand six independent studies confirming that expanded access to Plan B in no way increased sexual activity among young teens (and subsequent studies have confirmed those results).
Despite an intense lobbying effort by physicians and women's groups, in May 2004 top FDA officials bowed to election-year pressures and denied Barr's application to make Plan B available over the counter. The rejection letter to the manufacturer echoed precisely Hager's concerns about the safe use of the drug by girls under 16.
I love that Hager is "concerned" about teen girls but not so worried about anally raping his wife. Lovely.
We've reported a lot on Walmart over the last year (mostly because they've done a lot of sexist shit). Here's a little cherry on that cake for you:
Womens E-News ran a great story yesterday about Walmart's struggle to break out of its rural, Christian mold and expand into urban areas. Turns out, their discriminatory history is catching up to them, and might actually end up hindering their success in more populated areas of the country. As the article states:
Political battles over proposed Wal-Mart stores in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago have demonstrated that what's acceptable in Arkansas isn't necessarily embraced everywhere. While the objections focused on the retailer's low wages, hostility to unions and damage to small businesses, the discount giant's antagonists also pointed to its [refusal to stock Plan B] as an issue.
Maybe, in an attempt to conquer more of the American terrain, Walmart will ease up on its anti-contraception stance.
Don't you love those mornings where you're driving to work, minding your own business, and are confronted with a lovely billboard for Newcastle Beer reading:
NEWCASTLE BROWN ALE: Not Heavy, Never Bitter. Can you date a beer?
Ugggghhhhhhh.
I'm thinking of sending this to Ms.'s "No Comment" page.
Writer Ruth Franklin at The New Republic takes on the recent barrage of books on being the bestest Mommy ever, and how hard that is, in The Missing Joy; and I have to say she does a pretty kick-ass job of it.
The article is ridiculously comprehensive, discussing the so-called “opt-out” revolution, the “mommy wars,” work/life issues and more, by focusing on three recent books: Perfect Madness, by Judith Warner; How She Really Does It: Secrets of Successful Stay-at-Work Moms, by Wendy Sachs; and White House Nannies, by Barbara Kline.
At the end of the piece, Franklin argues that it’s time that women just realize (and perhaps accept?) that motherhood is never going to be simple:
It is time to recognize that there is no inherently perfect balance of work and family, and that no amount of intensive parenting can take away the sadness of not being with one's children as much as one would like. Children's needs and desires, and parents' needs and desires, are constantly in flux. If we are fortunate, we will be able to adjust our lives in accordance with them; and like any contortion, it will require some stretching, some groaning, and some pain. The tension that we feel is not the problem afflicting mothers in America today. It is the solution.
Thoughts?
Related: Lynn Harris’ review of A Few Good Eggs: Two Chicks Dish on Overcoming the Insanity of Infertility. Best line ever: With friends like these who needs Sylvia Ann Hewlett?
In a N.J. abstinence class, kids are being taught the “facts” of life in a way that’s likely to make them morons:
Its main teaching tool is called "The Choice Game," an interactive computer program with fictional teen characters in situations involving sex, drugs and alcohol.
One segment involved Maxine and Charlie, the teen parents. Another featured a girl named Ragana, who accepts a boy's offer to go somewhere they could be alone. The two sit on a couch, with the boy, T.J., sliding Ragana's sweater down her left arm.
At that point, a video narrator says: "Another critical choice for Ragana: Does she allow him to remove her sweater?"
Later in the sequence, Ragana tells her girlfriend she has contracted gonorrhea from T.J.
Nothing worse than a breast-STD.
I understand that abstinence education is about discouraging intercourse, but are they really going to take away heavy petting too? That’s just cruel.
Lil' Markie--a grown man who speaks and sings in a child’s voice scary enough for its own horror movie--put out an album that takes on a number of issues (horrible, horrible sins!). But it’s his gross-out hit, “Diary of an Unborn Child,” that shows the anti-choice movement’s true, certifiable colors.
I can’t even get into how creepy this thing is; you should listen for yourself. So you know what you’re getting into, the first line that the fetus sings is “Why did you kill me Mommy, when God made me special for you?” Nice, huh?
A Scottish professor says that severe cases of anorexia (are any cases mild?) in women may be caused by autism.
Autism, characterised by defects in communication and social interaction, also makes many anorexic patients unresponsive to traditional treatments and may be responsible for anorexia's low recovery rates, according to Professor Christopher Gillberg, of the University of Strathclyde.
Although autism is thought to be a male problem, affecting up to four times more boys than girls, the disorder has been overlooked in women because their autistic traits present themselves differently, according to Prof Gillberg. An obsession with counting calories, for instance, may be an outward sign of autism.
"Our research has shown that a small but important minority of all teenage girls with anorexia nervosa in the general population meet diagnostic criteria for autistic disorder, Asperger syndrome or atypical autism. I've seen quite a number of cases where the anorexia has become completely entrenched because people haven't understood that underlying the eating disorder is autism."
Gillberg says that this would explain why traditional forms of treatment used for eating disorders, such as family therapy, doesn’t work for some women.
I’ve known many women with eating disorders, and there certainly is a good amount of obsessive compulsiveness going similar to autistic tendencies. But it’s unclear to me whether that’s the cause or an effect of the eating disorder.
What do we think of the new American Apparel advertising campaign? Perverted pornography or a break from rigid "typical (read anorexic)" advertising? American Apparel is a t-shirt/other cotton goods company well known for its very fair labor practices. The owner Dov Charney seems to be a rather complicated character, well mainly he seems like a big pervert, but what do we make of this kinda contradictory politic? His recent hire for their ad campaign is porn star Lauren Pheonix. I was recently in the store and I couldn't get a hold of how I felt about it either?
There is, for example, no silicone. There is no collagen. No Botox. There is no obvious retouching and no major Photoshopping to eliminate bulge or nipple or shiny forehead and there is occasional body flab and stocky leg and there are plenty of "average" (read: nonanorexic) female body types, and as mentioned all the models are amateurs, real women and men, and each is funky and ethnically mixed and unexpected, and Charney even leaves in the red eye and the sweaty lips and the odd angles and there is an air of salty delicious intimate funk to the pictures that makes you go, now this is what T-shirts should really be all about.
Like obviously I see the goods and the bads here. Incidentally, the owner has several pending sexual harassment suits against him probably stemming from his desire for a free and sexually open workplace.
After more than a three year breast-ban, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has ruled that boobs are back in style:
The “Spirit of Justice” and the “Majesty of Justice,” which loom over the stage in the Great Hall, were blocked from view by curtains installed by the department in January 2002, when former Attorney General John Ashcroft was in office.
The curtains were quietly removed on Friday after a decision by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department spokesman Kevin Madden said.
In a more controversial decision, Gonzales announced that the Justice Department is starting production on the much-anticipated Statues Gone Wild video series.
Supreme Court takes on another abortion case..sort of.
Nearly two months after the Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal involving the ridiculous parental notification law in New Hampshire, it has recently rejoined the anti-choice protest debate.
Justices announced yesterday that they are going to consider whether an anti-choice group’s protest outside of a number of clinics 20 years ago may have violated federal racketeering and extortion laws, reports the Washington Post.The most recent ruling on this issue was in 2003, when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist removed a nationwide ban on protests that intervene with abortion clinic business. Now the appeals court is questioning whether the ban should be renewed on other grounds.
The 1998 ban was passed due to the National Organization for Women and abortion clinics filing suit with a law that actually intends to target organized crime. Due to the blatant effort that anti-choicers made to close down or disrupt clinics (including menacing doctors, harassing patients and trashing the centers), they were to be treated as racketeering.
Rehnquist said in 2003 that because there was no extortion of money at the clinics, the 1998 ban was wrongly ruled. Then the 7th Circuit of Appeal in Chicago renewed the case on the grounds that threats of violence and violent acts (for example, a patient was once beat until unconscious with a protester’s sign) may have been enough to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The new cases are Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, 04-1244, and Operation Rescue v. National Organization for Women, 04-1352. They will both be addressed later this year.
Even though they are not assigned to ground combat units, 39 female soldiers have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. Four died and 11 were injured this weekend after an ambush in Fallujah. Military officials have said they believe the female troops may have been specifically targeted.
About 11,000 women are currently serving in Iraq. And even with the latest news that record numbers have given their lives in service to this country, some schmucks on the homefront are still focused on their baby-making capabilities.
Take it from Lemoyne Sanders of Jacksonville, NC, whose wife is a field medical corpsman in the Navy:
"You'll never get a woman to be as physically strong as a man," he said, adding: "Women get pregnant. It's just different."
Men die in combat. Women die in combat. I don't see how a uterus makes any difference.
Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the Castle Rock v. Gonzales case removed responsibility of local police departments to enforce restraining orders that protect domestic violence victims from their abusers.
The case centered on Jessica Gonzales, who had a protective order against her estranged husband. When he kidnapped her three daughters, Gonzales called police over and over and pleaded with them to enforce the order, which ostensibly protected her and her children. But officers wouldn't follow up on her calls for help. In the end, her husband drove himself to the police station and was killed in a shootout with officers there. They found the bodies of Jessica Gonzales' three daughters in the back of her husband's pickup truck.
Who really needed protection here? Apparently not Jessica Gonzales. According to the Court, it's the Castle Rock police department.
Statistics show that protective orders are sought by the victims who need them most. But a two-year study of batterers found that almost half (48.8%) re-abused the victims after a protective order was issued. Police clearly weren't jumping to enforce these orders, even before the Castle Rock decision came down.
The opinion (authored by my personal favorite, Justice Scalia) means that women will not be compelled to seek restraining orders if they know that police don't have to enforce them. And more domestic violence victims will be injured and killed as a result.
Wall Street Journal editor and reporter Karen Blumenthal, author of Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, says that when she grew up in the early 70s, “boys were the crossing guards...they ran the movie projectors in class; they got the best playing fields. But with Title IX, all that began to change.”
I knew the “official” background on Title IX, but the real-life story behind the law was news to me:
According to Blumenthal's book, Ann Arbor activist and mother Marcia Federbush was first to file a Title IX complaint. It was against the University of Michigan, which in the early 1970s spent $2.6 million annually on men's sports -- and $0 for women's.
A female nurse once told Federbush that girls shouldn't play sports because of their vulnerable internal organs.
"I wondered whether it was bad for boys to play contact sports because of their delicate external organs," said Federbush.
