"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
Check out The Village Voice's article on the annual sex toy convention, Adult Novelty Expo (ANE), where companies get to show off their new products.
The author was apparently on vacation with her man and ended up at the convention, where she found quite a bit of new and creative stuff to buy (and write about).
Check it out for an update on the newest toys in the industry, it's quite enlightening.
Iowa and Mississippi are the worst states for women in politics, the Associated Press reports. Neither state has ever had a female governor or elected a woman to Congress.
As an Iowan, I'm so ashamed! Not only is the state bad when it comes to national politics, but state offices aren't much friendlier to women. Since 1920, when women gained the right to vote, only 11 women have won statewide election in Iowa.
So why the dearth of women politicians in Iowa? A few possible generalizations/explanations offered in the article: 1. Iowa voters are old. Older voters don't like voting for women. 2. Iowa voters are farmers. Farmers don't like voting for women. 3. Iowans like re-electing the same politicians, over and over. Most of those politicians aren't women.
Iowa's farming history "is a deeply ingrained societal view of the culture and the view of women," said Bonnie Campbell, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 1994. When she tracked her polling as that election played out, Campbell found that Iowans just couldn't see her or another woman as their state's leader.
Something still doesn't add up. As Campbell (who, by the way, was the first director of the Dept. of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women) noted, Florida has an older population yet little hesitation sending women to Congress. Nebraska and Kansas are rural, too, but have had female governors.
"There have been women elected in far more conservative states than Iowa," Campbell said. "It is a bit of a perplexing question."
Now this is some serious contraception.A new product that’s been in the works for a while now could be a revolutionary way for women to protect themselves. Dibs!
It’s called microbicides, and it comes in the form of a cream or gel that’s inserted into the vagina before intercourse. It protects against pregnancy and STIs, including HIV. It actually mimics women’s natural lubricant as well, so would be preferable to a condom for many.
There’s 14 different versions of microbicides in the works, and 5 of those have been deemed safe enough to begin testing. One of these versions are expected to hit the market within the next three years.
If proven safe and effective, this could possibly mean millions of lives saved, especially (and obviously) considering the AIDS pandemic.
Today, the the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that they will approve the breast silicone implant manufacturer, Mentor Corporation, to market their product as long as they met some specific conditions sent in a letter to the company.
This is all despite the fact that most experts say that the implants are extremely dangerous and the agency has no way to meet their conditions. Looks like the FDA and Bush-appointed commissioner, Lester Crawford, have their priorities in order.
It's also merely two years after two former Mentor employees swore that the company had made defective implants that were prone to rupture and hid the information from customers and federal regulators. Awesome.
So while Lester and his gang have dilly-dallied for way too long on their decision to approve over-the-counter emergency contraception (which now has a Sept. 1 deadline), they’re sending love letters of encouragement to approve these seriously dangerous implants. Fuck reproductive health, these ladies gots to have their defective boobs!
A women-only gym in the national capital has banned mothers from breastfeeding their newborn babies.
Club Pink, in Canberra's north, could find itself dragged before the courts after it told two members to stop feeding their hungry babies in the gym.
The mothers - Melinda MacDonald and Kathleen Notley - have held meetings with the club's managers, written to the club and provided them with relevant sections in the ACT's Discrimination Act outlining their case.
But the women were informed by management the no-children, members-only policy of the club stands and they could not bring their newborn babies to the gym.
Check out this article in the Charlotte Observer on the Philadelphia Eagles’ new “soft-porn” calendar of their cheerleaders with not much else on but their pompons. While the team has a long record of do-gooding, this new calendar has caught the team more attention than ever:
Coverage of the release of this calendar - cheerleaders cooing to radio talk-show hosts, lascivious TV segments, newspaper stories about the cover model - has outstripped (pardon the pun) coverage of all the positive things the Eagles do for the Philadelphia region.
Last year, the Eagles planted $100,000 worth of trees around Philadelphia public schools, because more trees mean cleaner air. There was barely a ripple in the local media.
Last season's breast-cancer-awareness campaign speaks for itself. If you saw the pink Eagles hats and shirts, you know how effective it was.
The point is, this calendar stands in stark contrast to everything else the franchise seems to represent. The message it sends undermines the more important things the team accomplishes - both on the field and off.
The LA Times just published an interesting article by Crispin Sartwell, entitled "I Married a Feminist."
The author, a male political science professor at Dickinson College, looks at the different tenets of feminism, his own marriage to a pro-choice feminist, and relates it to the current buzz about Jane Sullivan Roberts' views on abortion. In the end he suggests that, regardless of Ms. Roberts' anti-choice leanings, she should still be considered a feminist. (After all, he argues, she's a lawyer that clearly believes in equality in the workplace.) Yet his wife disagrees with him. He quotes her as saying, "I don't think you can be a feminist and try to force women to have babies they don't want."
Is this true? We spend so much of our time promoting diversity in feminism and we know it's both beneficial and necessary to the movement. Does this mean we must accept a diversity that includes anti-choice women?
Not because President Bush, in selecting a replacement for the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, didn't nominate a woman or a minority, but because of the giddy response to the nomination by conservatives and some members of the media. People are acting as if, after years of trying to diversify once all-white and all-male institutions, the Holy Grail of meritocracy has been restored.
It used to be that we waited until a Supreme Court nominee faced off with senators before discussing his or her views on affirmative action. Now, it's the physical characteristics of the nominee that prompt us to discuss our own view of affirmative action.
New York Times columnist David Brooks commended Bush for moving beyond the "tokenism of identity politics." In an op-ed article for the Los Angeles Times, a contributor insisted Bush sent women and minorities a message by nominating a "garden-variety" white male: There are no set-asides on the high court. And a caller to "The Rush Limbaugh Show" gushed that what he liked most about the Roberts nomination was that Bush withstood the pressure -- even from his own wife, Laura, who said she hoped he would choose a woman -- and he had just picked "the most qualified person he could find." I'm hearing that line over and over again from pundits and television commentators.
This whole line of thinking is offensive...
I tend to agree. The collective sigh of relief from far right organizations over the nomination did seem to be followed by a scary enthusiasm that had nothing to with Roberts’ record.
Navarrette goes on about the nomination being nothing less than a betrayal, noting that women and minorities “still have to put up with the fact that the next time they work their way into a plum assignment or achieve some great personal goal, it might just be chalked up to affirmative action or tokenism or identity politics.”
Pakistan's Election Commission says that anyone trying to stop women from participating in local government elections could face up to three years in jail.
Women's eNews recently reported a new trend in Czech health care: the forced sterilization of Roma women.
The Roma population, an oft-persecuted minority group in the Czech Republic and elsewhere, has always endured intense discrimination. But this is nuts. Turns out, at least 70 Roma women in the Czech Republic have come forward claiming they were sterilized -- without their consent -- while receiving OB/GYN care at state-run hospitals. The objective of these procedures, they claim, was an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
According to Women's eNews, the Czech health ministry has now introduced legislation that would more tightly regulate all medical consent procedures as well as restricting sterilization. The bill is still in its early stages and not yet approved by the Cabinet.
To learn more about discrimination against Romas, click here.
As you may know, Space Shuttle Discovery is commanded by a woman--Eileen M. Collins. She is one of 40 women to have ever made the journey into space. NPR has a great timeline of women in space; so check out the women who reached for the stars. (Cliché enough for you? Yeah, I was holding that one in for a while.)
Pic: Valentina Tereshkova; the first woman in space.
Cathy Young at The Boston Globe talks about "Ending bias in domestic assault law.” And what bias is that? Oh, you know--the “radical feminist” agenda of stopping violence against women.
Apparently it’s the “women” part that irks Young:
But underneath its mainstream trappings, the 1994 bill was steeped in a radical feminism of the "men bad, women good" variety -- an ideology which regards domestic abuse and rape as part of a collective male war against women. Ironically, the law's political success was partly due to the fact this kind of feminism dovetails easily with a traditional, putting-women-on-a-pedestal paternalism.
Unfortunately, it also helped enshrine a dogmatic and one-sided approach to family violence. For one, while the legislation is ostensibly gender-neutral, its very title reflects the notion that partner abuse is a “women's issue”...
Oh...fucking...please. I love the idea that merely pointing out that partner violence overwhelmingly affects women is “radical.” Not to mention, VAWA is about partner violence and sexual assault, a fact that Young conveniently omits. Read the whole thing, Young really fancies herself an expert on feminism.
Forget expensive presents or costly jewellery. Wining and dining is the best way for men to woo women, scientists said on Tuesday.
Researchers at Imperial College London developed a mathematical formula and modelled courtship as a sequential game to find the best way to impress the ladies.
Their results show that offering an expensive present signals the man's serious intentions but he must be wary of being exploited by gold-diggers who will dump him after receiving the gift.
"Guys are less likely to offer expensive gifts to females they don't have a long-term interest in. And girls won't be impressed with cheap gifts. By offering expensive but worthless gifts, such as dinner and theatre trips, the male pays no cost if the invitation isn't accepted," said Dr Peter Sozou, of University College London (UCL).
Is ‘gold-diggers’ a scientific term? And something tells me that scientists who use a mathematical formula and “a sequential game” to find out how to impress women probably aren’t the best people for relationship advice.
Amanda points to Hugo’s great post on one’s “number” and the sexual double standard. Go read both posts immediately. I’m especially keen on Hugo’s discussion of homosociality (the idea that men are more concerned with other males’ approval than of women’s).
My first experience with the sexual double standard came after a “we’re on a break” hiatus with a high school boyfriend. Though both of us had seen other people during the break, I was the big slut. The explanation was predictable (though bizarre): men are meant to be polygamous, and women need to remain monogamous in order to curb STD rates. I know, weird stuff.
Since then, the sexual double standard has continued to be one of the most infuriating aspects of sexism for me. I’ve seen otherwise great male friends turn away from potential girlfriends because of their number of sexual partners; I’ve had feminist friends upon hearing my own number tell me I must must must keep it a secret from a current boyfriend. What’s strangest to me is that people will admit the flawed logic behind all this, yet still adhere to the rules of the game. Don’t tell your number, or if you do--shave a couple of partners off the list.
No matter where the double standard comes from, or whatever male (or female) sexual anxiety it feeds off of, I think it’s necessary to address it head on. If we keep dancing around the issue, making excuses for not telling our number, aren’t we implicitly saying that it’s a shameful thing?
Though I must say, Hugo makes a very good point in his argument for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy:
A true lover can say, "Before there was an 'us', there was a 'you' and a 'me', and I will never use what you did in the past against you. I honor your right to have lived the life you chose to live before we were together, and I ask that you honor my right to my past as well."
Personally, I will always tell my partner my ‘number’. Their reaction is a tremendous indicator of their character and how they really feel about women. But this is just me. Any thoughts?
I ordered the bra while my class was at lunch, wincing at the $60 price tag. When it arrived the following week I grew nervous: it fastens up the front, with a hook-and-eye closure? It's made of what, satin? And, good God: There's no underwire!
The proof, however, was in the plodding. I went out for a slow test-jog along the lake. After two miles I was out of breath, had aching knees, and a stitch in my side, but I could have cried for joy: My breasts had stayed put, in perfect comfort, without sacrificing lung capacity. I went home and plunked down another $75 to register for the Chicago Marathon, my first. I've run four more since then, and dozens of shorter races.
A well-endowed friend of mine actually told me about this b
