March 2006 Archives

Thanks, Tennessee Guerrilla Women!

And she's a New Yorker. I'm in love!

New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney has introduced legislation that would regulate the advertisement of "crisis pregnancy centers" that aim to convince pregnant women against having abortions.

The centers are all owned by anti-choicers, and use names and signs intended to look like Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. When the women arrive, the coercion begins. "Women I've talked to are just unbelievably shaken by it," says Maloney. "One said they closed the door and wouldn't let her get out."

The bill would essentially require the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit any group from advertising "with the intent to deceptively create the impression that such person is a provider of abortion services if such person does not provide abortion services." Maloney says the legislation was carefully drafted so it wouldn't infringe on free speech, but some (libertarians and such) claim that proposing the bill is a bad move and is, in fact, unconstitutional.

Yet the American Civil Liberties Union has endorsed the bill, saying that the FTC should have addressed this issue before and that "It's already clear that deceptive advertising and false advertising is illegal."

Sweet. Let's hope this one passes.

Broadsheet links to this article by ex-Wonkette Ana Marie Cox, who takes on the recent warnings against girls going wild. She mentions James Garbarino's new book, See Jane Hit, which examines "the less savory outcome of freeing girls to excel beyond gender stereotypes." (Garbarino must have thought Mean Girls was poignent social commentary.) Cox takes his idea-- that girls haven't yet learned to deal with their freedom from gender norms-- and argues that it's fine for girls to go wild... just not too wild. I'm not sure if I buy this part of her argument, but I'll run with it:

Freeing girls from stereotypes hasn't made them more masculine, it's made them more more. Unbound from cultural constraints, they don’t flip to the male side of the spectrum. They just flip out.

Hear that, Concerned Women for America? It's not that alcohol is corrupting our pure, innocent young coeds. It's that some women actually like drinking, dancing and having sex. What a revelation!

Maybe it would be progress if we had a definition of femininity expansive enough to include shaking one's thing without raising one's top — so that girls could go a little wild without having to rely on what we used to refer to as the "sorority girl's mating call": "I am soooo drunk."

Cox basically gets it right where the AMA, Concerned Women for America, and Female Chauvinist Pigs get it wrong. There's certainly a way to embrace your sexuality and have fun dancing and drinking without being exploited or jeopardizing your safety. I think a lot of women walk that line quite successfully.

But it makes for better television to show us girls in bikinis doing body shots on South Padre Island, and it suits CWA's agenda to point to women like Natalee Holloway and Imette St. Guillen as examples of what will happen if girls party and enjoy it. It's simply not newsworthy that there are there are lots of women who get drunk and just spend the night dancing with their girlfriends, who are willing to flash their friends for a laugh but never a camera crew, who make out with strangers at a bar and then arrive home safely.

If there's any justice in this world, next week we'll be seeing a slew of studies and hand-wringing over the growing problem of urban sausages.

Make sure to check out the info for the NOW National Conference and Young Feminist Summit to be held in Albany, NY this July.

Side note: I love the fact that "Young Feminist Summit" has been written in graffiti as well as taken out the "g" in every verb. 'Cause us young'uns are down with slangin'.

A recent study has shown that 9 out of 10 women say that they believe one-night stands are immoral. While they didn't condemn the sluts, er, I mean women who decide to engage in casual sex, they felt that they do so due to "something lacking in their lives" or because "they had got drunk or high on drugs."

Because no emotionally stable or sober women would ever have sex purely for pleasure or anything.

The most infuriating thing about this study is that the research involved interviews from a whopping 46 women.

On Wednesday, the sex worker rights magazine Spread opened its first art exhibit titled, "Sex Worker Visions." Artists include former SuicideGirl and illustrator Molly Crabapple, sex activist Heather Corinna, exotic dancer and photographer Charise Isis, and former prostitute and filmmaker Anne Hanavan.

So if you're in or by NYC, get thee to the LGBT Community Center, where the exhibition is being held.

Welcome to the new site! Please be patient, as we'll be working out some kinks over the next few days.

An extra special thanks to John for help making this happen.

A blog, Justice 4 Two Sisters, has been created to follow the rape investigation at Duke University. Make sure to check it out and show your support.

Also: Alas, a Blog has a great roundup of stories and posts.

Hat tip: Alternet's The Mix.

Don't forget that the Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) conference is this weekend! You can register at the door, so if you're around get your ass to Cambridge, MA.

I'm super excited for it--I'm moderating a panel on feminism and blogging with some amazing ladies: Echidne, Lakshmi Chaudhry, Amie Newman, and our very own Samhita. Word.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich wants every pharmacy in the state to post a sign that details what options customers have in buying contraceptives.

The new signs would notify customers that pharmacies must provide an alternative drug if they are out of stock or allow the prescription to be filled at a different pharmacy. The signs also will list a toll-free [800-280-4149] pharmacy hot line [and website] for complaints.

Dreamy! Next step? Let's require hospitals to post similar signs informing rape victims they have a right to EC.

Talk about the worst trend ever. Lawmakers in Alabama have introduced abortion ban bills a la South Dakota.

"I thought if South Dakota can do it, Alabama ought to do it because we are a family-friendly state," said state Sen. Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, who has introduced a bill in the Senate that would even ban abortions in cases where a woman became pregnant because of rape or incest.

What you're about to read may shock you: The CNN segment Jess wrote about yesterday wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Here's the transcript from the show, which was about porn websites that coerce young women into stripping and doing various other things for the camera.

CHERNOFF [reporter]: Jill says she was drunk and that pressure from the crowd and the cameraman pushed her to do things she normally would never have done.

JILL: I couldn't stand up for myself and say, you know what, no, I'm not going to do this. There is no way that I could stop because I was so scared of what they would do if I stopped.

Sounds pretty slutty to me!

[Internet "photographer" Micah] COY: No one is forcing anyone in any situations. It is entirely up to the person -- at their discretion.

CHERNOFF: And, Coy argues, there is no undue pressure from men at the parties.

COY: Serious problems arise when you have two people naked and a bunch of people drunk around them and you have everyone's emotions are going, you have a lot of hormones flying around. It can easily turn into a mob mentality and that was something I never wanted to have happen.

Coy doesn't mention that it's two women who are naked, surrounded by drunk men. I'd say that changes the dynamic somewhat.

CHERNOFF: But your site is full of that. It is full of people egging them on. All of that.

COY: There is a finesse about it, I guess.

I'll say. But CNN isn't really one to talk about "finessing" a story... seeing as how they chose to market their segment girls-gone-wild style, rather than as a warning about an increasingly common type of sexual predation. Even though the actual show wasn't nearly as offensive as the promos, it's still not excusable.

Tonight on Paula Zahn, CNN will cover the story of girls who are sexually assaulted while passed out and end up with their picture on the internet.

How much do you want to bet this will be yet another "girls gone wild and paying the price" piece?

Why isn't the segment being promoted as guys who prey on unconscious women?

UPDATE: Here's the transcript.

What is this, the third time already this week that all sexually active, nonmarried women have been called cheap whores? Check out this letter, from Missouri state Representative Cynthia Davis, who recently introduced legislation to remove a state requirement that sex ed classes teach contraception:

From: Cynthia Davis
Sent: Mon 3/20/2006 8:02 PM
To: (redacted)
Subject: RE: Contraceptive Article...

Dear (redacted),

I appreciate your dedication to your legislative duties while on Spring Break. Your letter seemed to indicate that if we create chemical and pharmaceutical ways to tamper with mother nature, then we will solve the problem. Even if you solve a physical problem you still have not solved the moral, emotional and spiritual problems that come with a promiscuous lifestyle.

When I was listening to the debate last week I wondered what kind of man would want to enjoy free sex and then expect her to provide for her own contraceptives? These are the kind of men who want free whores. Any man who would be so low life as that does not deserve to have any woman love him. Smart women will stay away from men who use them and abuse them.

Contributed by: Gwen Beetham (our unofficial Caribbean correspondent)

Yesterday in the Dominican Republic, the term “sexual freedom” was deleted from a clause in a proposed Civil Code reform for fear that it "would open the doors to future homosexual unions." Of course, it came as no surprise to me that a primarily Catholic country would cite “conservative and strong family” values as a reason for the deletion (abortion is also illegal in this country, as it everywhere in the Latin American/Caribbean region except for Puerto Rico and Cuba.)

Actually, on that topic, I would like to point out that across Latin America, an estimated 5,000 women die every year as a result of illegal abortions, and 1 in 30 Dominican women has an illegal abortion every year – one of the highest rates in the region. (The abortion rates are highest in Chile and Peru, where the rates are 1 in 20. In the United States, the rate is 21.3 per 1,000 women.)

…But back to the homophobia. What’s really puzzling to me is that the Attorney General (Rodolfo Espiñeira) also said: "I believe we still aren't sufficiently civilized for legislation of that nature.”

In case you’re saying to yourself “surely this gringa has misinterpreted”… he actually said: "Creo que todavía no estamos tan civilizados para una legislación de esta naturaleza". See for yourself (if you read español).

Sorry, I’ve only been living here a month. Can’t explain.

How many things can you find wrong with this quote from Sharon Stone:

"Young people talk to me about what to do if they're being pressed for sex? I tell them (what I believe): oral sex is a hundred times safer than vaginal or anal sex. If you're in a situation where you cannot get out of sex, offer a blow job."

Via About.com's sexuality blog.

Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath said yesterday that insurance companies must cover contraceptives in prescription drug plans--doing otherwise is sex discrimination.

Attempts by women's advocacy groups, like NARAL Pro-Choice Montana, have failed in recent years to get lawmakers to force insurance companies to automatically offer the coverage.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana said company lawyers are still reviewing the decision and have not yet determined when the mandate will become effective in current prescription drug policies.

Why is it so hard to cover something as easy as birth control pills? Because seriously, paying $50 a month not to get pregnant sucks.

My roommate just brought this to my attention as her girl Manju (they are both from the League of Pissed of Voters w00t!) has participated in the protesting of Duke's lackadaisical ignorance to charges of gang rape.

In as ugly a story as is likely to be reported in college sports this year, a black exotic dancer says she was beaten, strangled, and raped at a party hosted at a house rented by the three Duke lacrosse captains. The woman, who says she was told she'd be dancing for a few men at a bachelor party, told police she fought fiercely against her attackers, losing four fingernails in the process.

Initially, the lacrosse team denied it all. It was all overblown, they said, although they did admit hiring a dancer and doing some drinking. The drinking was certainly no surprise. The Winston-Salem Journal reported this week that 15 of the 47 players on the team had previous misdemeanor chargers "stemming from drunken and disruptive behavior.'' In fact, police have reportedly been called to the house four times since September.

And then the police found four red, polished, broken fingernails at the house.

via SFChronicle.

As Tiffany points out at Blackfeminism.org, not only is this an example of elitism, race, class, and gender clearly playing out in the rape of a black woman by a group of white men (AND how it is dealt with by authorities), it also highlights the negativity (aggressiveness) of athletic culture, especially on university campuses.

This story is awful, but these activists are rightfully making some noise. Duke's failure to respond effectively sets a precedent that this type of aggressive and violent behavior is acceptable.

Scottish researchers are developing a new-and-improved birth control pill. It sounds positively dreamy: Non-hormonal! Prevents cancer! No PMS! Lower risk of blood clots!

While the Pill is the most effective form of contraception, many are put off by side-effects from the female hormones on which it is based... The new Pill works on a completely different principle, using a chemical called mifepristone to block the action of progesterone, which the body needs to ovulate and support a pregnancy.

But wait! Before you get too excited, note that the new Pill is an extremely low dose of mifepristone, which is the main drug used in medication abortion. So scientists are expecting anti-choice opposition to the pill's approval.

"If it was decided just on scientific grounds, and the pharmaceutical industry did not respond to all sorts of irrational factors, it could be developed within five years," he said. "As it is, I would expect it to be within five to ten years."

In other words, don't hold your breath. If everything were decided on scientific grounds, we'd have Plan B over-the-counter and a male birth control pill by now.

In case you aren't tired of being called a slut yet, check out Concerned Women for America's audio interview about girls gone wild on spring break. (Clearly, this is what the AMA warning hath wrought.)

Apparently somebody bought CWA's Janice Crouse a copy of Female Chauvinist Pigs, because she repeats the book's message nearly word-for-word: Young women are complicit in a culture that objectifies them.

What we find is the whole culture is really encouraging girls to be more wild. For instance, the Playboy is saying, you know, girls need to be more rebellious, a bit more out there in your face, a bit more like the guys. To be a prude or someone who is straight-laced is the worst thing you can do... So I think it's high time the AMA and the government got into the business of warning young women, and saying to them this is not just something that’s dangerous to your health, it’s dangerous to your life.

Yes, clearly young women are to blame for their portrayal in "the Playboy." Crouse then wades into unbelievablly offensive territory, suggesting that women who have been raped/murdered/kidnapped were asking for it because of they were out drinking and socializing.

While I’ve had quite enough of studies talking about young people and all their risky sex (AMA, I’m talking to you!), I thought this one was worth checking out.

Apparently, young men who feel good about the way they look are more likely to have unprotected sex with multiple partners while young women with a positive body image were less likely to have risky sex. Interesting.

The men who were most satisfied with their appearance, and the most appearance-oriented -- meaning they were highly invested in their looks and considered appearance to be important -- were also the most likely to have sex without condoms and to have sex with multiple partners, Dr. Eva S. Lefkowitz of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and colleagues report.

...Among young women, in contrast, those with a more positive body image were less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, Lefkowitz and her team found.

I think this is interesting stuff, but there’s a part of me that’s wary about an alternate conclusion that could be reached from this study--that women have “risky” sex if they have low self-esteem. If risky is defined as having multiple partners, the argument that women who “sleep around” actually just hate themselves isn’t exactly new.

Thoughts?

A Mississippi bill that would have banned most abortions died last night when the House and the Senate couldn’t reach a compromise:

The Senate voted for the negotiations to try to put language in the bill that would protect the state's current informed consent law if the new legislation was ever challenged in court.

Senators also wanted to include a provision requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound before an abortion...The House plan said that the proposed ban would not take effect until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that made abortions legal in the nation.

...The Senate conferees refused to sign the bill, and the House conferees refused to sign the Senate proposal.

I would be pleased if this wasn’t just a temporary thing. Sigh.

The United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations is seeking ways to boost the number of women in uniformed peacekeeping positions.

While 27 percent of civilian positions in peacekeeping are held by women, the number of women in military and police units remain extremely low--less than five percent.

Considering all of the recent problems the UN has had with sexual assault committed by their own peacekeeping units, this is a long time coming.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), a sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act, released a resource guide today for young women, Know What to Ask & Know Your Rights: A Pay Equity Guide on How to Help Yourself in the Workplace.

It’s really more of a pamphlet than a guide (as her press release calls it), but whatever. It's something.

At a seminar on pay equity, Sen. Clinton said, "We still have work to do to level the playing field. And we all have a role to play as we pursue that goal together: the public sector, private sector, and individuals...I hope this guide is a tool that helps to empower women, looking for jobs or holding jobs and perhaps unaware of their rights and the resources available."

For more info on pay equity, check out the WAGE project.

[Also, it's worth noting that the Department of Labor used to make this sort of information available. But the Bush administration has dramatically reduced the number of resources -- such as "Know Your Rights" guides -- on the Women's Bureau website. They've also stopped collecting data on women workers. --Ann]

This is kind of scary. A teacher in a UK Catholic school had to contact the police after she received threatening letters from an anti-choice organization over her teaching contraception.

Diana Vernon, of Woldingham School, in Surrey, was sent hostile letters and e-mails by anti-abortionists attacking the move to teach girls aged 14 and 15.

Anti-abortion group UK LifeLeague said the school did not have to teach it.

Vernon said that “we make sure that the girls are aware of the options and then can leave here and make an informed moral choice for themselves.” Well there’s the problem! I guess no one told her that young women aren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves--that’s what old white men are for. Duh.

Um, seriously? Apparently you can get Playboy pencil cases, eraser sets, notebooks, the whole terrifying back-to-school package.

What parent would buy this for their kid? I'm completely freaked out.

I love coming across a story that lets me post this pic of Vanessa.

A New Zealand anglers’ club has had a sex discrimination complaint made against them after they refused to rent women a cabin for a weekend fishing trip.

A group made up of men and women tried to make a reservation, but were told only men were allowed in the cabins.

The Wairoa Anglers Club maintains that they’re not being discriminatory, they’re just trying to protect women. Club secretary Esther Foster says they won’t rent cabins to women “so that you're not having young girls in with old men. It's a politically correct type of thing.” Um, ok.

NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota is working with other pro-choice activists to repeal the state’s abortion ban--last week they filed a petition to get a measure on the November ballot so that South Dakotans can vote out the ban.

But to get the measure on the ballot, they need to collect 17,000 signatures from voters in in the state.

NARAL has put together some ways you can help:

Volunteer: Sign up to collect petition signatures in South Dakota. We are organizing volunteers for the coming weeks – sign up today!

Spread the word: There are 12 other states considering abortion bans right now. Help us spread the word to people in your community about these outright attempts to end a woman's right to choose by writing a letter to the editor. Click here for a list of newspapers in your state to contact.

Contact your governor: With 12 other states considering abortion bans, it's up to pro-choice Americans to send a message to their governors urging them to veto any anti-choice legislation this session.

Learn more: Read NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota's press release about the ballot referendum, and click here to learn more about the ban.

Donate: Together with a state-based coalition of doctors, nurses, clergy, and other pro-choice groups, we can collect enough signatures, but we need the resources necessary to do it. Click here to support our organizing efforts in South Dakota!

Make it stop. An article by a British academic Alison Wolf in Prospect Magazine has people's heads spinning. It is about what she calls "elite women" and their ability to get whatever they want in a high-paying, high-power career. Her basic thesis, these women are ruining society because talent is leaving jobs that need women, such as teaching and other social services.

Someone, stop me now.

Three consequences get far less attention than they deserve. The first is the death of sisterhood: an end to the millennia during which women of all classes shared the same major life experiences to a far greater degree than did their men. The second is the erosion of "female altruism," the service ethos which has been profoundly important to modern industrial societies—particularly in the education of their young, and the care of their old and sick. The third is the impact of employment change on childbearing. We are familiar with the prospect of demographic decline, yet we ignore, sometimes wilfully, the extent to which educated women face disincentives to bear children.

When has there ever been a real universal sisterhood?

As in the Lisa Jervis article quoted in the post before this, if Wolf was talking about how feminism should not be centered around women being able to enter the commodity fetishism/corporate culture sucking the world dry, that would be one thing. But she is not, she asks for an innately "female altruism" that she thinks has disappeared due to the advancement of women in work.

Yikes. I agree that there are fewer incentives for *successful* women to have children, but why the blame on women for not living up to there role of childbearer.

'Families remain central to the care of the old and sick, as well as raising the next generation, and yet our economy and society steer ever more educated women away from marriage or childbearing,' she writes. 'The repercussions for our future are enormous, and we should at least recognise the fact.' The growth, Wolf argues, of the 'because I'm worth it' generation has led to the end of 'female altruism', where women would see the caring part of their life as normal.

via Guardian UK.

Oh dear. Thoughts?

Hello, I am slow but I just came across this piece by Lisa Jervis on Lip Magazine about the short-comings of American Feminism. She totally breaks it down and although I think many feminist writers are attempting to juggle newer conceptions of a feminism to include gender (as opposed to women only)-analysis, along with looking at how race and a capitalist society create a much more complicated understanding of oppression, her analysis is necessary for us to move to more radical feminist stance.

A transformative progressive feminism envisions a world that is different from the one we currently inhabit in two major and related ways. Most obviously, this world would be one in which gender doesn’t determine social roles or expected behavior. More broadly, it would also be one in which people are not sacrificed on the altar of profit—which would mean universal health care, living wages, drastically reduced consumption, and an end to the voracious marketing machine that fuels it. The link between these two elements is clear: Both gender and race, as they currently exist, are socially enforced categories that shore up a consumer capitalist system by providing opportunities for both marketing and exploitation.

But much of the contemporary American feminist movement is preoccupied with the mistaken belief—call it femmenism—that female leadership is inherently different from male; that having more women in positions of power, authority, or visibility will automatically lead to, or can be equated with, feminist social change; that women are uniquely equipped as a force for action on a given issue; and that isolating feminist work as solely pertaining to women is necessary or even useful.

I still think it is useful for women to come together on certain issues that pertain to their own lives. Bottom line is we still live in a society that is gender binary where a male dominated government is taking away women's rights. But I think her point is really important for us to think about. Men should be as concerned about issues pertaining to women and their choices and feminists should be equally concerned about immigration rights as they are about the issue of a wage gap.

She continues...

Furthermore, the most pressing issues facing women worldwide—slave wages, inadequate health care systems, environmental degradation, the endless war and surveillance society of Bush-era neo-conservatism, and rampant corporate profiteering involved in all of the above—are a) no less important to feminists just because they also happen to be the most pressing issues facing men and b) directly related to the particularly ruthless brand of global capitalism we’re currently living under.

This vulture capitalism would not magically disappear if women were in charge of more stuff. Racism would not go away. Hell, sexism itself would probably be alive and kicking. God knows the gender binary would be stronger than ever. In short: The actual workings of power will not change with more chromosomal diversity among the powerful.

Thoughts?

This is a recent piece by a Brooklyn based artist, of Britany Spears giving birth (since when did people give birth doggy-style?) and is supposed to be a homage to the pro-life movement. I can't say anything Alternet and Broadsheet haven't. But this image is just so freaking weird.

With the attitude of, "if they can do it, so can we..." two Alabama legislators have introduced bills that are eerily similar to those recently passed in South Dakota.

"I thought if South Dakota can do it, Alabama ought to do it, because we are a family-friendly state," said state Sen. Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, who has introduced a bill in the Senate that would even ban abortions in cases where a woman became pregnant because of rape or incest.

A similar bill has been introduced in the House by Rep. Nick Williams, R-McIntosh. The bills would make it a felony crime to perform abortions in Alabama.

With only seven days left in the 2006 session, the bills do not have much chance of passing this year, but supporters say they expect to keep trying.

Apparently family friendly means taking away women's rights. Who knew they were two mutually exclusive things? Similar legislation is being proposed in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia.

Scary.

With married women being all the rage right now, it's no wonder that several of California's Women of the Year count "wife of state legislator" among their primary accomplishments.

I wonder if Swiffer sponsored the awards dinner?

In Monday's Senate floor speech honoring the selection of the women of the year, first lady Maria Shriver boasted that, "This is an achievement that will never leave you. You will always be known as a California woman of the year. No one can take it away from you. You didn't come here because of who you were married to."

Well, at least some of them didn't.

This prompted me to look up past winners of Time's Person of the Year Award-- which was called "Man of the Year Award" until the shockingly recent year 1999. Queen Elizabeth II (1952) and Corazon Aquino (1986) are the only "non-wives" to be given the honor (though some women have been honored in groups). In 1936 Wallis Warfield Simpson received the award after she married the Prince of Wales. And in 1937, Time gave the "Man and Wife of the Year Award" to Mr. and Mrs. Chiang Kai-Shek. Most recently, 2005's Man, Wife and Rockstar of the Year were Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono.

Not saying these honored wives weren't worthy of recognition for other accomplishments outside of their marriages. But it certainly seems like the best way to be noticed for your achievements is to marry a prominent man... or divorce one:

A thin and playful Jennifer put modesty aside as the first ever woman to be honored on the cover in the 10-year history of GQ's "Men of the Year" issue series! ... Aniston earned the honor because the magazine said she showed a lot of poise, grace and good humor during her breakup with Brad Pitt this year. The couple's divorce was granted last month after four years of marriage.

We were so into the beard thing first.

With midterm elections approaching, the Democratic party is running women candidates as outsiders against a "culture of corruption." In other words, "let's exploit some stereotypes!"

"In an environment where people are disgusted with politics in general, who represents clean [floors] and change [diapers]?" asks Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Women." [Insertions mine.]

I'm glad the DCCC is making an effort to increase female representation in the legislature. But the way to do that is just to nominate more women candidates, and then trumpet their actual political strengths-- rather than a list of stereotypes. (The article goes all Lakoff on our asses, noting that women candidates are a good fit for the Dems, who are "more concerned with nurturing, caring and domestic policy, while the Republicans care more about security.")

Though I can't be too upset at the DCCC. I think it is true, unfortunately, that voters respond better to politicians who are traditional/stereotypical (tough/decisive men, nurturing women) – which is a broader social problem that goes waaaay deeper than the Democratic party.

The public loves women politicians whose personal lives adhere to the stereotypes (devoted wife, mother, etc.), but has a much harder time stomaching women whose political positions are actually pro-woman. Note that Rahm Emanuel isn’t talking about getting more "nurturers" into office because they'd enact some great policies for women and families. He likes women candidates because he thinks they’re more electable.

I have to wonder: If the Dems were the party in power, would they give a shit about recruiting more women candidates? This article makes it seem like a desperation move... "Well, we aren’t winning elections with men, so I guess we’ll try anything. Even women!"

UPDATE: Broadsheet has a different take.

This is horrendous. A recent conference in nairobi highlighted the disturbing statistics and stories of women affected by unsafe abortions. Unbelievably, 90 African women die every day from unsafe abortions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 4.2 million women in Africa have unsafe abortions every year--30,000 of them die. Africa accounts for almost half of the world’s deaths from unsafe abortions.

Researchers at the conference blame sexist and restrictive laws:

"A lot of people are not aware of the disaster unsafe abortion provokes," said Eunice Brookman-Amissah, vice- president of Ipas, a reproductive health organisation. "Too many laws in Africa are too restrictive. They would only allow abortion to save the life of the mother - this is unethical and not enough."

"By continuing to adhere to archaic colonial laws, by failing to implement international agreements, and by failing to act on growing evidence, we have allowed abortion to become the killing field for women in Africa," said Ghanaian gynaecologist Fred Sai. "This is the worst case of medical apartheid that exists. There is no law forbidding men to decide on their own body."

90 percent of the abortions in Africa are done using terrifying methods: “inserting sharp objects into the uterus, flushing the vagina with caustic liquids, throwing oneself from high places or repeated blows to the abdomen.”

Just horrible.

According to this particular study, more than one-third of women believe that “making the first move” is desperate. Wha?

On the other hand, two-thirds of men believe that it’s a good thing when women are aggressive.

"To begin with, men are pleasantly surprised to be spoken to by a woman,” says German psychologist and flirting expert (ha!) Stephan Landsiedel. “The reason is most men experience it seldom, and the attention is flattering.”

Not because it exudes confidence or anything. Sigh.

This is just bizarre.

Apparently a new condition has been getting attention as of late called “persistent sexual arousal syndrome.” In short, women get horny.

The International Journal of STD & AIDS came out with a report on the condition, claiming that women (and only women have experienced this, I might add) with PSAS “become involuntarily aroused genitally for extended periods in time in the absence of sexual desire." Doesn’t sound too bad, right? The only thing is that the arousal isn’t relieved by having an orgasm.

Has anyone heard about this? Sounds a little nutty to me.

The Office of National Statistics has released a report (coincidentally less than a month after the Women and Work Commission came out with their own report on the significant gender pay gap in the UK) on how good British women have it in the workplace:

Women's employment has increased from a rate of 56 per cent in 1971 to 70 per cent in 2005. . .This is equivalent to four million more women in work over the last 35 or so years, with much of the increase driven by the rise in working mothers.

Over the 10 years to spring 2005, the employment rate for married or cohabiting mothers increased by six per cent and the rate for lone mothers rose by 14 per cent, reflecting increases in both full-time and part-time employment.

In response, the Equal Opportunities Commission made it a point to show that the ONS figures skews the pay gap for working mothers by using the median full-time gender pay gap of 13 percent, while almost two-thirds of women with kids under the age of 12 work part-time. (Where the pay gap is almost 40 percent.) As their spokesperson said:

"These figures are nothing to celebrate. Although more women are in work, the real question is - where are they in the workplace?"

I'm sure you remember the lovely South Dakota senator Bill Napoli who said that the only women who should be able to have abortions are religious virgins who were "brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it."

Well so does the artist who did this comic strip, which encourages women to call Sen. Napoli whenever they need to make a decision. At work or at home. You know, since he clearly knows what's best for us silly gals.

Via Boing Boing.

In Mississippi you can buy a a gun with no background check, but vibrators are outlawed. Genius.

Reporting that a Mississippi court upheld a law banning the sale of sex toys this week, Dan Abrams at MSNBC ponders over the state’s priorities:

Well, I am glad to see that the local legislators are focusing on the most pressing issues of the day. I’ve long believed that a three-dimensional, possibly battery-operated device is far more menacing than a handgun. In Mississippi, people can buy guns at a gun show with no background check and certain weapons can be carried almost anywhere. Sure, guns and toys can bring joy and a sense of comfort to the user, but apparently the legislators concluded that a genital replica is a far greater threat to society.

I wonder if legislators would be ok with the Gunslinger vibrator. (Perhaps the scariest thing I have ever seen.)

A new Pew poll shows that 51 percent of Americans continue to oppose same sex marriage, a significant decrease from 63 percent in February 2004.

I’d say this is a pretty impressive drop in homophobic nonsense.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, agrees: “This poll confirms that if you give people the information and time they need to understand the harm discrimination in marriage causes real American families, the majority will continue to move toward fairness...Not only is the middle moving, but those who have traditionally been against us are also beginning to embrace the need for equality in marriage.”

Damn, do I hope he is right.

This is just fucking awesome.

In response to the South Dakota abortion ban, Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the state's Oglala Sioux tribe, has said that she "will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."

If you want to show your support--financial or otherwise--click here for Fire Thunder's contact info.

I meant to post on this a couple of days ago...my bad.

Priya Jain at Salon takes on birth-control-is-for-sluts nut Mary Worthington and her campaign, No Room for Contraception.

Even more importantly, Jain exposes how the anti-birth control movement is making ridiculously scary gains and how "the mainstream anti-choice groups are ready to make the battle against contraception part of their agendas." Cause don't you know--sex is bad bad bad!

So make sure to check it out and try not to run screaming from your computer.

So now we have the results of that recent Zogby push-poll on abortion:

Q30. Do you think that the morning-after abortion pill, commercially known as Plan B, should be available over the counter or should it be available only by prescription?

Over the counter 44%
Prescription only 31%
Not available at all 19%
Not sure 7%

The poll was commissioned by the O'Leary Report/Associated Television News, whose president, Brad O'Leary, is a Bush "Pioneer," RNC regent, and fundraiser for a slew of conservative senators, including George Allen, Bill Frist and Sam Brownback.

In addition to the misleading Plan B question, there's this:

Q16. The United States prohibits foreign aid money being used for abortions in countries where the abortion is done because of the sex of the fetus. Do you agree or disagree with this prohibition?

I might suggest the question be rephrased as "The United States prohibits international organizations that receive U.S. family planning funds from using their own, non-U.S. funds to provide legal abortion services or even provide accurate medical information regarding abortion. Do you agree or disagree with this prohibition?"

Or what about this one:

Q23. A. Parents are responsible for the welfare and health of their children. A parent should be notified if their minor daughter is seeking to have an abortion. B. There are lots of reasons why a minor might not want to tell her parents that she is seeking an abortion. There should be no mandatory parental notification for a minor seeking an abortion.

Because you can't believe that parents are responsible for their children's welfare and at the same time oppose parental notification for abortion.

Anti-choicers are already chirping about the results of the poll.

Our favorite anti-feminist org, the Independent Women's Forum, has announced the finalists in their college essay contest. I am highly disappointed that Amanda didn't make the cut.

But then again, I guess you can't expect much from a contest that looks more like a douche ad than a call for papers.

I loves me some Dan Savage. Check out his Straight Rights Update (links added) for a little kick in the ass:

Earlier this month Republicans in South Dakota successfully banned abortion in that state. Last week the GOP-controlled state house of representatives in Missouri voted to ban state-funded family-planning clinics from dispensing birth control. "If you hand out contraception to single women," one Republican state rep told The Kansas City Star, "we're saying promiscuity is OK." On the federal level, Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 percent effective HPV vaccine—a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year—from being made available.

The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're having those babies, ladies, and you're making those child-support payments, gentlemen. If you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What's it going to take to get a straight rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas wants to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking holy war, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!

Word.

Carnival of Feminists XI is up at Angry for a Reason.

So go ahead, weep for joy.

Love this.

Portia Simpson-Miller, 60, is set to become Jamaica's first female prime minister.

Simpson-Miller became prime minister-designate when she narrowly defeated National Security Minister Peter Phillips in her dominant People's National Party elections last month. The reggae tunes The Strength of a Woman, and Thank You Momma opened nearly all of Simpson-Miller's rallies. The title of another song, It's Woman Time Now, became her unofficial campaign theme.

"The groundswell of support for Simpson-Miller has cut across gender, says columnist Jean Lowrie-Chin of The Jamaica Observer. "You hear as many men as women saying that 'It's woman time now � give her a chance.' We hear people saying that women are more resistant to corruption, more inclusive, more connected and sympathetic to the people."

Glenda Simms, an adviser to Simpson-Miller, says that �Portia symbolizes possibility to every girl and boy. She is proof that you can, in fact, move up in Jamaica.� Simms also said that Simpson-Miller plans to encourage more female political participation.

Simpson-Miller has been a member of Jamaica's Parliament since 1976, vice president of the People's National Party since 1978, and president of PNP Women's Movement since 1983.

A new survey shows that most women who get caesarean sections think that they are necessary and lack information on the surgery’s complications.

Childbirth Connection, who published the Listening to Mothers survey, questioned 1300 women, most of whom said they felt they were poorly informed about the potential complications. 10 percent thought they were pressured into having a caesarean section by a healthcare professional.

Some observers have said mothers' decision-making is the cause of the U.S. caesarean rate, which at almost 25 percent is significantly higher than the World Health Organization's guideline of 10 percent to 15 percent.

That makes it all the more important for women to have all the information necessary.

Make sure to check out Evan Derkacz's post on Monday's Bring Em Home Now concert.

I--sigh--couldn't get a ticket in time. Many thanks to Evan for letting me know all the fun I missed out on. Bastard.

An anonymous GQ writer has composed 10 reasons why Republicans are the best party in bed. I beg to differ:

10 Reasons Why Liberal Men are Better in Bed

1. Conscience! A liberal man knows it’s not all about him. His getting off is contingent on yours. You don’t have to make him pancakes to get him to go down on you.

2. Tears! Liberal men cry— just not during sex. They acknowledge that there are some things worth getting weepy about, such as everything the federal government has done in the past six years.

3. A sense of perspective. A good liberal man realizes that what goes on in politics does have an impact on what goes on in the bedroom. (Even though you don’t have to talk about it in bed.) This is in stark contrast to the Republican man, who can’t understand how his support for anti-choice politicians could possibly impact your sex life. While it may have been fun to sit on a Republican man the night before, it’s his fault you’ll have a hard time getting your Plan B prescription filled the next day.

4. A sense of humor. Republican men may laugh at jokes, but liberal men are better at making jokes. Case in point: Jon Stewart. They didn’t ask a conservative comedian to host the Academy Awards. (Are there any conservative comedians?)

5. Foreplay. Liberal men are so intellectually sexy that everything is foreplay. Republicans might get started in the cab after dinner, but the liberal man’s in-depth knowledge of (and vehement opposition to) various state-level abortion restrictions has got me all hot and bothered before we’ve ordered our entrees.

6. Size. It is absolutely, positively, 100 percent true that Republicans are bigger dicks who trigger the gag reflex.

7. Efficiency. See #5.

8. Largesse. Liberal men will never drag you to a restaurant you don’t like, order your meal for you, and then leave a terrible tip. If they do pay for your dinner, they’ll never demand a blow job in return. (But they were such great conversationalists at dinner, you’ll probably be into fellatio, anyway.)

9. Wooing techniques. Liberal men do indeed send emails and text messages that say things like "I can’t wait to eat your pussy." Unlike Republicans, they actually mean it.

10. Nightstand reading. You will never find a Republican reading She Comes First. Liberal men understand you want to be with someone who knows how to find your clit.

A reader over at Nerve's Scanner noticed the following Q&A on her package of Tampax:

Question: "Will using a tampon cause me to lose my virginity?" Answer: "No - you do not have to worry about losing your virginity when using a tampon. The hymen is an elastic membrane with an opening in the center. It normally has enough room and elasticity for a tampon to pass without any harm, even after the tampon has absorbed the menstrual flow. No matter what you have heard, wearing a tampon doesn't change anything about the person you are."

Whew! Now I'll be spared the expense of re-virginization surgery.

The answer on the Tampax website didn't go so far as to assure me I'm the same person whether I'm wearing a tampon (or having sex) or not. But I'll take the Nerve reader's word for it.

Other burning questions from the Tampax site include, "Can I go to the bathroom while wearing a tampon?" and "Can I use two tampons at the same time?" Which made me wonder if these were really FAQs for 12-year-olds.

Turns out they are. Maybe it's because I don't read Teen Vogue or watch a lot of TV, but I didn't realize that Tampax markets the Pearl tampon exclusively to teen girls. The language is so clearly designed to play to their insecurities, with phrases like "tampons are more discreet than pads and help keep your period more private." Also, this:

It's not about how old you are. It's not about what you do for a living. It's not about being a mom or a career woman. It's a way of being - a state of mind. Pearl Girl - a woman who's sensual, confident and comfortable in her own skin.

It's apparent they focus-grouped the hell out of this language-- so it doesn't even make much sense. Although I guess Tampax could do worse than convincing preteen girls that a tampon is like a state of mind... at least it's absorbent.

I never tire of seeing The Good Wife's Guide of 1955. Lovely.

When I heard about the very sad news of two women dying after taknig RU486, I started preparing myself for the onslaught of anti-choice finger wagging.

Which is why I was so very happy to see that Media Girl took the steam out of their expected response:

Where is all the outrage...over all the deaths caused by Viagra? It's not like nobody knows about it. Are erections on demand more important than life? Just wondering.

Well done.

This is some crazy shit. Garance Franke-Ruta at the American Prospect has taken an in-depth look at The New York Times’ Op-Ed page and its history covering abortion issues--it ain’t good.

Franke-Ruta found that in the last two years (in which we’ve seen some serious reproductive rights rollbacks) that “not one op-ed discussing abortion on the op-ed page of the most powerful liberal paper in the nation was written by a reproductive-rights advocate, a pro-choice service-provider, or a representative of a women’s group”

Wait, it gets worse--83 percent of the op-ed pieces discussing abortion were written by men and more op-eds on abortion were written by pro-life men than by women of either persuasion on choice. Feeling a little ill yet?

Indeed, what’s most striking about today’s op-ed page is the absence of women of any sort writing on the subject of abortion. Of the 124 mentions of abortion on the page over the two-year period, only 21 of those instances were female authored. In total, there were 67 authors who wrote about abortion for the Times -– only seven of which were female. (Many authors wrote multiple columns mentioning the topic.) That’s seven women over two years, compared with 60 men.

Read the whole piece, seriously. It’s amazingly comprehensive and pretty much kills the NY Times’ likely defense that there aren’t enough women in positions of power to warrant writing op-eds. (It’s not our fault! We couldn’t find anyone!)

Just unbelievable.

Um, so to follow through with a decree that passed two years ago in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for more women in the workforce, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry has decided to enforce that only women can work in lingerie shops.

The Council of Ministers’ decision states that implementation will begin with stores selling lingerie and they were given a year to make the necessary changes. Women’s shops selling abayas and ready-to-wear will follow within two years. During that time, women will be trained through the Human Resources Development Fund, the National System for Joint Training, the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry as well as at private training centers for women.

Well it is no doubt a start, but seems to be a rather gendered division of labor. Like selling undies is women's work didn't you know?

What about putting women in other types of work that is coded traditionally male (law, policy, higher education, business, etc)?

via ArabNews.

This weekend marked the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I don't know that I could really write anything to do how I feel justice, so please feel free to link to pieces that speak to you in comments.

I'll start: Cindy Sheehan has written a moving piece for Alternet, On the Third Anniversary.

I was planning on posting on the insane amount of fodder in this Sunday’s New York Times, but Broadsheet beat me to it. I don’t have much to add to Rebecca’s analysis, so I’m going to be lazy and just point you over there.

But this warrants repeating: Don’t miss the Walter Kirn review of “Manliness.” I almost peed my pants laughing.

You know, every so often I’ll come across an article that reminds me why I started Feministing. So I must give many, many thanks to Dana Loesch, who wrote perhaps the most outdated, convoluted and just straight-up bizarre piece on feminism that I’ve seen in a long time. I also don’t like her hat.

In The real definition of feminism, published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Loesch takes the same old anti-feminist arguments and gives them her own special flair.

To start, Loesch says that she is in fact a feminist, just one that “embraces and celebrates all of the characteristics and attributes which separate women from men.” She then says “the current 60’s brand of feminism goes against that by defining femininity with masculine traits.”

Where to start...In what universe is the “60s brand of feminism” current? Does Loesch completely ignore actual current feminism out of ignorance or because it’s just easier to argue against the stereotypes that are associated with the second wave? (Not to mention, difference feminism was way popular back then. So there.)

However, it was this baffling paragraph that really got me:

Wording it that way does an injustice to the image I want to convey; feminists are with men as a 4-year-old girl is with a puppy…a bratty little girl with a Veruca Salt demeanor. I had a puppy when I was 4. I’m certain that my puppy hated my parents for giving him to me.

See? Feminists really do hate puppies. Seriously though--could someone tell me what in the world she is talking about?

In one of the most amazing collection of feminist clichés ever, Loesch also manages to bring up bra-burning (never happened) and the door-opening debate. Kudos.

But I suppose this shouldn’t be a surprise, considering this comes from someone who has blogged that “more women need to step back and let a man be a man.”

Oh dear. CorpWatch tells us that employees from Voice for Humanity traveled to Afghanistan to deliver over 65,000 faux iPods--pink for women, silver for men.

They were custom digital audio players which function like the trendy iPod although they look more like generic radios or MP3 players. They are made in China and filled with public service messages on topics including human rights, women’s rights, Afghanistan’s election process, and health.

Sounds well-intentioned, but many aid workers doing a bit of eye-rolling over the program.

Critics say it was those connections that resulted in millions of taxpayer dollars going to an ineffective and laughable program of throwing trendy technology at serious international issues.

“It shows how foolhardy people can be when they’re not thinking practically,” said Patricia Omidian, an aid worker heading the American Friends Service Committee.

CorpWatch reporter Fariba Nawa also points out that it would have been cheaper and more effective to give out radio transmitters: “Radio programming would have reached more people, and is already how most Afghans get their information.”

Not to mention--pink for women? Seriously?

South Carolina is set to introduce an abortion ban similar to the one passed in South Dakota, but will have to wait until next year because of a full legislative calendar.

But don’t worry, SC has plenty of current anti-choice legislation to keep you appropriately horrified.

Make sure to check out the REAL hot 100's nominee of the week, 26 year-old Ingrid Hu Dahl.

Ingrid is one of the founding members of the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, an amazing program that offers young girls "the chance to learn how to play musical instruments, write songs, perform, and participate in team-building activities in a supportive environment that fosters self-esteem, self-confidence, creativity, tolerance, and collaboration."

A musician herself (she's in two bands--The 303s and Lismore), Ingrid also gives lectures and workshops on gender, homophobia, and alternative gender expression. Now that's hot.

Sounds fun. (Just kidding.)

A new study published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases, reports that 27 percent of respondents use sex toys and that sex toy use is linked to recreational drug use and risky sexual behavior.

From the report:

...persons reporting use of sexual enrichment aids and drugs to enhance sexual experience were more likely to engage in sexual behaviors associated with a higher risk of acquiring and transmitting an STI, such as having non monogamous partnerships and multiple partners in the previous 12 months. Whether use of sexual enrichment aids and drugs to enhance sexual experience are causally associated with STI risk or merely additional markers of high-risk behavior or sensation seeking cannot be discerned from a single cross-sectional survey.

Cory Silverberg, About.com’s sexuality blogger, points out that there are numerous problems with the study’s methodology and reporting:

...there is no evidence that the kind of sexual behaviors participants were engaging in were in fact higher risk. Also, researchers were unable to determine the STD status of the people they were interviewing.

It is entirely likely that people who are comfortable using sex toys (and talking to a stranger on the phone about it) may also be comfortable and knowledgeable about STD risks in open relationships and better able to negotiate safer sex behaviors in their relationships.

I find this study kind of funny actually. It’s like they’re looking for reasons to shame people out of masturbation. Vibrators will make a you a drug addict! Sex toys are bad, bad, bad! Please.

In light of the unfair circumstances for women when they get divorced (can't go back to their families, lack of money, work etc) one local NGO has decided to help women with job support and shelter in transitioning to single life. (the sentence in the article made me laugh because it said "coping with single life", because you know as a woman being single is just the worst thing that could happen to you...sigh)

According to Youmna Abu Hassan, who sits on the board of the Society for Developing the Role of Women in Syria, the project aims to rehabilitate female divorcees by educating them, teaching them skills and providing them with shelter, in order "to make them economically independent".

According to a study by the Central Statistics Bureau, there were roughly 17,000 cases of divorce nationwide in 2004.

The study also notes that the divorce rate is almost 25 percent higher in the capital, Damascus, than in rural areas. This is because urban women tend to be more progressive and assertive.

Let's not get carried away here. Perhaps women in urban centers have more access to resources to get divorced.

"Divorce cases increase in societies that undergo many social changes in a very short time," said sociologist Dr Hazar al-Gindi. "Working women are still considered odd in our society. We still look at women through the traditional perspective; that their role should be confined to raising children and housekeeping."

What is this international obsession with keeping women in the home and with the sanctity of marriage? Wake up people, this structure does not work and is the ultimate hand of the nation-state to oppress women by keeping them bound by the traditional role of mother/wife. Plus, everyone is getting divorced anyway, I don't understand why people get married.

But I am crazy, so people shed some light on me! And make it good, because in light of what I have been seeing lately of folks trying to find the *one*, I really don't believe in this hetero-normative bullshit. It seems to just restrict real human interaction and serves to oppress women.

via ReutersAlertnet.

Just what we need, more white people with guns. According to the beloved NRA (barf) the use of firearms by women has gone up significantly.

The gun industry is catering to women with everything from more girly guns and apparel to all-female hunting trips and free ladies nights at the range. It's clear the feminine touch is adding up to big business.

"A quarter to a third of all our customers here are women shooters," said Keith Weaver, who works at the Blue Ridge Arsenal.

Five years ago, the National Rifle Association offered just 13 firearms training classes for women. Today, there are more than 200 nationwide.

"If you look at statistics, there are more crimes of passion committed by men than there are women," said Sandra Froman, president of National Rifle Association. "But I say that everyone has their emotions, and one of the things you learn when you take firearms classes is you learn to control your emotions."

Yes ladies, why deal with your feelings (and I will ignore the sexist assumption that women are more *sensitive* then men) when you can shoot shit?

Complicated issues, yes. I for one sometimes do want a gun when I am walking in the streets at night and I feel unsafe. I won't lie, but then I have to remind myself how much of what I feel of fear is real and how much is perceived or based on the media painting images of crime and what it looks like.

But I don't want a gun, I hate them and I think they are awful (beyond the fact that half the kids in my classroom have seen someone get shot and I see the effect of such trauma). I am going to guess that these women are buying guns to keep in their house (in the suburbs oooohhhh) for self-defense. But as the NRA reports many of these women have gotten into sporting/hunting. So yeah my vegan ass is not feeling for their need for guns.

Furthermore,

According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, it's at least 20 times more likely that you'll use your weapon to shoot someone in your home rather than using it to protect yourself from an intruder.

"If you bring a gun into the home, it increases the risk of homicide by three," said Becca Knox of the Brady Campaign.

They should be careful not to shoot their partners Cheney style.

Thoughts?

Nine years after India made sexual harassment illegal, compliance is poor.

Why do we like sex so much? (Warning: This article contains the phrase "the onset of whoopee.")

A new African-American sexuality course is shaking up college campuses.

Reporting of sexual assault in the military is on the rise, after implementation of new protocols. Some argue that policy isn't the only answer-- and I agree-- but at least it's a start.

Shocker! "Gay prevention programs" hurt teens... But there are some programs for teens that are promoting healthy views of sex.

AlterNet takes a look at Womenomics, otherwise known as the study of how working women are punished for their biology.

The South Dakota governor's office has received an estimated 10,000 calls, e-mails and letters in the past two weeks. Gee. Seems like people are pretty upset about this abortion ban business.

New Hampshire teenagers can still get emergency contraception without a parent's consent. And in Colorado, they may allow women to get EC directly from a pharmacist.

Let's get excited! Monday is Celebrate Clitoris day! (A brilliant idea from Global Women Intact, an organization that works to end female genital mutilation.)

Senators Parrty Murray (D-WA) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) have announced that, once again, they will be blocking the confirmation of Bush’s nominee and “family friend” Andrew von Eschenbach to FDA commissioner until the emergency contraception Plan B is approved to be sold over-the-counter.

Last year, their block of Lester Crawford was lifted when the Secretary of Health and Human Services promised a decision by September 2005. To everyone’s surprise, the decision was further delayed following Crawford’s confirmation.

On NPR, Senator Murray stated:

“This time around, we are being very firm. The FDA needs to follow its own rules and make a decision, yes or no, on Plan B. And their credibility is at stake. We will hold up this nomination until that decision is made.”

While von Eschenbach has stated before Congress that the decision on Plan B was to be a scientific one rather than political, he did not give them an idea as to when the FDA decision would be made.

Shocker.

Should we be surprised?

Simpson actually turned down the invitation to attend a GOP fundraiser. She was on Capitol Hill yesterday to lobby for Operation Smile (which provides reconstructive surgery to children with deformities). When she discovered that the GOP was more of a fundraiser for the Republican party than anything, she declined the invite.

In reponse to her decline, House Majority Leader John Boehner said, "You know, I really feel like I got bagged."

Geez. I was waiting for him to add, “No one rejects our invitation! NO ONE!!!”

It seems like everyone and their mamas come out to New York on St. Patrick’s Day. However, the Irish LGBT community won’t be doing much celebrating.

The Washington Post had a story yesterday on Christine Quinn, the city’s first openly gay councilmember in New York City, and why she is boycotting most of the St. Patrick’s Day festivities: this is the 16th straight year in a row that the Irish LGBT community has been barred from walking in the parade.

The last time they were allowed to have a banner was in 1991. Although the parade organizers didn’t allow them to have their own personal division in the parade because they didn’t want politics involved in the event, 35 member of the organization marched with a Manhattan division of the Hibernians and then-Mayor david Dinkins. The group was harassed and sprayed with beer by a number of people in the crowd.

Quinn has tried but failed to convince the Ancient Order of Hibernians to allow the community to walk with them again.

So which is more political: having a group of people publicly express their pride in being Irish and gay or the fact that this year’s parade is dedicated to the 69th regiment that served in Iraq?

While school districts in Kansas have always had an “opt-out” policy when it came to sex education (this means that unless a parent sends a letter of objection, their child will receive sex education), a new “opt-in” policy has recently replaced it, requiring written permission from all parents to enroll their kids in sex ed. Check it:

Critics of the measure said that the children whose parents won't see a permission form or won't turn it in are the ones most likely to need the courses. Some also said that the rule may violate the Kansas Constitution, which gives local school boards broad authority.

One board member wants the new policy to go further and require abstinence-only courses. ‘We need to send the correct message,’ Kathy Martin said.

You know, the message that condoms don’t work and sex is the devil.

The board has said that it plans on discussing Martin's proposal at a later meeting. It’s better to let a bit of time go by so the agenda doesn’t look so obvious.

This new policy was recently voted by the school board, just three weeks after the state Senate approved a bill that will require sex education classes in all school districts. (At least we get some good news.) Similar regulations have already been existent in these districts, but have expired, and this new bill is now before a House committee.

Arizona, Nevada, and Utah also currently require parental permission to receive sex education. At this rate, permission slips will soon look something like this:

I, _________, do hereby allow my child to receive immoral and pornographic information from philandering ‘sex educators’...

Then comes Bible study -- er, I mean, science class. (Remember, evolution doesn't exist in Kansas no mo'.)

Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister reports for Raw Story on how the South Dakota abortion ban will affect women in red states.

And she does it in the best way possible--she lets the women speak for themselves.

Scalia decried his own court's recent overturning of a state anti-sodomy law, joking that he personally believes "sexual orgies eliminate tension and ought to be encouraged," but said a panel of judges is not inherently qualified to determine the morality of such behavior.

I guess Scalia will no longer be basing judicial opinions on his personal views of what constitutes "moral behavior." Right.

Thanks to Brad for the link.

The Missouri House voted to ban funding for contraception for low-income women and to stop any state-funded programs from referring women to other programs.

The sponsor of the proposal, Rep. Susan Phillips, declared contraceptive services an "inappropriate use of tax dollars."

This isn’t a proposal to save money--it’s just imposing restrictions on how money is spent. Because unwanted children and poor mothers are clearly preferable to the evils of protected sex.

Via MoJo Blog.

The FDA drama seems to be never-ending, doesn’t it?

President Bush nominated Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach to serve as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday, but a dispute over the "morning after" contraceptive pill all but ensures that the nomination will go nowhere for months or even years.

A Bush family friend, Dr. von Eschenbach was appointed acting F.D.A. commissioner in September, when his predecessor abruptly resigned. He has led the National Cancer Institute since 2002 but now intends to resign from the institute, a spokeswoman said. With a nomination pending, Dr. von Eschenbach can lead the F.D.A. indefinitely.

Emphasis mine. I didn’t think it was possible to be any more pessimistic about the FDA and emergency contraception. Oh how wrong I was.

A new study that focuses on anorexia in twins reports that more than half a person’s risk for developing the eating disorder is genetic.

Most experts already believe there is a strong genetic component to the disorder, which mostly affects girls and women. The new study "hammers home the fact that these are biologically based disorders," said Cynthia Bulik, lead author of the study who is a psychiatrist at the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

"We need to stop viewing them as a choice. ... The patients feel guilty, the providers tell them things like they should just eat, parents are blamed, the insurance companies won't fund treatment because they think it's a choice. It's held us back for decades."

The study looked at over 30,000 twins--both fraternal and identical:

Anorexia was more prevalent between identicals, and statistical analysis led to the scientists' conclusion that 56 percent of the liability for developing anorexia is due to genetics, with environmental factors determining the rest, Bulik said.

Anyone familiar with eating disorders want to weigh in?

A lawsuit brought forward by several Tulane University alumni seeks to stop the school from closing a women’s college as part of the post-Katrina reconstruction.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, seeks an injunction blocking Tulane from closing its 120-year-old H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, one of the nation's first degree-granting colleges for women. The suit also seeks to bar the university from tinkering with Newcomb's endowment, which has been estimated at $40 million and is separate from Tulane's $745-million endowment.

While Newcomb and Tulane merged faculties in the 80s, Newcomb has a separate student government and programs for women. Women’s college advocates also say that women’s colleges give a “disproportionately high number of degrees in fields in which women have been historically underrepresented,” like math and science.

I went to Newcomb for a short while...I’m hoping they win this one.

Today’s must-read: Working It Out

Claudia Goldin dispels the “opt-out revolution” myth in the most unlikely of places--The New York Times, perhaps the biggest fan of opt-out articles.

The short version: Goldin calls bullshit on the supposed trend, citing a comprehensive Mellon Foundation study. Make sure to check it out.

I meant to write about this anti-contraception campaign a while back, but it completely slipped my mind. Thank goodness for the Christian Wire Service and bad press releases.

No Room for Contraception is a web resource/campaign kind of thing that claims to shed light on "the potential problems contraception brings to marriage and society." Sweet.

Founder Mary Worthington on emergency contraception in the campaign's latest press release:

"Though conscience clauses have been enacted in several states to protect physicians and nurses who do not wish to participate in abortion, these clauses must now be rewritten to include specific protection for pharmacists, hospitals and all other healthcare workers who do not wish to participate in the distribution of emergency contraception and any other chemical or barrier contraception or other products found to be objectionable, such as drugs to assist in suicide."

Contraception, assisted suicide--what's the difference?

Another gem from Worthington: Did contraception lead to homosexuality?

Yeah, I'm serious.

Check out Pink's latest video, "Stupid Girls," a not-so-nice homage (a no-mage?) to performers like Jessica Simpson who Pink clearly thinks are sending the wrong message to young girls.

Some of the lyrics:

What happened to the dreams of a girl president
She's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent
They travel in packs of two or three
With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees
Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?
Oh where, oh where could they be?

I'm a little torn on the video--it's really strong, but I don't know how useful it is to call other girls stupid.

A warning before you watch: it's a bit graphic. There's even a bulimia interlude with puking and all.

The Newcomb College Center for Research on Women--in collaboration with the New Orleans Women's Studies Consortium, The New Orleans Network, and Girl Gang Productions--has put out a podcast of International Women's Day: Addresses on the Matter of New Orleans, an event that took place at Tulane University's Newcomb College. (My school for a whole year.)

The podcast includes speeches from the New Orleans Women's Studies Consortium, Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, NOLA Queer Women's Project, a "Women of the Storm" panel discussion, among others.

Listen to it here.

This is pretty interesting stuff. A pro-choice Wisconsin group, Basic-Abortion-Rights Network of Waukesha, has filed paperwork that would put South Dakota’s sweeping abortion ban on the November ballot.

If the group collects 16,728 signatures by mid-June, the people of South Dakota will vote on the law.

Secretary of State Chris Nelson said in the Argus Leader that “there is no restriction in state law as to who can be a sponsor for a referendum.”

But Kate Looby, the director of South Dakota’s Planned Parenthood, says that the Wisconsin group may have jumped the gun: “Because the people in South Dakota who need to be making this important decision have not made the decision yet whether it should go on the ballot or go to court. I think this is not something that can or should come from people outside South Dakota.”

Um...ok. Is this really the time to get all territorial? Seems to me that we should be doing all we can--it’s goddamn crunch time.

UPDATE: Fred Vincy at Stone Court thinks something is amiss.

A Paris strip club, Stringfellows, is taking advantage of the city's lampposts to advertise. The lampposts don't seem to mind.

This reminds me of the car antenna "Stripper Kittens." Soon, no phallic symbol will be safe.

A reader over at Broadsheet filled out a Zogby poll on the morning-after pill that included the following question:

"Do you think that the 'morning-after' abortion pill, commercially known as Plan B, should be available over the counter or should it be available only by prescription?"

Funny, spreading misinformation about reproductive rights isn't listed under Zogby's products and services.

In comments, other readers share how many people they personally know who are pro-choice (including a biology professor) but confuse Plan B with RU-486.

This is so frustrating! Here's where to write Zogby and inform them that Plan B is not an abortion pill.

And over at AlterNet, Deanna has a nice roundup of the latest FDA hijinks and recent EC legislation at the state level.

Apparently it's supposed to give you back your "virgin size." Do I sense a new spam trend? Penis enhancers, beware!

Make sure to check out Rebecca Traister’s latest, Roe for men?, which takes on a lawsuit brought forward by the National Center for Men to try to establish reproductive rights for men. It’s a doozy.

Traister asks if the idea of men’s right to choose is a valid issue or simply a distraction from the insanity that is women’s repro rights these days.

With the suit, NCM hopes to establish that a man who unintentionally fathers a child has the right to decline financial responsibility for that child, a right based on the same principles laid out in the 1973 case that made abortion legal. According to the argument put forth by the team behind the suit, women are afforded more choices about reproduction than their male counterparts, which violates the 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law.

The NCM is bringing the case forward on behalf of 25 year-old Matt Dubay, who says that he didn’t use birth control with his girlfriend because she assured him she couldn’t get pregnant. However, she did get pregnant and Dubay now pays $500 a month to support a child he says he never wanted.

There’s a whole lot to say on this issue, but my favorite response by far comes from Majikthise’s Lindsay Beyerstein:

According to the article, the National Center for Men had been waiting for an appropriate plaintiff for this lawsuit for ten years. And yet [Matt] Dubay's case is weak, even by the deadbeat dad lobby's standards. If he's the best test case they could find in a decade, it kind of makes you wonder if there are as many sperm-snatching snatches out there as the men's rights activists would have you believe.

This is pretty frigging awesome.

Japanese researchers have harvested stem cells from human menstrual blood. These stem cells could potentially be a source of specialized heart cells, which might be used to treat failing or damaged hearts.

...At the meeting of the American College of Cardiology here, Dr. Shunichiro Miyoshi reported that he and his colleagues at Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, collected menstrual blood from six women and harvested stem cells that originated in the lining of the uterus, the endometrium.

They were able to obtain about thirty times more stem cells from menstrual blood than from bone marrow, Miyoshi told Reuters Health.

Via Feministe and The Countess. Yes, ladies. Science is cool.

A special thanks to Lisa Witter for reporting from the inauguration of Chile’s first woman President. Exciting!

Lisa Witter is a political commentator and General Manager of Fenton Communications.

This past warm Sunday morning in Santiago, Chile I met a woman named Laila at the Villa Grimaldi Peace Park. Villa Grimaldi was a complex of buildings used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners by the Chilean secret police, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Laila, a victim of torture, was a guide for a delegation of women from the White House Project who went to Santiago to witness, celebrate and learn from the election and inauguration of Chile’s first woman President: Michelle Bachelet.

Laila is one of those women with kind eyes that speak truth to power. She recounted stories of her two kidnappings, once when she was 16 and the other when she was 18. She told us the gruesome story when she was 18 and two months pregnant of how her torturers beat her until she miscarried. She spoke of the horrific conditions, the 24/7 blind folds, and the execution tower. Laila also told us of the powerful love that fellow prisoners showed for one another. She specifically told us of one story of how a young female prisoner with medical training took it upon herself to organize and care for as many prisoners as she could - that woman was Michelle Bachelet.

On March 11, 2006 Bachelet, a Socialist, wasn’t just inaugurated Chile’s first female president; she became a powerful symbol for the world’s women. Bachelet is a pediatrician and surgeon with studies in military strategy, who served as Health Minister and Defense Minister under President Ricardo Lagos. She is a single mother of three (from two different fathers), and a self-described agnostic, which sets her apart in a predominantly conservative and Catholic country. She’s a survivor, a fighter, imperfect and as we heard from Laila a natural compassionate leader.

We're gonna getcha getcha getcha in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's right! Later this month, they're inducting Blondie.

This makes Debbie Harry only the 43rd woman -- out of nearly 500 people total -- to be honored by the rock hall since it opened in 1983.

Hm. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame claims you don't have to have a penis to get in:

Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria include the influence and significance of the artist's contribution to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.

If members of the selection committee are scratching their heads over significant women rockers deserving of admission, they can borrow my copy of She's a Rebel: A History of Women in Rock and Roll for a few ideas.

Or I can suggest Wanda Jackson, Odetta, the Shangri-Las, Heart, Patti Smith, Marianne Faithfull, Kate Bush, the Raincoats, the Slits, Siouxsie Sue... Which women would you like to see in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

I fully blame the premiere of HBO’s Big Love for a big old argument that I got into with my boyfriend last night.

Short version: I said while I enjoyed the show, it creeped me out and thought it was glamorizing the alpha-male daddy-knows-best family dynamic to the umpth degree. (Check out Feministe for some info on the episode.)

He said I was being paranoid and letting my feminism get in the way of Sunday night TV-watching. After all, he continued, it’s just a show. It’s not like anyone is going to use a HBO series to make a case for polygamy.

Ahem.

I win.

If you’re in New York City, don’t miss this concert!

On March 20 at the Hammerstein Ballroom, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Gold Star Families for Peace are sponsoring an amazing event.

There will be performances by Michael Stipe, Rufus Wainwright, Bright Eyes, Fischerspooner, Peaches, and others. There will also be speeches from Cindy Sheehan, Laura Flanders, Margaret Cho, Susan Sarandon and Chuck D.

Click here for tickets. I’m getting mine now.

I’ll be eternally grateful to Popgadget for pointing me in the direction of tools made for women that actually aren’t pink. It’s a miracle.

Over 3,000 women marched through downtown Toronto on International Women’s Day--that’s five times the number of women who showed up last year. The reason for the increase? Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plans to do away with a national child-care plan.

According to Legal Momentum’s Family Initiative, 63 percent of all children under six years-old in the United States receive some kind of regular child care or early education from someone other than a parent. And the costs are simply insane:

Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies sampled big cities to learn what child care costs. The average annual cost to provide a 1-year old with child care ranged from $12,324 in Boston to $3,633 in Knoxville. While that’s a significant sum for most any family, the burden is particularly great for families with lower incomes. According to statistics published by the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives, 60% of families earning less than $1,200 a month pay out of pocket for their child care. The cost accounts for 37% of their income. Child Care,Inc., a New York City-based non-profit organization, found that “Child-care expenses for a family of four can exceed the cost of food, rent and taxes, often making child care the single largest item in a family’s budget. Child care in New York City is $5,440 more expensive per year than tuition at a City University.”

Given the dismal statistics and the reality of women’s everyday lives--why aren’t American feminists talking more about child care? I mean, we talk about work/life issues and such whenever the latest column on how super-duper it is for women to stay at home comes out. Issues like reproductive rights and violence against women have dominated feminist activism lately--most notably within national women's orgs. What ever happened to child care?

For younger women in particular--shouldn’t working for affordable, accessible child care be a priority in our activism? And not just locally, but on a national level.

Just wondering.

South Dakota. Pregnant women in prison. International Women's Day.

What a bore.

At least we can count on UPI to report on the news that really matters.

It wasn't exactly news to me that Harvard Government professor Harvey Mansfield is an asshole. After all, this is a guy who gave a lecture on the "problem" of women's autonomy and has said that gay and transgendered people should remain on "society's margin."

So The New York Times Magazine interview with Mansfield, Of Manliness and Men, is really just the icing on the misogyny cake.

The whole interview is priceless, but this bit is my fave:

We need roles. Roles give us mutual expectations of what is either correct or good behavior. Women are neater than men, they make nests, and all these other stereotypes are mostly true. Wives and mothers correct you; they hold you to a standard; they want to make you better.

To which interviewer Deborah Solomon responds, "I am beginning to wonder if you have ever spoken to a woman." Indeed.

By the way, it looks like Mansfield's original book cover (above) didn't quite cut it. I guess even a brick wall wasn't manly enough for Mr. I-Lift-and-Open-Things.

Make sure to check out the REAL hot 100's nominee of the week, 26 year-old Tina Wells. Tina started Buzz MG ten years ago. That's right--she was 16. Changing the way youth marketing and research is done, Tina provides her network of over 9,000 youth worldwide the opportunity to make their voices heard. This REALLY hot woman supports organizations globally, and travels the world working to make lives better for youth and their families. Tina’s work has been featured in many publications, such as The New York Times and O! Magazine; she was also recently selected for the Top Ten Black Women Business Leaders List by AOL Black Voices.

Now that's hot.

I just saw this advert and all I caught was, "Be a man, take back the shower." I thought it was funny. It is interesting (and predictable) how men are now being included in the marketing to get cleaner, prettier, younger looking etc. Almost every line of bath/beauty product now has a mens line.

So I looked it up and it is Dial's new ad campaign to "Take Back the Shower." I shudder to think that this is a reference to "Take Back the Night." The ad goes on to say, "Washcloth? We don't need no stinking wash cloth." Nor do they need proper grammer. But anyway.

Is this gender equity? No. It is capitalism finding more things to market, more flaws to find and more products to fix it. And this ad is attempting to tap into "masculinity" to sell a bath product. Don't fall for this boyz.

I don't think men should "take back the shower," I think they should just admit they always use all the "girly" products in the shower.

Maia at Alas, a Blog explains that despite restrictive laws, women in New Zealand actually have greater abortion access than here in the U.S.

British bars are selling sex toys in vending machines. I guess this means that if prospects are looking weak, you can pick up a mini-vibe and still go home happy.

Isn't life grand here under the glass ceiling? Apparently, women love it! Or at the very least, we're less worried about the pay gap than we were five years ago.

Conservative students think vaginas are vulgar. What else is new? Yawn.

Legal Affairs has a nice piece on Catherine MacKinnon, and her impact on sexual harassment law. Also at Legal Affairs, a succinct argument against parental notification laws.

Another round in the "Is abortion bad?" debate.

Columnist Courtland Milloy says the Academy Awards audience was tricked -- or pimped, if you will -- into believing "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." It's really much harder out here for a 'ho.

Kiki at Saucebox does a great job outlining the pros and cons of "fuck-me feminism."

Human Rights Watch released a new report on how Libyan authorities are detaining women they deem "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct."

The Tennessee state legislature has removed the right to an abortion from the state constitution.

And in case you aren't sick of reading about South Dakota...

Shocker! The state's Abortion Task Force report may have been biased!

How will abortion providers be sentenced under the new law?

The state's largest newspaper will speak out on political candidates, the death penalty, and the Iraq war, but won't take an editorial stance on the abortion ban.

Even Bush doesn't support abortion restrictions as stringent as those passed in South Dakota.

Here's the full text of the "South Dakota Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Act."

I was perusing New American Media (<3) and found this piece written by a young woman who recently graduated from Culinary Arts Academy and has been having trouble finding a job in the resturaunt industry as a chef. She is instead offered waitressing/hostess positions.

Very interesting.

When I would eat out at restaurants, I would see women running around in their waitress outfits. When I would look into the kitchen, it was nothing but men cooking. I didn't think much of it until my mother and I went out to lunch one day at a local steak house. The restaurant manager was going from table to table asking people how they liked their food. When he got to our table, my mother started talking with him in Spanish. I guess she was getting on his good side, looking for a job hook-up for me. Good looking out, mom.

When he left, my mother told me that they were talking about introducing Nicaraguan food to the restaurant. I am Nicaraguan, and I cook Nicaraguan dishes. But when she told him her daughter was a cook and asked if they were hiring, he said he had nothing for me. The job I wanted "gets too hectic," he said, and is too hard for women.

I checked out more restaurants, and the pattern held -- whether it was a Denny's, a steak house or a Chinese restaurant, women waitressed, men cooked.

I did a little research and found out that what I was facing was a national reality. The U.S. Department of Labor considers chef a "non-traditional" job for women, placing it on the same list with jobs such as construction worker, firefighter and engine mechanic. And it's not just this country -- in the 2000 Michelin Guide to Paris, none of the 100 restaurants listed had a female senior chef.

She also points out that in cooking shows the big dogs are Emeril and the Iron Chef, where as women cooking shows are often set in the "home" as opposed to a "studio."

Anybody have personal experience with this trend?

Due to the increasing rate of HIV/AIDS infection for women and girls, Friday March 10th has been made HIV/AIDS awareness day for women and girls.

Some stats to grapple with:

In the U.S., women accounted for 7 percent of all AIDS cases in 1985 and 27 percent in 2004. Globally, about 17.5 million women were living with HIV/AIDS in 2005 – a million more than in 2003.

“Worldwide, the vast majority of women and girls with HIV/AIDS became infected via heterosexual intercourse, frequently in settings where saying no to sex or insisting on condom use is not an option because of cultural factors, lack of financial independence, and even the threat of violence,” Fauci says.(Director of Infectous Diseases branch of the NIH)

In the US women of color and young women account for most of the cases of infection.

“Among women newly diagnosed with HIV/AIDS between 2001 and 2004, an estimated 83 percent were African-American or Hispanic,” Fauci observes.

“Younger women and girls are particularly vulnerable,” he adds, pointing out females accounted for 38 percent of all people aged 25 and younger diagnosed with HIV/AIDS from 2001-2004.

I don't mean to cut and paste the whole article, but this seems really important too. Fauci says that HIV affects women differently then men for the following reasons.

--Biology makes women more vulnerable to becoming infected by HIV than men.

--HIV-infected women may have sex-specific problems, including recurrent vaginal infections and disease progression at lower levels of HIV.

--Women have been shown to metabolize (break down) HIV drugs differently than men, which might affect how those drugs affect women.

--Generally, HIV-infected women are diagnosed and start treatment at later stages of infection than men.

Damn. Well now that there is one day for a reminder, let's not forget the rest of the days. In face of the conservative wing-nut agenda for abstinence, AIDS education is NOT on the agenda. We have to do it ourselves renagade style, in our schools, communities and with our peers. So tell someone you know to use a condom/dental dam etc. Safe sex rocks!

via WebMD.

In the case of the Phillipines President Arroyo (who has been doing several messed up things like reinstating marshall law and declaring a state of emergency) has basically become a puppet of Bush and has continually supressed the human rights and women's rights of her people.

Police arrested Akbayan party-list Rep. Ana Theresa Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel during a march last Wednesday to mark International Women's Day.

“Women ask whose national interest is being protected? Is Gloria’s national interest the same interest of women and men who clamor for decent employment, livelihood, food and housing of poor households? Is Gloria’s ‘national interest’ that of the State and the rights and welfare of its citizens, or does she equate the State with herself and her political survival?” the groups said.

They added the question of legitimacy has hounded Mrs. Arroyo from the very beginning of her assumption into power in 2001.

But instead of clearing the air, they said, Mrs. Arroyo imposed the calibrated preemptive response, Executive Order 464 and the controversial Proclamation 1017.

“It is the response of a regime under siege,” they said.

They added women have found no support from Mrs. Arroyo, a woman President, as her 10-point development agenda makes any mention of any gender concern.

“She (Mrs. Arroyo) has denied official support for full reproductive health and family planning services, thus putting at risk women’s health and lives. The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women that is mandated to ensure gender responsive policies has one of the smallest budgets in the bureaucracy. Despite the 25th year of the celebration of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW, to which the Philippine government is a signatory, the fundamental rights of women remain a pipe dream to millions of women who are daughters, wives, mothers to millions of households,” the groups said.

via Daily Tribune.

UPDATE: Also check out this piece on SFIndyMedia about IWD Protest in the Phillipines.

A German perfumer has thought up the ultimate sex appeal to entice the object of your desire: the scent of a vagina.

Yes, people, the perfume that will revolutionize the way we smell is here, and its name is Vulva. The site is full of pictures of a naked lady that seems to be pulling a vial of the perfume out of her vagina; in other words, pretty original stuff.

Broadsheet makes a good point (which I can’t seem to access the link to from Unfogged) and says:

“But there's something I can't figure out: Who needs this product? The Web site calls the fluid "the object of every man's desire," so it seems it's being marketed to people who want to have sex with men. . .But if you're a woman, and you want to use the scent of a real vagina to entice a man ... you already have a real vagina!! You don't need to buy this! If you're a man who wants to become the object of every man's desire ... is the scent of a real vagina really going to attract the kind of guy you're looking for?”

They also suggest the perfumer comes with a companion fragrance called “Nut Sack.” Anyone have other suggestions for a good name to capture the essence of a man?

It looks like an anti-choicer in Fargo, North Dakota has decided to take up photography in an effort to intimidate women entering abortion clinics, reports AP.

Martin Wishnatsky stands at the corner of Red River Women’s Clinic and take pictures of the license plates of the cars that roll up as well as the people that come out of them. Later, he posts the pictures on the internet for the world to see.

While if I was there, I would do the catwalk and throw some blue steel at the camera, Jennifer Ring, the director of American Civil Liberties Union Dakota chapter, reminds us that such tactics could endanger the lives of the staff, and “can get very scary, very quickly.”

Sadly, although Ring is taking this up with a lawyer, she anticipates that Wishnasty’s (yes, I spelled it that way on purpose; I’m the mature type) actions are legal.

The Mexican government is taking a stand against the objectification of women by running commercials that star blow-up sex dolls.

The ad features a number of dolls in workplaces that are leered at and grabbed by a number of men. Then a voice-over says, "No woman should be treated like an object. Sexual harassment is degrading and it's a crime.”

Interesting. So do I not like the ad because 1) President Vicente Fox trivializes the murders of over 400 women in Ciudad Juarez as well as recently referred to women as “washing machines with two legs,” or 2) inflatable sex dolls scare the bejesus out of me?

Thoughts?

New documents obtained by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) reveal some pretty disturbing things about the FDA’s decision-making process on over-the-counter availability of emergency contraception.

The documents show that FDA policy makers had no problem with over-the-counter sales of EC in 2004, but that a year and a half later former FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford brought up concerns about teens:

The FDA records indicate that the change was engineered by FDA senior officials who worked behind the scenes against the company while appearing to remain neutral.

...In a letter to acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach that was released Thursday, Waxman contends that the FDA "created a regulatory `Catch 22' to justify the predetermined political decision to block over-the-counter sales of Plan B."

So not surprising, but hopefully this can be used to hold someone accountable. (Optimistic, I know.)

Not a big shocker there.

"If you're addicted to alcohol, and if a faith program is able to get you off alcohol," Bush said at the White House Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives yesterday. "We ought to say Hallelujah and thanks at the federal level."

If you don’t believe in god, however, you’re pretty much fucked. (By the federal government, at least.)

Now, I'm not a hater of all faith-based organizations, but the amount of time and money that's obviously being put into them (and mostly the shitty ones) by the goverment is a wee questionable. (Like, what do you mean there's a separation of Church and State??)

Federal money going to faith-based organizations has increased 7 percent in the past year, adding up to $2.5 billion, and Bush will be making sure that number grows. Additionally:

“A federal court recently ruled that religious groups collecting federal money have a right to their own hiring practices, such as limiting employment to members of their religion.

Bush recently signed into a law a bill enabling private groups supported under the $17 billion Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program to hire as they choose through 2010. The law also extends that ‘charitable choice’ hiring authority to private programs operating under Bush's new Marriage and Fatherhood Program.”

You know, the type of program that demonizes single mothers, encourages married mothers on welfare to stay with their abusive husbands (because hey, it’ll feed the kids) and essentially leaves same-sex and other “nontraditional” parents jack shit.

Now let’s say a prayer for all of the homosexual and single, pregnant deviants of the world.

Last night I had the tremendous pleasure of going to the NYC premiere of Taking the Heat: The First Women Firefighters of New York City, a film by Bann Roy.

The film, narrated by Susan Sarandon, tells the amazing story of the first female firefighters in NYC and their incredibly difficult journey.

The story focuses on the efforts of Brenda Berkman (above) who paved the way for women in the fire service through a discrimination suit against the Fire Department.

Obviously there’s a lot more to the story, but I don’t want to ruin it for you.

The film is premiering on PBS on March 28th (check for local listings); it’s a must-watch.

My roommate pointed this out to me as she was scanning the news today and it really struck me. The situation in Darfur is not good and global attention at this point is minimal, with the exception of the UN (and the Sudanese government is resistant, hello Rwanda). If you don't know anything about it you can read here.

I don't have much to say but, in light of International Women's Day I think it is important to truly and critically look at the resistances of women globally (fighting for rights we take for granted) and the political battles that their rights and needs are disappearing into. Women are fighting on the front-lines of these battles, whether we agree with it or not, or whether it is in Palestine or Sudan. Will these women be recognized?

Or will they continue to disappear within a brutally militarized and increasingly violent global situation that hits women in the form of rape, lack of access to resources and education, and violence.

Where do we go from here? This picture says so much, I don't know what to say, but she is holding a baby and an AK47.

Because we need more convincing that the military perpetuates male aggression towards women.

Two teenage women who claimed a pair of former U.S. Marine Corps sergeants raped them in a Ukiah recruiting office sued the military Wednesday in federal court for failing to properly train and supervise recruiters.

The women were in high school and excited about joining the military when Joseph Dunzweiler, 25, and Brian Fukushima, 26, allegedly raped them, according to the suit. Both recruiters were demoted after court-martial proceedings, but acquitted of the most serious charges they faced.

In light of Jessica's post yesterday on Cynthia Enloe's piece Macho, Macho Military, I think this is definitely a sickening example of manipulating the power of military to coerce/forcibly rape potential female recruits.

Furthermore, Doe believed Dunzweiler would prevent her from joining the Marines if she didn't have sex with him, according to the suit. Doe said Dunzweiler ended up giving her chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease.

Ugh.

Five million people in India have AIDS, 2 million of this population are women. Those numbers are staggering. Reasons for the high rate of infection include lack of sex education (a huge huge problem) and sex trafficking.

Times of India reports,

Giving a global perspective on women infected with HIV, Tamang said out of 21 million deaths due to AIDS, nine million were accounted for by women and over four million by children.

"Women's vulnerability is due to two main reasons - one, the lack of adequate awareness among the community and second, their husbands. Last year around 80 percent of the women infected were through their husbands," Broun told IANS.

Why does this not surprise me?

Of the 5 million infected, only 65,000 are receiving medical care.

Make sure to check out the latest from cartoonist extraordinaire Mikhaela Reid, Every sperm is sacred!

This is too funny.

Several years ago, officials from Cobb County--a wealthy and conservative area in Georgia--tried to stop a small tobacco shop from selling dildos and vibrators, arguing that they were violating a subsection of the state’s obscenity statute.

It didn’t work out so well for the vibrators-are-gross folks--last month, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that Georgia's obscenity statute (in its entirety) was unconstitutional. Ha!

Apparently the State is not too pleased by the decision, and is trying to quietly slide in another obscenity law as an “amendment.” Sneaky, sneaky!

Cary Wiggins, a lawyer with Cook, Youngelson & Wiggins who argued the case for the tobacco shop, says that this new law is will not only outlaw sex toys, but will also affect the sales of medical sexual devices. (I’ll leave those up to your imagination.)

Wiggins says, “Though the notion is somewhat muted in the Eleventh Circuit's opinion, the result is clear: Georgia's obscenity statute is history. And why? Because the State refused to let its sexual device ban die a natural death. Now the State is trying to adopt another ban on sexual devices, and this time, the State's really messing it up.”

Messing it up is one way to put it. Sore loser is another.

Cynthia Enloe uses International Women’s Day to focus on feminism and militarization in The Nation’s Macho, Macho Military. It’s a fantastic piece.

A snippet:

By paying attention to the daily workings of militarization, feminists expose it as the step-by-step process by which institutions and ideas--a marriage, a sports league, the presidency, an ad agency, concepts of loyalty, responsibility, honor or security--come to depend on the military or on militaristic values and goals for respectability and credibility. Feminists, furthermore, know that militarization can happen anywhere--not just on a battlefield or behind the closed doors of an intelligence agency but in a school guidance counselor's office, a newspaper's editorial meeting, a Congressional hearing, a peace movement, a brothel or around the family dining room table. A newspaper's editorial meeting is becoming militarized every time military or war-zone events are deemed more urgent news than the government's re-imposition of an antiabortion foreign-aid gag rule.

Focusing our attention on the military-industrial complex, oil and empire isn't enough. If we dismiss the politics of femininity and masculinity, we will never get to the bottom of what fuels militarization. We will never roll it back because we won't know what propels it forward.

Read the whole thing. Seriously.

Related: Enloe is the author of many books, but my fave of hers is Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. In case you're interested.

After releasing a poll on debaucherous spring break activity, the American Medical Association has called on young women to rein it in, citing concerns of promiscuity and binge drinking. Which apparently is specific to women.

The poll of young women (17-35 years old) showed that 83 percent of those surveyed drank most of the nights while on spring break and 74 percent said spring break results in increased sexual activity. (Is this really news?)

I’m all for curbing binge drinking and the dumb Girls Gone Wild expectations of spring break, but I can’t help but be irked that this finger-wagging is only pointed at young women. Cause you really can’t tell me that men on spring break don’t drink too much and have sex.

Now, clearly there are real concerns for women on spring break--women process alcohol differently and are at risk for violence, sexual and otherwise.

But that’s not how the AMA is presenting the results of their survey--their main concern seems to be that girls are having too much sex. (Not to mention their press release calls college women ‘co-eds’. Ick.)

And as 21 year-old Kathleen Fitzgerald says of the AMA’s survey, “I think a lot of students wouldn't really pay that much attention to it...They would just be like, `Duh, that's why we do it.'”

A crowd of around 150 women marched in Jakarta yesterday to protest an anti-pornography bill.

Before people start jumping into a porn debate, check this out:

In addition to forbidding pornography, [the bill] calls for prison terms of up to 10 years and fines of up to $100 000 (about R700 000) for kissing in public, exposure of a woman's "sensual" body parts and the display of "erotic" artworks.

Yeah, I think kissing is something all of us can agree on...

A very happy International Women's Day to all!

Click here for a list of global events celebrating the occasion.

Some of its terms are funny, some are insulting. Most are cringe-inducing. But above all, Muffy's World of Vagina Euphemisms is just damn extensive.

My favorite: Breakfast of champions

Random complaint: Why are so many vagina euphemisms dick-centric? (i.e., dick holster)

Via Nerve.

I’ve had it up to here with the recent “what makes women happy” articles on domestic vs. work life. But Slate’s latest, Desperate Feminist Wives: Why wanting equality makes women unhappy, is definitely worth some thought.

Meghan O'Rourke writes about a new study on marital happiness from the University of Virginia that says stay-at-home wives are happier than married women who work outside the home. Not a new (or convincing) argument.

What here is something new:

...the most interesting data may be that the women who strongly identify as progressive—the 15 percent who agree most with feminist ideals—have a harder time being happy than their peers, according to an analysis that has been provided exclusively to Slate. Feminist ideals, not domestic duties, seem to be what make wives morose. Progressive married women—who should be enjoying some or all of the fruits that Freidan lobbied for—are less happy, it would appear, than women who live as if Friedan never existed.

...Across the board, progressive women are less likely to feel content, whether they are working or at home, and no matter how much they are making.

Um, ok. Are we really going to argue that women would be better off ignorant of feminism? Unfortunately, that’s certainly how conservatives will take this study. Feminism has killed the joy of marriage, blah blah blah. We’ve heard it all before.

O'Rourke argues however, that a more reasonable explanation for the study’s findings is the way “that rising expectations play into happiness.”

Having more choices about what you want makes you less likely to be happy with whatever choice you end up settling on. Choosing among six brands of jam is easy. But consumers presented with 24 types often leave the supermarket without making a purchase. In much the same way, the more you scrutinize a relationship, the more likely you are to find fault with it.

...Progressive women find themselves navigating marriage as a choose-your-own-adventure story, which raises the chances of feeling that they perhaps made the wrong turn along the way.

O'Rourke is sure to point out that she doesn’t think that more traditional gender roles would make women happier, but she does believe this study is a reminder “that worrying endlessly over choices isn't the path to greater freedom, equality, or happiness for women.”

It’s an interesting argument, and definitely one that’s preferable to the “power is in the kitchen” line of thinking. I agree that having more choices makes life more difficult, but that doesn’t mean I don’t those options available. Thoughts?

Love this. 21 year-old Jennifer Jones at Hood College beat three men for the school’s homecoming king crown.

"It is cool that Hood allows people to be themselves," Jones told The Frederick News-Post. "If people didn't want me to be king, they wouldn't have nominated me and voted for me."

Jones, of Newark, Delaware, received 64 of 169 votes cast for king last month.

Naturally, Jones winning the honor has caused a bit of controversy on campus. In fact, now that Jones won, the school is reviewing its homecoming rules:

Donald Miller, Hood's student activities director, said all homecoming events will be reviewed and possibly changed. "We will look at what students want Hood's homecoming to be," he said.

Um--didn’t they already tell you? Jones did win by vote, after all.

A bill passed last week by the Idaho State Senate would send pregnant moms to prison if they’re caught using illegal drugs.

If the measure passes the Idaho House and receives the approval of Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a Republican, the measure would be the first in the United States specifically to make it a crime for a pregnant woman to use illegal drugs.

If caught, individuals could first face drug treatment or drug court. Beyond that, however, judges have the option of sending mothers to jail for up to five years or imposing a $50,000 fine.

This is a pretty complex issue, after all--no one wants to see babies addicted to or harmed by drugs. But advocates for pregnant women say the proposed law won’t help anyone, and will actually harm infants and their mothers.

Health care in prison is atrocious, and if this bill becomes law, the number of babies born in prison (which isn’t exactly a drug-free zone) would increase significantly.

Wyndi Anderson of National Advocates for Pregnant Women told me via email that this kind of law isn’t exactly a new idea: “[Similar bills have] been shot down in other states because in the end it is bad for the very infants they say want to help. If we really want to provide an opportunity for women to have healthy pregnancies then we need to think about ways we can support women and their families. These type of measures are almost always someone trying to further their career because no one who understands addiction and cares about children and women would dare to pass such a law.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America is launching their Prevention First campaign today; make sure to check it out and spread the word.

98% of American women have used a form of birth control during their reproductive lives--preventing unwanted pregnancies is something most of us can agree on.

The Prevention First Challenge for Common Ground calls on federal, state, and local leaders to support women's access to birth control. The campaign is pushing for commonsense policies like insurance coverage for birth control; family-planning services; stopping pharmacists from refusing to fill birth control prescriptions; improving access to emergency contraception; honest, comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education; and teen-pregnancy prevention.

Get involved through one of NARAL’s state affiliates, share why you think access to birth control is so important, or send one of NARAL’s hysterical e-cards (my fave above) to help spread the word.

Frog spitting...who knew?

From EKO, in comments at Daily Kos. Scary.

UPDATE: But it paints a more accurate picture than CNN's underwhelming take on the ban:

As if the SD ban is primarily about anonymous women and the law, rather than a return to unsafe, clandestine abortions. Honestly, I've seen better graphics in high school newspapers.

Only religious virgins.

Just ask SD state senator Bill Napoli:

BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

Because only "pure" women are traumatized by rape, and could be harmed by carrying a pregnancy to term.

Just... wow. Crooks and Liars has the video.

Done and done.

Gov. Mike Rounds on Monday signed legislation banning almost all abortions in South Dakota.

The Legislature passed the ban late last month, focusing nationwide interest on the state as the governor decided what to do about the measure.

The law, designed to raise a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, is scheduled to take effect July 1.

Obviously this was expected. But it doesn’t make the news any easier.

Here’s the contact info for Gov. Rounds if you feel like giving him a piece of your mind:

Office of the Governor
500 E. Capitol Ave.
Pierre, SD 57501
605.773.3212

You know, I had totally forgotten how much I liked Subversive Cross Stitch’s stuff. Glad I had Nerve to remind me.

I am probably the least crafty person in the entire world, especially among my friends (what is it about feminists and crafts?!). But when I made this for the boyfriend last holiday season, the pain of making it was worth the end result. Anything that validates my potty-mouth holds a special place in my heart.

Some random news:

Kate Michelman, a prominent abortion-rights advocate, said yesterday that she was giving "some thought" to running as an independent in the race for a Pennsylvania seat in the U.S. Senate.

Michelman was the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America from 1985 to 2004.

Thoughts?

This is pretty interesting stuff. According to analysis by The New York Times, parental notification and consent laws don’t seem to have much of an an impact on abortion rates.

The analysis, which looked at six states that introduced parental involvement laws in the last decade and is believed to be the first study to include data from years after 1999, found instead a scattering of divergent trends.

For instance, in Tennessee, the abortion rate went down when a federal court suspended a parental consent requirement, then rose when the law went back into effect. In Texas, the rate fell after a notification law went into effect, but not as fast as it did in the years before the law. In Virginia, the rate barely moved when the state introduced a notification law in 1998, but fell after the requirement was changed to parental consent in 2003.

The resulting numbers showed that these laws had no real impact on the number of minors who got pregnant or the number that had a abortions. This news probably won’t be welcomed by anti-choicers, who argue that consent and notification laws are a big part of reducing the number of abortions.

The only thing we have to watch out for is anti-choicers using this news as a way to argue that consent laws aren’t harmful to teens. (See, they don’t make a real difference anyway, so let’s make sure parents are involved rather than not!) The NY Times argues that a main reason behind these laws having little impact is that most teens tell their parents about their pregnancy.

But for teens who have abusive parents or who are victims of incest, these laws are straight up dangerous--we can’t let that be forgotten.

The polls for the Koufax awards are open. Go vote for you favorite feminist blogs and don't forget Feministing was nominated for Best Single Issue Blog and Best Group Blog.

Go vote for us and all the other feminist blogs nominated. Let's take this shit.

As the International Bride Broker industry thrives, instances of abuse thrive as well within this highly problematic relationship between men from Western countries *buying* women from the Third World to marry. At least some policy makers have noticed. The final version of VAWA passed in December, and as of March 6th it is federal law that that mail-order brides brought to the United States must be informed of their immigration rights and existing criminal histories of their husbands-to-be.

Immigration officials will be required to deny anyone seeking within a two-year period to sponsor a second fiancee or stop any petitions for a third fiancee visa.

Marriage brokers, for their part, are required to conduct searches of state and federal sexual predator databases on all their male clients and provide any findings along with marriage history, information on children under 18 and criminal records to prospective brides before making an introduction. They are also required to obtain written consent from a woman before providing her contact information to any man.

In cases where a marriage broker is found to have violated the law, civil and criminal penalties include a $25,000 fine and a five-year prison term maximum per violation.

Obviously this is a very important law and we are glad it was passed. But does anyone else see something really really wrong with men *buying* their wives online? And don't even get me started on the hideously violent and disempowering relationship between the Western man and the *third world woman* subject/object and stuff. (clearly I have no patience today.)

via Women's enews.

I don't know how to write about this issue without first saying that I hate the military, I don't support the war in Iraq at all, and the US government allowing women and people of color to advance in the military is strategic(ally fucked) and not in *any* way indicative of an actual commitment on behalf of our leading patriarchs to advance the peoples. But these women claim to still be facing obstacles as they are clearly performing well (in gunning down Iraqis) but still not advancing in their positions.

See the military isn't any good for anything.

Despite the dangers, a growing number of women have chosen the job since the 1990s, and today about 9 percent of women in the Army are aviators.

While proving their competence in the air, female aviators say they still face obstacles from the predominantly male military on the ground.

"It's far better than when my mother was in the military, but we still have a long ways to go," said Strye, whose mother was an Army nurse in Vietnam.

And even as the 360-degree battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan are exposing women to combat as never before, policies excluding women from ground combat units have not been eased, but instead face increased scrutiny in Congress.

Okay within this system, this is an inequity. But where are we going with this? I am so distracted by the fact that this war/country/system is so fucked, I am just not that suprised that although women are totally (more than) competant at gunning down A-rabs, they may not make it to the higher ranks.

I don't know why I even tried to write about this, sorry for my pessimism.

via WaPo.

It is no suprise that an industry that upholds so many patriarchal beliefs in picture/film and content would in fact be so sexist behind the scenes. I have several female friends that work in film and are constantly talking about how they were never taken seriously in their classes and the sexist/patriarchal structure of the industry itself (ie script writing taught to include hero/heroin, hetersexual romance, woman as damsel in distress, man as hero, etc.)

But this year in particular we see women as absent from any of the top nominations. Martha Lauzen from San Diego State's Comm department elaborates.

'Brokeback Mountain." "Capote." "Crash." "Good Night, and Good Luck." "Munich." This year's Academy Award nominees for best picture offer thoughtful contemplations of the world, past and present. A mostly male world, that is.

Why does it matter that female-driven stories are absent from this year's top-nominated films? For one thing, the combined box office grosses of this year's nominated films lag behind any single summer blockbuster, and this could translate into lower ratings for the Oscar telecast. The overwhelming "maleness" of these films might well be a factor.

Beyond this, the nominations matter because they hint at a larger disparity endemic in the film business: the ongoing underrepresentation of women onscreen and behind the scenes.

It is not like there weren't women acting in movies last year (she uses the examples of North Country and Walk the Line). Lauzen continues...

Our research shows a relationship between the use of women writers and executive producers and the percentages of female characters onscreen. For example, when a film had no women writers, 27 percent of the characters were female. With at least one woman writer, 38 percent were female. This is a byproduct of the creative process, as well as a conscious choice made by filmmakers. Women tend to create female characters; men create male roles. Countless screenwriting workshops and manuals counsel potential screenwriters to "write what you know."

Film is an extremely important cultural medium of communication and does in fact reflect the values of the society within which it is produced. And since our current cultural values are *very* indicative of a decrease in women's rights/participation, well that will obviously be reflected in the film industry.

I do however want to make a note that although Brokeback Mountain did not have lead female characters, I considered it to be a feminist movie because it challenged dominant ideas of maleness and sexuality. Do I wonder would it have made it, if it had been about guerilla minded lesbians of colors? Of course.

via Newsday.

Tennessee is considering legislation that would make a woman obtain a signed consent form from "the man by whom she is pregnant" before getting an abortion.

Meanwhile, Missourians' abortion rights are headed down the toilet as well. The state Supreme Court upheld the 24-hour waiting period, a state senator introduced an abortion ban bill, and another piece of proposed legislation would make Christianity the state's official religion.

Pop Politics does some "bitch"-ing about what's acceptable language at the Oscars. (via Deanna Zandt.)

Campus Progress takes a five-minute coffee break with Helen Thomas.

After years of chipping away at Roe, anti-choice activists weigh South Dakota's frontal assault. The article notes that the National Right to Life Committee, the nation's largest anti-choice group, has been notably silent on the South Dakota ban.

Also, anti-violence groups speak out, and here's a legislative history the ban.

Here's a justly outraged take on recent repro rights setbacks: "Your War in My Womb, My Middle Finger in Your Face."

The Women On Their Own report examines the voting power of unmarried women.

Now that there's only one woman on the Supreme Court, Anna Quindlen imagines the world if homes, businesses, schools, had one woman for every eight men.

Remembering Octavia Butler.

The Guttmacher Institute ranks states' efforts in reducing unplanned pregnancies.

John Tierney does it again. Echidne and Garance Franke-Ruta respond.

Why journalists should ask about celebrities’ sexual orientation.

The American Prospect outlines the gay-rights movement's 15-year strategy to combat a new wave of anti-marriage initiatives... and Pistil magazine blasts traditional marriage.

Rebecca Traister reviews the updated version of Judy Blume's "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret."

Finally.

After a long battle in which Walmart has continuously refused to sell emergency contraception, the corporation has finally bowed to public pressure and announced that they will carry Plan B in all of their pharmacies beginning March 20th.

Check out their own very brief news release on the Walmart website, where they make it a point to state that they will still maintain their "conscientious objection policy," and will not force any of their workers to dispense EC if they feel "uncomfortable" with it.

Should we be surprised?

Contributed by Jess Wakeman.

In his op-ed titled "Getting a Grip on Abortion Hysteria: Left Abandons Reason and Fact for Emotional Outbursts," editor of the Dakota Voice - a nutty Christian-tinged publication - and professional fuckwit Bob Ellis examines South Dakota's recent introduction of a bill to ban abortions.

First, he takes cheap potshots at the left - accusing us, among other things, of writing ranting, illegible letters to the editor. Then Ellis delivers a hard truth to women who become pregnant by rape or incest and have no choice but to carry the pregnancy to term: suck it up because life isn't fair.

"...God gave us a mind to think with, in addition to our powerful emotions. No one could ever say it was 'fair' to carry the child of a rape to term, but unfortunately (and I don't say this flippantly, just truthfully) life just isn't fair sometimes...The rape is a terrible crime, but we cannot undo that terrible crime by committing another one."

He's criminalizing abortion before it's even criminalized legally! If we're talking about things that aren't technically illegal but it might be someone's opinion that it's really, really wrong, chew on this, Bob Ellis: what about the 'crime' of bringing unwanted children into this world, then ignoring them, resenting them, and abusing them? What about the crime of taking a woman's ability to make decisions about her own body away from her?

Then Ellis continues, in logic that I would certainly say "abandons reason," to rationalize giving birth to children conceived of rape, because it's not like they have an "abnormal genetic deformity" or anything.

"Examine the ultrasound of a child conceived of rape, and the ultrasound of a child conceived from love or lust, then point out the difference. Or look at a child born of rape, then a child born of love or lust, and identify the difference there--so far, no one has demonstrated that children born of rape have extra limbs, missing limbs, or any other abnormal genetic deformity...And as heart-wrenching as a pregnancy from a rape is, we must acknowledge rationally and intellectually that the life of the child is the same."

So, South Dakota: even if your father rapes you, it's too fucking bad.

I'd write this twit a letter to the editor, but I'm sure he'd just find it incoherent.

While women aren’t allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, there was to be an exception during the 3-day long Janadriya Festival. Well, sort of.

A number of women were to be permitted to drive golf carts through the festival in order to assist older and disabled people, but the decision was changed at the last minute for “no clear reasons.” What a perfect example of interlocking oppressions! Lovely.

This is disturbing. (And yes, I realize it's most likely a parody. Still gross.)

It’s called Plastic Assets, and gives you free breast implants with your credit card. Woohoo! Just what every gal wants in life, to go shopping and have fake tits! Let’s not forget a free lip injection for each friend you refer! (Yes, that’s an actual part of the deal.)

You can also choose a credit card that matches your new breast size, from B to DD, with a B card specialized for “Tweens and teens still growing in every way.”

Oh. My. God. They might as well just say that the prepubescent look is SO not hot. (So get those boobs before your friends do!)

Via Nerve.

As an update to my post in January on the UK’s blatant discrepencies between women's and men’s pay wages, the Women and Work Commission has finally released their report, Shaping a Fairer Future.

Let’s hope it does just that.

This report comes not long after a woman has filed a lawsuit against her prison and Correctional Medical Services for being forced keep her ankles shackled for the majority of her labor, reports BBC News.

The report, “Abuse of Women in Custody: Sexual misconduct and the shackling of pregnant women,” recounts a number of similar stories, like Samantha Luther’s experience:

“[She] allegedly was taken from Wisconsin's Taycheedah Correctional Institution to the hospital in handcuffs and leg shackles and informed that, though two weeks from her due date, labor was to be induced. Reportedly she was kept in shackles, leaving 18 inches between her ankles, and told to pace the hallway for several hours. ‘It was so humiliating. My ankles were raw,’ Luther said. ‘I had shackles on up until the baby was coming out and then they took them off for me to push ... It was unbelievable. Like I was going to go anywhere.’”

The report also addresses the issue of sexual assault and abuse against female prisoners, including certain states’ policies that can legally allow an inmate to be charged for being raped.

Like I haven't lost enough faith in the justice system.

Newsweek reports that some pro-choicers are attempting to answer the question, is abortion bad? And, perhaps more importantly, should we say it's bad? As if this is a new debate.

The article kicks off with a description of the post-abortion-counseling group Exhale (which Jill at Feministe blogged about awhile ago, in the context of more typical, judgmental "Crisis Pregnancy Centers"), then moves on to Peg Johnston, a New York clinic director who uses words like "killing" and "baby" when discussing abortion.

Johnston has often been at odds with the pro-choice leadership. That’s why her inclusion in this week’s small gathering—which includes the president of NARAL, Nancy Keenan— suggests a movement finally willing to re-examine itself rather than just blame the right (though there is still plenty of that).

The pro-choice movement has been discussing ways to talk about abortion for a long time. Maybe the debate hasn't made it onto a broader public radar, but it's certainly been going on. So to portray Johnston as some sort of renegade, one of the few pro-choicers who's tackling these issues, is misleading.

Nothing says "you're not getting any (or will you?)" like an ironic abstinence bear.

I know, I know it is difficult to feel happy about *women's history* in light of all the anti-choice, anti repro-rights legislation we have been reading about all week.

And we all know that Women's History should not be ghettoized to one month, but should be celebrated every month (day and moment)! But hey it doesn't hurt to celebrate just a little bit.

Happy Women's History Month!

New studies are showing that the number of women entering the work force has reached a limit.

Although the change has been under way for a while, it was initially viewed by many specialists as simply a pause in the longer-term movement of women into the work force. But now, social scientists are engaged in a heated debate about whether the gender revolution at work may be over.

Is this shift evidence for the popular notion that many mothers are again deciding that they prefer to stay at home and take care of their children?

Perhaps it is not so much that the gender revolution is over (you gotta love those sweeping statements) but that there aren't enough jobs for all the qualified women out there. Just a thought. The study suggested working mom burn-out perhaps.

This is all great and dandy if you are middle class or have a double income family that you can stay home or even have that as a choice (not that working-mom burn out is not a serious consequence of women in the workforce, one that is neglected and put on women in the name of gender equity, but I digress). However, there was one exception to the rule.

Although the rate of labor participation leveled off for most groups of women, the percentage of single mothers in the work force jumped to more than 75 percent from 63 percent. That of high school dropouts rose to 53 percent from 48 percent.

Economists say those women were pushed into work with the help of changes in government policy: the expansion of the income-tax credit and the overhaul of welfare in the mid-1990s, which replaced long-term entitlements with temporary aid.

So just clap your hands and say, "Feminization of poverty!"

via Seattlepi.

Oh and look at the time, talk about not having enough time in one week to get all your work done. eek.

It is not just us apparently. Although the numbers have gone up of women in Canada's top 500, the progress is slow.

Women held 12 per cent of the available directors’ seats last year, up from 11.2 per cent two years ago, according to the Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors.

But women’s gains lagged the rate of overall economic and corporate growth during the same time period, the study noted. And unless more companies make a conscious effort to recruit women, they will remain under-represented at the board level, the study found.

Altogether, 508 of the 4,225 people who sit atop Canada’s 500 largest companies are women, the study found. That’s up from 476 of the 4,274 seats available two years ago.

“Perhaps most disappointingly, nearly half of all FP 500 companies still had no women on their boards despite the fact that Canadian women earn $196 billion, are graduating from Canadian universities in record numbers and are a major force in buying decisions,” the authors wrote.

via Toronto Star.

Fah realz. The Blank Noise Project is mobilizing to stop street harassment in India which has become increasing commonplace.

Check it.

Brought to you without comment, a letter from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to Focus on the Family founder James Dobson:

Dear Dr. Dobson:

This is just a short note to express my heartfelt thanks to you and the entire staff of Focus on the Family for your help and support during the past few challenging months.

I would also greatly appreciate it if you would convey my appreciation to the good people from all parts of the country who wrote to tell me that they were praying for me and for my family during this period.

As I said when I spoke at my formal investiture at the White House last week, the prayers of so many people from around the country were a palpable and powerful force.

As long as I serve on the Supreme Court I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me.

I hope that we’ll have the opportunity to meet personally at some point in the future.

In the meantime my entire family and I hope that you and the Focus on the Family staff know how we appreciate all that you have done.

Sincerely yours,

Samuel Alito

What the press is leaving out is that Alito actually signed off with "Hugs and Kisses."

Quite possibly Mississippi.

The state is considering legislation that's strikingly similar to the abortion ban enacted in South Dakota last week.

The Mississippi lawmaker who introduced the near-ban, Democrat Steve Holland, said he acted because he was tired of piecemeal attempts to add new abortion restrictions year after year.

Holland said he has voted for some abortion restrictions and against others in the past. "I have a strong dilemma within myself on this," Holland said. "I can only impregnate. I can't get pregnant myself."

Somehow, that's not the most convincing argument I've ever heard in favor of banning abortion. This, however, is an interesting twist:

Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, persuaded the House committee to approve an amendment that says the state would provide free education and medical services to any child born in the state, until age 19.

Scott said her proposal could extend beyond the public schools and Medicaid already offered. She said it could make a significant difference for a poor woman who's trying to decide whether to have an abortion.

"Anyone who wants to take this language out of this bill is not for life," Scott said.

Wanna bet that the ban is passed without Scott's provisions attached?

Thanks to Erin for the link.

First off: I totally stole this headline--too unbelievable not too.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah lawmakers have refused to make an exception for incest victims seeking abortions in a parental consent and notification law. Lovely.

The bill would allow girls to ask a judge to bypass the parental consent requirement if she fears abuse or is pregnant as a result of incest. At the same time, the legislation still would require a doctor to notify a girl's parents of the abortion, effectively nullifying the judicial bypass.

So much for protecting victims of assault. This law is really about punishing young women for having sex. The bill’s proponents admit as much. Republican Sen. Chris Buttars said, “Abortion isn't about women's rights. The rights they had were when they made the decision to have sex...This is the consequences. The consequence is they should have to talk to their parents.”

What’s next? State-imposed groundings for handjobs?

Media Girl on the same.

I honestly feel like crying.

A Chicago woman could be jailed for contempt of court for refusing to watch a video of her rape. If she doesn’t change her mind, the judge in her rape case might also drop the charges against one of her assailants.

The woman, now 20, was 16 years-old when she was sexually assaulted and videotaped by four men at a party.

The video shows two men having sex with her while she is unconscious, then multiple people spitting on her and writing derogatory words on her naked legs and stomach. Gee, I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t want to see that.

Fucking disgusting.

One of the men in the case was acquitted, one pleaded out, and another fled the country. The man on trial now, Adrian Missbrenner, also fled the country but returned last year.

UPDATE: Scott Lemieux, Shakespeare's Sister and BlackFeminism have more. Deanna at Alternet has contact info so you can express your outrage.

UPDATE, PART DEUX: Broadsheet reports that the judge has backed down.

The REAL hot 100’s nominee of the week is super bad-ass. 19 year-old Beth Myrick of Portland works as a sexual health advocate and educator for the Cascade AIDS Project of Portland, where she focuses on marketing and information for young people.

She created the organization’s most recent Easter campaign where little flags were stuck in marshmallow peeps that said "this peep wants you to get an HIV test" alongside free testing information all over the city.

Myrick has also created five zines while working with Cascade AIDS, including Dry Humping Saves Lives: A Guide to Safe, Fun, and All-Encompassing Sexual Health and Living, How to Get Your Groove on Fluid Free, a guide to dirty text messaging, a zine on sexual health for young men who have sex with men, and a zine on parent-child communication.

Now that’s hot.

A new bill in New York could allow pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception without a prescription.

You may remember (if you're from NY at least) that Gov. Pataki vetoed similar legislation last year because of a fear that younger women would have access to EC. Which was totally ass-backwards because there are no parental notification or consent laws in NY for abortion. So basically, a girl couldn't prevent herself from getting pregnant, but she could terminate a pregnancy. Boggles the mind.

This new legislation is said to address most of Pataki�s concerns:

Pataki, a Republican who supports abortion rights, had said he wanted minors to see a physician first. He also said he wanted to limit the number of pills dispensed and to prohibit men from getting the pills to encourage unprotected sex.

...The amended legislation would allow pharmacists to dispense only a single dose at a time and only to women. Information about sexually transmitted diseases would also be made available and prescriptions could only be dispensed within the same county as the patient's residence. It does not set age limits.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

UPDATE: Jen in comments rightly points out that the restriction mandating that women can only obtain EC in the same county as they live is insane--especially in a time when pharmacists are refusing to dispense EC on a pretty regular basis.