"I love feministing.com and always learn from it." Katha Pollitt, The Nation
"Many people need a morning "fix." For some, it's coffee. For others, it's "SportsCenter." For me, it's Feministing.com." Katie Stone, The Denver Post
"Feminism is fun again! Every bit as edifying as your women's studies books from college, but with a biting sense of humor that keeps things punchy, not preachy." Marie Claire, December 2006
An article in Slate concedes that the increase in the use of internet porn has a direct correlation to a decrease in rape. He also contends that violent movies decrease violent behaviors and crimes. Now theoretically, this is plausible, but his logical leaps are a little grandiose.
Does pornography breed rape? Do violent movies breed violent crime? Quite the opposite, it seems.
First, porn. What happens when more people view more of it? The rise of the Internet offers a gigantic natural experiment. Better yet, because Internet usage caught on at different times in different states, it offers 50 natural experiments.
The bottom line on these experiments is, "More Net access, less rape." A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth.
This may very well be true, but I would be interested in seeing some other factors that may be involved here, like law/policy, work by anti-rape activists, etc. Furthermore, whether this decreases rape or not, does the use of internet pornography change the culture of rape, or does it justify sexual fetishization to an even greater degree. Don't get me wrong, the less rapes the better, but is this a solution?
The author (Landsburg) continues admitting that correlation may not be causation.
OK, so we can at least tentatively conclude that Net access reduces rape. But that's a far cry from proving that porn access reduces rape. Maybe rape is down because the rapists are all indoors reading Slate or vandalizing Wikipedia. But professor Kendall points out that there is no similar effect of Internet access on homicide. It's hard to see how Wikipedia can deter rape without deterring other violent crimes at the same time. On the other hand, it's easy to imagine how porn might serve as a substitute for rape.
The article also discusses violent images and violent crime, one theory being if violent criminals are watching a movie, then they are not outside committing a crime.
MD Court: Women can't say no after sex has started
This is perhaps one of the scariest rulings I've ever seen:
An appellate court said Maryland's rape law is clear -- no doesn't mean no when it follows a yes and intercourse has begun.
A three-judge panel of the Court of Special Appeals Monday threw out a rape conviction saying that a trial judge in Montgomery County erred when he refused to answer the jury's question on that very point.
The appeals court said that when the jury asked the trial judge if a woman could withdraw her consent after the start of sex, the jury should have been told she could not. The ruling said the law is not ambiguous and is a tenet of common-law.
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.
So ladies, once it's in, it's in. Ain't nothing you can do about it. Changed your mind? Suck it up. He's hurting you? Oh, sorry--should have thought of that before. After all, it's not like your body is yours or anything. Jeez.
UPDATE: A reader sent us the Maryland decision; check it out.
After the fall of the Taliban women were promised many rights that have yet to be realized. According to international women's rights organization, Womankind Worldwide, women in Afghanistan still face systematic discrimination and violence.
The report admits that there have been some legal, civil and constitutional gains for Afghan women. But serious challenges remain and need to be addressed urgently, it states. These include challenges to women's safety, realisation of civil and political rights and status.
Furthermore, women have received at least 25% representation in the government, but the culture surrounding female politicians and activists is still a hostile one.
"Women who are standing up to defend women's' rights are not being protected," says Brita Fernandes Schmidt of Womankind Worldwide.
"My message, really, to the international community is: you need to address specific security issues for women," she says.
"Women's rights activists are getting killed, women's NGO workers are getting killed, and that is not going to change unless some drastic action is taken," Ms Fernandes continues.
Womankind Worldwide says the international community needs to fulfil promises made after the fall of the Taleban to help protect Afghan women.
What I find interesting about this is that the US government used the rights of women as its rationale for military aggression in Afghanistan. But now after the fall of the Taliban (and since we couldn't find Bin Laden there you know and attempts at building a natural gas pipeline have failed) we are suprisingly not present to protect women. Oh the smell of hypocrisy, so rank.
Despite all the false advertising and other dirty tactics, polling shows support for the South Dakota abortion ban is down 10 points headed into the last week before the election. Sweet! If (and it's a big "if") all those people actually turn out to vote, things are looking good.
So I'm heading off in a bit to bring 100 girls (yikes) from Girls for Gender Equity's programs to this year's Glamour Women of the Year Awards. I have no idea what to expect, but I heard last year's event featured Queen Latifah, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Mary J. Blige.
Let's hope it will be as inspiring as it sounds; I'll write a little something on it later in the week. Wish me luck! (It's not easy chaperoning a hundred adolescents on a mission to see some stars.)
Shulman is the founder of Vote Against Violence, a political action committee which addresses domestic and sexual violence. Did I mention she’s only 23?
While last year’s disturbing product poll nominee the Child “Pimp” Costume was disturbing enough, I thought I’d point out another kind of costume that I really can’t believe people actually wear: for Halloween, why not be a different race!
In addition to the “Indian Pink Princess” above check out some more of my favorite-racist-costumes-to-hate after the jump. It's pretty infuriating, particularly when they try so hard to exoticize women of color. Has anyone seen worse than these? (Although I don't think you can get much worse.)
A New York high school principal forced three female students to leave school last week because they were wearing beige leotards. I kid you not.
On Long Beach High School’s Superhero Day, the students came to school dressed up as Captain Underpants, an extremely popular children’s book character. Because his garb is just underpants and a red cape, the girls wore beige leotards and nude stocking under white briefs and red capes.
'Yes, I know they weren't naked,'' said Principal Nicholas Restivo, "But the appearance was that they were naked.''
Um, but they weren't. Would male students would have been kicked out for wearing the same thing? Regardless of that answer, Captain Underpants is a humorous character and, if anything, the costume sounded funny, not revealing or inappropriate.
Is it just me, or is this principal unecessarily sexualizing these girls for wearing a comical costume?
In honor of the Get in Shape, Girl tape I found in my apartment when I was moving out (yes, it was mine), may I present the 80s version of fucked up toys for girls.
Students at Gallaudet University did an incredible job organizing to protest the board of director's appointment of Jane K. Fernandes as president. The school of 1,800 students managed to shut down the campus for days, and organized a 2,000+ person arch on the Capitol. And in the end, they won. It's a great example of young, passionate people making real change happen. As a graduate of a university with (ahem) presidential issues, I say bravo. Check out some fantastic photos on Flickr, by nonlinear.
I’ll admit that when I first read the headline, “Stylists reach out to abused women,” I was extremely skeptical. My anticipation was one of finding that the article would be about giving domestic violence survivors make-overs or something. But Cut It Out is nothing of the sort.
The program was created by the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and has become a national program which essentially trains salon professionals on how to recognize signs of domestic violence, and what to do about it. It may sound a bit bizarre, but the fact of the matter is that salons have been known to be a safe space for many women to disclose their life experiences and be in a women-friendly environment where male abusers typically wouldn’t go.
Yes, salons are still public spaces where women wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable talking about their abuse while other women are in the room, but the program teaches stylists to be discrete with their communication, whether it be slipping a hotline card into a magazine or just listening and suggesting resources (out of the hearing range to others). This is just one of the many things Cut It Out teaches their stylists.
Canadian progressive bloggers discuss what feminism has done for them.
Planned Parenthood releases (PDF) a document on its political strategy for the midterm elections and beyond. Plus, Jennifer Baumgardner writes about how the South Dakota abortion ban will test the political savvy of new president Cecile Richards.
The IUD is the preferred method of contraception for female OB/GYNs.
Home-brewed beer has long been an African tradition, a product produced mainly by women. But the globalization of beer thratens this tradition.
The founders of Source magazine must pay millions for harassing a former top editor.
A letter responding to the NY Times story on "Slutoween" critiques the paper's decision to refer to women as girls.
The MTA in NYC will now allow transwomen to use women's bathrooms.
A petition calling for the admission of transwomen to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. [UPDATE: Wrong petition, we're working on getting the correct one; apologies.]
![](http://static.flickr.com/122/279553744_59f12d5969.jpg?v=0")