"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
If you have the time, check out my interview with Rha Goddess and JLove Calderon, editors of We Got Issues! A Young Woman's Guide to a Bold, Courageous and Empowered Life. They have lots of powerful things to say. Happy Thursday!
UPDATE (Jessica): Hey, just wanted to say that I just started reading this book and it's fucking awesome. I'm planning on doing a full review, but just wanted to sing it's praises here as well.
You've gotta love it when the National Catholic Register says "the future looks grim" for anti-choice legislation. The antis are worried that a Democratic congress won't support riders such as the disastrous Hyde Amendment, which eliminated Medicaid funding for abortion. I think that's unlikely to happen. But they also say the more pro-choice congress will increase Title X family planning funds, which is well within the realm of possibility. Wheeee!
Until then, the lame-duck congress will be trying to push through a few more anti-choice bills. Specifically the ridiculous and scientifically unsupported fetal pain legislation:
Abortion providers would be required to inform the mothers that evidence exists that the procedure would cause pain to the child [and offer the mothers anesthesia for the baby. The mothers would accept or reject the anesthesia by signing a form.
The legislation would require the consent form after 20 weeks gestation. But research shows it's highly unlikely the fetus could feel anything before the 28th week, by which time abortion is illegal, anyway. And it's worth mentioning again that, on top of being based on junk science, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act defines a woman as a "female human being who is capable of becoming pregnant." Shudder.
I've spent most of the past few weeks packing, moving and driving across the country to start my new job as associate web editor at The American Prospect in D.C. So I missed my chance to write a timely post about the FDA's eased restrictions on Plan B sales.
This month Barr Labs finished repackaging the drug, and some pharmacies are starting to sell it without a prescription to women over 18. So most of the press coverage has incorrectly stated that Plan B is available "over-the-counter". It’s not just the localnews outlets that are getting it wrong. The Washington Post did say that, "Unlike many other OTC medications, it will not be sold at gas stations and convenience stores." But it failed to come right out and say that "over-the counter" isn't literally true -- Plan B will still be sold only by licensed pharmacists, behind the pharmacy counter.
To be sure, I love any press for emergency contraception. After all, only 20% of women know what Plan B is or how it works. But the morning-after pill hasn’t begun “appearing in drugstores nationwide.” Most of the pharmacies that declined to stock it before the FDA status change are still failing to provide it. For example, ColoradoConfidential.com conducted an informal survey of pharmacies in the state, and nearly half of them didn’t keep the drug in stock. One Walgreens questioned whether Plan B was even legal. I know of no national surveys of EC availability, but a May 2005 survey of Missouri pharmacies also showed that 70% didn't stock emergency contraception.
Pharmacist refusals become a non-issue when stores refuse to carry Plan B at all. NARAL's got a form letter you can send to pharmacy chains asking them to publicly pledge to keep the drug in stock. In the meantime, everyone should keep a dose of EC at home. And if your local pharmacies aren't carrying it, there's always Planned Parenthood or Emergency Kindness, the EC service.
What to say? This study finds men are wired differently then women and this results in women talking more.
In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day - 13,000 more than the average man.
Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat - and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests.
The book - written by a female psychiatrist - says that inherent differences between the male and female brain explain why women are naturally more talkative than men.
In The Female Mind, Dr Luan Brizendine says women devote more brain cells to talking than men.
And, if that wasn't enough, the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high.
I am a talking addict!
Call me a skeptic, but most studies that claim women are one way and men are another are a) geared to make women look like they are at fault for some constructed difference and b) usually have flawed methodology with little literature or cultural analysis to back up their view point. WIthout EVER interrogating that their findings are sexist, because the researcher themself might actually be sexist.
That said this researcher is a woman and a self proclaimed feminist. But either way, some thoughts. . .
What about women that don’t talk a lot and men that do. Are they acting outside of their gender role? Where do they fit into such a sweeping study? Are they just variables?
There are, however, advantages to being the strong, silent type. Dr Brizendine explains that testosterone also reduces the size of the section of the brain involved in hearing - allowing men to become "deaf" to the most logical of arguments put forward by their wives and girlfriends.
But what the male brain may lack in converstation and emotion, they more than make up with in their ability to think about sex.
That is just a little too convenient isn't it? What about women that have more testosterone? Do they also lose their ability to process their emotions as well?
Any study that functions in sweeping generalizations about how men are and women are inherently, are usually overlooking too many variables to actually be effective research, in my VERY humble opinion.
Seriously, how do you account for actual biological differences and differences in socialization? If we start to believe that women just naturally talk more then men, then don’t men benefit from not having to talk, when in a lot of circumstances they need to be talking. Like tell me he is just wired to talk less, not that he is an asshole wielding male priviledge through silence.
The only benefit I see of this study is that when men tell women to shut up they need to check themselves. “Baby, I was just wired that way. . . ”
I don't really know if it is biological differences that may cause some women to be more talkative then some men, but again I think biology is one part of a much bigger story.
Nigeria seems to have turned into a hotspot for women being smuggled into the sex trade. This shit is crazy.
Trafficking women for prostitution became a problem in Benin City in the mid-1980s when free-market economic reforms led to massive job losses and impoverished many Nigerians.Today, the Nigeria-Italy prostitution trade has become a sinister, self-propagating cycle.
Now, more than 80 percent of Nigerian women trafficked abroad to work in the sex trade come from Edo state, where Benin City is located, according to United Nations estimates. The main destination is Italy.
The reality is some women choose this, but many are smuggled not only for sex work, but for forced labor and domestic help. But this is the part that really got me. Women are being manipulated using local traditional oaths to scare them and force them into sex work.
Before they leave Nigeria, women are taken to traditional shrines where they swear to pay their debts to their madams and not to denounce them to the police.
The women leave fingernails, pubic hairs, soiled underwear and other intimate items at the shrines. These, according to traditional beliefs which are strong in Benin, give the priests power to harm them wherever they are in the world.
Finally, the article talks about this notion of sacrifice and how in this particular culture sacrifice is a sign of femininity. I think that unfortunately is a global phenomenon. The gendering of sacrifice and its connection to women's work.
Katha Pollitt edits your manuscript
Novelist Thisbe Nissen names a character in her next book after you
Former Head Writer for Six Feet Under Jill Soloway edits your script
A shooting script from SCRUBS, signed by all the lead cast members
Legendary cartoonist Jennifer Camper designs your tattoo
An evening of conversation with Cynthia Enloe
A signed limited edition broadside from Margaret Atwood
For 10 years, New York state gave $42,000 a year to the Vera House battered women's shelter to run a program for abusive men.
But state officials discovered the Syracuse agency had committed a serious breach of contract: It tried to change the bad guys. So for the last three years, the state cut off the money.
The state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence forbids any state-funded batterers programs from trying to rehabilitate abusers.
This is a hard one for me. I'm all for trusting the experts in the violence against women field, but any program that could be seen as encouraging women (even indirectly) to stay in abusive relationships because the abuser might change...ugh. Thoughts?
The Office on Violence Against Women gets a new (scary) director
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is a tremendous feminist success story. The legislation, which was passed in 1994 and reauthorized in 2000 and 2006, allows for $3.9 billion in funding to help survivors of intimate partner violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Feminists were the driving force behind the drafting and passage of VAWA--it's our baby.
She’s an anti-obscenity crusader, prosecuting people for written stories on the internet and going after any and all porn. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of violent porn and the like, but Buchanan strikes me as more interested in enforcing morality than the law.) The legal director for the Pittsburgh ACLU once called Buchanan "the vanguard of [former U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft’s attempt to impose his morality on others." Yikes.
So basically, this sucks. I can see it now...VAWA funds being diverted to conservative anti-obscenity groups under the rhetoric of protecting women. I am completely freaked out.
Christina Pearson, spokesperson for HHS' Office of Population Affairs and Administration for Children and Families, said Keroack is not opposed to birth control…
Keroack "has expressed to us that he will fulfill his programmatic responsibilities in accordance with the law, and we believe him," Pearson said, adding that Keroack's work for A Women's Concern accounted for only 20% of his time and involved providing ultrasound examinations to pregnant women and not counseling to women who were not pregnant.
Yeah, somehow that doesn’t make me feel better. By the way, Kaiser has an amazing roundup of editorials and opinion pieces on Keroack. Check them out.
Okay, I’ll admit it. I frigging love All My Children. I started watching it when I was a toddler and my Nana took care of me—we had to watch her stories all afternoon long. For some reason, AMC stuck.
It was fab enough when the soap featured the first-ever lesbian smooch on a daytime drama, now they’re going to introduce a transgendered character. Nice.
The character, a flamboyant rock star known as Zarf, kisses the lesbian character Bianca and much drama ensues. The storyline begins with Thursday's episode of the daytime drama.
…The show wasn't interested in doing something just to be sensational, she said. GLAAD and some transgenders were brought in as consultants in shaping the character, teaching the producers when it is appropriate to call a character "she" even before surgery, she said.
Damon Romine, a spokesman for GLAAD, said he hasn't seen the show yet but feels people involved were genuinely interested in telling the story with dignity.
…"I think it's groundbreaking and breakthrough television for daytime to put a spotlight on transgender people and tell their story," he said.
It’s just too bad that my beloved soap is slipping ratings-wise. Boo.
Liberal Women's Caucus in Canada tells it like it is.
The Liberal Women's Caucus in Canada has put out a set of party policies that they feel are the most pressing issues women face in Canada. In doing so they called out what they called the conservative government's war on women.
>The federal Liberal women's caucus is accusing the Conservative government of trying to keep females "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen," saying the government is pursuing an ideological agenda that ignores women's needs and cuts funding to those who need help the most.
They have put together what they call the "Pink Book" which details their demands for women's equity.
The document is the product of cross-country working sessions with women and women's groups held last July, and is slated to be part of the party's election platform.
The recommendations are also aimed at countering what Belinda Stronach, chair of the Liberal women's caucus, described as the Conservative government's "attack" on women's progress.
The recommendations include commitments to reinstate the Liberal child-care and early-learning plan the Tories scrapped after the last election; to reverse budget cuts to social programs and Status of Women; to develop a national caregiver agenda; to provide more benefits to the self-employed, and to secure equal pay for work of equal value.
British scientists have developed a revolutionary pill that men could take as a one-off contraceptive just before a date.
The tablet would prevent a man from being able to impregnate a woman, but within a few hours his fertility would return to normal.
This would make it much more acceptable to men than other 'male pills' under development, which alter hormone levels and have to be taken over the long term.
The hormone-free contraceptive (it actually prevents ejaculation) can be taken a few hours before sex, or every day like women's birth control pill. Sweet.
According to the Associated Press, the report outlines cases of "soldiers raping women in front of their husbands and children, detainees being sodomized with broken bottles, and toddlers assaulted after their parents had been arrested," as well as a 2004 incident where two teenagers were gang raped by three policemen.
And there are few, if any, consequences that befall the perpetrators.
...most rapes are never reported because victims fear the security forces or fear being rejected by their families or communities, Amnesty said. When rapes are reported, "widespread failures throughout the judicial system result in only an estimated 10 percent of cases ever being successfully prosecuted," the report said. "The perpetrators invariably escape punishment, and women and girls who have been raped are denied any form of redress for the serious crimes against them."
In addition, it's an unwelcome climate for reporting sexual assault because it is made near-impossible to prove. In northern Nigeria, where Islamic Sharia law is practiced, it's a crime to report a rape without sufficient evidence--including four male witnesses.
Of course, under-reported rape statistics and perpetrators evading prosecution is not just a Nigerian problem. According to the Rape Abuse Incest National Network, 61 percent of rapes in the U.S. are not reported and only one out of 16 rapists will ever spend time in jail.
