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Next Tuesday, HBO is featuring a documentary exposing the scope of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo titled, The Greatest Silence, reports UN Dispatch.
The Enough Campaign and HBO are working together to coordinate house screenings across the country. You can even hold your own screening or take part in a conference call the following day with filmmaker Lisa Jackson, ENOUGH Co-Chair John Prendergast, and Director of Public Policy at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Kiersten Stewart, to discuss the film and find out about ways that you can help end violence against women in the DRC.
Check out more background on violence against women in the DRC.
Ivy Hymens: Why glorifying virginity is bad for women
If you didn't catch the New York Times Magazine piece, "Students of Virginity", make sure to check it out. It serves as a good reminder as to why the abstinence-only, modesty, chastity, or whatever they're calling it at the moment, movement is bad for women.
The piece - which examines the abstinence movement in ivy league colleges - focuses mostly Harvard student Janie Fredell, an outspoken member and speaker with True Love Revolution. What I found interesting is that Fredell tries to explain her penchant for virginity-worship using a feminist analysis:
“People just don’t get it,” Fredell said. “Everyone thinks we’re trying to promote this idea of the meek little virgin female.” She said she was doing no such thing. “I care deeply for women’s rights,” she said...She had awakened to the wage gap, to forced sterilization and female genital mutilation — to the different ways that men have, she said, of controlling women. One of these was sexual. Fredell had seen it often in her own life — men pushing for sex, she said, just to “have something to say in the locker room,” women feeling pressured to have sex in order to maintain a relationship. The more she studied and learned, the more Fredell came to realize that women suffer from having premarital sex, “due to a cultural double standard,” she said, “which devalues women for their sexual pasts and glorifies men for theirs.”
Okay...but isn't the problem the double standard - not the sex? (Shameless plug alert.) If we don't like that women "suffer" from sexual double standards, how is not having sex fighting back? Seems more like giving up to me. Of course, Fredell also frames her views with the idea that it's just men who want or "push" for sex and uses bad science to boot - but that's a whole other post.
I can recognize that it is hard to remain abstinent, especially in the face of a very sexualized culture. I appreciate and applaud the personal strength of individuals who decide abstinence in the best choice for them. But what I can’t support is the constant attacks on sexually active people. People who have sex do not feel a constant need to tell abstinent people that their human dignity has been compromised, or that they’re dirty, or that they are secretly unhappy, or that they’re headed for total life ruin.
Indeed. It also doesn't help Fredell's "feminist" argument that abstinence-proponents rely on the virgin-whore dichotomy to shame women into being chaste.
The Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College is having a fabulous conference this weekend on reproductive rights and health. Not only does it have some amazing speakers attending, it's also free to attend and has free housing opportunities.
I wish I could be there, but if anyone goes - report back to us!
There's something about feminist activism that wakes you the fuck up.
Last week, I was lucky enough to meet more feminists in a five day period than I probably have ever - it was incredible. After speaking at three colleges in the DC/Virginia area, I also went to the WAM conference. And athough I was exhausted from traveling and speaking, being around all of these amazing men and women committed to feminist activism and media really energized me. So I just wanted to say thanks.
Thanks to all of the feminists out there raising hell and making people remember that young women aren't apathetic or apolitical. They're not "going wild."
Young women are active, engaged and fucking awesome. Like the women at Georgetown's United Feminists who packed the room when I came to visit, despite the fact that it was their first event. Or Casey who I met at University of Mary Washington who makes a kick ass homemade feminist shirt (and was even kind enough to give me one!). Or the gals at Hollins University who created a feminist calendar to raise money for their Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance on campus.
And, of course, all of the bad-ass women at WAM - who not only put on some great panels, but also can dance like nobody's business.
All of you ladies inspire me daily - so thank you.
(The post title is dedicated to Ms. Courtney Martin, who mocked me this weekend for being "bougie" after I said - sigh - that I'd kill for a latte. Okay, maybe it was deserving of some mocking.)
Yahoo just launched a new web portal called Shine, “for women between ages 25 and 54, calling it a key demographic underserved by current Yahoo properties.” Topics of the site include “fashion + beauty, healthy living, entertainment, parenting, love +sex, work + money, food, at home, and astrology.” And the site's signature color is, of course, pink.
Would it be possible, maybe, please, for a website “for women” to not be pink? I mean, honestly, I couldn’t even get past that to see what the content is. It’s not breast cancer pink (light pink), so I think that means it must be Sex and the City pink. Hot pink, some sparkes. Yup.
I was traveling all last week, so here's a pic from a couple of weeks ago when Monty went to go visit his brother in Woodstock. Even when separated by a glass sliding door, they like to chill together.
Over at Shakesville they’re collecting photos flipping off Jay Leno for being, as usual, a sexist, homophobic ass. Actor Ryan Phillppe was on Leno’s show, and mentioned that his first acting job was playing a gay teenager on a soap opera. Leno kept bugging him to look into the camera and give his “gayest look.” Phillppe declined. But Shakesville readers are happy to share. Go check it out.
This is a long video, but worth watching. A group of students at the South Bronx High School of Performance and Stage Craft talk about the presidential elections, how they're becoming politically informed, and the future of race in America.
The piece is focused on how Barack Obama's candidacy has inspired them, but it goes far beyond that. They write their own "Yes We Can" speeches about the things they want to do with their lives and to change the world.
Live Blogging at WAM! Battling Backlash: Strategies for Fighting Back, Rising Above and Making Progress
Our lovely editors Jessica and Miriam are on this panel, along with the fantastic Carmen from Racialicious, who is also (in case y'all didn't know) the co-founder and President of New Demographic, and Patti Binder, an amazing leader and advocate of girls' programming in NYC and board chair of Girls Write Now.
Patti discusses her experience within girls' programming, and how people generally make the assumption that there shouldn't be a need for girls' leadership organizations because there's a woman running for president. And all of the girls' organizations that exist aren't recognized nearly enough, not to mention the difficulty in trying to get the same funding (since so little are funded) when they're all on the same side. She also touches on how the "boys' crisis" has effected their ability to get funding on top of that. And amidst all of these forces working against them, the organizations focus on pushing their message through to convince people that girls' and women's issues, well, exist.
Miriam talks about Radical Doula and as someone who is a part of the birthing movement, how she feels that it's important to identify herself not only as a birth activist, but as someone who supports abortion, and tries to bring the conversation into the movement. Hence, "Radical Doula." So for herself and the way she identifies, the push back she deals with is the doulas and midwives who stigmatize or judge her for being a supporter of abortion. Another form of back lash she's experienced, referencing to her work with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, is a general misconception that Latina women are all blatantly anti-choice. Yet the Latina Institute works with and helps Latina women who support abortion and those who don't necessarily support it but are accepting of the organization regardless and are pro-birth control and support a number of other aspects of reproductive health.
Carmen divulges her experience with Racialicious, where in the beginning there was no moderation for comments but came to a point when moderation was definitely necessary. She talks about the general "rules" that they ask their readers to abide by, which includes to not make generalizations about race or any other group of people or person, which is something that they deal with on a consistent basis. She also discusses how to figure out what's "ban-able," and some strategies that the editors have talked about to handle particular comments that have been problematic for the productivity of the site.
Jessica makes a point that - after listening to the speakers - how different blogs' backlash can be, and how disruptive comments are usually (and obviously) not appropriate in public spaces which is why commenters use anonymity to speak their ignorance. (Because they wouldn't do it in person.)
Somehow the suggestion that chicken and beef's hybrid would be spam also came into the conversation, but that's a whole other conversation. (And no, I'm totally not joking.)
Aimee talks about PEP's work with younger women of color, their research and critique of the "choice" movement and the ways that it isolates many women, in which she leads to a discussion about the creation and history of reproductive justice, which she means working towards "a collective solution that betters us all instead of betters just some of us." She also touches on the amazing initiative EMERJ who has the goal of growing and strengthening the reproductive justice movement.
Cristina Page discusses her experience within the pro-choice movement and how the conversation around the movement has largely been around abortion, when the fact of the matter is that reproductive rights organizations are working more towards prevention than anything, specifically contraception rights. In fact, she befriended a "pro-life" leader, traveled across the country and ended up writing an op-ed together in the New York Times, "The Right to Agree" suggesting that the two movements can, in fact, work together to provide support for prevention and family-friendly policies, but how that all gets lost in the larger debate of abortion rights. She talks about taking back language that anti-choice leaders use, including "murder" and "butcher," but as well as anti-choicers being "fanatics." In short, there are arguments that we have to potentially recruit anti-choicers to see things differently.
Amanda talks about how a reproductive justice framework "makes it easier to communicate our values to the public." Really understanding the reproductive justice framework can also help you debate anti-choice people, particularly anti-choicers who aren't necessarily activists. She says we need to talk about things in really blunt, frank terms (like "sex," as scared as the public may be to talk about it) in order to reach out to people, and even using humor in the process. She also suggests to not be afraid to take the cheap shot when you need to. (She uses the example of her calling out John McCain's spiritual adviser Rod Parsley for saying that the KKK would just love abortion rights people for committing "black genocide," while she finds very clearly on the KKK website of their opposition to choice. Who would of thought.)
Great questions and comments are being brought up by the audience, including how to engage anti-choicers, people with faith who support reproductive justice, including abortion as a health care issue in the media, taking "education" out of "abstinence-only education," and talking to black communities about abortion. (Silent Choices is a film running today at the conference addressing that very issue.)
While my co-bloggers, friends and fellow activists are out having some celebratory drinks to kick off the first night of WAM, I'm here in the hotel room about to catch up on some much-needed sleep. But I just wanted to say - to all the WAMmers out there - every year I get more excited to see you all. You are one bad ass group of women!
For those of you who couldn't be at the conference, look out for some live-blogging tomorrow (and perhaps after-party blogging?).
A special shout out to the fabulous women here from Cornell University's Women's Resource Center who are bringing me to campus next week to speak. I was running on about two hours sleep when I talked to you gals, so apologies for the incoherent blabbering I was doing. I'm really looking forward to hanging out with you all tomorrow!
If anyone wants to find me at WAM, I'll be spending a lot of my day tomorrow on table duty for the incredible organization Girls Write Now. Come find me and find out more about GWN and how to get involved. (Or, just to chat.)
It’s amazing how two contraceptive ads can be on such opposite sides of the respectrum. (Yes, I totally just made up that word.)
I posted a while back on Trojan’s commercial launching their “Evolve” campaign that I was a bit wary of, but now I’m really digging what they’re trying to do. Their new widely released ad uses the recent study showing that 1 in 4 teenage girls have an sexually transmitted infection (STI), with the statement, “We can do better than this! We can evolve the way we approach sexual health in our country.”
Then we have Durex.
According to All Diva Media, the text says something along the lines of, “There are better things to hit.” Who needs to talk about a sexual health crisis when we have references to sexual violence to make!
A woman who filed a restraining order against former boyfriend and present Republican candidate was pressured by the Republican party to drop it.
Ali Hasan was in the midst of his campaign when Alison Miller and his relationship ended, after which, according to Miller, Hasan hired a company to hack into her email accounts to find out here whereabouts as well as harassed her. "He followed me to intimidate me and control how I handled the situation," said Miller, also a Republican, stated in the court documents.
Chairman of the Eagle County Republican Party, Randy Milhoan, implied that the story was concocted as a campaign smear, which is also what the Hassans are claiming. "The whole thing is just crazy. You couldn't have scripted a story more cleverly than this one," says Milhoan. Hence the article title, "GOP candidate in a 'crazy' soap opera drama."
Yeah, because stalking just seems just so outrageous! And a Republican woman to file a restraining order against her own kind?? Pshhh.
After Hasan hired Kobe Bryant's law firm and local party officials began telling her she was "embarrassing the Republican party," Miller decided not to move forward with a permanent restraining order. Criminal charges may still be filed by the district attorney.
Let's all say it together now: Stalking is a very real and serious problem. To brush it off as some melodrama and shame a woman for trying to protect herself is what the Republican party of Eagle County should be embarrassed by.
The study of eating habits of adults -- called the most extensive of its kind -- was a telephone survey of 14,000 Americans. It confirmed conventional wisdom that most men eat more meat than women, and women eat more fruits and vegetables. But there were a few surprising exceptions: Men were much more likely to eat asparagus, brussels sprouts, peas and peanuts. They also were bigger consumers of frozen pizzas, frozen hamburgers and frozen Mexican dinners. Women are more likely than men to eat eggs, yogurt and fresh hamburgers.
Studies like this, and the simple reporting that outlets like the NYTimes does upsets me for a few reasons. One, it is really that useful? Could we also do a telephone survey and find that brunettes show different trends in eating than blonds? How much does this research just reinforce our already concrete ideas about gender difference? Of course men eat more meat than women! It's because they need more protein for all their manly activities.
The other problem has more to do with the media misuse (and abuse) of random scientific studies. There is a great article in Bitch Magazine, Mad Science, that addresses this.
Nowhere do scientific findings get more mangled than when they’re about the differences between men and women. According to the science pages, women aren’t just biologically hardwired to prefer pink to blue. We’re also predisposed to backstab one another in the workplace, cry in the boardroom, and have both lower iqs and less of a sense o
There's something about feminist activism that wakes you the fuck up. 
