May 2008 Archives

I just wanted to say thanks to all of the amazing Feministing supporters who came out to our four year anniversary party last night. We packed the room, had some laughs, drinks, and chats - though not nearly enough dancing!

Seriously, it was so wonderful to see old friends and make some news ones. (Like the group that drove in from Philly, and the wonderful women of MADRE!) Thanks to all of you for your continued support -- I hope we see you all again at the next one.

More pics of the party to come...

Yeah, a bunch of misogynist trolls have swarmed the site. I'm sorry to Feministing readers for the nonsense. I'm going to shut down comments for the weekend until they find something better to do (because I just can't spend all weekend online deleting and banning). If your comment gets erased in the cleanup, apologies!

But in the meantime, this serves as a pretty good reminder as to why feminism is so needed! (Even if it does kill my Friday night occasionally.)

I think my video hit a nerve. Check out some of the comments I've erased from the vid after the jump. These are the times I doubt the basic goodness of people. Or at least the intelligence.

It's our 4th anniversary party and are celebrating Jessica's second book in NYC. Come show some love and indulge in the raffle prizes, book signings, good drinks, great music and even greater company - Samhita and Ann are taking the trip into NYC to celebrate! Huzzah! See details here.

And for those who can't make it or aren't in the area, we'll miss you and will be sure to put pics up next week...

Don't forget to subscribe to Feministing's YouTube channel!

UPDATE: Seems YouTube sexists don't like my video much. I've banned/erased over 50 "show me your tits" and "i'm going to rape you" comments. Fun!

I have to admit I was pretty irritated by the cover story of the New York Times Magazine this past week. Not that they featured a young woman blogger, of course, but that the article by former Gawker blogger Emily Gould - which was more of a juicy diary of sex, lies and blogging - that gave a pretty inaccurate portrait of what it means to be a female writer.

And why is that when women writers get attention in the mainstream media, they can only be portrayed in this sexualized and pleasing way in tousled bed sheets? (The NY Time Magazine cover picture to the right is only one of a few.)

Rebecca Traister had a great analysis of the piece yesterday, where she addresses the way that the media - largely controlled by men - not only allows a limited number of women writers to get their 15 minutes of fame, but the only time we're given it is when we're willing to expose something:

"When we are fed -- and gobble up -- stories by or about single urban working women, those exotic and potentially threatening creatures presented to us are often doing things like confessing their self-doubt, discussing their sex lives, lying on rumpled sheets looking pretty."

But being personal is not what necessarily should be condemned:

We have to remember: There is nothing wrong with women writing about themselves, their youth, their indiscretions, their habits and values and personal development. Men have been writing about this stuff for thousands of years; they call it the canon.

And like their male contemporaries, a lot of this writing disappoints. When it does, there is nothing wrong with criticizing it. The thing that is wrong -- really wrong -- is when we forget that these kinds of stories are not the only ones that women have to tell. (Emphasis mine.)

The comments section of the article had to be shut down because of the severity of abusive responses towards Gould for writing about her experiences. Would she have received this kind of backlash if she was a man? Likely not.

What do others think?

Not a person.

Anti-choice activists in Colorado have apparently submitted 131,245 signatures to the Colorado secretary of state supporting their "personhood" amendment which would define a fertilized egg as a person. Only 76,047 are needed for the measure to be placed on November's ballot.

The secretary of state has 30 days to review and signatures and place on the ballot, so we need to start taking action in the meantime. Check out NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado for more information about this very real and threatening measure.

The Washington Post has an article (and video above) about the very low conviction rate in UK rape cases.

As Vanessa reported last year, 33% of reported rapes ended in conviction in 1977. By 2005, that number had dropped to 5.4%.

In Britain, a nation whose justice system has been used as a model around the globe, government officials and women's rights activists agree that rape goes largely unpunished.

Solicitor General Vera Baird, who oversees criminal prosecutions in England, estimated that 10 to 20 percent of rapes are brought to authorities' attention. According to government figures, 14,000 cases a year are reported and 19 out of 20 defendants walk free.

"There will never be proper female equality and appropriate dignity afforded to one-half of the population if it's possible to rape somebody and get away with it," said Baird, one of the highest-ranking women in the British government.

The article also reports that "acquittals are often won on the 'mucky sex' defense -- that the man got mixed signals from the woman and what resulted really wasn't rape." Mucky sex? Is this the UK version of "gray rape"? Kill me now.

Attention women over 35! Did you think that your days of desperately trying to fit in with unrealistic beauty standards were over? Guess again! The new TV show "She's Got the Look" gives women of all ages the chance to feel insecure and unworthy!

When will the madness stop?

Big ups to MBTA!

Boston transit officials have launched a campaign against sexual harassment on the subway. While the "grope patrol" (as they like to call themselves) makes me giggle a little, the campaign has already begun to make a difference in encouraging women to come forward when they're harassed on the train:

"The number of reported groping incidents — from the relatively minor to the really lewd — has doubled. Some women have even preserved clothing, which police officers need for evidence, while others are sending in pictures of guys they snap on their cell phones."

They must have gotten that idea from the Hollaback ladies of Boston!

Via NPR.

A new report says we don't have more women in politics because they just aren't that interested:

Extensive research shows that when women run for office, they perform just as well as men. Yet women remain severely under-represented in our political institutions. In this report, we argue that the fundamental reason for women’s under-representation is that they do not run for office. There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition; men tend to have it, and women don’t.

"Ambition" is a bit of a misleading way to put it. Here's how the study's authors break it down:

We link this persistent gender gap in political ambition to several factors. Women are less likely than men to be willing to endure the rigors of a political campaign. They are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less likely than men to have the freedom to reconcile work and family obligations with a political career. They are less likely than men to think they are “qualified� to run for office. And they are less likely than men to perceive a fair political environment.

Most of these things, in my mind, just go back to the fact that we have a fundamentally unfeminist society. Women are saddled with more family obligations, and we have a government that has been unwilling to step in and lighten the load. Girls are bombarded with the message, from a young age, that they should aspire to be pretty, not powerful. (Or that pretty is powerful.) So is it any wonder that grown women doubt their qualifications? Also, saying that women are less likely than men to "be willing to endure the rigors of a political campaign" fails to note that, compared to white men, the campaign trail is a helluva lot more rigorous for women. No wonder they're less likely than men to "perceive a fair political environment."

But to me, none of that speaks to ambition. Within the social constraints that are placed on women by a sexist society, how can you expect them to sign up for elections in droves? The two parties are basically boys' clubs, the media is completely misogynist, there is virtually no government support for working mothers, and women get the message from a very young age that they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to expect half as much. It's hard to separate out all this junk and figure out how many women really do harbor higher career ambitions. And how many said they don't because of these very unfeminist realities about our society. "Women may now think about running for office, but they probably think about it while they are making the bed," as Beloit College political scientist Georgia Duerst-Lahti put it. For example, would it really be fair to call a single mom with three kids and two jobs "not ambitious" because she doesn't realistically think she can run for political office? Please.

These are big-picture problems -- ones that feminists are working to solve, of course -- but huge and pervasive problems nevertheless. Do these things keep women out of politics? Undoubtedly. But are they a problem of ambition? No. I'd wager a guess that if you reform the media, create better support systems for working mothers, and if the two parties actually made an effort to recruit women candidates, we'd see a huge spike in "ambition."

Until that grand day, of course, we need a backup plan. So I refer you to the She Should Run campaign, which encourages people to push women to run for office, even in this imperfect world. The good news is when you actually ask women to run, they say yes at rates similar to men. I guess they suddenly discover they had ambitions, after all.

(So after I'd written all this I saw that Echidne had a wonderful post along the same lines. Check it out. Great feminist minds...)

Check out this author’s query from Elaine Tyler May, amazing feminist historian and big fan of feministing. (She’s the one who wrote feminist classic Homeward Bound, that I reviewed alongside Faludi last month.) Please, please take some time and respond!

The Pill is often considered one of the most important innovations of the twentieth century. As I investigate this claim for a new book—set for release on the 50th anniversary of the Pill’s FDA approval (Basic Books, 2010)—I’m looking to include the voices and stories of real people. I hope yours will be one of them. I’m eager to hear from men as well as women, of all ages and backgrounds.

Have you or any of your partners taken the Pill? Why or why not? How did it work for you—physically, emotionally, and ethically? How has it compared with other contraceptive methods you or your partners have used?

What has been the impact of the Pill on your sex life, relationships, political or social attitudes, and beliefs about the medical or pharmaceutical establishments?

Do you have opinions about public policies related to access, availability, approval or limitations on the development and distribution of the Pill and related contraceptive products (the patch, the “morning after pill,� long-term injections, etc.).

Anything else you think I should know?

Send me (elainetylermay@gmail.com) your most richly detailed answers to any and all of these questions (and don’t forget to include your age, gender, where you live, occupation, ethnic/religious/racial background, sexual orientation, marital status, political party affiliation, or any other biographical info you think is important).

I saw Top Girls last night with the ladies on my intergenerational feminist panel and it got me thinking so much about women's lives, childbirth, sacrifice, our feminist legacy etc. It started out with a crazy theater version of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, where all these women through out history had dinner together and told the stories of their lives (while sometimes interrupting, crying, screaming, and drinking a lot of wine). While it definitely confused me (she's all post-structuralist and Brechtian in this one), it also made me want to give a big ol' shout out to Caryl Churchill, the playwright, and other women playwrights over the years who have helped us look at some of our deepest issues through artful lenses.

Some of my favorites are Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, Nzotkae Shange, Margaret Edson, and Winter Miller.

Who are yours? What plays by women have changed the way you look at the world?

From the fabulous Jessica Hagy at indexed. You can buy her book here.

I've posted a bit on feministing before about my experience as part of the inaugural class of the Progressive Women's Voices Project over at the Women's Media Center. In short, it was awesome--the least paralyzing media training I've ever had, the most intergenerational, diverse, talented staff I've ever encountered at a feminist nonprofit, and some seriously helpful ongoing help for a freelancer like little ol' me. Anyhow, they're accepting applications for their third class. Check it out and definitely drop them an application if you think it sounds up your alley. Info below:

Through our Progressive Women’s Voices program, the WMC works to amplify the voice of progressive women in the media, while building a new class of experts and commentators to fuel the conversation. We are currently looking for outstanding women candidates for our next class. Candidates should be experts in a given field, with some media experience and exposure. The WMC will offer, over a three month period, a series of media trainings, op-ed trainings, issue briefings, and networking sessions to each class. The WMC will then pitch these experts to the media, with the goal of acquiring a consistent, highly visible slot for their opinions.

The application deadline is June 2, 2008. Apply today!

The International Museum of Women continues to do amazing work online. This month the exhibit is Women, Power, and Politics and there is no shortage of inspiring art to check out. I'm especially interested in the Body as Art section, where artists from around the globe consider ways that our forms can be our medium of expression.

Hey crew, I've been asked to do a talk back after Neil LaBute's play, Reasons to be Pretty, on Tuesday, June 10th and the nice folks over there agreed to give feministing readers a discount if anyone wants to go. He's done a lot of controversial stuff, including 2005's Fat Pig and, prior to that, was kicked out of the LDS Church for a one act he wrote that starred CaIista Flockhart. Who knows what feathers he might ruffle this time around. Info below:

$35 tickets Tue, Wed, Thu eves; Sat, Sun matinees
$45 tickets Fri, Sat eves (regular $59)
Click here and use code FEMI.
OR call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 and use code FEMI.

MCC Theater at The Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher Street (New York, NY)

We've got a great guest review from Chelsey Clammer this week. Chelsey is a feminist, queer, and disability rights activist living in Chicago with her partner who wants credit for the ideas in the last sentence of this review. You got it, Marie.

In her debut novel, Jane Kotapish puts the fun back in dysfunctional. The story opens with an unnamed narrator explaining the eccentricities of her childhood: “I named my dead sister Nancy and talked to her in the privacy of my closet for eleven years.� Emerging from the delusion of her best friend/worst enemy/dead sister/imagined ghost relationship, the narrator eventually grows into a generically successful New York City woman. But not all is right in adulthood. In NYC, the narrator witnesses a horrific accident that eventually sends her back to the Virginia countryside to contemplate her life and identity.

In her newly acquired quiet Virginia life, the narrator—now in her 30’s—reacquaints herself with her delusional and idiosyncratic mother, Lois. Ultimately a novel about unconventional mother-daughter relationships, Salvage reveals the ways in which connections can form through peculiar ways. You see, Lois has also taken up talking to imaginary friends. While these friends do not come in the form of the daughter she had a miscarriage with years ago, they do come in the form of Catholic Saints. And eventually both the narrator and the reader start to question if these Saintly friends are actually imagined, or if life is really just that weird. As this delightfully dysfunctional mother-daughter pair navigates their past and present delusions, they learn how to re-adjust their atypical relationship with each other.

My favorite relationship in this wonderfully quirky and poetic novel, however, is the bond that the narrator forms with her next-door neighbor, Edith. As our narrator drinks wine by herself in her enormous Victorian house, she begins to notice the crazed life of the woman who lives across the street with one too many kids, not enough support from her husband, and never enough time to herself. The narrator calls Edith one day when she notices a slight pause in the chaos of Edith’s house:

“I don’t say, I saw you hesitate in the doorframe, you’re lost and half-crazed with fatigue, come keep me company in my neurotic isolation. I say, ‘Hey, looks quiet over there, want some tea?’� As the tea turns into vodkas, these women solidify their friendly love for each other and create a community of support for each other to better deal with their own families.

It is with Kotapish’s lyrical style and understanding of women’s lives and relationships, as well as her approach to detangling the knots of grief and longing in a well-told story that make Salvage amazing. Shifting between the child’s perspective and the woman’s narration, the unnamed narrator is specifically unnamed as tries to connect the pieces of her past in order to understand the fractured person she is now. Smart but simple, Salvage encourages a certain self-reflection of the reader’s past—it is a novel that makes you think about how it is you remember the things you have yet to forget.
--Chelsey Clammer

Next week: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloan Crosley and then Without a Map by Meredith Hall the week after.

Mother Jones is conducting a survey on the state of campus activism:

We want the lowdown on student activism, past and present. Been arrested and regret it? Would your school win the prize for silliest student protest? Was student activism way better when you were in school? Is your cause unique?

Help us put together our best student activism roundup yet. It's our 15th annual! Answer a few quick questions and you could win some cool prizes.

Click here to weigh in. (It takes about five minutes.)

Many of you already know that I'm involved an incredible organization called Girls Write Now, which pairs at-risk high school girls with professional women writers as mentors and writing coaches. If you're in New York, they're having a reading on June 8 at 4pm at the Barnes and Noble in Tribeca. You can find all the information here and the invite here.

Here's a taste of the amazing writing you'll be hearing...

See more GWN videos here. I hope to see you at the reading!

My friend and colleague and (hero and rockstar writer) Jeff Chang spreads the word on the fate of the Jena 6 and the case that is being mishandled and more so as the mainstream media fails to pick it up. There have been new developments and we must get the word out.

This Friday, special judge Thomas Yeager will consider a motion made on behalf of the Jena 6 to remove Judge J.P. Mauffray from their cases. Mauffray had previously denied motions by 5 of the defendants to recuse him from their cases. But last week, the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeals appointed Yeager to preside over this unusual hearing in Mauffray's own courtroom.

We have touched on Jena several times if you want background. You can also read Jeff's full post here which gives a good background. Spread the word and let's keep this up on the blogs at least since the mainstream media is failing us.

By Roja Bandari.

A few days ago we hit a new low in systematic filtering of women's rights websites in Iran. Along with the website Change for Equality, 11 other sites and blogs belonging to local branches of the One Million Signatures Campaign in several cities or regions in Iran (Arak, Rasht, Mashhad, Esfahan, Shiraz, Zahedan) were blocked simultaneously. The list of blocked blogs included Men for Equality, set up by male activists in the campaign and those of a few Iranian immigrant populations in other countries (Kuwait, Cyprus, Germany, and the US). Campaign websites in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan had been blocked in April 2008.

Change for Equality has had over 10 web addresses since early 2007. The state continuously blocks the site, and in response activists create a new web address and move to a new location. This happens despite the fact that the activists of the One Million Signatures Campaign work strictly legally and despite the fact that they do not oppose the government of Iran.

Other women's publications both online and in print have also been a target of censorship in the past few years; the popular women's rights e-zine Zanestan ("Woman's Land"), and the long-published and well-respected magazine Zanan ("Women") have both been shut down and are no longer published as of and November 2007 and January 2008 respectively.

Read the rest at openDemocracy.

Thanks to Roja for permission to reprint an excerpt of her piece!

If you haven't ever watched Everywoman on Al Jazeera English, you really should. They do great coverage of women's rights issues.

Today is quite the special day for Miriam, our newest (and youngest) member of the Feministing family. This kick-ass woman has achieved a helluva lot in the 24 years of her life: writer, blogger, doula, activist...and she's only going up from here. We are very lucky to have her.

Happy Birthday, Miriam!!!

Reader Michelle tipped us about this, uh, interesting MySpace application, Sexy Politics.

As you get yourself informed about politics, a beautiful model of your choosing will coach you through the process. Get questions right and the model will reward you with removed pieces of clothing.

Charming. Outside of the disgusting way this application is using women's bodies, I also find it really irritating that assumption is that it's just men who are interested in politics. Bad news all around.

Also, annoying usage of the mudflap girl!

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, editor of That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, has an interesting piece in Alternet where she argues that "gay marriage does nothing to address fundamental problems of inequality."

What is needed is universal access to basic necessities like housing, health care, food, and the benefits now obtained through citizenship (like the right to stay in this country). Legalized gay marriage means only that certain people in a specific type of long-term, monogamous relationship sanctioned by a state contract might be able to access benefits. While marriage could confer inclusion under a spouse's health-care policy, it does nothing to provide such a policy. Marriage might ensure hospital visitation rights, but not for anyone without a spouse. Marriage may allow for inheritance rights between spouses, but what if there is nothing to inherit?

What do you think?

When I was a wee one, Girl Scouts were my favorite thing ever. Thanks in no small part to the fact that I convinced my father to be my Brownie leader. It was bad ass. So feminism + Girl Scouts? Swoon. Troop 3-394 forever!

Pic from jemmybutton.

Since our posts are usually about the sad state of women's rights in the world, I thought it would be nice to end today with something that's always fun: self-humiliation. So the question is, dear readers, what is the first concert you ever went to? And no, I don't mean some cool jazz thing that your parents dragged you to when you were a kid - I mean what musician(s) did you desperately try to scrounge up tickets for, and then go freaking out with the hope that maybe, just maybe, they'd see you from stage. (Okay, maybe that's just me from my NKOTB phase. I was in love with Joey, so sue me.)

My source of shame is below.

I got my older cousin to take me, and I totally wore that stupid Debbie Gibson hat.

And for those that aren't embarrassed by their first concert...I hate you.

This horrible story is via Racialicious.

18-year-old Mildred Beaubrun from Florida was getting some gas with her friends at a local 7-Eleven when a car full of men pulled up.

"Hey, baby, what's your phone number?" they called out as the cars traveled west through Orlando.

Then the banter grew more aggressive. The men threw a T-shirt, then an AA battery, at the Nissan. One of the women threw a broken cell-phone charger back. At one point, the HHR swerved into the Nissan's lane and tried to run the car off the road.

When the Nissan turned north on John Young Parkway, the HHR followed. Then, at Princeton Street, a shot rang out. Shrapnel flew as the bullet pierced the door and struck 18-year-old Beaubrun, who was sitting in the back seat.

It is unclear whether Beaubrun will live, and she does live, if she'll ever walk again. Latoya points out that violence against women is absolutely connected to the fact that men are brought up to think that they have the "right" to talk to and approach women out of nowhere. When our bodies are considered perpetually accessible to men, violence is bound to follow.

Through Cara, I see that Hillary is wading into the oppression olympics pool.

Q. Do you think this has been a particularly racist campaign?

A. I do not. I think this has been a positive, civil campaign. I think that both gender and race have been obviously a part of it because of who we are and every poll I've seen show more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American, which rarely gets reported on either. The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable or at least more accepted. And I think there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when and if it ever raises its ugly head. But it does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists.

Q. Isn't that how it's always been though.

A. Oppression of women and discrimination against women is universal. You can go to places in the world where there are no racial distinctions except everyone is joined together in their oppression of women. The treatment of women is the single biggest problem we have politically and socially in the world. If you look at the extremism and the fundamentalism, it is all about controlling women, at it's base. The idea that we would have a presidential campaign in which so much of what has occurred that has been very sexist would be just shrugged off I think is a very unfortunate commentary about the lack of seriousness that should be applied to any kind of discrimination or prejudice. I have spent my entire life trying to stand up for civil rights and women's rights and human rights and I abhor wherever it is discrimination is present.

I'm just really so sick of it. Between hearing it from mainstream feminist organizations, the media, and even people in my own life - why is it so hard to talk about the extreme sexism that's surrounded Clinton's campaign without declaring that it's so much worse than racism? How is this possibly useful?

There's a little story I was hesitant about blogging, but I think that the time calls for it - because in the last few weeks it seems as if the oppression olympics have hit an all time high, and it's really fucking bad for feminism.

Many of you have emailed us about this Klondike commercial. And I agree, it's atrocious. Not only does it feed into the sexist idea that men deserve a cookie for being halfway decent human beings, but it also denigrates men by suggesting that they're animals, unable to resist any ass that that happens to pass their way. Thumbs down.

I'm excited to announce this upcoming Washington DC event for three reasons. One, I helped to organize it. Two, it brings together two of my favorite topics, birth and abortion. Three, it happens to fall on my birthday!

Intentional Motherhood: Connecting Abortion, Pregnancy, and Birth
Considering the full range of women's reproductive rights:

The right to affordable birth control. The right to parent. The right to choose abortion. The right to midwifery care. The right to determine a birth plan. The right to prenatal care.

The DC Abortion Fund is excited to host a a book signing and discussion to explore the many connections between these issues.

Featuring Judy Norsigian, Executive Director, Our Bodies Ourselves Alexis Zepeda, Board Member, DC Abortion Fund Jill Morrison, Senior Counsel, National Women’s Law Center

Suggested Donation: $20

All Proceeds Benefit the DC Abortion Fund

If you have questions please contact Betsy Illingworth at betsyillingworth@yahoo.com or Dina Morad at dinamorad@gmail.com

Hope you can make it!

Yes, that's right. Because she kicked ass, parents wanted her off.

The article concerned 12-year-old Jaime Nared, barred by The Hoop [a private Beaverton basketball/sports facility] from playing basketball with the boys team that she had played with since second grade.

The Hoop's decision was prompted by the parents of opposing teams shortly after Jaime embarrassed an opposing team by putting up 30 points. The complaining parents' stated concern was that their sons were not playing as well because they had been taught not to be rough with girls.

Nevermind that according to Nared's coach Michael Abraham, the 6-foot-1 student can more than hold her own: "Listen, she's a girl's girl, but she plays tough. She's no cupcake. She gets knocked down and takes a charge."

The problem is that boys won't be "rough with girls," the problem is that parents would rather use sexism to get a girl kicked off a team rather than see their kids play a fair game.

Watch the video here.

Thanks to all the readers who gave us the heads up on this one!

Here's some baffling news. The Boston Globe reports in "The freedom to say 'no'," that women "just aren't interested" in science and engineering.

When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

Huh. For folks who "aren't interested" in the sciences, we sure do seem to be winning a lot of awards in the field. In fact, the top three prize winners in this year's prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair were all girls.

Pictured above, Sana Raoof, 17, of Muttontown, N.Y., Yi-Han Su, 17, of Taipei and Natalie Saranga Omattage, 17, of Cleveland, Miss., won for projects on the Computation of the Alexander-Conway Polynomial on the Chord Diagrams of Singular Knots, Efficient Hydrogen Production Using Cu-Zn-Al Catalysts Prepared by Homogeneous Precipitation Method, and Development of Biosensors for Detecting Hazardous Chemicals, respectively. Whew. What was that again about girls not liking science?

Thanks to Cathy for the link!

Admittedly, I could have done without the classical music / quote interludes, but seeing this compilation (put together by the Women's Media Center) certainly does tickle one's gag reflex.

Not only will it be lots of fun, with raffle prizes, drinks, and feminist dance party madness - but we've just found out that DC editor Ann and San Fran editor Samhita will be joining us in NYC for the party! So no excuses, folks. Get your asses out to party this Friday, 9pm at Black Door.

If you're on Facebook, you can let us know you're coming here.

Full invite is after the jump.

Feministing will be posting on a limited schedule through Memorial Day - have a great weekend, folks!

And since I got a got a few emails this week from people annoyed at my forgetting to Monday Monty blog, consider the pic after the jump a special edition weekend Monty post (Astoria Park edition).

Ellen rocks my world. Jill makes a good point that there are biggie reporters who wouldn't be this direct with him. Big ups!

Some women I've met talk about coming feminism via a "click" moment. Personally, I think I was always a feminist - but I didn't call myself one until after I took a Women's Studies class in college. So my "click" was more of a process...but an awesome one!

So, dear readers, vote and tell us in comments how you came to be a feminist. (And of course I realize a poll is a fairly limited way to gauge this sort of thing, but hey, it's fun.)

Shortly after women ski jumpers rallied in Vancouver this winter while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was in town, it looks like they're now filing suit against the Vancouver organizing committee for the 2010 Olympics:

The women ski jumpers say not being included in the Games is a violation of the women's rights under Canada's bill of rights.

The lawsuit, filed in B.C. Supreme Court, says the failure to include a women's ski jumping event in the Games is discriminatory and based on stereotypes of the types of activities suitable for women.

Last year, the women also filed a suit with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, who compromised to press the IOC to change its mind. And the Vancouver organizing committee had told the IOC it didn't want to include women's ski jumping because of budget constraints, and the IOC voted in 2006 to not allow women ski jumpers in the Games because the sport hasn't developed enough. Not to mention the International Ski Federation has stated in the past that the sport "isn't appropriate for ladies" and could damage their ovaries and uterus. For reals.

In the meantime, badminton was approved in 1985 by the IOC to be given full-medal Olympic status.

Check out the Let Women Ski Jump in 2010 campaign for more info on this ridiculousness.

An Israeli tourist responded to a group of New Zealand men whistling at her by stripping naked.

On a balmy late-autumn day, she calmly stripped bare to use an ATM - bringing an abrupt halt to both the whistles and the road work - then put her clothes back on and walked away. Sgt. Peter Masters said the woman told police she didn't take kindly to the men's wolf-whistles.

Because you know most gals "take kindly to" unwanted whistling strangers. "She gave the explanation that she had been ... pestered by New Zealand men. She's not an unattractive-looking lady," said Sgt. Masters.

What her level of attractiveness has to do with this, I don't know, but the police were kind enough (sarcasm included) to treat the incident as a "one-off." Meaning that she was still brought down to the police station and chastised for the inappropriateness of her action.

How about that.

I really just wanted to direct you to one of my favorite parts of Margaret Cho's Revolution, which is about 4:43 in. Hilarious yet terrifying. By the way, this is not safe for work.

This is big.

Less than a year after she was appointed by George Bush to lead the nation's family planning office, contraception-hating wingnut Susan Orr announced her resignation on Wednesday.

Her resignation shortly followed after the the Family Research Council, the organization she was formerly employed with (along with 80 other conservative groups) called on George Bush to reinstate a "domestic gag rule." Like the Global Gag Rule, this means that eligibility for Title X funds (which covers a huge chunk of our nation's family planning clinics) will require that centers don't refer patients for abortions or share facilities with abortion providers.

Title X is the only federal funding program that provides contraceptive services to low-income individuals, and Susan Orr's job was to watch over its management. The Family Research Council are working hella hard to get this "domestic gag rule" passed, and if Bush decides to leave us with this gift before he leaves office, a lot of clinics and a lot of low-income women and men are going to be fucked.

Check out RH Reality Check for more background on this, and take action here; tell Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt that the gag rule has no home here.

How many times have you heard that - whether it was on some terrible Dr. Phil episode or urban myths about "rainbow parties" - American teens were having tons of oral sex because they don't consider it "real" sex? I've certainly heard a lot about it. Turns out, it's not really so accurate.

Contrary to widespread belief, teenagers do not appear to commonly engage in oral sex as a way to preserve their virginity, according to the first study to examine the question nationally.

The analysis of a federal survey of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19, released yesterday, found that more than half reported having had oral sex. But those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried it than those who had had intercourse.

The report, from The Guttmacher Institute, notes that if teens are having oral sex, they're probably having vaginal sex as well. Of course abstinence-proponents are using the study to argue that virginity-pledgers aren't big oral- and anal-sex enthusiasts after all. (The fact that they're less likely to use contraception doesn't bug them that much, I guess.) But virginities aside, the real point of the study is that debunks these panicked myths about promiscuous teens.

The study's lead author, Laura Lindberg, says the study "does not suggest that teens are hooking up around oral sex with lots of partners."

In fact, the report showed that most teens who were engaging in oral sex - 67 percent - had only one partner. Certainly throws a wrench in all those media-created scare tactics about slutty teens. (I think it's also worth mentioning that the sensationalized media stories always seem to focus on girls giving oral sex to boys, when studies have actually shown that reciprocity is the norm. And, naturally, same-sex relationships are dismissed altogether.)

Fernanda Diaz at Glamour magazine's political blog, Glamocracy, writes that Clinton's "unfeminine" ways have ruined things for the next generation of female politicians.

I resent the fact that Hillary is now inescapably a symbol of women in power, and that women for years to come will be compared to her. I have a problem with this because I'm used to a new kind of woman leader, one who doesn't have to try so hard to fit in with the boys and prove that she can be aggressive and ruthless just to be taken seriously. By acting in such a decidedly un-feminine manner, Clinton has actually made it harder for us who had already felt accepted as leaders without resorting to those measures—now, it will be harder for women in my generation who don't act like her to be taken seriously.

Full disclosure: Diaz emailed me the post and suggested Feministing write about it. When I told her that I strongly disagreed with her analysis, she was very open to discussion so I'm going to do my best to leave the snark at the door. That said...ugh.

Since when is aggressiveness and leadership "unfeminine"? By framing characteristics that are normally attributed to leaders - like being aggressive or powerful - as masculine, we're playing into the false notion that men are "natural" leaders. And what's 'masculine' or 'feminine' anyway? Essentializing gender traits doesn't do any one any favors.

It's comments like these, that Clinton is "acting like a man" or is "unfeminine," that allow for the sexist attacks that are so often lobbed her way. But I get the feeling that Diaz isn't being deliberately sexist in her opinion as much as she's being a tad naive:

I have grown up with female bosses, editors, teachers and family members who exhibit great, traditionally feminine qualities: kindness, compassion, and accessibility, and their authority has never been compromised because of it. They've been amazing, and never faced sexist attitudes.

So if we act in a "traditionally feminine" manner, we'll never face sexism? Powerful women, no matter what their leadership style, are targets for sexism. From further emails with Diaz, I gather she believes that in order for women to be in power they have to act "like men." Again, problematic because of the essentializing, but Diaz's thoughts also preclude the idea that there is a spectrum of leadership styles and characteristics - there's no nuance in her argument. Can't one be aggressive and compassionate? Kind and steadfast? I'm curious as to what folks think...

While many of us spend a lot of time fighting against anti-abortion legislation, crazy lawmakers and their ballot initiatives, there is a whole other group of people pro-actively working to ensure women's access to abortion--by providing them.

Last week I was at the National Coalition of Abortion Providers Conference (talking about abortion doulas) and Dr. Susan Wicklund spoke about her new book (along with our very own Jessica!). Dr. Wicklund is an abortion provider living in Montana, and has written a touching memoir of her life as a provider. She lives in Bozeman, MT currently and wants to open up a new clinic (in an area with few options for women) but has run into a lot of hurdles. Building owners who won't lease to her under pressure from anti-choice people mainly.

So to help Dr. Wicklund some of the attendees of the conference opened a paypal account in her name, to help her open her clinic (possibly by buying a building). Want to chip in? Email supportsuewicklund@gmail.com and ask for information about how to donate!

Holy shit, this made me crave a cupcake like you wouldn't believe. If only they had a Magnolia in Queens...

Pic from joyfulgirl415.

Parents in Schenectady, NY are up in arms because the sex education in their school district dares to talk about sexuality as if it was a good thing. The nerve!

Several Fonda-Fultonville school district residents on Tuesday criticized the use of a Planned Parenthood educator to conduct sex education classes for seventh- and eighth-graders beginning today.

The parents said they had collected 163 signatures of residents opposing the introduction of Planned Parenthood materials or organization-developed instruction in the school.

...Deborah Young said she started researching Planned Parenthood education guidelines and found passages that suggested masturbation is a source of pleasure.

“I went in, I could not believe what I saw,� Young said. (Emphasis mine)

Seriously, how dare an educator tell the truth about sexuality! Where's the shaming and misinformation about how sex is dirty, wrong and bad?!

Despite the fact that the PP educator has already been instructed not to mention abortion (at all), people are still concerned.

Dr. Michael Rochet, a physician, said the school district should search for alternatives for Planned Parenthood programming because he believes the instruction will facilitate curiosity among students.

“It will lead to more sexual activity,� he said.

Sure it will. Never mind that this particular county has the second-highest teen pregnancy rate in the state, much better that they stick to abstinence only education and pretend they've done their job.

Thanks to Liz for the link.

The Wall Street Journal has launched a new section online for women, Journal Women. I'm all for increased attention paid to women's issues - but next to the expected "women on the move" and political coverage is a whole lot of, well, fluff.

Really, there was no other story about Clinton available - they had to put a picture of her eating next to a diet article? In any case, I guess I'll keep an open mind and keep checking it out...but I'm not holding my breath for any super cool feminist pieces.

I can't stop dancing to this so I just HAD to share. His outfit is amazing.

Not completely sure what this has to do with feminism, except feminists need to dance sometimes. This might be my Halloween costume.

A new report (pictured at right) from the American Association of University Women says that the idea that there's a "boy crisis" in U.S. education is a myth. (Cough, cough.)

The most important conclusion of "Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education" is that academic success is more closely associated with family income than with gender, its authors said.

"A lot of people think it is the boys that need the help," co-author Christianne Corbett said. "The point of the report is to highlight the fact that that is not exclusively true. There is no crisis with boys. If there is a crisis, it is with African American and Hispanic students and low-income students, girls and boys."

Of course, the original media frenzy wasn't exactly focused on kids of color, but instead featured magazine covers with sad looking white boys and complaints about young men having to deal with the horrors of a supposedly feminized education system. Let's hope this report will set some of that straight, and put the educational focus where it really needs to be.

I'm a little late on this, but it's worth noting. Here's the intro to the New York Times story on Monday about Bush's speech in Egypt:

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — After basking in a showy celebration of America’s close ties with Israel, President Bush criticized other Middle East leaders on Sunday, prodding them to expand their economies, offer equal opportunity to women and embrace democracy if they want peace to become reality.

Hard to count how many things are wrong with that paragraph. My first thought was, what a fucking hypocrite. This comes from a president whose country's economy is tanking, who has repeatedly denied women equal rights and opportunities, and whose party is working overtime to gum up our electoral process. And then I realized, hey, it's not like Bush has made peace a reality -- maybe this is some accidentally insightful commentary?

Sigh. Ok, I know it's not. Let's just focus on the countdown -- and on keeping the Bush-ish John McCain from being elected in November.

I'm a little late on this, but I have to mention it. Did anyone else find it really irritating that Deborah Solomon's Questions with Cynthia Nixon in the last New York Times Magazine seemed like some weird "Ask a Lesbian!" column? Check these questions out (the last one is the kicker)...

A few years ago, you moved in with a woman, after leaving the father of your children. Do you find it easier living with a woman than a man because you have more in common? I think you do have more in common.

You can use the same bathroom in movie theaters, for instance. That’s absolutely true!

Can you share clothes? No. Christine doesn’t wear women’s clothes; she only wears men’s clothes. She won’t even wear any kind of women’s shoes. I bought her a pair of cowboy boots that were from the women’s department, and she was like, “Don’t do this again.�

Does she watch sports on TV? She does. We don’t have a TV. But when there was a World Cup, we went to the local Ruby Foo’s and watched it. And we actually did watch the Super Bowl as well. She tried to explain it to me.

Do you think of her as the male figure in the relationship? No, I don’t at all. Look at what’s happening now. She’s at home with the kids, and I’m the one out pounding the pavement. . . . She’s for Hillary, and I’m for Obama.

I swear, I was waiting for her to ask about scissoring.

It's shameless self-promotion time. As many of you probably already know, I have a new book out: He's a Stud, She's a Slut...and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know. After writing FFF, it was difficult to know what to write next, so I figured why not go back to basics.

I like to think of this book as a sexism handbook of sorts, it gets into the everyday misogyny that so many of us face - whether it's the sexual double standard or a million other daily inequities women are expected to put up with. It's a fun book, one that that I'm hoping will be a bit subversive - it doesn't look like a feminist book, 'feminism' isn't in the title - so my goal is that a lot of women will pick it up. Think of it as stealth feminism.

I've excerpted the Introduction of the book, and one of the double standards, if you'd like a sneak peak.

I hope you'll pick up a copy and pass it around to your friends. And, of course, huge thanks to all of the incredible readers and supporters of Feministing for making my writing possible.

Good News: A federal appeals court panel in Virginia struck down a law that essentially criminalized all second trimester abortions.

In a 2-to-1 decision, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the law was more restrictive than the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which the United States Supreme Court upheld last year in Gonzales v. Carhart.

...“Unlike the federal act,� Judge Michael wrote, “the Virginia act subjects all doctors who perform� the more common procedure “to potential criminal liability, thereby imposing an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s right to choose.�

Stephanie Toti, a lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that under the ban, "The only way for doctors to obey this law would be to stop performing the most common second-trimester abortion methods."

So according to GOP consultant Alex Castellanos, Clinton shouldn't bring up in sexism in the election coverage because sometimes women really are bitches. Huh. Good one, asshole.

Via TPM Election Central.

Some great news out of the UK!

Attempts to cut the upper limit for abortions from 24 to 22 weeks have been rejected by MPs after a free vote.

Tory MP Nadine Dorries, a former nurse who proposed a 20-week limit, said: "There comes a point when it has to be said this baby has a right to life."

But her plan was defeated by 332 votes to 190. A move to bring in a 22-week limit was opposed by 304 votes to 233.

Fuck yeah, I love good news!

Via the f word. Pic from jessmccabe.

Jeremy Bearer-Friend is a Visiting Fellow at Justice Now and a Leadership Academy Fellow with Young People for the American Way. An educator at heart, Jeremy has taught within public schools, private schools, home schools, after-school programs, museums, colleges and prisons.

Prisons are bad for everyone--not just for the people in cages within them, not just for the children who have lost their parents to them, or the social programs who have their budgets cut because of them.

Prisons distract us from the root causes of violence and ultimately exacerbate the deeply entrenched challenges of racism, sexism and transphobia facing our communities.

Over this past week, Justice Now posted on how prisons operate as a form of population control and gender oppression. In response to this rise of mass incarceration and the disturbing trend of “gender responsive� prison expansion, we have developed the following platform for gender justice:

1. Reduce imprisonment: Decarcerate by reducing the number of people in prison and closing prisons.

2. Support communities, not prisons: Strengthen families and communities by reducing barriers to family reunification and allocating resources towards community-run infrastructure.

3. Foster non-harmful responses to violence: Participate in critical dialogues and movement building to increase our communities’ and networks’ capacities to end all forms of violence.

We challenge you to reconsider the assumption that prisons make us safer, and invite you to consider new ways to address the root causes of violence. Together, we will work to imagine a world without prisons.

Katharine Mieszkowski at Salon interviews Gigi Durham, author of the new book, "The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It."

Finding out that my boyfriend's g-chat status message inspired a Feministe post. Nice going, dear!

The New York Times has caught on to the daddy-knows-best-for-your-hymen horror shows that are purity balls.

The first two hours of the gala passed like any somewhat awkward night out with parents, the men doing nearly all the talking and the girls struggling to cut their chicken.

But after dessert, the 63 men stood and read aloud a covenant “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.�

The gesture signaled that the fathers would guard their daughters from what evangelicals consider a profoundly corrosive “hook-up culture.� The evening, which alternated between homemade Christian rituals and giddy dancing, was a joyous public affirmation of the girls’ sexual abstinence until they wed.

Good times! I guess if your dad is going to be pledging ownership over your body, you might as well get some "giddy dancing" in! There's also a creepy slide show to boot.

Picture from The New York Times.

Allison Forth, former client coordinator for Justice Now, just finished her Masters in Social Work at Hunter College of Social Work. Allison hopes to help create accountable and sustainable community interventions and programs that are not a part of the criminal legal system.

California is taking a fast turn down the wrong path by building “gender-responsive� prisons. Instead of getting caught up in the urgency of the prison crisis by attempting to create “better� punishment, we should say no to “Female Rehabilitative Community Correctional Centers� on the state and county levels.

Some critical questions we need to ask ourselves include: is it ethical or even possible to create comprehensive and effective treatment in a prison setting? Will “gender-responsive� prison expansion help stop the suffering caused by imprisonment, or is it a band-aid solution that will result in only more lives caught up in the criminal legal system? Will this “gender responsive� prison expansion help solidify the fact that prison is one of the only places female-bodied people and trans women from communities of color and poor communities can access often neglectful and abusive treatment, whether it be healthcare, mental health services or substance abuse treatment?

“Gender-responsive� prison expansion is unethical: it expands a prison system that tears
people and their families’ lives apart. It masks the realities of continued imprisonment with words by calling these mini prisons “community-based facilities� or “group homes�.

Instead of pushing for more prisons, let’s invest in genuine resources for our communities. The challenge has been put forth: as social workers and social service providers, will we take part in prison expansion that will continue to harm individuals and families or help to build better communities?

A while back I had made a call for proposals for an excellent anthology and it is finally ready and it is available free online with interactive features. So please go check out Beyond Masculinity: Essays by Queer Men on Gender and Politics.

Um...yeah.

Thanks to Paul for the vid.

This past week it was really warm in San Francisco where I live. As a result people were wearing less clothes, which is unusual in a city as windy and foggy as SF. I love warm weather, but I have to say for some reason it brings out a new kind of creepy that you forget about when you are bundled up. I forgot that I can't wear a dress, skirt, tube top or anything else the reveals flesh without having people honk their horns, whistle, yell at me or get followed. I have for most of my life learned to ignore this just to get about my day and tell myself it is not their fault, but the fault of this over pornified culture that teaches men that women's bodies are public property, and they are just a product of that culture, right? But that doesn't really make me feel much better about the fact that I have to wear a jacket even if I am sweating and sometimes I just wish I was invisible because I don't want to be looked at.

That is my experience, perhaps other women have a different one, but with the exception of some people I have talked to, I think catcalling is an uncomfortable feeling for most women. CNN asks if catcalling is creepy or a compliment.

According to the study in this report 98% of women report being harassed on a daily basis.

When Holly Kearl was researching her master's thesis on street harassment last winter, she was pleasantly surprised that lewd remarks were few and far between. Then spring rolled around. As part of her research, Kearl conducted an anonymous, informal e-mail survey of 225 women on the subject. She found that 98 percent of respondents experienced some form of street harassment at least a few times, and about 30 percent reported being harassed on a regular basis.

"For me, anyone who interrupts my personal space to objectify me or make me feel uncomfortable or threatened is harassing me," she says.

But she found that some women did find it to be a compliment.

Check out Jay Smooth's take on the historical problem of homophobia in hip hop culture and what we often call the politics of outing or "spotting the gay." You won't regret it. I swear.

New York currently has no designated funding stream for comprehensive sex education in schools, but the Healthy Teens Act will make information available to fund sex education in the state. This means school districts, BOCES, school-based health centers and community-based organizations would be able to apply for grants to develop and implement programs that will give students real sex ed.

So if you're a New Yorker, let Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno know that New York schools need support for comprehensive sex ed.

Not two months after charges were dropped against an Oklahoma man who took photos up a 16-year-old girl's skirt while she was shopping at Target, a similar Florida case has been thrown out which charged a man who used a mirror to look under a woman's skirt at Barnes & Noble:

Defense attorney Katheryne Snowden argued that the voyeurism charge should be dropped because Presken's accuser didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place under Florida law.

The law under which Presken was charged states, 'It is illegal to secretly observe someone with lewd, lascivious and indecent intent in a dwelling, structure or conveyance, and when such locations provide a reasonable expectation of privacy.'

This is the same reason the Oklahoma case was thrown out, in which Appeals Judge Gary Lumpkin wrote in his dissent:

"What this decision does is state to women who desire to wear dresses that there is no expectation of privacy as to what they have covered with their dress. . . In other words, it is open season for peeping Toms in public places who want to look under a woman's dress." (Emphasis mine)

Looks like he was right.

Robin Levi, Human Rights Director at Justice Now , is a bi-racial Jewish woman and attorney who has been working to protect and promote the human rights of women worldwide, especially women of color in the United States. She tries, and usually fails, to balance this paid work with taking care of her two daughters (with some help from her husband) and doing unpaid work in her many communities.

At Justice Now we examine the way the California prison system destroys people’s reproductive capacity. First, long sentences can keep people in prison through their reproductive years. And second, abysmal health care has led a significant number of people to face infertility. For example, although people in women’s prisons are at high risk for cervical cancers, annual Pap smears are performed erratically and follow up is often nonexistent, thus permitting cancers to progress undiagnosed and unaddressed. We have been most shocked by the high number of people who have lost their reproductive capacity through the overly aggressive use of hysterectomies. Too often hysterectomies appear to be the first option for medical problems, such as fibroids, that may have more effective and less drastic cures. We also have spoken with many people who have had partial and full hysterectomies that were later deemed unnecessary. Almost all of the people receiving these questionable hysterectomies were Black and Brown, so we see these as a continuation of the historical forced sterilization of women of color.

We address this and other abuses through human rights. Although there are many international treaties and resolutions that define human rights, at Justice Now we believe that human rights are basically what you need to be fully human and that we must define human rights for ourselves. Thus we do human rights research in partnership with people inside women’s prisons – as they are best able to pinpoint what they most need, and to articulate the remedies to get there. After a training in formal human rights law and research tactics, we work with them to select which abuses they want to work on. They selected to work first on the right to family, especially Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (which is not ratified by the United States), which highlights the right to “decide freely and responsibly [] the number and spacing of their children.� Most recently, Justice Now worked with people inside and our allies at the Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project and WILD for Human Rights to author and bring our joint shadow report on the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to Geneva.

Image by Drew Burrows

NYU student Drew Burrows showed off his new girlfriend at the Tisch School of the Arts show, in which she was the art, via the Daily Intel:

It's simple to behold — a single mattress, tucked into a dark, curtained back room of the showcase space. On it: a lithe brunette. She's perfectly quiet, but once you sit or lie down, she responds to your every move. Lie on your back, she snuggles up right next to you in a log position. Curl up in the fetal position, she spoons. The only hitch: She's 2-D. 'Yeah, you can't feel the girl. That's the thing,' Burrows explained as he demonstrated his invention, an "infrared sensitive" light projection (meaning it reacts, and the projected woman moves, based on an infrared sensor) called INBED. 'Still, it's so nice if you're tired and worn out to have someone to curl up with.' (Emphasis mine)

Shudder. And that's just the tip of the iceberg:

Burrows suggests his new alternative to a full-body pillow or (ugh) blow-up doll could provide late-night comfort for traders, lawyers, or any other single guy in Manhattan who simply works too hard to keep a girlfriend.

Just...wow. Some are defending this as a simple art project addressing intimacy and loneliness, but Burrows seems to have created this - and is blatantly pitching it - not as art, but seriously as an adequate substitution for a woman. Not okay.

Via Boing Boing. (h/t to reader Austin)

Yay for Canada! Last week, emergency contraception was approved for over-the-counter status.

In its final ruling, the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) has given Plan B, or Levonorgestrel, full over-the-counter status.

This new status will make Canada the fifth country worldwide that allows women to go into any pharmacy and purchase the single dose pill without speaking to a pharmacist first. Plan B is already available without a prescription and a medical consultation in Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and India.

EC had been given partial over-the-counter status in Canada in 2005, making the contraceptive available to women who had a medical consultation with a pharmacist.

EC is available without a prescription in the U.S., but conscience clause laws, extremist (asshole) pharmacists, scare-tactics and age-limitations have impeded women's full access.

Go Washington University! (I also have some great footage of students turning their back on Schlafly, but YouTube hates me and won't let me upload it.)

Here's your ugh news of the day. A new study reports that ninety percent of teenage girls experience sexual harassment. Not exactly shocking news for anyone who has, well, been a teenage girl - but horrific nonetheless.

Ninety percent of girls reported experiencing sexual harassment at least once. Specifically, 67 percent of girls reported receiving unwanted romantic attention, 62 percent were exposed to demeaning gender-related comments, 58 percent were teased because of their appearance, 52 percent received unwanted physical contact and 25 percent were bullied or threatened with harm by a male. 52 percent of girls also reported receiving discouraging gender-based comments on the math, science and computer abilities, usually from male peers, and 76 percent of girls reported sexist comments on their athletic abilities, again predominantly from male peers.

The study also noted that girls who had been "exposed to feminist ideas," were more likely report sexist behavior and harassment than girls who didn't know about feminism. Just another reason to spread the f-word.

Via DollyMix.

On the rising number of widows in Iraq. (Also see Haifa Zangana's book about Baghdad since the U.S. occupation, City of Widows.)

Lisa Kansas on what makes a movie misogynist.

A history of women visual artists.

Colorado considers "every sperm is sacred"-type legislation.

A lesbian soccer player is raped and murdered in South Africa.

A girl wins the state team track title -- by herself!

Missouri rejects a slew of abortion restrictions!

A pervy harasser was arrested in Venice for taking pictures of women's asses without their consent.

A Canadian legislator apologizes for calling a female politician a "dumb bitch."

Kill a sex worker, get a two year prison sentence? (Cara has more.)

On persistent sexism in the engineering and technology fields.

A journalist with the UK Daily Mail completely misrepresented a Dolly Mix blogger, quoting her out of context to prop up a ridiculously bad story about "getting e-venge" on your ex.

Muslimah Media Watch on female Muslim rappers.

Much more after the jump...

Like Cara, I don't respond well to "sweetie."

Obama has apologized to the reporter:

“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.�

Indeed, it appears to be a habit. Over at Broadsheet, Rebecca Traister explains why it doesn't matter that he "meant no disrespect," why it doesn't matter that it was a spontaneous utterance, why it doesn't matter that he uses this term with "all kinds of people." It's still sexist.

Regina McKnight - the South Carolina woman who was who was convicted of homicide after she gave birth to a stillborn baby - has had her conviction overturned.

McKnight was the first woman in South Carolina to be convicted of homicide by child abuse due to a stillbirth. Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), says that McKnight "was convicted on junk science and was not fairly represented at trial."

NAPW, who has been instrumental in bringing attention to cases like McKnight's (of which there are far too many), has the full story.

Feministe, the Oklahoma Women's Network Blog, RH Reality Check and the ACLU also have more.

Contributed by Jessica Yee

The internets have been a buzz lately with the abhorrent commentary from the two radio deejays in Alaska who asked in early April, “Have you made love to the Yukon and peed in a Native woman?�

Sure it was in response to an old racist saying in Alaska, and sure those two have now returned to the airwaves having gone through some sort of “sensitivity training," but it’s all been truly telling of the climate on violence against Alaskan native women (that’s a term I’m learning being a First Nations woman in Canada!)

Should we be surprised this is the work of PETA? It just never ends. And you have to love their press release on the "demonstration":

Wearing sexy yellow bikinis outside the legislative meeting of the United Egg Producers in Washington on Wednesday, six PETA beauties will crowd into three cramped cages to mimic conditions for laying hens on factory farms. The ladies will hold egg-shaped signs that read, 'Chicks Suffer for Eggs.'

One of the women in the cages, Shawn Herbold, made a statement, "I'll heat things up a little to show exactly what cold-hearted egg producers do to make hens' lives a living hell." Nothing hotter than caging women up like chickens.

Misty Rojo, age 32 and mother of four, believes, "you don't pity imprisoned women; instead, you question your own knowledge and belief in the society that has failed them and the system that has victimized them." Misty is a member of Justice Now’s Board of Directors.

When the Assignment Lieutenant wanted me to do vocational training in Cosmotology, I said "HELL NO!". Why me? Because I'm a petite 115lbs female? I wasn't a petite 115lbs female in danger from an abuser when the judge sentenced me to 12 years for a violent crime.

What I didn't know then was how fun and therapeutic welding is for me; I plan to make a career of it. Unfortunately, in a women's prison of 4,000 people, we have several vocational programs in cosmotology and office careers, while offering only one class in autobody, cabinetmaking or welding--vocations often referred to as "male oriented". So for many women like me who enjoy getting dirty, the opportunity doesn't arise. Even in Hobby Craft, we can knit to our hearts content (yuck), but can't woodwork or leather tool.

So many of us reentering the community can file your nails or knit you some booties, but can't get your car started or build your house.

Washington University students and faculty turned their backs to Phyllis Schlafly, as a form of silent protest, as she received an honorary degree at the school's commencement.

The crowd was mostly quiet as [Trustee emerita Margaret Bush] Wilson introduced Schlafly to the crowd. Hundreds of graduates and faculty stood and turned their backs during the introduction. A few of the faculty even walked off the stage to turn their backs.

Awesome! If anyone has pictures, please send them in!

The protesters, who Schlafly called "a bunch of losers" and "bitter women," also started a website to tell the Washington University community how they could join in on the action.

Several days ago, Chancellor Mark Wrighton apologized for the "anguish" the decision to give Schlafly a degree caused, and noted that the school is not endorsing her views or opinions. (They're just honoring them, is all.)

UPDATE: I've received an email from Michael Murphy of Washington University's Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program - he tells me the article grossly underestimated the number of people protesting. He estimated that about 75 percent of the 2800 graduates and two-thirds of the other members of the crowd turned their backs in protest.

Here's a partial video, and some pics.

A woman who was thrown out of a NYC restaurant (the Caliente Cab Co) for being in the woman's bathroom just won a large settlement.

The incident happened during Pride weekend (ironic, right?) last year, when Khadijah Farmer was burst in on by a staff member while in the woman's bathroom. The staff person told her to leave, even after she showed him ID proving that she was a legal woman (and a biological woman in this case as well). It seems that her "not so feminine" (Khadijah's words) presentation was what caused the incident.

The Transgender Legal Education and Defense Fund took up the case, and they were awarded all of their demands.

From the NYTimes article:

“The settlement was so darn good,� Mr. Silverman said. “We got everything we wanted for Khadijah, and in terms of getting good terms on the issues we were looking at, we couldn’t in good conscience litigate.�

Among the workplace practices that Caliente Cab agreed to adopt in the settlement was to add gender identity and expression to its corporate nondiscrimination policy; to adopt a gender-neutral dress code for its employees; and to amend its employee handbook to state “persons patronizing or employed at Caliente have the right to use the bathroom facilities consistent with their gender identity and expression.�

It's been a pretty good week for the queer community, with this and the CA decision, as well as a possible victory for the trans community in Ontario.

In the wake of the California Supreme Court's decision to overturn the state's same sex marriage ban, Ellen DeGeneres announced her plans to wed girlfriend and actress Portia de Rossi on her television show yesterday.

She received a standing ovation from her audience.

Thanks to Think Progress for the vid!

That's right, spitting.

An HIV-positive man convicted of spitting into the eye and mouth of a Dallas police officer has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Because a jury found that Willie Campbell used his saliva as a deadly weapon, the 42-year-old will have to serve half his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. He was sentenced Wednesday.

Gross and assaulting? Definitely. But a deadly weapon?! Didn't we debunk the HIV-saliva thing like a millions years ago?

Thanks to Auden for the link.

...for pushing superficial bullshit onto their players.

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Here's some random sexism for you. A Staten Island high school has banned female students (it's all all-girls school) from attending their prom without a male date.

The juniors at St. Peter's Girl's High School have one week to find a boy to take to prom, or they're not allowed to go. It's a new rule that has some parents upset.

"I don't think it's right because what if they don't have a boyfriend?" mother Tanya Altieri said. "They got to be forced to go bring somebody off the street, or a cousin? That's embarrassing … or your brother?"

...Added New Brighton resident Mimi Quillin: "That's really sad, because I thought we'd just gotten to the point where boys and girls, if they wanted to do it stag, alone, whatever, they could do it."

Apparently one of the reasons that girls can't attend without a male escort is the fear that without a proper date, the gals will get a little too crazy. Yeah, you know we need dudes to keep us in check.

Check out Hannah Seligson's piece in the Wall Street Journal today on "bodysnarking"--essentially talking shit about other people's bodies, which I would argue, is an absolute projection of self-hate. Hannah focuses on the technological and celebrity influences making girls so damn mean to one another. I've said it often on the road and I'll say it again...when you start being more generous and kind, even just in your head, about other women's bodies, you'll feel better about your own (and visa versa).

Valena Beety is an attorney and a board member of Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), an organization that works to empower students and hold colleges accountable for sexual assault in on- and off-campus communities.

Melanie Ross thought Daniel Day, her college classmate, was fun and a decent date - until they were having sex and she told him he was hurting her. She asked him to stop - and he didn’t. After that, Ross broke up with Day, and avoided him.

Unfortunately, because of events a month later, Ross is now suing Day for civil sexual battery.

Her lawsuit against Day is now on appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, in part because of the victim-blaming actions of the trial court judge. Judge Phillip Brown, despite a Georgia rape shield law, compelled Ross to disclose every person she had ever dated, or engaged in any sexual activity with, including their names, dates of interaction, and contact information. This evidence was supposedly to show “consent;� the actual purpose was to humiliate the victim and discourage her and other victims from pursuing these cases. Under Georgia state law, and federal law, a victim’s sexual history with third parties is supposed to be irrelevant. The result of this case is that any victim who brings a civil claim for sexual battery in Georgia must be prepared to discuss all of her previous sexual partners. The judge ultimately found Ross was not raped in part because, as all that testimony showed, she was not a virgin.

The trial court judge not only dismissed Ross’ claims - he ordered her to pay $150,000 for the court costs of her attacker. The judge found there was no evidence to support her claims of rape, in large part because Ross did not remember anything from the encounter: “There’s no witnesses in there. There was no evidence. It’s a closed door. And there’s no possibility that there could be any proof that there was rape...�

This was after the judge had dismissed the evidence: Ross could have received lacerations and redness documented in a rape kit from shaving, and “[b]ruises can come with a bump into furniture or from other causes.� As far as the claim that Day gave Ross a rape drug, defense counsel responded, “neither Day, nor anyone else for that matter, would have to use any type of drug to convince Plaintiff to participate in sexual conduct.�

The judge found that since Ross and Day had previously had a sexual relationship, Ross should have known her claims were “frivolous... there was no reasonable belief that a court would accept Plaintiff’s claims...�

The nightmare of this case, for Melanie Ross and for all future rape victims in Georgia, is that she was forced to discuss in elaborate detail her sexual past, and then she had her claims dismissed in part because she wasn’t a virgin. Moreover, not only did Ross lose her case, the judge fined her $150,000 for bringing it in the first place - a fee sure to dissuade other victims from coming forward with their own claims. This case is currently being appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia, which can choose to hear it or not - let’s hope they right this wrong before it hurts more victims.

NOTE: As noted by some of the comments in response to my posting on a Georgia state court case, I want to confirm that Daniel Day was charged with sexual battery, a civil charge, rather than criminal rape. Day was not charged with criminal rape, and has furthermore not been found guilty of civil sexual battery.

Since Jess gives you the full Monty, I thought I'd bless (bore?) you with a couple little pics of one Ms. Kima Greggs. (Yes, she's named after the badass police officer on The Wire). She likes to use my cellphone as a pillow while she reads feministing.

And sometimes she helps me with secretarial duties. I pay her in by graciously scooping her shit. Look, all roommates have agreements. This just happens to be ours.

I was with Marie Cocco until her penultimate paragraph:

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

We've said it many times before, I'll say it again: STOP the Oppression Olympics. It would be just as easy to write a column headlined "Racism I Won't Miss," listing the appalling incidents of racism Obama has faced in this campaign. I'll echo what Adam has to say about the column:

I see racism and sexism as intertwined if not interdependent, so I don't understand why for some people the Democratic primary has become a competition over who has it worse. Not to mention the fact that Cocco's approach basically excludes all women of color from the conversation.

Come on. Can we please decry the sexism Hillary Clinton has faced in this campaign without declaring that sexism trumps racism, and without marginalizing women of color? Please?

Woot! More to come...

UPDATE: Autumn at Pam's House Blend has the ruling.

Hope you can join us!

Vanessa Huang is a queer Chinese-American organizer, writer, and artist born to immigrants from Taipei. Vanessa is the Campaign Director for Justice Now , and also organizes with Transforming Justice and the Bay Area chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence .

Our movements are at a turning point.

10 years have passed since Critical Resistance ’s founding gathering in 1998, when thousands of people converged in Berkeley to develop strategies to abolish the prison industrial complex. Back then, I was 14 years old and just beginning high school, unaware of this historic gathering taking place just across town.

As a queer female- and able-bodied kid of immigrants who came to the U.S. with papers, I’ve grown to understand my experiences along a spectrum of migration, recognizing the histories of coerced migration to this land connected with colonialism and slavery, and their legacies in ongoing U.S. confinement practices spanning ICE and the prison industrial complex more broadly. I’ve also grown to accept my role as a bridgebuilder for movements for collective liberation, and to understand that role stemming from both my experiences of not ever quite fitting in because of where my family’s from, my relationship with my body, how I present myself, and my sexuality – and from my ability and class privileges.

Since 1998, I’ve joined the prison industrial complex abolition movement at the tail end of conversations bringing the experiences of people locked in women’s prisons into public consciousness. Most recently, I’ve been able to help bring this organizing into conversation with emerging work centering transgender and gender non-conforming people targeted by the prison industrial complex. In this back-and-forth, the movement challenging the imprisonment of people in women’s prisons has shared lessons we’ve learned, i.e. how we’ve contributed to the rise of dangerous policy trends (“gender responsive� prison expansion) , and the movement challenging the imprisonment of transgender and gender non-conforming communities has significantly deepened our broader movements’ understandings and embodiment of gender justice alliances – across gender identities, gender presentations, and experiences of gender oppression.

This past weekend, Justice Now convened 17 key leaders engaged in work at the intersections of the reproductive justice and anti-population control, gender self-determination, prison industrial complex abolition, and anti-violence movements. We spent the weekend building groundwork toward a cross-movement effort to challenge “gender responsive� imprisonment as a form of reproductive and gender oppression – and to strengthen existing strategies to proactively reduce imprisonment; support communities, not prisons; and foster non-harmful responses to violence.

Right now – as my comrades and I shift gears into the final few months before CR10 : Critical Resistance’s 10th Anniversary Celebration and Strategy Session this fall in Oakland – I’m particularly present with the feeling of struggle, hope, vulnerability, and excitement that comes when we embrace and nurture our movements’ growing edges. Join us September 26-28!

Feministing friend and vicious intellect Alissa Quart has a piece online for Mother Jones about the new trend of “fertility films�—Hollywood heartstringers about super independent women finally coming to terms with their maternal urges (Smart People, Baby Mama, Then She Found Me, Juno, Knocked Up, and Happy Endings). In part, Quart is asking: “Are the new fertility film stars actually feminists?�

The answer is complicated. On the one hand, it’s feminist to see women going after what they want. Despite a lot of frustration with Juno on the part of feminists (especially older, in my experience) regarding the abortion scene, I have to admit that I thought it was, big picture, a wildly feminist film. Since when has a teen girl protagonist done anything in Hollywood other than coo-ing? I know my standards are low, but Juno got it right in a lot of ways. And, what’s more, Ellen Page calls herself a feminist in public.

Tina Fey (public disclosure: I have a major thang for Tina) plays an uptight, but certainly self-actualized gal in Baby Mama (where, let’s face it, the real story is about class). To see two female comedians getting top billing and raking in the box office bucks made me happy as a clam (ah vagina puns).

BUT…as we all know, choice doesn’t equal empowerment. Quart writes: “…these films recast the "pro-choice" narrative of feminists' personal and political past as a different, less politically dangerous sort of pro-choice story—a woman's right to choose from a smorgasbord of late fertility options.�

The films also play into oppressive tropes about successful women who don’t prioritize their fertility and then get punished with shitty partners, expensive interventions, and/or a whole lot of heartache. “Silly women,� the screenwriters seem to be saying, “let’s make fun of their plight.� But as Quart reminds us, these scenarios are real—in the beginning. Then the film plots reduce them to ridiculousness: “these films are rather conservative at heart; their entanglements all end far more neatly than their real life counterparts.�

And finally, why all the frickin’ babies? I was reminded of Bella DePaulo’s great work that I reviewed awhile ago. Quart writes: “…these films' endings can't help but make me wonder: Where are the images of exceptional thirty- and fortysomething women without bassinets?�

Good question Ms. Alissa. Thanks for the analysis.

This might strike y'all as painfully obvious, but I just wanted to make sure that we officially devoted a little gratitude (or, make that a whole lotta) to the suffragettes. We wouldn't even be getting in all these Clinton/Obama shananagins if we didn't have the power to influence who was elected.

Sabrina Chapadjiev’s anthology, Live Through This: On Creativity and Self Destruction, strikes me in all ways as a carefully crafted object—which so few books are these days.

It is small and pleasing, covered in gorgeous art, and filled with important, diverse, beautiful, heartbreaking, original essays/poems /comics/drawings by some of the most fascinating writers I know of: Eileen Myles, Patricia Smith, Kate Bornstein, Toni Blackman, bell hooks etc. But even more, the message about women and madness—something that has been mined to death in some ways—is carefully crafted.

In the preface, Chapadjiev writes: “The glamorization of this issue, combined with the fear and shame built around it, has made understanding self-destructive behaviors almost impossible.� And this is what I’m grateful—immediately—that she understands. As the curator of a book like this, you are charged with the seemingly impossible task of talking about women’s creative impulses, as coupled with their self-destructive ones, without making the pairing look pretty. Or so ugly its romantic. It just is, or as she puts it:

We’ve been taught that self-destruction is an awful thing. “It is bad,� we’ve been told my therapists, psychologists, and those who do not understand its seduction. I would like to edit that. Instead of “It is bad,� I would like for it to read, “It is.�

From the endorsement:

"Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC is proud to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president. Sen. Obama has been a strong advocate for a woman's right to choose throughout his career in public office. He steadfastly supports and defends a woman's right to make the most personal, private decisions regarding her reproductive health without interference from government or politicians.

"Sen. Obama has been a leader on this issue in the United States Senate. Since joining the Senate in 2005, he has worked to unite Americans on both side of this debate behind commonsense, common-ground ways to prevent unintended pregnancy. Sen. Obama supports legislation to provide our teens with comprehensive sex education, prevent pharmacies from denying women access to their legal birth-control prescriptions, and increase access to family-planning services.

Ellen Malcolm of EMILY's List was not pleased. She released the following statement today:

"I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton - who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe vs. Wade - to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process. It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them."

Though Malcolm has been hitting this theme pretty hard lately, I have a hard time seeing NARAL's endorsement as a betrayal. It looks to me like they simply came to terms with the delegate count.

NARAL president Nancy Keenan took pains to note Clinton's excellent record on choice:

"Americans have been fortunate to have two fully pro-choice candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination. But only one can go forward to the general election. It is truly historic for us to have these two outstanding candidates in the race."

Unlike EMILY's List, NARAL has no stated commitment to supporting female pro-choice politicians. As Keenan says, Clinton and Obama both have phenomenal records on this issue. If NARAL truly believed Obama to be the superior candidate on choice, they could have made this endorsement months ago. (Such a move would have been far more damaging to Clinton.) I do have to ask, though, why NARAL chose to endorse now rather than, say, after one of the candidate has officially dropped out?

I wonder if NARAL is going to lose donor support over this move. I've gotta believe that a lot of NARAL's core donors are Clinton supporters. Also, is this a bad move in general because it's likely to be spun, in the media, as a "catfight" between pro-choice organizations? Other groups, such as the National Women's Political Caucus, have chastised NARAL's endorsement because they "believe that this announcement at this time will divide the choice community at a time when we need to stand united." Similar themes are popping up in this comment thread over at Blog for Choice.

Thoughts, y'all? (Please, please keep it civil. Both Clinton and Obama supporters are participants in this blog community. Be kind.)

Monica Wade was born and raised in Oakland, CA. She is now the Office Manager of Justice Now and is also the founder and director of Tender Care, transitional housing for those who need and want to be in a safe and healthy environment. She was incarcerated for 10 years of her life and knows what goes on behind prison walls and the torture and pain people go through.

Once a person is released, then what? What if they’ve been there 25 years? Then what? Children are all up and grown; rest of the family is dead or married. Where do they go? And how do they support themselves?

Once you’re incarcerated and you get out, things change. The people that you know have changed. The job fields have changed. So you’re dealing with all these changes all around, and you, personally, are changed.

You have to have a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C. You have to be able to take care of yourself. When you’re starting all over from scratch, that takes money. It costs to live.

And that’s where transitional housing comes in. I started Tender Care as support for people coming back to their community. “Community-based� jails and prisons are not the answer. The answer is to provide people with what they are lacking, whether it be a place to stay, a skill, or just a caring hand.
I’ve been around re-entry for over 40 years of my life. I can tell my clients, “I’ve been in your shoes before�. But we need more support for transitional housing that is community-run. All the programs that we offer at Tender Care are by organizations run by ex -felons that have made a difference in the community. We have our own solutions.

Students, that is, not Washington University, which still plans to award an honorary degree to anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly. The students who oppose honoring Schlafly have made a website:

They're raising awareness about some of the reprehensible positions Schlafly has taken with regard to women's place in society. They picketed the chancellor's home. And they're instructing students:

If you are opposed to Washington University’s decision to award Schlafly an honorary doctorate please join us by SILENTLY STANDING and TURNING YOUR BACK when Schlafly is granted her degree.

That was among the actions suggested in comments here! Commencement is in two days, and I hope there's footage of the protest...

AngryBlackBitch has more.

As you probably noticed, we're having some tech issues. It's a problem with our webhost, so the site may be intermittently unavailable today. Apologies for the inconvenience; we're hoping the issue will be resolved shortly.

Starting next year, survivors of sexual assault will be able to undergo anonymous rape kits.

Starting next year across the country, rape victims too afraid or too ashamed to go to police can undergo an emergency-room forensic rape exam, and the evidence gathered will be kept on file in a sealed envelope in case they decide to press charges.

The new federal requirement that states pay for "Jane Doe rape kits" is aimed at removing one of the biggest obstacles to prosecuting rape cases: Some women are so traumatized they don't come forward until it is too late to collect hair, semen or other samples.

Some hospitals already offer anonymous rape kits, but most states refuse to cover the cost of the exam (approximately $800) unless the survivor files a police report.

Beginning in 2009, states will have to pay for Jane Doe rape kits to continue receiving funding under the federal Violence Against Women Act, which provides tax dollars for women's shelters and law enforcement training. States will decide how many locations will offer anonymous rape exams and how long the evidence should be kept.

Awesome.

Thanks to Thomas for the link.

Last month the NY Times reported that the Defense Department fed talking points to former generals who appeared on cable news. Now the DoD has released a lot of those talking points to the public. Alyssa Rosenberg went through the documents, and found that a number of them instruct the generals to trumpet all the awesome stuff the U.S. military is doing for women in Iraq and Afghanistan -- painting people like Donald Rumsfeld as some sort of savior for downtrodden women all over the world, and conveniently downplaying things like sexual assault by U.S. soldiers.

The talking points actually included this awful story:

Except for this one, from September 23, 2004: "Sally's children were taken away from her more than six months ago. Her husband beat her. Her brother threatened her life while holding a gun to her head. Her own father contracted her deal with a $5,000 reward. Sally, an Iraqi translator, lost everything by working to help Americans rebuild Iraq. Still, she feels her service with Americans is the right thing for her country. ‘I lost everything I have, but I have gained so much,' Sally said. ‘If I had to do it over again I would. I help the Americans help my people.'"

Rosenberg writes,

The anecdote is meant to be an illustration of how much Iraqis love their American liberators; but given how Iraqi translators have been abandoned by the Americans they helped, it's a grotesquely ironic PR ploy.

Almost five years after the Defense Department promoted Sally's story, domestic violence in Iraq is skyrocketing, female illiteracy rates are 10 times higher than they were in the 1980s, and in the past few months more than 40 women--and in two cases their children--have been murdered for defying dress codes. I wonder if Sally still feels like working for Americans was worth it.

After it became clear there were no WMD in Iraq, the Bush administration began using things like women's rights as a reason for its violent occupation of another country. And now that this war has dragged on for five years -- and women's rights in Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly deteriorated, not improved -- it's all the more infuriating to look back and see how military spokespeople (even though they weren't identified as such) used women to justify the war.

For more on the state of women's rights in Iraq -- not filtered through DoD talking points -- check out Women for Women's 2008 Iraq report (PDF). (via)

Hey folks, just a note to say that posting may be slow today. I have a flu/cold that's kicking my ass, despite all the Sudafed I'm forcing myself to take. (Any tips for getting better sooner would be much appreciated. I'm a garlic-clove-eating person myself, but it's not working.)

In the meantime, enjoy the picture above - a little something I like to call "shoe graveyard." It's what Andrew and I came home to on Monday night after a long dinner. Monty has never been much of a shoe-eating dog, but it seems he got it all out of his system at once. I had to say goodbye to some of my favorite shoes, but the cute-guilty look on Monty's face was almost worth it. Almost.

Lynsay Skiba is the Reigle Human Rights Fellow at Justice Now. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where she focused her studies on human rights law.

Many people who are pregnant inside California’s women’s prisons experience some form of mistreatment on a daily basis: they are deprived of basic information about their pregnancy; they lack access to responsive and consistent medical and mental health care; they endure degrading treatment at the hands of some prison staff; they lack control over important lifestyle choices impacting pregnancy such as diet and physical activity; and they are forced to cope with the prospect of being separated form their newborn shortly after birth, in some cases permanently.

Driving this mistreatment is the prison system’s apathetic and punishment-driven approach toward people in prison and their medical and mental health needs. What this means is that while people in women’s prisons who do not experience physical or mental problems during their pregnancies may receive treatment and experience medical outcomes that are unremarkable by accepted medical standards, those who have physical complications, mental health problems, or who choose to challenge their treatment are vulnerable to serious consequences, including death.

Using a participatory model of human rights documentation, Justice Now partners with those most impacted by these issues – people inside the two state prisons that house pregnant people – to expose pregnancy-related abuses through an international human rights framework. Together we have found that these prisons consistently violate the human rights to family, information, health, bodily integrity, dignified treatment, life, and the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Miriam already acquainted you with the Wanderlust Reproductive Justice Bike Tour with the fabulous Nora Dye and the Pro-Choice Public Education Project. Well, this week they're holding a fundraiser in NYC to support the awesome bikers taking part in this trip for justice, so get your wallets out and drinking hats on and show Wanderlust some love. (Or donate if you can't make it!) In the meantime, check our their travel blog.

* Wanderlust 2008:
A Benefit *
featuring Mint Juleps and Southern Burlesque

Thursday, May 15th
from 6:30 to 11 PM
@ Stonewall Inn
53 Christopher Street at 7th Ave South

$10 - $20 Sliding Scale donation requested
(all proceeds go directly to the Wanderlust bike tour)

9 PM raffle with fabulous prizes from yoga studios, Good Vibrations, and more!

Click here to see full flyer.

A woman in Burma. Photo: Will Baxter / WPN

With recent devastating news of the cyclone in Burma (where the official death toll tops 30,000 and 2 million people face disease and starvation) and the earthquake in China (more than 12,000 dead so far), Suzie at Echidne's blog reminds us:

When a disaster occurs, don’t forget the gendered aspects. During the chaos, women can be more vulnerable to rape and violence by intimate partners. They may trade their bodies for aid. Because women often care for the young, the old and the sick, they may have greater needs or different needs than men. In many cultures, women have to protect their honor or dignity in different ways that may hinder their ability to get help.

With extensive community ties, women also can have an advantage in distributing aid after a disaster.

Cara also links to this research showing that, in countries where women do not have equal rights, they are more likely to be killed by natural disasters:

Professor Neumayer said: 'The feminists got it right. Natural disasters are a tragedy in their own right but in countries with existing gender discrimination women are the worst hit. While most disasters cannot be prevented, policy makers, international and humanitarian organizations must develop better policies to address the special needs of women in the wake of large-scale natural disasters.'

To Help:

MADRE: "MADRE is working with the Women's Human Rights Defenders Network and Burmese women's organizations. We learned from our work with women's organizations in the aftermath of the tsunami that, in order to best identify and meet the communities' needs, we must rely on the local women's organizations." Donate here.

American Red Cross International Response Fund: Every day people around the world are suffering from countless crises, like the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China. Your gift to the American Red Cross International Response Fund helps provide them immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance and other support. Donate here or call 1-800-HELP NOW.

I don't really have to say anything, this image really does speak for itself.

Michelle “Cookie� Concepcion works with Justice Now for the benefit of all prisoners by exposing Correction’s lies of discipline, security and rehabilitation with the truths of abuse, fear and indoctrination.

Wearing boxers makes women less female and more violent. Well that’s the perception by officers and staff at the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF). I know this because I am an inmate at CCWF and have been harassed because of the type and sizes of the clothes I wear. I also prefer to wear boxers instead of panties. This is a rule violation. I have been verbally counseled, written up and charged money for possessing the less female, more violent boxers.

How does the size of my clothes or the type of underwear I have on change my character of affect my behavior? I have asked staff that question numerous times. The answer I receive is usually, “you are a female you should dress like one.� I promise, if allowed to wear boxers, I will not fall prey to their negative influence on my femaleness.

Lately a lot of time and money has been spent on mandatory “Gender Responsive� training for all the officers and staff. The objective of this training is to define differences between female and male inmates. The basic ideology is that females commit crimes because they are victims, whereas males are just bad and mean. This must be where they learned how dangerous it is for females to wear boxers.

To contact Cookie, email jeremy@jnow.org

I am very very excited this week to present our Voices of series for May featuring the amazing organization Justice Now. Justice Now is located in Oakland CA and works at the intersection of violence against women and incarceration and prison expansion. They are one of the amazing organizations that fights for prison abolition.

In their own words,

Our mission is to end violence against women and stop their imprisonment. We believe that prisons and policing are not making our communities safe and whole but that, in fact, the current system severely damages the people it imprisons and the communities most affected by it. We promote alternatives to policing and prisons and challenge the prison industrial complex in all its forms.

This weeks posts will blow your minds both from women inside the prison system to advocates working alongside them.

Thank you Justice Now for joining us in our Voices of series! Give em some extra love feministing fam!

Reader Katherine Chun Eriksen, who is graduating from Washington University in St. Louis this week, wrote us to ask about what action we'd suggest to respond to her school's decision to "honor" Phyllis "Martial Rape Doesn't Exist" Schlafly. Katherine writes,

The "honorary" degree being presented to Phyllis Schlafly has caused quite a stir on campus and we are in the process of trying to decide how to protest the presentation during Commencement. I was wondering if you would be able to help us out by asking your readers to submit ideas for our protest. We would like to maintain the dignity and solemnity of the event while still making our point clear to those in attendance. We are looking for something that cannot be labeled at "juvenile" or "immature".

So we thought we'd take a cue from Feministe Feedback, and pose the question to you, dear readers. Do you have activism suggestions for the feminists at Wash U?

Can we please stop calling every attempt at analyzing pop culture "outrage"? Kthx, moving on.

Annalee Newitz's piece from the San Francisco Bay Guardian last week embarks on the task of justifying the violence and misogyny in Grand Theft Auto 4.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is lobbying to get the video game rated "adults only" (effectively killing it in the US market, where major console manufacturers won't support AO games) because there's one scene in the game where you have the option to drive drunk. Apparently none of the good ladies of MADD have ever played GTA, since if they had they might have discovered that when you try to drive drunk, the video game informs you that you should take a cab. If you do drive, the cops immediately chase you down. Which is exactly the sort of move you'd expect from this sly, fun game, which hit stores last week.

I actually stand at a different point than MADD and I don't necessarily support the censorship of the game, I don't really think censorship works. The more ratings and labels you put on something, the edgier and sexier it becomes. Censorship doesn't change the fact that violence and misogynist sex scenes make up the bulk of edgy popular culture or that violence is a serious problem for youth today and so is the sexualization of women, along with violence against women.

On some level, I do agree with proponents of GTA 4. Several of my friends have said, "but it is just fun." I don't deny that advances in video game technology are in fact mind-blowing and down right incredible and the they are fun. Hello, I am a blogger, I get the nerd new-cool-fun-fangled-technology thing.

What I can't get down with is justifying blatant misogyny by calling it art.

If GTA4 were a movie, it would have been directed by Martin Scorsese or David O. Russell, and we'd all be ooohing and aaahhing over its dark, ironic vision of immigrant life in a world at war with itself. But because GTA4 is a video game, where players are in the driver's seat, so to speak, it freaks people out. Earlier installments of GTA-inspired feminist and cultural-conservative outrage (you have the option to kill prostitutes!), and concern over moral turpitude from Hillary Clinton (you can beat cops to death! Or anybody!).

I think it is really problematic to lump all criticisms of GTA4 together. I believe at some point, I was written about along with a conservative writer (shudder to think) and that is not giving the full range of view points space to air their concerns. I am pretty sure if a movie had prostitute killing in it, I would write about it, but that is besides the point. GTA4 is not a movie, it is bigger than a movie. In fact, movies switched around their release dates for the release of GTA4. In the first week out it has grossed 500 million dollars. Furthermore, it is played, repeatedly and it is a role playing game, where you are the person engaging in violent acts. It is a fantasy, your fantasy. Perhaps there is a moment of identification like this with movies, but it is different then actually acting something out yourself.

No, but I can always love her more. Mary J. Blige has started a women's group to help women develop confidence and increase success in their careers.

via.

Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute, who founded a youth-oriented brand-consulting firm, say they're setting up the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now.

The foundation will concentrate first on the Yonkers, N.Y., area where the 37-year-old Blige grew up. The charity will fund scholarships, grants and programs that help women gain confidence and skills to succeed in their careers.

Bad-ass.

Mary's songs always gave me more confidence.

The New York Times had a piece yesterday about the "Mad Pride" movement, featuring writer Liz Spikol, who discusses and writes about mental health issues and her experiences with bipolar disorder on YouTube and her blog, The Trouble with Spikol. Here's one of Spikol's videos:

Anyone have more to weigh in and/or experience with the movement?

The Equal Access Fund of East Tennessee is holding a silent auction on Flickr to raise funds for low-income women who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford reproductive health care services.

Bid on fun and crafty items like this "Iron my skirt" bumper sticker, and help women in the process.

Look Ma, no balls! (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

Phyllis Schlafly, who is set to receive an honorary degree from Washington University this week has reiterated her support of marital rape. (Because, sorry, if you think that women who have gotten married have don't have a right to refuse sex - you are supporting rape.)

In an interview with Washington University's student newspaper, Schlafly held her anti-woman ground:

Could you clarify some of the statements that you made in Maine last year about martial rape?

I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That's what marriage is all about, I don't know if maybe these girls missed sex ed. That doesn't mean the husband can beat you up, we have plenty of laws against assault and battery. If there is any violence or mistreatment that can be dealt with by criminal prosecution, by divorce or in various ways. When it gets down to calling it rape though, it isn't rape, it's a he said-she said where it's just too easy to lie about it.

Was the way in which your statement was portrayed correct?

Yes. Feminists, if they get tired of a husband or if they want to fight over child custody, they can make an accusation of marital rape and they want that to be there, available to them.

So you see this as more of a tool used by people to get out of marriages than as legitimate-

Yes, I certainly do.

Find out how can you can contact Washington University about this honorary degree nonsense here.

Via Right Wing Watch.

Thanks to Lauren for the link.

The above picture is from an anti-female genital mutilation campaign by the AMAM, Association of Women against Genital Mutilation. The copy reads: "More than 140 million women in the world are condemned to feel nothing." You know, like a blow-up doll.

I'm all for raising awareness about FGM, but this campaign really rubs the wrong way. It reduces women to their body parts and the issue to just a sexual one. Using a blowup doll to depict a woman who has undergone FGM is incredibly offensive - they're literally being portrayed as no longer human, just a sex toy. Not only is the ad dehumanizing, it also suggests that FGM is all about sex - that women who have undergone FGM will never enjoy sex and that a woman who is no longer sexual is no longer, well...a woman. What do you think?

For more information on FGM, you can go to Amnesty International, the Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project, and this report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Related: FGM was named in the Beijing Platform for Action - a declaration and action items adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women - as a form of violence against women to be eliminated.

Via BoingBoing.

Last week Public Citizen petitioned the FDA to ban Ortho Evra, the birth control patch, stating

the amount of estrogen released from the Ortho-Evra patch varies widely among individual women, and those who absorb too much were at greater risk for blood clots and and other painful side effects.

"The considerable safety concern of high-dose, variable estrogen exposure tips the balance of risks and benefits against the availability of Ortho-Evra as a contraceptive," wrote Sidney Wolfe, head of the research group.

This is just the most recent move in a long history of controversy over the patch. And looking back over the Feministing reader birth control poll, some of you out there are using it. Personally, I used the patch for 6 months when it was first released, to very mixed results.

What do you all think about the possible ban? The FDA is unlikely to do anything, they contend that the risks are well known, and properly disclosed. Is banning Ortho Evra the right move?

First up, a few Mothers Day links:

An index of the best and worst places in the world to be a mother.

Mothers in prison celebrate the holiday.

Juarez mothers demand justice for their daughters.

The former vice mayor of San Jose discusses her experiences with gender discrimination in politics.

Thomas on why food is a feminist issue.

Female Impersonator has an update on the Johnny Vegas sexual assault .

A Catholic law school tells students they can't get credit if they do pro-bono work for a pro-choice organization.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a series of articles by reporter Joanna Connors, who writes, for the first time in 20 years, about being raped by a felon on parole and the fallout from that violent act. Her story "is about rape. It is about race and class. And it is about our community -- our line-in-the-sand combativeness over these issues, and our stubborn and fearful reluctance to talk about them."

There's been some debate lately as to whether those Dove Real Beauty ads were photoshopped. Photographer Annie Leibowitz and a professional photo-retoucher say they weren't.

All Africa profiles a woman who has climbed the political ladder in Ghana.

We mourned Mildred Loving's passing this week. Racialicious has two great posts on interracial relationships. And Rick Perlstein republishes Loving's call for marriage equality for same-sex couples.

More links after the jump...

Judy Norsigian is co-founder of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective and co-author of the ground breaking Our Bodies, Ourselves published in 1970. Since its publication, women's groups around the world have developed cultural adaptations of, or other publications inspired by, Our Bodies, Ourselves. Most recently, women's groups in Albania, Russia, South Korea, and Tibet have produced new publications in book and other formats. Judy is also the co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause and most recently, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth. Check out the Our Bodies, Ourselves blog when you can: http://ourbodiesourblog.org/

Judy speaks and writes frequently on a wide range of women's health concerns, including abortion and contraception, sexually transmitted infections, genetics and reproductive technologies, tobacco and women, women and health care reform, and midwifery advocacy.

Here's Judy...

Just to add to what Jessica posted two days ago about the Michigan Supreme Court decision, the University of Michigan is trying to find ways around the decision.

After a lower court ruled that the gay marriage ban applies to benefits, some universities switched their benefits programs so that they were available not to domestic partners but to “other eligible individuals,� a category that would include many gay partners, but would also include others who live with but are not legally related to university employees. For example, the University of Michigan’s criteria include joint residence for at least six months, some joint financial ties such as checking accounts, and no legal relationship or marriage between the individuals involved.

After the Supreme Court decision Wednesday, the university immediately asserted that its new benefits are not domestic partner benefits and are thus not covered by the ruling. Further, the university said it had eliminated domestic partner benefits after the lower court’s decision. “The university believes all current benefit offerings are in full compliance with Michigan law. The university cares deeply about recruitment, retention, and maintaining a healthy workforce and we design our benefits with these principles in mind,� the statement said.

This is why these kind of referendums (like the 2004 ballot measure that created the MI law) are so insidious. I wonder how many of the people who voted against gay marriage would agree that same sex couples should be denied access to each other's health care.

Thanks to Rose for the link

For anyone who is in NYC this weekend, there's a party tomorrow that can't be missed.

A lot of you probably know about Drinking Liberally, the organization with over 240 chapters across the country that brings progressive folks together over drinks. Well, they've grown into Living Liberally, the umbrella organization that holds together Drinking Laughing, Screening, Reading, Eating & Crafting Liberally. (Whew.)

On Saturday, they're having a big old fundraiser to help support their amazing efforts - it's going to help them increase their number of chapters, national programming, online presence and impact during this election year. Plus, it will be super fun.

So if you can afford to, dig deep into your pockets and head on over. You can buy tix here. I know it's no small amount, so if you can't afford a ticket (or if you're not in NY), consider getting involved locally and reaching out to the chapter in your area...

Facebook is on a roll today. Reader Adrienne alerted us to an ad for a crisis pregnancy center on Facebook, so I decided to do a little more research on the site’s advertisements.

Sure, there’s a range from shoe brands to social justice organizations, but pretty offensive weight loss ads are more common. And then we find the ad for “A Woman’s Concern,� a center that, according to their website, provides a variety of services including “pregnancy testing, ultrasound testing, information on abortion procedures, mentoring…� You can guess what the "information" on abortion is.

Another ad I found was a pitch to recruit egg donors. Not to say that egg donation is necessarily a bad thing, but the egg business has become one of many ethical and political questions. The Center for Genetic and Society, Choice USA and the Pro-Choice Public Education Project have been conducting research on egg donation and reproductive justice, make sure to check it out.

These should serve as a reminder that we need to pay attention to what's being marketed to young women online. In the meantime, Facebook may not strictly moderate their ads, but you can; report an ad you think is offensive. And as a first step, let’s get deceptive CPC advertising off of Facebook.

(And join our Feministing group!)

(Trigger warning.) In 2003, 21 year-old Ramona Moore - a student at Hunter College in New York - told her mother she was going to Burger King down the street and would be right back. She never came home.

Moore was held in a basement a few blocks away where she was raped and tortured for four days before her captors beat her to death. The police, who Moore's mother begged for help, did nothing to find her.

Sean Gardiner at The Village Voice has a huge piece not only on the police's mishandling of Moore's disappearance - but also how it has sparked a historic racial bias case against the city.

Moore's mother Elle Carmichael is bringing forward a a civil-rights lawsuit claiming that the NYPD has a "practice of not making a prompt investigation of missing-persons claims of African-Americans, while making a prompt investigation for white individuals."

Not exactly shocking news, of course, but the case would be the first of its kind.

To prove racial bias, Carmichael's team would have to "show it's happened in a pattern of instances," says NYU law professor Paul Chevigny. And the only way Chevigny can think of to do so would be to take a large sample of missing-persons cases, identify the race of the people involved, and then determine whether there really is a pattern.

Carmichael's lawyer, Robert Barsch, is apparently attempting to do just that. He tells the Voice that he has heard from a number of black people who have also had their attempts to have police open up missing-persons investigations ignored. And he plans to point to the [Svetlana] Aronov case as a prime example of the flip side of that coin. After all, the NYPD tried harder to find Aronov's dog than they did Romona Moore. (Link added)

Tried harder to find a dog. "If this was a white kid, they would never had done this," Carmichael told Gardiner.

"I had to say to the detectives one day: 'You know, I feel the same emotions and pain as a white person.' "

Read more about Moore and the case against the NYPD at What About Our Daughters? and The Feminist Underground.

Back in the day, colors were stereotyped the actual opposite of our current pink/girl and blue/boy bullshit:

In Western culture, the practice of assigning pink to an individual gender began in the 1920s. From then until the 1940s, pink was considered appropriate for boys because it was the more masculine and decided color while blue was considered appropriate for girls because it was the more delicate and dainty color. Since the 1940s, the societal norm apparently inverted so that pink became appropriate for girls and blue appropriate for boys, a practice that has continued into the 21st century. (Emphasis mine)

Too bad that before the switcheroo, the colors were just as stereotypical as the current gendering of blue/pink. And it still sort of shocks me that this still exists; I went to a friend’s baby shower the other day and literally 95% of the gifts were blue. You can guess what the gender is anticipated to be.

Thanks to Lydia for the link.

Make sure to check out Katha Pollitt's latest column, "Backlash Spectacular," where she takes on Phyllis Schlafly getting an honorary degree from Washington University, the "Pill Kills" campaign, and the Lilly Ledbetter case.

Also, is it just me or does "Backlash Spectacular" sound like it could be a great name for a musical?

Is anyone else freaked out by this Dairy Queen commercial?

Several readers wrote in to tell us about this horrific "piece of flair" that you can send to friends on Facebook through this application. Now, users can create their own buttons so I'm going to assume that the creators of this application didn't make this - a user did. But that's not excuse. Contact the developers of Facebook's "Pieces of Flair" and let them know that rape isn't funny.

UPDATE: The developers of this application have emailed us to let folks know that they've taken the button down and are committed to their program being free of offensive, violent buttons like the one above. Kudos to them.

Anyone remember the oh-so-controversial pro-choice ad that Manhattan Mini Storage ran last year?

Well it seems that the company is taking their support of choice a step further. According to a press release from Planned Parenthood of NYC, they've committed to donating a total of $200,000 to 5 NYC charities – including PPNYC.

Send them an email to say thanks.

Speaking of (Un)Feminist Guilty Pleasures, last night Nik and I are watching The Real World, yes, it's a habit I don't seem to break, and one of the girls on the show admits to her alcoholic friend that she struggled with an eating disorder. Didn't think much of it.

Then this morning my friend Kate sends me an email:

I'm watching the Real World, and one of the girls in it (Sarah) is lying on her bed in front of a bookshelf. And I see an acid green and book spine and think, "Hey, I know that book." I slowed it down frame by frame and guess what it is? I took a picture because I was so tickled.

Yeah, that's my book people. Mind is blown. Now if we can just get Jess' books on that blonde girl's shelf...she needs a serious dose of feminism 101.

It seems that banning same sex marriage just wasn't enough for Michigan. The state Supreme Court ruled yesterday that local governments and universities can't offer health benefits to same sex partners of employees.

The court ruled 5-2 that Michigan's 2004 ban against gay marriage also blocks domestic-partner policies affecting gay employees at the University of Michigan and other public-sector employers.

The decision affirms a February 2007 appeals court ruling.

Charming.

h/t Delightfully Dawgmatic.

Check out this comprehensive new report by the Women & Girls Collective Action Network, comprised of 16 organizations in Chicago, about ending violence against women "with a focus on women of color, youth, queer and trans youth, women with disabilities, young women in the sex trade, among others." The report includes info on...

how groups have broadened their definitions of violence, rethought the roles of survivors and perpetrators, and identified systems of oppression as root causes of violence. Rather than copy the structures of the mainstream nonprofit system, many of these groups are creating new structures and negotiating older ones.

examples of how groups are building safe communities within the movement, responding to acts of violence within social justice communities, and grappling with the non-profit industrial complex.

strategies to end violence, including how to create community conversations, organize communities, use arts and performance, develop popular education, incorporate harm reduction, and partner with men.

Thanks to Ann Russo of DePaul U. for the heads up.

We don't normally link to Fox in a favorable light, but their's a first time for everything. Reader Amanda told us about this incredibly touching story that, we agree, deserves some serious play (ah, sports puns).

When Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University scored her first home run ever (whoooo-hoooo!) it looked like life was golden, but as she rounded first base, she cranked her knee and ended up on the ground, writhing in pain. Her opponents, who you think might have rejoiced, actually did the exact opposite:

Members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count - an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs...As the trio reached home plate, Tucholsky said, the entire Western Oregon team was in tears.

Every awesome sports movie song of triumph and sports(wo)manship is playing in my head right now. So awesome.

I am so deeply disturbed by this footage of what looks a whole hell of a lot like police brutality in Philly. It deserves some serious analysis, particularly in a city that has such a history of racist corruption in the police force.

To my mind, one of the major unfinished revolutions within feminism is the whole field of equal parenting, work/life balance, feminist mothering etc. Just taking a look at some of the recent books on the topic (Perfect Madness by Judith Warner, Get to Work by Linda Hirshman, The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts, Opting Out by Pamela Stone) gives one a sense that there is a whole lot of unresolved angst when it comes to women's relationship to the mothering role.

That's why I'm so excited that one of our third wave icons, Amy Richards, has taken a stab at dealing with some of the lingering dilemmas in her new book Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself. (Thanks for writing this before I got there, Amy!)

Some of the most salient parts of the book, for me, were Amy's discussion of the ways in which feminist mothering is about tiny, everyday choices. She is a bit cynical about the notion of a full scale motherhood revolution (unlike the gals at MomsRising and some other great organizations), but she certainly believes Gandhi's old adage that each of us must "be the change you wish to see in the world." That applies to feminists in lots of interesting ways...if you have one, do you pay your nanny a living wage? Do you send your child to a school that has a diversity of students and mirrors your feminist values? Do you model self care and compassionate communication for your kids on a daily basis?

One of the things I've noticed, while traveling the country and speaking about body image issues, is that mothers--in particular--love to blame the epidemic of food and fitness obsession on external institutions ("media", plastic surgery industry, celebrities), but are rarely willing to look at their own modeling in an honest way. I feel like Amy is trying to counter that inclination, trying to get mothers to own up to their own choices and inspire them to really strain to close the gap between their lives and their values.

John McCain was on The Daily Show last night and wouldn't you know he took time out to ackwnoledge one of his "very attractive young woman" detractors at a recent town hall meeting who was wearing a shirt that said "John McCain Doesn't Represent Me." (If you're a reader, said "attractive young woman," come forth, come forth; you're awesome).

According to John boy, "I called on her and asked her what it was that she'd like to say. That's the essence..." But Stewart interrupted his moment of town hall poetics and asked the key question: "And what did she say?" So McCain was forced to answer, chuckling the whole time, "She said, 'Why did I want to discriminate against women?' I tried to defend my belief in equal opportunity for all in this country."

Except of course, when it comes to a little thing called bodily integrity. And good thing this little minx was attractive so that McCain deigned to call on her. And good thing he chuckled through retelling her very apt question. And good thing he understands the breadth and depth of "equal opportunity."

Don't sleep people. This guy doesn't have what's best for "attractive young women" in mind.

I was having a bad day, then I found out that the Abstinence Clearinghouse has a blog. Here is some recent abstinence wisdom; it's the entirety of a post titled, "Saving Sex Until Marriage."

Virginity is an asset that holds its value well.

Aw, shit. I didn't know I'd be getting an economics lesson when I wandered over! Sweet. I wonder how much I can trade my vagina in for. A Subaru maybe?

Via Choice Words

Sad to say that 77 year old Dr. Sue Johansen will be ending her Oxygen network show this Sunday evening.

Best quote ever:

77-year-old Sue said, "It's been part of my life and I just love it. I'm going to miss writing scripts. I'm going to miss having to read books. I'm going to miss playing with sex toys."

Who wouldn't love having a grandmother who says things like that? We'll miss you Dr. Sue.

The New York Times' Board blog covered this ad last week aiming to engage voters. It comes from this awesome new campaign that I've been honored to be a part of. After last night's primaries, I think we should get back to focusing on what's at stake if McCain is elected.

It's stories like these that make me doubt the idea that people are basically good. (Trigger warning)

Melissa Bruen was sexually assaulted on the University of Connecticut campus while a group of men cheered. Even more distressing is that the assault was retribution for fighting back against another man who was assaulting her.

On a weekend night, Bruen was walking home along a campus trail (actually known as "the rape trail" if you can believe that hit), when she was "picked up by [her] shoulders, pinned up against the pole and 'dry humped' by a stranger."

At first I thought it was one of my friends' attempt at humor, until I heard the man moaning.

I hung up the phone, and shoved the man off me. I am 5'5". He was around 5'11".

"My, aren't we feisty tonight," he said.

I was assaulted when I was very young - I wasn't about to let it happen again. When he came toward me, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him down to the ground. I held onto his shoulders and climbed on top to straddle him. He started thrashing side to side, but I was able to hit him with a closed fist, full force, in the face.

A small crowd had gathered, mostly men. Now they seemed shocked. I was supposed to have been a victim, and I was breaking out of the mold. I hit him in the stomach, while clenching my legs around him to prevent another man from pushing me off. In all, it took three men to pull me off my assailant.

He got up and ran off, yelling at me, as if I were the would-be rapist.

Bruen started yelling, "You just assaulted me...He just assaulted me." Instead of coming to her aid, a group gathered around her.

Another man, around 6'1", approached me and said, "You think that was assault?" and he pulled down my tube top, and grabbed my breasts. More men started to cheer. It didn't matter to the drunken mob that my breasts were being shown or fondled against my will. They were happy to see a topless girl all the same. I punched him in the face, and someone shoved me into a throng of others. I was surrounded, but I kept swinging and hitting until I was able to break free of the circle they had formed.

If this doesn't ruin your day, I don't know what will. Though I have to say, I'm grateful to Bruen for sharing her story. Given how prevalent victim-blaming is, writing an article about your assault is no small thing.

What's truly incredible about this story is how it really dismantles the idea that teaching women to protect themselves (via self-defense, specifically) is truly effective. As Melissa points out, "Bruen did everything that she was supposed to do, but instead of being hailed a hero for pummeling someone who sexually assaulted her, she was further assaulted for her trouble." (Make sure to read Melissa's full post by the way.) This isn't to say that I think women shouldn't learn self-defense or fight back against assault - on the contrary, I think they should if that's what's best for them. But it's not an answer to rape culture (in which a crowd of people can stand and fucking cheer as a woman is being assaulted) - and that's what we need to be fighting back against.

Again, big kudos to Bruen for - as she puts it - "get[ting] a few good swings in." Not only against her assailants, but against a culture that would have her silenced.

So how are people feeling? Get it off your chest in comments...

Michael Buday wanted take his wife's last name. "It was personal. I feel much closer to [her] father than I do mine. She asked me to take her name and I thought it would be very simple. I never imagined the state would make it so difficult."

He discovered it would take a $US350 fee, court appearances, a public announcement and mounds of paperwork to make a change on his driving licence that is routine for women who marry.

After months of frustration, the Los Angeles computer programmer and his ER nurse wife Diana [Bijon], 29, took their problem to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

A double barrel name would have been no problem, nor would Diana and Michael deciding to each keep their birth names. But California and some 40 other US states provided no place on the marriage licence application, and driving licence, for the groom to choose the bride's surname.

Their lawsuit led to a new California law guaranteeing the rights of married couples and domestic partners to choose whichever last name they want. Hopefully this is a trend. Recently, Oregon State Sen. Vicki Walker added an amendment onto a bill that will redesign marriage license applications so they include space where the couple can write what last name they will go by.

It's amazing to me that this is still a battle. Never mind people's personal decisions about names- which is a whole other story - but the idea that the government could still be so invested in keeping this tradition alive is ridiculously disturbing. It wasn't so long ago that a married couple in Washington, DC was denied a birth certificate for their child because they wanted to give their baby the mother's last name. And it was just in 2004 that a Pennsylvania court denied a petition from a woman who wanted her daughter to have a hyphenated last name; they found that it was "in the best interests of the child" to have only her father's last name.

I thought this was so great and funny, because - I'm sure like a lot of other feminists out there - I've had dudes use their progressive beliefs and feminist cred to try pick me up. Samhita and I used to talk about this a lot in college, that sometimes the guys who turned out to be the biggest assholes were the ones who wooed you by quoting Judith Butler. Anyone have any fun pick up stories? Leave them in comments...

Pic from Peter John Chen

Mildred Loving passed away last week, a black woman who had married a white man and couldn't live in the state that she resided in, without getting arrested because interracial marriages were illegal. That was in 1957, not that long ago. After returning to Virginia, they were charged and sentenced for engaging in miscegenation and had to relocate to DC where they filed a motion against the judgment which led to ultimately striking down anti-miscegenation laws nation-wide.

I have never been a big fan of marriage, but if the government wants jurisdiction over marriage and it is considered a protected right, when someone legally can't get married it is a violation of their guaranteed rights. It is pretty crazy that this was only a few decades ago, but the battle for marriage rights continues today.

(h/t Angry Black Bitch)

In honor of the "Pill Kills" nonsense and a question posed by a commenter, it's feminist polling time...

Feel free to leave anything I missed in comments!

UPDATE: Yes, Rhythm should be Fertility Awareness Method/Naturally Family Planning. Sorry about that. Also, I've been alerted to the fact that there are probably a lot of women reading the site struggling with infertility, and this poll wasn't sensitive to that. For that, many apologies.

I had the most amazing 30th birthday ever, which included a tasty dinner, huge party and hugs and kisses from people from so many different parts of my life. My lovely, amazing friends got together and gave me a huge joint present to do something nice for myself. I almost had a heart attack. Anyway, this is a picture of me shocked by the strength of the vibration from a mini-sex kit that another friend gave me. Beware of the silver bullet people.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Turning 30 is AWESOME. Don't believe the conventional wisdom.

Please...no.

As a skilled instructor guided them, the WNBA's new class of rookies spent part of their orientation weekend learning how to perfect their arcs...It was not Lisa Leslie or another veteran teaching basketball fundamentals but a cosmetics artist brought in by the league last month to teach the rookies how to arc their eyebrows, apply strokes of blush across their cheekbones and put on no-smudge eyeliner to receive the right attention off the court.

As part of the rookies' orientation into life as professional athletes, the WNBA for the first time offered them hour-long courses on makeup and fashion tips.

These courses are part of the WNBA's new effort to market their players more effectively. And, of course, that means focusing on their looks. Marj Snyder of the Women's Sports Foundation, says, "The problem is if only 8 percent of the coverage is on women, and the vast majority of the time we're talking about who they're married to, what clothing they're wearing, what kind of parents they are, there's not much room left to say, 'What a great athlete.' " But instead of fighting back against this superficial focus, the WNBA is embracing it.

Renee Brown, the WNBA's vice president of player personnel, said the league aims to show its players as "mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces and entrepreneurs" and their "womanhood" is important to promote the league.

"You're a woman first," Brown said. "You just happen to play sports. They enjoy dressing up and trying on outfits, where back in the day, everyone just wore sweats.

"Call it what you want. We're just celebrating their womanhood."

So long as "womanhood" means adhering to traditional gender norms. When "womanhood" means being a kick-ass athlete, I guess it's not worth celebrating.

I'd probably be a bad driver too if I was having some sort of weird road-sign induced acid trip.

Just in case you still had any doubts about the anti-choice movement's true agenda, the American Life League is letting it all hang out with their latest campaign: The Pill Kills!

From Christina Page at RH Reality Check:

On June 7th, the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that gave married people the right to use contraception, the American Life League, along with Pro-Life Wisconsin and Pharmacists for Life International Associate groups want you to join them in protesting in front of facilities that distribute birth control products. The national day against contraception, Protest the Pill Day '08: The Pill Kills Babies, was started to convince the American people of a simple and imaginative idea: attempting to prevent abortion is abortion too.

The campaign basically says that birth control pills kill babies (yes, seriously) and that pro-choice groups and health care centers like Planned Parenthood are only touting birth control to make lots and lots of money. (Because as we all know, there's nothing more lucrative than offering low-to-no cost reproductive health care.)

I'm actually kind of relieved by this campaign, because at least the anti-choice movement is showing its true colors. For so long, they've been trying to claim that it's all about "saving babies" by ending abortion, when their true agenda was simply to end women's control over their own reproductive future. They want to make birth control illegal. They don't even think married people should use it. And, of course, they're willing to push that agenda even if it means lying to women. You need to look no further than the campaign's talking points to spot the bullshit. Here are a couple of my favorites:

The birth control pill does not reduce the number of abortions. The only difference is that you are killing the baby earlier.

[T]he pill and other contraceptives can stop a tiny child's implantation in his/her mother's womb because the pill irritates the lining of the uterus so that the tiny baby boy or baby girl cannot attach to the lining of the uterus and the newly formed human person is aborted and dies. This is called a chemical abortion.

This one I love though, because it shows how anti-choicers think that anyone who wants to have sex without having a baby is just selfish:

Q: Isn't it better to be on the pill when you are sexually active?

A: Better for whom? The pill does not prevent you from getting a sexually transmitted disease, it is not 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and you could conceive a child who gets chemically aborted before the baby's presence is even known to you. Moreover, sexual activity outside of marriage is seriously wrong.

Lying to women and pushing your religious beliefs on others, however, is obviously all good.

Via.

Washington University announced last week that they are giving Phyllis Schlafly, professional anti-feminist, an honorary doctorate degree. The release calls Schlafly "a national leader of the conservative movement." What they fail to mention however, is that she is also an anti-feminist leader who believes married women can't be raped ("By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape."), that there should be bans on women working in nontraditional fields (like construction work or firefighting), and - oh yeah - that the ERA is dangerous.

I guess it should come as no surprise then that professional misogynist Chris Matthews is actually set to give the university's commencement address before Schlafly is honored.

Thankfully, the Washington University community is fighting back.

Students have set up a Facebook group, “No honorary doctorate for anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly,� with over 1100 members at last count.

Several postings suggested that students boycott fund raising drives by the university to protest the honor for Schlafly. The group’s information states: “Do her views fit with the future the men and women of Wash U’s graduating class see for themselves and their peers? Probably not. Then why honor her with them? Wouldn’t having someone like her in the midst of Wash U’s female graduates be incongruous at best, offensive at worst?�

Mary Ann Dzuback, director of women’s and gender studies at Washington University, and an associate professor of education and history, said that professors were stunned and angered to learn of the planned honor last week. “The university has completely disregarded the concerns about anybody who cares about full and equal rights for women, who cares about the intellectual quality of feminist debate, and who cares about women’s desire to enter the work force,� Dzuback said.

Dzuback went onto say that she wouldn't be against Schlafly being invited to lecture at the school, but that honoring her is something quite different: “This tells the world that this administration thinks so highly of the honoree that they give her the highest degrees the university can give, the highest degree of respect. And that is deeply troubling...This is a woman who has spent her whole career arguing against full rights for women." Nice message to send the female student body, right?

Some students who emailed me (thanks all!) about this, are encouraging folks to email Chancellor Wrighton and Jane Stone, coordinator of the Board of Trustees. If any Washington University students out there want to keep us updated, we'd be grateful!

Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli, who is running for Rome mayor, put forward a proposal to help curb sexual assault: a "rape bracelet." Yes, seriously.

Rutelli suggested that women who were forced to cross risky areas of the city alone at night be given bracelets which would alert the police in the event of danger...The device would allow the wearer to transmit an alarm signal to the nearest police station and also contain a tracking signal allowing police to then find the wearer.

You know, I'm all for innovative ways to help stop rape, but something about this doesn't sit right with me...

Rutelli's aides explained that the device would be similar to the electronic ankle tags worn by some types of offenders in Britain.

And there it is. Once again, putting the onus on women to protect themselves from rape takes the rapist - remember him? - out of the equation. Not okay.

Thanks to Lachrista for the link.

When I wake up with this song inexplicably stuck in my head, he doesn't know what I'm talking (or singing) about. For shame.

Retro video after the jump.

Hey folks, just wanted to put up a small note to announce that I'm no longer blogging with NARAL Pro-Choice America. I started working with NARAL almost four years ago, and it's sad to leave. But I feel really proud of the work I've done there, especially the founding and organizing of Blog for Choice Day, which has been such an incredible success.

So I hope you'll continue to read NARAL's blog, the now renamed Blog for Choice, and show them your support. (A big personal thanks to Kristin and Molly - it was wonderful working with you two!)

Ian Shapira of The Washington Post wrote a non-profile profile about Chelsea Clinton this weekend, essentially arguing that she's done a bad job of reaching out to young people on her mom's behalf because she's not revealing enough. In this rarely interesting and often-cliched game of hide and go seek (Come out, come out, wherever you are Chelsea!), Shapira managed to reference all the touch points of our generation--Facebook, MTV, The Daily Show--without saying much.

His insistence that Chelsea's responses are drab and her biography not titillating enough reminds me of the ways in which all of us expect way too much nakedness from public figures, especially women, and then tend to berate them when they (willingly or otherwise) provide it. If you had spent much of your father's presidency fending of attacks about how ugly you were, would you be excited about sitting down with reporters during your mom's campaign? If you endured your parents' infidelities on the big screen of American shadenfreude, would you be eager to talk about it a decade later?

Yeah, didn't think so. Get off the girl's back. I admire her for tirelessly speaking out on her family's behalf, even as the media accuses her own mom of "pimping her out." Ugh. At least young people could give Chelsea a break.

There's no doubt that abstinence-only educators do harm. But some do more harm than others. Unlike the Leslee Unruhs of the world - who wear their crazy on their sleeve - abstinence "educator" Pam Stenzel is an engaging, convincing, fun speaker. A speaker who tells kids that birth control could kill them and that abortion makes girls anorexic, depressed and suicidal. And she does it with aplomb.

You can find more videos of Stenzel on YouTube, but I have to say that this one was enough to freak me out. She's funny and charming, and sneaks in anti-choice lies rather than hitting kids over the head with them. And that's dangerous.

Thanks to Lynn for the heads up.

One common thread I’ve noticed a lot in posts about Grand Theft Auto, Baby Mama, Madonna, and others recently, is hostility to criticism of something the poster enjoys. Simplifying it, some of the comments come off as “well, I like it, so it can’t be that bad� or “it’s funny, so don’t take it so seriously.� I think it’s natural to want to defend something you enjoy, and reject the idea that it is sexist or damaging. I feel it too. But that doesn’t mean we’re right to defend it to the end. Liking something does not negate its ability to harm. Enjoying something that is anti-woman doesn’t make you a bad person. Or even a bad feminist. But thinking about why you enjoy it, and looking at the negative side could help you be a better one.

A big part of my coming to feminism is, as Melissa aptly describes, is taking the “red pill� and acknowledging the sexism and misogyny around us. That’s one of the things I have always liked about Feministing, the constant coverage of the barrage of anti-woman sentiments across all aspects of life. It’s easy to stop seeing all of the things that put women down because there are so many. A good kick in the ass reminder, while depressing at times, helps fuel action.

That’s not all there is to feminism, but it’s a big step to start, and a long, but valuable process. So often it feels like we’re trying to remove dimensions of things to make them easy to understand and decide. Whether it’s popular culture, or politics, or race, it seems like everything should be boiled down to good or bad, yes or no, us or them. And no one wants to be on the “wrong� side. But life’s rarely that simple. And in order to make the changes we want to see in the world, I think we need to acknowledge that, and embrace it. The bad news is a lot of the issues we address here on Feministing are complicated and messy. And touch on things we don’t think about, or don’t want to think about more deeply. The good news is that’s not going to stop us, and I know we’re all up to the task.

*Title not a reference to my fondness for Friday happy hours that last all night, or watching 3 hours of Twin Peaks at a time.

Via Racialicious, there’s a good interesting article from The Nation, Race to the Bottom, partially a retread of the sexism v. racism issue in the Democractic presidential primary process. Good overview of what's been going on if you're not living and breathing this stuff. But there’s one section of the article that stopped me in my tracks. It’s part of a quote from Frances Kissling,

The implications of all this for the future of feminism depend significantly on the outcome of the primary, says Kissling. "If Clinton wins, the older-line women's movement will continue; it will be a continuation of power for them. If she doesn't win, it will be a death knell for those people. And that may be a good thing--that a younger generation will start to take over."

Er, I’m hoping there was some context that got removed, because damn. What a great way to make a struggle a war. Watch out older feminists. If Clinton doesn’t get the nomination, start packing for Shark Island now. I mean, come on now. Obviously I support young women (or a wider perspective attributed to younger women) playing a more important role in the feminist movement, but that doesn't have to mean older women are kicked out entirely. Sheesh.

Definitely check out Latoya’s take on the whole article over at Racialicious.

This weekend was super fun for Monty. Not only did he have quality cuddling time with me and the cat, he also had visitors. My friend Sara and her dog Sushi came over to hang out and to install my awesome new prints. So great weekend overall. How was yours?

After leaving my last (very long) steady job, I was terrified about money. Because there’s no financial buffer but what I save. Even though I only have myself to support, it’s something I think about every day. That’s probably a result of knowing how hard my mom worked when I was growing up to give me everything I needed and some of the things I wanted. Really, I'm obsessive.

This is all only to say that I think about money a lot. So, discovering the blog Feminist Finance a few weeks ago was fantastic for me. The writer covers practical tips to get out of debt, to buying local produce, the importance of mentoring, and a lot more. If you’re part of a couple, she’s also got a lot of interesting content on dealing with joint financial lives.

A recent post notes a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against a company founded by Michael Bloomberg. Check it out.

Now this is a doozy. The Malaysian Foreign Ministry, in a move to curb women from being tricked into carrying drugs out of the country, has proposed that all women traveling out of Malaysia be requires to have a letter from their parents or employers.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the letter would be a declaration which stated clearly the reason the woman was travelling.

He said his ministry and the Home Ministry feel the move is necessary and a proposal for this has been submitted to the Cabinet.

Of course this is all being proposed under the rhetoric of protection. Charming. Marina Mahathir, the daughter of former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohammad, blogged about the proposed mandate yesterday:

The assumption is that women are like children who need to be protected for their own good. They cannot be relied on to take responsibility for themselves. Thousands of Malaysian women travel abroad on their own every year and return safely. Should we not emphasise that, rather than the relative few who get into trouble? Of course we must help these women but we can prevent more of these incidents happening by simply educating women.

Indeed. Why is it that so many laws that limit women's rights - no matter where in the world - tout themselves as "protecting" us? Don't they know we can see right through that shit?

Thanks to Tiara for the links.

Maria Soledad Vela, who is helping to rewrite Ecuador's constitution, wants to include that "women should have the right to make free, responsible and informed decisions about sex lives."

Veronica on why you should know who Lorena Ochoa is, but probably don't.

I highly recommend this piece by Betsy Reed in The Nation about Hillary Clinton and institutional feminism. Ta-Nehisi Coates adds, "As a guy who's long felt that civil rights-era black leadership has lost the moral high ground, I get where she's coming from."

Manohla Dargis on the state of women directors and actors in Hollywood. Also check out Women Make Movies.

The Coup Magazine offers some steps toward ending the violence (particularly the violence against women) in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- and also notes there's a new Amnesty International report on women, HIV/AIDS and violence in South Africa.

On those deceptive robocalls by Women's Voices, Women's Vote.

Latoya quotes Joan Morgan on hip-hop and feminism and racial solidarity.

Check out all the great Blog Against Disablism posts.

Does Obama support parental consent laws?

A day in the life of a feminist high-school student. (via Lauredhel)

Alice Walker on Clinton, Obama, and womanism.

What a horrible headline: "Testimony starts in manslaughter trial of woman who cried 'rape'." Astraea has a great post responding to this news story -- and an update noting the woman was convicted.

On the depressingly high maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan. (via)

Carmen at Racialicious on the "reality" TV show Miss Rap Supreme.

Scientific American has an article on subliminal stereotyping.

On marginalization, exoticism, and a South Asian adaptation of the Vagina Monologues.

Secondhandsally reacts to that Esquire cover featuring Jessica Simpson shaving (a takeoff on their 1960s-era cover that featured Marilyn Monroe Virna Lisi in a similar pose).

Prof BW has a list of Feminist Reading Tools for Recognizing and Countering Racism.

Actions and Events
On Tuesday, COLOR (Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights) is hosting an event to oppose the defeat the deceptively named “Human Life Amendment.�

May 8-11 is the Willie Mae-ra-thon in NYC to benefit the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls!

Click here to support the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA).

Samhita looks 30 dead in the face. And kills it.

To my dear Sami, who I met when I was just a wee Women's Studies student at SUNY Albany. You are one radical bitch. I hope your 30th birthday brings you lots of love, young men, and booze. Oh yeah, and activism and all that.

Since you're the first of the Feministing crew to age out of your twenties...I dedicate this Menudo song to you.

Much love, lady.

Less than a week after the annual Day of Silence action, a principal in Memphis displayed a list of couples in the high school -- including gay couples, outing some of the students. The ACLU is suing the school on behalf of two of the students.

In September of 2007, the principal at Hollis F. Price Middle College High told teachers she wanted the names of all student couples, "hetero and homo," because she wanted to monitor them personally to prevent students from engaging in public displays of affection. The two students now represented by the ACLU, Andrew and Nicholas (who have asked that their last names not be revealed), were two A students who had been seeing each other for a short time and were attempting to keep their relationship quiet and private. The principal heard about them through another student, then wrote their names on a list she posted next to her desk, in full view of anyone who entered her office.

ABC News reports,

"I really feel that my personal privacy was invaded," Nicholas, one of the young men who claims his sexuality was exposed without his approval by his principal, told ABC News' Memphis affiliate Eyewitness News Everywhere. "I mean, Principal Beasley called my mother and outted me to my mother!"

"It was actually frightening," Nicholas said of the incident, which occurred in Fall 2007, "to see a list with my name on it where not just other teachers could see but students as well."

Of course it was frightening, giving recent events like the murder of 15-year-old Lawrence King, who was killed by a classmate because he was non-gender-conforming. And a recent report shows anti-gay hate crimes remain a big problem in Tennessee.

The principal, Daphne Beasley, says she made the list of couples in an effort to combat public displays of affection. (Related news this week: Some people are so upset by gay couples kissing in public that they think it's necessary to involve the police.) Beasley claims it was a "personal call list" used to notify parents (which, hello!, is problematic in itself), and it was never posted publicly. But the ACLU says the list was highly visible in her office.

[ACLU lawyer Christine] Sun, who told ABCNEWS.com that she believes the Memphis school district to be "homophobic," said that Nicholas' mother — who was "shocked" to hear that her son is gay — reported that Beasley said she "had a problem with homosexuality" and that "homosexuality will not be tolerated."

Advocates for Youth has issued an action alert, and is encouraging people to write to the Memphis City school board to demand that policies be implemented to protect students from future harassment by school staff.

For more on making schools a safe space for students of all sexualities and gender presentations, check out GLSEN. GenderYOUTH also does great work, and right now they're conducting a survey of how schools and campuses are doing in terms of prohibiting discrimination and promoting awareness of gender identity and expression. Click here to tell them what's going on at your school.

...for awarding a female soldier a Silver Star for heroic acts, and then removing her from combat because she's a woman.

And just a note, something I didn't mention in the video, I think it's possible to oppose both the Iraq war and the Army's ban on women in combat. Yes, I believe women like Pfc. Monica Brown should be allowed to serve alongside men in combat situations. No, I don't support the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Samhita said it really well two years ago:

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.

Along those lines, when we talk about issues of women in the U.S. military, it's important to keep in mind that they aren't the only women in combat zones --and to talk about the effects of war on female civilians.

Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel. To see who we've told to fuck off in previous weeks, click here.

Thanks to reader Elizabeth C. for the tip.

Bloomberg LP, the news and financial data corporation founded by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is being charged with 58 cases of pregnancy discrimination. So far.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the charges in September when they had 3 cases, in which they now have 58 women who say their duties were reduced, or that they had been excluded from employment opportunities because they were pregnant:

The EEOC lawsuit claims the company discriminated against pregnant employees by cutting their pay and demoting them. It also claims the women were paid less when they returned from maternity leave and were demoted and replaced by 'junior' male employees.

The sad part is that I'm not surprised. At all.

National Science Foundation - Chore Wars: Men, Women and Housework: "Husbands create an extra seven hours a week of housework for wives, according to a new study. But wives save husbands from about an hour of housework a week."

Shakesville: Horrifying New Law: Forced Ultrasounds Condition of Abortion: "Last week, the Oklahoma Legislature overrode the governor's veto and enacted a law that puts a horrifying twist on informed consent requirements for women seeking abortion. While other states require that women seeking abortion be offered an ultrasound, this law requires that the woman have either an abdominal or a vaginal ultrasound, whichever offers the clearer picture, as a condition of having an abortion."

New York Times - More Mothers Breast-Feed, in First Months at Least: "About 77 percent of new mothers breast-feed their infants at least briefly, the highest rate seen in the United States in more than a decade, according to a government survey released on Wednesday."

The Frisky - The Daily Squeeze: Disney push-up bras?!

Our Bodies Our Blog: On Increasing Rates of Diabetes in Pregnancy: "An article set to appear in the May issue of the journal Diabetes Care is garnering widespread media attention today, as it declares that the prevalence of pre-existing diabetes in women who become pregnant has doubled over the past several years."

Femme Den - Design for females, without "pinking and shrinking": "Women are still underrepresented in the design industry," says designer Erica Eden, of Smart Design. To combat that, Eden and three other female members of Smart's staff (Agnete Enga, Yvonne Lin, and Gina Reimann) have started Femme Den, an in-company initiative to address the needs of female consumers without alienating males by merely 'pinking and shrinking' existing products.

Has anyone ever seen the movie Teeth? I know we've blogged about it before, but I finally watched it yesterday and I fucking loved it. Loved.

Anyone else see it? Thoughts?

You know what really gets my panties in a bunch? When people quote a commenter from a blog and attribute said quote to the blog itself. Take this article from the Twin Cities Daily Planet, "Imagine a pro-vagina world." (The article was originally featured at Minnesota Women's Press)

Reporter Shannon Drury writes that the feminist blogosphere hate women who vote for Hillary:

I realized that I wanted a woman to be the nominee much more than I thought. I wasn’t satisfied with Obama, who is not white. He’s still a guy, and I am sick of guys.

Yet when I announce this, I am accused of being not only sexist but racist. No, I don’t mean me personally, mostly because I am too mousy to stand up in the public square and talk about how sick I am of men in power (though my supportive husband encourages this). I should defer to the royal “we� here, because when Gloria Steinem wrote about the subject in a widely read opinion piece in the New York Times, you better believe my heart sang.

But many women writers in the blogosphere whom I respect and admire called the essay sexist. And racist. And they said very hateful things about women like me who support Hillary Clinton, including that they are sexist and racist. One blogger on Feministing.com called it “pro-vagina selfishness.�

Except we didn't. One of our commenters did. Yet Drury builds almost her whole piece around this quote. Not that she shouldn't - so long as she's clear where it came from. But I'm betting Drury knows that the "pro-vagina selfish" sentiment has a bit less weight when you admit it's not from a blog, but from a reader.

(Note: The editor at the Twin Cities Daily Planet responded immediately to my request for a correction. Big thanks for the prompt response and action.)