Headline of the Day by Pam Spaulding: “Lactating boobies in the workplace will kill job creation (and other signs of the womanapocalypse)”

In a domestic violence case in Florida, the judge ordered the alleged abuser to just take his wife out to Red Lobster to make up. Lovely.

Tweeters are sharing pics and more to combat all the BC coverage pushback with #iusebirthcontrol – and not shockingly, it’s trending worldwide.

Via Think Progress, we find that the Catholic Bishops who have been leading the attack on Obama’s birth control decision to protect birth control coverage in the Affordable Care Act don’t just want an exemption from certain religious institutions, but are looking for a full-blown repeal of the rule. USA  Today reports:

Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “There has been a lot of talk in the last couple days about compromise, but it sounds to us like a way to turn down the heat, to placate people without doing anything in particular,” Picarello said. “We’re not going to do anything until this is fixed.”

That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for “good Catholic business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate with this.”

“If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by the mandate,” Picarello said.

If repealed, it could potentially meant that any employer would be able to deny any kind of health care to anyone because they’re religiously objected to it; in other words, it would allow a nationwide conscience clause. Which is funny, considering that the central mandate of the requirement has actually been in effect for most employers since 2000, including while George W. Bush was president. So if they got their way, it could actually mean a huge step backward for access to birth control coverage. And all of this is despite the fact that most Catholics actually agree that health plans should include contraception.

The bishops have made it abundantly clear that his has nothing to do with religious liberty, and everything to do with imposing regressive beliefs onto people’s heath care access.

I hate to look like I’m just here promoting myself, but I’m a long-time reader and thought other Feministing readers might be interested in this. I’m also a two-time National Poetry Slam champion, founder of the Hip Hop Against Homophobia concert series and a long-time social justice activist and educator.  Thanks for reviewing.

Plus another, different spoken-word deconstruction of masculinity and gender conditioning here.

The deal is meant to address many of the unethical practices which tripped up so many homeowners and in part led to the housing and foreclosure crisis. Those practices include “robo-signing” and also submitting incomplete paperwork in court.

This is good news for homeowners (but not all) who were hurt when the housing bubble burst. The deal will not address the myriad issues that lead to the crisis and it also will not close the door to criminal liability on the part of the banks.

Via New York Times:

Despite the billions earmarked in the accord, the aid will help a relatively small portion of the millions of borrowers who are delinquent and facing foreclosure. The success could depend in part on how effectively the program is carried out because earlier efforts by Washington aimed at troubled borrowers helped far fewer than had been expected.

Still, the agreement is the broadest effort yet to help borrowers owing more than their houses are worth, with roughly one million expected to have their mortgage debt reduced by lenders or able to refinance their homes at lower rates. Another 750,000 people who lost their homes to foreclosure from September 2008 to the end of 2011 will receive checks for about $2,000. The aid is to be distributed over three years.

While this is welcome news, especially to many homeowners who have been suffering and foreclosed upon, hopefully this is a signal of more to come. Much more can be done to address the practices of banks and “robo-signing” is viewed as a small portion of that and yet it’s the easiest one for prosecutors to target.

Furthermore, it’s also not okay (even if the original intent might be good) to use blackface to pretend to be black in order to get Brigham Young University students to look foolishly racist on camera for kicks. This is what Comedian Dave Ackerman did he decided to quiz BYU students about Black History Month. Predictably, they knew very little and the entire video turns into a mirage of black stereotypes. Fun times.

What’s most disturbing to me is not the students ignorance lack of knowledge of the subject of Black History, but the fact that this comedian felt it necessary to paint his face black in order to illicit the responses. I’m sorry but I’m just not seeing how the face paint is helping him here?

And while the lack of knowledge about black history — which really is all of our history — is alarming, the casual nature in which the students make fun of black culture is pretty disturbing. Towards the end of the video when the students are pretending to talk and walk like black people I found myself perplexed considering how few actual black people they must be exposed to in the middle of Utah.

Ackerman has said he made the video to “fight ignorance with ignorance,” and he’s right about one thing: blackface and everyone in this video look really ignorant.

Amazing.

However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.

Jezebel adds that another pro-choice senator added an amendment:

Another pro-choice legislator, Democrat Jim Wilson, attempted to add an amendment to the bill that would require the father of the child to be financially responsible for the woman’s health care, housing, transportation, and nourishment while she was pregnant.

I second Erin’s contention that this new trend of legislators attaching snarky, ridiculous amendments to ridiculous bills that infringe on our uteri are kind of genius. It started just last week when Sen. Janet Howell decided to attach an amendment to a Virginia bill that would force a woman to have a vaginal ultrasound before an abortion — the clause being that men would have to undergo a rectal exam before getting Viagra.

Not shockingly, Howell’s amendment didn’t pass, and neither did either of these (Johnson even withdrew hers after making her point).  But while these amendments may not go anywhere, what it does — as Jill points out — is force the conversation, and point out just how warped and straight-up sexist this kind of legislation is. In short, if men were subject to the same kinds of invasive, ridiculously fucked requirements women are in order to be sexually active, they’d completely lose it. Keep ‘em coming, Dems.

According to Dr. Angel Foster, DPhil, MD, of Ibis Reproductive Health and the University of Ottawa,

“Our report finds that millions of Burmese and ethnic minorities both inside Burma and along the Thai border have limited or no access to family planning, safe abortion, and general reproductive healthcare. The toll on women has been particularly severe. Negative effects include high numbers of unplanned pregnancies — and, consequently, high rates of maternal mortality and unsafe abortions. In fact, post-partum hemorrhage and unsafe abortion are the leading causes of maternal death and injury.”

Abortion is illegal in Burma unless a woman’s life is at risk and restricted in Thailand.  Lack of legal access combined with a lack of trained providers are fundamental causes of morbidity and mortality from abortion.

The absence of healthcare infrastructure inside eastern Burma, as well as for those Burmese living illegally as migrants in Thailand, has produced a kind of reproductive health “perfect storm.” Notes Foster, “Since denial of healthcare has been an official policy of the Burmese military in ethnic areas, women and men, especially adolescents, know little about family planning practices and voluntary sterilization.”

While international media has been praising the new Burmese government for recent efforts at openness, the government has not yet ended the decades-long civil wars in eastern Burma with ethnic minorities, or opened the area to non-governmental organizations that could provide healthcare.  Our hope is that the new Burmese government will someday make it possible for more organizations to provide aid and resources to the people in eastern Burma where outside groups are currently banned. The time has come to rebuild the health and human rights of the millions of men, women, and children affected by this conflict.

Pro-choice GOP’ers are asking their party to back down from the contraception debate. It will be a disaster. They are correct.

Gloria Steinem and Lauren Wolfe ask if we can end rape as a weapon of war.

Miriam on reclaiming our radical values.

I’m excited to see what developers come up with. In my mind, there are so many ways that technology could help women achieve pay equity. The app could publish a list of position levels and careers with average salary figures, for the sake of comparison. Or, it could offer tips for negotiating. What about a women’s “bill of rights” to use should an employer try to deny you your fair share? The possibilities seem pretty endless!

This week’s Wednesday Weigh-In focuses on technology and the pay gap. So weigh in!

How could an app help you personally, or someone you know, fight the pay gap? What do you hope to see from the winning app?

Occupy Valentine’s Day has been a hit–it turns out I was right–a lot of people don’t appreciate a holiday that is used to judge the state of their romantic affairs. If you haven’t contributed–you should. Valentine’s Day is just a few days away and I hope to make #occupyvday a trending topic on the big day. Help me do that.

Also, if you are in New York, there will be a an occupy v day party and a lot of awesome feminists are going to be there. If you don’t live in the area have your own party and post pictures!

Or…join us for a virtual film screening!

This Valentine’s Day there will be a virtual screening of Nancy Schwartzman’s new film Xoxosms on Ustream followed by a panel of awesome people including, Twanna Hines who runs FunkyBrownChick.com, Lena Chen from SexandtheIvy.com, Melanie Wallner and Shreshth Dugar from DateMySchool.com, Melissa Gira Grant author of Coming and Crying and myself. Join us!

In Xoxosms, film maker Nancy Schwartzman looks at how love can flourish in online environments but asks the question if these loving relationships can be sustained in real life in her awesome short film. In a new generation where technology has brought us into closer communication with people and we can sometimes reinvent ourselves–how has this impacted our intimate relationships?

Bask in the irony of not caring about Valentine’s day but caring about what you do on Valentine’s day by joining us for any and all of these awesome events.