May 2005 Archives
In a press briefing last week, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan completely refused to answer a pretty goddamn important question: is Bush opposed to contraception?
Q There are news reports this morning that parents and children who were guests of the President, when they visited Congress, wore stickers with the wording, "I was an embryo." And my question is, since all of us were once embryos, and all of us were once part sperm and egg, is the President also opposed to contraception, which stops this union and kills both sperm and egg?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has made his views known on these issues, and his views known --
Q You know, but what I asked, is he opposed -- he's not opposed to contraception, is he?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, and you've made your views known, as well. The President --
Q No, no, but is he opposed to contraception, Scott? Could you just tell us yes or no?
MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think that this question is --
Q Well, is he? Does he oppose contraception?
MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think the President's views are very clear when it comes to building a culture of life --
Q If they were clear, I wouldn't have asked.
MR. McCLELLAN: -- and if you want to ask those questions, that's fine. I'm just not going to dignify them with a response.
Hmmm…I wonder why no answer? That’s a head-scratcher...
John Tierney elaborates on his genius "women aren't competitive" theory with an even more illuminating argument: women just don't want it bad enough. But don't worry; Tierney came to this conclusion using the most advanced method possible for studying gender differences: Scrabble.
...But if you think that leveling the playing field would eliminate gender disparities, consider an unintentional experiment conducted in the Scrabble world, which is hardly a hostile environment for women.
For a quarter-century, women have outnumbered men at Scrabble clubs and tournaments in America, but a woman has won the national championship only once, and all the world champions have been men. Among the top-ranked 50 players, typically about 45 are men.
The top players, both male and female, point to a simple explanation for the disparity: more men are willing to do whatever it takes to reach the top. You need more than intelligence and a good vocabulary to become champion. You have to spend hours a day learning words like "khat," doing computerized drills and memorizing long lists of letter combinations, called alphagrams, that can form high-scoring seven-letter words.
...A champion wouldn't waste any valuable time in a game. Thanks to the thousands of alphagrams he's memorized, he would realize immediately that there are four anagrams in the first rack (antlers, rentals, saltern, sternal) and none in the second.
See ladies, if we weren't so lazy about studying vocabulary we would be equals in life and in board games!
And why do women lack the necessary drive to succeed? We don't care about getting laid as much as men do.
"Evolution has selected for men with a taste for risking everything to get to the top of the hierarchy," [anthropologist Helen Fisher] said, "because those males get more reproductive opportunities, not only among primates but also among human beings. Women don't get as big a reproductive payoff by reaching the top. They're just as competitive with themselves - they want to do a good job just as much as men do - but men want to be more competitive with others."
Evolutionary psychologists see two kinds of payoffs that traditionally went (and often still go) to victorious men. Women have long been drawn to men at the top of a hierarchy (a clan leader, Donald Trump) who have the resources to support children.
...So if you're a lonely bachelor at the bottom, it makes evolutionary sense to have more zeal than the typical woman to fight your way up. It has been noted at Scrabble tournaments that some of the best players are single guys with wide-open social calendars. And there are Scrabble groupies - I'm not kidding - apparently still under the unconscious influence of that classic short-term reproductive strategy. They prefer guys who win.
And men prefer losers, I suppose?
You know, I can buy that the impetus behind many human actions is to have sex. But Tierney's (and these theories') assumptions that women won't go that extra mile because it's not worth it to them reproductively is just absurd. It relates back to the whole women-are-meant-to-be-monogamous-and-hate-sex argument that Amanda touched on recently at Pandagon.
For a fantastic book on women that (among other things) takes on evolutionary psychology's position on what "female nature" is, check out Natalie Angier's "Woman: An Intimate Geography." It's the best. Really.
UPDATE: Echidne on the same.
The Associated Press reports that women firefighters still face significant barriers and discrimination, most notably in New York.
...Of roughly 296,000 professional firefighters [nationally], about 6,500, less than 2.5 percent, are women. That's up from zero as of 1972, but "nowhere near the point where you lose your token status," said Terese Floren, director of the Madison, Wis.-based Women in the Fire Service.
Firefighting forces are more than 10 percent female in several big cities; two of them, San Francisco and Minneapolis, also have women as fire chiefs.
The Seattle Fire Department has 91 female firefighters, a little over 9 percent of the force, said Helen Fitzpatrick, a spokeswoman for the department.
But in Boston and Philadelphia, barely 1 percent of the firefighters are female; New York has only 29 women out of more than 11,000 firefighters, less than 0.3 percent.
...No major fire department embodies a new approach to gender more than San Francisco's, where 230 of the 1,700 firefighters are women, and the chief is Joanne Hayes-White, 41.
The article focuses on one woman's experience in several NY firehouses, and addresses specific cases of harassment and discrimination across the country.
In case you're interested...
Legal Momentum, a legal rights organization for women, does great work on nontraditional employment for women. In addition to taking on discrimination cases, the organization has also negotiated collaborations with sports clubs for free physical training for women firefighter candidates, worked for increased recruitment and retention of women firefighters in NY, and produced an award winning documentary on the previously unnoticed efforts of women on September 11, The Women of Ground Zero.
Make sure to check out Katha Pollitt's Stiffed, which takes on Viagra, Medicare, contraception and the sexual double standard.
My fave part:
And what about sex aids for women? Where's that female Viagra they're always promising us? Most newspapers didn't even report that in December an FDA panel turned down Procter & Gamble's application for Intrinsa, a testosterone patch intended to raise libido in women whose ovaries have been removed. The problem wasn't that Intrinsa didn't work (the panel voted 14 to 3 that the manufacturers' trials showed a meaningful improvement in desire and pleasure); the issue was health risks as well as the potential for "off-label use" by women who had simply lost their mojo. A "lifestyle drug" for women! Can't have that. Men, of course, have been known to use Viagra recreationally, and Viagra, moreover, is not without risk: It has been associated with fatal heart attacks and eye damage. Here's what gets me, though: FDA panelist Dr. David Hager voted against Intrinsa. Yes, that David Hager--the right-wing Christian Ob-Gyn accused of persistent marital rape by his former wife and now under scrutiny for his secret role, first revealed in The Nation, in killing over-the-counter status for emergency contraception. Maybe there are enough questions about Intrinsa's safety to justify the turn-down--but letting Hager vote on female sex drugs is like letting the Taliban vote on women's hemlines.
Mexican President Vicente Fox accused the media on Monday of rehashing the story of a 12-year spate of women's murders on the U.S. border, minimizing a tragedy seen as among the nation's worst crime outrages.
His comments came just weeks after two girls, aged 7 and 10, were sexually assaulted and murdered this month in Ciudad Juarez, an industrial city across from El Paso, Texas, where more than 340 women and girls have been strangled, battered and stabbed to death since 1993, 17 of them this year.
"We must attend to the case of Juarez and we are, but it must also be seen in its proper dimension. These murder cases have been solved," Fox said, accusing the press of overplaying the story.
"We are offended by what has happened in Juarez, but nor is it right to be reheating the same 300 or 400 cases," he told reporters.
Women's groups say most of the murders are still unsolved and there are questions about how convictions were obtained in many of the cases that have been closed.
...The United Nations has called the Ciudad Juarez murders emblematic of rampant rights abuse and flawed justice in Mexico, and a U.N. panel accused Mexico of "grave and systematic violations" in its handling of the cases.
Last week, Amnesty International cited the killings and impunity in Ciudad Juarez as a sign of Fox's "betrayal" of human rights.
Um...is addressing hundreds of unsolved murders and calling out Fox on government inaction really "reheating" cases? Seems to me it's more shaming. And it looks like it's worked, at least a little:
On Monday, Fox's new attorney general called the Ciudad Juarez murders a top priority and announced that special prosecutor Maria Lopez, appointed last year to clean up botched local investigations, was being replaced.
Click here for more posts on the Juarez murders.
Concerns that Ann Veneman, new head of UNICEF and a former member of the Bush administration, would implement a more conservative policy on HIV/AIDS prevention, sexual health and condoms were quelled last week when she announced that policies would remain as they are.
"We're not going to change UNICEF's position," Veneman, a former U.S. Agriculture Secretary, told Reuters late on Thursday at a feeding centre in Malawi where the U.N. is feeding AIDS orphans and other vulnerable groups.
Veneman raised concern in January when she said she believed social issues such as reproductive health were "irrelevant" to UNICEF's mission, a remark some interpreted as signalling a change in UNICEF's drive to promote family planning.
Let's hope Veneman really doesn't change UNICEF's policies...I'm a tad wary of anyone who thinks reproductive health is "irrelevant."
Feministing will resume posting tomorrow.
A couple of weeks ago Microsoft failed to support an anti-discrimination measure in Washington State and caused the bill (which would protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination in work, housing, etc) to fail passage in the state legislature. But soon after Microsoft changed its decision because of all the pressure from employees and gay rights groups.
In Friday's message, Ballmer seemed to suggest that input from employees had helped persuade Microsoft officials to renew their backing of the measure. More than 1,500 employees had signed an internal petition demanding the company support the bill, and scores had written in protest to Ballmer and Gates.
A Microsoft executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that after Microsoft's turnaround on the bill was widely publicized and prompted an internal company uproar, a group of senior officials had met and decided to change the company's position because of the pressure from employees.
Sweet! Activism at Microsoft!
A few weeks ago due to some really good investigative journalism in Spokane, Washington, it was found that Spokane Mayor Jim West, known for his anti-gay rights conservatism, was found to be soliciting men on Gay.com.
The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports...
Spokane Mayor Jim West, who championed an anti-gay agenda during his tenure as one of the most powerful Republicans in the Legislature, yesterday admitted to using the trappings of his current office to entice what he thought was a young adult man but denied allegations that he molested two young boys more than 20 years ago.
West confirmed to The Spokesman-Review of Spokane that he offered gifts, favors and a City Hall internship during Internet chats with a man he believed was 18. The online pen pal was actually a forensic computer expert working for the newspaper. After the story hit the newsstands yesterday, West sent city staffers a remorseful e-mail.
"I want to sincerely apologize to you personally for the shame I have brought to the Mayor's office and the city," West wrote. "I stumbled and let you down."
The accusations of child molestation stem from The Spokesman-Review's three-year investigation and interviews with two felons who said West fondled them and forced them to perform sexual acts on him when they were Boy Scouts.
The accounts have not been confirmed or dismissed by law enforcement officials, and no investigations are planned.
Nonetheless, West's tacit acknowledgement of gay sex sent political shock waves across the state.
In more than 20 years in the Legislature, West had initiated legislation to outlaw sexual contact between consenting teenagers; supported a bill that would have barred gays and lesbians from working for schools, day care centers and some state agencies; voted to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman; and, as Senate majority leader, allowed a bill that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians to die in committee without a hearing.
SCANDAL! This happened at the beginning of the month, but the contraversy continues with West refusing to resign from his mayoral post. Talk about being in the closet. Now if only all the other anti-gay rights politicians would come out of the closet we could get somewhere already!
The Post-Taliban time of Afghanistan has been a confusing time for women. Although, the Taliban was known for its terrible treatment of women, it is still not clear what the condition for women is today and what role the international community plays in demanding the equitable rights of women.
A study done by Amnesty International found that women are still at serious risk in situations of abuse, abduction, etc.
Afghan women are in constant risk of abduction, rape and forced marriage and the government is doing little to address their plight, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report released 3 1/2 years after the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime.
A spokeswoman for the Afghan Women's Affairs Ministry, Nooria Haqnagar, acknowledged that abuse was still rife and said, "In some remote areas, men deal with women like animals."
Amnesty called on the government and the international community to do more to improve the lives of women.
"Throughout the country, few women are exempt from violence or safe from the threat of it," the London-based organization said in the report titled "Afghanistan: Women under attack."
It said women are traded like commodities to settle debts and disputes and that some women commit suicide to escape being forced into marriages they don't want.
"Afghanistan is in the process of reconstruction after many years of conflict, but hundreds of women and girls continue to suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands, fathers, brothers, armed individuals," the report said.
The manipulation of religion by government officials is still the main justification for the denial of women's rights in Afghanistan. There have been incidents of women being beaten and killed when in violation of Islamic codes. Some women have even been reported setting themselves on fire to escape abuse.
I am not feeling very optimistic about this. Is this what democracy looks like?
The Washington Post reports that President Bush vows to veto the compromise that key Republicans have created to prevent a showdown in Washington.
House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who has an antiabortion voting record, said he talked with Nancy Reagan about finding "some kind of middle ground." On Tuesday, he joined 49 other House Republicans to pass a bill that would repeal the limits Bush imposed when he announced the first federal funding for stem cell research in 2001.
"We very much want to be able to work with the president and see if there could be some kind of agreement," Dreier said. "I don't want the president to be in a position where he has to veto this. We want to lower the temperature and not be confrontational, so we can figure out a way for the research to go ahead."
Bush's response, "The Congress has made its position clear, and I've made my position clear," Bush said. "I will be vetoing the bill they send to me if it were to pass the United States Senate."
The White House did not embrace the search for a compromise. Spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush has drawn "a very bright line that taxpayer dollars should not be used to destroy life," and said it "would be difficult to blur that line" with a middle-ground proposal.
Using tax payer dollars to destroy life?! This shit has gone too far...Any thoughts?
Also, some more background info check out Jill's post at Feministe...
The Body Shop National Cell Phone Collection is collecting used cell phones to stop family violence. Donated phones will be sold, refurbished, or recycled, with proceeds benefiting the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Wireless Foundation.
You can drop off your old phones at any of The Body Shop stores through August 31, 2005. Even better? Click here to learn how to start your own collection.
A federal hate crimes bill with explicit protections against crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation was introduced in the House of Representatives yesterday.
Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign exclaimed that, "We’re proud that for the first time legislation was introduced that explicitly covers the entire gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, and the community will have an unambiguous shot at equal protection under hate crimes law."
While the bill is not expected to the pass, it's notable that (given our scary political climate) it made it through the door at all.
Kudos to -- Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) for introducing the bill.
So there is good news & bad news...
The good news -- The CDC announced this week that smoking among women in the U.S. has dropped below one in five for the first time in nearly 30 years. Also notable -- last year, the number of people who quit smoking was greater than the number of those who still smoked (only the second time in history that has happened). Nice.
And the bad -- A preliminary study, by the European medical journal Human Reproduction, found that among women seeking fertility treatment, there was no difference in the pregnancy rate between smokers and nonsmokers who lived with a smoker, but that both groups of women had less than half the success rate of nonsmokers who were not exposed to smoke at home.
Republicans don't favor comprehensive sex ed for high school students, but apparently it's a-OK by the time you're a Capitol Hill staffer. That must be why Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma sponsored a "Star Wars"-themed STD slide show yesterday for young Congressional aides.
At the event, Coburn hypocritically advised staffers to use condoms. He has long been an anti-condom crusader.
Coburn's STD presentation even contained a special message for the ladies. Apparently, it's up to us alone to stop the spread of STDs:
"What would happen in this country if the young women would say no [to sex] until they're 20?" [Coburn] asked. "Disease would go down, the pregnancy rate for unwed mothers would go down, the social costs for the next two generations would go down."
What else can we learn from Coburn? The death penalty should be applied to abortion providers. Women with breast implants are healthier. And "rampant lesbianism" is ruining Oklahoma high schools. Plus, it's a good idea to serve pizza to accompany a graphic STD slide show. Ewwww.
A recent study by Boston University Medical College researchers found that women who take oral contraception may suffer a *permanent* loss of sex drive.
While researchers knew that oral contraceptives lower levels of testosterone (and therefore sex drive), and increase levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), scientists had previously believed that levels of SHBG would decline when women quit taking the pill. However, the new study found that levels of SHBG remained elevated. Dr. Claudia Panzer explained that: "You would expect levels to drop back to normal after about six weeks, but the worry is that these women will always have more. That means they will have very low testosterone, which has huge implications for their sexual function." Whoa.
However, in her interview with the Guardian, Dr. Mayur Lakhani, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, remarked that: "I am unconvinced by this study; there is no cause for alarm...I want to reassure women about the safety and efficacy of the contraceptive pill and to stress that there's no need to stop taking the pill as a result of this study. Loss of libido is a recognised side effect but in the experience of GPs and practice nurses this is uncommon among most women." Hmmm...
Regardless, the findings may be worth a chat with your gynocologist on your next visit.
Yesterday the Alabama House passed the Domestic Violence Victims Empowerment Act. Sounds nice, right?
Not so quick -- the purpose of the bill is to make it easier for DV victims to arm themselves. The AP reports that the bills allows protective orders to be among the evidence a sheriff can consider when determining whether to issue a 90-day permit to carry a concealed weapon.
When asked about bill, Rep. Ronnie Sutton, chairman of the judiciary committee, explained that: "Obviously, it doesn't do very much. But technically, it does two things. It makes a bunch of people feel more secure, and it seriously runs the risk of getting somebody killed." Ummmm, what?
In fact, before the House approved the bill, there was much discussion of various scenarios under which a domestic violence victim might kill the abuser *or* the abuser might take the victim's gun and kill her. (sigh). Are we really supposed to believe this is a legislative solution?
This study found that "heavy set" women face more job discrimination. DUH! How about life discrimination? But reals,
Reuters reports..
"Body mass significantly decreases women's family income," the study by two researchers at New York University found. "However ... men experience no negative effects of body mass on economic outcomes."
I know this is not very suprising, but how do we begin to have a discourse about this EXTREMELY pervasive and dangerous phenomenon. Fat discrimination is still one of those things that people do consciously and it is considered okay (you've heard it, it is just not healthy blah blah blah, at least when you are a woman, if you are a man you are just a big guy!)
Some other findings...
--a 1 percent increase in a woman's body mass index -- a measure of weight relative to height -- pushes family income down by about 0.6 percent.
--a woman's "occupational prestige," a measure of the social status of differing jobs, also dropped as body mass rose, although to a somewhat lesser degree: 0.4 percent for each 1 percent increase in body mass
The study also found that women who are "heavy" for their height have a lesser chance of getting married and a higher chance of getting divorced. Yeah, maybe cause they are busy LIVING THEIR LIFE!!! But these statistics aren't suprising, the demon culture of diet and beauty does not stop short of the corporate world or the dream of heteronormative union.
Finally, the researcher found that body mass does not effect men in work or in marriage and divorce. Of course not, it is a woman that is judged not by her ability to do a job, but by her height to weight ratio.
And what in the world could this Florida mom possibly be charged with? Evidence tampering and child neglect. Un-fucking-believable.
The girl's 40-year-old stepfather was charged Friday with familial sexual battery. The 33-year-old mother also was arrested. Both are free on $5,000 bond. The girl [17-years-old] and her sister have been placed in state custody.
Palm Beach County sheriff's detectives wanted to perform a paternity test on the fetus as part of the investigation, but they say the mother took her daughter to a Broward County clinic for an abortion without notifying them.
They were both arrested and freed on the same bond?! So I guess helping your daughter receive a legal abortion is the criminal equivalent of rape. Lovely.
And am I really supposed to care about the state's interest in their investigation over what this girl wants for herself?
Who is the real criminal here: A mom helping her rape-victim daughter to get an abortion or the police possibly forcing a 17-year-old to have her stepfather's child simply because they need evidence.
Reuters reports that British women plan to make the world's longest chain of bras on the island of Cyprus to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer:
Organisers said they will need at least 90,000 bras and about 10 months to build the chain that they hope will put them in the Guinness Book of World Records. The previous record was a 79,000-long bra chain in Singapore.
Talk about original organizing! Though I would feel kind of bad sending in my nasty-ass old bras for the world to see. Gross.
Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill Wednesday that requires physicians to tell parents when a minor daughter seeks an abortion.
Bush signed a similar bill into law in 1999 but the courts blocked it, finding it violated the privacy provision in the Florida Constitution.
OK, not too shocking right? Consent laws are the hot abortion topic lately. But here's the part that really got me:
The law, which takes effect July 1, applies to girls 17 and younger who aren't married and don't already have children. Unless it's a medical emergency, doctors are required to notify a parent in person or by phone 48 hours before the abortion or, if that's not possible, by certified mail 72 hours in advance.
So if I'm married I don't need to go to my parents for permission, but if I'm single I do? I'm surprised there's not a husband-notification clause for the married teens.
And you have to love the fact that the notification law doesn't apply to girls who already have children. What--we've done our reproductive duty so now we can make decisions for ourselves?
Disgusting.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to preserve women's right to serve in combat positions, but deny them the right to get an abortion on a military base.
The House passed the 2006 defense authorization bill without an amendment that would have repealed the current ban on abortions at overseas military clinics. It also rejected an amendment that would have restricted the number of combat positions open to women.
The military base abortion ban was instituted by President Reagan in 1988, lifted by President Clinton in 1993 and reinstated by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1996. It prevents military hospitals from performing any abortions except in situations of rape, incest or to save the woman's life. (Under no circumstances does the military cover the cost of the procedure.)
The message is pretty clear: We can trust you to defend our country the front lines, but we can't trust you to make choices about your own body.
This weekend, while you're bbq-ing and drinking some beers, check out the Indy 500. I know, I know. That seems like an odd request for a bunch of young feminists. But this year, possibly for the first time in its almost 100 year history, a woman has a chance of winning. Her name is Danica Patrick.
Danica Patrick is no novelty driver. Though she's only the third woman to qualify for the Indianapolis field, she's the first woman to earn an IndyCar drive with a topflight team like Rahal Letterman Racing. Basically, this means she might actually win, which would be huge for a sport and a culture that isn't particularly feminist-friendly.
For a whole piece on the history of women in race car driving, and the sexism that pervades the sport, check out espn.com.
Erica Jong tears into First Lady Laura Bush and her Middle East visit at The Huffington Post. It's pretty scathing on its own, so I don't feel the need to add on:
Now that Laura Bush is back from the Middle East and can take off her black scarf, it's time to ask why she is promoting freedom for women in the Middle East when the rights of American women are being systemically eroded by her husband's initiatives. Is it the same reason why her husband promotes democracy abroad while the Patriot Act and the suspension of the Geneva Convention dilute democracy at home? Is wearing the headscarf the last refuge of a desperate housewife? Of course women in the Middle East need the vote, an end to domestic violence and free access to contraception. But so do we. Odd that it is always easier to proselytize for feminism abroad while ignoring deteriorating womens' rights at home.
Read the rest here.
A 69-37 vote by the Michigan House yesterday may require medical clinics to offer women seeking abortion an ultrasound of the fetus, reports the Detroit Free Press. While Michigan has a history of pushing extreme anti-choice laws, this is their favorite as of late.
"Women will be given the opportunity to see the miracle of life through the miracle of today's technology to truly make an informed choice," Rep. Dave Robertson said in a news release. An “opportunity.” Is that what they’re calling it now? I call it a shitty way to try to influence already-informed women.
Shelli Weisberg, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, says the bill is just another obstacle for women seeking an abortion. “It puts the lawmakers in the position of making medical decisions for women, which should be between a woman and her doctor.”
The bill, which is set to go to the Senate, has been offered as an extension of Michigan’s informed consent law, which requires a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion.
Break out the champagne, ladies—the men-folk have solved our problems!
Right on the heels of John Tierney's profound article on What Women Want (apparently not to compete with big, bad men), Matt Miller solves women's work/life dilemmas by listening to his wife.
Both men seem to have the same answer for a problem that women apparently haven't been able to solve—just change the structure of the workplace. Wow, we never thought of that!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m appreciative of the interest and coverage on the issue. But both articles smack a little too hard of condescension for my taste.
Pandagon’s responses to Tierney’s What Women Want say it all, so I’m not going there.
While Miller's piece is a much-needed call to men, like many pieces on women and work it ignores the fact that the majority of American women don’t have a choice. Working is not an option. And of course—again, like most coverage on this issue—he includes a one sentence class disclaimer: In a world where most people are struggling, the search for "balance" in high-powered jobs has to be counted a luxury.
Miller then ignores his own admission to basically shit on anyone who isn’t the upper class:
Still, there is something telling (if not downright dysfunctional) when a society's most talented people feel they have to sacrifice the meaningful relationships every human craves as the price of exercising their talent.
Nowhere is there a greater gulf between the frustration people feel over a dilemma central to their lives and their equally powerful sense that there's nothing to be done. As a result, talented people throw up their hands. Women are "opting out" after deciding that professional success isn't worth the price. Ambitious folks of both sexes "do what they have to," sure there is no other way. That's just life.
My unreasonable wife rejects this choice. If the most interesting and powerful jobs are too consuming, Jody says, then why don't we re-engineer these jobs - and the firms and the culture that sustain them - to make possible the blend of love and work that everyone knows is the true gauge of "success"? As scholars have asked, why should we be the only elites in human history that don't set things up to get what we want?
I’m pretty damn sure the elites are—and have been—setting things up the way they want. That’s why we’re in this mess where women are paying up to half of their salary for child care.
…In a globalizing world, many senior jobs are already impossibly big. If they need to be restructured anyway (we're working on how), why not do so in ways that give folks the option to have a life? Skeptics should recall that everyone once "knew" that a weekend or a minimum wage would spell economic ruin, too.
It's time workaholic males took up this cause, because top jobs will never change unless we do.
Naturally I’m all for structural change at the top, but shouldn’t our priority be reworking things for women who have no choices?
...and have made my job a lot easier this morning:
Amanda at Pandagon tells John Tierney what women really want.
LiberalOasis on the filibuster deal. He's not loving it.
Tennessee Guerilla Women give an update on the spousal rape bill.
Jill at Feministe takes on the stem cell bill and Bush's bullshit.
Yesterday's Morning Edition on NPR covered the "controversy" over American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino's song, Baby Mama.
Critics say that the song promotes teen sex and--gasp!--portrays being a single mom as a good thing. The horror!
It's about time we had our own song
Don't know what took so long
Cause nowadays it's like a badge of honor
To be a baby mama
I see ya payin' ya bills
I see ya workin' ya job
I see ya goin' to school
And girl I know it's hard
And even though ya fed up
With makin' beds up
Girl, keep ya head up
Yeah, what a terrible message to send single moms! I guess young women should be shamed no matter what choice they make about children.
NPR also has links to related articles and audio to the song.
Last month, a striking photo of a 25-year-old soldier named Dawn Halfaker appeared on the front page of USA TODAY. Lt. Halfaker was wearing an Army T-shirt and was missing her right arm, the result of a rocket-propelled grenade slamming into her armored Humvee in Iraq.
Reaction to the photo was muted. No campaigns to pull women out of combat zones. Just supportive letters noting the sacrifice made by Halfaker and other women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, some members of Congress seem determined to "protect" Halfaker and other women in the military. The lawmakers are challenging Army policies that have placed thousands of women in war zones where front and rear lines are murky.
...As Halfaker matter-of-factly told USA TODAY reporter Dave Moniz: "Women in combat is not really an issue. It is happening."
Read the whole article...
The Independent Women's Forum (those gals we love to hate) is holding a gala dinner tonight in honor of Secretary of Labor, Elaine L. Chao, recipient of the organization's Woman of Valor Award.
Now I'm not so familiar with Chao's career, but I do know what's happened under her watch.
As of July 2005, the Department of Labor will no longer be reporting on women workers. Valor-iffic!
Considering the award comes from an organization that argues the wage gap doesn't exist, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
The National reports that young women are regularly being traded by their families and tribes for guns:
While no figures were given out, [Western Highlands Rural Zones Commander Inspector Billy Kombel] said authorities know these things are happening in many areas of the province where tribal fights have gone on for years.
It was also made known to police that when warring tribes find that there is no money or pigs to pay “mercenaries” which they hire to help them fight, they give away their young girls.
Out of fear of reprisal, or of being seen as outcast, their mothers and other immediate relatives keep quiet about it.
The Young Women of the YWCA of PNG have come out against this recent news, demanding that the Ministers for Justice and Internal Security launch an immediate investigation.
The Young Women’s Desk Coordinator, Okera Amini, said trading young girls for guns is a violation of girls' rights and dignity: "Such actions contribute to an increase in violence in all forms against women and girls, and those responsible should be dealt with accordingly...It’s alarming to note that this trend is happening in various parts of the province with girls and mothers living in constant fear of threats."
Note: YWCA of PNG website unavailable; information via emailed press release. Contact me if you want more info.
The lovely Bill O'Reilly has a great suggestion of how Harvard can use the $50 million they pledged to recruit more women: buy them shoes.
"Any woman who signs on to work at Harvard gets 100 pair of shoes...to make it even more enticing, they're gonna give women shoes, because all women want shoes."
How right he is. I would so prefer a nice pair of heels over equality in academia.
Just in case you had any doubts that the men in your life own your vagina.
Forget-me-not panties, being marketed to men, have a tracking device planted in women's underwear that also monitors heart rate and body temperature:
These "panties" can trace the exact location of your woman and send the information, via satellite, to your cell phone, PDA, and PC simultaneously! Use our patented mapping system, pantyMap®, to find the exact location of your loved one 24 hours a day.
The technology is embedded into a piece of fabric so seamlessly she will never know it's there!
Cause if she did know, she'd get a fucking restraining order!
But the forget-me-not-or-I'll-fucking-kill-you panties don't just help crazy stalking boyfriends and husbands. Concerned (obsessed) fathers can also benefit from these privacy-invading undies.
Check out this testimonial from Daddy David:
When my daughter hit puberty I nearly had a heart attack. She started looking like a woman and suddenly she was wearing revealing clothing and staying out late with her friends.
Rather than become an over-protective parent, I decided to try forget-me-not panties™.
They work wonderfully. My wife and I bought our Sarah several pairs so we can watch her around the clock, and if we see her temperature rising too high, we intervene by calling her cellphone or just picking her up wherever she is. My only comment is it would be great to have a video camera...
Eww. Eww. Nothing quite like dear old dad monitoring the temperature of your vagina. I'm sorry, but this is so creepy-incestuous.
How is this legal?
Reuters reports that Canada is set to fund a $5 million study on the high rape and murder rates of aboriginal women in the nation.
The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), the organization who will do the study, says that more than 500 aboriginal women have disappeared or been killed in the last 20 years. Executive Director Sherry Lewis says "Young women leave the community and are never heard from again."
To learn more, check out the NWAC's Sisters in Spirit campaign.
For more information on aboriginal women in Canada and their progress over the last decade, you can also look to WEDO's publication Beijing Betrayed. (pages 149-154 in the Europe and North America chapter)
You’re going to love this. Really.
Early starts, late nights and endless meetings may be good for the bank balance, but professional women beware. You could be making your husband sick.
Research will this week say that the more committed and successful a woman is at work, the worse her partner feels. The findings blame a syndrome called "unfulfilled husband hypothesis" for making men feel inadequate when women stray too far beyond their traditional roles. The man of the house, it seems, is still not cut out for domesticity.
...Men's physical and mental health is "significantly poorer when their wives work full-time", say the authors of the study.
The report also contends that men are healthier when they earn more than their wives. Wow.
Is men's health so fragile that it's dependent on feeling superior to women? If that is the case, it seems to me that the problem isn't that women work, but that men are massively insecure. Not to mention, I don't know that feeling inadequate counts as a serious health problem.
Thanks to Kris for the link.
Salon has a horrifying article about the inhumane treatment of pregnant prisoners in California. Just a couple of examples:
Anna (not her real name), a prisoner at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, Calif., spent the last two weeks of her pregnancy in preterm labor, shackled to a hospital bed....
...California and at least 20 other states permit the chaining of laboring women to hospital beds, even when their attending physicians would prefer that they get up and walk around, or just shift from side to side. She also told me that women who return to prison from the hospital days after having Caesarean sections are routinely denied pain medication and even antibiotics.
...Take Judith (also not her real name), another Valley State prisoner, incarcerated on a probation violation for saying "Fuck you" to a case worker in a drug treatment program. Desperate to get into California's Community Prisoner Mother Program, where children can stay with their mothers for up to six years in a residential facility, she was informed that she would first have to have an oral exam to prove that she had no dental problems, not even a cavity...In a cruel paradox, dental care is not provided to applicants to the program, other than extractions. No fillings, no cleanings. Nothing. Judith had myriad dental problems. According to [Karen] Shain [of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children], in order to be with her baby she had to have 15 teeth removed. She had no other choice.
Shain says this kind of treatment is not unusual. In fact, it's routine. That's right. Being shackled to a bed and having 15 teeth removed is routine.
Author Ayelet Waldman points out that most women in prison are not violent offenders--Anna for example, was serving a short sentence for drug possession and probation violation. But no matter what the violation, this shit is just obscene.
And sorry, but where is this reverence for the fetus now? Unnecessary shackling and tooth-pulling doesn't exactly scream "culture of life."
The Supreme Court agreed today to hear New Hampshire's appeal of two lower court decisions that struck down the state's law restricting young women's access to abortion:
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 2003 law was unconstitutional because it didn't provide an exception to protect the minor's health in the event of a medical emergency.
...In their appeal, New Hampshire officials argued that the abortion law need not have an "explicit health exception" because other state provisions call for exceptions when the mother's health is at risk. They also asked justices to clarify the legal standard that is applied when reviewing the constitutionality of abortion laws.
The New Hampshire law required that a parent or guardian be notified if an abortion was to be done on a woman under 18. The notification had to be made in person or by certified mail 48 hours before the pregnancy was terminated.
...Abortion laws are "entirely different than parental involvement laws, which obviously do not purport to ban abortions, but simply seek to promote the interests of minors in having the benefit of parental involvement," New Hampshire legislators wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.
Oh yeah, this isn't about restricting abortion at all. We're just...you know...looking out for the kids and stuff. You have to be fucking kidding me. If this is really about the "interests of minors," then why isn't there a health exception?
Bullying teenage girls is just an easy way to erode reproductive rights.
FYI: This will be the Supreme Court's first consideration of a minors' abortion law since the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision in 1992, in which Pennsylvania's one-parent consent law was upheld.