July 2005 Archives
Feministing won’t be posting today because our very own amazing feminista Lauryn is getting married!
We all wish her and her partner Brendan a wonderful day and a lifetime of happiness.
We also thank her for the free booze.
Stay tuned for pics of the big day...
Check out The Village Voice's article on the annual sex toy convention, Adult Novelty Expo (ANE), where companies get to show off their new products.
The author was apparently on vacation with her man and ended up at the convention, where she found quite a bit of new and creative stuff to buy (and write about).
Check it out for an update on the newest toys in the industry, it's quite enlightening.
Iowa and Mississippi are the worst states for women in politics, the Associated Press reports. Neither state has ever had a female governor or elected a woman to Congress.
As an Iowan, I'm so ashamed! Not only is the state bad when it comes to national politics, but state offices aren't much friendlier to women. Since 1920, when women gained the right to vote, only 11 women have won statewide election in Iowa.
So why the dearth of women politicians in Iowa? A few possible generalizations/explanations offered in the article:
1. Iowa voters are old. Older voters don't like voting for women.
2. Iowa voters are farmers. Farmers don't like voting for women.
3. Iowans like re-electing the same politicians, over and over. Most of those politicians aren't women.
Iowa's farming history "is a deeply ingrained societal view of the culture and the view of women," said Bonnie Campbell, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 1994. When she tracked her polling as that election played out, Campbell found that Iowans just couldn't see her or another woman as their state's leader.
Something still doesn't add up. As Campbell (who, by the way, was the first director of the Dept. of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women) noted, Florida has an older population yet little hesitation sending women to Congress. Nebraska and Kansas are rural, too, but have had female governors.
"There have been women elected in far more conservative states than Iowa," Campbell said. "It is a bit of a perplexing question."
Now this is some serious contraception. A new product that’s been in the works for a while now could be a revolutionary way for women to protect themselves. Dibs!
It’s called microbicides, and it comes in the form of a cream or gel that’s inserted into the vagina before intercourse. It protects against pregnancy and STIs, including HIV. It actually mimics women’s natural lubricant as well, so would be preferable to a condom for many.
There’s 14 different versions of microbicides in the works, and 5 of those have been deemed safe enough to begin testing. One of these versions are expected to hit the market within the next three years.
If proven safe and effective, this could possibly mean millions of lives saved, especially (and obviously) considering the AIDS pandemic.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Today, the the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that they will approve the breast silicone implant manufacturer, Mentor Corporation, to market their product as long as they met some specific conditions sent in a letter to the company.
This is all despite the fact that most experts say that the implants are extremely dangerous and the agency has no way to meet their conditions. Looks like the FDA and Bush-appointed commissioner, Lester Crawford, have their priorities in order.
It's also merely two years after two former Mentor employees swore that the company had made defective implants that were prone to rupture and hid the information from customers and federal regulators. Awesome.
So while Lester and his gang have dilly-dallied for way too long on their decision to approve over-the-counter emergency contraception (which now has a Sept. 1 deadline), they’re sending love letters of encouragement to approve these seriously dangerous implants. Fuck reproductive health, these ladies gots to have their defective boobs!
Condi is number one. That should say it all.
Not quite sure how this makes sense…
A women-only gym in the national capital has banned mothers from breastfeeding their newborn babies.
Club Pink, in Canberra's north, could find itself dragged before the courts after it told two members to stop feeding their hungry babies in the gym.
The mothers - Melinda MacDonald and Kathleen Notley - have held meetings with the club's managers, written to the club and provided them with relevant sections in the ACT's Discrimination Act outlining their case.
But the women were informed by management the no-children, members-only policy of the club stands and they could not bring their newborn babies to the gym.
Guess if you have kids, you just can’t work out.
Check out this article in the Charlotte Observer on the Philadelphia Eagles’ new “soft-porn” calendar of their cheerleaders with not much else on but their pompons. While the team has a long record of do-gooding, this new calendar has caught the team more attention than ever:
Coverage of the release of this calendar - cheerleaders cooing to radio talk-show hosts, lascivious TV segments, newspaper stories about the cover model - has outstripped (pardon the pun) coverage of all the positive things the Eagles do for the Philadelphia region.
Last year, the Eagles planted $100,000 worth of trees around Philadelphia public schools, because more trees mean cleaner air. There was barely a ripple in the local media.
Last season's breast-cancer-awareness campaign speaks for itself. If you saw the pink Eagles hats and shirts, you know how effective it was.
The point is, this calendar stands in stark contrast to everything else the franchise seems to represent. The message it sends undermines the more important things the team accomplishes - both on the field and off.
Should we be surprised? Sigh.
The LA Times just published an interesting article by Crispin Sartwell, entitled "I Married a Feminist."
The author, a male political science professor at Dickinson College, looks at the different tenets of feminism, his own marriage to a pro-choice feminist, and relates it to the current buzz about Jane Sullivan Roberts' views on abortion. In the end he suggests that, regardless of Ms. Roberts' anti-choice leanings, she should still be considered a feminist. (After all, he argues, she's a lawyer that clearly believes in equality in the workplace.) Yet his wife disagrees with him. He quotes her as saying, "I don't think you can be a feminist and try to force women to have babies they don't want."
Is this true? We spend so much of our time promoting diversity in feminism and we know it's both beneficial and necessary to the movement. Does this mean we must accept a diversity that includes anti-choice women?
Read the article and let us know what you think.
Is the Roberts nomination more than just a shitty choice? Is it a betrayal?
Ruben Navarrette Jr. at the San Diego Union-Tribune says that women and minorities have the right to feel “sucker-punched” by Roberts’ nomination:
Not because President Bush, in selecting a replacement for the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, didn't nominate a woman or a minority, but because of the giddy response to the nomination by conservatives and some members of the media. People are acting as if, after years of trying to diversify once all-white and all-male institutions, the Holy Grail of meritocracy has been restored.
It used to be that we waited until a Supreme Court nominee faced off with senators before discussing his or her views on affirmative action. Now, it's the physical characteristics of the nominee that prompt us to discuss our own view of affirmative action.
New York Times columnist David Brooks commended Bush for moving beyond the "tokenism of identity politics." In an op-ed article for the Los Angeles Times, a contributor insisted Bush sent women and minorities a message by nominating a "garden-variety" white male: There are no set-asides on the high court. And a caller to "The Rush Limbaugh Show" gushed that what he liked most about the Roberts nomination was that Bush withstood the pressure -- even from his own wife, Laura, who said she hoped he would choose a woman -- and he had just picked "the most qualified person he could find." I'm hearing that line over and over again from pundits and television commentators.
This whole line of thinking is offensive...
I tend to agree. The collective sigh of relief from far right organizations over the nomination did seem to be followed by a scary enthusiasm that had nothing to with Roberts’ record.
Navarrette goes on about the nomination being nothing less than a betrayal, noting that women and minorities “still have to put up with the fact that the next time they work their way into a plum assignment or achieve some great personal goal, it might just be chalked up to affirmative action or tokenism or identity politics.”
Any thoughts?
Pakistan's Election Commission says that anyone trying to stop women from participating in local government elections could face up to three years in jail.
Nice!
Women's eNews recently reported a new trend in Czech health care: the forced sterilization of Roma women.
The Roma population, an oft-persecuted minority group in the Czech Republic and elsewhere, has always endured intense discrimination. But this is nuts. Turns out, at least 70 Roma women in the Czech Republic have come forward claiming they were sterilized -- without their consent -- while receiving OB/GYN care at state-run hospitals. The objective of these procedures, they claim, was an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
According to Women's eNews, the Czech health ministry has now introduced legislation that would more tightly regulate all medical consent procedures as well as restricting sterilization. The bill is still in its early stages and not yet approved by the Cabinet.
To learn more about discrimination against Romas, click here.
As you may know, Space Shuttle Discovery is commanded by a woman--Eileen M. Collins. She is one of 40 women to have ever made the journey into space. NPR has a great timeline of women in space; so check out the women who reached for the stars. (Cliché enough for you? Yeah, I was holding that one in for a while.)
Pic: Valentina Tereshkova; the first woman in space.
Cathy Young at The Boston Globe talks about "Ending bias in domestic assault law.” And what bias is that? Oh, you know--the “radical feminist” agenda of stopping violence against women.
Apparently it’s the “women” part that irks Young:
But underneath its mainstream trappings, the 1994 bill was steeped in a radical feminism of the "men bad, women good" variety -- an ideology which regards domestic abuse and rape as part of a collective male war against women. Ironically, the law's political success was partly due to the fact this kind of feminism dovetails easily with a traditional, putting-women-on-a-pedestal paternalism.
Unfortunately, it also helped enshrine a dogmatic and one-sided approach to family violence. For one, while the legislation is ostensibly gender-neutral, its very title reflects the notion that partner abuse is a “women's issue”...
Oh...fucking...please. I love the idea that merely pointing out that partner violence overwhelmingly affects women is “radical.” Not to mention, VAWA is about partner violence and sexual assault, a fact that Young conveniently omits. Read the whole thing, Young really fancies herself an expert on feminism.
Forget expensive presents or costly jewellery. Wining and dining is the best way for men to woo women, scientists said on Tuesday.
Researchers at Imperial College London developed a mathematical formula and modelled courtship as a sequential game to find the best way to impress the ladies.
Their results show that offering an expensive present signals the man's serious intentions but he must be wary of being exploited by gold-diggers who will dump him after receiving the gift.
"Guys are less likely to offer expensive gifts to females they don't have a long-term interest in. And girls won't be impressed with cheap gifts. By offering expensive but worthless gifts, such as dinner and theatre trips, the male pays no cost if the invitation isn't accepted," said Dr Peter Sozou, of University College London (UCL).
Is ‘gold-diggers’ a scientific term? And something tells me that scientists who use a mathematical formula and “a sequential game” to find out how to impress women probably aren’t the best people for relationship advice.
How the hell do people get money for this shit?
Amanda points to Hugo’s great post on one’s “number” and the sexual double standard. Go read both posts immediately. I’m especially keen on Hugo’s discussion of homosociality (the idea that men are more concerned with other males’ approval than of women’s).
My first experience with the sexual double standard came after a “we’re on a break” hiatus with a high school boyfriend. Though both of us had seen other people during the break, I was the big slut. The explanation was predictable (though bizarre): men are meant to be polygamous, and women need to remain monogamous in order to curb STD rates. I know, weird stuff.
Since then, the sexual double standard has continued to be one of the most infuriating aspects of sexism for me. I’ve seen otherwise great male friends turn away from potential girlfriends because of their number of sexual partners; I’ve had feminist friends upon hearing my own number tell me I must must must keep it a secret from a current boyfriend. What’s strangest to me is that people will admit the flawed logic behind all this, yet still adhere to the rules of the game. Don’t tell your number, or if you do--shave a couple of partners off the list.
No matter where the double standard comes from, or whatever male (or female) sexual anxiety it feeds off of, I think it’s necessary to address it head on. If we keep dancing around the issue, making excuses for not telling our number, aren’t we implicitly saying that it’s a shameful thing?
Though I must say, Hugo makes a very good point in his argument for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy:
A true lover can say, "Before there was an 'us', there was a 'you' and a 'me', and I will never use what you did in the past against you. I honor your right to have lived the life you chose to live before we were together, and I ask that you honor my right to my past as well."
Personally, I will always tell my partner my ‘number’. Their reaction is a tremendous indicator of their character and how they really feel about women. But this is just me. Any thoughts?
A little too much jiggle in your jogging? Salon recommends the Last Resort Bra:
I ordered the bra while my class was at lunch, wincing at the $60 price tag. When it arrived the following week I grew nervous: it fastens up the front, with a hook-and-eye closure? It's made of what, satin? And, good God: There's no underwire!
The proof, however, was in the plodding. I went out for a slow test-jog along the lake. After two miles I was out of breath, had aching knees, and a stitch in my side, but I could have cried for joy: My breasts had stayed put, in perfect comfort, without sacrificing lung capacity. I went home and plunked down another $75 to register for the Chicago Marathon, my first. I've run four more since then, and dozens of shorter races.
A well-endowed friend of mine actually told me about this bra several months ago; she swears by it.
Though I must admit, the bra’s description sounds a bit terrifying:
If you've tried every bra out there and still bounce, try this one. Our first-ever 5-barbell rated bra ain't pretty, but our testers say it completely eliminates bounce. Literally, you won't move, and that's a beautiful thing.
Any sporty gals out there have other recommendations?
While the Bush Administration argues for ‘culture of life’ that protects fetuses, America’s children go uncared for.
The United States is one of two industrialized countries (the other being Australia) that doesn’t provide paid leave for new mothers:
In Santa Fe, Linda Strauss McIlroy, a first-time mother, is trying to get used to the thought of soon putting her two-month-old boy in day care so she can get back to work.
"It's hard for me to imagine leaving him," she says. "Just not being with him all day, leaving him with a virtual stranger. And then that's it till, you know, I retire. It's kind of crazy to think about it."
Across the border in Vancouver, Canada, Suzanne Dobson is back at work after 14 months of paid maternity leave.
"It was great," she says. "I was still making pretty good money for being at home."
Across the ocean, in Sweden, Magnus Larsson is looking forward to splitting 16 months of parental leave at 80% pay with his girlfriend. They are expecting their first baby in a week.
Who has the real culture of life here?
And why does the U.S. have such a different take on child care? It’s feminists’ fault, of course!
Jane Waldfogel, also a professor at Columbia, says another part of the puzzle is that the European and American feminist movements had differing goals.
In Europe, feminists emphasized special treatment for mothers, including maternity leave and child care.
"The American feminist movement didn't want to hear anything about mothers," Waldfogel says. "They wanted equal rights for women and didn't emphasize special treatment."
Um, what? The second wave most certainly did fight for universal child care, so I don’t know where this Prof. is getting her info from.
If you want more information on maternity leave and child care, check out Legal Momentum’s Family Initiative and their new report, Early Childhood Education for All: A Wise Investment.
From the Associated Press:
A 22-year-old man faces criminal charges in Nebraska for having sex with an underage 13-year-old girl, although he legally married her in Kansas after she became pregnant.
The man's lawyer said the couple, with their families' support, “made a responsible decision to try to cope with the problem.”
Responsible decision? Yeah, these folks sound like family of the fucking year.
After the girl became pregnant, her mother gave permission for 22 year-old Matthew Koso to take her daughter to Kansas where minors can get married with parental consent. You still want EC unavailable to teens?
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning says that the marriage “is repugnant to me...These people made the decision to send their...daughter to Kansas to marry a pedophile."
Hey Phill Kline--where’s your outrage now, asshole? I guess so long as pregnant teens in your state get married instead of having abortions, statutory rape is all good.
And where is the young woman in all this? We’ve heard from her family, lawyers, and attorney generals in two states--but one voice is conspicuously absent.
While there have been a home-testing device created to make pap smears cheap and easy abroad in the fight against cervical cancer, doctors in the U.S. have been organizing to make some serious domestic changes, reports the Washington Post.
The fact of the matter is that 4,000 women in the U.S. will die from cervical cancer this year, although every death is preventable.
In response, a $25 million federal program is going into effect to have communities recruit “patient navigators,” or volunteers (a trusted member of the community who speak their patient’s language) who will push for pap tests and aid the diagnosed.
Dr. Stephen McPhee of the University of California put his two cents in:
“Cervical cancer shouldn’t be a cause of death anymore...Yet here we are in 2005 dealing with a problem that should have been fixed 25 years ago. It’s a bad reflection on the U.S. health-delivery system.”
McPhee started his own program in California working against cervical cancer among Vietnamese immigrants, who have the highest incidence of the disease in the nation.
A new report from the National Cancer Institute triggered this recent action against the disease. The report digs into the reasons behind why so many women are unnecessarily being diagnosed too late, which includes poverty, age, and cultural factors.
To download the report, click here.
New British research shows that men who do "women's work" get more respect than their female counterparts. Male nurses, teachers and child care providers say they're taken more seriously, have better relationships with their supervisors and are given more kudos than women.
Ruth Simpson, who carried out in-depth interviews with 30 men about their jobs, said: "Women are definitely losing the gender war in the caring professions. While the caring performed by a woman is often devalued as a 'natural' part of femininity, the emotional labour performed by men is often seen as an asset."
Men in these professions did encounter pockets of resistance from female colleagues, but were generally made welcome. Dr Simpson commented: "Women are more accepting of men moving into non-traditional jobs than men. Women in male-dominated jobs have to encounter a huge amount of sexism and barriers."
The research was culled from a pretty tiny sample, but I think it rings true. Women who make their living caring for children and the sick are seen as doing their nurturing duty. Men who do the same are heroes.
As an update to our Sunday post on the San Jose State Roman Catholic women who have been planning on being ordained as priests, we find that the nine have (unofficially) been ordained as priests and deacons aboard a tour boat near Ottawa, Canada.
While seven women other women who were previously ordained in 2002 were later excommunicated, these women have no intention of changing their minds.
“I believe it’s valid even if it’s against the law of the Church, because it is an unjust law,” said Germany’s Regina Nicolosi, who was ordained as a deacon.
There has been no response from the Vatican as of yet.
Sorry we’re so chock full of repro rights news today, but they just keep rolling in...
Vaginal administration of emergency contraception could be a better alternative for women than oral administration.
A new study in Fertility and Sterility shows that giving EC to women vaginally is just as effective in the reduction of hormone levels as taking the drug orally.
Now I don’t know how much I want to take any frigging drug vaginally; just popping a couple of pills seems like a more reasonable alternative. However, the study showed that taking EC this way could lead to lower levels of nausea or vomiting.
I took EC when I was 17 (lucky for me there were no assholes telling me I couldn’t), and the nausea was horrible. So I’m really glad to see that there is another option for women, even if it does include the phrase ‘vaginal administration’.
Peter Sutovsky, a researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia (my alma mater), is developing "the ultimate female contraceptive: a vaccine that would make sperm bounce off eggs like they were brick walls."
The vaccine would only require an annual booster shot, and would work by preventing sperm from "burrowing" into an egg. Though Sutovsky is researching immunization for women, other scientists have studied a similar vaccine for men.
Many are skeptical of the vaccination approach: Vaccines are tricky, said [Rajesh Naz, a West Virginia University reproductive immunologist]. Even well-established vaccines, like for measles or tetanus, have a failure rate. Individual immune systems can overreact or underreact. Another problem is getting enough antibodies, which usually patrol the bloodstream, in the mucous membranes where fertilization occurs.
The odds are long. But if Sutovsky is successful, the result will be another non-hormonal form of birth control. We could definitely use that.
Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado, took out a full page ad in a local paper yesterday denouncing Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue). The anti-choice group had protested against Hern in his neighborhood during a week-long convention they held in Denver recently.
The ad displays an Operation Save America flyer followed by Hern’s comments: “The purpose of the flyer is to cause hate and fear. Its purpose is to get someone to kill me.” The ad also calls the group a “fascist” organization.
The content of the Operation Save America flyer is unavailable, but from what I can gather, it was specifically targeting Hern and his clinic:
“It's bad enough that they harassed women in my clinic...But this group can't leave anyone alone. The flyer they passed out is a very personal attack...This is a terrorist operation. This means that they would stop at nothing. Who will be next? When they get through with the abortion doctors, Operation Save America has a long list of people that they hate.”
Hern called out this violent anti-choice group for what it really is, and for that he is my crush of the week.
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney vetoed a bill yesterday that would have expanded access to emergency contraception. Romney offered a predictably weak explanation for his veto, taking the opportunity to criticize Roe. He also said:
Because Massachusetts is decidedly prochoice, I have respected the state's democratically held view. I have not attempted to impose my own views on the prochoice majority.
What?! Thanks for the acknowledgment that prochoicers are the majority, but I'd say vetoing this bill was a pretty strong imposition of your views, Mitt. (More at BushvChoice.)
Meanwhile, the FDA recently announced it would decide by Sept. 1 as to whether EC can be sold over-the-counter. Consequently, the Senate approved Lester Crawford to head the FDA. Senators Clinton (NY) and Murray (WA) had placed a hold on Crawford's confirmation, in protest of the FDA's failure to decide the EC issue. When the Sept. 1 deadline was announced, the Senators allowed Crawford's approval as commissioner. Now we'll keep our fingers crossed for a yes vote. The experts are with us on this one.
PLUS, federal lawmakers are holding hearings on pharmacists' refusals to fill prescriptions for contraception. The hearings are in response to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's requirement that all pharmacies fill birth control prescriptions. Federal legislation that mirrors the Illinois bill is pending in both the House and Senate.
Ten women filed a lawsuit yesterday against Ortho Evra, the maker of the birth control patch. The suit claims that the patch causes strokes and blood clots--a claim recently supported by an Associated Press investigation.
The lawsuit -- filed in Hudson County, N.J., Superior Court -- alleges that the popular Ortho Evra birth control patch is "defectively designed" and "unreasonably dangerous."
The suit seeks punitive damages against pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (Research) and its subsidiary, Ortho McNeil, the patch's manufacturer.
Austin, Texas-based plaintiffs' attorney Amy Clark-Meachum said the clients listed in the suit include women ranging from 18 to 47 from Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio and Oklahoma. All have suffered debilitating long-term health problems, they claim, as a result of using the birth control patch.
Yikes. Does this make anyone nervous about hormonal birth control methods? I was a huge fan of my birth control pill, but recently went off for various reasons. I’ve been looking into natural methods (in addition to using condoms of course), but the word ‘natural’ makes me think of another word--pregnant. Though I do like the look of these cycle beads...
Any thoughts?
If you haven’t been perusing anti-feminist sites lately, you may not know that the ladies we love to hate at the Independent Women’s Forum have a blog. It’s been up for a quite a while...I think I chose to ignore it until Amanda’s always-smart posts on the “IWF Inkwell” made it impossible. Damn you, Amanda!
The content is laughable enough, but I just couldn’t let this post title go unnoticed:
Mailbag: Dissing the Roberts Children, and More
Dissing? Is it just me, or is there nothing worse than uncomfortable slang-use? It makes me have visions of IWF editorial meetings where Carrie Lukas and Charlotte Allen brainstorm on how to include the word “hot” in a post. A conservative Supreme Court appointment? That’s hot.
John Roberts admitted last week that his personal and religious views could affect his ability to serve on the Supreme Court. Oops!
A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say.
The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura.
The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone.
Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report.
Heh heh...they said “tool.” Yes, I like third grade bathroom humor.
But you have to admit, it's intriguing. It’s like the Flinstones version of Toys in Babelend. Amazing.
The Chicago Sun Times reports that many of the female-friendly shows slated for the fall are on CBS:
In "Threshold," the main character is a contingency analyst who is asked to stop space invaders from killing our species. A soldier-type guy tells her, "You just became the most important person on the planet."
On "Close to Home," the lead is a prosecutor who puts away creeps while storing her breast milk in a work fridge.
And on "The Ghost Whisperer," Jennifer Love Hewitt passes messages from ghosts to humans, while also running a small business and a new marriage.
"They're guy roles for women," Hewitt says of this bumper crop of acting parts.
Even on two new sitcoms with ensemble casts, the women have dominant roles, at least in the pilots. On "Out of Practice," Stockard Channing rules whatever room she is in and emotionally towers over her ex-husband, played by Henry Winkler. On "How I Met Your Mother," Alyson Hannigan plays a sexual assertive, and Cobie Smulders is the one who tries to get her date drunk.
Guy roles for women? Hewitt’s annoying comment aside, I’m glad to see there will be some new strong female characters. Ah Buffy, how I miss you.
The University of Washington Women’s Studies department has a new chair: Professor David Allen.
The first male chair of the department, Allen has taught women's studies classes for 15 years at the university. Qualifications aside, some are not too pleased about his appointment. Allen is the first to admit that it’s a “risky venture.”
“It's not so much risky for me individually as it is politically. One way to interpret this is, 'Here's yet another white guy claiming to have expertise over women,'” he said. “Another position is that relatively few women hold administrative positions, so why on earth would the university make it worse by appointing a man to a women-studies program?”
I’m glad that Allen recognizes the problems that people will have with his new position, but his self-awareness isn’t enough to quell other professors’ fears.
...But Nancy Kenney, an associate professor in the department, said most people are stunned.
“It's a little hard to understand how it's going to work out,” she said. “Some people are disappointed.”
Kenney said she respects Allen as an individual and colleague. She even finds that her own aversion to a male leader doesn't sit well with the politics she has been teaching at the UW for nearly 30 years.
“I think I'm being sexist in my interpretation,” she said. “Why should I critique a person because of his sex when I fight sexism at all times?”
I’m torn on this one; I can see both points of view. I think the sentiment of associate professor Priti Ramamurthy is right on, however: “The idea that women's studies is only for and about women is no longer the case...It's moved to a focus on social construction, not just of women but also of masculinity, and the changing relationships between men and women, women and women, and men and men.”
Any thoughts?
The New York Times magazine had a piece yesterday profiling Womyn's Agenda for Change (WAC) in Cambodia, an advocacy organization that helps organize and improve working conditions for sex workers:
By tacitly accepting sex workers' choice of livelihood, WAC stands on one side of a growing divide among aid groups. Since the U.S.'s policy shift, more and more of the other groups working with sex workers in Cambodia are what are often known as ''rescue'' organizations. The rescue groups, like Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire and the Christian evangelical International Justice Mission, contend that sex work is virtually always oppressive and that many or most prostitutes are trafficked into the business against their wills. Both organizations investigate brothels for evidence of trafficking and assist the Cambodian police in carrying out spectacular raids, springing prostitutes into safe houses where those who wish to leave sex work are given vocational training, often as seamstresses. The two groups receive substantial U.S.A.I.D. money.
…[Rosanna]Barbero, [head of WAC] supports freeing children and women held forcibly but finds most other rescue operations futile: "You're rescuing somebody and putting them back into the same situation" that drove them to sex work in the first place. The Cambodian Women's Crisis Center acknowledges that of 48 trafficking victims it helped return to their homes in 2004, some 40 percent have already gone back to sex work. As for vocational training, Barbero says, sex workers "are all pretty damn sick of 'We'll put you in front of sewing machines 14 hours a day and make you a better woman.'"
Check out the whole article; while the focus is on WAC and their work, the piece is careful to note how difficult it is to figure out what kind of “rescuing” sex workers need.
On Monday, Victoria Rue of Watsonville will drape herself in a white robe and take a controversial step as part of her journey to become a better spiritual leader. She'll also be performing a grave sin in the eyes of her church.
The San Jose State University instructor will join eight other women in a renegade ``ordination'' as priests -- an act she is fully aware is forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church and could bring her excommunication. She doesn't care.
The women are part of a tiny organization that began in Germany and Austria in 2002 called Roman Catholic Womenpriests. The first seven women to hold their homegrown ``ordination'' ceremony on the Danube River were excommunicated by Joseph Ratzinger, the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and who became Pope Benedict XVI this spring.
To the women's knowledge, they are the only group performing public ordinations of women. There are about 70 members who are in the ordination-preparation program. By Monday, 25 women will have become illicit deacons, priests or bishops.
What is the fallout of this going to look like?
Female civic educators have been dispatched to provincial areas of Afghanistan to promote awareness of the forthcoming parliamentary elections among women, officials at the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA) announced on Thursday in the capital, Kabul.
"We have to use all possible means to deliver election information to women in rural areas where the majority of women are illiterate," Nafisa Kohistani a MoWA public information officer said. Cultural sensitivities and discrimination against women are likely to discourage female involvement in the historic poll slated for 18 September, observers say.
Oftentimes, lack of education does in fact keep potential voters out of the loop, as we have seen in the States as well. This project plans to reach 6.9 million people.
As the new constitution in Iraq is being drafted several NGO's working in the Middle East are urging the drafters to incorporate women's rights.
Some 20 NGOs, from Jordan, the occupied Palestinian territories and Iraq, raised their concerns at an international conference in the Jordanian capital, Amman, this week.
The event was organised by Spain's Movement For Peace, Disarmament and Liberty (MPDL).
"It is vital that policy-makers in Iraq listen to and act upon the needs of women, and ensure that women's rights are protected," head of mission of MPDL-Iraq, Audrey Palama, said on Thursday.
MPDL is working with women in the Middle East to create a space for face-to-face dialogue on gender issues.
"Iraq is at a crucial point in its history and women are playing a key role as members of civil society organisations: holding dialogue with diverse groups and articulating the needs of women in the country," she said.
Thanks to the recent Grand Theft Auto controversy, a closer look is being taken at the gender dynamics that undercut the video game industry.
According the A.P., only 4% of software engineers in the video game industry are women. Tammy Yap, a game programmer for six years, told the AP that she had never worked with another female programmer.
Why so low? Anthony Borquez, director of University of Southern California's Integrated Media Systems Center, hypothesizes that: "A lot of women think that there isn't much video game content for them. The perception is that video games are just shoot-em-ups with half-naked women running around." Yapp also notes that: "Game magazines have women wearing bikinis on the cover. They are obviously targeting men. There's nothing wrong with that, but that approach isn't going to attract many women."
Hmmmm...but if this is the case then why are more than more women playing video games? The AP estimates that women now comprise more than 30% of the video game market.
So here is the $10 billion question -- what would women like to see in a video game? If it isn't Lara Croft's DD's, then what is it? Any requests?
A new report released by the NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP) this week found that domestic violence in LGBT relationships increased 16% in 2003 and 21% in 2004.
Clarence Patton, acting director of AVP, notes that, "In 2004 alone, there was a 35 percent increase in serious injuries and a 71 percent increase in deaths or murders that occurred as a result of the violence."
Why? Diane R. Dolan-Soto, AVP’s director of programs and co-author of the report, does not think that increased reporting is the only culprit. Dolan-Soto explains that: "We’re living in a society that is in the middle of a war, that condones violence against LGBT folks, and is even willing to codify in the constitution that gays don’t have legal rights. And for some gay people that equates to increased stress and pressure on LGBT people and couples and internalized homophobia. The partner that can’t control his or her anger is turning that on the other partner."
Even worse is the limited number of legal protections available to victims of these crimes. In New York State, for example, domestic violence victims cannot gain access to Family Court to obtain orders of protection unless they are married or have a child in common with their partners. Another problem is emergency shelter -- particularly for gay men fleeing violence.
Patton explains that: "When I started at AVP in 1996 there was one bed for a man, only available when a woman wasn’t there. Just the very way in which we talk about what domestic violence is in our community can fly in the face of the historic paradigm that the anti-domestic violence movement is built on. It comes out of women’s rights movement that women and victims and men are batterers. We say that is not always the case. When you’re trying to move brick and mortar operations like shelter space, which is already limited, you have to look at building a bigger pie." Wow -- we still have a long way to go.
If you or someone you know is a victim of intimate partner violence in an LGBT relationship, call AVP's 24-hour confidential hotline at 212.714.1141.
To read the full report, click here.
Check out the BBC's Tough Life for Tajik Women -- an exposé on the exploding rates of unemployment, domestic violence & HIV/AIDS in the region.
Not breaking news, but some depressing new stats for working ladies...
A new survey conducted by U. Penn's Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management found that half of women who voluntarily left the work force felt that their employers would not welcome them back to full-time work. And unfortunately most of them are right. The survey also found that on their return, 83% of women accepted a position at a comparable or lower level and 54% changed functional roles in their job.
Monica McGrath, an adjunct assistant professor at U Penn. and co-author of the study explained that, "Women can be completely derailed when they take time off from their career." (sigh). Great.
A Ugandan member of Parliament has recently pledged that he will be rewarding gifts to young women for their chastity.
MP Sulaiman Madada announced on Wednesday that he will pay their university fees if they are still a virgin by the time they leave school. How will they figure this out, do you ask? Every girl who believes she is eligible will be given a gyno exam to check their “sexual status.” Eek.
“The criterion is that a student must be a virgin and from Kayunga district,” he stated.
And don’t forget the third requirement: they also have to be women. The reward wasn't offered to men. After all, a man who hasn’t been laid deserves no esteem.