smart girls are scary, cont.

as school started over the last few days, i've heard a lot of complaining from students about having to go back, leaving carefree summers behind, and especially, new school uniform codes (shudder). all relatively normal, understandable, even expected complaints from american kids.

the gratitude we should all feel for the fact that our students can attend school free (generally) from fear or danger is easily forgotten.

40 afghan school girls were apparently poisoned in a gas attack as they sat in school this week.

and previously in may.

and april.

and last year.

always girls schools.

but they keep going to school, believing fervently in the value of education, their right to knowledge.

they are braver than i will ever be.

scream-worthy

here's what's making me want to scream today:

Fat Hatred
it's insidious "because being fat is viewed not only as a flaw, but as a flaw by choice, a moral failing due to weakness of character." (via Shakesville)

love this last line- so maddeningly true, for so many women:

There is not "a thin person" inside of me screaming to get out. There is only me, screaming for my right to exist in the body I have.

--

Prude? (warning- graphic descriptions of sex in the linked article)
objectification. so old news, isn't it? women are objectified every day, in every medium. great blog post from Ms. Magazine about the effects of that omnipresent objectification. but my question is- so how to we really stop it? really?

the answer i'm coming up with more and more often is: women need to make more MONEY. feminists need to acquire wealth. instead of making feminism our life's work, we need to make money like everyone else, and then we can use it to advance our feminist ideals. but without the power that comes with having serious capital, how will we, for example, have any effect on the development, production and marketing of movies and tv shows that objectify us? really? how will we?

--

Afghan women fear loss of hard-won progress
what the author of this article in the Washington Post really means to say, i think, is that Afghan women fear what women all over the world fear (and in particular, what u.s. women rightfully fear this week as well, as health care purportedly comes up for a "final" vote): BEING THROWN UNDER THE BUS.

forgive us if we find it hard to swallow when men in positions of power and leadership say, "trust us, we have your best interest in mind."

--

After 13 years, police still hunting for East Coast Rapist
hunted like animals; women are victims of men's violence every day. how is it possible that rape is still tolerated in this country. that rapists are not convicted for the predatory criminals that they are, and in fact, rape kits are put on a shelf and never even tested for DNA?

how.
is.
this.
possible?
unless there is a real and systematic repression of women going on? women's voices, women's abuses, and women's lives are silenced, covered up (unless they are deemed "sexy"), and ignored. it's real. and every woman in america is affected by it.

--

How We're Doing: Women and Wealth
this is staggering. literally staggering. Ms. Magazine brings light to the recent study by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, also highlighted in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, which reveals:

1. single white women (between the ages of 36-49) make only 61% as much as white men on average. that 61% works out to a median wealth of about $42,600. (and wealth = all owned assets)

chew on that for a minute. lily ledbetter knows what i'm talking about.
next,

2. single black women (of the same age) have a median wealth of $5.
you didn't read that incorrectly. 1,2,3,4,5.

$5.

now either EVERY single black woman between 36-49 is ____(fill in the blank with the disgusting stereotypes of welfare-abusing/drug-abusing/lazy/stupid/makesmewanttothrowup)...

OR

maybe, just maybe, there are system-level inequalities that contribute to this sickening gap in wealth & self-sufficiency. for instance: as a white woman who was raised in a two-parent home, it was just sort of expected that i would attend college. (it was NOT expected that my parents would pay for it.) so i worked 3 jobs and applied for scholarships and made it through.

but what if i hadn't come from a 2-parent household? what if neither of my parents had college educations? what if i couldn't find work on the radio (which i did) because my voice sounded "too black"? what if no one told me about the opportunities to test out of entry-level courses, which enabled me to graduate early and accumulate less debt?

The U.S. has a long history of policies that transferred wealth from people of
color to whites [...]As examples, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 forcibly
removed Cherokees from their traditional lands to make room for white settlers.
Jim Crow laws kept African Americans out of better paying jobs, quality public
education and business opportunities. The benefits of citizenship, open to
Europeans, was forbidden to Asian immigrants. The exclusion of Social Security
coverage for a whole generation of farm workers, laborers and domestic workers,
kept Latino and black elders in poverty. Advantage and disadvantage is passed
from generation to generation, often with a cumulative effect, thereby
contributing to the current racial wealth gap.

it isn't a myth. race matters, especially to women. to women's lives.

so, what makes YOU want to scream today?

highlights & lowlights

a couple of highlights for today:

8-year-old saudi arabian girl is FINALLY granted her divorce from 50-year-old husband!!! (but no one knows how many other girls are still trapped in abusive prisons, passed off as "relationships", in saudi arabia and elsewhere.)

britain FINALLY appoints a female poet laureate. it only took 341 years for a woman to produce poetry as good as the men. (<>acid attacks for attending school. group home schooling has sprung up as an option for those to afraid to walk down the street. let me repeat that: women and girls are afraid to walk down the street to attend school.