CPC's

"crisis pregnancy centers" purporting to talk to scared young women about their "options" just get on my nerves.

not only do they not actually TALK to women honestly about all their options, they also WITHHOLD proven options for reducing unintended pregnancies: birth control and condoms. these CPC's are the worst example of misrepresentation and misleading advertising. many are not medically licensed in any way, but make it seem as if they're giving medical advice/information.

organizations like this one: http://www.togetherforyouth.net/ are the ones really making a measurable impact in reducing unintended and teen pregnancies. and they're doing it *comprehensively*. their message includes ALL options- abstinence (being the ONLY fail safe method of pregnancy and std prevention), birth control, condoms, and the full spectrum of women's health resources.

in my community, there are two organizations that call themselves CPC's, but which do NOT provide full, accurate information about women's rights and options: birthright, and alternatives. women should know what to expect when going to these centers for help. if you share their worldviews, by all means, go to them. (truly!) my point is simply that women should know what to expect.

i encourage anyone who has questions, or concerns about their reproductive health to visit planned parenthood. when i was young, nervous and didn't know who to turn to, they were warm, welcoming, informative and very very helpful. frankly, i credit the dedicated staff of my local planned parenthood in large part for my life as it is today. without them, i could have gotten pregnant during my young, short marriage, and my life would have been unrecognizable from today.

this is not a very p.c. or popular thing for women to say (still!), but i'm going to say it:

i love my life today, and i'm so glad i didn't get pregnant at a young age.

ALL women should know and have access to the OPTIONS to control their own lives. men get to.

*edited to add: spot-on analysis of the dangers of the virginity movement and especially all the funding that was funneled to it during the previous administration.


~~~~~


and on another note:
"certain rights, in certain instances, by certain agencies..." ~ Rep. Tammy Baldwin being very frank on the Rachel Maddow show tonight, re: President Obama's executive order to extend some benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.


doesn't sound to me much like "the Blessings of Liberty"
OR
"unalienable rights- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"

100 more rape kits untested, this time in chicago.

wife = toaster

how else would you describe this story? the plain fact is that this man considers his wife (and i would imagine, most women), to be his personal possession. and not even a valuable possession...he wouldn't treat his big screen so callously. or his pool table. or his car. nah, she's more like a toaster- useful, but no reason to be gentle with her. just a tool for getting what you want (i.e. breakfast. or, in this case, a midnight snack.)

wait- actually, HE's the tool.

winger

really? REALLY?

Judge Sonya Sotomayor's menstrual cycle, language (spanish = "illegal alien"), and of course race, are all totally NON SEXIST and NON RACIST reasons why she should not be the next supreme court justice, right?

thanks for the WHAAAA? moment today, Mr. G. Gordon Libby.

so why would this old nixon-era-convicted-felon care if the next surpreme court justice were a latina woman, as long as she's qualified? why would anyone care? oh that's right- because it means that the POWER will all of a sudden be shared with someone who is not a part of the good ol' boys club. and that, my friends, is the biggest threat of all.

thanks @sarahwarn for the tip on your twitter conversation w/ the esteemed Mr. Libby. keep it up.

x Infinity

i just don't understand (and yet, i do) how stories like this don't cause people to absolutely riot in the streets.

"She was 23 the day in 1994 he beat her senseless, leaving her with back, neck and hand injuries — bone spurs, pinched nerves, osteoarthritis — that still require surgeries. He told Thompson he would kill her, bury her in the back yard and tell their daughters she had run away. He slapped her so hard that a ring on his right hand flew off and dented the wall.The abuse continued for more than three hours. At his trial, she testified the pain was so severe when he squeezed her ears with pliers that she pleaded for him to kill her. Instead, he held her at gunpoint for another 15 hours before allowing her to go to a hospital.
On Friday he was released [from prison], and she began waiting for him to make good on his promise to kill her and her daughters. Price walked out of a federal prison in South Carolina after serving 4½ years of a five-year sentence for sending the [death threat] letter, which began with the words, "Dear Slut."

and stories like this could be told in a hundred newspapers across the country every day (and thousands around the world, especially in areas where women have no legal protections whatsoever). will there ever be a time when women don't live in fear of abuse?

a simple equation

BEREGA, Tanzania — A handwritten ledger at the hospital tells a grim story. For the month of January, 17 of the 31 minor surgical procedures here were done to repair the results of “incomplete abortions.” A few may have been miscarriages, but most were botched operations by untrained, clumsy hands.
Abortion is illegal in Tanzania (except to save the mother’s life or health), so women and girls turn to amateurs, who may dose them with herbs or other concoctions, pummel their bellies or insert objects vaginally. Infections, bleeding and punctures of the uterus or bowel can result, and can be fatal. Doctors treating women after these bungled attempts sometimes have no choice but to remove the uterus.
Pregnancy and childbirth are among the greatest dangers that women face in Africa, which has the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality — at least 100 times those in developed countries. Abortion accounts for a significant part of the death toll.
In most countries the rates of abortion, whether legal or illegal — and abortion-related deaths — tend to decrease when the use of birth control increases. But only about a quarter of Tanzanians use contraception. In South Africa, the rate of contraception use is 60 percent, and in Kenya 39 percent. Both have lower rates of maternal mortality than does Tanzania.

to me, this is the key point in any discussion of reproductive rights:
anti-reproductive rights activists should be the most STALWART birth control, safe sex and family planning supporters. period. end of story. preventing unwanted pregnancies = preventing abortion.

you don't cure an infection by addressing only the symptoms. you attack the CAUSE of the infection in order to make the symptons disappear. the "bad kind" of abortion is primarily the symptom of unwanted pregnancies. so STOP THEM. educate women, provide the resources they need, and STOP RAPE NOW.

life ain't fair

Customers rank women and minority doctors, salespeople and service workers lower than their white male counterparts, even when the customer's interactions with the doctors, sales people or service workers are identical.

key excerpt:
In a related experiment involving bookshop employees, volunteers were shown two videotaped interactions between a customer and a sales clerk and were told to imagine they were customers and rate the shop's service. Some were shown a white male sales clerk, while others were shown a black male clerk or a white female clerk. All the clerks were actors -- and everything else in the videos was identical, down to the script. (emphasis mine)
Those shown the white male clerk rated the service provided 19 percent higher than volunteers shown the woman or the black man. They also rated stores with white male clerks as being cleaner. (emphasis mine)

which is why it's so important to have boards, committees, groups, schools, organizations, city councils, governments and LIVES that reflect the diversity of the world we live in. because if we are left to our own devices, we prove time and again that we are biased, prejudiced, racist, sexist and incapable of systematically treating people fairly. it is only upon closer and sustained examination of our actions and decisions, through the lens of diversity, that we begin to see the inherent fallibility of those actions and decisions. and when we recognize what we're doing, we then have the choice, the opportunity, to change. but if we are never forced, (by simple association), to consider the effect our actions and decisions have on people different from ourselves, then we continue in oblivion.

in other words: until whites and blacks and latinos and arabs, and women and men, and gays and straights, and old and young KNOW one another, respect one another on a personal level and work together across dividing lines- and until ALL those descriptors can be used to accurately describe the governments and boards who wield the power in our communities and across the nation: the inequalities for blacks, latinos, arabs, women, gays, old and young will persist, and will in fact be perpetuated through the governments and boards which hold the power. if our bodies of power do not accurately reflect our communities (which they currently most often do NOT), then the decisions that are made, affecting the entire diverse community, will be exactly like those customer surveys.

it's about more than satisfaction surveys, though. this affects real lives. every day. it's why black men are disproportionately represented in prisons in Iowa. and it's why women are raped but rapists are not hunted down like their victims were. and it's why LGBT men and women aren't given equal protection under the law. and it's why i have missed out on career opportunities.

human beings are unfair to one another. life ain't fair, right? but i choose to stand on the side with all those who say, Imagine.

survival

Patti Rosenfelder survived rape and sexual assault 30 years ago, and wants to tell her story. I think it's a story everyone should hear.

Lolita Windsor's son stabbed her repeatedly and held her captive, over a period of hours.

Darfuri women live in fear, even after they have fled their war-ravaged homeland in Sudan. The refugee camps are almost as bad as the conflict zone, where a simple trip to gather firewood often results in attack and rape.

Darfur. The Congo. The United States of America.
Not so very different from one another, for women.
We live under the constant threat of violence, rape and the knowledge that domestic violence and sexual assault are stopped or punished in only a fraction of the cases. The war on women is real, and every woman who has ever walked across a parking lot holding her keys the way Patti Rosenfelder does knows it.

PWB

DWB = driving while black. it's not a positive connotation.

but this righteous lady (literally), Alysa Stanton, is going to be PREACHING while black... and female... and as of this weekend- an ordained rabbi! very cool. (the first female rabbi was ordained in the u.s. in 1974.)

but of course, the old guard is none too pleased about it. (well, frankly, i don't think they've been pleased since 1974.)

"My general feeling, as a rabbi, is that there is a great deal of room for everyone to have spiritual fulfillment in Judaism but the public role of a rabbi is only for certain people and that excludes women," Orthodox Rabbi Gil Student of New York City told ABCNews.com. "That's based on tradition and enshrined in law."

As for race, Student said that neither he nor the Orthodox Jewish community finds any problem with African-American Jews. "There is no such thing as skin color in Judaism, it doesn't exist," Student said.

why is race invisible, but gender is a problem? a person has no control over either. neither one defines a person's morality, intellect, or character.
so why? why would it not matter if this new rabbi was a black MAN, but somehow the fact that it's a black WOMAN creates controversy?

you guessed it. because deep down, it's because women are still viewed as inferior. the orthodox rabbi flat out said in the article that the correct role for women is only to raise the family.

honestly, every time i hear that kind of sentiment i want to throw up a little bit. not because i don't respect the work of raising a family. but because 1. what about women who have no desire to raise a family? like, you know, ME? so what are we, chopped liver? (i don't think i want to know mr. rabbi's answer to that.) and 2. it's a cop-out. it completely ignores the other parent's responsibility. it's counterintuitive to the whole conservative movement's recent apoplectic fit about "one man and one woman is the only proper way to raise a family". uh...apparently not. apparently, it's the woman's responsibility, period. the man would be much too busy LEADING.

and i love how he justifies the arbitrary exclusion of women by saying it's "enshrined in law". because a. laws are ALWAYS moral and stand the test of time, don't they? (ahem.) and b. what about 'thou shalt have no other gods before me'? (enshrine: to cherish as sacred.) unless i'm misunderstanding that commandment, it's god, not the law, that should ultimately be honored. so if a law is immoral, or just flat out wrong, it should be changed. period.

so anyway- i just wanted to toot Alysa's horn a little bit. kudos!
and also tell rabbi student to bugger off.

shero alert

i almost started writing all about one of my "sheros", eve ensler. i do admire her courage, her persistence and her hard, hard work.

but then i realized the real sheros of this story are the congolese women who are surviving, and those who haven't survived.

War on Women in Congo

"I was in Bosnia during the war in 1994 when it was discovered there were rape camps where white women were being raped. Within two years there was adequate intervention. Yet, in Congo, femicide has continued for 12 years. Why?"

"What is happening in Congo is the most brutal and rampant violence toward women in the world. If it continues to go unchecked, if there continues to be complete impunity, it sets a precedent, it expands the boundaries of what is permissible to do to women's bodies..."

"...in Eastern Congo, 1,100 women a month are raped, according to the United Nations' most recent report."

the rape of a nation

nation of women, that is. today, and every day.

¹ep·i·dem·ic

Pronunciation:

\ˌe-pə-ˈde-mik\

Function:

adjective

Etymology:

French épidémique, from Middle French, from epidemie, noun, epidemic, from Late Latin epidemia, from Greekepidēmia visit, epidemic, from epidēmos visiting, epidemic, from epi- + dēmos people — more at demagogue

Date:

1603

1: affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time epidemic>

two parents sexually abuse & rape adopted daughter, separately and unbeknownst to one another.

rape is used worldwide as a weapon of war. i know that's a cliche by know- but imagine being born (through no fault of your own) as a newborn baby girl...in the congo. not so cliche now.

rape isn't enough- this guy decided to beat her in the head with a HAMMER as well.

14- year- old girl raped. there are no other details really...there don't need to be. this girls life is changed forever.

an army sergeant forced a women into his car and raped her in front of a restaurant in bel air. she tried to bang on the window, but no one heard. this we'll defend?

not just rape- rape of a THIRTEEN year old, MENTALLY HANDICAPPED girl...ON TAPE. but women aren't systematically abused. just individually abused- over and over and over.

child rape is the trifecta today- 14, 13, and now 10.

former minister. rape of four prostitutes. at knife-point. a butcher knife.

false rape allegations. yikes- definitely not good. murder, however- ALSO not really a good option. and he didn't just murder his girlfriend (the accuser), but also her sister. he stabbed his girlfriend in the back, and her sister, "Sabrina was stabbed 35 times, but Mr Ali said he only remembered stabbing her twice."

here's the thing. it doesn't matter what you do. take back the night. a vagina monologue. donate to a women's foundation. mentor a young man and teach him that violence against women is unacceptable. volunteer for a rape crisis line.

do SOMETHING. do it. NOW. women are being raped, every minute.

Women Pay the Price for Health Insurance
key points from this illuminating story:
- Insurance companies don't want to pay for the high cost events like childbirth
- Women are more likely to get annual check ups & visit the doctor if ill
- Women pay up to 39 percent more than men for similar individual policies, even when maternity benefits are excluded.


Makes me think of that saying people laugh about- but it's SO true:
If men could get pregnant, 'family planning' would be a sacrament.

I guess we could also say: If men were having babies, or if they were brought up in a world where going to the doctor wasn't akin to admitting a weakness (see also: crying), health insurance rates would be EQUAL for equally healthy people, regardless of gender.

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.

Final score: marching band 2, thugs 0.

one of the lucky ones:

Girl beats off muggers with marching band baton. 'Moral to this story is don't mess with the marching band girls,' official says.

The real moral is- ALWAYS fight back.

dsm or l.a.?

which one do you think is the story datelined in des moines, IA, and which one is from los angeles? (click the links to find out)

DNA leads to suspect in 1970's serial killings.

A man who police believe raped and murdered dozens of women decades ago was arrested by cold case investigators this month after a computer matched his DNA to evidence from two killings in the 1970s. John Floyd Thomas Jr., 72, may have begun his killings as far back as 1955 and he could be one of the worst serial killers in United States history, according to Chief William Bratton. They suspect he killed at least 30 women and raped many more.

Police Link Rapes, Burglaries

Police are searching for a man they believe is responsible for up to five home burglaries in which two young women were raped and six others were assaulted. The suspect entered the home and went into a bedroom where a 24-year-old man and woman were sleeping. The suspect threatened the two with a knife, and then held the man at bay with the knife while he raped the woman, Police Lt. Jeff Miller said. The description and nature of the crimes are similar to four others that have been committed since December, Miller said: Dec 28, An 18-year-old woman was raped and her mother assaulted; Feb 13, A 19-year-old woman was assaulted; Feb. 22, A 24-year-old woman was assaulted; April 13, A 21-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man were assaulted. In this case, the two were able to fight off the suspect.

1360

100 days down, 1,360 to go.

already, there have been a variety of important and meaningful strides by the obama administration to right wrongs and improve the lives of women and girls. because (not to belabour the point, but): the lives of women and girls are NOT equally safe, prosperous or healthy as the lives of men. STILL.

a few of the (exciting!) highlights:

*repeal of the global gag rule = clinics around the world receiving funding from the u.s. can once again provide information about and services related to family planning. which gives women more choices with regard to how many children they bear. which means they may have the opportunity to do something other than bear 10 unwanted children and live a life of poverty. a novel idea.

*lilly ledbetter fair pay act = anyone (*not just women, it should be noted*) who suspects wage discrimination has more time to bring suit against their employer. no-brainer. (see below for remaining questions.)

*white house council on women and girls = the promise of real, sustained attention to issues of health, violence against women, fair pay, etc. etc. etc. (see below for remaining questions.)


but questions remain:

*the lilly ledbetter act isn't going to solve the actual problem of unequal pay for equal work. the Paycheck Fairness Act will directly address the underlying issue of wage discrimination. this bill still needs to be passed. it includes training, technical assistance and incentives for employers to be(come) fair.

*the white house council has no paid staff, nor is the executive director (tina tchen) a cabinet-level position. it remains to be seen how active the council will be (no set meeting dates yet) and how influential it may become. will this be an active, change-making council, or an empty promise?

*the economic turmoil will likely have an immediate and severe effect on women. stimulus/recovery plans MUST address the effect of the economy on women explicitly, or they will implicitly leave them out completely. women still earn only 78 cents to a man's dollar. and the gap is MUCH wider for women of color (african-american earning 69 cents on the dollar, and latinas only 59 cents!) (!!!)

*what will be done about violence against women? especially in the u.s. military! one in three women in the military will be sexually assaulted during their tour of duty. ONE IN THREE.

some issues are so apparent, so prevalent and so apalling, i am routinely left speechless when i see the reality of the way women still have to fight tooth and nail, every day, to simply live a safe life, with equal rights and choices equal to those men enjoy. but it IS real, and the more people SEE the inequities that face every woman, every day...the more i hope they will speak up and demand change.

RIP Bea

not only was bea arthur one of the funniest women on the planet (in my opinion- but then i love deep dark sarcasm), she was also a feminist, and gave us some of the most impressive, thought-provoking characters in american popular culture. i admire her wit, her conviction, and her stamina. RIP bea.

traffic

not a lot of time to blog lately, but i've been seeing a ton of headlines recently about trafficking. 

Sex trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years.

and it's everywhere.

oregon 

san diego

chicago

rhode island

washington d.c. 

atlanta

london

iraq 

china

the phillipines

cambodia X2

the ivory coast, west africa

and those stories are all from april 2009. 

from the Independent Student Weekly of the Harvard Business School:

"Trafficking is not a simple issue. It is a problem created by a complex stew of social, cultural, economic and political factors and, as would fit the chemistry of the problem, there is no one person, organization or economic sector that can handle the issue on its own." 

no, trafficking isn't simple. but frankly, i think the reason that sex trafficking is so prevalent is pretty clear. according to the state department, 70% of trafficking victims are women and girls.  

the reason is because, the world over, women and girls are seen as valuable based solely on their sexuality.  and because of that, their lives are forfeit. sex trafficking has been called 21st century slavery, and the systematic abuse of women and girls across the globe certainly meets the main requirements to be considered slavery: "Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others."

in other words, women and girls are property, because of the price they fetch. for that reason only. because they can be bought and sold, they are. supply and demand. 

two grassroots organizations working to combat sex trafficking and help victims and survivors- you should shop, and give your $1. 

 

The Emancipation Network

The Buck Up Campaign

@mrskutcher thanks for posting the BuckUp link- the inspiration for this post.

lightbulb moment

why is this such a rare opinion? because admitting that men are the ones who should be criminalized for prostitution is admitting that men are the reason prostitution exists, and admitting that men are the reason prostitution exists is admitting that our whole society is built on prostitution, where women sell their bodies, their minds, their hearts and their souls as the last resort for survival. 

awareness

president obama declared april sexual assault awareness month. here are a few timely items intended to increase awareness:

more reporting about the high sexual assault/rape statistics in the u.s. military. now, correct me if i'm wrong- but isn't the military the most highly restrictive, regimented, rules-based, you-don't-scratch-your-you-know-what-unless-you're-told environment we have in the u.s.? so, if that's true, my opinion is that the only way military rape can be so prevalent is if it's expressly encouraged. whether it's encouraged through "male comradarie", or whether it's encouraged through the obvious difficulty a victim knows they will have to endure if they report their assult...either way- there is nothing left to chance, or to personal interpretation in the military. you do what you're told, and only what you're told, period. so somehow, people are being told sexual assault is ok. 

update on a story we previously read- a saudi judge repeats his ruling that an 8-year old girl married off to a 47-year old man has no grounds for divorce. there just isn't much more to say about that. 

oh, haven't you seen the trailers for that new seth rogan movie Observe & Report!?!? It looks so funny! 

except the part where the girl he takes home passes out while they're having sex and he basically just shrugs and keeps on keepin' on. 

nice. 

date rape is HILARIOUS. 

afghan cleric says the world's outcry against his law is simply meddling. silly foreigners- demanding sex from your wife every 4 days unless she is ill (i can't wait to see how many illnesses are invented after this law is passed, though- women are smarter than this guy thinks!) is a man's fundamental right, and any attempt by a wife to assert her own opinion on the subject is (will be) illegal. 

you know how they say chocolate is an aphrodesiac? rapists turn even the most benign activities into cause for women to fear. this poor girl never dreamed, working in a chocolate shop at niagara falls, that she'd have any possible reason to worry about sexual assault. but that ingenious 17 year old boy found a way to make it happen. brilliant. always keep 'em guessing, right guys?

another place you wouldn't think you'd need to worry, ladies? high school. but you'd be wrong.

and finally- not related to sexual assault, but generally related to to the pervasive and systematic repression and just-plain-ignoring-of-anything-related-to-women -that-does-not equal-sexiness: 

doctors are failing to diagnose thousands of women and girls with aspergers syndrome, a form of autism, because until now, the prevailing view of the way this syndrome presents symptomatically is based solely on boys' presentation. 

well imagine that. something in our society is geared solely toward men, or oriented only toward the way it will affect men, with no regard for the affect on or relation to women? shocking. 

domestic violence gets a famous face

this ad gave me chills. (warning, scenes of violence depicted)

keira knightly takes a step to raise awareness, and i appreciate it.

how do we even manage to go about our days?

with all the cosmetics, surgeries & procedures, fashion do's and don'ts, airbrushing, lose-20-lbs-quick diets & fads, and the general sentiment that no matter what- women are never good ENOUGH...

i'm exhausted. well, tired is more accurate: sick and tired. 

How our Obsession with Beauty is Changing our Kids

Faith Hill's 'Redbook' Cover Airbrushing pisses folks off (note: adult language in the linked article)

More on the Faith Hill Airbrushing

best line from those articles, which pretty much sums it up:

"It primes little girls to think they should diet and dream about the cosmetic-surgery options available to them, and it makes body the primary place for self-identity."

if my, your, our bodies are the primary place from where our self-identity stems, then we're much more easily persuaded to BUY BUY BUY and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. but, if (*gasp*) our self-identities actually stem from our: 

abilities, 

relationships, 

intellect, 

beliefs, 

hard work, 

family, 

goals, and/or 

achievements?? 

well, then.

i guess we don't need to buy anything, or go on a diet, or get a boob job, or wear something we don't want to wear...

and i guess we're just fine the way we are, aren't we? 

and i guess we deserve equal rights because we are equally human. hmm. 

look how easy that was.