had to share...

in case you missed it:

this is why healthcare reform CAN. NOT. WAIT.

in 9 states plus d.c., insurance companies have declared DOMESTIC VIOLENCE as a pre-existing condition, which means they can deny you health coverage.

uh...wow.

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also, 5 small town iowa girls (go iowa! NOT.) were strip searched recently, in an investigation regarding a theft from another student. the stolen money was NOT found in their underpants, or their bras. SHOCKING.

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and finally- this is just too funny not to share:

Today's Episode of "Conniving & Sinister"

i am IN LOVE with the term "uterine-american".

world news at noon

violence against women in nepal: over 80% of women have been abused by their husbands.

let's make note of that. 80%

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child sex trafficking: Approximately 797,500 children go missing every year. That works out to roughly 2,185 children a day. And, more than 100,000 children under the age of 18 are currently being trafficked in the United States.

to put that in perspective..."Debbie, a straight-A student who belonged to a close-knit Air Force family living in Phoenix, Ariz., was 15 when she was snatched from her driveway by an acquaintance-friend. Forced into a car, Debbie was bound and taken to an unknown location, held at gunpoint and raped by multiple men. She was then crammed into a small dog kennel and forced to eat dog biscuits. Debbie's captors advertised her services on Craigslist. Those who responded were often married with children, and the money that Debbie "earned" for sex was given to her kidnappers. The gang raping continued. After searching the apartment where Debbie was held captive, police finally found Debbie stuffed in a drawer under a bed. Her harrowing ordeal lasted for 40 days."

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and finally, women targeted by religious leaders: One in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader.

clearly: "when you put it with a spiritual leader or moral leader, you've really added a power that we typically don't think about in secular society -- which is that this person speaks for God and interprets God for people. And that really adds a power."


female...THAT'S your pre-existing condition.

i LOVE this!

women confronting their abusers! look at these two awesome projects- one older, one current.

war zone (1998)

holla back

in both cases, women (primarily) are actively responding to men (primarily) who leer at them, catcall them, and otherwise treat them like objects. i wish every woman could do this every day (i.e. i wish every woman felt safe in responding to harrassment), so that someday, instead of catcalls and street harrassement being a daily occurance, a matter of reflex, they would be activities considered as strange and as ostracized as, i don't know, wearing spandex, or not picking up your dog's business on a walk.

because make no mistake: our culture, which permits and even encourages ('boys will be boys') the treatment of women as nothing more than objects, is the SAME culture which permits and even encourages abuse, rape and the continued real life subjugation of women. women have the RIGHT to live their lives free from abuse. but many do not live with the freedom that right should guarantee.

can you even imagine?

can you?
can you imagine making the choice that lubna hussein has made?
she faced a criminal trial, and the distinct possibility that she would be flogged (40 lashes, with a plastic whip, which usually leaves permanent scars), finally choosing a month in jail instead of paying a $200 fine...

all because she believes simply that: women in sudan should be allowed to wear trousers.

note: 10 of the 11 other women she was arrested with (for wearing trousers) have already been flogged.

women are NOT equal in our world yet. don't take your pants for granted.

that's what i was gonna say...

um, wow.

this is why i'm a feminist.

still waiting...

today is women's equality day!!!

on august 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, took effect. and in 1923, alice paul introduced the Equal Rights Amendment, which has still not been ratified today.

"sex discrimination should be just as unconstitutional as discrimination on account of race, religion or national origin."- Laura Callow.

tell me again why can't we agree that discrimination, PERIOD, should be unconstitutional???!!!



also- look at this revolutionary photo from Glamour magazine! great analysis from ms. snarker in that post, btw.

"The beauty industry isn’t about making women feel beautiful. It’s about making us feel so horrible about ourselves for not being beautiful that we buy whatever they are selling. Making us hate who we are is a billion-dollar industry."

AND

"Right now, think of three things you don’t like about your body and then three things you love about your body. Those first three came easier, didn’t they? Now f*ck those first three things. Because only those last three things matter. We are as beautiful as we feel. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise."

and finally- more details about chris brown's abuse come out after sentencing. i know that there's probably something to be said against making such a big deal out of this case- all the sympathy rihanna has gotten just because she's a celebrity is sort of a slap in the face to all the women who are abused daily and get ZERO attention or help. but it's also a useful example of just how bad it is for women, and the national fixation is at least bringing some of these skeletons out of america's closet.

"Brown punched Rihanna... numerous times and put her in a head lock, restricting her breathing and causing her to start to lose consciousness. He threatened to beat her and kill her, according to the statement, and he bit her ear and her fingers."

clearly, women are not treated equally in the u.s., or around the world. so today,

say something about equality.

do something about equality.

support equality.

tell your state congresspeople to ratify the ERA!!!

check out http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/ and http://www.eracampaign.net/ for more info. The states that have NOT ratified the Amendment are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.

recession-proof

guess which area of our society isn't feeling the pinch due to the recession? in fact, it's flourishing!

domestic abuse.

shelters are seeing increased demand for their services, and the national DV hotline has seen over a 20% jump in calls.

BUT the good news for all you abusers out there is: if you DO get caught, and somehow miraculously ARE convicted...don't worry. you'll just have to spend the equivalent of 2 months picking up some garbage while on parole.

CNN= completely negative news (for women)

cnn headlines today:

california man murders his ex-wife, "removes" her teeth and fingers, and stuffs her body in a suitcase. (motive? none.)

florida man bludgeons wife in the head with a hammer while she's sleeping, next door to where their 6 month old son is sleeping, with man's parents downstairs. (motive? none.)

and then there's the afghan vote yesterday. in which many women didn't even know they had the right to participate. and those who did feared for their lives.

not a great week to be a woman, no matter where you live. (but sure, we've come a long way baby. *gag*)

are you kidding me.

well this isn't sexist (or irrelevant) at all.

Yes She Can! 59% Of HuffPost Readers Say Michelle Obama "Absolutely" Has The Right To Wear Shorts (PHOTOS)

give.me.a.break.

speaking of child brides

70% of girls in bangladesh are forced into marriage while still in their teens.

every.corner.of.the.globe.

"The young brides, lacking education, become the malnourished mothers of undernourished children and little else."

i'll give ya two dollars and a sheep.

well, last week there was that great piece about child brides...here's more from the guardian re: "the bride price"

in uganda, and across africa, "The practice of bride gifts has been relabelled "bride price", demanded by families and fiercely negotiated. It has reduced young women to commodities and has made families see their daughters as a source of income. Today bride price isn't a bag of potatoes, it's a list of demands for money, animals or clothing made by fathers and older brothers, who might want to throw in requests for new shoes or school fees. The mother gets nothing because she was more or less purchased herself, and the sisters are ignored too as they are all set to be exchanged for commodities when they reach 12 or 13."

the 'commodification of young women'...so much of what we face as women comes back to this basic concept. rape? (women are objects only for the rapist's use) abuse? (women must be controlled, punished, 'shown who's boss') sexism in education/the workplace/society (women aren't as smart/as capable/as valuable/as human as men)...and on and on and on.

in every single corner of the globe, women are treated as less than. so laws are passed (but not enforced) explicitly stating indeed women DO deserve equal treatment. what a cage rattling thought.

how messed up is our world if we have to LEGISLATE equality? from the sufferagists to the civil rights activists to the anti-prop 8 folks- and people in every country following those same paths- people fight valiantly for legal recognition of equal rights. but if legislation is our only avenue, we'll never acheive equality.

i feel like our nation, our globe, needs a new declaration of independence, a new magna carta, (go phillipines!) AFFIRMING the humanity of every living person (female, male, able, disabled, young, old, of every race and ethnicity), and CONDEMNING those who would deny humanity to their fellow people. individual governments can only do so much, and while symbolic gestures certainly carry meaning, they do not change beliefs, or even behaviors. the culture of acceptance of the commodification of women must end. we must protect women, punish abusers, and refuse to accept inequity.

friday screams

LOTS to scream about this week.

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forced child marraige (aka rape)
Highlights:

"World-wide 82 million girls are child brides."

"To be sure, childhood marriage is not an easy problem to address. Some of the causes are poverty, parental desire to prevent sexual relations outside of marriage, fear of rape--which would shame the family and either ostracize or lead to the murder of the victim--lack of educational opportunities for girls, and traditional notions of the primary role of women and girls as wives and mothers. It's perpetuated by religions that aim to keep women subordinate and deeply-rooted cultural norms in which men are encouraged to dominate women--If a wife is a child you can guarantee male control."

*please note- there seem to be a variety of causes listed in the paragraph above...but it's really all just different ways to say the same thing...that's self-evident, i hope.*

"Children like Kidan deserve to have a childhood."

*and, i would add, children like Kidan also deserve a FUTURE THEY CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES.*


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ending the CULTURE of violence against women
Great article. Highlights:

"The last meaningful federal survey took place in 2000, at the end of the Clinton administration. A Department of Justice survey on the "Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence" found that nearly 25% of surveyed women said they had been raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, partner, or date. That equates to roughly 4.8 million violent attacks against women annually in this country. And many women were the victim of repeat attacks (an average of 6.9 assaults by the same partner).
The study also found that "approximately one-fifth of all rapes, one-quarter of all physical assaults, and one-half of all stalkings" experienced by women will not be reported to the police."

*Key paragraph:
"It's curious how blind we become to our own culture. We can criticize tribal Muslim societies for their abuse of women, yet fail to see how ours sometimes does the same thing. What can we do? We can support organizations like DASH, which provides alternate housing for victims of domestic violence. We can press for public policies that address domestic violence. We can speak out against the culture of violence -- a culture that's strengthened every time a women is treated like an object. "


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End the world's two deadliest wars (and save women and girls in the process)
Highlights:

"Together, Sudan and Congo represent two of Africa's largest countries, two of Africa's richest natural resource bases, two of Africa's longest wars, two of the world's deadliest conflicts in the past half century, two of the continent's most predatory governments, and two of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman or a girl. "

"Rape is employed by these conflicting groups as a tool of war and social control,..."

*who bears the brunt of the conflict, in real life, on the ground, every day? women and girls.*


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domestic violence in japan
Highlights:

"The latest data from Japan's national police find a 20 percent jump in the number of women reporting domestic violence. But advocates say there is a long way to go in a country that only criminalized family violence in 2001."

but " Forty percent of people over age 20 don't know there is a domestic violence prevention law and only 14 percent of people over 40 are familiar with it, according to the Gender Agency Bureau, based in Tokyo."

and "A Cabinet Office survey, which was conducted in October-November of last year, found that 33.2 percent of married women have experienced physical and mental abuse from their husbands"

*so, ONE THIRD of women report abuse when surveyed, but a large majority of women, especially over 40, don't even know yet that there is anything they can do to escape their abusers.*

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and finally, just a short snippet, a blurb, if you will, to top off alllllll the screaming today:

rape victim blamed for being raped at gunpoint in front of her children.

*Please people, don't ever stay at this mariott again.*

EPIC humanity FAIL.

i'm back, and still pissed.

after 2 weeks having my brain expanded (grad school was both HARD and TOTALLY INSPIRING), and then a week of serious relaxation and re-charging in my favorite womyn-only environment....i'm back. but not much has changed while i've been gone, unfortch.

BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Fifty million women in Asia are at risk of being infected with HIV because of the risky sexual behavior of their husbands or boyfriends, leading health experts said in a report on Tuesday.

no surprise. this is already the reason for the AIDS epidemic in africa- looks like asia isn't far behind.

rape, risky sexual behavior by male partners, and sexual oppression (i.e. no choice to refuse) lead to a lifetime of consequences. the number of women contracting HIV/AIDS is rising quickly, and they are powerless to prevent their own infection.

"don't come crying to me when you get hurt!" - u.s. government

female veterans are still not receiving adequate care. and we're just talking basic standards of care here. the medical care they can expect to receive once they return from combat isn't anywhere NEAR dependable, high-quality or even available in some cases.

we've heard so many stories about the insult added to (sometimes literal) injury that our veterans are subjected to (hello, walter reed!). but can you imagine being a woman, having already faced overt sexist treatment while enlisted, and likely having feared for your bodily safety at least once, at the hands of your fellow servicemen (i.e. the ultimate betrayal)...and then you finally get home, and you are denied mental health care, or your exams aren't even private, or you have no access to a doctor specializing in women's health at the VA facility.

this is another glaring example of something i've heard a few people mention recently...and it's so........maddening! white, straight, middle/upper class, able-bodied MEN are considered NORMAL. if you posess any characteristics other than that- you're deviant from the norm, and somehow 'odd', 'biased', or 'special' (and not in a good way.)

because, you know:

~it's so HARD to cater to all of female veterans' special needs (whiiinnnneeee)...

~women who don't serve in active combat don't need mental health services. (are you flipping kidding me?)

~judge sotomayor is suspect of being racist, but "the obvious point — that the background and heritage of old white guys influences their decision-making all the time, too — would not have been the politically sound one to make." (i just have to laugh, or i'll cry...)


the whole world is geared toward what has been established as 'normal'. god forbid if you're not normal. don't bother expecting fair treatment. if you demand equality (which, by the way- doesn't mean THE SAME treatment, but rather, the same quality of treatment, or availability of options, or the same access to opportunities) prepare to be labeled a reverse racist, a bitch, or (gasp) hillary clinton.

this does not bode well...

...for me personally.

Male Nonprofit Executives Earn 27% More Than Female Leaders, Study of Fla. Executives Finds

That pay gap is partially due to the fact that men are more likely to lead large organizations — which offer higher salaries — than are women, according to Margaret Linnane, executive director of the Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership Center at Rollins College, in Winter Park, Fla., which conducted the survey.
But men tend to make more money even at smaller organizations, she said.
At the biggest organizations, female CEO’s earned 34.8 percent less than their male counterparts, according to a Guidestar study last year.

hmm, wonder why men are leading all the big organizations?

sweet. sure makes me glad i'm getting my masters, so i can hopefully move up in the ranks some day and make less than my male counterparts!!

c'mon female central florida nonprofit executives- check this study out and raise some Lilly Ledbetter hell!

real life

real life SVU. new york city bouncer brutalized, murdered and raped boston student.

real life effects of war. 1100 women are raped in the congo every month. more than 16 women (and girls) per day.

the part of that article that made me stop was this: Sexual violence in conflict zones has become so pervasisve that its threat to individual victims as well as entire communities and nations and requires an international response, said Margot Wallstrom, vice president of the European Commission.

ok, i appreciate the sentiment...but does anyone else think that the threat to individuals ALONE should prompt a response? only when it affects the larger community (i.e. not just WOMEN), does this become a 'crisis'.

but any effort to STOP RAPE is a step in the right direction. i want one of these:

troops = war = bad news for women

two articles today, speaking out about the problem of the continued war in afghanistan. in particular, the problem for women. women in afghanistan already face one of the harshest realities in which to survive. war only intensifies the injustices.

self-immolation is on the rise. in other words, life is so unbearable, the only option that provides relief is suicide.

"peacekeeping" forces do not peace bring. in fact, life in occupied afghanistan is not getting better for women at all.

the implication of a troop surge for afghan women is frightening.

just like that time...

this reminds me of that story i heard about a woman kidnapping her husband, and holding him prisoner during a violent stand-off with police...

oh wait.

no it doesn't. because i don't think i've ever heard that story. just this one.

the good news is, she got out alive. note, however, that her ex-husband has other pending criminal charges, including threatening, violating a protective order, arson and forgery. she's been dealing with this threat, this fear, for years. this story is what you would find in the dictionary under 'broken system'.

WWII WASPS get their due

FINALLY.

ok, i admit, this wasn't on my radar until i read the article. but seriously- FINALLY.
these women weren't even recognized by the government who asked them to serve until 30 years later. typical.

rape, murder and infidelity, oh my!

husbands have property rights in their wives' bodies. and no, we're not talking about husbands in the dark ages. great article linked there about spousal rape- its prevalence and the shameful way it's STILL prosecuted in many states. (the article doesn't even begin to address the issue outside of the u.s.)

boy, that protective order really worked, huh? the murdered woman did everything right. but she's still dead.
i wish i could personally look women in the eye and really make them hear and believe me: he DOESN'T love you, he WON'T stop hurting you, and you should NOT, under ANY circumstances, take your abuser back.

jeez, sanford just can't shut up. it would be funny if it wasn't so disgusting and (of course) degrading to his wife. i hope she pitches him.