The Wicked Wench

The Week calls non-consensual sex "boorishness"

2008-03-01T02:07:00.002-05:00

I'll let you read the whole article on your own, but basically The Week thinks:

a) consent doesn't matter--in fact, they didn't even bring up the issue of ability to give consent at all

b) if you're "staggeringly drunk" and have sex, it's sad but your fault if you "regret it"

c) misogyny, purposely intoxicating women in order to have sex with them and other forms of rape culture are simply "boorishness"

d) a victim has to call it rape in order for it to be rape. So that's true when battered women deny they've been beaten by their husbands right? That's not abuse, right?

e) it's all the "feminists" fault for bringing the issue of date rape to prominence on college campuses

Their "arguments" were quite juvenile, several steps behind most rape apology arguments I've seen. Fuck you, The Week.

This is what bugs the shit of out me

2008-02-29T11:49:00.002-05:00

Why is it that MSNBC is all up in Clinton's face about a funny, sarcastic remark said at a rally, when Obama can do the same thing and nobody cares? From The Guardian:

"In what bordered on a comedy routine, Mr Obama chuckled and the crowd of 300 roared with laughter as he mocked his opponents in Monday’s debate, John Edwards and Mrs Clinton, for their responses to a question about the candidates’ biggest weaknesses.
He recounted how he had answered honestly "because I’m an ordinary person" that "I don’t handle paper that well, my desk is a mess" after being given the question first.
"The other two, they say, 'I’m just too passionate about helping poor people' [Mr Edwards], 'I am just too impatient to bring about change in America' [Mrs Clinton]. If I’d gone last, I’d have known what the game was.
"And then I could have said, 'Well, you know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible'."

After Clinton's valid complaint about unfair treatment by the press, the media when on the defensive and consistenly said she was "whining" (P.S. also a word used by Obama in the last debate) about a non-existent issue.

Not that I love Chris Mathews, but...

2008-02-22T09:38:00.004-05:00

This is exactly why I question the validity of the support of many of Obama's constituents. Though this is one example, it is indicative of what I've heard (or not heard for that matter) out of most Obama supporters. And this guy is Obama's colleague in the Senate!

And then Watson makes it all about Hillary, which is how the debates (and the commentary after) have been going as well. Good or bad, all the pundits seems to focus on her and her performance, without much to say about Obama.

And I've noticed that most of the questions in last night's debate in Texas were posed to Hillary first. So she would explain the issue, and then Obama would agree with what she said, and in some cases evening using the same phrasing. Now, I'm not calling plagiarism here (I think that was a lame move by the Clinton camp) but what I am pointing out is that when it comes to specifics on issues, I have not heard enough of Obama's own voice.

Salem 1692 or Saudi Arabia 2008?

2008-02-14T13:13:00.002-05:00

Some snippets...

In Falih's case, the judges relied on a coerced confession and on the statements of witnesses who said she had "bewitched" them to convict her in April 2006, according to the group.

Falih later retracted her confession in court, claiming it was extracted under duress, and said that as an illiterate woman, she did not understand the document she was forced to fingerprint.

The Saudi court cited an instance in which a man allegedly became impotent after being bewitched by Falih, the rights group said.

An appeals court ruled in September 2006 that Falih could not be sentenced to death for witchcraft because she had retracted her confession. But a lower court subsequently reissued the death sentence for the benefit of "public interest" and to "protect the creed, souls and property of this country," the group's statement said.

I see, since it's of great public interest, the Saudi's will throw aside their own laws and put this poor woman to death because some guy couldn't get a boner anymore because she "bewitched" him.

I really wish our country would stop doing business with these asshats.

A Flawed Feminist Test?

2008-02-14T11:37:00.004-05:00

Maureen Dowd argued in yesterday's NY Times Op/Ed that Hillary cannot be a gender Rorschach test because it's impossible to separate Hillary the Candidate from Bill, her history, and the prior PR beatings dished out by the media.

I agree with this to an extent (there is a long and storied Clinton history), but no woman exists in a vacuum--especially no woman who is a presidental contender. Every man and woman who runs for president has a past political history, so it seems like the kind of female candidate Dowd thinks would be a good test doesn't exist. But seeing a woman as human being with all of the same flaws and attributes as a man is what feminism is all about? Is Dowd calling for a test tube female candidate?

And isn't this "image problem" Hillary has mainly due to a sexist media and misogynist culture? That sounds like some circular reasoning to me: "Hillary's bad image is problem in the media because the media gives her a bad image." (So if she weighs the same as a duck...then she's a witch!)

If that's the case, Hillary is the perfect "feminist" test!

Besides the premise of her argument, there are a few sentences that really made me cringe:

"While Obama aims to transcend race, Hillary often aims to use gender to her advantage, or to excuse mistakes. "

"As a senator, she was not a leading voice on important issues, and her Iraq vote was about her political viability. "

Well, Obama can aim to "transcend race" because the media plays that card for him. Dowd's tone suggests that Hillary's use her gender (to her advantage? really?) is somehow dirty. Does Obama NOT want to use his race to his advantage? No--for both candidates the attributes that set them apart from the usual suspects (white, male) are going to work to their advantage when voters share that same attribute (or cause conflict, like for some black women).

And I have NEVER heard Hillary use her gender to "excuse mistakes." That would be political assasination right there.

And I do take exception to Dowd's claim that "she was not a leading voice on important issues." Is she kidding? Immigration, health care anyone? anyone? Bueller? And the Iraq vote--yes, in retrospect the wrong way to go. But why is that vote any m0re about her political viability than any of other 25 democrats (including Senators Edwards and Kerry) who also voted "Yea"?

Thoughts?

I heart Natalie Dee

2008-02-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

I hate February...

Skinny Sweepstakes

2008-02-13T10:29:00.002-05:00

This is an interesting article from the recent issue of Psychology Today. It describes how perfectionist attitudes extend to young women's bodies--especially high-achieveing girls at top universities. The article references Courtney Martin's Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters.

Another Step Forward for Women in Journalism

2008-02-12T15:49:00.000-05:00

Oh Katie Couric, you strike again. In case you didn't watch 60 Minutes on Sunday night, here's a snippet of Couric interviewing Senator Hillary Clinton:

Couric: What were you like in high school? Were you the girl in the front row, taking meticulous notes and always raising your hands? [Yes, she said "hands."]

Clinton: Not always raising my hand. Not always raising my hand!

Couric: Someone told me your nickname in school was Miss Frigidaire. Is that true?

Clinton: Only with some boys.

Couric: I don't know if I want to hear the back story on that!

Clinton: Yeah, well, you wouldn't want to know the boys, either. [laughs]

What the hell is Couric trying to get at here? That some pimply-faced teenage boys were pissed that Hillary wasn't a conformist slutbag at sixteen? Or what if, she was? Would that have been better or worse? Seriously, better or worse? Because only dichotomous arguments can exist when we're talking about girls and sex, there was no right answer to that question. That question was an attempt to entrap her in some asshat stereotype that has obviously followed her around since high school. The woman is a United States Senator, you'd think a nickname from 45 years ago wouldn't be relevant, or at least not worth the air time. Can you imagine if a similar question was asked of Obama? Nope--'cause it wouldn't happen.

Nuns Evicted From Convent To Pay Church's Legal Bills for Kiddie-Pounding Priests

2007-10-17T21:28:00.000-05:00

And whoever thought the Catholic Church was misogynist?

Iran Cracks Down on Unruly Women

2007-04-27T08:52:00.000-05:00

from the BBC

Thousands of women have been warned---and hundreds arrested---by the Iranian fashion police for "bad hijab," meaning that the head scarves that these women are wearing are not conservative enough.

Police cars are stationed outside major shopping centres in Tehran.
They are stopping pedestrians and even cars---warning female drivers not show any hair - and impounding the vehicles and arresting the women if they argue back.

That's right, put them uppity wimmens in their place! Authorities are even closing stores and covering up "vulgar" mannequins!

Some men are being arrested as well. Their offence: western-looking hair styles.

Although Iranian TV reports that 86% of people were in favor of the crackdown,

Iranian women have found ways of expressing their individuality and returning to drab colours like black, grey and dark blue is not something they will accept easily.

Take that Kanye West!

2007-04-27T08:41:00.001-05:00

George Bush loves black people!

Indian Government Wants to Document When It's Female Ministers Are On The Rag

2007-04-11T08:24:00.000-05:00

from the BBC

Women civil servants in India have expressed shock at new appraisal rules which require them to reveal details of their menstrual cycles.

Although "annual appraisals and health checks are mandatory in India's civil service," they are not, of course, asking about the men's ability to ejaculate, or about other natural bodily functions such as how often they use the bathroom.

Hmmm, maybe they'll confine all the women to a straw hut at the parliament building until they are done with their "unclean" cycle. Besides, our periods make us crazy and irrational, so those women couldn't have anything of value to contribute during that time anyway.

Bullshit Roundup

2007-04-09T15:50:00.000-05:00

Watch out girls, trying to compete with the big boys in Washington will make you a haggard, insecure, ho-bag, or so says Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America in her recent piece, "Washington's Working Women."

She begins her "report" like a Lifetime movie script:

When I saw her, as she headed to work on the train early one morning, her hair was still damp and she looked slightly worn and only half awake. Nonetheless, she was quite beautiful. Not beautiful in the dewy, fresh-faced way she probably looked when she arrived in Washington a few years earlier, but very attractive all the same. In spite of her still hard-body figure and smart, slightly provocative clothes, there was a hint of vulnerability in her body language---a certain tentativeness. She was obviously "with" the young man she sat beside, but there was something missing. And it was not just the wedding rings that neither of them was wearing.

Gasp! Living in sin! How dare that hussy! From there, Crouse takes this vision of some girl she saw on a train and then extrapolates this marmish sermon on the state of all unmarried "career girls." They're all unhappy because some man hasn't proposed to them yet, most likely because they've been doing it, and why should he buy the cow if he can get the milk for free, right Janice?

Not only is Crouse purely insulting, she doesn't even pretend to use facts or evidence or anything but some woman she saw on a train! The title of her article, "Washington's Working Women" is not subtle. She clearly tries to link women who work with "working women" or prostitutes. She more clearly gets to this point at the end of her piece:

It's for sure; she is not hoping to join the ranks of the women who are only indispensable to their boss at work; that's not the kind of indispensability most women dream of, unless, of course, they're having an affair in hopes of morphing a professional relationship into a personal one.

Not only does she admonish women with careers, she even rips away that one power by diminishing women's ability to become indispensable without sleeping with her boss. And, of course, Crouse assumes that "the boss" is a man.

It's an old line: women REALLY don't want anything but a marriage and children. There's absolutely no satisfaction to having a career and money or your own, having the freedom to do what you want when you want to do it, or having time to spend with your family and friends. None. In fact, you better get married right quick and start pumping out babies, or you're going to end up a dried up old spinster:

But when a girl hits 30-ish, she begins to sense things slipping away from her. If she's not stupid, she sees that not as many men notice her as once did, and she becomes aware that her biological clock is ticking. If she is not blind, she takes stock of the 40-ish women who arrived before her and likely isn't happy at the thought of ending up like so many of them.

You have to feel sorry for the older ones who played the game and lost; they've made their beds and now they lie in them, alone.

Hmmm, I don't know, better than waking up at 30 with three kids and realizing the guy you married when you were "so in love" at 22 is not the best life partner at 30.

As we age, we (most likely) make better decisions, and choosing a person to spend the rest of your life with is a pretty big decision. People are just learning how to be adults in their twenties; they're moving out of a college/student mentality and are finding out what it takes to survive (or thrive!) in the world. Some people figure that out earlier than others; they get married and are happy. But why pressure people into making such an important decision?

What Crouse wants us to do is settle. She wants to scare us into believing that if we have a career (and, shock of all shocks, premarital sex) we will end up old and alone. She even goes as far as to say that girls who "play the Washington game" are "scarred up and used up." That's right ladies, keep those hymens fresh and clean for the marriage bed! Your vagina doesn't belong to you!

Though, there is humor in this piece. There's humor in the horrible writing and in the uppity, after-school special tone. But by far, the funniest line is the last:

What is foolish is the lousy deal that today's women are choosing when they miss the fact that sex belongs within the bonds of marriage where it was intended to be and where, as many women and men attest, it can make its magic.

No she didn't! "MAKE IT'S MAGIC!" Based on that one line alone, I believe I can safely infer that Janice Shaw Crouse shuts her eyes, thinks of Jesus, and waits for it to be over. Unless her husband is David Copperfield, I can guarantee that no sex she has ever had could be described as "magical."

Mexican Women "Too Guilty" To Get Proper Healthcare

2007-04-06T15:47:00.000-05:00

From Reuters

Cervical cancer is a leading cause of death among working-age Mexican women, but "within the Mexican culture, women have always been the procurers and not the beneficiaries of health," Dr. Blanca E. Pelcastre Villafuerte of the Instituta Nacional de Salud Publica in Cuernavaca.

Women with cervical cancer tended to feel the disease was completely their own responsibility, the researchers found, and blamed themselves while feeling guilty about not getting a Pap smear earlier.

This is an extreme case of women putting everyone else before themselves. We ARE worth it! Let's take care of ourselves!

Find me a find, catch me a catch

2007-03-29T10:04:00.000-05:00

from the Boston Globe

Janis Spindel is a modern-day Yente, charging up to $100,000 for playing matchmaker to Boston's brahmin. Oh and the focus of her business is finding attractive women for rich businessmen. Apparently other qualities don't count for much:

"I'm dealing with gorgeous men -- gorgeous! -- who have it all, from billionaires in Bel Air to humongous movers and shakers in Washington to awesome guys in Boston. The only piece missing is a woman, and that's when they come to me."

Ahh...one more possession to add to the collection! So why are these rich, attractive men coming to Spindel?

No, it's all about time, she says. These captains of industry are too busy to meet Ms. Right, so they hire her to screen candidates. Everyone outsources everything these days -- why not love?

Great, so if these men don't even have enough time to find a mate, how in the hell are they going to be able to be a partner in a relationship? I think the key is that these men do not expect to be a partner...they are looking for a patriarchal marriage in which he can take out his little wife and play with her when he wants, and then can close her up inside her dollhouse until his ready to play with her again. Just reading this article made me sick.

I especially love how Spindle stereotypes women:

Women are too high maintenance," she says. "They're needy. They're nagging."

Could she feel this way because high maintenance women are exactly what she is "gathering" for her clientele? Perhaps these women are "high maintence" because they want a partnership, not an autocracy?

Hold on to your asses though, this is by far the BEST part:

She can be hard-nosed in rejecting women who, as she puts it, "don't take care of themselves." She adds: "Fat is out. We're not in Kansas or Iowa or Nebraska. We're in major metropolitan cities where people care about looks."

So what do men want? Is it all about looks? Are they that superficial?
Yes, says Spindel, they are.

"Men want perfection," she says. "They want women who are attractive, who are well-groomed, natural looking."

And thin. "Men have an allergy to fat. I don't care if they're short and bald with a belly. Women are much more open.

However men do:

"...value intelligence, a sense of humor, and character."

BUT

For her men, intellectual stimulation has been "really heavy duty" only in the past five years.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

This is hot, right?

2007-03-23T09:03:00.000-05:00

I can't bring myself to link directly to the America's Next Top Model site. The blogging world is buzzing about the recent "corpse episode" where the competing models posed as if they were murdered, raped, and their bodies dumped.

Lovely.

Here are the judges' comments regarding the photo to the right:

Twiggy: That is a powerful photograph, my goodness. This is excellent.

Nigel: She's totally upped her game. This is a great shot for Natasha.

Guest Judge Photographer Mike Rosenthal: It was freezing, and she still did a fantastic job.

In response to the photograph on the left, I think "Miss J" best summed up the scummy scene:

These are broken-down dolls. These are busted up, broken-down dolls, marionettes.

Though I can't tell if her tone is sad and disgusted, or merely a commentary on the "art."

Here's part of my initial ranting on Feministing:

Portraying someone as a dead corpse just laying where she died makes her inhuman. If her body was "tended to," like if it was a funeral scene and she was cleaned up, it would still be disturbing, but there would be evidence that other people cared about her.

I don't even think you could argue that any of them even look like they committed suicide. Not that portraying suicides would be any better, but you could make an argument that taking your own life is an empowering act, like Kate Chopin-style.

Why, why, why is that "hot"?

It kinda reminds me of the whole "heroin chic" fad from the 90s.

This "dead beauty" phenomenon is psychologically sick, but for women it manifests dangers that are very real. There is a ubiquitous, latent desire to kill women in our society, and it is a potent cocktail when you mix it with sex.

I think these images exist not only to satisfy the "rape-and-kill" fantasy, but also to frighten women into submission as well. And by having TV shows and other media glorify these images, you not only have men wanting to act out these scenes, you tell women that they should want to become a beautiful, albeit dead, girl.

German judge: It's okay for a Moroccan man to slap his wife around

2007-03-22T16:32:00.000-05:00

The BBC reported:

The female judge ruled that, under the law of the Koran, the woman had not been subject to unacceptable behaviour, the court in Frankfurt said.

The woman's domestic abuse therefore did not make her case one of exceptional hardship, she claimed.
When challenged about her ruling, the judge cited a passage from the Koran.

Germans and Muslims alike are PISSED about this, and thankfully the judge has been removed from the case. WTF?

Would you like a little Botulinum Toxin With That Wine?

2007-03-22T16:24:00.000-05:00

Booze + cosmetic surgery = bad

Australia cracks down on so-called "Botox Cowboys."

Really, how stupid do you have to be to do this? Not that I'm a proponent of injecting myself with deadly toxins, but a party? Come on.

Sexual Assaults in U.S. Military Up by 24 Percent

2007-03-22T08:41:00.000-05:00

The Pentagon reported that members of the military are waging acts of violence against their own soldiers and other military personnel. There were nearly 3,000 sexual assaults reported in 2006. However, the military "punished" twice as many offenders, so at least that's a start.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Pentagon officials have said that sexual assaults often go unreported.

They have attributed the rise in the number of reports in part to the vigorous effort to encourage victims to report the crime.

Others said that reporting changes and training aren't likely the only reasons for the higher numbers.

"Those [conclusions] are a little too fast and too easy," said Anita Sanchez, spokeswoman for the Miles Foundation, a non-profit group that provides services to victims of violence associated with the military.

"There are more women serving and more women deployed, including Guard and Reserve members. Historically we have seen an increase in incidents of sexual assault during deployments."

So an ancient story is repeated: the stress, the violence, and brutality of war is inflicted on women's bodies, not just on the battlefield or against an opposing army.

To hear a first-hand account of one service woman, check out NPR's interview with Spc. Mickiela Montoya,who served in the National Guard in Iraq.

Sudan's president denies rape, genocide in Darfur

2007-03-20T16:16:00.000-05:00

Check out Ann Curry's interview with Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan. During the interview he denies the presence of genocide in the region and says that "People have been killed because there is war."

Nice.

He also denies report, after report, after report that mass rapes are being waged against Darfur's women: "It is not in the Sudanese culture, nor is it in the culture of the people of Darfur to rape. It doesn't exist."

Indian Woman Sets Herself and Her Son on Fire

2007-03-14T09:26:00.000-05:00

from the Raw Story

How Many Penises Can A Woman Handle?

2007-03-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

...was a question posed by Ansab on Newsvine. Lovely. This is just the type of anti-feminist crap the world needs more of.

I realize that it's flagged under "kinda-satirish-maybe," but I don't find discussing the feasibility of raping a woman's every orifice and crevice funny.

Women are often imagined (or, as in the case of most pornography, photographed or filmed) in ways that are sexually humiliating and subjugating.

Why is it funny to think how many penises can be stuffed into a woman? Because it's people like Ansab who don't think of women as actual human beings, but as playthings whose function is to submit to whatever kind of circus sex anyone can think up just because it's "technically sweet."

Break Out the Breast Pump

2007-03-13T09:36:00.000-05:00

Now this is teamwork!

Florida moms are donating thousands of ounces of breast milk to donation centers that distribute the breast milk in areas with high HIV rates in an attempt to reduce mother-to-child infections.

Here's some information from the Department of Health and Human Services about the purpose and history of Human Milk Banking and where to find a donation center.

Shake What Your Momma Gave You

2007-03-13T09:10:00.000-05:00

Researchers from NYU have spent A LOT of time figuring out that it's not only a woman's waist-to-hip ratio that makes her attractive to men, but it's also how she shakes her ass as well.

Hmmm, sounds like the world really needed a scientific report confirming this little-known fact.

The BBC reported:

Dr George Fieldman, principal lecturer in psychology at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College said: 'This is quite plausible.
'It's the movement which attracts, and not just the waist-hip ratio per se."

He added: 'It would be interesting to see what the ideal combination of measurements and wiggle is.'

No wonder belly dancing classes are taking off...

News Flash: Marriage is "Meaningless" if You Aren't a Virgin

2007-03-12T12:40:00.001-05:00

Purity Balls, a cross between a debutante coming-out party and a Jesus camp dance, is the new "defend-your-hymen" fad to sweep across the Bible Belt.

Girls as young as 10 don prom dresses, eat white cake, and make vows to their fathers to remain virgins until their wedding days. Dads also make pledges to defend their daughters' chastity.

Independent news sources have been buzzing about these Electra complex ho downs for quite awhile, but ABC News recently picked up the story.

One father described in an ABC report the purpose for such an event: "[In] today's day and age, if the daughters are sexually active before they're married that ceremony really is meaningless because the father's not giving anyone away."

Silly girls, your vagina does not belong to you, it belongs to your father (and then to your husband)!

In an informal poll that asked "Are purity balls an appropriate way for parents to talk to their teens about sex?" on ABC's website, these were the multiple choice answers:

1.No. Instead of being taught abstinence, girls should be taught about birth control and STDs.
2.Yes. Girls should learn to respect themselves by remaining abstinent until they're married. 3.I'm not sure

Way to go, ABC! So if a girl has sex before marriage, she doesn't respect herself? Why didn't ABC qualify the first answer with something like, "...girls should be respected and be taught about birth control and STDs."What the fuck, ABC?

Many dissenters have pointed out that most (I've seen figures that range from 85-95%) of teens who pledge abstinence until marriage break those pledges. Oh yeah, and they become really experienced with anal sex. So basically, by preaching an abstience-only message, these adults deliberately spread ignorance concerning the health of the young people in their own communities.

Proponents claim that their methods help reduce the rate of STD infection, which according the CDC, The Journal of Adolescent Health, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development is---wait for it---totally false!

Hey, I have an idea, why not teach girls and boys that their self-worth is NOT located in their vaginas and penises! That waiting until marriage to have sex doesn't make you more or less "pure" than anyone else.

Why not teach our children that sex is healthy and natural, but there are emotional and bodily risks involved. Why not teach our children that the decision to have sex should be done with care, and that sex should NEVER be used simply to please someone else or to hurt another person.

These Purity Ball hymen-mongers are investing all sorts of super powers in these girls' vaginas, and then telling them that power belongs to someone else. Why are we telling our girls that being "good"and being a sexual being (as all humans are) are mutually exclusive?

The "Gay Agenda"

2007-02-07T13:43:00.000-05:00

Now this is quite awesome. The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance (which sounds like your average group of right-wing nut-jobs) is actually a a pro-same-sex marriage group that is slapping the Washington Supreme Court with a nice warm glass of shut-the-hell-up.

The group is challenging the state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, by filing an initiative "to make procreation a requirement for legal marriage." This move forces the courts to come to terms with it's assertion that the primary function of marriage is for procreation, and that thereby same-sex marriage is illegal.

The majority decision in the case stated:

"Therefore, we apply the highly deferential rational basis standard of review to the legislature’s decision that only opposite-sex couples are entitled to civil marriage in this state. Under this standard, DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children’s biological parents. Allowing same-sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature’s view, further these purposes. Accordingly, there is no violation of the privileges and immunities clause."

Justice Bridge wrote a dissenting view:

"What we are called upon to do here is address the availability of the civil contract of marriage—the only characterization of the issue presented that permits governmental intrusion into what is otherwise a personal, private relationship between two people. The State’s intrusion is governed by the articles of our constitution. What we ought not to address is marriage as the sacrament or religious rite—an area into which the State is not entitled to intrude at all and which is governed by articles of faith. What we have not done is engage in the kind of critical analysis the makers of our constitution contemplated when interpreting the limits on governmental intrusion into private civil affairs; what we have done is permit the religious and moral strains of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to justify the State’s intrusion. As succinctly put by amici the Libertarian Party of Washington State and the Log Cabin Republicans of Washington: “To ban gay civil marriage because some, but not all, religions disfavor it, reflects an impermissible State religious establishment.”

While I'm not for restricting the rights of any human being, The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance knows full well that this proposal won't be voted into law, but is pointing out that this measure brings the hypocrisy of these rulings into the media.

I say, well played.

That's How I Roll

2007-02-07T09:44:00.000-05:00

VAGINAS!

2007-02-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

V-Day is coming! (pun definitely intended). Eve Ensler's award-winning play, The Vagina Monologues, is a yearly reminder that violence against women is common in our culture in both thought and practice. Performed every year on Valentine's Day across the country, it has become a movement for social justice. According to the V-Day website, the purpose of this mission is:

"It demands that the violence must end. It proclaims Valentine’s Day as V-Day until the violence stops. When all women live in safety, no longer fearing violence or the threat of violence, then V-Day will be known as Victory Over Violence Day."

Amen, sisters

How Surprising...

2007-02-07T09:27:00.000-05:00

NPR's Rachel Martin reports on the Bush Administration's subsidies for faith-based programs, including, *trumpet sounds* abstinence-only education! Must be because it's so effective!

Here are the specs:

"$191 million for abstinence education. That's an increase of $28 million over last year. The money would be used to make additional awards to community-based programs that teach and encourage abstinence among adolescents ages 12 to 18. Of all the faith-based grant programs, this could be the most controversial."

Chile Resumes Free Birth Conrol and Emergency Contraception Program

2007-01-31T13:27:00.000-05:00

After an initial dispute over the legality of its implementation, President Michelle Bachelet signed a decree on Monday that will resume a program begun in September to give free birth control, including emergency contraception (EC), to all women aged 14 and older.

This is a huge victory for women in this socially conservative country where, according to the BBC, "teenagers have 40,000 unwanted pregnancies a year" and "35% of all pregnancies are terminated illegally." Abortion is prohibited and divorce was legalized in 2004.

Predictably, conservatives are upset and plan to illegally restrict access to EC:

"Some conservative mayors have refused to let their city health services distribute the pills.
One of them, Pablo Zalaquet of La Florida near Santiago, called Bachelet's decree 'a black day for our country, a slap to the institution of family.'" ---from the AP

If "the institution of family" is the patriarchal hierchy that retains the necessity of illegal abortions, then let's get slap-happy!

It seems like conservatives around the world are determined to restrict women to the role of "baby machine" despite the many alternatives to abortion that are available, such as EC. EC is not abortion; a woman needs to be pregnant first before she can have an abortion. What's next, make menstruation illegal because a woman could have gotten pregnant and didn't?

Yeesh, this reminds me of the Monty Python song, "Every Sperm is Sacred."

Women Waging Peace

2007-01-31T13:17:00.000-05:00

From the BBC...

An all-female peacekeeping force has landed in Liberia to help stabilize the country and to provide support to the women of the African nation. Their goal is to increase the percentage of women in the Liberian police force:

"I understand they are not training the women for combat but with these women coming from India they are going to be a fantastic role model. So I am going to take all of them to the ministry of defence to show them you can train women in combat."

They also hope to stamp out the rampant sexual exploitation:

"Liberia has an alarming incidence of rape which goes unpunished. The deployment of more female police officers could encourage the women and young girls to report the crime.
In the past, the UN mission in Liberia has been tainted by accusations of sexual exploitation: food given to teenage refugees by UN peacekeepers in return for sex. But Joanna Foster, the gender adviser to the UN Mission says that there is less sexual exploitation when more women are employed. "

Mirror to America

2007-01-31T13:03:00.000-05:00

Why do so many people love to hate Hillary? Jack Hitt discussed his rececnt piece in Mother Jones with Open Source's Chris Lydon. Hitt claims that our fears and projections about Hillary and her bid for president. It's not just that she is a powerful woman; she is a powerful woman with a chance of winning. In a sense, Hillary embodies the deepest fears about and greatest hopes for women since the so-called "second-wave" of feminism.

I want this...

2007-01-30T11:36:00.000-05:00

A variety of subtexts would be useful here...

The Great Divide

2007-01-30T11:04:00.000-05:00

A lace-makers in Koniakow, Poland are causing a "divide" among villagers with their hand-crafted G-strings and other lingerie.