In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: May 2007

Liberating Iraqi Women

Iraq
Liberation, GOP-style.

Sometimes, the “assholes” tag just isn’t enough.

By day the road that leads from Damascus to the historic convent at Saidnaya is often choked with Christian and Muslim pilgrims hoping for one of the miracles attributed to a portrait of the Virgin Mary at the convent. But as any Damascene taxi driver can tell you, the Maraba section of this fabled pilgrim road is fast becoming better known for its brisk trade in Iraqi prostitutes.

Many of these women and girls, including some barely in their teens, are recent refugees. Some are tricked or forced into prostitution, but most say they have no other means of supporting their families. As a group they represent one of the most visible symptoms of an Iraqi refugee crisis that has exploded in Syria in recent months.

According to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, about 1.2 million Iraqi refugees now live in Syria; the Syrian government puts the figure even higher.

Given the deteriorating economic situation of those refugees, a United Nations report found last year, many girls and women in “severe need” turn to prostitution, in secret or even with the knowledge or involvement of family members. In many cases, the report added, “the head of the family brings clients to the house.”

Our little foray into Iraq has displaced millions of people. It has killed hundreds of thousands. It has left women and girls with few options — and so they do what they have to do to survive. If they survive.

But the ever-so-moral Republicans are really helping Iraqis, right? The half-million people they’ve slaughtered, well… that’s collateral damage. A necessary sacrifice. The millions of refugees? The massive displaced populations? An unfortunate occurrence, but certainly worth it in the quest for democracy. The total lack of true democracy in Iraq, and the fact that the women who still live there have fewer rights and liberties now than they did under Saddam Hussein? Well, as long as they aren’t forced to wear the burka like those poor, oppressed women in Afghanistan, everything is a-ok. The Iraqi women and girls pushed into the Syrian sex trade? Clearly girls who just need a little Christian guidance, and certainly not the fault of our noble missions in the Middle East. I’m sure some faith-based organization will be dispatched soon enough.

But, sure, stay the course. What could go wrong?

I am, however, heartened to read about the amazing work Iraqi women are doing.

Violence Begets Violence

U.S. military veterans are twice as likely to be jailed for sexual assault than non-veterans. Apparently, some people are confused as to why this may be.

Lucinda Marshall explains it really well in her piece at Alternet: Women have always been abused in war time, and the military promotes a form of masculinity that is based on aggression. It’s a soldier’s job to be violent. Women are imaged as not-quite-human, and as objects to “take” from your enemy.

Sexual violence has been a de facto weapon of war since the beginning of the patriarchal age. Raping and assaulting women is seen as a way to attack the honor of the enemy, and women have always been the spoils of war. The result is that many types of violence against women are exacerbated by militarism, including the indirect effects on civilian populations both during hostilities and after the conflict ends and soldiers go home.

…

Examples are not hard to find. Before and during WWII, the Japanese enslaved as many as 200,000 “comfort” women, and after the defeat of the Japanese, the United States continued to use tens of thousands of Japanese women as sex slaves. During the 1990s more than 5,000 women were trafficked into South Korea primarily to work as “entertainers” near U.S. military bases. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, frequently for the purpose of ethnic cleansing in countries such as Bosnia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In this country, sexual abuse within the military is often ignored. None of the officers implicated in the Tailhook that involved the sexual harassment of women were ever prosecuted. Sexual abuse problems at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs have only been partially addressed, and the murders of military wives at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and Ft. Campbell, Ky., provide shocking examples of the problems of intimate partner abuse within military families.

A 2003 study reported that 30 percent of female U.S. veterans reported being the victim of rape or attempted rape during their military service. Last year there were 2,374 reports of sexual assault by service members. Despite this, the military quit providing emergency contraception as part of its medical formulary in 2002 (even while officially recognizing its importance), and a recent congressional attempt to reinstate it was scuttled due to lack of support (ironically, the erectile dysfunction drug Levitra is included in the formulary).

As the above illustrates, this latest statistic regarding sexual assaults by military veterans is clearly no accident. It a systemic part of a military culture that not only tolerates but frequently encourages the hatred and belittling of women.

Read it all.

Jordin Sparks Remarks On Her “Weight Problem”

The AP reports on this very important news:

How will she stay grounded, resisting entertainment industry pressures that can include an extreme emphasis on weight?

Translation: Are you going to stay a Fatty McFatfat or are you going to get skinny like the beautiful, successful people?

“Oh, that super-thin stuff — Hollywood needs to get over it,” she said lightly.

(via The Bisexualist, who gives me a very queer feeling in my stomach)

Love Ponies, Sans Corral

We got your big, wet cat pics right here.

Swimming Tiger
No puns please.

Hilda Won’t Be Rushed Into Anything: A couple have finally tied the knot – after 49 years, nine children, 22 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. Every time Ted Towle, 83, proposed to Hilda Clark, 73, she turned him down, reports the Daily Mirror. Then six months ago, he was stunned when she proposed to him. (via)

Attention ad-conscious lady gamers: you might expect this video game to be heavily promoted toward women. I wonder if it will include intricate breasty physics along the lines of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. (also via)

Have you read the first Carnival For Radical Action yet? No? What’s wrong with you?

Pretty Bird Woman House: Saving a Sioux Women’s Shelter: Amnesty International just published a report that became the focus of a series of Daily Kos diaries. The jist of the Amnesty International report is that, one in three Native American women are victims of rape…and most of those rapes are committed by outsiders, not fellow Native Americans… Many laws relating to American/Native relations were written in the 19th century during a period of extreme abuse by the dominant American culture against Native cultures… and many of those laws are still in force.

Mental Health and Asian American Women: A couple days ago, as I was flipping through the internet, this CNN article on suicide in Asian-American women caught my eye. The article does a fantastic job of outlining how the “model minority” expectations really, really screw over Asian American women. I was especially excited to see it given mainstream media coverage. After all, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women 15-24. It should be addressed. What follows is not surprising: young Asian American women have the highest suicide rate among women of any race, ethnicity between 15 and 24. I’m still waiting for the day that the CDC recognizes this.

How to Create a Rape Victim: I was waiting for my sandwich at Subway®, and I heard a woman on the phone with her daughter. I knew it was her daughter because she was on the phone from the time my bread was cut in half to the time it was slid into a wax paper bag. It was all I could do to keep from interrupting her and telling her how to raise her daughter. But I have found in the past that people are not always happy to get this kind of input. And I was unsure as to whether my message would get through to her at all, given our differences in class and race. So I bit my tongue and listened to another child being slowly murdered with the toxic sweetness of a parents’ insecurities.

A Brief History of the “Nappy-Headed Ho”: For feminist thinkers who have revisited the Bible’s historical recounting of the spread of Judeo-Christian monotheism, Jezebel’s story is very different. Although the facts of her life in 800 BC Israel remain the same, revisionists theologians reinterpret Jezebel as a resistance fighter who held tightly to the pagan beliefs in the power of the feminine energy of the goddess. Unwilling to sacrifice the long-held, woman-centered traditions of her religion she resisted the imposition of Yahwehism. As a result, she and many of her countrymen were slaughtered. Her sexuality and femininity are reinterpreted in this narrative a source of power that frightened the monotheistic, male-God worshippers who invaded her country.

Reading Is (Not) Fundamental (?): Insist that children learn to read from science books. Imagine, if you will, coming from a household which places no emphasis whatsoever on reading, either for pleasure or learning, and arriving at school, which insists that you read only science and history textbooks. “Kids should feel pleasure curling up with a novel at home” is a statement of privilege. (see also)

The Problem With Feminism: “Women,” understand, is a problematic concept – as marked by scare quotes. It is a conception of women that does not reflect reality. “Women” is an ellipses, a conception that women are a homogenous group, static and ahistoric, existing in a constant state that does not change over time and place, having similar concerns and interests. Clearly, this conception is problematic.

Kactus, one of my super-favorite babymama blog crushes who needs a wider audience, has chronicled her experiences using food stamps for the last five weeks (although I think I lost week 4): Week One, Week One Part II, Week One Part III, The Meat Deal Is A Big Deal, Week Three: The Month So Far, Week Five.

A Romanian movie on the struggle to receive an illegal abortion just won the Palme d’Or for best movie. See TWTP for more details. Speaking of which, Ema also has information on an upcoming IUD for dudely among us.

Latina, Immigrant, Reproduction, Justice: La Familia is at the center of Chicano organizing. From the sixties, activists pointed out that family was not just “there” as it is in other cultures–but that it was necessary. Often, because of our poverty and our constant migration, the only thing we could count and depend on was our families. There’s a lot to be said about the goodness of la Familia–for example, in school, everybody knew not to fuck with the Mexicans. Everybody knew that a fight with one Mexican really meant at the very least, a fight with that particular Mexicans entire family. There’s a darker side to this, however. Chicana feminists have complicated La Familia and the female role within that construct from the very beginning–early Chicana feminists noted that allegiance to the family was just another way to keep us all barefoot and pregnant–subservient to males. Other Chicana feminists noted that allegiance to family was a way to silence us–feminist concerns like rape, abuse, welfare and sterilization practices consistantly took a backseat to nationalistic rhetoric and promotion of male run power structures.

One highlight of my blog-reading day is the series of Worst American Birthdays by D at Lawyers, Guns, and Money. For a recent example, see D’s profile of today’s Worst American Birthday: Rudy Giuliani.

Extras:
The Anti-Choice Media Blitz
Ramen Stew, $.39 a serving!
Dealer prices gas over $4 in protest
Free Speech, Dialogues, & Performance

Register for YearlyKos!

I’m going, and so should you.

The convention is in Chicago this year, from Aug. 2-5th, which is also my birthday weekend (August 3rd), so I can promise a fantastic party with some of your favorite feminist bloggers — I don’t have a full list of who’s coming, but I know Amanda and Jessica will be there. The full line-up has yet to be announced, but so far it’s looking pretty good — Bill Richardson, John Edwards, and Barack Obama are all planning to come, and I’m sure more super-star politicians, journalists and bloggers will be announced as the convention approaches.

Plus, if you register before June 1st you’ll pay $225 for registration; after June 1st the price goes up to $275.

If you can’t make the conference but live in the Chicago area, we will most certainly plan some sort of meet-up that weekend.

When Adam and Eve roamed among the dinosaurs

How I wish I was joking.

For natural history museums, the awesome dinosaur is a star attraction for drawing wide-eyed children and their families. It’s surprising, though, to be welcomed at the gate of the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky by two stegosauruses. After all, this brand-new museum is designed to disprove evolution, including the millions of years that science says dinosaurs walked the earth.

For Bible-defending “creationists,” God created Earth and all its creatures between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. But they know a drawing card when they see one, and this museum has more than its share of animatronic (moving, teeth-baring, roaring) specimens. In fact, dinosaurs play a big role in this “biblical history”: They live not 65 million years ago, but with humans — in the Garden of Eden and on Noah’s Ark.

“Dinosaurs are one of the icons of evolution, but we believe they lived at the same time as people,” says Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis (AiG), the fundamentalist Christian ministry that built the facility. “The Bible talks about dragons. We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth.”

The $27 million museum set on 50 acres opens on Memorial Day, and AiG hopes for 250,000 visitors a year. Mr. Ham, a former science teacher in Australia, is direct about the museum’s purpose: to restore the Bible to its “rightful authority” in society.

For many scientists, however, it’s distressing. Some 700 scientists at educational institutions in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana have signed a statement deploring the “scientifically inaccurate” exhibits and warning that students who accept them are “unlikely to succeed in science courses.”

The whole article is fascinating. But this is my favorite part:

In a bid to clarify this, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has published “The Evolution Dialogues,” which explores evolution and Christianity’s response. It discusses those who see science and religion as compatible but dealing with different spheres, and others working out a theology that takes evolution into account.

The museum scorns such an approach. One exhibit shows a pastor preaching it’s OK not to believe in a literal Genesis. Then it depicts “the consequences” in one family: A young boy looks at porn on the Internet while his sister calls Planned Parenthood.

Posted in Uncategorized

But yes, she is horrible.

Raging Moderate had a point.

A lot of the replies to this post pissed me off. I understand that MeMe Roth is obnoxious. I agree that she really should shut the fuck up about Jordin’s hips and stop pathologizing larger people–let alone our ability to (occasionally, thanks to people like MeMe) see larger people on television. I am also aware that social treatment of fat bodies can’t quite be compared to social controls of all bodies. I recognize that fat people are subjected to disgust and dehumanization that thin people largely avoid. I would argue that anorexia has been both stigmatized and sensationalized as a girl disease for stupid girls, but this is not the same as the revulsion attached to fat bodies or quite the same as the way fatphobia dovetails so neatly with sexism.

However.

“Anorexic” is not slang. It’s an actual disorder with real parameters, like clinical depression. It is not synonymous with being thin, even extremely thin. It’s not synonymous with seeming emaciated or too thin, or with looking undernourished or ill. It isn’t even quite the same as being overly concerned with how much people weigh, or expressing hatred of fat or fat people. I’m not sure that it can be extended to all people with hypervigilant exercise or dietary regimens. (I should note that all of these things can be signs of the disease in individuals, when family and friends notice them; it is, however, also true that many sufferers exhibit none of these symptoms.) It’s a very serious problem, even a life-threatening one. And it is a problem not only–perhaps not even primarily–because of the way it damages the sufferer’s body, but because of the way it damages the sufferer’s life. Its gravity is not due to its tendency to make sufferers look all starved and gross.

I’m far more comfortable, however, with speculating about the breadth of “anorexia” and “eating-disorder” in general than any attempt to apply those labels to any given person. Particularly if all you know is that she’s skinny and obnoxious, and particularly if the terms you’re really searching for are beanpole and bitch.

Calling someone anorexic in the absence of actual knowledge of her circumstances or specific information about her relationship with her body is kind of like calling someone an “aspie” because you think they act weird online, or calling the President autistic because he’s incredibly callous and incredibly awkward. It’s kind of like speculating about Jordin’s health with no measurement but her dress size. I really don’t agree with R. Mildred’s take on this, or with her willingness to diagnose Roth in absentia. If insulting other women for their weight is an indication of anorexia, the disease is a hell of a lot more prevalent than anyone has yet speculated. Is Roeper anorexic?

This sort of pop-pathologizing trivializes a real disease, both by obscuring its specific qualities and by turning it into an insult. (And on that note, insulting someone for having an unlovely body in either direction really isn’t incompatible with the kind of mindset that literally embodies self-hatred.) It alienates people who’ve struggled with those diseases, in much the same way that fat-shaming does for fat people who are sick and tired of baseless and simplistic assertions about their cardiovascular health. It’s an inaccurate frame for a problem whose complexity feminists and anti-fatphobia activists should be underlining, not ignoring.

Plus, it forces me to defend the dignity of MeMe freakin’ Roth.

Leslee Unruh Eats Babies

If you are one of the few people who have yet to see this video, check it out:

The segment is on the new birth control pill that gets rid of your periods. It’s the exact same thing as regular birth control, but it eliminates the monthly placebo pills. Your period on birth control is fake. This pill just skips the fake period — something that women have been doing on their own for years.

Unruh is absolutely off her rocker. She even claims that this new form of birth control will make you infertile, and that birth control is a pesticide. She also smiles the entire time, which is kind of unnerving, and at the end feels the need to remind us that she wants more babies, because “We love babies!”

Sure ya do, Leslee. You love them until they’re born, and then you don’t want any of your precious tax dollars going to pay for their health care, education, or nutrition. You love them so much that you want to take away a woman’s ability to prevent unwanted pregnancy — and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that more unwanted pregnancies = more abortions. But that’s ok, because pro-lifers like Unruh love babies — and life — so very, very much.

And Neil Cavuto is concerned that this new birth control pill is going to turn 13-year-olds into whores — as if birth control was this brand new crazy thing. I think Neil is a few decades too late on this one.

So who is Leslee Unruh? Another powerful extremist who, like most mainstream “pro-life” leaders, opposes not only abortion but contraception. Her organizations are well-funded by the Bush administration.

More on baby-lovin’ Leslee at The Blue State, Think Progress, Crooks and Liars, Feministing, Pandagon, Coat Hangers at Dawn, Clean Cut Kid, and DakotaWomen.

Thanks to Yusaf and Chris for the link.