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

Month: April 2009

In Honor of Fair Pay Day

Re-posting this awesome guest-post by Sarah Jaffe. Sarah has another fair pay post up today — head over there and read it. Here’s Sarah:

So our economy is falling apart, right? And the government keeps bailing out these massive financial firms while talking Very Sternly to the auto company CEOs about how they need to restructure and cut costs. Of course, the number one cost CEOs and reporters love to talk about is the “labor cost,” all the while nicely avoiding mentioning that “labor cost” is what real people make in wages and other benefits.

Unions, in other words, are a convenient bogeyman, yet they do and have done more to improve the living standards of American workers than anything else. And 44% of union workers are women. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

“If the share of women in unions continues to grow at the same rate as it has over the last 25 years, women will be the majority of the unionized workforce by 2020.”

There’s a bill in Congress right now that you’ve probably heard of called the Employee Free Choice Act. Briefly, the bill would allow three things: it would allow workers to form a union simply by signing a card—the so-called “card check” provision; it would provide binding arbitration for employers and workers when they cannot agree on a contract; and it would strengthen penalties against employers who seek to intimidate workers trying to form a union.

And I believe it should be a feminist issue.

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Criminalizing Sex

This is disturbing:

A German musician has been arrested on suspicion of infecting a sexual partner with HIV.

The prosecutor’s office in the western town of Darmstadt said Ms Benaissa had been detained because of the “urgent suspicion” that she slept with three people between 2004 and 2006, without telling them she was HIV-positive.

At least one of the partners then tested positive for HIV, allegedly as a result of having intercourse with her, the office said in a statement.

While some people may find it frightening that a person with HIV or any other infectious disease would have unprotected sex and not disclose their status to their partner, I’m not sure it should be criminal. Many of us might want our partners to disclose their status, but legally requiring that they do? That seems to take us down a pretty dangerous path.

Thanks to Anne for the link.

Boys Teach Me Things.

Because I need a little humor to break up what has been a fairly depressing news day, a g-chat conversation between myself — who is apparently perceived as an expert on all things vagina-related — and a male friend. Laugh and enjoy:

Neil: question
Me: shoot
Neil: how do you pronounce “kegel” as in the exercises for your vag
Me: kee-guhl
Neil: like “key”
Me: yes
Neil: ok, well you’re wrong, fyi
as a feminist you should know this
its KAY-guhl
Me: really?
Neil: i should get a h/t on your blog for this
Neil: julie [our mutual friend] says i should explain
although i think this convo is way better without any context
julie pronounced it wrong and blamed you
then cited you as a more definitive authority than anything i could find on the internet.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?kegel01m.wav=Kegel exercises
but cf. http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?kegel02m.wav=Kegel exercises’
these are our new ringtones
btw

I guess you learn something new every day. h/t Neil.

Mapping Our Rights

All the way back at WAM (wow, was that really a month ago already?), I attended a workshop with Loretta Ross of Sister Song called New Technology, New Activism.  Loretta Ross is one of my personal activist heroes, which is why I attended.  I certainly didn’t leave disappointed, as she and Serena Garcia, also of Sister Song, introduced us to MappingOurRights.org.  And I thought it was one of the greatest things ever.

Mapping Our Rights is a collaborative project between Sister Song, Ipas, the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, and the Center for Reproductive Rights.  The idea behind the map is pretty much what the name suggests — to take a look at rights across the United States on a state by state basis, from a reproductive justice standpoint.

They have worked out a system for ranking all of the states in the nation.  You can take a look at all of the points of this system by clicking on the Laws & Policies left-hand sidebar, and they include things from abortion accessibility to LGBT rights and the legal status of midwifery.  Hover over a law/policy, and you can read about it in the box above, and how penalty points were assigned for that particular policy.

Even better, you can take a general look at how states stack up for each and every policy.  With the Laws & Policies sidebar open, you can click “Clear All Policies” to clear the map, then click on the policy you want to see.  The map will change colors (blue best, red worst) based on that one criteria.  Add another criteria, and the map will change again to reflect both.

Clicking on a state gives you a whole nice overview of specific policies in that state.  Charts appear with basic health and reproductive rights related statistics, including a breakdown of many statistics by race.  Below is a personal story about someone who has been affected by the state’s policies.  And to the right is a list of penalty points for the state.

So, take Florida for instance.  You’ll see in the right-hand bar that they incurred a 100 point fee for confidential planning services for minors.  Why?  Click the left-hand sidebar, open up that same criteria, and you’ll see that the penalty was given to “States that have no policy allowing minors to consent to reproductive-health services or only allow consent in very specific circumstances (e.g. if the minor is married, a parent or pregnant).”  So, clearly, Florida has some parental consent laws going on.  And then you can go off to do further research.

You can also rate the map by using the Tell Us What You Think button at the bottom.  I mention this specifically because it has an option to provide suggestions for things you’d like to see added to the map, and I’m sure that all of us can think of a bunch.  I personally believe very strongly, for example, that sexual violence is a reproductive justice issue.  So I’d like to see some more information with regards to that beyond EC emergency room access.

But still, as is, it’s an amazing start.  I find it to be an incredibly useful for a whole bunch of purposes.  Activists, grassroots organizers, concerned citizens — and yes, of course, bloggers — can definitely benefit from this kind of easy snapshot.  There have to be a ton of uses for it.  Which is why I’m writing about it — because I know that I’m going to be using it all the time.

That was even faster than I expected.

With swine flu now hitting the United States, I figured it was only a matter of time before someone started to blame Mexican people. But this is an impressive turn-around, even for Michael Savage and Neil Boortz. Plus they get the “OMG terrorizm!” aspect in there too:

Neil Boortz claims that Mexico doesn’t have a CDC, so from the perspective of someone who wants to commit an act of bioterrorism against U.S. citizens, “What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans?”

At least one better way comes immediately to mind.

One would think that if terrorists were going to release a virus with the intent of killing Americans, they would do it on, say, the New York City subway system and not on a Mexican pig farm. But there are no lengths to which these guys won’t go in order to convince us that we’re constantly on high Terror Alert in the face of threats from any passing brown people.

It’s phenomenal how easily these guys can fit anything — including a potential global health pandemic — into a one-size-fits-all racist narrative about Mexicans being dirty and sneaky mules. It’s phenomenal that they can get away with it even in a situation like this, where the virus was spread outside of Mexico in large part because of tourists. And it’s particularly appalling in its victim-blaming — is it so easy to forget that 150 people have died in Mexico, and thousands more are living in fear?

You can practically hear the chorus of “They’re giving us swine flu!” right behind “They’re taking our jerbs!”

Unfortunately, it isn’t just a handful of jerks who happen to have radio shows who are perpetuating this kind of racism under the guise of simply wanting to “secure our borders” — it is, to use Liss’ words, rank and file bigotry. But congrats, GOP, for your increasing irrelevancy.

Feminism: Not a Religion. Men’s Rights Activists: Still Not Getting Laid Much.

Feminism is not a religion any more than physics, says a District Court judge in response to a “guys’ rights” lawsuit brought against Columbia University. And… yeah. No shock there.

The contention? That Columbia uses government aid to preach a “religionist belief system called feminism.”

Roy Den Hollander, the man behind the cases, sounds like a real winner:

Mr. Den Hollander devotes much of his private practice to representing men in civil cases — “antifeminist cases or guys’-rights cases,” as he puts it – and said his bitter 2001 divorce from a woman he married in Russia helped tweak his anger toward feminists and laws he sees as favoring women.

In July 2007, Mr. Den Hollander filed a class-action suit against prominent Manhattan nightclubs like Copacabana, China Club, Lotus and Sol, claiming they discriminated against men with their ladies’ nights offering free or reduced admission, which violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, the suit said.

In February 2008, he filed a suit against the federal government calling parts of the Violence Against Women Act unconstitutional.

Those cases are still pending. Mr. Den Hollander said that today’s lawsuit completes a “trilogy of antifeminist lawsuits.”

At least someone is taking on the great injustices that are Ladies Nite and federal programs to help women escape abusive relationships.

I actually do think that disparate entry rates at bars are wrong and unfair, and I would be happy to see Ladies Nite disappear. But I suspect it will shock no one when I point out that Mr. Den Hollander’s objections to Ladies Nite aren’t about fundamental fairness, but about his serious issues with “girls”:

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Denist Defends Sexual Assault of Patients as Medical Treatment

Trigger Warning

Since I’ve been blogging, I’ve come across a whole slew of excuses for rape and other sexual assault, made both by perpetrators themselves and their supporters.  The stream is almost never-ending, and they’re usually pretty easy to recognize.  There’s the “what did she expect dressed/acting like that?” defense, the “well, she didn’t say no” defense, the “oh, it was a joke!” defense — you get the picture.

But while not entirely unheard of, the “I was just providing medical treatment” defense is relatively new.

That’s precisely the defense used by a dentist convicted of sexually assaulting a dozen female patients during their visits to his office. Check it out (emphasis mine):

In an emotional statement, Anderson said he was sorry that the women he’s convicted of molesting didn’t realize he was simply providing treatment.

Anderson wept during his sentencing hearing before some of his victims and Judge Mock.

The prominent dentist, who once had a thriving practice and loyal patients, was convicted by a jury March 10 on a dozen counts of sexual battery for molesting female patients.

Anderson, 49, has been free on his own recognizance since his arrest in 2007.

In a courtroom packed with his victims, supporters and media in the historic Woodland courthouse, Anderson made his tearful statement to the judge. He insisted that what he had done was treatment for the women’s pain.

Anderson’s defense at trial was that he had touched the women’s chests as treatment for TMJ, or temporomandibular joint disorder, a painful jaw condition.

“What I did was an honest attempt to help my patients,” he said today.

[. . .]

During testimony at Anderson’s trial, victims said that Anderson reached into their bras and made comments about their breasts. Candis Barajas, 30, said Anderson had violated her trust and used his patients’ vulnerability in the dental chair for his own sexual gratification.

Later on in the article, Anderson’s actions are described as “fondling.”

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