Month: September 2009

by Thúy-Lan Võ Lite

I have a few updates on the case of slain anti-abortion activist James Pouillon, who was killed in front of a school on September 11 in Owassa, Michigan.

A brief post on Jezebel informed me that two Congressmen – Reps. Dave Camp and Dale Kildee – from Pouillon’s home state introduced a resolution to honor the late protestor: House Resolution 759 (available on Camp’s website), after noting that “Jim Pouillon is mourned by his family, friends, community, and fellow defenders of the First Amendment and the unborn,” offers condolences to the victim’s family and recognizes the importance of free speech.

The resolution has been introduced amid an ongoing debate over Pouillon’s posthumous martyrization. Anti-choice leaders note that he was killed on the job, or “gunned down as he stood for life” (Operation Rescue), but it’s misleading to conclude that his victimization was a direct result of his ideology. According to Flint News, “[a]uthorities have said Harlan Drake, 33, of Owosso had a grudge against Pouillon and didn’t think that children should have to look at graphic pictures of abortion on their way to school.”

The article continues: “Shiawassee County Prosecutor Randy Colbry says he doesn’t have any information that the abortion issue was the motivation for the slaying, saying that it is not his impression that the shooting was a hate crime or politically motivated.” Keep in mind that Drake had killed another man earlier in the day based on a completely unrelated “grudge.”

Dr. James M. Pouillon – the late activist’s son – had some interesting opinions of his own, which he wrote in a blog post (via Flint) a few days after the murder. Asserting that his father “really didn’t care about aborton (sic),” he noted that “He did this [protesting] to stalk, harass, terrorize, scream at, threaten, frighten, and verbally abuse women. He had a pathologic hatred of women: his mom, my mom, everyone.”

But whether or not Pouillon, Sr. was killed for his stance or for his persistent, disrespectful methods remains up in the air; it’s definitely too soon for anti-choice leaders to galvanize support in his name.

by Jordan Kisner

I’ve been living in New York City for two months now, and I think I’m about to break down and join a gym. Not because I want to lose weight (though the availability and affordability of New York pizza hasn’t done me any favors there) but because I need an outlet for blowing off some steam: several times a week, I arrive home from my daily commute (2 different subways and several city blocks) ready to scream.

When I moved here I was not prepared for the catcalling.

Men of all shapes and sizes, men of all ages, races and avocations are getting their daily jollies catcalling at any and every woman they see walking down the street. “Hey baby,” “How you doing, sweet thing,” “Can I get your number,” are well worn pages in the book of street-side pervert tricks, and I personally dealt with three or four of these stunners this afternoon. Truthfully, I find these a welcome alternative to the experience of a man boldly undressing you with his eyes as you walk down the street, his tongue out and his head bobbing. This has happened to me four times so far this week. This evening, two men on the subway today got in a loud argument about my ass.

Never has my body felt less my own. Never have I felt more physically powerless.

I’m not alone here. A friend recently rounded on a man in the street who made a rude gesture at her and asked for her number, yelling “Has any woman ever given you her number? If so, I want HER number.” My roommate was followed and harassed by a man for several blocks. I myself have taken to fantasizing about punching these men in the face. The rage that these encounters inspire is so much a reaction to feeling helpless, a futile attempt to mitigate the feeling that your body has been turned into a commodity of the lewdest kind without your consent.

Not surprisingly, none of the men who engage in this kind of behavior lead lives of much power or importance themselves. They are the kind of men who sit on the street corner in the middle of the day, or deliver freight, or sweep steps. (Note: I am NOT making an argument that men of only a certain income or class harass and demean women. We all know this is not true. I am pointing only to the pattern I’ve seen in men who catcall on the streets or subways of New York City.) These men, who have little substantive influence and –apparently—lots of time on their hands, can seize a modicum of power by exercising verbal and sexual dominance over any woman unlucky enough to walk in their sights. Conversely, the most empowered, successful, influential women in New York suffer the risk of being reduced to a sexual fantasy on every street corner.

The women of New York City, like the women of Cairo, are ready for a change.

by Jillian Hewitt

I’m not the first to talk about it this week (see Gracie’s post from Monday), but I also want to address the issue of women’s happiness in light of recent media attention. Marcus Buckingham, who himself has written a book titled Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, wrote an article that appeared in the Huffington Post this week discussing the phenomenon of female unhappiness. Indeed, from 1972 to 2006 women became increasingly unhappy—and in the same time frame, came to enjoy many of the benefits of the feminist movement. As Buckingham puts it, “greater educational, political, and employment opportunities have corresponded to decreases in life happiness for women, as compared to men.” In fact, men’s happiness has steadily increased since 1972.

So what’s the deal? Would most women really rather go back to a time when society assured them that their sole calling was to be a mother and housewife? I’m sure some would, and I won’t pretend to speak for them. I’m also not going to pretend that I have any answers as to why this is the case; I just want to touch on some thoughts I have about the subject. It’s important for us to have an open discussion about this topic, especially when it may be seen as extremely damaging to the feminist movement. Because, you know, what’s the point having all these rights and opportunities and stuff if we were happier being Mrs. Cleaver? So let’s open up and take a look not only at why we might be less happy, but why (and whether) it matters that we are less happy. To be clear, there are thousands of issues I won’t address in this post, not the least of which are the possible reasons for increasing male happiness.

First, I’m going to assume that the data is accurate: Buckingham sites the United States General Social Survey but also notes that six recent, major studies from around the world have produced similar findings. So in 1972, the average woman rated her happiness as a 2.24; in 2006 she rated her happiness as a 2.17 on a scale from 1-3. But is it possible that the factors on which women based their happiness ratings have changed in the past forty years? In 1972, how many women evaluated their happiness with regards to whether they had a husband, children, and a stable income? To me it seems quite possible that women may have evaluated themselves as happy without ever really feeling fulfilled. Is it possible that the list of factors contributing to our happiness has been greatly expanded, and thus women have more awareness as to what might be “missing” from their lives?

I’d like to relate this question to a study I read this week for a class on developing countries that analyzed the results of a Gallup World Poll regarding life satisfaction. In the analysis, the author (Angus Deaton) discusses a phenomenon—that often times, those who are the worst off do not perceive their situation as it objectively is. He asserts that “People do not necessarily perceive the constraints caused by their lack of freedom; the child who is potentially a great musician but never has a chance to find out will not express a lack of life satisfaction.” I wouldn’t dare suggest that the situation of American women in 1972 is nearly as dire as the situation of the poorest of this world, but the analogy seems to hold: that often people do not fully perceive their lack of freedom, and thus do not have strong feelings of unhappiness.

But even if happiness was overstated in 1972, why hasn’t greater opportunity and freedom for women led us to have at least the same levels of happiness? Perhaps there’s something to be said for the fact that with greater opportunities, higher standards of living, etc. come more opportunities for problems: problems with our jobs, problems funding our education, problems with relationships, problems balancing motherhood and a career,…the list goes on. Maybe we just need to face up to the fact that there are simply more things to be unhappy about. But even if we are more unhappy, I would argue that we still have reason to feel more fulfilled. Even if we fail—fail to get into the school we want, fail to get the job we want, fail to find the man or woman of our dreams—we can still be grateful that we had the opportunity to do so.

This reminds me of a scene in Garden State (see it if you haven’t already) when Zach Braff’s character decides to go off his depression medication and confronts his father about their relationship. He concludes that “We may not be as happy as you always dreamed we would be, but for the first time let’s just allow ourselves to be whatever it is we are and that will be better.” So maybe we need to think about the trade-off between self-assessed, numerical “happiness” and a sense of true being—a sense of being that allows us to be unhappy for reasons that we couldn’t even have dreamt about forty years ago.

The final point I want to make is actually drawn off of a quote used by Gracie earlier in the week. She quotes Betsey Stevenson, who explains that “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children…Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.” And I think the same logic applies in light of this situation, too: maybe it’s true that our “greater educational, political, and employment opportunities” have made us less happy. But those opportunities aren’t ones that I’m willing to give back.

Who are the people in your life who make you happier? What do you have to be grateful for today?

by Kelly Roache

This week, it was reported that Millburn High School, well known in New Jersey for its academic and extracurricular excellence, was the center of a particularly ugly hazing of incoming freshmen – that is, ugly enough to cause such a small town to make New York Times headlines. Allegedly, a group of Millburn senior girls wrote a “slut list” rife with vulgar details containing the names of incoming freshmen, passing them out by the hundreds. School authorities claim that the list targeted “pretty and popular incoming ninth graders,” accompanied by senior athletes pushing the girls into lockers and blowing whistles in their faces. A slew of anonymous parent and student comments alike echoed the same sentiment: the girls felt both unsafe and unwelcome in their new school environment.

The recent events at Millburn hardly constitute an isolated incident; the token girl-on-girl hazing story is covered every year during sorority rush and the start of the fall athletic season. Yet some encounters are much more pernicious, with the number of 10- to 17-year-old girls arrested for aggravated assault doubling from twenty years ago. For instance, in one highly publicized case in 2007, in New York a 13-year-old girl was attacked and beaten by three female classmates, who recorded and posted the assault on YouTube – that is, they were proud of their “accomplishment.”

The rise of girl-on-girl violence is not only despicable for its direct consequences, but problematic for feminism in general. Our movement is judged – however fairly or unfairly – by the way women treat each other. Incidents such as these provide fodder for those hostile to and looking to discredit the feminist cause, perpetuating stereotypes of girls and women as boy-crazed (the 13-year-old’s beating was spurred by a catfight over a guy) and emotional to the point of irrational behavior – both of which I have toiled to debunk in my own experience. Even if their usage to give feminism a bad name is unjust, these cases paint the end for which so many women have fought for equal rights as petty, manipulative, mean-spirited, and hypocritical. Until this behavior is addressed, it will always seem to some as if we don’t have a leg on which to stand, and when it comes to our critics, perception is often, sadly, reality in the roadblock it poses for us.

This point aside – and worse yet – is the question of the source of this disturbing and violent trend among girls. For instance, the oldest assailant in the New York case was just 14; these girls are learning this somewhere. Certainly there has always been a fair amount of cattiness and angst as girls become young women struggling to define and explore their place in the social quagmire that is high school. But when did the drama get so far out of hand? Perhaps the most disturbing point was broached by Millburn’s principal regarding the infamous “slut list”: “We’ve had girls — which is one of the bad things — obsessed that their names are on it, and girls who were upset that they didn’t make the list.” Other freshman shrugged off the significance of the hazing as “all in good fun,” saying of those who wouldn’t participate, “Then you’ll be the loser.” One senior described her involvement in the hazing as, “Not more than anyone else.” So how did we stray so far from the progress of the past century?

At the risk of sounding like my father spewing it’s-that-darn-MTV diatribe, I blame Gossip Girl. Not exclusively of course –a farrago of social factors bears some share of responsibility, not to mention GG’s equally inane and lesser-famous equivalents – but this show makes asinine bitchery into an art. The insipid behavior of the main female characters, Blair and Serena, has been lionized for reasons that continue to surpass my understanding. Bitch is the new black, and “whore” is just another name for your best friend when you’re angry with her. None of this would be particularly problematic were the show not so popular, even and especially disturbingly so among friends who consider themselves active feminists. Try as I might to view it as escapism, I can’t quite justify a “guilty pleasure” that contains such witty exchanges between ex-best girlfriends fighting over a tangled web of men as, “Brown doesn’t offer degrees in ‘slut’” (ah, my favorite word again).

Maybe I’m particularly fired up because the Millburn hazings hit a little close to home – I spent quite a bit of time there in high school at academic competitions, and got to know some of the students fairly well. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t all that long ago that I was a freshman, or that my little sister is one now. Or maybe I’m just taking a pop culture phenomenon that’s supposed to be “fun” too seriously. But I doubt it. I used to laugh at Tina Fey’s Mean Girls when Lindsay Lohan’s character daydreamed about high school as jungle where girls physically wrestled like animals over boys and shoes, or when she slipped the most popular girl in school protein bars to make her unwittingly gain weight. But more and more, this seems less and less like a joke, while we anxiously await Serena and Blair’s next vapid moves in the coming weeks’ episodes.

A new Guttmacher report finds that, not surprisingly, the recession has been impacting women’s decisions about birth control and family planning.

After months of anecdotal reports, a survey released today provides the first hard evidence of the recession’s impact on women’s contraceptive use and childbearing decisions. Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute found that because of current economic concerns, nearly half of women surveyed want to delay pregnancy or limit the number of children they have—and for about half of these women, the recession has heightened the focus on effective contraceptive use. But for many, economic hardship means having to skimp on their contraceptive use, for example, by stretching their monthly supply of pills or shifting to a less expensive method—or not using birth control at all—in order to save money. Nearly one in four women have put off a gynecologic or birth control visit in the past year to save money, and the same proportion report having a harder time paying for birth control than they did in the past.

The report “A Real-Time Look at the Impact of the Recession on Women’s Family Planning and Pregnancy Decisions” found that more than one in four women surveyed or their partners have lost jobs or health insurance in the past year, and that 52% say they are financially worse off than they were a year ago. Not surprisingly, more than half of the women surveyed worry more now about their ability to take care of their children. Among those who say they are financially worse off, three-quarters voice this concern.