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

Month: April 2010

Child marriage: sex and money, Juliet and Fawziya Ammodi

This guest post is a part of the Feministe series on Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

I think a TRIGGER WARNING is appropriate here.

Why does the institution of marriage exist? Even highly romanticized commercials for De Beers speak to the primary historic nature of the marriage contract: material well-being, as well as securing that well-being for the future generation. This isn’t to say that people who wound up, and continue to wind up, married to each other have no emotional investment in the enterprise. But even the many symbolic acts that occur across cultures when people tie the knot also tend to have practical roots, no?

In light of all that, it almost weirds me out when anyone professes to be shocked by the phenomenon of child marriage. “Really,” I want to say. “Have you taken a look at the world you live in as of late?”

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Thursday LOST Roundtable: Happily Ever After

Spoilers below!

Still from LOST, containing a closeup of Desmond Hume's smiling face.

This week on LOST, Desmond yet again finds it difficult to keep his consciousness where it belongs, and we learn a little bit more about what makes him so “special.” We’ve got lots of theories, so check them out and leave your own in the comments (remembering the rule of no spoilers for unaired episodes!).

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Excusing Violence

A new survey on violence against women in Australia has just been released. “National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey 2009” was coordinated by an organisation called VicHealth, which was appointed by the Minister for Health in the state of Victoria. You can access the findings here.

There was an article about the survey from the Australian Associated Press yesterday called Violence against women ‘still a problem’. Which I think we pretty much all knew was the case, but we ‘tend to’ express it ‘without gratutious’ quotation marks which ‘make it look’ like ‘it might be’ someone’s ‘opinion’ rather than ‘a’ real thing. Anyhow, let’s move to the substance of the article.

Australia still has a long way to go to abolish violence against women, a new survey reveals.

One in four people think women falsify or exaggerate claims of rape and domestic violence, according to the federally funded survey of more than 10,000 Australians.

And one in five think domestic violence is excusable if the attacker regrets what they have done.

From page 48 of the summary of findings (PDF), to be specific, that’s 27% of men respondents and 18% of women respondents agreeing with that last statement out of the 13 000 people surveyed. There are lots of disturbing findings in this survey: 38% of men and 30% of women said that ‘rape results from men being unable to control their need for sex’ and 80% of respondents agreed that ‘it is hard to understand why women stay in violent relationships,’ up from 77 percent in 1995, for a start. There are lots of important things that should be spoken about. Today, I want to talk about the notion that domestic violence – any violence – is excusable.

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Thinking about feminist icons

It’s time for a group discussion, I think! I’m going to get the ball rolling with some questions, but I really want to hear your thoughts on this, maybe build a sense of what the Feministe community thinks around feminist icons – knowing you lot, hardly a monolithic sense! So, here we go.

  1. What makes someone a feminist icon?
  2. Who are feminist icons? That is, who are some feminist icons for you personally, and who do you identify as icons for the feminist movement in general?
  3. What are the uses and problems in having feminist icons?
  4. How has the picking of particular types of feminists, or feminists from particular groups, as feminist icons been problematic, and what does that say about feminism and society?
  5. What importance do feminist icons have – to your personal feminism, to the movement – if it is important to have them?

Hey, anti-tax conservatives

Read this.

Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it’s simply somebody else’s problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability.

Middle and lower-income families pay less in income taxes under Obama than they did under Bush. Why haven’t I seen that sign at a Tea Party rally?

Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year.

The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.

The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.

I mean, yeah, I’m sure that many anti-tax conservatives are in that top 10% of earners who pay a lot of money in taxes. And I feel their pain, I guess, but I think I’d rather be in that position than struggling to feed my kids or not being able to afford a doctor’s visit when I get sick.

Magic is everywhere in this bitch.

The fact that this video exists is proof enough, I think, of all the magic and miracles that the Insane Clown Posse discuss:

via Gabe, who I think I might be in love with. Lyrics — which are amazing — are below the fold.

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Feministe Feedback: Dealing with sexism in social networking

A reader is looking for advice on how she can handle sexism in public, sometimes semi-anonymous spheres — i.e., where you can’t pull the individual aside to have a discussion:

I would like to get advice and your opinions on something that I’ve been struggling with.
On social networks like twitter and facebook there are always jokes about women e.g. Why did the woman cross the road, no wait, why isn’t she in the kitchen?!
I know they are pretty rubbish jokes but I always try to say why their wrong. However they just come straight back at me with another joke. It’s so frustrating! I don’t know what to do next, please can I have your help/advice/opinion?

Ideas? What do you all do?

Ban on women judges in Egypt’s top administrative court overturned

I wanted to point you in the direction of this article from the Associated Press:

It took a street protest, government intervention and a Constitutional Court ruling over the past weeks to get women appointed to Egypt’s State Council court for the first time. The final result was a victory, but many women’s rights advocates are dismayed that after decades of struggle it took such a fight, and that such views still run so deep, even among the country’s elite.

Especially given that women have already been judges for years on most Egyptian courts.

This is easily my favourite part:

“They say their decision to ban women from the bench is out of compassion for us, they want to spare women the tiring, difficult work,” columnist Amal Abdel-Hadi wrote in the independent daily, al-Masry al-Youm. “These judges have obviously not worked as a public school teacher, a nurse or a midwife.”

There’s also some history around recent issues in women’s rights in the Egyptian legal system as well as an interview with Tahany el-Gebali, who became the first woman judge in 2003. Go give it a read.

Caption It Yourself

Go, Feministe readers: What should the caption to this amazing photo say? via.

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