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

Bits and Pieces

A New York subway ad campaign tells women “Abortion changes you.” Lori’s take says it all — forced pregnancy changes you, too.

Elsewhere in New York, one of our many worst New York nightmares came true — a woman was out at a bar, turned down a man who wanted to dance with her, and then he followed her into the bathroom and beat the shit out of her. According to the New York Times, “The attack was so vicious, according to the police, that the woman sustained a broken eye socket and a broken nose, and possibly a fractured skull.” And the guy who did it still hasn’t been found.

A Mississippi high school decided to cancel prom rather than allow a lesbian couple to attend. Because it’s ok if girls go to prom together because they can’t get dates, but not ok if they go because they actually like each other. The ACLU is suing.

Is banning abortion about “morals,” or is it about theocratic intrusions into our personal lives? Amanda says it’s theocracy, in a very compelling piece.

Nickels for Change: College students Cassie and Rebekah are adding nickels to their jars every time they hear bigoted language around their school. At the end of the year, they’ll be donating all the money to a social justice organization. Head over and see how you can help.

Hero Granny!

One million women are hospitalized every year in Latin America and the Caribbean due to complications from unsafe abortion (pdf). There are more than 4 million abortions in Latin America and the Caribbean every year; of the 4.1 million abortions performed in 2003, all but 200,000 were unsafe. The majority of those safe abortions took place in Cuba, Guyana and Puerto Rico, where abortion is permitted under some circumstances and performed by trained medical professionals.

Men have it bad when it comes to unemployment, but statistics may obscure the hit taken by single mothers.

Heavy Metal: Angela Gossow on women, rock and kicking ass. I’m not a metal fan, but she’s an inspiring woman.

Missionary Position: Yup, Christian evangelists actually call their strategy for converting Muslims “the camel method.” Not to mention the offensiveness of this kind of missionary work in the first place.

Rape victims world-wide are denied justice and dignity. A report from Amnesty International.

Liz Cheney’s smear campaign targets Obama officials and the most basic Constitutional principles. It’s shameful, and this piece is a must-read on an important issue.

Passion, Freedom and Women: A fascinating BlogTalk Radio segment.

The Race and Gender Wealth Gap: The median wealth for Single Black Women: $100. Single Hispanic Women: $120. Single White Women: $41,000.


10 thoughts on Bits and Pieces

  1. This will sound like the most inappropriate thing to single out, but:

    Thanks for linking to that Angela Gossow interview. I’m a huge metal fan, and it’s always good to see high-profile female musicians being strong and professional. I sometimes get the feeling that a lot of people dismiss metal for being a load of insular white dudes and make the assumption that it’s because of a sexist culture- to some extent it is, as Angela says, but she seems to be working towards diminishing that influence. So yeah, thanks for helping that message get out. I appreciate it, especially as you’re not a metal fan yourself.

  2. This “abortion causes lifelong regret” bullshit is just a squishier version of the “abortion causes breast cancer” stuff that some anti-choicers are still flogging. IOW, wishful thinking on their part.

    As for the guy in NY, I know it’s uncool to wish physical harm on anyone, but I hope when he gets caught, I hope he experiences the kind of terror he inflicted on that woman. Being a coward, he likely will.

  3. Thanks for linking to the Gossow article, not enough women get the credit they deserve in music and even fewer get attention for being intelligent and technically brilliant. Whats most amazing for me, though, is that in addition to challenging stereotypes about what women can do in metal shes also taken on the question of what musicians can do in music. The licensing deal she talked about isn’t a small thing, Arch Enemy took an incredible gamble going for it and its been successful for them largely because Angela Gossow made it work. Shes challenging the entire structure of the music business by making her label an employee/distributor/wholesaler rather than a boss.

  4. Thats the wrong link, the video I wanted to link to is fourth on the list, CNN’s video page is so complicated to link to shesh!

  5. As for the woman in NY, I wish her well. I’d never even heard of a broken eye socket before now and wonder how this guy got away with what he did. Surveillance cameras, no ID, nothing? This person who has no regard for others is roaming free and that scares me.

  6. People are actually saying things like “What was she doing in the bathroom by herself?” on the NYC bar thread.

    Apparently we’re even too helpless to piss by ourselves without inviting bodily harm.

  7. It isn’t fair to lump all Christians in with a few fundamentalists from the American South. Why not refer to them as “American Evangelicals?” To suggest that Christians participate in dishonest missionizing is silly.

    Also, the ridiculously stupidly named “Camel” method(srsly guys, stop being morons for a second) has some reasonable bits, even if the entirity of it is lacking. In a world where billions of people have some sort of faith, isn’t it a little refreshing to see people starting by looking at what they have in common instead of immediately jumping to bomb throwing?

    People like to share their ideas. People like to convince others to think like them. That’s part of life. It can be and often is done in extremely poor ways, but this bit here could be worse.

    They really, really do need to rename the effort though.

  8. I read this tidbit on the Tyra Show Community web page about a transgender pupil at a high school being suspended last month for coming out as a transgendered person.

    You guessed it, this incident happened at the SAME high school that cancelled its prom because it didn’t want Constance to take her girlfriend to the big dance. The transgendered pupil has been suspended for over a month now.

    http://tyrashow.ning.com/forum/topics/transgender-student-suspended

Comments are currently closed.