First, check out AlterNet’s Reproductive Justice and Gender section. I’ve got lots of good stuff going up this week, including stories about anti-choice terrorism, the candidates on choice, and male domestic violence survivors. My favorite article up today is about pro-life Christians panicking about Muslims “out-breeding” us. It illustrates how the anti-choice movement isn’t about life or babies at all; it’s about social control, and requiring all people to live life in a particular way — and it’s about racism.
Erica Jong writes about Hillary and the Patriarchy. I have mixed feelings about Jong (to put it mildly), but at least this piece is interesting.
Malalai Joya on how her country is using Islam to erode women’s rights.
Are Americans hostile to knowledge? I’m gonna go with “yes.”
Bob Herbert on how we need a paradigm shift in how we deal with under-age girls forced or coerced into prostitution. He argues that we should look at prostituted girls as victims, and we should offer them help instead of arrest; obviously I’m inclined to agree. But I wonder how this paradigm shift carries over once the girls turn 18. Herbert, as I understand it, does support criminalizing sex work; does a young women stop being a victim and start being a criminal once she turns 18? And can’t there be something in between “criminal” and “victim”? Herbert is right, though, that the people who exploit girls and women need to be branded as criminals and, where applicable, pedophiles.
A French sex exhibit for children is causing some controversy — but it sounds pretty interesting and positive to me.
Enjoy.