As a local Charlottesville newspaper, The Hook, reports:As a student and then graduate student at the University of Virginia, I was bothered by the university's Sexual Assault Board and its rule that victims of sexual assault keep silent about their cases -even if their attacker was found guilty. Sometimes, as in the case that prompted the complaint against UVA, the defendant was found guilty but allowed to stay at the school, and the victim was still bound by silence. If she spoke about the case, she could face charges from the Judiciary Committee. I am glad that my alma mater will now be a better place for students.Four years after the college safety nonprofit Security on Campus filed a complaint against UVA for its mishandling of sexual assault cases, the Department of Education has ruled that the university has, in fact, violated federal law by threatening victims of sexual assault with punishment if they spoke about their cases.
The ruling has major implications for victims of sexual assault on college campuses across the country, according to the man who filed the complaint on behalf of then-UVA student Annie Hylton, now Annie Hylton McLaughlin.
“It means that victims can’t be silenced at UVA or anywhere else,” says S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus.
So, I went on this date once - obviously, this was awhile ago - with a fellow grad student (he was in the English Department, I was in the Spanish Department). The conversation turned to our favorite books and authors, and I listed a few I was excited about at the time. I'd just discovered Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, so that made the top of the list. Sarah Vowell is one of my favorite humorists and my sole source of U.S. history, so she made the 'favorites' cut as well. I believe I was reading Gertrude Stein's Three Lives at the time and wanted to talk about it, and I was also halfway through Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and loving it (truly a great collection of short stories, I can't believe I haven't read her novel, The Namesake, yet). Anyway, dude looks at me and says, "So, are you -like- one of those girls who only reads books by women?" Seriously, the guy had just given me a list of all of his favorite authors - all of whom were men - and I didn't ask if he only read books by white guys. But, you name too many books by women, and you're 'one of those girls'? Come to think of it, he probably meant feminist... so yeah, I'm one of those. We don't just read books by women though, we also have bra burning parties and hairy leg contests. Sheesh.These 'crisis pregnancy centers' are deceptive about their anti-choice agenda, often include false information about abortion, and are finding their way onto campus referral lists with surprising frequency. For more details and some sharp commentary, visit Viva La Feminista. Also, we've written a bit about the HHS's proposed rule at TheFU here and here.The Bush administration is planning an 11th-hour rule change that could open a new spigot of government money to “crisis pregnancy centers”—fake, anti-choice clinics whose mission is to convince pregnant women not to have abortions (see Ms., fall 2008).
The proposed regulation, pending action by Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Michael Leavitt, would give health care workers the “right to refuse” to provide women abortion referrals, unbiased counseling and even--depending on interpretation--birth control. Not only would this mean that U.S. women were no longer guaranteed full information from their health care providers, but, according to reproductive rights group SEICUS, it could also open up federal Title X funding—the bread-and-butter of comprehensive family planning clinics such as Planned Parenthood—to CPCs. Currently, Title X funding is reserved for clinics that provide women full, unbiased counseling about their reproductive options.
If The Guardian is to be believed, it's pretty much a done deal:Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.
Obama's advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton's foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.
Clinton would be well placed to become the country's dominant voice in foreign affairs, replacing Condoleezza Rice. Since being elected senator for New York, she has specialised in foreign affairs and defence. Although she supported the war in Iraq, she and Obama basically agree on a withdrawal of American troops.
Well, what do you think? Are you excited about this appointment? Nervous? Do you think The Guardian is jumping the gun by calling this before anyone else?
A 16-year-old girl has been chosen to play on a Japanese men's baseball team, and is set to become the first woman to play professional baseball in Japan:High school student Eri Yoshida was drafted by the Kobe 9 Cruise, a professional team in a new independent Japanese league that will start its first season in April.
"I always dreamed of becoming a professional," Yoshida, who is 5-feet (152-centimeters) tall and weighs 114 pounds (52 kilograms), told a news conference Monday. "I have only just been picked by the team and haven't achieved anything yet." [...]
Yoshida took part in a tryout held earlier this month and passed with flying colors. The right-hander held male batters hitless for one inning in the tryout and her successful outing helped her become one of the 33 players picked in the draft.
Congrats and good luck, Eri Yoshida! I know I've got a new favorite team...
Men and women are sorted into different jobs and jobs associated with women are paid less.Below is a list of occupations and their average wages for 2007 from The Bureau of Labor Statistics. I picked out occupations that were rather straightforward (not a random sample, just an illustrative one), put them in order from lowest to highest, and colored them according to whether they are feminine (pink) or masculine (blue) occupations...
Parking Lot Attendants: $8.82
Child care workers: $8.82
Coatroom attendants: $9.18
Bellhops: $9.25
Sewing machine operators: $9.31
Manicurists and pedicurists: $9.60
Home health care aid: $9.62
Stock clerks: $9.85
Janitors: $10.00
Hairdressers: $10.68
Security Guards: $10.85
File clerks: $11.06
Pre-school teachers: $11.12
Barbers: $11.31
Receptionist: $11.40
Bus Driver (school): $12.43
Construction workers: $13.13
Butchers: $13.87
Dental Assistants: $15.17
Bus Driver (city): $15.94
Roofers: $15.98
Car mechanics: $16.43
Truck drivers: $17.41
Electricians: $21.53
Lisa draws three conclusions from her observations:
Car mechanics are paid more than dental assistants. They require a similar amount of training, yet we still pay those taking care of our cars more than those taking care of our teeth.
And pre-school teachers are paid less than butchers and bus drivers. Is preparing our children for school less important than getting them there? Do we value the man preparing our meat more than we value the woman tending to our child?
3. In professions that have two distinct titles for males and females, the female equivalent earns less: "For example, maids are paid less than janitors and hairdressers are paid less than barbers."
Enlightening, isn't it?
In countries where FGM occurs it is usually the women who perpetuated it onto their daughters, they often don't feel it was a violation. Heck in Indonesia it's done on neonates, just like males here. So how do they know what is missing? What reason would they have to stop it, they're fine. It's the same dance just a different tune.Well, heck - it seems we have very different definitions of the word 'fine.'
Independent of how you may feel about male circumcision, it does not normally, or even more than very rarely, lead to long-term medical consequences. FGM nearly always does. FGM is not usually as "simple" as a pinprick. And who performs it is irrelevant. If women are co-opted into torturing each other by the dominant male culture, that is most emphatically not a mitigating factor, but a sign of how deeply disturbed gender relations in the culture are.
Male circ is not a method of controlling males and their sexuality... FGM is always---always---a method of controlling women and their sexuality. It is almost always mutilitory (rather than symbolic) and leads to widespread female urogenital problems. Despite what the foreskin-worshipers may say, male circumcision and FGM are in no way equivalent.
I really appreciate having some male allies willing to point out the stupidity of the 'women are incapable of doing anything to hurt women, ergo if a woman does something then it must be good for womankind' argument that we see so frequently around these parts. I'm also going to have to agree with PalMD on his second point too, "Go ahead and argue the ethics of male circ on their merits. There is a reasonable discussion to be had. But leave FGM out of it."
Nine people from Thailand have been jailed for up to two-and-a-half-years for their part in exploiting women who were advertised in "online brothels". They are thought to have made millions of pounds from women trafficked from Asia to the UK for use in the sex trade...One of the women - advertised on the website as "Helen" - had been "bought" from her traffickers by a syndicate of two women and a man for £11,000 and then told she would have to pay her "bondholders" £30,000 to win her own freedom.
Brian O'Neill, prosecuting, said she effectively had to sleep with 300 men, at £100 a time, to buy herself out of a modern-day form of slavery.
While prostitution is technically legal in the UK, laws against soliciting, streetwalking, and brothels effectively make it illegal to sell sexual services, but not to buy them. The increase in trafficking cases might change the laws to put some legal responsibility on the purchaser as well as the provider:
Earlier this year the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced plans to introduce legislation to outlaw paying for sex with someone "controlled for another person's gain"...
If it becomes law it would mean "punters" would have a legal obligation to ensure women they pay have not been trafficked.
An increase in trafficking cases has also prompted calls for massive reform of laws regarding the sex trade in the UK. One group calling for prostitution reform explains the challenge this way:
Since I feel like I don't know what the best solution is, I'm curious to know other people's thoughts on how prostitution should be best regulated to prevent trafficking and abuse.As explained above, the current laws tread an uneasy path between legality and illegality. Would it not be better in our enlightened society to decide once and for all "is there a place for prostitution in the 21st century"? This would lead to two outcomes:
- We decide there is a place for prostitution in the 21st century and legalise all aspects of the "profession". In addition we help prostitution to become an acceptable part of society by incorporating it into education, health and politics.
- We decide prostitution is largely an abuse of women (as was decided in Sweden). In order to protect women who have been forced into prostitution the law is changed to move the "blame" and illegality to the purchaser of sexual services.
Bunches of white balloons and giant sprays of long-stemmed red roses festooned City Hall here Wednesday morning, as one of the eight couples who successfully sued the state to allow same-sex marriage became the first to obtain a marriage license as the law took effect...Cheers! Congratulations to all the couples that can now begin planning weddings. I hear Connecticut is beautiful in the early summer... May many states (ahem, CA) follow the example of our northern friends and keep fighting until equal rights for same-sex couples are guaranteed throughout the country.
The official start of gay marriages came a month after Connecticut’s highest court legalized the unions, and the court announced only last week that Wednesday would be the official first day of nuptials...
“Today, Connecticut sends a message of hope and promise to lesbian and gay people throughout the country who want to be treated as equal citizens by their government,” said Ben Klein, a lawyer with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a Boston group that litigated the Connecticut case.
Over the years, four doctors who provide abortion service have been shot around this date, and one, Dr. Bernard Slepian, was killed.
If you do not already participate in a clinic escort program, you can contact your local NOW chapter to find out how you can volunteer to help women receive needed health services without harassment.
I like that California NOW doesn't merely report the rise in protests, but suggests a way to combat the harrassment. You can also check out their video explaining how the escort program works at their site.
Robson's road from pageants to FBI special agent began on April 29, 1975, when her father retired as a three-star general and the Communists were closing in on Saigon.The rest is an amazing story, so go read and listen. And if anyone hasn't started writing their novel yet, a trip to her restaurant in Bangkok could be a good place to start researching a novel based on Meyung Robson's adventures. Just remember who gave you the idea..."When we saw a helicopter falling off the rooftop of a condominium a block from our house, my mother said, 'That's it, we have to leave,'" Robson says. "So we just rushed out of the house with about $60 in my dad's pocket. [The] entire family just ran with clothes on our backs to the port of Saigon."
They scrambled onto a ship, and a few months later found themselves in New York as refugees picking strawberries in Stony Brook.
"It was just heaven, after spending so much time on sea, to be able to just lie down in field of strawberries and eat as much as we could, and sell the rest for 15 cents a basket. It was fun, it was really fun," Robson says.
When Kendra LaDuca and Amy Maurer Creel noticed that they never wore jewelry after having given birth to their daughters (because babies love nothing more than grabbing and slobbering on mom's baubles), they saw a business opportunity. Why not make fashionable jewelry out of chewable materials? That way, if Baby wants to use your pendant as a teething ring for awhile, no problem:The two formed their company, Smart Mom, in 2002, and spent the next four years finding a suitable material for Teething Bling, lab-testing it and refining prototypes. Made from latex-free silicone, the same material used to coat baby spoons, the matched necklaces and bracelets come in an array of colors and patterns, including camouflage and a pale flecked green that resembles jade. They sell for $19 and $12, respectively, on the Smart Mom Web site...Brilliant, right? You can find their jewelry here.
Amy and Kendra started selling Teething Bling in 2006, grossing about $80,000 and netting $12,000 in the first 12 months, Amy says. Sales have climbed over the past 12 months to about $125,000, Amy says, with about $60,000 net.
Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team...
The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he rescinded the Reagan-era regulation, known as the Mexico City policy, but Bush reimposed it."We have been communicating with his transition staff" almost daily, Richards said. "We expect to see a real change."
Yeah, progressives!
Michelle and Barack look calmer than I did at this point in the evening - and more sober:
Presidential paddycake:
That's right, keep him headed in the right direction, Michelle:
"OMG, Dads are so embarrassing!":
(h/t Guanabee)
You know what? I don't bloody well care what she was wearing. Two of my best friends just had their marriage from last month mocked, thrown under the bus, and right out the window.All that said, I think her election-night dress was an odd choice. The cut didn't flatter her figure or work well on camera. The addition of a bolero-like sweater only added to the shapeless silhouette.
It's time to cast your vote. Was the dress a hit or a miss?
Any voter unsure if she's registered can double-check and find her polling place at canivote.org, as Cara reminds us over at Feministe. Also, Cara writes that "...it never hurts to call up friends and family to double-check that they have voted or are planning on voting. As it turns out, without directly asking you never know."
Sad news, via CNN:Sen. Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died following a bout with cancer, Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said Monday...As mentioned over at Art at the Auction, we wish she could have stayed with us for just two more days and seen her grandson elected President of the United States of America.
In a statement released Monday afternoon, Obama and his sister said that Dunham was "the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility."
I know, I know - links are for Sunday. But we started watching Battlestar Galactica Season 3 on Sunday (yes, we have to get caught up - its very important), so I forgot the internets even existed for awhile. I'm back now, though, so without further ado...
Posts
All Comments
