Why are my feminist friends still taking their husbands' surnames?
 

The bride wears white, is handed from man to man – and then loses a major part of her identity. Why do Australian women still put up with these patriachal customs – and how come I feel too embarrassed to ask them?

It has become my Muriel moment. I find myself standing in the back pews of church watching a dear female friend led down the aisle on her father’s arm, blubbering uncontrollably through my MaxFactor. But these are not tears of joy, of nostalgia, or even envy. These are tears of despair. Of confusion.

Another comrade has fallen. Another secular, strong-minded, sexually-liberated, independent Gen-Xer is giving up her name to a man before God in an alabaster scene straight out of Bride to Be magazine and all I can think is, “all John Howard’s dreams have come true”. And why? Oh, because he wanted me to.

This week, the European Court of Human Rights overturned an archaic Italian law which prevented children from adopting their mother’s surname, deeming the rule "patriarchal", "discriminatory" and a "difference of treatment between men and women". And yet, faced with a range of choices, it seems that Australian women are overwhelmingly volunteering to maintain this patronymic practice, choosing their husband’s name not only for their children, but for themselves.

A 2013 survey found that around 82% of married Australian women still assume their husband’s surname, while around 90% of children are registered in their father’s names. Taken alongside other stock wedding practices, from white frocks to paternal giveaways, these figures reflect the resilience of patriarchal customs in marriage between Australian men and women; a consent to inequality which is baffling.

Across the country, women are getting married later and older, with more cohabiting and bearing children beforehand. We are more inclined to be university-educated, professional, property-owners. We overwhelmingly support same-sex relationships and profess a belief in the need for greater gender equality. And yet, when it comes to our weddings, most of us still appear happy to insert politically-correct clauses about the right to same-sex marriage into our ceremonies, then proceed to throw out our lifelong identities, retrofit the trappings of virginity and be handed from man to man.

It's depressing not to recognise half your Facebook friends list because their names have changed overnight. They have been cast off for the happy tags of "Mrs X", as if to proclaim “forget who I was before – I am now loved, wanted and owned by a MAN!”

So why do I feel unable to ask why? It is testament to both the strength of these norms and current weakness of feminist debate in Australia that even amongst our closest friends it feels taboo to discuss frankly customs which many of us find exclusive, offensive or regressive.

It is not that I don’t celebrate the union of loved ones. I don't think my female peers have dropped their principles or their IQs, and I don't regard their husbands as anything other than enlightened gender-egalitarians. But for all symbolic purposes, it seems that supposed allies in the struggle for female equality are drifting back half a century on a sea of Tiffany.

The choice to marry is deeply personal. But when publicly performed, it becomes a statement of implied social values and virtues. And when we are asked to participate in this ritual, to bear witness and to endorse it even in the face of our disagreement, the least we can ask for is an explanation.

When (another) Australian Prime Minister is doing his best to roll back women’s rights, to peddle exclusive family values and remove women from power and public life in exchange for an antediluvian scene where “an enormous number of women simply [do] housework”, the need for this justification is all the greater. When feminism seems increasingly to have become a dirty word, every battle counts - the symbolic ones no less.

As some in same-sex relationships seek to enter, and thereby alter, the inherently prejudicial institution of marriage, it is possible that greater scope will open to challenge and reshape its gendered norms. But in the meantime, the take-home message of marriage in Australia seems still to be very much "man and wife". So when myself and my fellow naysayers do finally pluck-up the courage to spit the figurative penis-straw and ask why we are continuing to swallow it whole, I will expect a damn good answer.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...inism-weddings

Not gonna argue the porn industry isn't going into creepy-ass places, but it occurs to me that rape culture and rape mentality long predate easily available pornography. I'm actually sort of inclined to think that the present state of the porn industry is more of a symptom of the culture than a cause per se, though frankly, that's frightening enough.

Virginia GOP candidate: Spousal rape isn’t a crime if she is ‘wearing a nightie’
 

After losing all major statewide races to Democrats for the first time in 24 years, Republicans in Virginia are pushing to replace a moderate GOP congressman with a candidate so conservative that he doesn’t even believe that spousal rape should be a crime.

On Wednesday, Mother Jones pointed out that state Sen. Richard H. “Dick” Black, who is running to take over retiring Rep. Frank Wolf’s seat, had fought against making spousal rape a crime because the woman was “sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie.”

Democrat Shawn Mitchell had uncovered the 2002 video of Black talking about spousal rape for an attack ad during the 2011 campaign for Virginia state Senate.


I do not know how you could validly get a conviction of a husband-wife rape, when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie and so forth,” Black says. “There’s not injuries, there’s no separation or anything.”

The ad notes that between 2002 and 2010, there were 800 reported incidents of spousal rape in Virginia.

In 2001, Black asserted that emergency contraception was “baby pesticide” and he recently compared the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion to the Holocaust.

“When I hear discussions about this, I hear very mild comments about choice and reproductive rights and things of this sort,” Black said in a speech on the 2013 anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. “But I recall back to the days of Nazi Germany, there was a place called Auschwitz. ”

“You know it’s quite easy — and from where we look back on history, we say, ‘Why didn’t the Germans do something? Why didn’t they rise up? Why didn’t they take action?’” he continued. “But they were helpless before their government just as we are helpless before our government.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/1...ing-a-nightie/

Judge defends dominant-sex rape acquittal
 

Swedish judge has defended his acquittal of a rape suspect in much-criticized case in which it could not be proven the 27-year-old knowingly acted against the woman's wishes, despite her saying no.

"I knew the moment I took on this case that there would be an outcry if there was a not-guilty verdict," Lund district court judge Ralf G. Larsson wrote in an op-ed published on Tuesday on Sveriges Televison (SVT) debate website SVT Debatt.

Larsson underlined that if the suspect had not intended to rape the woman, he could not be convicted of rape.

"If the thought had not occurred to him, that she did not want to have sex with him, then he didn't have any intention to do what he did," the judge wrote.

"He should have been acquitted. That's how the rule of law works and that's how the rule of law should work if I'm going to be a part of the justice system."

He further elaborated that there were parts of the plaintiff's and the suspect's versions of events that testified to the man refraining from certain acts on the insistence of the woman.

"The woman had made very clear to the man at least six times that she did not want to do what he wanted to do," Larsson wrote. "For example, oral and anal sex came up, and at each such incident the man did not proceed with what he wanted to do."

Larsson went on to argue that no judge in Sweden should feel pressured by potential media fallout in difficult cases.

"If what is happening right now in mass and social media has the potential to scare less experienced judges, we're on a dangerous path," Larsson wrote.

The ruling has caused outrage among many Swedes, with protests planned for the weekend, most likely in Stockholm, the Skånska Dagbladet newspaper reports.

The alleged rape took place in the man's apartment after the two, who did not know each other previously, met at a restaurant. While both agree that the evening included consensual kissing, the two had different views about what happened when the man initiated intercourse.

"I expressed very clearly that I didn't want to, so there was no way he could misunderstand me," the woman told investigators. She explained, however, that the man became more aggressive as her protests increased, adding that he "seemed to like it".

The woman screamed so much and so loudly that she eventually lost her voice while the man continued. At one point, he covered her nose and mouth so she couldn't breathe and slapped her in the face, Metro reported.

While the woman told investigators she "expressed very clearly" that she didn't want to have sex, the man told the court that he was convinced the woman was into rough sex, saying he received "very clear signals" that she enjoyed what he was doing.

However, the court ruled it had not been proven that the 27-year-old had acted with intent to act against the woman's wishes, a ruling that left many observers seething.

"Hey! What do you think about putting together a 'Kärrtorp-massive' demo (peaceful), outside/near parliament say next week where we are in the thousands to demand better sex crimes legislation? Mutual consent Act NOW!" Swedish journalist Cissi Wallin wrote via Facebook.

According to critics, the Lund court ruling sets a dangerous precedent that allows the assailant the right to define rape.

http://www.thelocal.se/20140114/swed...-rape-aquitall

Op-ed: When Hollywood Excuses Famous Men Who Rape...
 

If you were live-tweeting NBC’s broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, you saw it. You couldn’t miss it. Ronan Farrow, son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen and commentator at MSNBC, tweeted: "Missed the Woody Allen tribute–did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?"

Farrow’s bald indictment of his estranged father has been retweeted more than 12,000 times. The reference is to his sister, Dylan, adopted daughter of Farrow and Allen, who asserted Allen molested her. A judge found the evidence of molestation inconclusive and Allen has always denied the charge.


Dylan Farrow’s alleged molestation was revealed after Farrow discovered naked photos of another of Farrow’s children, Soon-Yi Previn, then 18, in Allen’s possession. Allen, who is 35 years Previn’s senior, had been having a sexual relationship with Previn while in the relationship with Farrow.


Farrow and Allen had been partners for 12 years at the time Farrow discovered the naked photos of her daughter. Allen had been Previn’s stepfather since she was the same age as Dylan was when she was allegedly molested by Allen.


Previn, 43 and Allen, 78, have now been married for 22 years. They have no children.


The incest story was an ugly coda on what was otherwise a glitzy, boozy, fun-filled evening. Many others have commented on the Twittersphere about Ronan Farrow’s raw declaration and the story of Allen’s past has become the news–not the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award he was given for his dozens of films.


As Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon noted the day after the Golden Globes on Twitter: "Couldn’t watch the tribute to #WoodyAllen last night after having read this"


The plethora of comments on Ronan Farrow’s tweet and Mia Farrow’s link to the Vanity Fair story Sarandon also tweeted were in stark contrast to the effusive tribute actress Diane Keaton gave as she accepted the award for Allen who never attends award ceremonies.


Keaton focused not just on Allen’s work as a director and screenwriter, but on Allen’s relationships with women in film, explaining, "It’s kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that 179 of the world’s most captivating actresses have appeared in Woody Allen’s films. And there’s a reason for this. And the reason is, they wanted to. They wanted to because Woody’s women can’t be compartmentalized. They struggle, they love, they fall apart, they dominate, they’re flawed. They are, in fact, the hallmark of Woody’s work. But what’s even more remarkable is absolutely nothing links these unforgettable characters from the fact that they came from the mind of Woody Allen."


I first wrote about Woody Allen’s problem with little girls back in 1992 for the Philadelphia Inquirer. My then-editor and I had discussed what lines had and had not been crossed, what was and was not "acceptable." We both agreed Allen’s films were brilliant (I still rank Manhattan as one of the top ten best American films), but I took a harder line on Allen and his "girl problem."


Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi was incest. Mental health professionals and social workers backed me up. When your relationship to a child is one of parent, and you have sex with that child, it’s incest.


Woody Allen isn’t the first child predator to have been feted by Hollywood. There’s a long tradition of this, going back as far as silent pictures. Charlie Chaplin, the big screen’s biggest star of the Silent Era had four wives–aged 17, 15, 25 and 18 when he married them. When the Allen scandal first broke in 1992, Chaplin’s scandalous behavior was revived.


And then, of course, there was Roman Polanski, who was arrested for the rape of Samantha Geimer. Geimer was 13, Polanski, 43 at the time he was convicted. Rather than face jail time, Polanski fled the country and has lived in lavish exile from America ever since, continuing to make films and win awards. In 2009 he was put under house arrest in Switzerland, but attempts by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to have him extradited to the U.S. were unsuccessful and in 2010 the Swiss released him from house arrest. He remains on an Intepol list, however.


When extradition was being argued, actors and directors in Hollywood spoke out in support of Polanski, including out lesbian actress, director and producer, Jodie Foster, who starred in Polanski’s 2012 film, Carnage.
Woody Allen was among 100 filmmakers and actors who signed a petition for Polanski.


In an open letter, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was adamant as he demanded that "every U.S. filmmaker to lobby against any move to bring Polanski back to the U.S." Weinstein argued that "whatever you think of the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time."


Well, no. He served 42 days before he was freed on bond and fled the country. That’s hardly serving one’s time. Nor was it a "so-called" crime. Rape is real. Conversely, Geimer, whose memoir The Girl was published in Sept. 2013, has lived her entire life in the shadow of her rape by Polanski.


In recent years former child stars, Allison Arngrim of Little House on the Prairie and Corey Feldman, one of the biggest child stars of the 1980s, have talked about their experiences with pedophiles in Hollywood. Feldman, who also spoke for his late friend and fellow child star Corey Haim, has said abuse of child actors is "rampant" in Hollywood, but the industry turns a blind eye to it.


As it did Sunday night when it honored Allen with one of its most prestigious awards.


What do we do when famous men, including talented geniuses like Allen and Polanski, rape?
Excuses get made, certainly. Mia Farrow has been described as a jealous, vindictive woman when she really was simply a protective mother. Ronan Farrow’s remarks have been addressed in a somewhat more tempered fashion, but still blame his mother for poisoning his perception of Allen.


Yet there is Soon-Yi Previn: evidence. While she was not a blood relation to Allen when he began his affair with her when she was a teenager, he only knew her in one capacity: as his step-daughter. He had presumably bathed and dressed her when she was a young girl. He had most certainly seen her naked as his step-daughter as she and her siblings were in the house.


Neither Previn nor Allen has ever acknowledged when the affair began, but it likely began prior to her turning 18.


As for Polanski, no argument can be made that supports his acts, despite Weinstein’s (who has children of his own), Foster’s (also a mother), Allen’s and others’ impassioned pleas for clemency.


It also doesn’t matter what Polanski’s victim might say about forgiveness or it having been a long time ago or that the media has hurt her more than Polanski did. Rape is a crime and the transcripts are clear: Geimer was raped vaginally and anally and also orally. No one gets a free pass on rape.


If the guy down the street did it instead of a famous director, we wouldn’t even be discussing it. Whoopi Goldberg would not have said of that guy what she said of Polanski on The View after Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland.


"I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and when they let him out he was like, ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me a hundred years in jail. I’m not staying.’ So that’s why he left."


Later in the same program Goldberg continued, "We’re a different kind of society [now], we see things differently. Would I want my 14-year-old having sex with somebody? Not necessarily, no."


Except the 13-year-old Geimer didn’t have consensual sex with the 43-year-old Polanski. The transcripts are clear on this point. Polanski gave her champagne and Quaaludes, put her in a hot tub and then raped her.
Yet there were Goldberg and Foster defending the rapist while also dismissing the victim.


And therein lies the problem for so many people. Our perspective is skewed by genius and celebrity. As comedian Chris Rock famously said on Oprah about the black community’s response to Michael Jackson’s alleged pedophilia, "We love Michael so much we let the first kid slide."


And also Chaplin, Polanski and Allen.


But some, like Mia and Ronan Farrow, are not as willing to dismiss the rape of children by adult men. Mia Farrow, whose humanitarian work with UNICEF and other organizations in places like Darfur, on behalf of children, is world-renowned, was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine. She has four biological children and has adopted 11, many with special needs. She is a renowned champion for children’s rights.


In the Vanity Fair article from last October, Mia Farrow speaks candidly about the crimes she alleges Allen committed against her and her children. It’s harrowing detail from a woman whose best work on screen was all done with Allen. And in that same article Dylan Farrow speaks for the first time about the sexual abuse.

On CBS’s The Talk on Jan. 13, co-host Sharon Osbourne said Farrow’s family had suffered greatly because of Allen. But only a few minutes later she went on to excuse Polanski.


In 2012, my partner took me to dinner and a film on my birthday. We went to see the film version of the Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage by French playwright Yasmina Reza. I was a fan of her work and I was excited to see the film version, Carnage, starring Jodie Foster.


I didn’t realize until the end credits that the film had been directed by Polanski.


I wrote about how disconcerted I was in Curve (Living Our Politics, Brownworth, Victoria A.//Curve, May 2012, Vol. 22, Issue 4, p28) and how much I struggled with this issue of the art versus the acts of the artist.
I’m still struggling.


How do we–especially women and survivors of rape, incest and sexual assault–contextualize the work of genius rapists? Can we? Should we? While Chaplin was making some of the greatest films the world had known or would know, he was also having sex with girls. Not women, girls. Girls he had access to solely because he was a great film star and director.


Polanski had access to Geimer because he told her mother he was going to shoot photos of her for French Vogue. He wasn’t some creepy guy down the block, he was a Holocaust concentration camp survivor and one of the most acclaimed directors in the world. But two years prior to his being charged with the rape of Geimer, Polanski had an affair with Nastassja Kinski, during the filming of Tess. She was 15.


Michael Jackson built a pedophile’s paradise on the Neverland Ranch. What child wouldn’t want to be a guest there? What parent would deprive their under-privileged child that dream? How many children did he molest?
Allen had access to Dylan and Soon-Yi because they were the children of his partner, Farrow. But in Manhattan, the then-45-year-old Allen is in love with the then-17-year-old Mariel Hemingway’s character, a high school student. That’s just the plot, of course, but he dumps the adult woman played by Keaton for the pubescent Hemingway.


As he later would Farrow for her teenage daughter.


I would like to have clear-cut answers. But I never stopped listening to Michael Jackson and I’ve taught Chaplin for two decades in my film classes. Allen’s Manhattan and Polanski’s Chinatown will forever be on my top-ten list of greatest American films and Keaton’s right–Allen does indeed present fully realized female characters, like those in Hannah and Her Sisters. Polanski’s Repulsion is, I believe, one of the best films of the 1960s and possibly his own greatest film and a deeply compelling accounting of a woman’s sexual trauma.


When I look at the filmographies of these men, I don’t see the faces of their victims, I see the genius of their work.


That unsettles me. What if my own rapist were an artist of merit and had never been prosecuted for the assault that nearly killed me? What would I think of the work then? Conversely if all these other parents are able to distance themselves from these directors’ crimes against children, why can’t I?


And then there’s this: In 2004, when Polanski sued Vanity Fair for libel in a case unrelated to the Geimer rape, his prime witness was...Mia Farrow. He won the lawsuit.


It’s not just these men, these rapists and pedophiles, either. It’s their supporters. What of those who called for Polanski’s release and those who supported Allen’s award? Do we boycott their work as well? Foster is a lesbian icon yet her best friend is the anti-Semitic Mel Gibson and she said she would work with Polanski again. Numerous women signed that petition for Polanski. Actress Debra Winger was nearly in tears as she pleaded for Polanski. And even as she decries what happened in her own family, Farrow remains in touch with Polanski.
Would we feel differently if these men had served time in prison? Would there be a sense that the victim had received justice? Or would it be just as confusing as it is now?


Some argue that the art itself is recompense to the victims. Perhaps a film like Polanski’s The Pianist tells a story so profound about human suffering during the Holocaust that it makes a difference. And no doubt an attorney could argue that Polanski’s own internment in a concentration camp was penance enough for one lifetime–mitigating circumstances.


But doesn’t this all argue again that the guy down the street who rapes a child goes to jail while wealthy artists not only go free, but reap rewards for their work while never being held accountable for actual crimes? Living in Gstaad for the decades since he raped Geimer has not been the same as a jail sentence for Polanski. And just because Chaplin and Allen married their victims doesn’t make them any less victims.


I can appreciate the brilliance of films like Manhattan or Chinatown. What I can’t do is pretend their auteurs’ crimes don’t matter. Nor should the various academies. There would be some measure of accountability in not giving Oscars and Golden Globes to such men. A small gesture toward their victims, but a statement that those victims matter, irrespective of canon or genius. The only way to make the crimes stop is to stop rewarding their perpetrators. For now that seems to be the only recourse we still have.

http://www.shewired.com/opinion/2014...s-men-who-rape

"She Might Have Had a Case If She Had Been Unconscious During the Rape"
 

To Montanans, Missoula is a college town of about 68,000 with a laid-back, hippie vibe. But elsewhere, Missoula is also known as the "rape capital" of the country.

Between January 2008 and May 2012, Missoula police received more than 350 sexual-assault reports, including multiple cases of assault allegedly committed by University of Montana football players. The US Department of Justice found that city officials did not adequately handle all of these reports—going so far as to charge that police were using "sex-based stereotypes" to discriminate against women who reported rape. Last month, the Justice Department proposed an agreement that would require the Missoula County Attorney's office to make a number of changes. The DOJ recommended adding two or three new staff positions, including an advocate for victims; ramping up training for county supervisors and prosecutors; and collecting more data on sexual-assault cases, including feedback from victims. Last week, the county's chief prosecutor rejected the offer and told the feds to take a hike, insisting they have no authority to tell his office what to do.

"The DOJ is clearly overstepping in the investigation of my office," Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg tells Mother Jones. "The Missoula Police Department and our office have done a very good job of handling sexual-assault allegations regardless of what national and local news accounts may indicate."

Missoula's rape problem rose to national attention when six members of the University of Montana football team, the Grizzlies, were accused of committing, attempting, or helping cover-up sexual assault between 2009 and 2012. In March 2012, facing scrutiny over how it was handling assault allegations leveled against athletes, the university fired its football coach and athletic director. In May 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder said he was launching a federal investigation into whether Missoula officials and the university were discriminating against female rape victims, noting he found the allegations "very disturbing."

In May 2013, the Justice Department released findings from its investigation, indicating officials in Missoula were indeed discriminating against female victims in sexual-assault cases. For example, according to the Justice Department's report, one Missoula detective allegedly told a woman who said she was vomiting during her sexual assault—she was allegedly raped by several people—that "she might have had a case if if she had been unconscious during the rape rather than merely incapacitated." In another case where a woman reported vaginal and anal rape, a detective reportedly asked her why she hadn't fought harder, saying, "Tell me the truth—is this something we want to go through with?" (Van Valkenburg says, "Both our office and the police are very much aware of what is necessary to legally prove that a woman who is incapacitated by alcohol and/or drugs did not consent to a sexual act. Local prosecutors fully understand these issues​.") The Justice Department also determined that the Missoula attorney's office provides "no information" to local police as to why it declines to prosecute sexual assault cases and police are "frustrated" with the "lack of follow-up and prosecution." (Missoula Police Captain Mike Coyler says, "As a general rule, I disagree with this.")

The month it released those findings, the Justice Department entered into agreements with the University of Montana and the Missoula Police Department to beef up resources to combat rape. (Lucy France, legal counsel for the university, says that she disagrees with the Justice Department's findings that the university discriminated against victims and botched investigations, but "we agreed to work to continue to improve our responses to reports.") Last month, the US Attorney for Montana proposed that the Missoula County Attorney's office enter a similar agreement to ensure that it responds to sexual assault without discrimination. In response, Van Valkenburg wrote in a January 9 letter that his office would commit to help the police department and the university meet their commitments—but he wouldn't make the Justice Department's recommended changes to his office.

"Missoula County Attorneys Office does not need to enter into an agreement with DOJ to protect victims of sexual assault, [we have] actively assisted victims for years," Van Valkenburg wrote, arguing that the two federal statutes that the Justice Department cites—one of which deals with gender discrimination—do not legally justify imposing changes on his office. The prosecutor is correct that the Justice Department can't force recommendations on the office, says Christopher Mallios, an attorney adviser for AEquitas, which receives funding from the Department of Justice to help local prosecutors better handle sexual-violence cases. But he adds, that if the Justice Department is able to prove civil rights violations in court, a judge could enforce them. Van Valkenburg says that his office is already meeting many of the Justice Department's demands, and even if he had the funding, he wouldn't add the three new staff members the feds want, because they'd represent "a duplication of services" provided by other city units. Van Valkenburg says if the Justice Department doesn't back off in the next two weeks, he will take the issue to federal court.

"I'm not aware of another case where a prosecutor said we would rather litigate and go to trial than make some changes," Mallios says. And other experts say the prosecutor's response is unusual: "No prosecutor wants to admit that they have shortcomings, especially on such a sensitive issue," says Sarah Deer, who worked for the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. "But there is a culture in some offices that sexual assault is sort of overstated or victims tend to lie. That might be what's going on here—a culture of indifference."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...on-prosecution

Congressman’s New Jobs Plan: Deny Women Access To Abortion So They Can Make More Babies
 

During a debate over an anti-abortion bill currently advancing in Congress, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) suggested that Republicans support restricting access to abortion because it will ultimately benefit the economy if women have more children. Goodlatte noted that carrying pregnancies to term “very much promotes job creation.”

Goodlatte made the comments while presiding over a committee mark-up of the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” or HR 7, on Wednesday afternoon. That legislation would dramatically restrict women’s access to affordable abortion care by imposing restrictions on insurance coverage and tax credits for the procedure. Goodlatte, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, advanced HR 7 by scheduling it for a full committee mark-up on Wednesday.

Explaining his support for the measure, Goodlatte made both a moral and an economic case for anti-choice laws. “I would suggest that it is very much the case that those of us in the majority support this legislation because it is the morally right thing to do but it is also very very true that having a growing population and having new children brought into the world is not harmful to job creation,” he said. “It very much promotes job creation for all the care and services and so on that need to be provided by a lot of people to raise children.”

In reality, denying women autonomy over their reproductive lives is not a wise economic policy. Without access to affordable family planning services, women are less likely to be able to finish their education, advance their career, or achieve financial independence. The low-income women who end up carrying unwanted pregnancies to term end up slipping deeper into poverty and struggling with long-term mental health issues. That ends up impacting the social safety net, putting a greater strain on the Medicaid program. In fact, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that every $1 invested into family planning programs yields more than $5 in savings for the U.S. government.

The Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee have expressed fierce opposition to HR 7. On Tuesday, the female committee members wrote a letter to Goodlatte criticizing him for deciding to advance the bill.

“As we urge Congress in 2014 to consider legislative action that would meaningfully address the economic insecurity currently facing millions of women and families, the Judiciary Committee’s first action to mark up legislation that would harm women’s access to reproductive health care is truly dispiriting,” they wrote. “We strongly oppose this sweeping anti-choice bill.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014...-job-creation/

Deceit at its finest. More children born into poverty is beneficial for the people he serves, which is to say, wealthy corporate masters and not the people at large. More poor workers creates more competition for what few jobs exist, thereby creating a race to the bottom in which jobs increasingly are awarded to the lowest bidder. Lather, rinse, and repeat until 99% of America lives in poverty and the 1% has all of their money.

So he's killing two birds with one stone: he's trying to simultaneously subjugate women for being women and poor people for not being rich. I cannot think of many fates he could suffer that would be as horrible as he deserves.

Originally Posted by Kobi View Post
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is a fuckie fuck face



Kobi never called Bob Goodlatte a fuckie fuck face. Kobi is much better with words and would never resort to such childishness.

I have enough issues with the stuff I DO say. Let's not put words in my mouth. ;)

All right all right I fixed it

wtf
 

After historic tennis win, Eugenie Bouchard answers the most sexist question in post game interview

Who cares that Eugenie Bouchard became the first Canadian to advance to the semi-finals of the Australian Open last night? Apparently the most important thing is that she would like to date Justin Bieber.

Moments after knocking out Ana Ivanovic in a hard-fought three-set upset, Bouchard faced the double standard of the sports world head-on as the courtside interviewer Samantha Smith pointed up at a clutch of men in the stadium known as the Genie Army.

“You’re getting a lot of fans here,” noted Smith, a former British tennis champ. “A lot of them are male, and they want to know: If you could date anyone in the world of sport, of movies – I’m sorry, they asked me to say this – who would you date?”

Blushing like the teenager she is, Bouchard giggled and replied: “Justin Bieber.” As members of the Genie Army booed their displeasure, Bouchard looked at the camera and added: “Justin, if you’re watching … um: Hey!”

While Bouchard took the question good-naturedly, plenty of fans were offended on her behalf, venting their displeasure over Twitter.

“RIDICULOUS,” declared Katarina Williams, a sports reporter based in New Zealand. “Was there nothing tennis-related she could’ve actually asked instead?” Rick VanSickle, an Ontario wine writer declared: “Bizarre question to ask an athlete after historic tennis win.”

(Meanwhile, plenty of fans – primarily men – also took to Twitter to criticize Bouchard for her choice in men.)

If Bouchard was offended by the question, she didn’t show it. In a postmatch interview with the New York Times on Tuesday, she elaborated on her desire to meet Bieber.

“Don’t worry, it’s going to happen,” she told reporter Ben Rothenberg. “Yes. But I think I need to do something bigger to get his attention, like win a Slam, something like that. I won’t even have to do anything, and maybe he’ll just reach out, and we’ll tweet or something like that.”

Parents Hope Their Sons Are Geniuses and Their Daughters Aren't Fat

Another reason to feel bad for today's little girls: one day, the straight ones will grow up to face a dating selection consisting of doted upon nightmare boys raised by parents who used the power of the internet to validate their sneaking suspicion that their lil' All Star might be a genius. Meanwhile, the girls' parents used Google to determine whether or not their little princesses were fat. If the children are the future, the future is fucked.

According to Google analytics examined by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz at the New York Times, parents are two and a half times more likely to Google "Is my son gifted?" than they were to search for "Is my daughter gifted?" This despite the fact that, across the country, young girls do better in school than boys. They weren't particularly worried if their daughter was stupid, either; although parents tended to seek out confirmation that their son was the Alpha Boy, the One, the Luke Skywalker or the Harry Potter or the Jen from The Dark Crystal or whatever, they also were more likely to turn to Google to discover if their son was stupid, or slow, or behind in school than they were for their daughters. But they were still much more likely to think he was a genius.

Not that parents weren't worried about their little sugar/spice/everything nice concoctions; Stephens-Davidowitz notes that when it comes to daughters, parents are quite concerned that they might be — Quelle horreur! — fat or ugly. In fact, people were twice as likely to search for "Is my daughter overweight" than "Is my son overweight," despite the fact that childhood obesity is more prevalent in boys than it is in girls. They were also more likely to ask Google if their daughter was ugly, because that's a thing that Google knows. (Googling "Is my daughter ugly?" should automatically send an alert out to local child protective services, tbh.)

Most depressingly, Stephens-Davidowitz noted that there was no correlation between geographic distribution and tendency for internet users to want their sons to be geniuses and their daughters to be beauty queens; both the reddest of the red states and the crunchiest of the granola states took to Google to ask the same things for their offspring.

As Amanda Marcotte notes at Slate, this might not just be because parents are Part Of The Problem; it may be because parents understand the reality of the world where we live. And parents, for the most part, just want what's best for their kids; they want them to succeed, to be happy, and to be treated with respect by their peers. Men can achieve that by being intelligent. Women have an easier time if they're hot. Overweight women, or women who aren't conventionally attractive, are much less likely to be given a leg up in work (or in life) than women who are thin or conventionally attractive. Men, on the other hand, can get away with looking a lot sloppier. It's just like that episode of Tyra where she walked around in a fat suit secretly filming people be mean to her.

There's also the possibility that parents have a narcissistic stake in their children's social success. Asking Google "Is my son gifted?" can easily be a query with its own projected self-assurance, and corresponding confirmation bias. Kids, after all, are the result of parents combining their genes, and there must be nothing more disturbing to a person convinced that they're awesome than having to face their totally unremarkable DNA staring them back in the face, rocking their world with bland averageness, or worse, below averageness. Or maybe I'm just biased myself for having spent too much time dodging Brooklyn's herd of McLaren strollers.

But this also hints that as much as self-proclaimed progressives wantto exist in a world where looks don't matter to the point where they can be ignored, they still matter. None of us exist outside of the context of the society where we live, which is why the concept of being "color blind" or "gender blind" is false to the point of silliness. We're not individual entities free of baggage; we are baggage. No matter who we are, and where we live, it's impossible to escape the pervasive message that women are more valuable when they're more decorative and men are more valuable when they're the ones doing the thinking and deciding. And we don't need Google to tell us that.

Huckabee: Dems say women ‘can’t control their libido’ without birth control from ‘Uncle Sugar’
 

Mike Huckabee says Democrats make women feel helpless to control their libido by offering government-sponsored birth control.

The onetime presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor told the Republican National Committee during a speech Thursday that they can’t allow liberals to frame the debate any longer.

“I think it’s time Republicans no longer accept listening to the Democrats talk about a ‘war on women,’” Huckabee said. “Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have a war for women.”

He said Democrats convinced women they were victims, but Republicans wanted to empower them.

“Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless or hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have a government provide for them
birth control medication,” Huckabee said. “Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything anyone else can do.”

Huckabee made similar remarks Sunday during his Fox News program.

He said the Republican Party, which kicked off its annual winter conference by sending participants to the March for Life, stands for the equality of women.

“If Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government, then so be it,” Huckabee said.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/2...m-uncle-sugar/

-------------------------------------



I see the GOP has been advised to reframe the war on women to the war for women.

Allison, you might be clairvoyant. I am a leetle closer to calling someone a fuckie fuck face.

Texas Republican Defends Wendy Davis: 'Nobody Ever Talks About Men' This Way
 

Conservatives are attacking Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) for misrepresenting her background, in particular the hardships she faced as a young single mother. But one Texas Republican is defending Davis' record, saying the gubernatorial candidate wouldn't be subject to the same criticism if she were male.

On Sunday, a Dallas Morning News article pointed out some discrepancies in the stories Davis has told -- including when she was divorced from her first husband, how long she lived in a trailer and how she paid for law school. In response, conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh have labeled her a "genuine head case" and claimed she had a "sugar daddy."

Some pundits have even suggested that Davis was a negligent parent for leaving her children with her second husband while she attended Harvard Law School in the early 1990s.

Becky Haskins, a Republican who served with Wendy Davis on the Fort Worth City Council, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday that Davis was a hard worker who did what she needed to do for her daughters.

“If this involved a man running for office, none of this would ever come up,” Haskins told the Star-Telegram. “It’s so sad. Every time I ran, somebody said I needed to be home with my kids. Nobody ever talks about men being responsible parents.”

“They wouldn’t be talking about Wendy if she weren’t a threat," Haskins added.

Davis' main Republican opponent in the Texas governor's race, state Attorney General Greg Abbott, accused her of “systematically, intentionally and repeatedly deceiv[ing] Texans for years about her background."

Davis has admitted that she was 21 when she divorced her first husband, not 19 as previously stated. (She was 19 with a baby when the two were separated.) She has also acknowledged that her second husband paid for a portion of her education.

In a Monday release from her campaign, Davis responded to Abbott's attacks with defiance.

"[The attacks] won’t work, because my story is the story of millions of Texas women who know the strength it takes when you’re young, alone and a mother," Davis said in the release. "I’ve always been open about my life not because my story is unique, but because it isn’t."

And in an email to her supporters sent Tuesday, Davis said, "You’re damn right it’s a true story."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4645187.html

Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet
 

“Ignore the barrage of violent threats and harassing messages that confront you online every day.” That’s what women are told. But these relentless messages are an assault on women’s careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online. We have been thinking about Internet harassment all wrong.

Took a while to track down where this came from
 

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/73...7ae485951f.jpg

"In a survey of high school students, 56% of the girls and 76% of the boys believed forced sex was acceptable under some circumstances. A survey of 11-to-14 year-olds found that 51% of the boys and 41% of the girls said forced sex was acceptable if the boy, "spent a lot of money" on the girl; 31% of the boys and 32% of the girls said it was acceptable for a man to rape a woman with past sexual experience; 87% of boys and 79% of girls said sexual assault was acceptable if the man and the woman were married; 65% of the boys and 47% of the girls said it was acceptable for a boy to rape a girl if they had been dating for more than six months."


This is from an internet conference from Harvard Law School that was held back in 2002. I cannot track down the study itself.

Even tho it is 12 years old, it still surprised me. It is a mindset that I expected back in my generation of the 60's and 70's.

Interesting reading tho. Access course here.

Transmisogyny: What Is It?
 

This word describes so much of what we see in the cultural and systemic treatment of trans* women in our culture and ties in so clearly with feminism, and yet it’s not a word that many people know about or understand.

You may have heard of transphobia: the discrimination of and negative attitudes toward transgender people based on their gender expression.

And you’ve likely heard of misogyny: the hatred and denigration of women and characteristics deemed feminine.

Transmisogyny, then, is the confluence of these – the negative attitudes, expressed through cultural hate, individual and state violence, and discrimination directed toward trans* women and trans* people on the feminine end of the gender spectrum.

Who Is Vicitimized by Transmisogyny?

Transmisogyny targets transgender and transsexual women – male-to-female (MTF) people who were assigned a male gender at birth, but have transitioned to identify as women.

Transgender women are not the only people who experience transmisogyny.

Trans* people who do not necessarily identify as women, but who present feminine characteristics and/or identify along the feminine end of the gender spectrum are also on the receiving end of transmisogyny.

Transmisogyny is all about the hatred of the feminine, and it is not limited toward only those who identify as women. It includes transfeminine and feminine-identified genderqueer people, as well as many others who are feminine-of-center but were not assigned a female gender at birth.

So for the purpose of simplicity and brevity in this article, I will use the term trans* women (the asterisk used to mark inclusivity of those who are not necessarily transgender, but are also not cisgender) to refer to all people victimized by transmigogyny; when specifically referring to transgender women, I will use that terminology.

Why Does Transmisogyny Exist?

Transmisogyny is based in the assumption that femininity is inferior to masculinity.

It relies on an understanding of all those qualities that are associated with ”femaleness” and devaluing them, viewing them as less than those qualities associated with “maleness” and therefore as deserving of hatred, mockery, and violence.

This sounds a whole lot like sexism, doesn’t it?

Why should there be a specific word used to describe the experience of trans* people who are specifically feminine? How is this different from sexism and transphobia?

Trans* women experience a particular kind of sexist marginalization based in their unique position of overlapping oppressions – they are both trans* and feminine. They are devalued by society on both accounts.

Trans* people experience transphobia, or cissexism, due to a cultural and systemic obsession with the gender binary: the idea that there are two types of people – men and women – who are born, raised, and naturally associate with that gender and its accompanying characteristics. Our cultural and political institutions are based on this premise.

Transmisogyny reflects a hatred of those who do not fit easily into either side of the gender binary.

Trans* women are not always easily categorized, and for people and institutions whose understanding of gender relies deeply in the repressive gender binary, this is confusing, transgressive, and for some, worthy of hate.

The response to the existence of those who challenge the social understanding of gender, then, is extreme oppression and marginalization of trans* people of all gender expressions.

Trans-Femininity and Sexism

Our society is steeped in the notion that women and characteristics coded as feminine are inferior to men and those qualities coded as masculine.

In our sexist society, being a woman automatically places you in a position of less value.

But to give up one’s “important” position as a man, choosing (as trans* people are perceived to do) to be a woman and to be feminine, in a way, poses a fundamental threat to male superiority and may be seen as a rejection of the “superior male identity.”

Trans* women are not only a reminder to society that gender categories are not fixed, but also that womanhood and feminine gender expression is not something to be ashamed of.

In this way, understanding transmisogyny is absolutely imperative to our work as feminists, and makes clear just how integral trans* issues and rights are to our work around gender.

Not only is transmisogyny steeped in sexism, but the resulting oppression is parallel to what cisgender (those who identify with the gender of which they were assigned at birth) women face: physical objectification, over-sexualization, stereotyping, policing of bodies, a discrimination on all levels of society, and individual and systemic acts of violence.

The Violence of Transmisogyny

Transmisogyny rears its ugly head in many ways and on all levels of society.

We see it, for instance, in violence on an individual level.

Hate crimes against trans* people are disproportionately and tragically high, and the majority of this violence victimizes trans* women.

In fact, over half of all anti-LGBTQIA+ homicides were perpetrated against transgender women. And while we’re talking statistics, it’s important to note that nearly three-quarters of those homicides targeted people of Color.

We see transmisogyny in state violence as well.

1 in 5 transgender women (21%) has been incarcerated at some point in her life. This is far above the general population, and is even higher (47%) for Black transgender people.

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, trans* people experience disproportionately high rates of poverty and homelessness caused by discrimination in jobs and housing, but they also experience greater incarceration rates, largely due to gender profiling by the police.

Gender is policed, quite literally by police officers who target, arrest, and often harass trans* women for looking “different” and therefore, “disorderly.” Trans* women of Color, in particular, tend to be perceived by police through racialized and gender stereotypes framing them as highly sexual and as criminal.

Trans* women are consistently targeted and arrested for being involved in sex work, even if they have no association with this work.

There have been many instances where trans* women, most often trans* women of Color, have been arrested for carrying condoms.

In New York, where having a condom on you can be used as evidence of involvement in sex work, trans* women are being profiled, searched, and arrested for being a trans* woman at the wrong place at the wrong time.

There’s also direct violence at the hands of police: A 2012 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that transgender people across the U.S. experience three times more police violence than cisgender people.

And nearly half of trans* people who reported hate crimes to the police experienced mistreatment from them while asking for help.

Trans* women experience abuse after being arrested as well, when they are most often forced to reside in men’s prison facilities, experiencing extremely high rates of sexual and physical violence – a study by the Department of Justice found that 1 in 3 are sexual assaulted in prison. In response, many prisons place trans* women in solitary confinement for extended periods of time “for their own protection.” (Meanwhile, solitary confinement is considered a form of torture.)

In the Media

While trans* men are generally ignored and made invisible by American media, trans* women are exoticized, their existence perceived as shocking and newsworthy. They are mocked, over-sexualized, and fetishized.

Trans* women are given an extremely two-dimensional portrayal in the news, where they are most often reported on in association of a hate crime. In these reports, their gender is consistently portrayed as confusing and illegitimate, appearing in countless headlines like this one: “Man Dressed as Woman Found Dead.

Our media portrays trans* women in archetypes – as the weak victim of a crime, or as the evil villain; as the mentally unstable character, or as the manipulative one.

They are often pathologized and sexualized, portrayed as someone manipulatively hiding their transgender identity to trick a man into engaging with them sexually or romantically.

They play countless television roles as sex workers.

They are shown as unattractive; they are the butt of jokes, their desire to be feminine mocked, their motives for transitioning questioned.

And while it is difficult to find complex and honest portrayals of trans* women characters on television, it is even more rare to find an authentic and respectful portrayal of a trans* woman of Color (though we have see a few recently, like the great Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black).

In Queer and Women’s Spaces

Sadly, transmisogyny is also very present in LGBTQIA+ spaces, where trans* women, particularly trans* women of Color, are marginalized within an already marginalized group.

The mainstream LGBTQIA+ movement has been called out many times for excluding trans* people, and there is a pervasive sexism in the movement as well as in social spaces, that promotes transmisogyny and a denigration of feminine qualities.

Masculine privilege, like white privilege, does not disappear once one is in a queer space, and trans* women have been accused of “hurting the movement” due to the visible transgression of many of society’s norms involved in being a trans* woman.

And although it should be the last place where transmisogyny is present, sadly, we see it often in cis-women’s spaces.

Trans* women are excluded from many domestic violence shelters and other crisis spaces that exist in response to violence against women in our society.

Trans* women continue to be excluded from many women-only spaces and feminist events, while some “feminists” continue to speak out against the very existence of trans* women, arguing that they are not “authentic” women and that they are “hurting the movement.”

Trans* women have called these groups and spaces out, creating inclusive spaces in the meantime, citing that they experience sexism and homophobia in very real and concrete ways, and yet are excluded from the spaces which were created in response to these oppressions.

What Can We Do?

Transmisogyny, like sexism, is pervasive and structural, but it also exists in our everyday experiences. Once you understand it, you begin to notice it in personal interactions, on television, and in social movements and political campaigns.

Call it out! Name it for what it is. Transmisogyny, like, sexism, goes unnoticed too often because it is so entrenched in our sociocultural and political understanding of gender. Educate others about this issue.

And most importantly, don’t be afraid to call out other feminists or gay rights advocates for transmisoginistic words and actions. These are the spaces we need to make more inclusive.

It is so important that we work together to find a solution to the problem of transmisogyny’s existence in our movements and that we always act in solidarity with our trans* sisters.

If our movements seek to eradicate transphobia, homophobia, and sexism, then we must place transmisogyny, located at the intersection of these oppressions, at the forefront of our fight.


http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/01/transmisogyny/

Woman-hating by any other name…
 

There’s this fun thing we’ve been talking about for months and years and decades now, and despite continued conversations and critiques of this behaviour, it rages on… We call it trashing or tearing down or sometimes we call it a witch hunt. And it seems particularly popular in feminist circles. It’s not only a successful way to silence women, but the behaviour is sure to go unchallenged by the masses. (Misogyny never goes out of style!)

If you’ve been the focus of said trashing, you’re likely familiar with the ways in which others readily and willfully misrepresent your words, thoughts, arguments, and life in order to silence you and beat you (virtually, verbally, metaphorically) into submission. An odd preoccupation for the “feminist” movement, to be sure.

Feminist blogger, Glosswitch wrote a post about some of these issues recently, after a tweet of hers was twisted around into an excuse to intimidate and bully her, because, SURPRISE! It’s the internet and it’s de rigeur to hate women on the internet. (The internet isn’t very original).

I do hope you’ll read the post in its entirety (no skimming) because, while I will quote her liberally here, I’m not sure I will quite do her arguments justice.

Glosswitch gets at a lot of key issues at play regarding the toxicity that exists in online feminism, but what it comes down to, it seems, is woman-hating:

Right now I’m done with the female social code that commands me to express shame at myself, assume good faith in cruel people and deny my own qualities just so that my presence isn’t too disruptive.

Beyoncé brought the words of Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, to the masses in her track, ***Flawless, and I think those words are apt: “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls ‘You can have ambition, but not too much’.”

Indeed, women are supposed to take up as little space as possible — girls learn not to speak up in the classroom, we learn to literally shrink ourselves, physically, by dieting and fetishizing thinness, we are forced to take up as little space as possible on public transit and, more generally, in public spaces (we are even warned to stay out of public places, lest we be assaulted). We’re not supposed to speak up, stand out, say what we really think, or be proud of our accomplishments or success — in fact, we aren’t supposed to be successful and, if we are, we should feel as though we don’t deserve it and know we will be punished for it either way. To be lady-like is to speak without certainty or to not speak at all. So I can’t help but wonder why it’s become acceptable, among certain feminist circles, to tell one another to shut the fuck up or to focus our efforts on silencing other women.

Glosswitch points to a trend in certain feminist circles that’s bothered me for some time. It seems as though we are expected to divulge every single horrific trauma we’ve experienced, every personal moment of oppression or abuse, every single problem/illness/addiction/struggle we might have faced or currently be facing, publicly and via bullhorn, before we are acknowledged as credible or worthy of a voice. Without this outpouring of every-single-horror it is assumed we’ve experienced nothing but diamonds and champagne. Do I need to tattoo “working-class” on my forehead in order to avoid being called “rich” or “classist?” Because I don’t want to. Women shouldn’t have to tell the entire world every gory detail of their stories in order to have a voice. Many women are not in a position to do this, even if they wanted to. (Consider that many abused women, for example, fear for their lives and, as a result, could never speak publicly about their experiences.) Glosswitch points out that, when we don’t engage in this practice, we are seen as deserving of abuse and assumed to have had the privilege of avoiding experiences that few women been lucky enough to avoid. Do we truly believe every woman should divulge her struggles with addiction, poverty, mental illness, or assault in order to be able to speak? Or her history as an abused or prostituted woman? Placing this demand on women by devaluing their voices and experiences should they choose not to divulge, is unacceptable.

Glosswitch notes:

I think, again, this is related to misogyny and visibility and to the idea of women such as me, who don’t succumb to the pressure to create a tragic narrative out of their own twitter bio, as shameless interlopers who deserve a kicking.

She notices, as I have, the way certain feminists have used this routine as a way to privilege their voices and position themselves as “better” or more deserving of a platform than other feminists:

I think a skim through the twitter bios of a number of white feminists who consider themselves “more aware” than so-called media feminists makes the continuation of this misogynist impulse glaringly obvious. I don’t list my depression, my mental health history, my sexual history, my precise attitude towards gender, my family background in my bio. But I could. I know the lingo I’d use. It would make me more than “just” a woman, but that’s why I don’t do it. Being a woman who defines herself by her actions and words should be enough.

In reality, this is silencing. And it’s also misogynist. To silence and shame and vilify other women in order to move your career forward or to build a platform is not a particularly feminist behaviour. Neither is telling a woman she has no right to speak. Neither is bullying and harassing women who do dare to speak. Throwing women under the bus in order to shield yourself from misogyny or to get cookies is cowardly. And believe me, treating other feminists as though they should be perfect people (said “perfect” behaviour is decided by a few, mind you) will only make you fearful, as you will become too scared to say anything of consequence, lest someone treat you in the same way you have behaved towards others. Women don’t need to feel more ashamed or more afraid to speak up than they already do. They don’t need to be told to shut the fuck up. That internalized monologue already exists within us and we fight it every day.

Glosswitch points out that this particular form of woman-hating is often represented as educational, as an exercise in “privilege-checking”:

We don’t allow [feminists] mistakes. We are grossly, rampantly misogynist about them but this form of misogyny is supposed to be corrective, humiliating the privilege out of them.

She points out that there is a long tradition of punishing women who get out of line and who refuse to go along with the status quo and notes that this punishment is reserved for women, not men:

It’s feminists who have the nerve to put honesty before radical posturing who are unsettling. Those who genuinely claim space, which is then written off as “privilege” (because what is a woman doing there?). Such women might actually make a difference. So into the bridle they go.

The “bridle” she refers to is a contraption used centuries ago to punish women deemed “rude,” “riotous,” or “troublesome” — attributes that are commonly and historically ascribed to feminists.

There’s an air of superiority from those who busily seek to ruin and silence other feminists: “We’re doing it right; she’s doing it wrong.” By pointing our fingers elsewhere we keep ourselves safe from attack. It seems pretty clear, though, which white feminists are using valuable ideas like intersectionality to advance their own careers and gain popularity, without an ounce of interest in movements towards ending oppression and with little understanding of structural inequality.

As a white feminist, I would say it is easier – much, much easier – to play along with this. You get to enjoy the privilege of being white and appear superior to the “mere” white feminists who just don’t “get it”. There’s an absurdly careerist edge to this. If you view feminism not as a movement for social change, but as the route to a media career you’ve got to admit it’s a competitive arena. Using other people to play at being the best white intersectional feminist has been seen by some as a gap in the market. Donning the metaphorical tin hat to shout down “bad” peers is a USP. When you boil it down, such “feminists” are arch capitalists, seeking to commodify not just feminism but the exclusion and lived experience of others. It is emotionally manipulative and disgracefully self-serving, but it doesn’t involve laying yourself on the line. You get to be a privileged white woman without looking like one.

Rather than working against privilege, though, this tearing down and this vilification of other-feminists-not-you! reinforces it, Glosswitch argues:

It is easy but morally untenable, insofar as it uses ideas of intersecting oppressions, not to offer context and understanding, but to reinforce privilege by the back door and to silence dissent. I think of it as a form of privilege laundering. I think it is an example of white people exploiting the narratives of women of colour and it sucks.

Attacking women in order to get cookies is a pretty low form of feminism. There are few who will challenge the sport of misogyny. I see feminists throwing women under the bus in order to ally with more powerful liberal white men all too often, under the guise of “intersectionality” and I wonder if they see how deeply misguided they are in their imagined work towards liberation. (Allying with men who work to silence and slander women? You’re doing it wrong.) But maybe it’s not about female liberation after all… maybe it’s just about the cookies…

But now I am on the other side of that imaginary, exploitative privilege line, I see other benefits to approaching feminism not as liberation, but as a self-interested cookie hunt. I didn’t appreciate at the time how much I shielded myself from misogyny by putting the “bad” white feminists out in front.

It’s just too easy. We all know, full well, that we will receive endless support if we hate on feminists. “Virulent hatred of feminists? We got you.” – The internet. It doesn’t make you brave, it makes you boring.

Let me be clear (not that I think my words won’t be ignored and manipulated as they so often are, despite how clear I am) and say that I am not discouraging critique and difficult conversations. But shaming, silencing, manipulation, defamation and vilification, combined with faux-progressive white-lady (of course the white bros love to do this too, don’t forget) posturing, does not encourage either critique or conversation.

I can’t imagine this summary quite articulates the arguments Glosswitch puts forth, but her righteous anger towards many of the “Twitter feminists” who pat themselves on the backs for being “better” than whomever is Twitter’s current punching bag, felt justified. “How dare you have a platform!” it says, “How dare you speak with confidence.” “How dare you speak about your life and your experiences.” “You clearly haven’t learned how to properly perform femininity and you will be punished.”

None of you have the right to tell me what my own words mean, to tell me what my thoughts are, to reconstruct my words and reality without my consent. None of you have the right to damage my mental health, make me doubt my capacity to think, to make me feel unable to trust anyone because of the whispering and distortion that follows. None of you have the right to do this just because I’m a feminist and, if flawed, nonetheless a bloody good one too. None of you has the right to expect perfection from me. None of you have the right to place the scold’s bridle on me, to shame and silence me because I don’t fit in with your hackneyed, conservative misreading of revolution.

In our desperation, we’re looking to escape misogyny by participating in it. We all know that trashing feminists will get you far, but know how transparent and destructive this behaviour is. Know that attacking other women is really about your privilege as it works to protect you from the wrath of a culture that abhors and punishes women who step out of line.

Glosswitch coined the term “misogofeminists” to describe “women (and allies) whose primary form of feminist activism is trashing other women.” And along those lines I’d like to point out what should be obvious, but seems not to be these days: if your “activism” consists primarily of witch hunts and concerted, vicious efforts to silence women, you are doing misogyny, not feminism.

http://feministcurrent.com/8540/woma...ny-other-name/

Why Are So Many Boys Leaving High School Thinking Rape Is Funny?
 

Trigger warning for sexual assault and strong language.

Between 20-25% of women and 3% of men will experience an attempted or completed sexual assault in college. A girl has roughly the same chance of being sexually assaulted during college, one in four/five, as she does of getting the flu during an average year.

Given these statistics, virtually any college town could be called a college rape capital. Everyone knows that, on campuses especially, alcohol is often a factor. Eighty percent of cases reported (which is only 5% of the total estimated number) involve alcohol. What they are less likely to know is how frequently alcohol is used by rapists; that despite a reduction of rape nationally, sexual assault rates on campuses have not changed in 50 years; and that the Center for Public Integrity has documented widespread victim-blaming and repeated institutional failures. All of this is true 27 years after a family whose daughter was raped and murdered in her college dorm room in 1986 founded the Clery Center for Security On Campus.

So, this is the environment in which the Daiquiri Factory, a bar in Spokane, Washington (a city with at least 10 colleges and universities) recently decided to name a drink "Grape Date Kool Aid." Because punny allusions to a people being sexually violated are so witty. Last weekend, more than 100 people gathered to protest the name and ask that rape be treated seriously. What the hell is wrong with feminists? Can't we give it a rest? Instead of changing the name of the drink, the bar announced, in so much lie-back-and-enjoy-it logic: "We just think everyone simply needs a little daiquiri therapy."

The thing about the bar, however, is that it probably understands its prospective customers all too well. A whole lot of teenagers arrive at college thinking that dehumanizing women and making light of sexual assault is a source of status and entertainment. Take, for example, the young man who wrote this email at William and Mary a few weeks ago:

There's beer to be drunk, porn to view, and sluts to fuck. Let me reiterate that last point: sluts are everywhere... That vagina needs you. Never mind the extremities that surround it, the 99% of horrendously illogical bullshit that makes up the modern woman, consider only the 1%, the snatch." He didn't stop there because apparently that wasn't clear enough. "See some riding boots? Some uggs? A hideous pair of rain boots without a cloud in sight? Now, raise your gaze from the footwear up, allow your eyes to wander from the feet up the long and slender legs of the lesser sex until finally you arrive at God's greatest gift: the box.

This puerile drivel was titled "Life, love and pussy." After this email, framed as a "Save the Sluts" community service project, was leaked, the fraternity that he belonged to issued an apology and outlined disciplinary actions. The administration issued statements and this past week held a town hall meeting, attended by an estimated 700 students, to discuss rape culture.

William and Mary is not unique in any way. While the student there wrote about women as manipulable, inert sex toys, stripped of voices and autonomy, he did not explicitly mention rape as many of these students, in examples spanning the past few years, did:

A group of male students at Georgia Tech received an email signed "In luring rapebait" instructing them to, among other things, grab women "on the hips with your 2 hands and then let them grind against your dick."

At Miami University of Ohio someone thought it was a good idea hang a poster titled "Top Ten Ways to Get Away with Rape," which closed with, "If your [sic] afraid the girl might identify you slit her throat."

A University of Vermont fraternity surveyed members with this question: "If you could rape someone, who would it be?"

At USC boys released a Gullet Report ("gullet" defined as "a target's throat capacity and it's [sic] ability to gobble cock. If a target is known to have a good gullet, it can deep-throat dick extremely well.) For good measure they added some overtly racist material as well.

A woman filed a lawsuit against Wesleyan University citing a fraternity known on campus as the "rape factory."

A Yale fraternity took photos of members holding up signs reading, "We love Yale sluts." Another fraternity had fun running around campus singing, "No means yes! Yes means anal!"

At Amherst, a fraternity had t-shirts made depicting a woman wearing only a bra and a thong. She was bruised and had an apple stuffed into her mouth, bound to a split and being roasted over a fire. The caption read, "Roasting Fat Ones Since 1847."

Nor is this limited to the United States:

The Durham rugby club was reprimanded last Fall for playing an "It's not rape if..." drinking game on campus. They'd already been prohibited from playing competitively after members dressed up like Jimmy Savile, a popular media figure who molested more than 1,000 victims.

At St Mary's University in Canada, more than 80 students sang "Y is for 'Your sister,' O is for 'Oh so tight,' U is for 'Underage,' N is for 'No consent,' G is for 'Grab that ass,'" during an orientation event.

At Wales' Cardiff Metropolitan University a poster for orientation week events featured a man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the text: "I was raping a woman last night and she cried."

These are just examples of rape as entertainment, and not of actual rapes and their botched investigations or damaging and tragic effects. Occidental, Emerson, the University of North Carolina, University of Connecticut, Yale, Dartmouth, (and Swarthmore itself) are all currently involved in very public Title IX complaints for allegedly mishandling sexual assault cases, mishandling that creates environments of institutional tolerance for rape and hostility against victims. Many more are grappling with how to avoid the same and manage an environment where 18-year-olds arrive with ideas that are unpalatable to a pluralistic and civil society.

Boys arrive at schools thinking that they can discuss women's "rape potential" with impunity for a reason. As a matter of fact, they feel that rape banter and worse, like posting rape videos online, are ways to gain status. The notion that rape is a serious crime for which they can be held responsible seems not to have entered their heads.

In the United Kingdom, the toxic and sexist expression that permeates schools is euphemistically called "lad culture." What do we call ours? I'd suggest "Boy Crisis," but that's already taken and people are super busy trying to make sure that we create elementary schools that "let boys be boys" so that our pronounced gender gap in self-regulation is maintained instead of eliminated. But, whatever, moving right along.

What will it take for our mainstream culture to teach children that it is unacceptable to talk about and treat other human beings in these ways? There are ways for boys to express their masculinity, create fraternal bonds and explore their sexuality that do not turn girls and women into "boxes," "gullets," "snatches," "pussies," "asses," and "sluts." I know I didn't have to write those words. If they feel assaultive, that's because they are assaultive. This is very obviously hostile and demeaning to women because they are women.

The amazing thing is how much resistance there is to challenging these behaviors on the basis of their misogyny. Neither of the two William and Mary statements, for example, used the words sexism or misogyny, instead opting for "derogatory," "hostile" and "unacceptable," generalized words that are part of our unwillingness to confront the problem at hand. When boys having a "bit of fun" are confronted with objections they and many adults around them seem genuinely shocked and feel as though their "rights" are being challenged. It's too rich.

A few months ago at Swarthmore College, a fraternity pledge posted a photograph on Instagram of his offer to join a fraternity. The picture was of a booklet cover featuring a mosaic of hundreds of naked or nearly naked women. The fraternity had used this format for several years, but this year a group of students led by senior Marian Firke protested the use of the photography. Swarthmore's dean of students agreed with protesters and took steps to address their concerns. Firke was assailed online by men who, after some throwaway "feminist cunt" ramblings, described her as a "Stupid girl who stick[s] [her] opinions where they do not belong," suggested that "somebody needs to send their pledges over to fuck the bitch" and said that she "deserved to be face raped so hard that she will be incapable of spewing any more of this bullshit." This is an abuse of speech that is discriminatory and meant to silence. It does ZERO to support the principles that free speech is meant to protect and enhance and, indeed, definitively degrades them.

As with the William and Mary email, no one at the Swarthmore fraternity advocated or suggested rape. But anyone who thinks that emails and photographs like these do not increase tolerance for rape, create a hostile educational environment for girls and women on campuses and negatively impact their ability to move freely and attend to their studies is deluding themselves. Additionally, not only do these words and media normalize sexism and violence against women, but they endanger boys and men by perpetuating myths that only girls and women can be sexual assault victims.

This could not be simpler: If we want campuses to be safe places for everyone, and if we want male students not to become "accidental rapists," we have to teach little boys and girls that women, as a class, are worthy of respect and have rights, something that is not happening now. At the very least, as a first step, if we have make treating rape like a joke socially unacceptable.

Girls may no longer be scrawling the names of serial rapists on the walls of bathroom stalls in school libraries, but yet, here we are, living with unsafe college campuses and a culture where young men -- and no small number of women -- think rape is funny. There are many initiatives to change campus culture. Some are based on consent, others on sex ed and others on forcing schools to fulfill their obligations to all students equally. There is a thriving Know Your IX national movement and President Obama just announced the creation of a task force to help universities develop best practices for dealing with sexual assault on college campuses. It is as clear as mid-summer Arctic daylight that our "teachable moments" have to happen way before people get to college.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya...b_4759742.html

Anita Hill - the documentary, 22 years later
 

The film is called, ‘Anita’ and is due for release on March 21, 2014. It was directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Mock. In the trailer we see Joe Biden, John McCain, and several other familiar faces who or may not appear favorably to the new viewing public.

The documentary not only gives a fresh account of the Hill/Thomas hearing 22 years later, it also honors a woman who was more than scorned for speaking out against sexual harassment. We are indebted to Hill, as her trial set the stage for new laws protecting women (and men) from sexual and gender discrimination, on and off the job.

Talking about it wasn’t the only thing women did. Within five years, the number of EEOC complaints for sexual harassment doubled. And after realizing their lack of representation in Congress, the following year a record number of women ran for new seats in the House and Senate – and won. It was called, ‘The Year Of The Woman’.

Thats vile! Its as if the life og young girls mean nothing to the law. Also who cares if a girl acts older than her age. Young girls learn early on how to imitate women she is still a child. And even if a child says yes its the adults job to say no. And if she appeared older how in the world can that be her fault? I looked older than my age at fourteen too. You cant controle how old you look. Urgh. I want to smash things. He should get life and so should the f%@! judge!

Mass. High Court: Subway Upskirt Photos Not Illegal
 

Massachusetts’ highest court has ruled that a man accused of secretly snapping photos up a woman’s skirt on an MBTA train did not break the law.

So-called Peeping Tom laws protect people from being photographed in dressing rooms and bathrooms when nude or partially nude, but the way the law is written, it does not protect clothed people in public areas, the court said. The SJC ruling went on to suggest that the act in this case should be illegal, noting other states including New York and Florida have explicit laws criminalizing public upskirting.

Under the law, the state has to prove five criteria:

That the defendant willfully photographed, videotaped, or electronically surveilled; the subject was another person who was nude or partially nude; the defendant did so with the intent to secretly conduct or hide his photographing activity; the defendant conducted such activity when the other person was in a place and circumstance where the person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy in not being “so photographed”; and the defendant did so without the other person’s knowledge or consent.

The SJC decision says a woman on the MBTA “wearing a skirt, dress, or the like covering these parts of her body is not a person who is ‘partially nude,’ no matter what is or is not underneath the skirt by way of underwear or other clothing.”

Prosecutors argued that a person has a right to privacy beneath his or her own clothes. But justices ruled that because the alleged incident occurred on a public trolley, there is not a reasonable expectation of privacy. They noted that while the prosecution’s “proposition is eminently reasonable,” the current writing of the law that Robertson was charged under does not cover that particular circumstance.

“Because the MBTA is a public transit system operating in a public place and uses cameras, the two alleged victims here were not in a place and circumstance where they reasonably would or could have had an expectation of privacy,” a draft of the ruling stated.

Prosecutors said after the ruling that they planed to take the matter to the Legislature and request a re-write to the current state law.

“Every person, male or female, has a right to privacy beneath his or her own clothing,” Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley said. “If the the statute as written doesn’t protect that privacy, then I’m urging the Legislature to act rapidly and adjust it so it does.”

The ruling of the Supreme Judicial Court is contrary to the spirit of the current law,” DeLeo said. “The House will begin work on updating our statutes to conform with today’s technology immediately.”

Senate President Therese Murray says she is “stunned and disappointed” and the Senate “will act swiftly.”

Women riding the MBTA say they are outraged by the decision.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/03/0...not-illegal/2/

50,000 Activists Demand Sexual Assault Reform At Dartmouth After Student Publishes A ‘Rape Guide’
 

Tens of thousands of Americans are pressuring Dartmouth College to strengthen its sexual assault policies, citing the fact that a student was sexually assaulted on campus after her name appeared in a “rape guide” published on a student-run website.

Nearly 50,000 people have signed onto a petition spearheaded by the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet asking the prestigious school to “take action immediately to curb the sexual assault crisis” on campus.

“Student groups have asked the school to list expulsion as the punishment for rape in the student handbook and to block access to the ‘rape guide’ website on campus. But school authorities haven’t taken any of these recommendations seriously,” UltraViolet’s petition notes. “Usually, stories like this get little attention from the news media. But if all of us speak up, Dartmouth won’t be able to hide.”

Dartmouth is currently under federal investigation for potential violations of Title IX, the federal gender equity law that requires universities to ensure a safe learning environment for students. A group of Dartmouth students and alumni have also filed a Clery Act complaint alleging that administrators have failed to accurately report incidences of sexual violence and hazing on campus.

More recently, the college made national headlines after an anonymous individual posted a “rape guide” on the student site Bored at Baker, which is not technically affiliated with the college but which requires a Dartmouth email address to participate. The post gave explicit instructions for how to find and rape a particular female student — tips like “just casually drink with her now and then,” “prove you’re not a dangerous person,” and “she’s easily persuaded; keep on going.” The subject, who was referred to as a “whore,” was identified by name. At the end of February, just weeks after the post was first published on Bored at Baker, the female student said she was raped at a fraternity party at Dartmouth.

And this isn’t the first time that Bored at Baker has been the subject of controversy. Last spring, Dartmouth canceled classes after several students received rape and death threats on the student site. Those students were targeted on Bored at Baker because they interrupted a campus event to protest their administration’s lackluster response to incidences of rape, racism, and homophobia. Afterward, they told ThinkProgress that Dartmouth officials chose to punish them for creating a disruption rather than working to crack down on rapists.

Karin Roland, the campaign director for UltraViolet, told ThinkProgress that the situation at Dartmouth has reached a boiling point — and it’s now possible to harness that frustration to push for real policy reform.

“Dartmouth has had a problem with rape and sexual assault for decades. They have a long history with this issue, and student groups on campus are finally fed up and are leading the charge,” Roland said. “With the help of an online network of members at Ultraviolet to capture the grassroots outrage, we can really make change on this right now.”

This isn’t the first time that UltraViolet has used its online network to leverage change in this area. The group has been working with student activists to combat rape culture for the past year, supporting campus-led efforts to reform the way the U.S. Department of Education handles Title IX enforcement. When President Obama decided to convene a task force on sexual violence on college campuses, UltraViolet gathered stories and suggestions from their members, particularly sexual assault survivors, to help inform that work.

These issues certainly aren’t new, but the power to organize online is giving a louder voice to feminist activists who want to hold public officials accountable for their actions.

“Women are really fed up with rape being excused. I think that’s true on campuses, I think that’s true in our justice system, I think that’s true at the high school level, and I think that’s just becoming true across the country. The ability to connect over online networks has really empowered women to stand up and do something,” Roland pointed out. “If you look at everything from the reaction to Todd Akin’s legitimate rape comment, to Steubenville, to Dartmouth, you can see that women aren’t putting up with it anymore.”

Dartmouth has refuted UltraViolet’s allegations that the administration doesn’t take rape seriously, maintaining that the college has worked to increase the support and prevention resources for issues of sexual assault.

“It is important to note the anonymous author of the post on a privately hosted website referred to in the petition was identified and faces Dartmouth’s disciplinary process,” the school’s Assistant Vice President for Media Relations, Justin Anderson, said in a statement. “Further, we investigate every instance of sexual assault that is brought to our attention and offer multiple levels of support and resources to every survivor. Every day we work to make our community better and safer.”

That’s not good enough for the student activists on the ground who are driving UltraViolet’s activism.

“Survivors and students are speaking out on the ground, in addition to 500,000 UltraViolet members who have their backs,” Roland told ThinkProgress. “As Dartmouth has been dragging their feet to respond, more women have been assaulted. We’re still not seeing action, and we’re not going to stop speaking out until we do.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014...ure-petition/#

Mini skirt turbulence
 

Skymark Airlines came under fire from the cabin crew’s labor union, which said the super-short skirt—with a distinctively swinging ‘60s look—barely covers wearers’ thighs.

“We’re concerned that the design of this uniform may cause problems,” including sexual harassment, the Japan Federation of Cabin Attendants said in a statement.

“The airline is saying the uniform is meant to attract more customers, but this shows the company is treating women like a commodity,” it added.

Comments posted on the union’s website said attendants would not be able to carry out their duties effectively owing to fears about leering stares or customers shooting pictures up their skirts with a mobile phone.

The airline, which disputes the union claims, plans to introduce the uniform as a temporary promotion for the launch of domestic routes its Airbus A330 planes in the spring.

The carrier could not be immediately reached on Tuesday.

But last week, Skymark president Shinichi Nishikubo told reporters: “We won’t impose the uniform on any of the cabin attendants who refuse to wear it.”

“It is disappointing that the outfit designed in part for the ad campaign is being seen in a distorted way,” he added.

© 2014 AFP


http://www.japantoday.com/category/n...ymark-airlines

http://www.dailydot.com/lol/naked-le...mom-blackmail/


As you can guess, dating apps require a certain amount of finesse. But while the nuances of app-based dating culture might be a little tricky to understand, one thing seems pretty clear: Don’t send someone a picture of your junk unless she explicitly asks for one.

One female Let’s Date user found a quick and easy solution to the unwanted dick-pic problem. Tumblr user aheartbeatchanged was chatting with a guy about the weather when this appeared:




“F**k no,” she replied. “I don't need to be disrespected by someone I don't even know."

“Relax,” he wrote back. “It’s only my c**k.”

Things escalated quickly, and, well... see for yourself:






At this point, the smartest thing would’ve been for Trevor to apologize and vanish forever. Especially since he’d just given someone a naked photo that could potentially be, you know, posted on Tumblr for 60,000 people to laugh at and reblog.






Oh yeah. She went there.

As of Sunday night, aheartbeatchanged hasn’t heard back from Trevor’s mom. What she has received is more than a hundred messages from Tumblr users, ranging from supportive to... more poorly worded insults: “If you had/get some good dick (which you obviously haven't/don't) you wouldn't be such a grammar nazi and prude.”

He and Trevor would probably make great friends.

Update: Let's Date writes to clarify that "while the users may have met on Let's Date, the inappropriate photo was not sent via Let's Date as the app's messaging platform does not allow users to send pictures to each other, they are only able to send text."

Photo via Guys With iPhones

Recently, the news and the Internet have been abuzz with stories about Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and pop star Beyoncé Knowles and their mission to ban the word “bossy” as it applies to girls and women. Their campaign makes sense. It’s no secret that in America, attributes praised in men are often vilified in women. Where a man is bold, confident, daring and a real “go-getter”, a woman is aggressive, bitchy, cocky or a “ball-breaker”. In other words, assertive girls and women get called “bossy”.

Little girls who emerge as natural leaders on the playground are discouraged from being “bossy”. Where little boys might be encouraged to seize the reins of whatever game or activity in which they’re engaged, little girls are scolded to “share”, and “let so-and-so take control, now”. It’s as if being a natural leader is a bad thing, a threat to their femininity. Or worse, a girl’s assertiveness emasculates the boys around her.

Labelling anyone with a negative description like “bossy” damages their self-esteem. And it just isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to squash a girl’s natural leadership skills so that she isn’t labelled as aggressive. Yet while I agree with the thesis behind Ms. Sandberg’s and Ms. Knowles’ campaign, I believe that another term should be eliminated as well. I want to destroy, once and for all, the myth of the “Angry Black Woman”.

Just like the “bossy” label, the Angry Black Woman (ABW) label diminishes and trivializes the experiences and feelings of Black women. If every time a Black woman asserts her rights she gets pigeon-holed as an ABW, her voice is silenced. No one hears her.

The exception, of course, is when Black women speak out for issues that affect men, too. Our outrage is fine as long as we’re marching for civil rights or protesting new voting laws which seek to disenfranchise minorities. Our wrath is justified when we decry the modern day lynching of our young Black men under the Stand Your Ground laws. When we’re rallying against these injustices, our tears are celebrated, held up as emblems of the struggle: grieving mothers, clutching the photographs of our slain sons. But the moment we speak up for ourselves, we become the Angry Black Woman.

http://www.forharriet.com/2014/03/ba...y-we-must.html

We saw Brandi Chastain on Chopped last week. I had the same reaction when she spoke about her non-profit: Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative (BAWSI). She said, "We call it BAWSI".

She laughed and clearly pronounced it "bossy". Really bothered me.

A disagreement over the discovery of the cause of Down’s syndrome has resurfaced in France more than 50 years after the findings were published.

The dispute erupted again at the French Federation of Human Genetics' (FFGH) seventh biennial congress on human and medical genetics in Bordeaux at the end of last month.

Paediatric cardiologist Marthe Gautier, who was involved in the experiments that led to the identification of the extra copy of chromosome 21 — the cause of the syndrome — was due to relate her role in the discovery when two bailiffs arrived with a court authorization to record the session. The FFGH then decided at the last minute to cancel Gautier's presentation

http://www.nature.com/news/down-s-sy...france-1.14690

Speaking of men stealing women's work product.....

Role reversal
 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/caitlincowie...n-ads-with-men

Commercials tend to show women in provocative poses no matter what product is being sold, so we decided to recreate three of them with men.

Sex assault charges dropped in rare court-martial of U.S. general
 

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (Reuters) - A U.S. Army general at the center of a rare court-martial of a top military leader was cleared of sexual assault charges on Monday, but admitted to mistreating a junior officer during their inappropriate sexual relationship.

Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair pleaded guilty to several lesser military criminal offenses as part of an agreement with the government that dismissed the most serious allegations against him.

The 27-year Army veteran said he knew the female Army captain with whom he had a three-year extramarital affair was enamored by his rank, and he led her on despite knowing he would never divorce his wife.

When he realized his subordinate was emotionally committed to the affair in a way he was not, he flirted with other women and was cold to her in hopes she would become angry enough to break off their secret liaison that spanned two war zones, Sinclair told a judge.

"I failed her as a leader and as a mentor and caused her harm to her emotional state," the one-star general said.

Though vindicated of charges that he forced the captain to perform oral sex and engaged in "open and notorious sexual acts" with her, Sinclair's decorated military career is almost certainly over.

Sinclair's attorneys will argue during the sentencing phase on Monday that he should avoid jail time and be allowed to retire at a reduced rank in keeping with how officers in similar cases have been treated.

The lawyers say Sinclair's case is one of the first courts-martial of a general in nearly 60 years and was fueled by political concerns at a time when the U.S. military is grappling with how to handle rising sexual assault in its ranks.

"Clearly what General Sinclair did was wrong, but it certainly had the appearance that he was being the scapegoat for the bigger sexual assault problem that the military's going through," said Morris Davis, a retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is not involved in the case.

TRIAL HALTED BEFORE PLEA

Sinclair, a 51-year-old married father of two, has remained on active duty at the sprawling base at Fort Bragg after being stripped of command in southern Afghanistan in May 2012 as a result of the criminal allegations.

His trial was already under way this month when a judge ruled that politics appeared to have improperly influenced the Army's decision to reject an earlier offer by Sinclair to plead guilty if the charges of coercive sex acts were dropped.

The former lead prosecutor in the case resigned after military leaders refused to dismiss the sex charges despite concerns about the key accuser's credibility. The new chief prosecutor said the government did not doubt the woman's underlying allegations.

The judge last week allowed Sinclair to renew his plea offer, and the general's attorneys announced on Sunday that a resolution to the case had been reached.

The agreement called for the government to drop the sexual assault charges involving the captain, as well as two additional charges that could have required Sinclair to register as a sex offender.

The identity of the captain, a military intelligence officer, is being withheld by Reuters due to the nature of the charges.

Sinclair pleaded guilty to maltreating his accuser, using his government credit card for personal purposes related to the affair and using demeaning language to refer to female staff officers.

He admitted to calling a female major "a red-headed troll" but told the judge he was joking when he said "I'm a general, I'll say whatever the fuck I want."

Sinclair also faces punishment after pleading guilty this month to having an adulterous affair, asking junior female officers for nude photos and possessing pornography on his laptop while deployed in Afghanistan.

He could have been sent to prison for life if he had been convicted of the sexual assault charges, but now faces a far less severe maximum sentence.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/sex-assault...154520589.html

Army Brig Gen. Jeff Sinclair fined, reprimanded in sex case
 

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - An Army general who carried on a three-year affair with a captain and had two other inappropriate relationships with subordinates was reprimanded and docked $20,000 in pay Thursday, avoiding jail time in one of the military's most closely watched courts-martial.

Sinclair, the former deputy commander of the storied 82nd Airborne Division, was believed to be the highest-ranking U.S. military officer ever court-martialed on sexual assault charges, but earlier this week those charges were dropped when he pleaded guilty to inappropriate relationships with the three women.

Sinclair smiled and hugged his two lawyers in the courtroom. Outside the building, he said "the system worked" and all he wanted to do now was "hug my wife and sons."

As part of the plea deal, Sinclair's sentence could not exceed terms in a sealed agreement between defense lawyers and military attorneys. The agreement, unsealed Thursday, called for Sinclair to serve no more than 18 months in jail, but the judge's punishment was much lighter.

Prosecutors did not immediately comment.

In closing arguments, prosecutors argued Sinclair should be thrown out of the Army and lose his military benefits, while the defense said that would harm his innocent wife and children the most. The two sides also offered contrasting arguments about the seriousness of the misdeeds that felled the general.

"It's not just one mistake. Not just one lapse in judgment. It was repeated," said prosecutor Maj. Rebecca DiMuro. "They are not mistakes. We are not in the court of criminal mistakes. These are crimes."

The defense had called a host of character witnesses this week to laud Sinclair as a selfless leader in hopes of getting a lenient punishment.

After both sides finished, Judge Col. James Pohl adjourned the hearing until Thursday. Sinclair's sentencing comes as the military and Congress grapple with sex crimes in the ranks.

Prosecutors did not ask the judge to send Sinclair to jail, even though the maximum penalty he faced on the charges to which he pleaded guilty is more than 20 years.

The judge could have dismissed Sinclair from the Army, which would have likely wiped out his Veterans Administration health care and military retirement benefits.

The general also pleaded guilty to adultery - a crime in the military - as well as using his government-issued credit card to pay for trips to see his mistress and other conduct unbecoming an officer.

Sinclair had been accused of twice forcing the female captain to perform oral sex during the three-year affair.

The Army's case against Sinclair started to crumble as questions arose about his primary accuser's credibility and whether military officials improperly rejected a previous plea deal because of political concerns.

A military lawyer representing Sinclair argued that his wife, Rebecca, had made a significant investment in the Army herself by holding leadership positions in organizations that helped soldiers' families. Maj. Sean Foster said Rebecca Sinclair and the couple's two sons would be hurt the most if the general lost benefits.

"These three are the only truly innocent people in this case," he said.

Sinclair broke down in tears multiple times during Wednesday's hearing.

When a letter from his wife was read aloud, Sinclair buried his head in his hands, appeared to cry and dabbed his eyes with two tissues.

In the letter, Rebecca Sinclair says she hasn't fully forgiven her husband but doesn't want the Army to punish him and his family further with a significant reduction to his pension and other benefits.

"Believe me when I tell you that the public humiliation and vilification he has endured are nothing compared to the private suffering and guilt that he lives with every day," writes Rebecca Sinclair, who hasn't attended her husband's hearings.

Jeffrey Sinclair broke down at several points as he read a statement to the judge, pausing to collect himself. He apologized to his family and the women with whom he admitted inappropriate relationships.

"I've been frustrated and angry, but I don't have to look any further than the mirror for someone to blame," he said, noting the hearing came exactly two years after the captain came forward with allegations on March 19, 2012.

http://www.postandcourier.com/articl...ed-in-sex-case

---------------------


So much for the rhetoric about the military being serious about dealing with sexual assaults and indiscretions.

Yes, General, "the system worked". For YOU. The good old boys, once again, managed to discredit his accuser, get charges dismissed, and gently slap you on the wrist.

The system, once again, did not work for the women you exploited and assaulted.

It doesn't seem the article even says how his accuser was discredited to begin with... What bullshit, and I get the sense that the things that supposedly "discredited" her were the usual ones when it comes to sexual assault cases. Also dislike the emphasis on his wife and children, as though the fact that the husband/father committed sexual assault is more painful to them than the actual victims. But it's the usual "family values" shit, I guess.

One of four gubernatorial candidates introduced to California Republicans recently is a registered sex offender who spent more than a decade in state prison, convicted of crimes including voluntary manslaughter and assault with intent to commit rape.
Glenn Champ, 48, addressed hundreds of GOP delegates and supporters Sunday at the site of the state party's semi-annual convention. Introduced by party chairman Jim Brulte and allotted 10 minutes, Champ spoke in between the main GOP candidates, former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari and state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County.
Champ, a little-known political neophyte from the Fresno County community of Tollhouse, did not directly mention his criminal past during his speech but said, "In my life, I've been held accountable because of my stupidity. I do not want anyone else to be enslaved because of their lack of knowledge."


Champ's rap sheet is lengthy. Court records show that in 1992, he pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed firearm. In 1993, he was convicted of two counts of assault with intent to commit rape and as a result was placed on the state's sex-offender registry.
In March 1998, he accepted a plea deal on a charge of loitering to solicit a prostitute; later that year, he pleaded no contest to a voluntary manslaughter charge after hitting a man with his vehicle, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in state prison, according to court records.

In March 1998, he accepted a plea deal on a charge of loitering to solicit a prostitute; later that year, he pleaded no contest to a voluntary manslaughter charge after hitting a man with his vehicle, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in state prison, according to court records.
In an interview Friday, Champ acknowledged his criminal record, which was reported by KMJ radio in Fresno.
Champ said the assault case "was just for picking up some underage prostitutes" and resulted in a 90-day jail sentence. He said he turned his life around after the incident.


http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-g...#ixzz2wk6M8QGY

A terrifying precedent: Woman to be tried for murder for giving birth to stillborn
 

Rennie Gibbs’s daughter, Samiya, was a month premature when she simultaneously entered the world and left it, never taking a breath. To experts who later examined the medical record, the stillborn infant’s most likely cause of death was also the most obvious: the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

But within days of Samiya’s delivery in November 2006, Steven Hayne, Mississippi’s de facto medical examiner at the time, came to a different conclusion. Autopsy tests had turned up traces of a cocaine byproduct in Samiya’s blood, and Hayne declared her death a homicide, caused by “cocaine toxicity.”

In early 2007, a Lowndes County grand jury indicted Gibbs, a 16-year-old black teen, for “depraved heart murder” — defined under Mississippi law as an act “eminently dangerous to others…regardless of human life.” By smoking crack during her pregnancy, the indictment said, Gibbs had “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously” caused the death of her baby. The maximum sentence: life in prison.

Seven years and much legal wrangling later, Gibbs could finally go on trial this spring — part of a wave of “fetal harm” cases across the country in recent years that pit the rights of the mother against what lawmakers, health care workers, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and others view as the rights of the unborn child.

A judge is said to be likely to decide this week if the case should move forward or be dismissed. Assuming it continues, whether Gibbs becomes the first woman ever convicted by a Mississippi jury for the loss of her pregnancy could turn on a fundamental question that has received surprisingly little scrutiny so far by the courts: Is there scientific proof that cocaine can cause lasting damage to a child exposed in the womb, or are the conclusions reached by Hayne and prosecutors based on faulty analysis and junk science?

The case intersects a number of divisive and difficult issues — the criminal justice system’s often disproportionate treatment of poor people of color, especially in drug prosecutions; the backlash to Roe v. Wade and the conservative push to establish “personhood” for fetuses as part of a broad-based strategy to weaken abortion laws. A wild card in the case — Mississippi’s history of using sometimes dubious forensic evidence to win criminal convictions over many years — could end up playing a central role.

Prosecutors argue that the state has a responsibility to protect children from the dangerous actions of their parents. Saying Gibbs should not be tried for murder is like saying that “every drug addict who robs or steals to obtain money for drugs should not be held accountable for their actions because of their addiction,” the state attorney general’s office wrote in a brief to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

But some civil libertarians and women’s rights advocates worry that if Gibbs is convicted, the precedent could inspire more prosecutions of Mississippi women and girls for everything from miscarriage to abortion — and that African Americans, who suffer twice as many stillbirths as whites, would be affected the most.

Mississippi has one of has one of the worst records for maternal and infant health in the U.S., as well as some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease and among the most restrictive policies on abortion. Many of the factors that have been linked to prenatal and infant mortality — poverty, poor nutrition, lack of access to healthcare, pollution, smoking, stress — are rampant there.

“It’s tremendously, tremendously frightening, this case,” said Oleta Fitzgerald, southern regional director for the Children’s Defense Fund, an advocacy and research organization, in Jackson. “There’s real fear for young women whose babies are dying early who [lack the resources to] defend themselves and their actions.”

Those who share such worries point to a report last year by the New York­–basedNational Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) that documented hundreds of cases around the country in which women have been detained, arrested and sometimes convicted — on charges as serious as murder — for doing things while pregnant that authorities viewed as dangerous or harmful to their unborn child.

The definition of fetal harm in such cases has been broad: An Indiana woman whoattempted suicide while pregnant spent a year in jail before murder charges were dropped last year; an Iowa woman was arrested and jailed after falling down the stairs and suffering a miscarriage; a New Jersey woman who refused to sign a preauthorization for a cesarean section didn’t end up needing the operation, yet was charged with child endangerment and lost custody of her baby. But the vast majority of cases have involved women suspected of using illegal drugs. Those women have been disproportionately young, low-income and African American.

Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of NAPW, said that decisions to arrest and charge women often have political and moral overtones and are mostly based on unproved or discredited notions about the effects of prenatal drug exposure.

The U.S. Supreme Court has established stringent rules limiting the use of unproved science in legal proceedings, but these often fall by the wayside in fetal harm cases, Paltrow said. She said that women are typically convicted based on evidence that would be demolished by lawyers with the time and resources to effectively refute it in court – lawyers, say, for pharmaceutical companies whose drugs are challenged in court as being unsafe.

“If a pregnant, drug-using woman were a corporation, her case wouldn’t even get to trial because the rules of evidence require that there be science to prove causation,” Paltrow said.

The quality of the science is very much an issue in the Gibbs case.In a motion to throw out Hayne’s autopsy report, defense lawyers have claimed that that the medical examiner misinterpreted toxicology results and failed to explore alternative causes of death.

Those claims are not the first time Hayne’s work has come under attack. Indeed, Hayne — who effectively served as Mississippi’s statewide medical examiner from the late 1980s to 2008, eventually performing 80 to 90 percent of the autopsies in the state annually — has been a hugely influential and controversial figure in the criminal justice system there for years.

In litigation (much of it by the Mississippi Innocence Project) and news reports (many of them by Radley Balko, now of the Washington Post), defense lawyers and other medical examiners have accused Hayne of being sloppy, exaggerating his credentials, and leaping to conclusions that sometimes had no basis in science. At least four murder convictions based on Hayne’s evidence — one involving an innocent man sentenced to death for the killing of a three-year-old girl — have been overturned since 2007.

Despite having failed to complete his certification test by the American Board of Pathology, Hayne not only practiced for two decades in Mississippi and nearby states, but by his own estimate he performed as many as 1,800 autopsies a year (the National Association of Medical Examiners recommends that a single doctor conduct no more than 250). Mississippi stopped hiring Hayne in 2008, but he continues to testify in cases that he handled before then.

In their court filing, Gibbs’s lawyers cited a capital murder conviction of a 14-year-old boy that the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned because of what it called “scientifically unfounded” testimony by Hayne. That case involved both the prosecutor and the judge handling the Gibbs prosecution. (To read more about Hayne, go here, here, and here.)

Prosecutors have yet to respond to the filing by Gibbs’s lawyers, and they did not return a telephone call from ProPublica seeking comment. But they have vigorously defended Hayne in other cases where his methods and conclusions have been called into question.

Hayne also didn’t respond to a request for an interview.

Michael V. Cory Jr., a Jackson attorney, represented Hayne in a defamation suit against the Innocence Project, which had criticized his work and record. The national organization paid Hayne $100,000 as part of a settlement in that case. Cory said many of the claims against Hayne are unfounded.

“Given the number of autopsies he’s performed, there’s certainly going to be some errors,” Cory said in an interview last week. “But a lot of the criticisms don’t turn out to be fair. Just because he’s been criticized in some cases doesn’t mean there’s any inherent unreliability in his findings. Certainly Dr. Hayne would want the truth to come out.”

Gibbs’s lawyers would not provide many specifics about her background or the events leading up to her baby’s death. The records make this much clear: Gibbs, pregnant at 15, tested positive three times for marijuana and or cocaine during her pregnancy. She then missed several doctor’s appointments.

In November 2006, 36 weeks into her pregnancy, Gibbs ended up in the emergency room at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Columbus, where “fetal demise” was diagnosed and labor was induced. A urine test on Gibbs again detected the presence of cocaine and marijuana. By the day after Samiya’s delivery, Hayne had noted that the probable cause of death was homicide.

Gibbs’s lawyers spent the first several years trying to persuade the Mississippi Supreme Court to throw out the murder charge. (Gibbs, now 23, has been out on bail for much of the time.) They filed their motion to exclude Hayne’s testimony last year.

Expert witnesses hired by the defense claim that the toxicology results didn’t actually support Hayne’s findings. Although Samiya’s blood showed traces of benzoylecgonine, a cocaine byproduct, cocaine itself was “not detected,” according to the lab that did the tests. Kimberly Collins, a forensic pathologist in Atlanta associated with Emory University, said in an affidavit: “It is impossible to conclude from the very small amount of benzoylecgonine that the stillbirth was caused by cocaine toxicity.” Two other defense experts concurred.

The experts maintain that there were other problems with the findings as well. Hayne, they say, did not order tests to rule out infection or fetal abnormality, two common causes of stillbirth. Hayne said that Gibbs’s placenta was normal, but closer examination, the defense experts assert, showed the presence of blood clots — a sign that the baby’s oxygen supply had been cut off. (In a 2011 study by a consortium of researchers around the U.S., 24 percent of stillbirths were caused by blood clots or other placenta abnormalities.)

The experts said cocaine has been linked to one kind of devastating outcome — placenta abruption (when the placenta pulls away from the uterus), which can lead to stillbirth. That was not present in Samiya’s death.

In Gibbs’s case, the evidence pointed to “umbilical cord compression” as the likeliest explanation for Samiya’s death, the defense experts said.

At the same time, Gibbs’s attorneys are challenging the very notion that cocaine exposure in utero causes widespread fetal mortality or serious, long-lasting harm in children. The idea dates back to the 1980s and ‘90s, when the crack epidemic led to fears about a generation of developmentally impaired “crack babies.” And it has gained a kind of credence over the years as OB/GYNs, parenting sites, and many others have urged women to avoid all kinds of substances during pregnancy — everything from tobacco and wine to raw-milk cheese, sushi and hair dye.

But the concerns about cocaine have proven to be “wildly overstated,” said Deborah A. Frank, a pediatrician and researcher at Boston University School of Medicine who has participated in numerous studies on the topic over the past two decades.

“There is no consistent association between cocaine use during pregnancy and serious fetal harms, birth defects, or serious long-term physical or developmental impairments,” Frank wrote in an affidavit. “There is no convincing evidence that prenatal cocaine exposure is more strongly associated with fetal harm or developmental deficits than exposure to legal substances, like tobacco and alcohol, or many other factors.”

Frank and other researchers said they have been trying to set the record straight for years, but their arguments have rarely had a hearing in court, Paltrow said. Defense lawyers — often public defenders — don’t have the resources to hire experts to challenge prosecutors, and they may not even realize what the science actually says. It’s not unusual for women to plead guilty in such cases to avoid the risk of losing at trial — and getting a longer sentence. (Indeed, at least two mississippi women are believed to have pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the early 2000s, Gibbs’ lawyers said.)

“For a whole host of reasons, women should not be prosecuted for this sort of thing,” said Robert McDuff, one of Gibbs’ lawyers. “But if they are going to be, it needs to be based on scientific research and analysis that is more reliable than what we have now.”

Cory, Hayne’s lawyer who also does criminal defense work, acknowledged that, “In the criminal justice system, where the stakes are higher, the resources are not there to challenge the science. The judge, who is the gatekeeper, has to use the information they have. You get some crazy results in criminal cases. Science where there is no consensus gets admitted as if there was consensus.”

Gibbs’ attorneys are hopeful that the judge in their case may yet throw out the depraved-heart murder charge. Meanwhile, one thing the evidence does suggest: “Incarceration or the threat of incarceration have proved to be ineffective in reducing the incidence of alcohol or drug abuse,” the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women wrote in 2011.

Moreover, the committee determined, pregnant women who fear the legal system avoid or emotionally disengage from prenatal care — the very thing that might help assure that they give birth to healthy babies.

“Drug enforcement policies that deter women from seeking prenatal care are contrary to the welfare of the mother and fetus,” it said.

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/22/a_te...ium=socialflow

Bridget Kelly Fires Back....
 

Bridget Kelly, the Chris Christie aide directly implicated in the BridgeGate scandal, sent out a statement today slamming the credibility of the report released this week and slamming the “editorialized comments” of the man leading the investigation.

In particular, Kelly’s statement takes serious issue with several references to her relationship to another Christie ally in the report. Rachel Maddow called out those parts of the report as “slut-shaming” last night, and Kelly’s statement calls them out for blatant sexism
http://www.mediaite.com/online/bridg...gegate-report/


As I was listening to Christies self-appointed lawyers at their press conference the other day exonerating Christie from all wrong doing in the bridge lane closure fiasco, "of course" I thought. He has the tax payer money to investigate HIMSELF. BUT THEN, it took a gloomy and sinister turn when the attorneys were not so subtly reassuring us that Christie is innocent of all charges because Ms. Kelly is/was a scorned woman. My WTF line on my forehead had a workout.

Ohhh Brother!I1!
 

A “men’s rights” organization has objected to a pair of free self-defense classes for women in Glendale, California, violate the equal protection clause of the Fourth Amendment, the Glendale News-Press reported on Thursday.

The classes, which have been organized by the city’s Commission on the State of Women, will be offered on April 9 and 16 at local facilities as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

But National Coalition for Men President Harry Crouch stated in a March 13 letter (PDF) to commission chairperson Denise Miller, City Attorney Michael J. García and the course instructor complained that men were being excluded from the sessions
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/2...en-are-sexist/

Posted sans comment. Running out of spit.....:hammer: