Feminist Theory
Should We Care What Women Wear?
Battle of The Girl Bands!
Eat, Pray, Love’s Elizabeth Gilbert talks to Intelligence Squared
Hey, USA! Happy Women’s Equality Day!
Out Of Print and On Your Chest
Joan Mitchell: Over here and demanding your attention
Run for Rights!
Have Your Cake and Eat It This Saturday!
Big Demand… but who will supply to it?
Reproductive, Maternal and Newborn Health: Your Views Are Needed!
What We Missed
We're ending posting early today to prepare to launch the new and improved Feministing!
Brittany Novotny, a trans woman, is running against Sally Kern, an ultra-conservative, anti-gay member of Oklahoma's State House. Of course the New York Times' coverage conflates gender and sexuality.
A bartender's guide to the gender wage gap.
Where are the pro-choice Republican women in Congress?
The intersection of increased immigration policing and domestic violence in Albequerque, NM.
Women accuse Uzbekistan of forced sterilization
Via Broadsheet comes incredibly disturbing news out of Uzbekistan. Human rights groups, victims, and health officials are accusing the government of sterilizing hundreds of Uzbek women without their knowledge and against their will in an attempt to lower the birthrate.
Human rights advocates and doctors say autocratic President Islam Karimov this year ramped up a sterilization campaign he initiated in the late 1990s. In a decree issued in February, the Health Ministry ordered all medical facilities to "strengthen control over the medical examination of women of childbearing age."The decree also said that "surgical contraception should be provided free of charge" to women who volunteer for the procedure.
It did not specifically mandate sterilizations, but critics allege that doctors have come under direct pressure from the government to perform them: "The order comes from the very top," said Khaitboy Yakubov, head of the Najot human rights group in Uzbekistan.
While Uzbekistan may be the only country where forced sterilization is government policy, in reality far too many governments have been supportive of the practice. The AP mentions that Amnesty International has accused authorities in China of pushing coerced sterilizations. And Ryan Brown at Broadsheet reminds us that this practice is very much a part of recent U.S. history:
In our justifiably horrified response to this piece of news, we should keep in mind that 60,000 Americans, primarily the mentally ill, have been legally sterilized against their will. And I'm not talking ancient history -- the procedure was performed in several states well into the 20th century, with the last recorded legal forced sterilization taking place in Oregon in 1981. That means there are still Americans living with the brutal consequences of their government's belief that the decision to reproduce did not belong to them, a burden that they now allegedly share with hundreds of women half a world away.Victory for Constance McMillen!
Itawamba County School District officials agreed yesterday to have a judgment entered against them in Constance McMillen's case. The school district first cancelled prom rather than have Constance, a lesbian, attend and then shewas sent to a fake prom.
From the ACLU, who brought the suit against the school district:
After getting an initial ruling from the federal judge that the school district had violated Constance's free speech rights, we pressed ahead with the lawsuit. And yesterday, the school agreed to have judgment entered against it. This isn't just a settlement, it means that the district is held liable for violating Constance's rights -- in other words: they caved.The school will adopt a comprehensive nondiscrimination and nonharassment policy that covers sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, which is the first such policy in any public school in Mississippi. And they'll pay Constance $35,000 in damages (more than the median annual household income in Fulton, Miss.) and cover her attorneys' fees. All in all, a great resolution both for Constance and for LGBT youth in Mississippi.
Constance recorded this thank you to her supporters:
Transcript after the jump.
It's completely bullshit that Constance ever went through such cruel discrimination. But what she's done with this opportunity for activism, and the incredible support she's gotten from so many people, has been really beautiful to watch. Congratulations Constance, and thank you for turning such a horrible experience into an opportunity to make real change!
Constance McMillen: I just want to thank everybody so much for all the support. I appreciate it so much because I never thought in a thousand billion years there would be that many people who are supporting something that I was doing. And I think it's great that there's that many people out there that understand the difference between wrong and right. And I just want to say that I think you should stand up for what you believe in, stand up for who you are, and that's just the message that I'm trying to send people.Senate Judiciary Committee votes for Kagan
The vote was 13-6, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) joining the majority Democrats.
If she is confirmed by the Senate as expected early in August, the nine-member court will have four Democratic appointees for the first time since 1971. And for the first time ever, three of the justices will be women, and none will be a Protestant.
Yes, three women would be the most on the 9 seat court at the same time ever. So I guess that's progress.
Feministing's Redesign Launches Tomorrow!
We are incredibly excited to say that the new and improved Feministing will launch tomorrow. We'll have posts all day tomorrow explaining the new features (and community standards) of the site, with instructions on how you can make the most out of the new Feministing.
In the meantime, you can expect the current Feministing site to shut down sometime this afternoon so we can start migrating all of our info over. Don't worry, we'll back tomorrow morning!
And please don't forget - if you already registered with Feministing, you will need to reset your password in order to login to the new system. We'll remind you again tomorrow, but just something to keep in mind...
Thanks to everyone for their patience and support - we hope you like the new site!
Lebron, Family Honor, and Yo Momma
Over the past few weeks, I've been following the Lebron James story with great interest. For those who don't follow sports (or live under a rock), Lebron recently announced that he would be leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to play for the Miami Heat, after much hype, speculation, conspiracy theories, and an hour-long ESPN special. That's all fine and good. I'm not foolish enough to try to opine on such a still touchy subject in a public forum.
What I WILL talk about is the fact that for months, the critical backlash against Lebron has involved blatant, disrespectful, and anti-feminist slut-shaming of his mother based on rumors that she slept with Delonte West, another player on the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The rumors have inspired such jabs as the shirt pictured ("You can head south but your mom is riding west") as well as countless sites, articles, and street corner conversations claiming to verify or dispel the rumors, pondering their effects on Lebron's game, and employing various other methods of ridiculing him for the alleged indiscretions of his mother. The rumor has grown to be so ubiquitous that when you type "Lebron" into google search, the second thing google suggests is "lebron james mom delonte west". Dang. You don't even need to type his last name.
So..why do I care about this gossip-fueled rumor about some basketball player and his mother, neither of whom I've ever met? Because the underlying cultural attitudes are dangerously anti-woman, and represent the same misogynistic attitudes about women, honor, sex, and bodily autonomy that lead to rights violations, violence, and even death for women here in the U.S. and all over the world.
The concept of female sexual behavior bringing either honor (with purity and celibacy) or shame (with sex or too much perceived sexiness) upon her family is nothing new. For one, it's common in hip hop culture, with verses by some of the most famous rappers of all time being populated with what amounts to glorified "yo momma" jokes in lyrical form. ("mess around you'll find my silk-boxers in your mommas hamper", etc.) But this attitude isn't restricted to the realm of hip hop, or the music industry, or even to the American context. And despite the seemingly innocuous nature of a "yo momma" joke, such attitudes can have very sinister consequences for women all over the world.
Perhaps less conspicuously than Lebron' James' mother, another woman halfway across the world was also being ridiculed and shamed for her alleged sexual relations over the past few months. Buried amidst the Lebron coverage, the New York Times reported a few weeks ago on the story of Nirupama Pathak, 22, who had recently announced she was secretly engaged to a young man from a caste lower than hers, and was found days later dead in her bedroom. The police have arrested her mother, Sudha Pathak, on suspicion of murder, while the family contends that the death was a suicide.
From the article:
"One thing is absolutely clear," said Prashant Bhushan, a social activist and lawyer now advising Ms. Pathak's fiancé. "Her family was trying their level best to prevent her from marrying that boy. The pressure was such that either she was driven to suicide or she was killed."When we do things that enable members of society to feel entitled to control the women's bodies, women get hurt. They get hurt when their name is gleefully dragged around in the mud to shame, embarrass, and dishonor their family, and they get hurt when their families take matters into their own hands to prevent that same shame, embarrassment, and dishonor from coming to be associated with them. I'm not saying that telling a "yo momma" joke is akin to performing an honor killing. But I am saying that, in the case of those who titter at the thought of embarrassing Lebron by commenting on the sexual behavior his mother may or may not have engaged in, the underlying assumptions are the same as those of someone who chooses to undertake an honor killing- a woman's sexual decisions are not her own to make, but rather, criteria by which to measure the "honor" of her and her family and the ability of the men in her life to maintain control over her body, her actions, and her sexual autonomy.
Tuesday Morning Truth: New Video from Reflection Eternal "Ballad of the Black Gold"
If you need some Tuesday morning truth, I highly encourage you to check out this brand new video for the Reflection Eternal track "Ballad of the Black Gold". The song is one of my favorites off their new album, and the video was directed by a very talented up and coming filmmaker named Sam Ellison around my neighborhood in Brooklyn. Plus, it brings a timely-- and feminist-- message about the negative consequences that can come as a result of our collective dependence on oil- the BP oil spill in the Gulf being one of them. For more on the negative effects of the oil spill on women, check out this article on reproductive health concerns in the aftermath of the BP oil spill.
*On a completely non-serious note, if you look closely at this video you may or may not catch a cameo by a certain Feministing contributor. *Shameless self-promotion alert* Enjoy!
Upcoming feminist events? Leave them in comments!
Hey y'all - we're just a day away from our big redesign launch and we're reviving our feminist events calendar.
So if you're planning any feminist events in the coming months, please leave all of the info in comments - I'll upload them to the new site for tomorrow!
And the countdown begins...
Win for Women's Health: New Gel Significantly Cuts Risk of HIV and Herpes Transmission!
In a huge win for women's health, a new study published today found that a gel applied by women before and after sex slashed the chance of acquiring the AIDS virus by 39% and the genital herpes virus by 51%.
From Akimbo, the blog of the International Women's Health Coalition:
The Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) has announced that a microbicide it has been testing has shown to be 39% effective in prevention the transmission of HIV to female receptive partners. The microbicide gel contains the drug tenofovir, an antiretroviral drug used widely in the treatment of HIV, and is designed to be used vaginally both before and after penile-vaginal penetration.Woh. This is a huge deal because of how few woman-controlled methods of HIV prevention really exist: prior to this most recent development, female condoms were really our only option. Here on Feministing, we've posted before about some of the awesome attributes of the female condom, as well as some of its drawbacks. But no matter your views of that particular method, I think we can all agree that it's pretty amazing to have more alternatives for safer sex.
Though this gel is obviously not yet something that could be used by itself to afford total protection, (at 39% and 51% effective against HIV and herpes, respectively, it's hardly a sure thing), its current success is very promising and bodes well for future versions of the technology. The development of an even more successful microbicide gel could mean that further down the line, women could have the option to protect themselves from HIV without needing a barrier method at all, and thus without having to negotiate condom usage with a partner. This is all kinds of awesome for all kinds of different reasons, one being that a major factor in the recent feminization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been that too often, violence, coercion, economic dependency, and other factors make it difficult to for women to negotiate condom use on their own terms. Just another reason why I'm psyched about this new technology.
Check out the full study in Science magazine here. Read more about what UNAIDS and the WHO think about this in their joint release here.
What We Missed
Jaclyn Friedman on how the media should treat the sexual assault allegations against Al Gore.
A report from Catholics for Choice questions the effectiveness of faith-based organizations involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.
Mel Gibson and victim blaming on The Today Show.
Thirty pro-choice organizations commend NBC for airing the excellent Friday Night Lights episode about abortion.
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