| Girls sports DO make money Feministing August 3rd, 2009 Contrary to popular belief, a new article in the NYTimes highlights a trend among youth sporting events--girls events tend to draw more crowds and bring in more revenue than boys events. The article is comparing traveling teams and tournament sporting events, where a number of groups noted that girl's event were more likely to draw parents (and therefore revenue) then boys sports. As the popularity of youth tournaments has intensified over the past decade, a peculiar trend has emerged: girls' sporting events tend to attract more relatives and generate more revenue for tourism than similar events for boys. And that is drawing increased attention from economic development officials....Although Schumacher said he and others did not keep ... |
| Still Black Feministing August 3rd, 2009 I wanted to highlight that a new documentary is now out and available on DVD, Still Black. Below is a clip from the documentary, which I would love to see. About the film:STILL BLACK: a portrait of black transmen, is an alternative feature-length documentary that explores the lives of six black transgender men living in the United States. Through the intimate stories of their lives as artists, students, husbands, fathers, lawyers, and teachers, the film offers viewers a complex and multi-faceted image of race, sexuality and trans identity.Check out the website to purchase the documentary, or see here for festival viewing. |
| What sex ed do you recommend when a teen's had, well, nothing? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education July 29th, 2009 Last night, as so often happens when you work at Planned Parenthood, a good friend of mine came to me with a problem. While usually I get asked about sexual health (remind me to tell you about the time a guy at a party started asking me about the little red bumps on his genitals) my friend Carla* needed advice -- for her 14 year old cousin.�See, her cousin lives in Florida, goes to a private Christian school, and, apparently, has had no sex education whatsoever. I get the feeling her school teaches some sort of abstinence program (when Carla mentioned condoms her cousin's response was 'but don't they break?') and her mom just hasn't felt comfortable bringing it up. So when she ran into savvy New York City-based cousin Carla at a wedding ... |
| New CDC Report Reveals Disparities, Declines in Young People?s Sexual & Reproductive Health Our Bodies Our Blog July 29th, 2009 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new report on the sexual and reproductive health of people ages 10-24 in the United States. The agency compiled data from its various surveillance and survey systems for the period of 2002-2007 in an attempt to answer questions about how ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Not Just a ?Love Game? Beyond the Birds & the Bees July 21st, 2009 When Lady Gaga sings “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick” in her new hit single “Love Game,” she’s got people wondering, Is she singing about what I think she’s singing about? With its catchy pop lyrics and up-tempo beat, it’s hard to resist this popular song and music video.Yet, it’s important to remember that “Love Game,” through its seductive words and images, promotes a distorted view of sexuality. The music video, with Lady Gaga naked and suggestively gyrating with groups of men, shows a sexual fantasy world that’s all about fun and games without consequences or emotion. It offers no honest, accurate information about real relationships or important sexual health ... |
| Is it really illegal to sell me condoms? Scarleteen July 21st, 2009 |
| Our Little Wizards Are All Grown Up Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education July 21st, 2009 Critics reviewing the latest installment in the wildly popular Harry Potter franchise have been distracted to no end by the spell of attraction that has been added into the magic mix.� They can't get over the fact that the films' three young stars, once gawky misfits, are now good-looking young adults worthy of cover shots.� And it's true: in the sixth book and film, Harry, Hermione, Ron and sundry others are caught up in a tangled web of hormones and confusion.� They have to figure out where making out (or "snogging") can fit into their schedule of conquering evil, saving the world and puzzling out the cryptic, possibly universe-altering, intentions of the adults around them.What's fascinating about the rather gentle sexification of the ... |
| What sex ed do you recommend when a teen's had, well, nothing? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education July 21st, 2009 Last night, as so often happens when you work at Planned Parenthood, a good friend of mine came to me with a problem. While usually I get asked about sexual health (remind me to tell you about the time a guy at a party started asking me about the little red bumps on his genitals) my friend Carla* needed advice -- for her 14 year old cousin.�See, her cousin lives in Florida, goes to a private Christian school, and, apparently, has had no sex education whatsoever. I get the feeling her school teaches some sort of abstinence program (when Carla mentioned condoms her cousin's response was 'but don't they break?') and her mom just hasn't felt comfortable bringing it up. So when she ran into savvy New York City-based cousin Carla at a wedding ... |
| Want an abortion? Get a note from a dude. Feministing July 21st, 2009 File this under paternalism-gone-amok: An Ohio bill would force women to get men's permission before obtaining an abortion. Sound familiar? That's because Rep. John Adams from Ohio tried this same thing a couple of years ago.Rep. John Adams, a Republican from Sidney, wants to change that and the legislation he introduced today, House Bill 252, would require the biological father's consent before an abortion can be done.The bill would apply to any abortion and would require written consent before it can be done.Like a note from your parents for school, except you're an adult now (minus the rights and bodily autonomy). But here comes the kicker - and this part of the bill was around last time as well:Adams told the newspaper that, in ... |
| Thanks, abstinence-only education! Feministing July 21st, 2009 Or 'enter', whatever.A new report from the CDC says that "trends in the sexual and reproductive health of U.S. teens and young adults have flattened, or in some instances may be worsening." Are we really surprised? Thanks to a decade of misinformation masquerading as sex education, teens are having the same amount of sex, using contraception less, and getting pregnant more. We're reaping what we've sowed. A 2002 study found that one-third of U.S. teenagers hadn't received any formal instruction about contraception. For those who did learn about contraception - it was all scare tactics. In Me, My World, My Future - a textbook used in public schools across the country - students are told that "relying on condoms is like playing Russian ... |
| What sex ed do you recommend when a teen's had, well, nothing? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education July 14th, 2009 Last night, as so often happens when you work at Planned Parenthood, a good friend of mine came to me with a problem. While usually I get asked about sexual health (remind me to tell you about the time a guy at a party started asking me about the little red bumps on his genitals) my friend Carla* needed advice -- for her 14 year old cousin.�See, her cousin lives in Florida, goes to a private Christian school, and, apparently, has had no sex education whatsoever. I get the feeling her school teaches some sort of abstinence program (when Carla mentioned condoms her cousin's response was 'but don't they break?') and her mom just hasn't felt comfortable bringing it up. So when she ran into savvy New York City-based cousin Carla at a wedding ... |
| Female Condom to be Reintroduced in Uganda, United States Our Bodies Our Blog July 14th, 2009 We've written about the female condom - including the recently approved FC2 - several times in the past. Serra Sippel of the Center for Health and Gender Equity has an update on this topic at RH Reality Check, noting that Uganda is working on plans to reintroduce female condoms, with ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Oh my God - Older People Have Sex?! Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary July 14th, 2009 Editor's Note: We just published, today, the first in a series of articles on sexuality and aging, How Are Your Orgasms, Mom?, co-produced by the National Sexuality Resource Center and RH Reality Check. Check back in the coming weeks for more on seniors and sexuality. In light of the attention our elders are getting about their sex lives and sexual health on RH Reality Check, we thought it would be interesting to point out this article in the New York Times last week:Yes, We Do. Even At Our Age.� We talk about cultural competency as it relates to all sorts of marginalized groups of people when it comes to health care provision: LGBTQIs; those for whom English is not their primary language; low-income individuals. But what about ... |
| Sotomayor Hearings, Day One: Empathy, Respect, and Political Circus Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary July 14th, 2009 Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor began yesterday with a sense of predictability and inevitability within the Senate chambers.� Leading Republican Senators called for respectful review of and debate on Sotomayor's candidacy during the hearings.� Conservative Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking minority member of the committee, stated: I expect this hearing and resulting debate to be characterized by a respectful tone, a discussion of serious issues, and a thoughtful dialogue, and I have worked hard to achieve that from day one.That message, however, apparently was not heard outside the walls of the hearing room, as representatives of the extreme right in the media engaged without shame in a smear campaign replete ... |
| Video games give girls "life lessons" on how to achieve their social beauty standards Feministing July 14th, 2009 Check out Wired's take on new games for girls released in 2009, in which all but one ("The Daring Game for Girls") is about fashion, boys, princesses, modeling, and more fashion. Well, there is a detective game, but you solve mysteries using your "feminine sixth sense," so I wouldn't necessarily put that in the feminist-friendly category. In the post, Tracey John compares games targeted towards girls with typical "boys' games": Some parents worry that videogames might cause their children to become violent and antisocial, but what if the opposite were true? What if games could make kids exceedingly likable and fashionable?...The weird thing is that you can view these "wholesome" games as being just as bad for girls as Grand Theft Auto's ... |
| Only White Men Can be "Objective." Feministing July 14th, 2009 Watching the confirmation hearings of Sotomayor, it makes me wonder if Sotomayor wants to scream, "hey white dude, you are impartial to your own life experience as well..." The Sotomayor hearings are pretty painful to watch, and should put to the side any belief that we are in a post-racial space. Session's attempts to grill Sotomayor on this question of impartiality reveals the obvious ignorance that when white men hold impartial beliefs they are natural and objective, whereas when women of color do, they are unable to effectively do the job. It seems the question of whether Sotomayor's experience adds value, verse whether it impacts her ability to be objective in her rulings is at the core of the questioning, which is almost a ... |
| When Partner Abuse Isn't a Bruise But a Pregnant Belly Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education June 29th, 2009 Janey (not her real name) was 19 when she fell "head over heels" for a guy six years her senior.Hemoved in just weeks after their first date, which was before shelearned about the cheating. When she confronted him, repeatedly, heraped her, repeatedly. When she told him to move out, he threatened herwith more violence. Meanwhile, condoms: not happening. Hormonal birthcontrol like the Pill, she says, made her sick. �"The first timeI got pregnant against my will, I had the baby," she says. Along withseveral STDs. (He'd been her only partner.) After a stint in jail forviolating an ex's order of protection, he was back, promising never tohurt her, gushing about family happiness.The -- yes -- secondpregnancy occurred when she'd run out of money ... |
| When Partner Abuse Isn't a Bruise But a Pregnant Belly Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 29th, 2009 Janey (not her real name) was 19 when she fell "head over heels" for a guy six years her senior.Hemoved in just weeks after their first date, which was before shelearned about the cheating. When she confronted him, repeatedly, heraped her, repeatedly. When she told him to move out, he threatened herwith more violence. Meanwhile, condoms: not happening. Hormonal birthcontrol like the Pill, she says, made her sick. �"The first timeI got pregnant against my will, I had the baby," she says. Along withseveral STDs. (He'd been her only partner.) After a stint in jail forviolating an ex's order of protection, he was back, promising never tohurt her, gushing about family happiness.The -- yes -- secondpregnancy occurred when she'd run out of money ... |
| Supreme Court Reverses Ricci Decision; Finds White Firefighters Unfairly Denied Promotion Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 29th, 2009 In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has reversed the Second Circuit ruling in Ricci vs. DeStefano, the case in which white firefighters have argued that they had been discriminated against when a promotional exam on which no African-American firefighters scored highly enough to be promoted was discarded.� Reports the New York Times,� "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters ... |
| A friend of mine knows: Sotomayor "hard to BS" culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily June 29th, 2009 A friend of mine is running for city council in my district in NYC. I have known Jo Anne Simon for several years and she is currently one of the district leaders for my area. I have also endorsed her for City Council. Locally Jo Anne Simon is best known for being one of only a handful of district leaders to stand up to local corruption. Nationally, she is known for he role as an advocate for disabled rights. I recently learned that in this capacity she has first hand knowledge of what it is like to argue before Judge Sotomayor, and I think her comments are worth knowing as Sotomayor is scrutinized for her Supreme Court nomination.This is from Jo Anne Simon's campaign website:In a letter to New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten ... |
| I'll be there (a capella) culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily June 29th, 2009 There were three Michael Jacksons in my lifetime. The little black boy that sang like an angel. That same little black boy changed by a nose and Jheri Curls. And then there was the plastic surgey superfreak, masked by his dreams of whiteness and tainted by the stench of pedophilia. I reckoned going through the threads of places like Oh No They Didnt and Metafilter that there's a whole generation of people who never saw Michael Jackson as a black boy and young man. That boggles the mind. And yet, all commenters, even detractors, cannot but give the man his due. When it came to talent, music and entertainment chops, there has been nobody like him. �more�this�way� |
| Friday Feel-Good Story: Teen Lesbians Voted Best Couple in Yearbook Feministing June 29th, 2009 SistersTalk made a great point: While the adults in Albany, NY still can't get it together to vote on the gay marriage bill in the NY Senate, the students of Mott Haven Village Preparatory (Public) High School in the Bronx have already cast their vote - and made history. Victoria Cruz and Deoine Scott were voted (by a landslide!) "Best Couple" by their high school peers, the first time a gay couple was voted Best Couple in the school, and possibly in the Bronx. Check out their story, it's really sweet. H/t to Bialogue. |
| Ask Professor Foxy: Should I Lose My Virginity? Feministing June 29th, 2009 Apologies for the delay, there were some technical difficulties - PFThis weekly column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.Dear Professor Foxy,I am 22 and half years old and I am still a virgin, and frankly, I worry a lot that this is strange and unusual.From age 17 to 20, I dated two different guys seriously. Coming from a pretty religious Roman Catholic background, at first I didn't want to have sex for all the wrong reasons -- because nice girls don't do that outside of marriage, etc etc. As I got a little ... |
| MTV's 16 and Pregnant--The First Episode Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education June 14th, 2009 Last night MTV premiered its new show, "16 and Pregnant." Watch the first episode here. While the show shines a fairly honest light on how hard it can be for teens trying to live an adult family life, my impression is that it tends to have the 'Bristol Palin" effect: "don't get pregnant--but if you do, you'll get lots of media attention... Maybe even your own MTV show, (scored with hip indie music, with your own voice-over narration and tilted to put you in a sympathetic light.)" Although it's crucially important not to stigmatize pregnant and parenting teens and offer them full support, I'm not sure whether this show doesn't inappropriately glorify their difficult existence. It also hews to gender roles--the dutiful, self-sacrificing mom ... |
| Roundup: Operation Rescue President Wants to Purchase Tiller's Clinic Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 14th, 2009 Operation Rescue President Wants to Purchase Tiller's ClinicTroy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, a group that has fought for years to close Dr. Tiller's abortion clinic, told the New York TimesWednesday the group is considering purchasing the building and turningit into a memorial, "a tribute to all the babies," Newman said.According to the NYT, Operation Rescue's national headquarters in Wichita is another former abortion clinic Newman owns.He told NYT: "That is hallowed ground," Mr. Newman...said of Dr. Tiller's clinic. "It's iconic of the abortion movement, of abortion itself. It holds memories, sorrowful memories for countless women and for the babies that have died there. You can't turn it into a coffee shop. You wouldn't pave ... |
| Is Pulling Out Losing Its Bad Rep? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 14th, 2009 Any time a friend has described their method of birth control as ?pulling out,? I instinctively give them a judgmental look. We won Griswold v. Connecticut. We can buy condoms at any corner store. Sure, Plan B is available over the counter, but why risk it?While this seems to be the standard reaction, it could have more basis in cultural stigma than in fact. Recent studies have shown that in this age of infinite options, withdrawal might be just as good as diaphragms and condoms. According to an article on The Globe and Mail, researchers and academics have been embracing the withdrawal method as a viable option of birth control. ??Withdrawal has a bad rep, but if you look at the research, it substantially reduces the risk of pregnancy,? ... |
| Coercively Sterilized Romani Woman Will Receive Compensation Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 14th, 2009 Afterthree years, the Hungarian government has finally decided to provide financialcompensation to a Romani woman who was coercively sterilized in 2001. The casewas referred to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination AgainstWomen, and in August 2006 it found the Hungarian government to be in violationof the UN Convention that guarantees an end to discrimination against women. �In March 2008, the Hungariangovernment declared the opposite. It would not provide any compensation to Ms.A.S., a woman who was sterilized by Hungarian doctors without her consent. Now,on February 24, 2009, after eight years of national and international legalproceedings, there is hope that the victim, as recommended by CEDAW Committee,"will be provided an ... |
| Vanessa Richmond asks, "Is Angelina Jolie the Next Feminist Icon?" My Answer: "No ... but" culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily June 14th, 2009 The lovely @CruelSecretary twittered Is Angelina Jolie the Next Feminist Icon? :: Media and Technology :: AlterNet to me this morning. Let's say that I stopped taking seriously not just Naomi Wolff but Virginia Richmond as well after I read this part: A quarter of American households are headed by single parents, often portrayed as sad, poverty-stricken and pathetic, and Jolie turned that it into a "fairly radical, vision... that made the relationship seem tender, glamorous, and complete, father figure or no father figure in the picture." She re-framed single motherhood "from a state of lack or insufficiency to a glamorous, unfettered lifestyle choice."Why I was a bit ticked-off about this? Well, before there was Angelina Jolie the ... |
| Live Blogging: NCRW Young Women's Caucus Feministing June 14th, 2009 I'm going to let my friend Laura Leischner, the Prevention Specialist at The Collins Center, blog this one out...It's a pretty informal setting with people finishing their lunch, but the caucus is going to be moderated by Kyla Bender-Baird and Lisa Rast, both of NCRW. Everyone went around and introduced themselves. There are a wide range of women in the room, from freelancers, college students to attorneys.Lisa talks about how one of her favorite quotes is by Madeleine Albright, "There's a special place in hell for women that don't support other women." She poses the question, "How can we support other women while looking out for ourselves?" A tough one indeed.A NCRW intern Shirley raises the point that she appreciates the quote, but ... |
| What we Missed. Feministing June 14th, 2009 Today was Iran's election, TPM has some pictures. A soldier's courageous story of why he will not deploy to Afghanistan. Great piece from Sokari on organizing around sexuality and gender in some of the African nations. Firedoglake has an update on the debacle in Albany. Adam Serwer at Tapped on D.C.'s anti-gay marriage "crusaders." A new Target Women from Sarah Haskins, "Lady Friends."A jail in Virginia broke up a lesbian cell block that had been created to separate butch women. Um, wow. |
| Sotomayor, Race and Gender: An Abortion Debate by Proxy Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 14th, 2009 When Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced that he intendedto step down from the bench at the end of this year's Supreme Court term, therewas a brief pause, a collective gathering in of air, followed by a frenzy ofspeculation that did not end until President Obama announced his selection ofJudge Sonia Sotomayor as nominee.� Duringthe days of guesswork and anticipation that preceded Obama's nomination ofSotomayor, political odds-makers seemed to favor the selection of a woman, withmost pundits leaning toward a woman of color, to replace Justice Souter.� Everyone was on pins and needles, and whocould blame us? �During the 2008elections, the that the next President would most likely have the opportunityto nominate more than one Supreme ... |
| Roundup: Operation Rescue wants to purchase Tiller's Clinic, and It's Not a Publicity Stunt Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 14th, 2009 Operation Rescue wants to purchase Tiller's Clinic, and It's Not a Publicity StuntOn Tuesday, Operation Rescue announced that it wanted to purchaseDr. George Tiller's clinic and turn it into a "memorial to the unborn."According to Mother Jones, the media called the claim a publicity stunt, but it turns out Operation Rescue is serious.In the past, the group has acted on similar claims. Its current national headquarters is in Wichita at a former abortion clinic.Mother Jones' Josh Harkinsonreported in 2007 after meeting with Troy Newman, Operation Rescue'sdirector, that he purchased its headquarters through a front group,which makes his newest threat more credible.Newman told him: "What better way to show that we are winning and demoralize ... |
| Esteemed Doctor and Friend of George Tiller to Provide Late Term Abortion Care in Kansas Feministing June 14th, 2009 While the closing of Dr. Tiller's clinic and the infuriating possibility that anti-choice extremist group Operation Rescue may try to buy the space has made us realize things actually could get worse, Dr. LeRoy Carhart brings us some hope. Via Feministe, we find that Carhart has stepped in to take Dr. Tiller's place in providing late term abortions in Kansas, although potential plans to open an actual clinic are unknown: A Nebraska doctor said Wednesday that he will perform third-term abortions in Kansas after the slaying of abortion provider George Tiller, but would not say whether he will open a new facility or offer the procedure at an existing practice.Dr. LeRoy Carhart declined to discuss his plans in detail during a telephone ... |
| Abortion cartoons: Where is the woman's voice? Feministing June 14th, 2009 Sociological Images has a post up pointing out something I have actually never noticed: how women are almost always depicted as voiceless or faceless in editorial cartoons about abortion. This isn't solely the province of anti-choice cartoons, either. Some examples:What these (and most) editorial cartoons are doing is channeling and distilling the political debate. It's telling how, even in the pro-choice cartoon in the center above, the woman is just a stand in for "women's rights" -- a broad issue, not an individual woman making a choice. This is reflective of how we talk about "contentious" abortion issue -- and it's pretty striking to see all these cartoons lined up. (More here.)And if you aren't already reading Sociological Images on ... |
| Ask Professor Foxy: Am I Nonmonogamous? What Does That Mean for My Relationship? Feministing June 14th, 2009 This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.Hi Professor Foxy,I have been having some major issues with monogamy lately. I have been dating my boyfriend (I am a woman) for 3 and half years, and for most of that time we've been very happy with an amazing sex life! I've always had trouble when it comes to monogamy, though, and I've had to work very hard to resist the temptation to cheat. For the past few months, however, these feelings have gotten much stronger. I've started to feel very ... |
| Behind Bars for Being Pregnant and HIV-Positive Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 10th, 2009 In May, 2009, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock sentenced Quinta Layin Tuleh,who was about five months pregnant, for the crime of having fakeimmigration documents. While both the federal prosecutor and defenseattorney urged the judge to sentence Tuleh to 114 days, which wouldallow her to leave prison with time served, Judge Woodcock doubled therecommended sentence and exceeded federal sentencing guidelinerecommendations for the sole purpose of keeping Tuleh in prison untilshe gave birth. Judge Woodcock's sole justification for the extendedsentence is that Tuleh is HIV-positive. The judge felt that - despite thefact that Tuleh had arranged for care outside the prison - keeping her inprison would best ensure that she would take ... |
| Tiller's Clinic Will Be Shut Down. Feministing June 10th, 2009 Dr. Tiller's clinic in Wichita, Kansas has been shut down according to his family. "The family of Dr. George Tiller announces that effective immediately, Women's Health Care Services, Inc., will be permanently closed," according to a statement issued on Tuesday morning by the family's lawyers. "Notice is being given today to all concerned that the Tiller family is ceasing operation of the clinic and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic."This is awful. And can someone explain to me why the NYTimes is so concerned about where all these murdering pro-life "activists" will go? I didn't realize that by balanced coverage we were going to highlight terrorist organizations as having a legitimate mission and goals. Thanks ... |
| Ask Professor Foxy: Am I Asexual? What Does That Mean? Feministing June 8th, 2009 This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.Hey Professor Foxy,How do you know if you're asexual? Is it something that you just know from the time you're in kindergarten, or is it something you realize later? I had lots of crushes on boys until I was maybe 10 or 11 and nothing really after that (I'm almost 20 now, and a girl). In high school I had only three boyfriends, none of whom I was really attracted to. We kissed (like a peck) a few times but I was really not into it.I find the idea of ... |
| The New Pro-Lifer Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 8th, 2009 In our pain, anger and profound sadness over the murder of Dr. Tiller, pro-choice people risk losing an opportunity to see a better day as a country and a movement. In the wake of our loss, it is tempting to continue to categorize in one fixed way all who oppose abortion. To do so would be easy but also foolish. We must admit and accept that not all who are opposed to abortion are the same.� Especially since a new movement of pro-lifers has extended a hand in search of a better way.Yesterday offered a unique opportunity to make this distinction. Alexia Kelley, co-founder of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, was appointed Director of Faith-based and Community Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Each ... |
| Breaking News: Supreme Court rejects challenge to Don't Ask, Don't Tell Feministing June 8th, 2009 The Supreme Court has decided not to hear a case challenging Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which according to TPM was in response to the Obama Administration's request. From Talking Points Memo: The Supreme Court has turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.The court said Monday that it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.The federal appeals court in Boston earlier threw out a lawsuit filed by Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans. He was the only member of that group who asked the high court to rule that the Clinton-era policy is ... |
| Not Yet Rain: A new documentary about abortion access in Ethiopia Feministing June 8th, 2009 Ipas has partnered with filmmaker Lisa Russell to produce Not Yet Rain, a documentary about women's access to abortion in Ethiopia. Events like the murder of Dr. Tiller last week highlight the real challenges we face here when it comes to access to abortion, but it's also important to remember what challenges are faced by women abroad. Ethiopia has one of the most liberal abortion laws in all of the African continent but access is still a challenge there. You can watch the documentary at www.notyetrain.org. |
| Remembering why I'm a pro-choice doula. Feministing June 8th, 2009 I recently got an email from a reader about her reflections on activism after Dr. Tiller's death. Here is her email:Hi, Miriam, Among my many reactions to Dr. George Tiller's murder is a desire to put my money where my mouth is (so to speak) with regards to my support for choice in reproductive health. I'm contacting my local Planned Parenthood about volunteering in whatever ways they need. But for me "pro-choice" is about more than access to abortion. My local birthing center just shut down (to the disappointment of one of my best friends, who's seven months pregnant). I'm really interested in becoming a doula and/or midwife, but I have very little medical training. Would you consider doing a post about why and how you became a doula, and ... |
| On the Question of Choice, Where Does the President Stand? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 1st, 2009 In the wake of the Notre Dame controversy and a flurry of polls attempting to assess public opinion on abortion, we've been treated to the most media coverage on the issue we've seen in a while. But amid the maelstrom, another story was quietly reported in California: more women are seeking abortions and long-term contraception.� And that leads us to the obvious conclusion that no matter what the political climate, abortion isn't going away.� No matter how we seek to explain and understand the issue--as a matter of privacy, morality, autonomy, or all of those--women will continue to terminate unwanted pregnancies.� This is a stark reality in the United States, but also throughout the globe.And the silence surrounding that fact while the ... |
| "Pregnancy scare" takes on a whole new meaning Feministing June 1st, 2009 This is just...wow. We're a wee late to this; the ad was created by a program which is headed by the Leicester City Council in the UK, and was released by the National Health Service of Leicester. And despite YouTube banning it (not sure why it's up again), NHS Leicester defended the ad, saying that it was merely designed to "shock" and "provoke" younger people. "We know this film is hard-hitting, but so are the numbers of under-18s getting pregnant in Leicester. The city's Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Partnership has been successful in cutting the numbers of young girls getting pregnant," said Tim Rideout, chief executive of NHS Leicester City. Shock? Yes. Provoke? If they mean "provoke" young people to run away screaming from The ... |
| Amazon sells another video game where you "play" sexual abuser Feministing June 1st, 2009 *Possible trigger warning*While we haven't been the biggest fans of Amazon as of late and their history of selling a rape simulation game (which they did end up banning), it looks like another game involving violence against women seems to have"slipped" past their radar. "Stockholm: An Exploration of True Love" is a game that allows the user to experience, "...a terrifyingly vivid exploration of Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological condition in which a captive falls in love with her kidnapper. And you play the part of the kidnapper. With a limited number of options, you must figure out how to make her fall in love with you."This includes using poison gas on the victim, sexually assaulting her and using psychological abuse against her in ... |
| Breaking: Abortion provider George Tiller murdered Feministing June 1st, 2009 Dr. George Tiller, an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country, was shot dead in church this morning.Cara writes at Feministe,This is the first time an abortion provider has been murdered in over a decade. I have friends who work in abortion clinics. This is terrorism. And right now, I just don't have the words.The loss of Dr. Tiller is deeply upsetting, and Cara rightly identifies this as a terrorist act. It is the culmination of an ongoing campaign of intimidation and harassment against someone who was providing completely legal health-care services. I've been paying attention to the more militant strains of the anti-choice movement, so this news shouldn't have shocked me as ... |
| German Pop Star Publicly Arrested for HIV Tranmission Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 27th, 2009 I was diagnosed HIVpositive in 1991. I am a member andstaff member of the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), which is the onlyinternational network run for and by HIV positive women. ICW promotes the voices of and advocates forchanges in policies that improve the lives of all HIV positive women.� We believe that all laws that uphold thecriminalization of HIV transmission should be abolished.� Criminalization is counterproductive to goalsrelated to rights-based approaches to public health, reinforces stigma towardpersons who are often already marginalized and fosters feelings of chaos and fear around HIV and sex. On April 11th, Nadja Benaissa, a member ofthe highly successful German pop band No Angels, wasarrested in ... |
| Newt Gingrich jumps the shark and twitters that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist against white men culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily May 27th, 2009 Here's what Gingrich has written obviously, as he came off his psycho-racist medications: White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerryTheres also this chesnut: Imagine a judicial nominee said "my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman" new racism is no better than old racismHasn't this idiot heard of Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida or Michel Foucault? They are dead white Euopean men after all. |
| Intended Consequences Feministing May 27th, 2009 Check out Jonathan Torgovnik's amazing collection of photographs of the children of rape victims in the Congo. I became aware of his work because of a devastating photo essay in this month's Mother Jones Magazine, which you should all check out if you get a chance (it's not available online). |
| Unions are a Feminist Issue Feministing May 27th, 2009 Not only do female unionized workers earn more, but this great op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News by a single working mother gives us personal account of why unions can be a pretty damn big feminist issue: I became a single mother of an 8 year-old son while I was serving in the United States Army. This was a very frightening experience for me. My son's dad was not around to help raise him. After I left the Army, I found a job working for a company where women had no opportunity to advance. I was fortunate to then land a union job. I started work with a 90-day probation period, and on my 89th day I had an accident for which I was fired.Even though I didn't have grievance rights, my union fought for me. The accident wasn't my fault, but my ... |
| Friday Feminist Fuck You: Pregnancy Discrimination Feministing May 27th, 2009 Related posts:Supreme Court: Pregnancy discrimination A-OK!Pregnancy Discrimination Galore at Bloomberg LPQuick Hit: Employers get real (discriminatory)Pregnancy discrimination complaints at record levelsPregnancy discrimination on the riseDouble whammyApproximate transcript after the jump. This week we're saying fuck you to pregnancy discrimination. It's a topic in the news this week because the Supreme Court recently ruled that it was ok for AT&T to give several retired women lower pensions because they took time off from work for maternity leave. Basically, when women took leave from their AT&T jobs to have a baby, those days did not count toward their pensions -- even though other types of leave, such as temporary disability, ... |
| Citizen "Entrapment": Lila Rose and 21st Century Stealth Pro-Life Activism Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 27th, 2009 Twenty-year-oldLila Rose suffers from a condition that afflicts many new activists, a condition known as myopia. Those who suffer from myopia experience aninability to see nuance in the world and seek comfort in absolutes.� While thought to be more pronounced among theyoung, myopia can infect people of all ages with varying results, and theresults of Rose's particular strain of this cerebral infection have only justbegun to make themselves known.One of Lila Rose's undercover visits to Planned Parenthood, this one in Memphis, Tennesee.It'snot clear how Rose became involved in the pro-life movement - it is a questionshe studiously avoids answering. Perhaps it is no surprise that a girl who grewup with seven siblings in an Evangelical family ... |
| California Supreme Court Upholds Proposition 8 Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 27th, 2009 The California Supreme Court today ruled Proposition 8, the ballotinitiative outlawing same-sex marriage, constitutional, while declaringvalid the thousands of same-sex marriages that took place whilesame-sex marriage was legal in the state.The Los Angeles Times explains the decision: In an opinion written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the state high court ruled today that the November initiative was not an illegal constitutional revision, as gay rights lawyers contended, nor unconstitutional because it took away an inalienable right, as Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown argued. The battle is far from over, the LA Times goes on to say: The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights ... |
| Fair and Balanced: Weighing Sotomayor's Opinions Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 27th, 2009 President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for theSupreme Court should shock no one.� Whatis surprising is the relative lack of information about Sotomayor and one ofthe most perennially controversial Constitutional issues: abortion rights. In her time on the bench, Sotomayor's only majorabortion-related case was Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush - and her conclusion isn'tgoing to warm the hearts of reproductive rights activists. In that case, theCenter for Reproductive Law and Policy (now the Center for Reproductive Rights)challenged the Global Gag Rule, a policy which barred U.S. money from fundingany organization abroad that so much as mentioned abortion as an option oradvocated for abortion rights.� TheCenter for ... |
| Supreme Court Decision Pretends Pregnancy Discrimination Doesn't Harm Women Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 27th, 2009 Few things underscore the Supreme Court's lack of diversitymore than the recent ruling in a pregnancy discrimination case, AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen. The caseexamined the pension payments for a number of former female employees of AT&Twho had taken maternity leave before passage of the Pregnancy DiscriminationAct, which clarified that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act pregnancydiscrimination counted as sex discrimination. Now, AT&T is defining unpaidmaternity of these employees as personal leave from the company. �And the court has now ruled that such personalleave doesn't and shouldn't count toward these women's pensions. �Justice David Souter, who recently announcedhis retirement from the court and has generally been thought of as ... |
| Remember that first awkward conversation with mom and/or dad? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education May 27th, 2009 I consider myself lucky. When I was three my mom had just become pregnant with my little sister, and I, like any toddler, was fascinated with how a little sister was growing in what looked like my mommy's tummy. So I asked ? and she answered, whipping out her vintage copy of "Our Bodies Ourselves" and all. Over the years, we kept having versions of this conversation, whether it was me asking what a term I'd heard on TV meant (the "blow job" conversation was epic) or asking about different forms of birth control. That doesn't mean I always felt comfortable telling my mom everything, but it did mean that I knew the facts, and knew where to go if I needed answers from somewhere other than mom.Other friends however were not so lucky. I ... |
| Supreme Court of Nepal Calls on Government to Make Legal Abortion a Reality Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 27th, 2009 The thought of a woman dying or being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy because a Government denies her legal access to a safe abortion is deplorable. Yet, it is equally unacceptable for a Government to hide behind what appears to be an acceptable law that in reality does little to guarantee a women's right to choose or to put her health and life first.On May 20, Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the Nepalese government to enact a comprehensive abortion law to guarantee that women have access to safe and affordable abortion services.� Abortion has been legal in Nepal since 1992 when the government introduced an amendment to the National Code to allow a woman to have an abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, up to 18 weeks if the ... |
| VIDEO : "Justice" - Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily May 27th, 2009 Via email from ConstitutionalValues.Org: read more |
| Breaking News: California Supreme Court upholds Prop 8 decision Feministing May 27th, 2009 Via Bilerico.This is a really huge blow to the fight in California for same sex marriage. One positive note, according to Bilerico, the marriages that already took place will be upheld.Bilerico has a great round-up of responses here, but here's one snippet response from the LA Gay and Lesbian Center. Today, our Supreme Court sent a mixed and troubling message. While upholding the legal marriages of the 18,000 same-sex couples who married in California, the ruling establishes that all Californians are NOT entitled to equal protection of the law. This is a sad day for our state and a setback for the cause of freedom and fairness.But it's also important to keep this in perspective. Every noble struggle known to man or woman has been filled ... |
| Ask Professor Foxy: Transitioning and Changing Sexuality Feministing May 26th, 2009 This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.Hia Professor Foxy. I've been enjoying your column, but must admit I feel sort of embarrassed writing in myself...Anyway, I'm a trans woman in the process of transitioning, and having a lot of frustration in figuring out how to deal with my ever-changing sexuality. That is, over the past year or so, hormones have physically changed my body quite a bit, and that's my sexuality in ways you might expect (having boobs is fun!) and also in ways you ... |
| Obama to Announce Sotomayor as Supreme Court Nominee Today Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 26th, 2009 It is being widely reported by many news outlets that President Obama will, at about 10:15 am ET this morning, announce that appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor is his nominee for the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Hispanic and third woman inhistory to serve on the nation's highest court. There is currently onlyone woman on the high court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Sotomayor isbased in New York City. President Clinton appointed her to the 2nd U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals back in 1998. She is a graduate of PrincetonUniversity and Yale Law School.The AP has a good writeup on Sotomayor's professional history. And a short profile. � |
| Insurance Inequity Harms All of Us Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 26th, 2009 Obtaining health insurance coverage in California is hard enough without gender-based discrimination.� If you are a woman without employer provided health insurance, or do not qualify for a public program, your only option is the individual insurance market, a market where insurers are free to charge women more than men for comparable coverage.� This practice was banned nationally in the employer-provided benefits setting more than 30 years ago.� �A report released in September 2008 by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) found that women in California under 55 years old paid up to 39% more than men for the same health coverage.� In California, two bills in the Assembly and Senate this year, Assembly Bill 119 (Jones) and Senate Bill 54 ... |
| Intended Consequences Feministing May 26th, 2009 Check out Jonathan Torgovnik's amazing collection of photographs of the children of rape victims in the Congo. I became aware of his work because of a devastating photo essay in this month's Mother Jones Magazine, which you should all check out if you get a chance (it's not available online). |
| Unions are a Feminist Issue Feministing May 26th, 2009 Not only do female unionized workers earn more, but this great op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News by a single working mother gives us personal account of why unions can be a pretty damn big feminist issue: I became a single mother of an 8 year-old son while I was serving in the United States Army. This was a very frightening experience for me. My son's dad was not around to help raise him. After I left the Army, I found a job working for a company where women had no opportunity to advance. I was fortunate to then land a union job. I started work with a 90-day probation period, and on my 89th day I had an accident for which I was fired.Even though I didn't have grievance rights, my union fought for me. The accident wasn't my fault, but my ... |
| Friday Feminist Fuck You: Pregnancy Discrimination Feministing May 26th, 2009 Related posts:Supreme Court: Pregnancy discrimination A-OK!Pregnancy Discrimination Galore at Bloomberg LPQuick Hit: Employers get real (discriminatory)Pregnancy discrimination complaints at record levelsPregnancy discrimination on the riseDouble whammyApproximate transcript after the jump. This week we're saying fuck you to pregnancy discrimination. It's a topic in the news this week because the Supreme Court recently ruled that it was ok for AT&T to give several retired women lower pensions because they took time off from work for maternity leave. Basically, when women took leave from their AT&T jobs to have a baby, those days did not count toward their pensions -- even though other types of leave, such as temporary disability, ... |
| Abstinence-Only Funding Not Dead if Congress Plays "Hide-the-Salami" Again Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 12th, 2009 Reproductive health advocates cheered the news Friday that President Barack Obama proposed cutting cut two abstinence-only sex education programs totalling over $100 million from the federal budget in lieu of more effective, comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention programs. But the real test of wills comes in the Congressional conferencecommittee on the federal budget where one Democratic member has apenchant for playing ?hide the salami? with funding for thecontroversial chaste-until-marriage program. As we?ve reported previously, the labyrinthine budgeting process Congress has been giving it away big time ? to the tune of now more than $1.3 billion for abstinence-only programs in the past 10 years.We?ve long-documented the fancy ... |
| Philippines Government Pursues Feeble Family Planning Strategy Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 12th, 2009 Women?s health in the Philippines is in crisis. A report from the Guttmacher Institute finds that 54 percent of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended. Helping women delay or avoid pregnancy would reduce abortions and miscarriages?by 500,000 and 200,000, respectively?and would save the lives of 2,100 women. The Philippines government, which�is not ignorant of this state of�affairs, has�declared this month Natural Family Planning Month. Its message to Filipinos is conservative and confusing. On the one hand, the government embraces the idea that family planning is an essential part of national health: Responsible Parenthood means that each family has the right and duty to determine the desired number of children they might have ... |
| 2009 Women's Health Heroes. Feministing May 12th, 2009 Go check out Our Bodies Ourselves 2009 Women's Health Heroes. It is an amazing group of women's health advocates. From the blog,The 20 outstanding individuals and organizations inducted in May 2009 have made significant, long-lasting contributions to women's health. Their work covers a wide range of health fields and disciplines.Included are midwives and women advocating for safer, more comfortable births; founders of websites on chronic illness and teen sexuality; an activist against female genital mutilation; director of a LGBT health center; a public health nurse; a photographer; and many more.This inaugural group, chosen from close to 100 nominations, represents seven countries: United States (13), Canada (2), Australia, The ... |
| Sex Drives and Eating Disorders. Feministing May 12th, 2009 Check out this surprisingly informative piece from the sexpert over at Fox News (yeah, I did a double take as well), Yvonne Fulbright about the reported decrease in sex organ functioning and loss of sex drive due to anorexia and bulimia. She writes,*Possibly triggering*Having an eating disorder is also linked to deficient sexual functioning in women when they become sexually active. When a female severely reduces her intake of food to the point she's consuming hardly anything, naturally, her reproductive system shuts down.With low body fat, her body fails to produce sufficient amounts of sex hormones, namely estrogen. Thus, she'll quit menstruating, making pregnancy difficult for those hoping to reproduce. These endocrinal changes have a ... |
| Power of the Pum Pum? Feministing May 12th, 2009 *Trigger Warning*Not so much. Last week women's organizers in Kenya decided to go on a sex strike to ply their husbands into ending political divisions. via the Root.The Women's Development Organization spearheaded a weeklong strike in which they called on Kenyan women to withhold sex from their husbands and lovers until they put an end to the political divisions that threaten to destroy the Grand Coalition Government of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The act of conjugal disobedience was straight from the pages of Aristophanes' Lysistrata. The women involved even paid prostitutes not to ply their trade during the seven-day holdout.As author Lisa Crooms concludes, if only it were that simple. Rape has consistently ... |
| Bristol Palin's Dangerous Talking Points Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 7th, 2009 As you've probably heard Wednesday was National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and to kick off the day the Candie's Foundation sent its new teen ambassador, Bristol Palin, to make the rounds of the morning shows and the New York press scene.� �The Candie's Foundation's mission is "to educate America's youth about the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy through celebrity PSA campaigns and initiatives." Americans couldn't get enough of Vice Presidential-nominee Sarah Palin and her brood during the presidential campaign, especially pregnant teenager Bristol and her then-fianc�, Levi Johnston.� So, the foundation's choice of a spokesperson was a brilliant move guaranteed to bring much-needed attention to the important issue of teen ... |
| Teen Pregnancy: Mixed Messages and the Responsibility Question Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 7th, 2009 Yesterday, my colleague Emily Douglas attended the Candie's Foundation event on teen pregnancy featuring Bristol Palin, a handful of "celeb-vocates" and some experts, including Sarah Brown, CEO of the Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Her excellent post on that even can be found here.Today, Gail Collins writing in the New York Times, takes on the mulitple levels of hypocrisy evident during the event, including that of a corporate actor trying to clean up its own image by "doing good" when it appears unprepared for what it is actually doing or the ambiguity of the signals it is sending.� She writes:� A couple of years ago, under fire from critics who accused him of dressing high schoolers like tarts, he [Neil Cole] ... |
| Shaming Miss California: Stop fighting homophobia with misogyny Feministing May 7th, 2009 I do not like Miss California Carrie Prejean. I think she's a bigot, and I don't particularly dig the way she's making the understandable negative reaction to her comments about same sex marriage about people "persecuting" her. But no matter how I, or anyone else, feels about Prejean - this shit is simply wrong. It wasn't enough that folks were mocking the woman for getting breast implants, now they have to slut shame her into oblivion for some "nude" pictures. (And seriously, the pics are hardly scandalous considering the bathing suit competition and all.) From the Associated Press:The directors of the Miss California USA pageant are looking into whether title holder Carrie Prejean violated her contract by working with a national ... |
| Support Women Veterans Feministing May 7th, 2009 This is an issue that's become increasingly dear to my heart, as I've gotten to know a couple of amazing women veterans and read more about their experiences. There is no question that women vets have special needs at this time, especially as the epidemic of sexual assault and the psychological trauma that follows, is being acknowledged publicly for the first time. A few stats in case you haven't been following the issue: The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are employing the greatest number of American servicewomen in US military history. Women are rapidly adding to the already existing population of 1.8 million women veterans, most of whom have yet to be adequately recognized for their sacrifices. The sexual assault rates among ... |
| Female Genital Mutilation Versus Female Circumcision Feministing May 7th, 2009 The amazing Michelle Goldberg has a great piece in the latest print issue of The American Prospect, but you can also read it online. Essentially, she's exploring the question, as the title suggests, of "Rights Versus Rites," when it comes to the much abhorred practice of "female genital mutilation" (by many Westerner feminists) and the much honored practice of "female circumcision" (by many African women). Same practice, vastly different contexts and values--as evidenced by the language itself. Goldberg writes:At first glance, the two speakers seemed to symbolize the dichotomy between modernity and tradition, cosmopolitanism and cultural authenticity. Fuambai Ahmadu (pictured), the American-born daughter of a Sierra Leonean family, wore ... |
| RH Reality Check Interviews: Kathryn Joyce, Author of Quiverfull Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 5th, 2009 The patriarchy movement is part of a widespread evangelical movementpromoting male headship and wifely submission. Quiverfull, asub-movement within the patriarchy movement, promotes the idea thatcouples should have as many children as possible to be soldiers of God. Journalist Kathryn Joyce recently published Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.� She spoke to RH Reality Check's Laura Janoff about the book.RH Reality Check: How does the patriarchy movement define itself? How is it different from other conservative Evangelical movements?Kathryn Joyce: It is important to note that the term "patriarchy movement" is the self-described term of the movement; this is not terminology I'm putting on them. They are proudly reclaiming ... |
| Alaska Ballot Initiative Targets Minors Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 5th, 2009 Palin would have liked to sponsor Alaska?s new ballot initiative requiring girls under 18 to notify a parent before having an abortion. When she found out that probably wouldn?t be appropriate, she met the challenge with her trademark ?Us vs. Them? spirit that allowed her to rise to brief, stunning popularity with a rhetoric of insults, sarcasm, and nastiness. "I got a preliminary opinion from Law (Department) just giving me a heads up that critics would certainly file an ethics charge against me if I were to sponsor an initiative. So though I maintain I have First Amendment rights just as any other citizen does, I won't flirt with the notion of giving critics more ammunition to keep filing wasteful ethics charges against me, but instead ... |
| Personal is Political: Buying my own health insurance Feministing May 5th, 2009 So when I recently decided to take a leap and quit my full-time job, I didn't initially realize how big of a deal buying my own health insurance would be. I realized that it would be expensive, and probably not great coverage. But what I didn't know was that I would have to worry about getting denied coverage completely and wait more than 6 weeks for my application to be approved. I was pretty much indignant when I decided I wanted to quit my job and try cobbling together a living in a non-conventional way. I had saved money for the three years I worked full-time, I had planned out some future sources of income to keep me going initially. The idea that I wouldn't be able to pursue what I wanted to do with my life because of health ... |
| Feminist author, Marilyn French, dies at 79 Feministing May 5th, 2009 From the NYTimes:Marilyn French, a writer and feminist activist whose debut novel, "The Women's Room," propelled her into a leading role in the modern feminist movement, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan.With steely views about the treatment of woman and a gift for expressing them on the printed page, Ms. French transformed herself from an academic who quietly bristled at the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era to a leading, if controversial, opinion maker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. "My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world," she once declared.That's a goal I ... |
| 20-Year-Old Pregnant Woman Faces Death by Firing Squad in Laos Feministing May 5th, 2009 Samantha Orobator, a 20-year-old British woman faces death by firing squad for allegedly carrying 1.1 pounds of heroin into Laos. To make matters worse, she is pregnant. Doctors attest that she must have been impregnated after her capture; Orobator's mother fears that she was raped in prison. CNN has more.Amnesty International has some crucial background information on Laos and its ongoing human rights violations, mostly involving the persecution of indigenous people and censored media. On prison conditions:Lack of access by independent human rights monitors prevented an accurate assessment of the number of political prisoners and prison conditions, but reports continued of ill-treatment, lack of food, overcrowding and inadequate medical ... |
| Sexual Health 101: Hers Scarleteen April 29th, 2009 A big part of keeping yourself sexually healthy is maintaining your sexual and reproductive health in the first place, and paying attention to your sexual health daily so that you can get the jump on any problems that may crop up.read more |
| RJ100: Reproductive Justice and Obama's First 100 Days Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 29th, 2009 Are yourreproductive rights more secure today than they were 100 days ago? �Howabout the human rights of women around the world? �Are we makingprogress toward universal access to basic sexual and reproductivehealth services, comprehensive sex education and HIV/AIDS preventionand treatment here and abroad? click SHARE to get embed codeOn the 100th day of the Obama Administration, RH Reality Checkevaluates whether the Administration makes the grade on these and manyother critical sexual and reproductive health issues. After 8 longyears of attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights here andabroad, it is clear that the Obama Administration intends to - and indeedalready has begun - to take women's rights and sexual and ... |
| Sexual health sites for teens spread misinformation Feministing April 28th, 2009 A study from Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the Stanford University School of Medicine shows that health websites that have sexual health information for teens are often "riddled with errors and omissions."Lead researcher Sophia Yen, MD, said, "Even widely trusted sites like WebMD are not that accurate when it comes to adolescent reproductive health...Teens should be cautious about finding sexual health answers on the Web." About half of the Web sites, including such highly trafficked destinations as Wikipedia and Mayoclinic.com, failed to provide accurate, complete information about emergency contraception, also known as "the morning-after pill." For instance, sites often failed to say that minors can buy emergency contraception ... |
| Roundup: Are Your Reproductive Rights Safer Than They Were 100 Days Ago? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 28th, 2009 Are Your Reproductive Rights Safer Than They Were 100 Days Ago?Obama's one-hundredth day in office is fast upon us, and media outlets near and far are weighing in on his achievements and tactics thus far. USA Today observes that Obama's administration has taken a "sharp turn" from Bush's direction: Obama expanded federal support for embryonic stem cell research and overseas family planning clinics that counsel women about abortion. Bush believed federal funds should not support abortion, and he was opposed to extracting stem cell lines from human embryos.On Beliefnet,Paul Rauschenbush gives Obama a B+ for his handling of "the culturewars:"� Barack Obama has taken the steam out of the culture wars somewhat by his efforts at reaching ... |
| Obama Nominates New Global AIDS Coordinator Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 28th, 2009 President Obama today announced he would nominate Dr. Eric Goosby as the new Ambassador at Large and Global AIDS Coordinator.� The Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) resides within the Department of State and is responsible for overseeing all U.S. global AIDS policy and funding, including global AIDS work of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Health and Human Services, among others.� If confirmed, Goosby will replace former Global AIDS Coordinator Mark Dybul. Goosby, a medical doctor, has been CEO and Chief Medical Officer of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation since 2001. He is also Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.� He has played a key role in the ... |
| Anti-Plan B-ers Shoot Themselves in the Foot Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 28th, 2009 The Baptist Press half-heartedly argues against the extension of Plan B?s over-the-counter status to 17-year-olds. After reminding us that Plan B causes abortions and making groundless arguments about ease and frequency of use of the drug, the article concludes, surprisingly, with the FDA?s original finding: that the drug is just as safe for 17-year-olds as it is for 18-year-olds.� The effect of these facts is to undermine the Baptist Press?s entire argument and to reveal the real divide in this debate: those who support the well-being of teenage girls, and those who pursue an anti-choice and anti-contraception agenda so inflexible that it hinders its own aims.�Opponents of Plan B claim that the drug causes abortion. The drug does one of ... |
| Obama's 99th Day in Office Feministing April 28th, 2009 Tomorrow marks Obama's first 100 days in office. Obama has been all over the place, but a couple of things that make me happy I voted for him include the overturning of the Global Gag Rule, the passing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, and his signature to shut down Guantanamo Bay. I am also happy with many of his appointments, most notable to me is Van Jones as the green czar, someone who comes from the same organizing community as myself. The one place I differ with this administration, even if far better than the last administration, is their stance on foreign policy from our role in the G20 to our stance on Afghanistan. That said, I will say in watching the news coverage of Obama in international settings, it is nice to ... |
| Today is Equal Pay Day! Feministing April 28th, 2009 (I am not writing a transcript for this, but basically every man that interacts with this woman in the work place calls her a different derogatory term)And why is it on a Tuesday? Because it is by Tuesday that women catch up to the wages earned by a man from the previous week. via National Committee on Pay Equity.Equal Pay Day was originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men's and women's wages. The day, observed on a Tuesday in April, symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year. (Tuesday is the day on which women's wages catch up to men's wages from the previous week.) Because women earn ... |
| Addressing Sexual Violence through Sexuality Education Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education April 20th, 2009 This week the Internet has been buzzing with conversation about how toteach about sexual violence -- kicked off by an article in the New York Times about talking to boys about sexual assault.� The blog postings have ranged fromhumorous to derivative to insightful, while the comments have includedfar too much about man-hating women and about male chauvinistswhistling at women in the streets.� The only things there about which there seem to bebroad agreement are that both rape and date rape are bad.The crux of the argument centers around whether to providegender-unspecific sex education or gender-specific sex education.�� Thegoal of gender-unspecific sex education is to provide the samecurriculum, information, and skills to males and females ... |
| State Trends: Abortion, Personhood, Sex Ed and STIs Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 20th, 2009 With the legislative year well underway, some interesting trends are beginning to emerge in a number of states. These include attempts in six states to declare a fetus a person from the moment of conception-measures that not only aim to ban abortion, but would affect contraception as well (more on this topic below).� �By the end of March 2009, a total of 704 measures related to sexual and reproductive health had been introduced in the 49 legislatures that have convened so far this year, and 11 new laws had been enacted in five states. One of the laws passed allows the provision of treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STI) for a patient's partner (Utah), while two increase access to emergency contraception (Utah and Virginia). ... |
| Roundup: Alaska Parental Notification Bill Stalled Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 20th, 2009 Parental Notification Bill in Alaska StalledA bill to require parental notification for teens seeking abortion has stalled in Alaska state legislature, the Juneau Empire reports.�"The parental consent bill passed through the Republican-controlledHouse of Representatives earlier, but failed to get a hearing in theSenate until Friday, two days before the end of the session."� Gov.Sarah Palin criticized the "lack of action" on the bill.� The Empirenotes that a judicial bypass would be particularly difficult for teensto obtain in the largely rural state.Columnists Bonnie Erbe and Ruth Marcus both covered Gov. SarahPalin's admission in a speech late last week that she had contemplatedhaving an abortion; both reporters called Palin "brave."� ... |
| RightRides: Providing Safe Rides Home Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 20th, 2009 Anyone who has ever walked home through an eerie part of town can understand how frightening it can be. In September of 2004, Consuelo Ruybal and Oraia Reid responded to the high rate of sexual assault in Brooklyn (in some areas, it had increased as high as 200%, according to their website) by creating RightRides, a service that provides free late night rides home to women in Brooklyn, in an effort to end gender-based harassment and sexual assault. Their SafeWalk program offers escorts to those who don't want to walk home alone. The program functions exclusively in Brooklyn, and tries to cater to lower-income neighborhoods with limited public transportation. They are especially helpful considering New York City's MTA recent approval of ... |
| National Day of Silence Feministing April 20th, 2009 Today is the National Day of Silence, which brings attention to LGBT bullying and harassment in schools. Some folks are tweeting, some are pledging their support and just generally getting involved.Are you participating?For a history of the Day of Silence, click here.The anglerfish on the Community blog has more. |
| My Sister the Health Activist: Stephanie Herold Our Bodies Our Blog April 13th, 2009 Entrant: Lauren HeroldNominee: Stephanie Herold, Women's Health ActivistThis is an interview with my older sister, Steph Herold, a college senior who already has helped countless women with her passion for variety of different kinds of activism.[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| We Already Have an Abortion Pride Movement Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 13th, 2009 There is no shortage of venues for women to be able to speak out about the positive impact of their abortion experiences. At Aradia Women's Health Center, the clinic where I worked for more than 18 years, we had journals for clients and their loved ones to share their feelings about their abortions, as well as public events emphasizing the need to destigmatize abortion and to honor and support women's decision-making, pregnancy choices, and women as the gatekeepers of life. Many other clinics associated with the Abortion Care Network and the National Abortion Federation also use journals and other mechanisms for the expression of women's thoughts and emotions. Allegheny Reproductive Health Center in Pittsburgh offers their patient the ... |
| The Date Rape Heard Round the World Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 13th, 2009 In the "controversial" film "Observe and Report," which opened this weekend, Seth Rogen's character Ronnie takes Anna Faris's Brandi home after a night of tequila and recreational anti-depressant consumption. Brandi is stumbling and half-conscious. The audience at my Saturday afternoon screening of grew audibly uncomfortable as Ronnie began kissing Brandi after she puked on the lawn. �But when the screen flashed to Rogen "pumping away" while Brandi lay on the pillow, vomit on her face and eyes closed to oblivion, a line was crossed - "sketchy" became "illegal."�Here's the oft-circulated response Rogen (the actor) has to the scene: SETH ROGEN: When we're having sex and she's unconscious like you can literally feel the audience ... |
| The Consequences of Anti-LGBT Bullying Feministing April 13th, 2009 Trigger warningThis is just so incredibly sad. Via the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN): An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother's weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.Carl, a junior at New Leadership Charter School in Springfield who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on April 17, the same day hundreds of thousands of students will participate in the 13th annual National Day of Silence by taking some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, ... |
| China's Gender Gap Up to 32 million Feministing April 13th, 2009 The New York Times and others covered a new study regarding China's longstanding one-child policy that many of us know has resulted in a preference for male children over females; women have not only had to give up their female children to orphanages, but are enduring forced abortions and sterilizations. According to the new findings, there is now a gap of 32 million more males than females under the age of 20 in China.The researchers suggested that enforcing a ban on sex-selective abortions would solve this problem, attributing the gap to just that. As some have misinterpreted sex-selective abortions as "family planning got awry" in the past (for example, the Bush administration used it as a reason to defund the United Nations Populations ... |
| Personhood Bill Lays Egg in North Dakota Senate Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 7th, 2009 Out-of-stateanti-abortion activists who rallied behind Colorado?s Amendment 48 lastyear came up with another big goose egg Friday when the North Dakota Senate rejected a ?personhood? bill that sought to confer constitutional rights to zygotes.But reproductive rights advocates aren?t cheering Roughrider State lawmakers just yet.Senators voted 29-16, without debate, to kill the anti-abortion bill which passed the North Dakota House Feb. 17.Opponents counter that contraception, in-vitro fertilization andstem-cell research would be threatened, and miscarriages could beprosecuted if legal recognition of fertilized eggs were upheld.The controversial bill was backed by Personhood USA, which dubsitself ?missionaries to the preborn.? The duo behind ... |
| Miscarriage is Not a Pro-Life Issue Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 7th, 2009 In speaking to Iowans about the dangers of farm chemicals, Sandra Steingraber focuses on the effect of these chemicals on reproductive health. What?s troubling is that she?s decided to tailor this message to pro-lifers.The risk she?s discussing is miscarriage, which isn?t analogous to abortion. A chemical that?s damaging to reproductive health is everyone?s concern. The pro-life movement, on the other hand, is not concerned with the ability of women to have children, but rather with interfering with a woman?s choice not to. Steingraber?s assumption that pro-lifers are also those most concerned with maternal health muddies the issue troublingly. Does this concern travel both ways? If I?m angry about the connection between my inability to ... |
| Tyra Banks, Sex Ed Teacher? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 7th, 2009 "Does this help?" is what I wondered watching Tyra Banks try to pin down a squirming, monosyllabic Levi Johnston on whether he and Bristol had used protection each and every time they had sex.� "Even when the baby was conceived?"� "Yup," came the response.� When Levi finally conceded that they had used protection "most of the time," Tyra, admittedly a dogged interviewer, broke into a grin, and the audience laughed and applauded. Okay, so she caught him. There's a tiny chink in the raft of pretenses swirling around the conception of Tripp Johnston.� As entertainment, it's not bad (Tyra worked in a "wardrobe malfunctions" joke).� But it's a sorry excuse for sex ed.� A persistent, almost meddling adult; a young person who really doesn't want ... |
| The Call for Common Ground Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 7th, 2009 Some historic moments are short and sweet. That was the case lastFriday with a call the White House organized on common ground in theabortion conflict. In a never before attempted event, the Obamaadministration merged dozens of leaders from the pro-choice andpro-life movements onto one conference call line and, wisely, muted us.The team to which Obama has assigned the task of shaping a civildiscussion and exploring common cause within the abortion conflictenthusiastically laid out a profoundly sensible plan. Melody Barnes,Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, kicked off the callexplaining that their goal is not to change minds on the dug-in issueof abortion. Rather, she explained, the intent is to focus on the areasin which, ... |
| Sarah Palin Speaking for Bristol Palin on Abstinence. Feministing April 7th, 2009 Remember when Bristol Palin basically admitted that abstinence doesn't work? Well, sounds like she (or rather her mom on her behalf) is singing a different tune now and I am going to have to agree with Renee that there is something fishy, sad and manipulative about using your teenage daughter to further your political agenda. In response to Levi Johnson being on the Tyra Show yesterday discussing openly that the Palin's knew they were knocking boots, Sarah Palin released the following statement:"Bristol's focus will remain on raising Tripp, completing her education, and advocating abstinence," [spokeswoman Meghan] Stapleton continues. "It is unfortunate that Levi finds it more appealing to exploit his previous relationship with Bristol ... |
| Egg-as-Person Laws Deprive Pregnant Women of Their Personhood Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 27th, 2009 Personhood USA apparently sees itself as the new, hipper, more effectiveincarnation of the anti-abortion movement. Personhood USA hopes that byestablishing the "pre-born, as legal persons with protection under thelaw" it will end the "injustice of abortion."� Its attempt to do thislast November through a "personhood" ballot measure in Colorado'sfailed miserably. Nevertheless, Personhood USA, is committed to "workingtirelessly to establish personhood in every State."What supporters of this approach don't mention is that if theunborn have legal personhood rights, pregnant women won't. There isreally no way around this. As National Advocates for Pregnant Women's video demonstrates, if successful, this strategy will mean that upon become ... |
| Now's Our Chance to Cut Funding for Abstinence-Only Sex Ed! Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 27th, 2009 Luckily, Barack Obama?s budget left out Title V funding for abstinence-only education, and now the right wing is up in arms. And it?s going to the Senate Budget Committee today, so now it?s our turn to speak up.According to Focus on the Family?s CitizenLink.com, ?Republican Sens. Jim Bunning, Ky., and Lindsay Graham, S.C., plan to propose an amendment in the Budget Committee on Thursday to save a place for Title V in the 2010 budget.?Haven?t we already gone over the fact that abstinence-only education doesn?t work? Whether or not you agree that teens should be having sex, several studies have shown that the programs offered are ineffective. ?Although abstinence is a healthy behavioral option for teens,? said a report from the Journal of ... |
| Reflections on Leadership in Honor of Gloria's Birthday Feministing March 27th, 2009 Yes, that Gloria. She turns 75 today and, as much, I thought it would be an opportune time to reflect on leadership within contemporary feminism. Gloria became the face of the feminist movement--along with Betty Friedan and a few others along the way--in the late 60s. Her scandalous investigative report on Playboy catapulted her into the spotlight. She would use that blinding light to do so many incredibly things over the years--co-found The Ms. Foundation for Women, Ms. Magazine, and the National Women's Political Caucus, champion the Equal Rights Amendment, and more recently, create Choice USA--a haven for young activists in the reproductive justice movement. I, personally, have benefited from her vision in multiple ways, one of which is ... |
| The "tragedy" of hook up culture. And scare quotes. Feministing March 27th, 2009 One of the upsides of reading IWF's blog (the downside being the constant retching) is that it points you in the direction of gems like this one. Robert P. George and John B. Londregan, professors in Princeton's Department of Politics, say that sex on college campuses is a "tragedy." They also really, really like scare quotes....Princeton, where we teach, is a wonderful university; but like other colleges and universities there is a dark side to its social life. Our students are bright, enthusiastic, and eager to learn. Most did not come to college bent on boozing and hooking up. Many feel deeply ambivalent about these aspects of campus life. Yet, they find little support on campus for the "alternative lifestyle" of living by traditional ... |
| Obama administration decides to sign UN gay rights document Feministing March 27th, 2009 In further evidence of Obama's departure from Bush era policy, the State Department announced last week they would sign on to a gay rights UN document. The document calls for the decriminalization of homosexuality and 66 countries have signed on so far. The UN drafted the document in December as a stand against human rights violations based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The Bush Administration had previously argued that the document contradicted US law, but the Obama Administration disagrees. |
| Documenting Obstacles to Medical Care for Women in Detention Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 20th, 2009 Two new reports issued by Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center document numerous barriers encountered by women when they try to obtain needed medical care in the confines of the immigration detention system. Human Rights Watch investigated facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) itself, as well as privately-run facilities and state and local prisons and jails where immigration detainees are held by contract with ICE. Women report a wide range of problems, from delayed medical care and denied medical screenings to inadequate sanitary supplies when they have their periods.� The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center investigated ICE-run facilities in Florida as well as jails that contract with ICE. The ... |
| Obama Reverses Bush Ban On Contraceptive Supplies to Leading Int'l Family Planning Organization Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 20th, 2009 The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) today reversed a Bush Administration policy to block African governments from providing U.S.-funded contraceptive commodities to Marie Stopes International (MSI), one of the world?s leading family planning organisations.� Restoring U.S. support will allow women to exercise their basic human rights while helping them avoid unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions and reduce the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. The ban imposed by Bush as part of a full-on attack on women's access to contraception worldwide disrupted MSI operations in six of the affected countries - Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe ? including some where MSI ... |
| A World in Which Women Are Cartoons, Not People Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 20th, 2009 The Vatican's demoralizing, dehumanizing view of women grabbed a lot of attention around International Women's Day, when the church pushed back against women's basic rights by ex-communicating the mother and doctors who saved the life of a nine-year-old rape victim.� The doctors performed the abortion on the rape victim after discovering that she was four months pregnant after what turned out to be a history of being raped by her stepfather.� The sexual violence and pregnancy were only discovered because the 80-pound girl complained of stomach pains.� � Outrageously, but not surprisingly, the Vatican did not excommunicate the rapist. Spend enough time around sentimental pro-life rhetoric, and it becomes clear that a 4-month-old fetus is ... |
| Five Issues I Wish More Feminist Men Were Taking On Feministing March 20th, 2009 1. comprehensive sexual education that include critical conversations about rape, power, and violence with men AND teaches men what and where the clit is (just sayin')2. advocating for more family friendly work policy for all and changing the culture of work machismo among men3. reflecting on how much $$ goes into male athletic culture, and how linked it is to violence off the field4. changing the culture to give men more permission to identify, manage, and talk about their emotions5. an intersectional approach to incarceration, poverty, and race that includes a gender analysisWhat about you? |
| Reported Rapes in the Military on the Rise, Prosecutions Still Low Feministing March 20th, 2009 Check out community poster ArmyVetJen's take (who beat us to the punch) on the new statistics just released by the Pentagon showing that there has been a 9% increase in the reports of sexual assault in the military over the past year. AP reports: The Pentagon said it received 2,923 reports of sexual assault across the military in the 12 months ending Sept. 30 2008. That's about a 9 percent increase over the totals reported the year before, but only a fraction of the crimes presumably being committed.Among the cases reported, only a small number went to military courts, officials acknowledged.The Pentagon office that collects the data estimates that only 10 percent to 20 percent of sexual assaults among members of the active duty military ... |
| A Plan for Women's Rights for a New Bolivia Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education March 16th, 2009 As countries around the world celebrated International Women'sDay last week, the Bolivian government launched an equal rights andopportunities plan dubbed "Mujeresconstruyendo la Nueva Boliviapara vivir bien," which can be loosely translated as "women are building a new Bolivia withbetter lives for all." Not simply a development strategy, this planexemplifies a significant, shared vision: namely the importance of recognizingwomen's contributions to the ongoing development of the country. The plan is the culmination of a lengthy process of compromise betweenthe Bolivian government and women's NGOs from all parts of Bolivia,including Cat�licas por el Derecho a Decidir in Bolivia, a partner organizationof Catholics for Choice. All parties met ... |
| Female Condom Receives FDA Approval Our Bodies Our Blog March 16th, 2009 The Female Health Company is announcing [PDF] today that the FDA has approved the company's FC2 Female Condom for preventing pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted infections.The company notes that the approval will "enable the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to procure FC2 for distribution to global HIV/AIDS ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Fear and Abstinence on Capitol Hill Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 16th, 2009 Last Wednesday morning in the Rayburn Congressional Office Building onCapitol Hill, hundreds of abstinence-only supporters gathered toprepare for their annual lobby day.With their programs exposed as failures by independent studies, abudget crisis, and new leadership in Washington, they know that theirfunding is in serious jeopardy.So, what do you do when faced with this kind of dilemma?Rebrand!Sitting amongst their crowd Wednesday, the talking point repeatedlydrilled into the young lobbyists? heads was that their programs aren?tjust about not having sex. Oh, no? they are actually ?holisticapproaches? to promote ?healthy lifestyle choices."Really? Has the social conservative fringe gone New Age on us?No. No, they haven?t. But in the face ... |
| North Dakota Abortion Ban Could Have National Implications Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 16th, 2009 North Dakota legislators are proposing a law that could havenational implications. Dubbed the Personhood bill, SF 1572 would grantevery fertilized egg in the state full rights, and any intentionaldeath of that fertilized egg would constitute murder. It?s alreadypassed the North Dakota House and will be considered by ananti-abortion Senate. And while Gov. John Hoeven hasn?t spoken publiclyabout the bill, he is opposed to abortion.?This sparsely populated rural state that?s proud of itsconservative roots could fundamentally alter the rights of women acrossthe country,? said Tim Stanley of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota,North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS). ?We feel confident that the morepeople hear about 1572, the less comfortable they?ll ... |
| It's not "sex," it's rape Feministing March 16th, 2009 A reader sent in this story, about how this 18 year-old man was given only 6 months in jail for raping two women. (Oh, and he gets work and school release privileges.)Michael Philbin, son of a Green Bay Packers coach, said he was "ashamed" and "embarrassed." Well, that's lovely, but I wish he was feeling ashamed from prison for more than 6 frigging months. The short jail sentence aside, what really bugged me about this article was the language it used to describe the attacks:Philbin had sex with one girl after she passed out and was placed on his parent's bed. He then joined another 17-year-old boy in the basement and forced a second girl to perform oral sex, according to the criminal complaint filed last month.Excuse me, but you don't ... |
| Broken Promises, New Pledges, and Possibilities on Women's Rights in India Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education March 9th, 2009 The past year has seen an increase in attacks against women in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, culminating in series of assaults on women in public spaces, with the most controversial being the pub assault in the coastal city of Mangalore followed by numerous assaults in the IT hub of Bangalore. By saying that there are far more attacks in other states of the country, official Nirmala Venkatesh made a feeble attempt at keeping the myth of women's safety alive but what she achieved was to reduce women of the state and the country to mere statistics. What she also seemed to have neglected is that her job description requires her to make every single woman's and girl's well-being and safety paramount; that their liberties and rights ... |
| Obama Names Ambassador for International Women's Issues Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 9th, 2009 The AFP reports: "Obamanamed Melanne Verveer, an aide in former president Bill Clinton'sadministration, as ambassador-at-large for international women'sissues. She will serve at the State Department under Secretary of StateHillary Clinton."The appointment "isunprecedented and reflects the elevated importance of global women'sissues to the president and his entire administration," the White Housesaid in a statement.Melanne Verveer is co-founder and currently co-chiefexecutive officer of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an internationalnonprofit that invests in emerging women leaders.The AFP adds, Verveer "also served asexecutive vice president of People for the American Way, a civil rightsand constitutional liberties organization, 'where ... |
| Prop 8 looks likely to stand Feministing March 9th, 2009 Photo of Prop 8 protest yesterday via the Bilerico Project.Yesterday the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case to repeal Prop 8. It doesn't look good:Based on their questions and comments during three hours of oral argument Thursday, a majority of the California Supreme Court appeared ready to uphold Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that ended gay marriage in the state.But, a small silver lining:However, it seemed equally apparent that the court was prepared to rule that the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in the state last year should remain valid.My colleague Adam at the Prospect flags this quote from anti-marriage-equality lawyer Ken Starr,"Rights are ultimately defined by the people," said Starr, ... |
| Roman Catholic Church: Excommunication for all who supported 9-year old rape victim's abortion Feministing March 9th, 2009 There really are no words for this kind of case. A community poster already covered the uproar by the Brazilian Roman Catholic Church of the abortion of a 9-year old girl who was raped by her stepfather. This is despite the fact that abortion is legal in Brazil in cases of rape and when the woman's life is in danger, which both applies to this girl (as she not only weighs just 80 pounds but was pregnant with twins): The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday.Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that ... |
| Two months into the era of Obama Feministing March 9th, 2009 It still surprises me every time I get an email from Barack Obama in my inbox. The President is communicating with me?!? Really? Obviously it's not actually Barack sending me messages, but the fact that he has staff dedicated to communicating with millions of Americans is pretty incredible in and of itself. After Obama won, the emails didn't stop. It's so logical, yet so groundbreaking. I would posit that Obama is the first President to keep his campaign machine alive--now it's called Organizing for America. Brilliant. Obama is certainly getting things done in these first months in office. His first 100 days aren't over yet and already we've seen the global gag rule disappear, Guantanamo's future is looking bleak and now a removal of the ... |
| A Top Ten List for Talking to Teens About...Well, You Know Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education March 5th, 2009 1. Know yourself.What are your expectations, your hopes, and your fears about yourteenager?s sexual and romantic development?� You?ll have far morecontrol over yourself and your interactions if you have a fullunderstanding of these things.2. It?s not about you. Yourteenager is, in fact, discovering sex for the first time.� They don?twant to hear about you and your sex life or your path to discoveringsex.� They want to talk about their current exciting, overwhelmingpath.� So let them!� That?s how you?ll get to know your teenager ? andthat?s now one of the primary goals of your parenting.� (If yourteenager directly asks you about your own experiences, well, that?s adifferent matter for another time.)3. Stop talking! As the parent of a ... |
| Today's Prop 8 Hearing is Online Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 5th, 2009 In San Francisco today, the California Supreme Court will consider arguments for overturning Proposition 8, the ballot initiative passed last year redefining marriage as between one man and one woman.It was the state Supreme Court that had previously declared it unconstitutional to deny marriage to gay and lesbian couples. Now, it is being asked to decide whether voters can take away rights that the court granted.You can watch the proceedings here: www.calchannel.com. (Isn't it nice that California webcasts these things???)You may recognize Kenneth Starr, our old friend from the Clinton impeachment days, representing Protect Marriage, the anti-gay marriage side of this fight.For added interest, Air America's Ana Marie Cox is liveblogging ... |
| The New, Progressive Spain Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 5th, 2009 Legalized abortion in Catholic Spain?� Maybe the times really are changing.Encouraging reports surfaced last month of a proposed change to Spain's strict 1985 abortion law, which allows women to end pregnancies up to 12 weeks in cases of rape and 22 weeks in cases of fetal malformation?or at any point, if a doctor believes the woman's physical or mental health is in danger at any point during the pregnancy, they can authorize the procedure.And today brought another step towards Spanish women gaining the right to choose. According to the AP, a government-appointed panel of experts announced the specifics of the legislation?which would give women the power to end a pregnancy for any reason during the first trimester. It would allow abortion ... |
| Women's History Month! Feministing March 5th, 2009 Happy March, y'all. Just in case you haven't been keeping up with the events calendar, check out all of the great events on tap around the country. (They're listed below by date and location, to make things easier. Check the events calendar for more details on all events below.)March 5New York, NY: Commemorate the 1969 Abortion SpeakoutNew York, NY: The Lonely Soldier MonologueCollege Park, MD: How are Women Affected by the War on Drugs?Columbia, MO: Women's Health GatheringMarch 6Chicago, IL: Chicago Feminisms: Past, Present and FutureNewark, NJ: The Gender Dimensions of Terrorism: How Terrorism Impacts the Lives of Women San Francisco, CA: National Lesbian Health Summit (through March 8)March 7Ithaca, NY: Summit on Women's Issues in ... |
| Eve and the Ethics of Story Feministing March 5th, 2009 Check out this reading by Eve Ensler of a section of her upcoming book, I'm an Emotional Creature: The Secret Lives of Girls Around the World. It's called "The Teenage Girl's Guide to Surviving Sex Slavery" and in it she speaks in the voice of a former sexual slave from the The Democratic Republic of Congo:First let me say that I admire Eve's bold insistence on speaking truth, on writing deeply emotional pieces, on insisting that we talk about and stay conscious of and do something about the most horrific suffering on this planet--things that the rest of us often don't have the strength to face on a regular basis. V-Day is such an unbelievably successful movement--unparalleled in contemporary feminism. The idea that she got a nation of ... |
| Obama's "Population" Moves: Also Good for the Environment Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 26th, 2009 President Obama showed much more than good judgment when he rescinded the Mexico City population policy and promised to restore funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).�He not only sent a strong message, and the means, to revive U.S. leadership in support of family planning and reproductive health around the world, he also moved to sustain the global environment.�Yes, these "population" actions will help women realize their right to control their own fertility; provide them more freedom and opportunity to pursue better education, economic, resource-use and family-raising opportunities; and help prevent abortions and unwanted pregnancies.But they also address something we tend to overlook ? or avoid noticing ? the fact that stabilizing ... |
| For Iraqi Women, Human Rights Abuses Continue Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 26th, 2009 Iraq is a disaster and every day more details surface to show us just how completely we, as a country, destroyed millions of lives.My mother used to say that children take you places you didn't know you wanted to go. For me, it's Google News. Thanks to the miracle of keyword aggregation, I discovered a report from AlterNet depicting the homeless women left on the streets of Baghdad, living in constant fear of kidnapping, rape, and death.In the midst of this shameful war, 135 families, about 750 people, hide in compounds-turned-shelters just outside of the Green Zone. The reporter spoke with Um Qasim, one such woman living with 13 family members in a "brick shanty" in Baghdad."Me and my girls have to be extra careful living this way," she ... |
| Publicly funded family planning prevents 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, 810,000 abortions annually Feministing February 26th, 2009 A new report from the Guttmacher Institute shows that publicly funded family planning services prevent 1.94 million unintended pregnancies - that includes nearly 400,000 teen pregnancies and 810,000 abortions."The national family planning program is smart government at its best," says Rachel Benson Gold, the study's lead author. "Publicly funded family planning is basic health care that empowers disadvantaged women to decide for themselves when to become pregnant and how many children to have. It reduces recourse to abortion. And it saves significant amounts of taxpayer money." For more information, check out these other reports from Guttmacher:Next Steps for America's Family Planning Program: Leveraging the Potential of Medicaid and ... |
| Ask Congress to fund anti-violence programs Feministing February 26th, 2009 Both statistically and anecdotally, incidents of violence against women increase as the economy falters. As Obama prepares to release his budget, now's the time to ask him and Congress not to reduce funding for preventing violence against women and helping survivors. According to Women's eNews:Congress is currently authorized to spend up to $175 million a year for the program. But the actual allocation of federal dollars is subject to a congressional vote, and lawmakers last year set aside $123 million; over $50 million less than was approved. That was a slight cut from fiscal 2007, when Congress spent $125 million on the program.Women's safety advocates also want Congress to fully fund the Violence Against Women Act, a broader ... |
| More on Rachel Maddow Feministing February 26th, 2009 The media can't get enough about America's new butch sweetheart, Rachel Maddow. I can't say I blame them, but this week's piece on Maddow entitled Butch Fatale maybe takes it a bit too far. Author Daphne Merkin writes an overly poetic piece about the role of lesbians in fashion--the forgotten wallflowers, she calls us. She relies on a lot of played out tropes (battle of the sexes, lipstick lesbians, etc) and makes the claim that Maddow marks the beginning of a new era for lesbian glamour. Lesbianism has finally come into a glamour of its own, an appeal that goes beyond butch and femme archetypes into a more universal seduction. Her name is Rachel Maddow, the polished-looking, self-declared gay newscaster who stares out from the MSNBC ... |
| Sex-Positive Evangelicals? Oh, Yes Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 24th, 2009 We all know that the growing evangelical movement is one (with a few left-leaning pockets exempted) obsessed with sex.� Controlling it.� Punishing it.� Using it to control women.� Stomping out most versions of it completely.� Shaming people who enjoy it.� And now, believe it or not, promoting it as an important part of healthy marriages.� �Wait, come again?� Sex-positive evangelicals?� Well, sort of. While they're not bringing in enough numbers to drown out the dominant attitude of shaming, there does seem to be a trend in the evangelical community of promoting more and better sex within marriage -- for the good of the marriages.� There are now Christian sex shops, Christian sex advice columns, and Christian sex blogs.� Most of it is tame ... |
| At Tonight's Address, What Obama Should Say About Abortion Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 24th, 2009 In Sunday's issue of the New York Times, William Saletan confirmsthat "President Obama wants to end the culture wars" and reminds us that his"joint address to Congress this week could be an opportunity to change thatdebate."� I couldn't agree more.��But, I disagree with Saletan about what President Obamashould say.� Saletan argues that Obama should defuse theculture war by telling pro-choice pragmatists to get a sense of morals andtelling pro-life moralists to get realistic.�I think that President Obama should acknowledge the unique andlegitimate moral and emotional experiences of women who have had abortions -instead of focusing on the opinions and convictions of those who haven'tstopped to listen.�In his Address, President Obama is ... |
| Pro-Life Movement Reveals Pro-Abortion Stance Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 24th, 2009 What if one day you woke up to a news story like this? Feb 24: � �Tony Perkins, President of the formerly anti-abortion Family Research Council, admitted to the Associated Press that the organization's previously stated mission of saving the "unborn" had been ceded to other priorities. Perkins, who opposes preventing abortion through contraception, says, "The issue is whether taxpayers should fund, and thereby encourage, behavior that's risky and morally questionable," by which Perkins means having sex. The acknowledgment that his moral agenda trumps his professed desire to reduce the numbers of unwanted pregnancies, comes on the heels of a new report released today by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-partisan policy institute frequently ... |
| Speechifying: So-called hook up culture and the anti-feminists who love it Feministing February 24th, 2009 Earlier this week, I was in Virgina speaking at Emory & Henry College at the school's winter forum - it was a day-long group of discussions on gender and sexuality. This talk was different than others I've done - generally I speak about Feministing and my writing. But the organizers at E&H wanted me to speak about the so-called hook up culture on college campuses, and they wanted me to have a "discussion" (a debate) with this woman, Elizabeth Marquardt. (I actually felt very odd about debating Marquardt because she was so damn nice and friendly - I don't know that I'm cut out for this kind of thing. More on this in an upcoming post...)In any case, I had a lot of fun with the talk, because a lot of it related back to the work I did for ... |
| Black women's bodies, voyeurism and Rihanna Feministing February 24th, 2009 I really wish I hadn't seen the pictures that were leaked of Rihanna after the supposed assault by boyfriend Chris Brown. I am not going to post them here, because I think they are too triggering. Needless to say, they show someone who was brutally attacked. As I said the last time I wrote about this, it is rare that the media gives light to violence against women of color. From the jump, this story hinged from an angle of victim-blaming, from blaming Rihanna for "giving Brown herpes" to "cheating on him with Jay-Z." The narrative was clear; sometimes it is OK to beat a woman. In releasing the pictures two things have happened. First, Rihanna's privacy has been violated in a very harmful way. We have no business seeing the extent of the ... |
| Where Are The Women in Obama's Faith-Based Advisory Council? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 17th, 2009 The Obama Administration's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships announced an Advisory Council and four key priorities this week.� In addition to addressing poverty and promoting interfaith dialogue, the priorities consider "how we support women and children, address teenage pregnancy, and reduce the need for abortion," and call for "encouraging responsible fatherhood."� �Notice how women are paired with children and pregnancy/abortion concerns.� Men apparently only need help with fatherhood.� This gendered pairing strikes me as paternalistic and misguided. �For one thing, the issue of abortion isn't just about teens and unwed mothers.� Married women have�abortions, too.� Many women who make a moral decision to have an ... |
| Where Did the Abortion Reduction Agenda Come From? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 17th, 2009 You could say this is a story about the old adage: the more things change, the more they stay the same. �The rise of the concept of "abortion reduction" as a worthy policy goal, currently being promoted by some in the Democratic Party, has generally tracked the rise of the Party's fortunes of the over the past few years and the accompanying decline in the likelihood that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade. The Democrats' ascent, and Roe's resilience, has been a tough reality for antiabortion leaders to face, but they are not out of strategic and tactical options. Politics is the art of the possible.� �Abortion reduction, currently being sold as the "common ground" between the pro-choice and anti-abortion camps, has its roots in ... |
| VIDEO: Britain's "Baby" Daddy Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 17th, 2009 Last Friday, The Sun reported on Alfie Patten, a British "baby-faced"13-year-old father. The baby's mother is only 15 years old. Tabloid stories like this are loud, invasive,and irritating, yet this story is an excellent case study on why serious familyplanning and sexuality education needs to be utilized. Patten's justification for why the couple did not seek an abortion was thathe "thought it would be good to have a baby." It's clear in the videos includedin the original story that he has no idea about the costs or complexities ofraising a child. When Patten was asked how he'll afford the child, he said, "Ididn't think about how we would afford it. I don't really get pocket money. Mydad sometimes gives me �10."It's hard to be mad at ... |
| Wishful Thinking? Two Republican Pro-Choice Groups Team Up Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 17th, 2009 Via LifeNews, two Republican so-called "pro-abortion" (ahem) groups are teaming up in a fresh effort to defang the GOP's stance on abortion and as LifeNews put it, to "drag the party to the left."The two groups are WISH, Women in the Senate and House, and the Republican Majority for Choice. After being marginalized within the party for years and years, the two have combined powers to set their sights set on weakening the Republican party's newest pro-life platform.�All I have to say to the is, Good Luck, because the platform is rigid. Here's a little gem:� Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental ... |
| Bristol Palin admits abstinence is "not realistic." Feministing February 17th, 2009 I feel bad for her. Her story was used by her family and the GOP to make an example of what is considered "responsible" behavior for a teen mom. Holding all that, she is telling the truth that abstinence is not realistic for young people, even if it should be what everyone strives for. Comprehensive sex-ed wouldn't be this unrealistic. via Gawker. (h/t to Aaron) |
| Utah Proposes Comprehensive Sex-Ed Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 13th, 2009 Conservative states are finally realizing that teenagers have sex?even if you tell them not to?and taking that into account in education addressing legislation.Reports surfaced today concerning Utah's HB 189, a proposed state bill introduced by representative Lynn Hemingway, D-Salt Lake, that would allow the state's schools to teach comprehensive sexual education, moving away from the abstinence only policy that was previously enforced. This comes just days after North Carolina state representative Susan Fisher, D-Buncombe, said she would promote similar legislation this session in her traditionally conservative state.Apparently Mr. Hemingway has paid attention to the onslaught of recent studies proving that abstinence-only programming ... |
| Understanding the Roots of Violence Against Women in the Pacific Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 13th, 2009 Violence against women is undeniably a global problem. While women in all societies are affected, the violence experienced by women in the Pacific has generally been given little attention by the international community. However, a report released by Australia's Foreign Aid Agency, AusAID, in late 2008, has put the spotlight on the steps being taken to address violence against women and girls in five of Australia's neighbouring countries: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and East Timor. The AusAid study gathered input from over 700 individuals from government, international organizations and NGOs. Like elsewhere around the global, the most common forms of violence against women in the countries studied are physical, ... |
| Elevating Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Under the Obama Administration Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 13th, 2009 By repealing the Global Gag Rule on his third day in office, President Obama took a huge first step toward leading the world in addressing the health needs of the world's poorest women, children and families. Now it is time to get to work on elevating what has been a stagnant American response on global family health and work toward saving the lives of millions of women and children.� On January 23, 2009, the new president correctly lifted the Gag Rule, a policy that severely hindered the work of international family planning organizations by banning funding to any international organization that engages in a wide variety of activities, including "providing advice, counseling, or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign ... |
| Anti-Contraception Crew Still at Work at HHS Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 13th, 2009 A perplexing story popped up in my Google alerts the other day. It wasfrom The Hoya, Georgetown University's college newspaper, and theheadline read: "Med Center Receives Research Grant for Natural Family Planning."Georgetown is a Catholic university which aroused my suspicions; afterall, in the 21st century, the Catholic Church still bans contraception forits adherents. The research grant was from HHS, for $600,000. Not muchas research grants go, but in this economy spending money to research aquote-unquote contraceptive method with a failure rate of 25% seemspretty lavish.I poked around the website of the grant recipients, The Institute for Reproductive Health (not to be confused with the National Institute for Reproductive Healthto ... |
| Twelve States Consider Abortion Restrictions Via Ultrasound Technology Feministing February 13th, 2009 The Chicago Tribune breaks down the twelve states that are all considering legislative restrictions that would require an ultrasound before a woman gets an abortion. (Or force a doctor to offer one.) This reminds us of the whole "informed consent" absurdity that the antis love to push as some sort of right when it's nothing but completely belittling, implying that women don't understand their personal decisions (or at least they don't without the "guidance" of their friendly neighborhood anti-choice legislator). Cara says it well: It all seems to be about the poor little woman who doesn't understand what it means to be pregnant, or who will surely have a change of heart once she sees a blurry, cloudy image that I've never been able to ... |
| When Do "Believers" Have to Face Facts? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 9th, 2009 When do facts supercede "belief" in shaping public policy?� And what responsibility do we have as individuals, irrespective of our personal religious faith, to figure out the facts when it comes to laws and policies that affect the lives of others?These are big questions, and I won't attempt to answer them here, today, in any "big" way.� However, both questions were raised for me in reading an article by Steve Waldman on Beliefnet entitled: "Why Many Pro-Lifers Oppose Family Planning."Among three reasons Waldman suggests in answering his own question are that the anti-choice movement was initiated originally by the Catholic Church, which opposes what it refers to as "artificial" contraception; that the Catholic Church and others believe ... |
| Sexonomics Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 9th, 2009 Over the past two weeks there has been lots of public huffing and puffing over the inclusion (and then exclusion) in the stimulus package of a provision for contraception. Much of the discussion was little more than media hot air, unanchored by anything as weighty as facts. The media discussion was notable for among other things: the absence of experts. To cite one blunder: the shock media gleefully tore into the supposed controversy of a $200 million allocation of taxpayer money for pregnancy prevention, despite the fact that there was no $200 million allocation of taxpayer money for pregnancy prevention. That fable sadly got passed off as fact. In reality, the bill proposed an administrative change that would have saved the states� 200 ... |
| Time to Lift the Federal Ban on Syringe Exchange: Advocates Call on Obama to Fulfill Campaign Pledge Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 9th, 2009 Domestic prevention advocates and members of Congress are calling on President Obama to fulfill a campaign promise by acting swiftly to lift the federal ban on funding for syringe exchange programs.� The ban, which has been in place for some 20 years, prevents federal funds from being used to support a health intervention universally recognized as being highly effective in stopping the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, and as a means for reaching drug users for other interventions.� It is another in a long lineof ideologically-driven restrictions on basic prevention programs whichmust be removed in US policy, both domestically and internationally.� Efforts to lift the ban on funding of syringe exchange have been underway for well over a ... |
| Ultrasound and Informed Consent Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 9th, 2009 In the name of informed consent, more states are hopping on the ultrasound bandwagon.� Already, according to the Guttmacher Institute, 12 states have enacted legislation on the issue. The majority (6 states) require only that a woman have the option to view an ultrasound image of the fetus in the case that an ultrasound is performed as part of the clinic?s preparation. Many clinics nationwide follow this procedure, whether it is required or not.� But on the more disconcerting end, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana require that each and every woman seeking an abortion have an ultrasound performed by the abortion provider (not an attendant) with a stipulation that the abortion-provider must ask the woman if she would like to see the image. ... |
| No link between fertility drugs and ovarian cancer Feministing February 9th, 2009 One of the largest studies done to determine whether fertility drugs cause ovarian cancer found that there is "no convincing association" between the two. The New York Times reports:[T]he researchers followed 54,362 women who had been referred to Denmark's fertility clinics between 1963 and 1998. They gathered information about the women from Denmark's birth, cancer and hospital discharge registries, seeking more detailed information on medications from individual medical records of a subgroup of 1,241 of the women.Among the 54,362 infertile patients followed for an average of 15 years, there were 156 cases of ovarian cancer. The average age of the women by the end of the study was 47.Medical records were used to analyze the relative ... |
| Roundup: Republicans, Independents Endorse Contraception and Sexuality Education Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 5th, 2009 Republicans, Independents Favor Reproductive Health AgendaOn US News & World Report, Bonnie Erbe takes noteof a new survey conducted by the National Women's Law Center, findingeven Republican and independent voters in favor of access tocontraception and sex education: Nearly three-quarters (72%) of Republicans and Independents favor legislation that would make it easier for people at all income levels to obtain contraception, and 70 percent favor legislation that would help make birth control more affordable. More than 60 percent of fundamentalist/evangelical Protestants favor these proposals.... Only 8 percent of Republicans and Independents think the government should support abstinence-only education. A strong majority ... |
| A "Pill" for Men? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 5th, 2009 Sick of birth control's side-effects? Had enough with the bloating, lack of sexual appetite and risk of blood clot? Simply forgetting to take it? No, there isn't a new super-pill for women - its better.� Now there's birth control for men.�Currently undergoing trials in Sydney, the twice-monthly injection of testosterone and progestin tricks the male mind into believing that enough sperm has already been produced. (Funny, I've never needed such elaborate science to trick male minds.) And according to the city's Daily Telegraph, studies have shown that the proposed treatment is 95% effective, about the same as the pill for women, and men are able to impregnate three months after they stop. Even better, lead researcher Rob McLachlan told them ... |
| Can Pro-Choice People Support the Pregnant Women Support Act? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 5th, 2009 On the 36th anniversary of Roe v Wade, Senator Bob Casey, whoopposes legal abortion, introduced what he described as a common groundbill: The Pregnant Women Support Act. He explained, "Ibelieve there is more common ground in America than we might realize.If only we focus on how we can truly help and support women who wish tocarry their pregnancies to term and how we can give them and theirbabies what they really need to begin healthy and productive livestogether."Pro-choice people, like myself, get a little defensive overproposals such as this, and the righteous rhetoric that accompaniesthem. This legislation proposes to provide support to low-income womenwho want to bring a pregnancy to term. Pro-choice elected officialshave proposed ... |
| The Ex-Masturbator Campaign: Shaming idle hands since 2009 Feministing February 5th, 2009 You know...sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. (Not to mention an infinite number of jokes.)Apparently the Passion for Christ Movement has a bunch of these "ex" shirts, and this is just the latest. Here's the thing - you don't want to masturbate because you feel it goes against your beliefs? All good. But there's no need to shame others, and telling folks that doing something completely natural, safe and personal is sinful...well it's just wrong.Not to mention, the shame that some people may feel after what one article calls "an illegal orgasm," (something the Passion for Christ members talk about a lot) isn't a sign that masturbation is wrong. It's an indicator that you haven't been told the truth about ... |
| Get Real! How Do I Learn to Trust Him? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 2nd, 2009 anofficialknight asks: If you have been raped by more than one person but as a result you never stay with a male in fear of becoming close to them and then you find a guy that you really like and you want to trust him but you just can't ... what should I do to make us a trusting couple? Heather replies:Whethera person is having issues with trust due to sexual abuse or any otherreason under the sun, I really like how Staci Haines, in The Survivor's Guide to Sex, concisely outlines three basic factors for trust. She talks about competency, consistency over time, and congruency between words and behavior.When she says competency, what she means is if that person iscompetent in the ways you need for them to be. For instance, as asurvivor of ... |
| Liveblogging "Roe Is Safe - Now What?" at Feminism 2.0 Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 2nd, 2009 I'm at Feminism 2.0 today, a one-day conference dedicated to bringing new technologies to feminist organizing.� In the first plenary, the exciting ideas came in equal measure from the panelists and the tweets displayed on a screen behind them.� You can follow the tweetchat here - you're entering the room "fem2." I'm now at the first breakout session, a panel including RH Reality Check's Amanda Marcotte and Cristina Page, called "Roe Is Safe - Now What?" Amanda Marcotte points out that because Roe is considered safe, because Obama will not appoint a Supreme Court justice will not vote against it, we've lost one of the story lines that helps us get our issue into the mainstream news.� Mainstream media aren't necessarily going to pick up on ... |
| More Than Two Children = "Environmentally Irresponsible"? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 2nd, 2009 Editor's Note: Please welcome RH Reality Check's new blogger, Joe Veix! Joe is joined by three other young bloggers - Micah Steffes, Kathleen Reeves, and Elisabeth Garber-Paul -� each of whom will offer their perspectives in our Real Time Blog every week. On Sunday, Jonathon Porritt, chairman of England?s Sustainable Development Commission, said that couples who have more than two children are environmentally ?irresponsible.? The issue of overpopulation is loaded and complex, and puts the well-being of human existence at stake. Our environmental footprints are already large, even for the most sustainable of us, and having children further eats up our dwindling natural resources.Mentioning overpopulation forces us to think of possible ... |
| How Contraceptives Factored into the Economic Stimulus Plan Our Bodies Our Blog February 2nd, 2009 One of the contentious points in President Obama's $825 billion stimulus plan�has been�the $200 million allocated for�expanding�birth control coverage under Medicaid."How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives?" Republican Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said on Friday. "How does that stimulate the economy?"Alas, Obama today�headed to ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Political Diagnosis: The Week in Women?s Health Our Bodies Our Blog February 2nd, 2009 Each week, Our Bodies, Our Blog will take a look at what's happening in Washington and in the new Obama administration related to women's health and well-being. This first week included major highs and lows:President Obama signed his first piece of legislation today -- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Expanding the Female Condom Market Our Bodies Our Blog January 26th, 2009 Guest post by Audacia Ray, International Women's Health CoalitionDemand for newer and better devices that protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections is constant -- partly due to the fact that the process of development, testing and approval takes forever, and partly because what?s on the market often leaves something ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Weekly Feminist Reader Feministing January 26th, 2009 What a week! Obama does away with the Global Gag Rule and announces plans to do the same for Gitmo. Isn't winning elections fun??Roe v. Wade was decided 36 years ago. Jamelle writes, "I'm not terribly interested in living in a world where women die for the "crime" of trying to control their own futures." earlgreyrooibos asks Obama to make contraception and sex education more accessible. Cara on how abortion intersects with the issue of sexual violence. Over at her place, Shark-Fu writes, "The existence of Roe v Wade doesn't automatically make pro-choice activists out of everyone. It does, however, give those of us who do give a damn something to fight for...to build on...and to defend." PLUS, Our Bodies, Our Blog has a link roundup, and ... |
| An Immodest Proposal Scarleteen January 26th, 2009 Just last Tuesday, right down the street from you, or perhaps even right where you live, two teenagers had sex for the very first time, and it was exactly as we all wish those first experiences to be.read more |
| Report Describes Concerns Over Treatment of Detained Women Immigrants Our Bodies Our Blog January 23rd, 2009 A report released this month by Southwest Institute of Research on Women and the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona expresses concerns about the treatment of women held in immigration detention centers in Arizona.The report, "Unseen Prisoners" (PDF), describes conditions in three Arizona facilities. The ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Roe v. Wade Marks 36th Anniversary: Round-Up of Political News, Blog Posts and Remembrances Our Bodies Our Blog January 23rd, 2009 Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Here's a look at what's happening in the news and online.Live Blog: Pro-Choice Messaging's New Wave or Passing Ship?: Head over to RH Reality Check at 3 p.m. (EST) today for a live blog discussion about messaging and the reproductive rights ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Roundup: He Will Repeal the Global Gag Rule, Right? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary January 23rd, 2009 He's Still Going to Repeal the Global Gag Rule, Right?The thirty-sixth anniversary of Roe came and went with noword from the White House repealing the global gag rule, frustratingthe hopes of many women's health advocates.� Does this mean PresidentObama won't take swift action on the gag rule?� He will do so "soon," reports Laura Meckler in the Wall Street Journal.� But not, as tradition dictates, on the Roeanniversary.� According to Meckler, Obama is pursuing a strategy of"defusing emotional political debates: "President Obama was breakingwith the tradition set by his recentpredecessors to make an abortion-related order on the anniversary ofthe Supreme Court ruling, another example of his attempt to supportliberal policies he believes in ... |
| Why Roe isn't enough Feministing January 23rd, 2009 Check out this piece at RH Reality Check today. Emily asked two questions of reproductive rights and justice advocates about the Roe anniversary. The first, what does Roe mean to you and the people you work with, and the second, is Roe enough? Here are my answers:For the women we work with, many of whom come from countries in Latin America where abortion is still criminalized, Roe has the potential to have a huge impact on their lives. Roe has the potential to make reproductive health services just like any other healthcare need a woman has, it has the potential to make a usually clandestine procedure safe and accessible. Unfortunately for them, the Roe decision has been weakened and diluted by subsequent legislation. The Hyde ... |
| When The Money Runs Out: Abortion Funds Struggling Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary January 14th, 2009 Readingthe news these days is more depressing than usual in Richmond, Virginia.Headlines even in our notoriously conservative local paper tell a tale ofstruggle for the working class and poor. The foreclosure rate was up 805percent in the second quarter of 2008 as compared to 2007, and the rate ofunemployment is the highest it's been in years, according to the VirginiaPoverty Center. As an advocate for the women of Richmond, I see these numbers in terms ofwomen's lives: how are women who struggle coming up with the money forthe day to day necessities so many of us take for granted, like food orshelter? Are they making it at all?I knowthe answer to these questions and more, because I am a part of the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, ... |
| Teens Take Virginity Pledges - And Then Have Sex? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary January 14th, 2009 In the January issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, there's a new study from Janet Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University about the effects of virginity pledges on sexual behavior.� �So how do these commitments to abstain until marriage affect sexual behavior?� Do teens who pledge to abstain have less sex than their compatriots?� Nope.� Do they wait longer to have sex?� Nope.� So what's the effect?� Teens who take virginity pledges are significantly less likely to use the Pill or condoms than their non-pledging peers. �Color me unsurprised.� ResearchersBearman and Bruckner have looked into virginity pledges twice before.� In 2001, they found that when compared to the general population, teens who take ... |
| Double Dose: More Proof Virginity Pledges Don?t Work; Genetic Testing and Ambiguity; Cut Health Care Costs, Not Care; The Year in Medicine ? Our Bodies Our Blog January 8th, 2009 Well, it Wasn't All Bad: "Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| The Lie We Love Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary January 8th, 2009 We all know the story of internationaladoption: Millions of infants and toddlers have been abandoned ororphaned?placed on the side of a road or on the doorstep of a church,or left parentless due to AIDS, destitution, or war. These little onesfind themselves forgotten, living in crowded orphanages or ending up onthe streets, facing an uncertain future of misery and neglect. But, ifthey are lucky, adoring new moms and dads from faraway lands whisk themaway for a chance at a better life. Unfortunately, this story is largely fiction. Westerners have been sold the myth of a world orphan crisis. We aretold that millions of children are waiting for their ?forever families?to rescue them from lives of abandonment and abuse. But many of theinfants ... |
| gURLs sound off on sex ed at their schools sex_ed_blog January 8th, 2009 Writing this blog has taught me a lot about the situation inside America's "sex education" classrooms.Some of my knowledge has come from closely following the news on this topic, but�plenty has also come directly from comments that you have left after the posts. I've really enjoyed reading them, so I thought I would share some highlights with you:ArielMeog says, "I live in North Carolina ... I can tell you loads of bull crap I got from the abstinence-only ed. It's the whole "girls give sex to get love, boys give love to get sex." They basically promoted the stereotypes that girls were weak and gullible while boys were unable to control their urges.In my ninth grade health textbook there was a load of information on drugs such as marijuana, ... |
| South Carolina may expand ultrasound law Feministing January 8th, 2009 It seems that trying to force women to view ultrasounds - because we're too stupid to know that when you get an abortion, you get an abortion - just isn't enough for some folks. Now anti-choicers want to decide where women view that ultrasound.Seven S.C. House lawmakers have prefiled a bill that would require women seeking abortions to be given a list of clinics and other facilities that provide free ultrasounds. That list could include pregnancy crisis centers -- many run by antiabortion groups -- that actively discourage abortion and encourage women to choose other alternatives.The bill expands upon the law the General Assembly passed this year that requires abortion providers to give women seeking an abortion the option of viewing an ... |
| what's the real reason behind teen pregnancy? sex_ed_blog December 11th, 2008 Thanks to the recent teen pregnancies of Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin, the issue of adolescents sporting baby bumps has been thrust into the mainstream spotlight.As a result, there has been a lot of discussion about the reasons behind this trend.Of the many people to throw his hat into the ring on this matter is NYU sociologist, Johnathan Zimmerman. In Zimmerman's view, the cause of teen pregnancy is directly related to poverty. As a result, he says, no amount of either comprehensive or abstinence-only sex ed will have any effect on the number of teen pregnancies.As he writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, "About two-thirds of teenage mothers live at or below the poverty line at the time they give birth. The less income and ... |
| Human Rights Day: Read it, learn it, promote it, claim it Feministing December 11th, 2008 Today is the anniversary of the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:Sixty years on, we pay tribute to the extraordinary vision of the Declaration's original drafters and to the many human rights defenders around the world who have struggled to make their vision a reality.The Declaration belongs to each and every one of us - read it, learn it, promote it and claim it as your own.During its "16 Days" series, MADRE, an amazing international women's rights organization, has been posting some great examples on their blog of women around the world who are taking this to heart. In Kenya, women established a village called Umoja ("unity") where violence against women is prohibited.In Colombia, in communities threatened by violence ... |
| Ten Things To Do Before You Have Sex Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary December 8th, 2008 As a sexuality educator, I spend most of my time helping parents understand how to talk with theirchildren and teenagers about sex, sexuality, gender, and all of themyriad issues that go along with those things.� One question thatparents often ask me is how to make sure their teenagers are ready tohave sex.� Putting aside issues of whether parents should have substantial input andcontrol over their teenager's sexual activities, I found that parentswere relying on goals that were far too vague.� Parents want to makesure that their teenagers are mature enough, have good communicationwith their partners, understand the health and reproductiveconsequences, etc.One parent lamented that she and her daughter had (what the motherthought were) ... |
| Young Women Of Color Speak Out Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary December 8th, 2008 New PEP research into young women of color and reproductive rights. The controversy over the HHS rules rages on, and do you know if your city is healthy for women?�Subscribe to RealityCast:RealityCast iTunes subscriptionRealityCast RSS feedLinks in this episode:Pro-Choice Public Education Project Public News on HHS regs Public News on HHS regs, II Propaganda and PEPFAR funds Healthiest cities for women More on the scary, scary "hook-up culture" �On this episode of Reality Cast, I?ll be interviewing Aimee Thorne-Thomsen about the Pro-Choice Public Education Project?s new research into what young women of color are doing and thinking with regards to activism and sexual health.� Also, the controversy over the HHS redefining contraception as ... |
| one of my friends skips her period by taking her birth control pills a certain way. is this safe? sex_ed_blog December 8th, 2008 Q: One of my friends skips her period by taking her birth control pills a certain way. Is this safe?A: Generally, yes--but she should talk to her doctor if she plans on doing this regularly.Women can avoid their periods if they skip the last seven pills in a 28 day pack. Those pills don't contain hormones, so missing them won't put a girl at risk for pregnancy. When a girl does this, she can just start a new pack of pills as soon as she finishes the previous one.Another option is to get a prescription for a birth control pill called Seasonale. Seasonale works similarly to the method described above, but it designed so you only get your period four times a year, instead of twelve.And while I am sure you know this, I can't help myself from ... |
| Environmental Disasters in the Asia-Pacific: What About Reproductive Health in Emergencies? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary December 2nd, 2008 Climate change is one of the most prominent topics of discussion in recent times, with increasing recognition of its particular effects on women. For those engaged in post-disaster reconstruction, attention to reproductive health should be a primary concern. The Asia-Pacific region is indisputably one of the most vulnerable areas to climate-change induced disasters, as evidenced in recent time in Myanmar, China and Tsunami-affected countries. For pregnant women in this area, any environmental disaster severely limits safe delivery options, which in turn exacerbates pre-existing vulnerabilities to maternal death and disability. Access to contraceptives and other family planning is often interrupted or stopped altogether, which may lead to ... |
| What does feminism look on the web? culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily December 2nd, 2008 I've always thought of the internet as a kitchen where every web page, every email, every embed is a menu of creative delicacies feeding the soul of our culture. Every image, every word, every interaction carries meaning for the post or page where it is found. Collectively, all those billions of moments are not just being archived for as long as the blog or website is in place. Together, they are transforming our consciousness -- the way we talk, the way we speak and, more importantly, the way we think of each other.When I started blogging in 2001, there were fewer than two-million blogs worldwide. Blogger was the biggest blogging platform and yet a work-in-progress for the little company that created it, Pyra. MovableType, Typepad's older ... |
| sex ed is a human right sex_ed_blog November 24th, 2008 These days, it's pretty hard to find scientific research proving the benefits of abstinence-only education. In fact, study after study has found that such programs fail to prevent teens from contracting STDs or getting pregnant, let alone having sex before marriage. But a conference held at Columbia University in New York found something else: Abstinence-only programs infringe on teens' basic human rights!The term "human rights" refers to the entitlements that all humans on the planet should be allowed to access in order to live with decency and freedom. Along with things like civil and political rights and equality before the law, the rights to health care and education are included as two very important human rights.Yet on some levels, ... |
| Transgender Day of Remembrance Feministing November 24th, 2008 Today is the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we stop and take note of the fact that transgender people are murdered at 10 times the rate of everyone else. And, as queenemily says, "Many of the dead lost their lives because they were trans women of colour, doubly disposable."Please take a moment to read about the people we memorialize today.At least thirty people, most of them women, were killed this year because of who they are, because of their gender. Cara points out that four of the people on this list were killed in the past 20 days alone. Writes Mercedes Allen at Bilerico:What's more chilling is what those numbers don't include. That number doesn't include the unknown numbers of transfolk killed alongside gay and ... |
| No Time to Waste: Women Leaders on Life in an Obama Era, Plus News on Health Care Reform Our Bodies Our Blog November 19th, 2008 The Real Deal, the blog of the National Council for Research on Women (and a new addition to our blogroll!), last week asked leaders of women's organizations to speculate how life might be different in an Obama era, that is: "more equitable, healthier, more secure -- for women and girls."The ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| The System is the Problem: Where the U.S. Ranks on Infant Mortality Our Bodies Our Blog November 19th, 2008 "President-Elect Obama's healthcare reform proposals have focused intensely on two key questions: How much would reform cost and how many people would be covered? He also must address the critical issue of why the United States has such poor health outcomes despite all the money we spend," write Judy Norsigian, ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Reproductive Rights - Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice For All Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary November 19th, 2008 Reproductive rights activists around the country celebrated the decisive defeat at the ballot box on November 4 of attempts to ban or limit abortion rights in South Dakota, Colorado, and California.Unfortunately, four other ballot initiatives--to ban gay marriage andadoption by unmarried couples--succeeded. These initiatives--inCalifornia, Arkansas, Arizona, and Florida--were defeats not only forthe gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, or GLBT community, butalso for the reproductive rights community and for anyone who believesin freedom, equality, and fairness.Reproductive rights mean more than the right to terminate apregnancy, as explained in the Center for American Progress's 2006publication, "More Than a Choice."In fact, a ... |
| Election Round-Up - Reproductive Rights Edition Our Bodies Our Blog November 11th, 2008 Good morning, readers! By now you all know that Barack Obama is our President-Elect. However, a number of specific reproductive health issues were up for a vote in this election - RH Reality Check has great coverage of the fate of anti-choice ballot initiatives in this election (links below), and ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| One Girl's Story of Living with HIV Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary November 11th, 2008 When she was seventeen years old, Gabrielle's* life took two drastic turns: she became pregnant, and subsequently, during a routine blood test, discovered that she was HIV-positive.� In a series of news features being published by the Jamaica Gleaner, we are able to track some of Gabrielle's experiences over the past two years: from losing the father of her child to the disease; to giving birth to a healthy son; and subsequently meeting her current boyfriend (also HIV-positive), and becoming pregnant again.� The series of articles, "The Reality of HIV/AIDS - Diary of an HIV-Positive, Pregnant Girl" gives us a glimpse into a largely hidden world, highlighting some of the challenges faced by pregnant teenagers, in particular those that are ... |
| teens having fewer abortions, but why? sex_ed_blog November 11th, 2008 The Guttmacher Institute, a research and education organization dedicated to advancing sexual and reproductive health, just released a study on abortion. One of the main findings was that adult women are having abortions at a significantly higher rate than are teens. As the report states, "Over the past three decades, the proportion of abortions obtained by teens has dropped steadily, from 33% in 1974 to 25% in 1989 to 17% in 2004. In 2004, more than half of all abortions (57%) were obtained by women in their twenties. Teen abortion rates have also declined?by more than 50%?from 42 per 1,000 women aged 15?19 in 1989 to 20 in 2004. A large part of the decline in abortion among teens?which began long before abstinence-only sex education ... |
| Double Dose: Health Insurance Shifts from Employer-Based to Individual Market; Pharmacy Refuses to Sell Birth Control, and in Virginia, That?s OK; ?Free to Be You and Me? Turns 35; 2009 Sheroes; Sexy Costumes ? Our Bodies Our Blog October 31st, 2008 The New Health Insurance Model: In the first of a three-part series, the L.A. Times looks at the changing insurance scenario -- where once working Americans could rely on employer-based benefits, now more people are being forced into the individual market, where coverage is costly, bare-bones and precarious.Part two looks ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| The Future of Sexual and Reproductive Health Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary October 31st, 2008 Ask the average American their thoughts on the economy, the effects of the leadership over the last eight years, and what needs to be done to remedy the fiscal spiral we've wound up with and they'll likely ramble off any number of opinions related to the yo-yoing stock market, home foreclosures, or progressive taxation vs. tax cuts for all. We're now a nation of economists and we all know which policies we want put in place in the coming weeks and months, after a new administration is voted in.� Pose a similar question to the average American about reproductive and sexual health care and, though these issues affect every American just as deeply as the economy, it's doubtful you'd get much more than a tirade on their anti- or pro-choice ... |
| intersex conditions sex_ed_blog October 31st, 2008 Sometimes the human body does exactly what we expect. Other times it decides to go a different route. One example of this is intersex conditions.The term intersex is a relatively new one and it?s used to describe people whose genitals and reproductive organs don?t look or act typically male or typically female.In the past, the word hermaphrodite was used in this context. These days, however, a lot of folks find that term inaccurate and offensive. That?s because, technically, a hermaphrodite is able to reproduce without a sex partner. Though snails and seahorses can do this, it's simply not possible for humans. In fact, a lot of intersex condition leave people infertile--a far cry from the ability to impregnate oneself.Most intersex ... |
| Women Charged More for Identical Health Insurance Feministing October 31st, 2008 A bunch of conscientious readers have sent us the link to a really depressing article in today's New York Times about economic differentials for women and men when it comes to health insurance costs--and, no, not just because we're the ones that bear the babies. It reads, "In general, insurers say, they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses."Seriously? Is our health care system so broken that when women actually use it, it discriminates against them? This is deeply troubling. Health care is a human right. Every woman in this ... |
| Reality Check: Stem Cell Research Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary October 22nd, 2008 What are stem cells? What's the difference between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells? How are they created? Amanda answers all of your scientific and political questions about stem cells and stem cell research and clears up the confusion! YouTube version. �Check out the rest of our Reality Check video series: You've heard them before. Abortion is "convenient" and "allows women to shun motherhood." How about this one? The "abortion industry" uses women to make money. Amanda shatters all of our favorite stereotypes put forth by the anti-choice movement and offers up her usual dose of reality!. . . . . What does "pro-life" mean anyway? Aren't we all pro-life? Amanda dissects anti-choice frames for emotional manipulation and ... |
| CDC Denies Intent to Force HPV Vaccination of Immigrants Our Bodies Our Blog October 16th, 2008 A number of bloggers have written over the past month about a new requirement that immigrants seeking permanent legal status in the United States must receive the HPV vaccine. The requirement is troublesome for a number of reasons, including the lack of an opt-out provision (in contrast to requirements for ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| time magazine takes on teen girls sex_ed_blog October 16th, 2008 Time Magazine recently published a really interesting article called, The Truth About Teen Girls and for once, I don't think the title is too far off.The piece contrasts myths (teen pregnancy is a growing trend; oral sex is the new French kissing; watching TV makes girls have sex) with reality (teen pregnancy has declined over the past 15 years, most kids who do oral are already sexually active, TV is more likely to lead to body image issues than sexual activity). As the author says: "Like steak-house owners trying to raise vegetarians, we idealize youth and sexiness but recoil if our young want to be sexy. What has complicated things recently is that girls are literally getting older younger. Their bodies are hitting physical maturity ... |
| National Latino AIDS Awareness Day Feministing October 16th, 2008 Today is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day. HIV/AIDS is the third leading cause of death among Hispanic men ages 35 to 44 and the fourth leading cause of death among Hispanic women in the same age group.In honor of NLAAD, check out Ambiente, a bilingual online Latino LGBT publication. |
| Insurance Obstacles for Women: Best Not to Get Sick or Pregnant Our Bodies Our Blog October 8th, 2008 The National Women's Law Center has released a new report, "Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women," and is hosting a webinar on Thursday, Oct. 16, to discuss the findings. Register here.The majority of women (and men) are covered either by their employers or through Medicare ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| New York Times on Advocating for Your Health Our Bodies Our Blog October 8th, 2008 The New York Times recently published a special series to help individuals advocate for their own health. The series included information on reliable health information websites, patients' use of the Internet for self-education about their symptoms and diagnoses, how to understand a medical research report, what FDA approval really means, ...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| before birth control was legal sex_ed_blog October 8th, 2008 It sounds kind of crazy, but until the 1960s there were actually places in the United States where it was against the law to use birth control!This was partly thanks to the work of a man named Anthony Comstock. Comstock was a conservative moral crusader from Connecticut who fought to make giving out information on birth control a crime in the 1870s. His mission worked in his favor and anti-birth control laws were passed around the country. As a result, women--who hadn't had good birth control options to begin with--now had even fewer birth control options. In this climate, many resorted to ineffective and even dangerous methods of pregnancy prevention. In this climate, many resorted to ineffective and even dangerous methods of pregnancy ... |
| US Abortion Rate Lowest Since Legalization; Racial Disparities Persist Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary September 23rd, 2008 The 2004 abortion rate in the United States is the lowest ithas been since national legalization, but the overall rate masks starkdisparities in the abortion rate among different racial and ethnic groups, astudy released today by the Guttmacher Institute found.� Hispanic women obtained abortion at a ratethree times the rate of non-Hispanic white women; the rate among black womenwas five times the rate of non-Hispanic white women.� But abortion rates have fallen since 1980 forall racial and ethnic groups - white women saw a drop of 30%, Hispanic women20%, and black women 15%. Why the dramatic racial disparities? "Behind virtually everyabortion is an unintended pregnancy. And because women of color are much morelikely to experience ... |
| the girls who slip through the cracks sex_ed_blog September 23rd, 2008 For a number of years I taught sex ed in the Bronx. We were constantly reminded that kids who lived in our zip code were at extremely high risk for both HIV and pregnancy, and so our goal was to prevent these things from occurring. Year after year, I was proud when the majority seemed to be staying safe. But the thing was, despite living in a "risky" zip code, the kids I saw weren't really the kids who were most likely to end up in serious trouble. The teens I worked with were the ones getting services. They were the ones with parents who signed them up for an after school program. They were the ones who came back day after day even though the older they got, the less cool that was. They heard whatever message it was that we were trying to ... |
| does the rhythm method work? sex_ed_blog September 18th, 2008 Question: My sex ed teacher taught my class about the rhythm method. Does this really work? Can you avoid getting pregnant if you know when you're ovulating?Answer: Let me tell you a little story about the rhythm method. A few years ago, I went out with some friends of mine, Dean and Nancy. Over appetizers they informed me that they had exciting news: Nancy was pregnant. Then they informed of some startling news: It was my fault. "Excuse me?" I yelped. "Yup," said Dean. "We were using the rhythm method from the Planned Parenthood website, just like you told us to." Nancy and Dean were joking about the pregnancy being my fault, of course. But it was true, when they had asked what I thought of the rhythm method, I had directed them to the ... |
| what defines "virginity"? sex_ed_blog September 18th, 2008 h1t5e4 says, "I don't believe in the whole 'losing your virginity' thing. I know that sounds weird, but let me explain. I don't think that by having any kind of sexual experience you lose something, I think you gain something. You gain that experience and learn about yourself and maybe get a stronger connection with that person. But you don't get rid of anything. "It's all up to you. I think you could have sex with a guy that and still be a 'virgin' (or whatever you wanna call it) if it didn't mean anything to you, and you can be with a girl and not be a virgin." What do you think? Leave a comment below. Or, if you want to join the discussion on the boards, go to the when girls like girls board. |
| Health care is a feminist issue Feministing September 18th, 2008 Doctor's office waiting room, uploaded by Flickr user TheConsumeristI'll admit it: I find the debate over health care in America incredibly confusing at times. What I do know is pretty simple. I know that people don't have a right to health care in this country, which is appalling. I know that navigating our current system and getting quality care is a huge headache, even for the privileged and knowledgeable. I know that low-income people, those with nontraditional work situations, immigrants, and people of color have an even tougher time finding and paying for care.And I know that health care is a feminist issue. Because women are more likely than men to go without needed care. Because nearly twice as many women as men access health care ... |
| do you know if medicaid pays for abortions? sex_ed_blog September 11th, 2008 Question: Do you know if Medicaid pays for abortions? Answer: It depends on where you live. In some states it does and in others it doesn't. I know where I live, in New York, Medicaid not only covers abortions, but if a woman is under 21, she can get something called "Emergency Medicaid" if she isn't able to pay for the procedure. This can be applied for on the spot, but it is a pretty unique program and in most states the process is a lot more complicated. So why isn't abortion always covered? Largely, this is due to something called the Hyde Amendment. This amendment passed in 1976 and it determines what abortion services are covered under Medicaid. Until the Hyde Amendment passed, Medicaid covered abortions, just like it covered almost ... |
| Time to Say No to Abstinence-Only Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - STI/HIV/AIDS Prevention September 11th, 2008 Lastweek, the announcement that Governor Palin's daughter is pregnant reigniteda national conversation about teenage pregnancy that was first sparked earlier in theyear by Jamie Lynn Spears and the film Juno. The issue of teen pregnancy deserves more thanfleeting tabloid coverage.� It needs sustainedattention and action. Eachyear, 750,000 adolescents in the U.S. become pregnant - far more than in most other industrialized nations - and 82 percent of such pregnancies are unintended. In addition to potential risks to the healthof both the mother and her child, pregnancy at a young age can severely limit ayoung woman's ability to complete her education - and subsequently tofind a well-paying job. Yet,rather than addressing this critical ... |
| Justice Ginsburg Reflects on Roe v Wade Today Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary September 2nd, 2008 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was honored by the Veteran Feminists of America this summer in "A Salute to Feminist Lawyers 1963-1975," held on June 9 at the Harvard Club in New York City.�While the tribute to Ginsburg especially reflected on her packed career as a lawyer from 1969 to 1980 in seeking legal redress for sex discrimination, Ginsburg also answered audience questions, including ones on the health of Roe v. Wade today.� Below are her informal comments about the state of reproductive freedom.�To one question about the prospects and future of Roe v. Wade, Justice Ginsburg responded:�"People tend to think that Roe v Wade has to be preserved at all costs.� What has to be preserved is the right of a woman to have ... |
| it's a fact: teen sex doesn't always end in disaster sex_ed_blog September 2nd, 2008 If you listen to a lot of the chatter out there, it would seem as if sexually active teens were the equivalent to lighted sticks of dynamite: disasters waiting to happen (as illustrated by Gossip Girl). There are a few reasons people feel this way:One is the moral belief that sex should only happen between a married man and woman. This logic holds that since most teens aren't married, they shouldn't be having sex. Another is that people worry about teens' emotional states. They fear that teens are too immature to handle sex and will be devastated when things don't go as they planned. Then there are serious health concerns. Teen pregnancy and the risk of contracting an STD are often cited as good reasons to urge teens not to have sex. Now I ... |
| Weekly Feminist Reader Feministing September 2nd, 2008 A kicker was booted from a high-school football team in Georgia because of her gender.A Pakistani senator defends the fact that women were buried alive in his district as "tribal custom."Monica Roberts has video interviews with Isis, the first trans contestant on Top Model.MzBitca has a plea: leave Amy Winehouse alone!A clearly innovative and forward-thinking family counselor goes on Oprah to tell women it's their fault if their husbands cheat.Broadsheet discusses a new blog, called What to Expect When You're Aborting.Katie Couric on how her nightly news hosting gig has been difficult.In These Times on why soldiers rape. And Col. Ann Wright has another piece on the possible cover-ups related to two female soldiers' suicides. ... |
| abstinence-only update: the good and the bad news sex_ed_blog August 28th, 2008 When it comes to the current state of abstinence-only education, there's good news and bad.The good news is that as of September, only 28 states will still be taking the government's abstinence-only money. By October, that number will drop even further to 26, when Iowa and Arizona opt out of the program. This means that in the past two years, 40% fewer states have been pushing the "no sex outside of marriage" party line. This drop is really significant when we consider that in 1998, when the program began, California was the only state that rejected the Title V funding that pays for such programs.The bad news is that because the majority of states still get Title V funding, plenty of you will be hearing some pretty crazy stuff come ... |
| Fight Bush's Proposed Anti-Birth Control Regulations! Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Contraception August 4th, 2008 How would you feel if you called a federally-fundedfamily planning clinic and the person who answered the phone refused to make anappointment for you until you prove that you're married? How would you feel if you asked for emergency contraception at a public health clinic and were told bythe public health nurse that you have to go somewhere else because Plan B isthe same as having an abortion? What if these employees were protected byfederal regulations so they couldn't be fired, transferred, or disciplined?�TheNew York Times recently uncovered that the Department of Health and HumanServices is draftingregulations that would "prohibit discrimination" against certain health careemployees who refuse to deliver contraceptives because of ... |
| can i go to the gyno without telling my mom? sex_ed_blog July 25th, 2008 Question: I want to go to the gynecologist without telling my mom. How can I find a doctor and make an appointment on my own? Does it cost money?Answer: I wish I could give you a quick one sentence answer like, "Sure you can and nope it won't cost a dime." But if you live in the United States, that's not usually the way things play out for teens. So here is some information on seeing a doctor by yourself, a few stumbling blocks that can make it tough to do so and a couple ideas about how to get around these: Finding a Doctor: If you live somewhere with a teen clinic, or Planned Parenthood health center, making your own appointment should be fairly straightforward. You call, tell the receptionist why you want to come in and set it up. You ... |
| PPFA Chides Bush HHS on Abstinence-Only; Mainstream Media Silent Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Contraception July 24th, 2008 RH Reality Check broke the story on Tuesday about the Bush Department of Health and Human Services end run on abstinence-only funding, and so far mainstream media is ignoring one more assault on sexual health and education by the Bush Administration. Other new media outlets like Truthout are following our coverage.Today, Planned Parenthood reached out to media on this important issue, hoping to stir more coverage with this statement: "On the way out the door, the Bush administration is once again caught misrepresenting the facts to push its own agenda," said PPFA President Cecile Richards.� "This latest announcement is nothing more than a gimmick and offers nothing new or different for states that want to provide effective programs to ... |
| An Outrageous Attempt by the Bush Administration to Undermine Women's Rights Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Women’s Rights July 22nd, 2008 The BushAdministration is up to its old tricks again, quietly putting ideology beforescience and women's health. The U.S. Department of Health and HumanServices is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms ofcontraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs bylabeling them "abortion." These proposed regulations set to bereleased next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to providecontraception to women who need it. We can't let them get away with thisunderhanded move to undermine women's health and that's why I am sounding thealarm.These rulespose a serious threat to providers and uninsured and low-income Americansseeking care. They could prevent providers of federally-funded ... |
| South Dakota abortion providers must tell women abortion terminates "life" Feministing July 21st, 2008 Oh South Dakota. You never cease to amaze.Starting Friday, doctors in South Dakota must tell women seeking abortions that the procedure ends a human life and may cause them psychological harm, the state attorney general said....The 2005 law requires doctors to tell women "that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." Women also would have to be told they have a right to continue a pregnancy and that abortion may cause them psychological harm, including thoughts of suicide.So basically, they have to provide patients with false information. Nice. Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota is fighting back. "We remain optimistic that, in time, the court will find that the law is ... |
| Contra-bortion? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary July 16th, 2008 The Department of Health and Human Services proposed regulations that would allow any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Bush Administration is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception as abortion. HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion, C. Page Will McCain Also... |
| Get Real! Real Sex Ed, That Is Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary July 15th, 2008 It's not easy being a teen today ? especially when it comes to getting straight answers to your questions about sex and sexuality. RH Reality Check is thrilled to bring you Get Real!, Heather Corinna's teen sexual health advice column, now on RH Reality Check every Friday. Get Real! What Are Some of the Benefits of Having Sex? Get Real! When... |
| Republicans Call for an End to Planned Parenthood's Federal Funding Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary July 15th, 2008 Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood lastWednesday. In a "special order" floor speech organized by Bachmann andChris Smith, R-N.J., Bachmann called for an end to any federal moneyfor the network of reproductive health care clinics because PlannedParenthood offers abortion services.... |
| Quick Hit: NY domestic violence law to cover dating relationships Feministing July 14th, 2008 This is great news:The new law would make it possible for people in dating relationships, heterosexual or gay, to seek protection from abusers in family court. As it stands, New York has one of the narrowest domestic violence laws in the country, allowing for civil protection orders only against spouses or former spouses, blood relations or the other parent of an abused person's child. |
| America's Next Top Misinformed Teenager Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Contraception July 11th, 2008 Sultry summer night? Time for really, really bad TV.During the summer lineup, the characters get more wooden, the contestants moreoutlandish, the judges more rude.And for those viewers with a craving for locker roomconfrontations and math class drama, there are no popular teen programs on theair, leaving an eager audience for ABC Family's new show, "TheSecret Life of the American Teenager."But "Teenager" is not just another teendramedy: it's a poorly-scripted warning about the perils of unplannedpregnancy. The show centers around the lithesome and wide-eyed Amy who, afterher first, brief, not-clearly consensual sexual encounter, manages to getpregnant. But our heroine lacks the maturity to divulge her condition to herparents, the baby's ... |
| It's a pregnancy test, not Plan B Feministing July 11th, 2008 You know that scene in Juno where Ellen Page's character takes pregnancy test after pregnancy test at her local convenience store? Over on the community blog, Aly tells us how the reality can be quite different. She and her friend, both 15-year-olds, went through quite the ordeal trying to buy a simple over-the-counter pregnancy test.We're in CVS, searching for a pregnancy test. ["Shouldn't they be over here?" "I can't find them! Are they by the tampons?" "Nah, if you're pregnant, you don't need those anymore." "Fuck, should we ask someone?" "Wait, no, I think I found them! No, shit, that's a yeast infection thing." "Aly!" "Sorry! They both make you have to pee on them, I think!" "No, you stick the yeast infection one up your snatch." "Ew, ... |
| Sexually Transmitted Infections Hit All-Time High in Iowa Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary July 7th, 2008 Iowa Department of Public Health officials have reported that totalcases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in the state reached recordlevels in 2007 -- with some major spikes among teen-age populations."These numbers are not surprising to anyone who works in this field,but they are alarming," Karen Thompson, IDPH's sexually... |
| Wal-Mart prohibits HIV prevention event Feministing July 7th, 2008 Are we really surprised? Planned Parenthood of Central Washington was scheduled to hold an event at a local Wal-Mart on National HIV Testing Day where their Teen Council were simply going to stand outside of the store and hand out information about HIV prevention and testing. But the American Life League got a tip on the event, and urged their supporters to call and complain to the store, after which Wal-Mart succumbed and canceled the event.You know, because handing out preventative information that saves people's lives is just so not okay. American Life League's statement is horrific, and conveniently makes no mention of what the event was actually for: �Planned Parenthood is now in such desperate need of customers it�s willing to do ... |
| girls + activism = more sex ed sex_ed_blog July 2nd, 2008 My first regular job teaching sex ed was in the South Bronx. Though I?d lived in New York for a number of years by that point, I still wasn?t really sure what to expect. I knew that the Bronx had burned in the seventies, and was hit hard by violence, HIV, poverty and teen pregnancy. But I wasn?t sure what this would mean for my kids on a day-to-day basis. After four years of teaching there, I saw that while these were real issues for a lot of the teens I worked with, they weren?t necessarily defined by them.I was reminded of this when I read about the Bronx based Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WEDC). WEDC is an anti-poverty organization. In addition to a lot of other projects, they run an after-school program for ... |
| TIME Magazine Hearts CPCs Feministing July 1st, 2008 I'm in shock. TIME magazine followed up their original story about the pregnant teens of Gloucester, but now suggesting that the girls' decision is not just one of personal choice, but one of rejecting abortion and "taking responsibility." And the credit is partly given to crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).You must read the whole piece, which reeks of anti-choice language, but the last paragraph really says it all: Whether a girl--or a woman--decides to end a pregnancy or see it through is as complex an emotional and moral and medical calculation as she ever faces. But I wonder if some soft message has taken hold when the data suggest that more women facing hard choices are deciding to carry the child to term. This has been the mission of ... |
| ditch the condoms? not for a while... sex_ed_blog June 30th, 2008 Love condoms? The fact that one in four American girls are walking around with STDs would lead me to believe that for a lot of folks the answer is probably no.� So here's another question: Why don't we have better options for safer sex? You'd think that in this day and age someone would have come up with method that didn't make its target audience cringe.Sure there is the female condom, (which is actually undergoing a makeover as we speak to turn it into something more user-friendly). But despite the fact that I'm a fan of this device, it hasn't exactly been a popular, affordable or availiable option.For a while now there have been murmurings about microbicides.� Microbicides are creams or suppositories that can reduce the risk of STDs and ... |
| Misinformed consent Feministing June 30th, 2008 Today the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court injunction, allowing South Dakota's "informed consent" legislation to take effect. The legislation requires doctors to inform women seeking abortions that the procedure "ends a human life." Because, you know, women are stupid and are just getting abortions willy-nilly, without thinking about it much. We need to be told "the truth," because clearly no woman is aware that carrying a pregnancy to term is an option.Last April, Sarah Blustain wrote about this case and other "informed consent" laws for the Prospect:This line of thinking makes clear that women are too ignorant to realize that they are carrying some sort of nascent life in them, and too weak to possibly decide for ... |
| States Say 'No Thank You' To Millions in Ab-Only Funds Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 27th, 2008 Earlier this week, the Associated Press' Kevin Freking covered the astonishingly high number of states that have withdrawn from the federal government's Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage funding scheme. Freking reported that just 28 states are still participating in the federal funding, meaning that 23 (22 states and the District of... |
| Roundup: House Drops Affordable Birth Control Measure Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Contraception June 25th, 2008 House Drops Affordable Birth Control Measure ... I noted in the June 13th roundup that the House of Representatives was debating an amendment to a supplemental war funding bill that would have closed an unintended loophole causing birth control prices, especially for students, to rise sharply over the past two years. The house dropped that measure last Friday, says the Daily Women's Health Policy Report. According to CQ Today, the House-approved version of the domestic package does not include a provision -- included in an earlier Senate version of the war supplemental bill that also contained domestic spending provisions -- that allows pharmaceutical companies to sell deeply discounted birth control products to college health ... |
| utah wants to make it illegal to answer sex questions sex_ed_blog June 25th, 2008 A Salt Lake City teacher with over 30 years experience under her belt, is currently on paid administrative leave and may be fired, or even charged with a crime, for answering students' questions.� That's because the questions asked were about oral sex, masturbation and homosexuality. After hearing about the incident, a number of parents were up in arms. "We want her fired. We want her never to teach ever again," said one.� Another proclaimed, "These are our children, and we're not going to breach the firewall of innocence." Apparently, to folks in this state, silence is golden and educators are just supposed to stare blankly when confronted with inquires about sex. In response to this outcry, conservative Republican politician Carl Wimmer ... |
| Why I don't like scientific studies about sexuality Feministing June 25th, 2008 It seems every few weeks there is another study about sexual difference and biology. I've written before about what bothers me about studies that talk about gender difference, and I similarly take issue with studies about sexuality and sexual orientation. Why do they bug me? Because the premise behind studying the why of sexual difference is unfair. When we decide to look for the cause of queer sexual orientations to me that says "here we have a problem. let's find the root cause!" Queer sexualities are not a problem, or an abnormality, or a disease that we need to cure. The same goes for "why are you gay" discussions. I frankly find them offensive, because we are once again searching for the root cause of this sexual abnormality. I also ... |
| Abstinence-only funding is like an evil Energizer Bunny Feministing June 20th, 2008 It really just keeps going and going. And we just continue to be disappointed. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies voted yesterday to continue funding the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program despite research over the last year that has proved over and over again the inefficacy of abstinence-only education. The Democrats in Congress have failed to ax ab-only funding in the past, and for some reason they just seem to continue to allow millions of federal dollars to be filtered into these dangerous and ineffective programs. RH Reality Check makes a good point that despite the fact that seventeen states have now refused Title V money for abstinence-only ... |
| Access Denied: Birth Control for College and Low-Income Women Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 17th, 2008 College students and low-income women face dramatic increases in birth control pricing.College is about survival of the fittest. Every year, students are overwhelmed by many stressors such as: peer pressure, advanced course work, securing financial aid, and balancing a healthy lifestyle. How students cope with such stressors determine whether... |
| Yay, equal marriage! Feministing June 17th, 2008 As of today, the fact that the person you love shares your gender is no longer a barrier to marriage in California. Huzzah! Here's to the many couples who will marry today -- and hopefully live happily ever after.And for a reminder that marriage isn't the be-all, end-all of queer activism, listen to our gal Miriam on WBUR (Boston's NPR affiliate). |
| "plan b" not sold here sex_ed_blog June 16th, 2008 I was walking through my neighborhood the other day when I came across a sign in the window of a local drug store that said: PLAN B NOT SOLD HERE. (There it is above). I knew that a lot of women had encountered pharmacy refusals for this medication, but until now it didn't occur to me that this might be happening where I live in Brooklyn, NY.Plan B is the brand name for emergency contraception, (AKA: the morning after pill). Emergency contraception is a birth control pill that you can take up to 120 hours after unprotected sex.� It will help prevent a pregnancy from occurring.� It won't stop one that has already happened. That's why it isn't an abortion. So what's up with pharmacists refusing to sell a medication that could prevent ... |
| heritage foundation ignores facts on abstinence education sex_ed_blog June 11th, 2008 With a name like the Heritage Foundation and a mission: ?To formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense,? it shouldn't come as a surprise that this group also goes to bat for abstinence-only education.In April, they conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of 21 abstinence-only programs and declared:?Opponents of abstinence education contend that these programs fail to influence teen sexual behavior. At this stage, the available evidence supports neither this assessment nor the wholesale dismissal of authentic abstinence education programs.?Excuse me? I don't just "contend" that these ... |
| I heart NY feminists Feministing June 10th, 2008 I love NYC in the summer. There's always a ton of amazing feminist events going on, and it seems to have begun. This weekend kicks off with Rock for Young Women, an event to support the New York Metro Chapter of the Young Women's Task Force. Then Monday, the amazing Girls for Gender Equity will be partnering with HollaBack NYC for a post-show talk back about subway harassment after a special showing of the play Standing Clear, described as "an ensemble piece that digs deep into the personalities we commute with each day." Support and enjoy three awesome organizations in one week. If you're in the NYC area, be sure to check em out. |
| Wanderlust Meets Reproductive Justice Activists in New Orleans Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 9th, 2008 On Monday, May 26th, the Wanderlust Bicycle Caravan rolled out of NewOrleans, multicolored flags waving in the wind as passersby look on,awestruck at the sight of so many women on bikes. We wound our waythrough neighborhoods still devastated from Katrina, riding to bearwitness to the beauty and resilience of the New Orleanians who... |
| mississippi parents may soon have to tell police if their kids are having sex sex_ed_blog June 9th, 2008 Some folks in Mississippi are trying to pass legislation that would make it a crime for a minor?s caretaker not to report underage sexual activity to law enforcement officials. Mississippi would not be the first state to require reporting of teen sexual activity.But what is radical about the Mississippi law is that it would require reporting by people other than doctors and social workers. In fact, under this law, a parent who knew that her child was sexually active would be required to notify authorities. Failing to do so could get a parent charged with child abuse! The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports, ?Language in the bill?defines abuse as ?the intentional toleration of parents or caretakers of the child's sexual activity ... |
| Abstinence-only teen magazine pitched to students Feministing June 9th, 2008 Thanks to reader Kelsey for bringing this to our attention, who was introduced to a new magazine for teens, J4G (Just for Girls/Just for Guys), on a recent senior trip. The publication is described by the Human Life Alliance as "this extremely marketable, cutting edge magazine will cause your friends to want to get their own copy. The colorful graphics will catch their attention, and the thought provoking stories and facts on the inside will challenge them to change the way they think about sex outside of marriage."These "facts" are actually (and not surprisingly) tons of misinformation cloaked in teen rhetoric. One example is a advice column type section with Dr. Mary Paquette, who she contends that abortion causes infertility, breast ... |
| Lift Ev'ry Voice: Progressive Clergy Shout to Be Heard Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 4th, 2008 Since 2004, when righteous culture warriors took credit forPresident Bush's second term and for sweeping a Republican Congress back intopower, talking heads have painted moral rot as a liberal problem and the"family values" GOP as God's cleanup crew. Embracing religion - understood to be inherently conservative - was tobe... |
| A Pre-Roe Voice On Why Legal Abortion Is Crucial Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 4th, 2008 Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion - darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off. The above excerpt is from an eye-opening essay in today's New York Times by obstetrician/gynecologist and pre-Roe abortion provider Dr.... |
| EC Goes OTC in Canada Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary June 4th, 2008 Women in most parts of Canadawill soon be able to access emergency contraception over the counter. TheCanadian National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities recently decidedthat the drug known by its brand name ?Plan B? will be available to women withouthaving first to consult a pharmacist. Emergency contraception is already... |
| Teen sex up, condom use down Feministing June 4th, 2008 A new study from the CDC shows that teen sex may be creeping up, while condom use is decreasing, The Washington Post reports.The new report did not examine the reason for the trends, but experts said there could be many causes, including rising complacency about AIDS, changing attitudes about sex and pregnancy, shifts in ethnic diversity and the possibility that there will always be some teens who cannot be convinced to wait."The truth is that as a field we really don't know what the answer is," [Sarah S. Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy] said. "There are lots of theories: the economy, classroom education, the messages kids are getting in the digital world where they spend their time. They probably all ... |
| Fat Anti-Bias Campaign Our Bodies Our Blog May 8th, 2008 "In an overwhelmingly overweight nation that worships thinness, many describe prejudice against the obese as one of the last socially acceptable biases," writes Lisa Anderson at the Chicago Tribune. "Advocates for the plus-sized, particularly activists in the 'fat acceptance' movement,...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Outing the Pro-Teen Sex Agenda Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 8th, 2008 On this National Day to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy,I thought it would be a fun exercise to compare the sexual activity ofteenagers and their pregnancy rates in the most pro-choice states withthose of the most pro-life states. I used NARAL's rankingsto determine which were the best and worst states on choice. (Simply,those that... |
| Too Poor to Parent? Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary May 8th, 2008 When a recurrent plumbing problem in an upstairs unit caused raw sewage to seep into her New York City apartment, 22-year-old Lisa called social services for help. She had repeatedly asked her landlord to fix the problem, but he had been unresponsive. Now the smell was unbearable, and Lisa feared for the health and safety of her two young... |
| how can i get the pill without my mom knowing? sex_ed_blog May 8th, 2008 Question: My boyfriend and I are thinking of having sex. However, I'm scared that I might become pregnant. We can use a condom but I'm not comfortable just using that. I am planning to go on birth control, but can I get the pill without my mom knowing?Answer: Generally, yes. There is no law that requires a parent's permission for the pill or other birth control. But that doesn't mean that a doctor won't ask you for it. Nor does it mean that your confidentiality will always be respected. It's really wise to get on a reliable form of birth control. Though I don't know your family, they might actually think so too. Often parents are a lot more understanding about things like birth control than teens expect. Of course, you know your mom, and ... |
| Combating the Politicization of HIV Prevention Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - STI/HIV/AIDS Prevention April 15th, 2008 In 2006, many of the United State's major organizations leading the fight against HIV/AIDS and their international partners came together to create the Caucus for Evidence-Based Prevention. Originally started in the lead-up to the International AIDS Conference in Toronto in 2006, the Caucus was designed to highlight and defend the importance of evidence and science in determining what works best to prevent HIV infection. Now, more than 40 members of the Caucus are preparing in earnest for the 2008 International AIDS Conference in Mexico City in early August 2008. Our work is clearly cut out for us. The current politicization of HIV prevention by the US Administration and its favored groups here at home and around the globe, remain ... |
| Domestic Violence Is an RH Issue Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 15th, 2008 Living in a culture of violence has long-term effects on the ways in which we come to see ourselves, and by extension, the world around us. Globally, we are surrounded by images of violence: in forums such as the news media, folklore and in popular culture, violence has become a mainstay of our daily existence. The evidence of this came sharply... |
| crisis pregnancy centers are the crisis sex_ed_blog April 15th, 2008 I've had a lot of students over the years, but one I think about a lot is Lana. I met Lana when I was working in the Bronx and she was a very pregnant high school senior. She had the baby around graduation, but despite earlier plans to raise the child with her boyfriend, they soon broke up. Then after one too many fights with her mom, she moved in with a guy named Jason, who was more into smoking pot and watching TV than being a step-dad.Pretty soon Lana was pregnant again. She sat in my office holding her infant daughter saying, ?I can't have another baby. I just can't.?� ?What do you want to do?? I asked.� ?Abortion,? she answered.We got on the phone and made her an appointment at a Planned Parenthood center in the area. Then Lana called ... |
| State Legislative Trends: Abortion Ban Travels Across Country Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 15th, 2008 At the end of March 2008, just over 800 measures had been introduced in the 43 state legislatures that have convened so far this year. And with the legislative year in full swing, some interesting trends are emerging, largely in the wake of last year's Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart. In its most direct effect, the Court's... |
| what to do if you get carded for condoms sex_ed_blog April 15th, 2008 I know that obtaining condoms can be tricky, so sometimes I assign a ?condom hunt? as homework. For the hunt, kids are supposed to go to a few different stores and answer questions like: Where are the condoms located? How many brands do they have? Do you need to get someone to help find them? Usually the project goes off smoothly, but I have had the occasional kid who was unable to complete the assignment because a clerk refused to sell her condoms.Apparently, this happens more than you might think. A poll on the Teenwire.com website found that 10% of their readers had been carded for condoms!This is totally out of line--it?s legal for minors in all 50 states to buy condoms. That's because of a 1977 Supreme Court case, Carey v. Population ... |
| Love is a verb. Superlove is a movement. Feministing April 15th, 2008 We followed a line of women (and a few scattered men) into the Superdome early Friday morning. After being thoroughly searched and promising never to turn on our video camera, we were allowed admittance. The entrance was decorated with a selection of feminist art pieces such as poster board sized pages of a graphic novel entitled, ?Oh fuck, I?m a Victim.? In it, artist Vicki Rabinowicz depicts a woman who is followed, kidnapped, and raped. In one frame, she is drawn small enough to fit in her attacker?s hand as he masturbates onto her entire body then flushes her down the toilet. At the end of the strip we discover that the victim is the artist and that she drew this on her 28th birthday, tens years after the attack. Not all of the pieces ... |
| On feminist blogging, community and privilege Feministing April 15th, 2008 All of us at Feministing have been following the heated discussion happening in the feminist blogosphere right now about issues of race and privilege. (We're not going to summarize, but here is some suggested reading. ) We want to say up front that Brownfemipower's voice will be greatly missed. We also want to say that, yes, there is a history of white women (and white feminists) appropriating the ideas of women of color. It's a problem that persists today. That doesn't make Amanda a plagiarist, and we don't believe she is.And that's all were gonna say about the specifics. Not only because we don't want this to get too blog-insidery, but also because many brave bloggers have forayed into this territory before, and the discussion doesn't ... |
| More Evidence on Abstinence-Only vs. Comprehensive Sex Education Our Bodies Our Blog April 8th, 2008 A recent study in the Journal of Adolescent Health reports on a survey of about 1700 teens (ages 15-19) who completed the National Survey of Family Growth. They were asked about whether they received any formal sex education before initiating...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| The Never-Ending Juggling Act Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary April 8th, 2008 I know a young woman who is struggling to stay in high school. She is 16 years old, the mother of a one-year-old child and at risk of becoming one of the thousands of women who will drop out of high school this year.When the news reported the findings of a study by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center that only 70% of American... |
| fun fact: there was a time when adult women had pubic hair! sex_ed_blog April 8th, 2008 Maybe it was different for other kids, but when I was in high school, most girls seemed to limit any worrying about pubic hair to the bikini line. The notion that you should take it all off, or even spend a lot of time grooming, just wasn?t part of the general consciousness. In fact, while changing for gym one day, a bunch of us noticed that Julie (a girl who alternately boasted her sexual conquests and lamented them) had no pubic hair. She did, however, have a nasty razor burn. Not being masters of discretion, a bunch of us needled her for information. ?Yeah,? she admitted, ?I shaved off my pubic hair to keep me from sleeping with anyone else. At least until it grows back.? Her idea was this: Guys would think it was weird that she was ... |
| "I was raped" shirt: Awareness-raising or divisive? Feministing April 8th, 2008 Feminist Jennifer Baumgardner - who created the controversial "I had an abortion" shirt several years ago - has just released a new shirt as part of a rape-awareness project.Abortion and rape are subjects that are secreted away and are also surprisingly common, Ms. Baumgardner said. One in six women is a victim of sexual assault, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a nonprofit sexual assault prevention and education group. According to the Department of Justice, 60 percent of sexual assaults go unreported.As she has been interviewing women for a film she is making about sexual assault, Ms. Baumgardner has heard women describing the usual reasons why they frequently don?t report rapes ? shame, humiliation, fear that ... |
| Trusting Teenagers Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 27th, 2008 Ah, teenagers. Every single person who makes public policy was one once, but the deep irony of our nation's attitude towards the entire adolescent age group is that we treat them like a strange species, and we have ever since rock 'n' roll and the baby boom created the teen as we know her. American culture somehow can't grasp... |
| what's a judicial bypass (and how do you get one?) sex_ed_blog March 27th, 2008 What would you do if you got pregnant and decided you needed an abortion? Whether or not the law required it, if you?re like 60% of pregnant teens, you would probably talk to one of your parents. If you?re in the other 40%, it?s likely that you have a pretty good reason for not wanting to tell them. That can be tricky for girls who live in the 34 states that require some parental involvement for minors to get abortions. But tricky doesn?t mean impossible. That?s because in most states girls have the option of getting something called a judicial bypass.A judicial bypass is a process where a judge can overrule parental involvement laws by saying that a girl is mature enough to decide she can have an abortion on her own. The specific steps ... |
| three more states reject abstinence-only funding (it's a good thing) sex_ed_blog March 27th, 2008 In January, New Mexico became the 15th state to reject the government?s abstinence-only money. Later that month, Arizona became the 16th. In late February, Iowa brought that number to 17 with its rejection!That?s pretty exciting considering that in 1998, (the first year this money was offered), only California declined it. At the beginning of last year, only eight states had turned it down. This decision by Iowa, Arizona and New Mexico means that the number of states to say no to abstinence-only funding has more than doubled in one year?s time.So what are all these states rejecting? Basically, they're rejecting money to teach the government?s own personal set of values about sex. This has been wrapped up in a package called ?abstinence ... |
| Thank You Thursdays: Women in Hip Hop Feministing March 27th, 2008 As anyone who listens to the music knows, it tends to be a man's game, but there are a few brave women who have shown that MC-ing isn't sex-linked to the Y-chromosome. In my book I talk about the negative affects of growing up listening to a music that essentially told me: "Your role in the music of your generation is as eye candy, the cute girl at the party who gets freestyled about [thanks Che DeLeon], not the one who does the freestyling. Your body is your voice." There were some spit-kickin' women, and more to come, who give young women a different message, that they have every right to make their voices and lyrics and stories heard within hip hop communities. Big ups to Jill Scott, Bahamadia, Jean Graye, Lauren Hill, Queen Latifah, ... |
| Teen Sexual Health Crisis: What Parents Can Do |
| Politician changes his name to "pro-life" Feministing March 25th, 2008 Oh those wacky anti-choicers!A Senate candidate has legally changed his name to Pro-Life and will appear on the ballot that way this year, state election officials say.As Marvin Pro-Life Richardson, the organic strawberry farmer from Letha, 30 miles northwest of Boise, was denied the use of his middle name when he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006 because the state's policy bars the use of slogans on the ballot.Now, though, officials in the Idaho secretary of state's office say they have no choice because Pro-Life is his full and only name. He says he will run for the highest state office on the ballot every two years for the rest of his life, advocating murder charges for doctors who perform abortions and for women who obtain the ... |
| Native women's shelter loses lease Feministing March 25th, 2008 Via Celina's new blog, Ojibway Migisi Bineshii, the Rapid City Journal reports:A small shelter offering a temporary haven for Native American women seeking to escape domestic violence has just six weeks to find a new Rapid City home."We're just kind of shell-shocked," Karen Artichoker, manager of Cangleska, said.Cangleska's Ohitika Najin Win Oti (Standing Strong Woman) shelter has lost the lease on the home it has used as a shelter for the past seven years. [...]The shelter's original intent was to provide transitional housing for women leaving the reservation for their own safety, Artichoker said.Over the years, a growing number of local Native American women have sought refuge in the shelter. The average stay for a mother and her ... |
| Got Plan B? Essay Contest for Young Women! Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 25th, 2008 Are you between the ages of 14 and 24 years old? Do you know someone who is? Pass it on: Pharmacy Access Partnership and RH Reality Check are pleased to announce our essay contest, open to young people 14-24 years of age. The theme? "Got Plan B? Why access to Plan B emergency contraception is important." The winning opinion piece... |
| Silenced in a Sex Obsessed Culture Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 25th, 2008 Spring fever has sprung! Just as a sobering CDC study report breaks that one in four American teen girls has a sexually transmitted disease, crime-busting Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigns for itching an eighty-grand, reportedly condom-free prostitution habit. Instantly the scandal storm blows bigger and more bizarre as New York's new governor holds... |
| abuse: another reason teen girls are getting pregnant sex_ed_blog March 25th, 2008 For a number of years, I worked with teens in the Bronx. One of these was a girl named Gina. When I met Gina, she was a very pregnant high school junior. By the time I left the job she was the mother to two children. She was also missing a front tooth, thanks to Rich, father of the second. This guy, like the majority of men who father teens' babies, was a whole lot older than Gina. When Gina told me that she was pregnant again, I asked what she wanted to do. ?Well,? she said. ?I was thinking I?d get an abortion. But Rich said he?d kill me if I did.? When I tried to prod in true teacher fashion (How did this happen? Why didn?t you use a condom or take EC?), it slowly came out that the pregnancy wasn?t an accident. Gina?s boyfriend had ... |
| Bill Clinton Gets Riled Up About Abortion Our Bodies Our Blog March 4th, 2008 At a campaign event in Steubenville, OH on Sunday, Bill Clinton was campaigning for Senator Clinton and was heckled by anti-choice students from the religious Franciscan University of Steubenville. Clinton responded thusly: "We disagree with you. You want to criminalize...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Iowa Teens Make Case for Comprehensive Sex Ed Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 4th, 2008 It isn't unusual for Iowa high school students Stacey Hoch and Venessa McDole, both peer advisors, to speak with their classmates about sensitive subjects. Thursday morning, however, they took their advocacy one step further by speaking in front of policymakers at a meeting hosted in Des Moines by FutureNet, an Iowa network for adolescent... |
| Americans and the Caribbean HIV Explosion Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 4th, 2008 For both self-protection and for humanitarian reasons, Americans should be seriously concerned about the explosion of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. The Caribbean region is the second worst HIV/AIDS affected regions in the world, after sub Saharan Africa. Poverty, gender inequalities and a high degree of HIV-related stigma have caused a festering of... |
| Expanding the Scope of Disease Prevention Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 4th, 2008 Susan Cohen explains how reducing unwanted pregnancy can reduce HIV transmission, ex-gay ministries get exposed as deceitful, abstinence-only both misinforms and spreads sexist stereotypes, and Pat Buchanan tries to wave away women in politics. �Links in this Episode:Guttmacher Study: Contraception Critical to HIV PreventionHuckabee... |
| Minimums Matter: RH Access in New York Jails Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary March 4th, 2008 An innovative New York study sheds new light on the little-known world of health care policy in jails, and confirms a major concern of prisoners, their loved ones, and their advocates - that access to health care depends entirely on where someone happens to be arrested and jailed, even within a single state.The report, issued March 4 by the New... |
| abuse: another reason teen girls are getting pregnant sex_ed_blog March 4th, 2008 For a number of years, I worked with teens in the Bronx. One of these was a girl named Gina. When I met Gina, she was a very pregnant high school junior. By the time I left the job she was the mother to two children. She was also missing a front tooth, thanks to Rich, father of the second. This guy, like the majority of men who father teens' babies, was a whole lot older than Gina. When Gina told me that she was pregnant again, I asked what she wanted to do. ?Well,? she said. ?I was thinking I?d get an abortion. But Rich said he?d kill me if I did.? When I tried to prod in true teacher fashion (How did this happen? Why didn?t you use a condom or take EC?), it slowly came out that the pregnancy wasn?t an accident. Gina?s boyfriend had ... |
| 2007 State Legislative Trends in RH Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 26th, 2008 Over the course of 2007, legislators in the 50 states considered more than 1,000 proposals concerning reproductive health and rights. These proposals resulted in 88 new laws in 38 states. While legislative activity about abortion was split between provisions to restrict or protect abortion rights, most of the activity around contraception and... |
| Improving PEPFAR Means Ignoring Tony Perkins Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 26th, 2008 Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says if the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) isn't broken, we shouldn't fix it. Perkins wants Congress to ignore mountains of evidence that suggest the program should be improved. He's also hiding the far-right's anti-contraception agenda behind yet another trumped... |
| does age make a difference when it comes to having sex? sex_ed_blog February 26th, 2008 I've known my fair share of people who had sex young. Most of them, however, didn't end up depressed, addicted to drugs or the parent to a three-year-old before finishing high school. Does that mean all of their early experiences were positive and healthy? Of course not. But neither, as a rule, were the experiences of people who waited until they were older to have sex. Many of those who waited still "forgot" to use condoms. They were still heartbroken when the person they were crazy about blew them off. They still felt pressured into doing things before they were ready. This is not to say that any of those things are the inevitable outcome of becoming sexually active. But it also isn't to say that age is everything. Self confidence, self ... |
| Giving Our Daughters the Future They Deserve Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 17th, 2008 Putting aside the politics of teen pregnancy, what does it represent to families? I think most parents (at least those like me who live in affluent countries or are in the upper echelons of other nations) would say we wouldn't wish it for our daughters first and foremost because it represents the loss of innocence, of youthful naivet�. By that I don't mean the kind of ignorance that leads people to trust scams, but that wonderful hopefulness that makes young people dream of being astronauts, artists or peacemakers (all the hopes I cherish for my daughter) -- the kind of naivet� that allows you to fall madly in love the first time because the inevitable heartbreak is impossible to imagine. While none of us enjoys standing by during ... |
| Abstinence-only: Decidedly not awesome for young women Feministing February 17th, 2008 Legal Momentum has a huge new report (PDF), Sex, Lies and Stereotypes, on how abstinence-only education is especially harmful to young women and girls. (It's also a great primer on abstinence-only in general.) It makes a strong case for why, even though these programs are bad for both male and female students, there's a disproportionate impact on girls: Females disproportionately suffer the consequences of unprotected sexual activity, including STIs and unplanned pregnancies. These programs also often contain harmful and outdated gender stereotypes that cast women as the gatekeepers of aggressive male sexuality. [...] For women of color, the absence of accurate sexual health information is particularly damaging given the high rates of HIV ... |
| Men Can Help Prevent Unintended Pregnancy, Too Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary February 12th, 2008 Finding himself faced with his partner's unplanned pregnancy, today's man may well be confronted for the first time with a situation in which his opinions and beliefs carry less weight than those of his female partner. In absence of a critical day-to-day assessment of their gender-based privilege and power, privileged men rarely find... |
| HPV vaccine doesn't make a pelvic exam pass� sex_ed_blog February 12th, 2008 A few years ago, I was reading the New York Times. I noticed a piece about trials for a Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine. The article explained that the vaccine could prevent both cervical cancer and genital warts, which are caused by different types of HPV. I got really excited and sent the link to some of my friends. "Woo hoo!" I wrote. "Finally, a story about this stuff that doesn't make me want to barf!" It wasn't eloquent, but hearing the news got me more energized than literary. I'm still excited that this aspect of women's' reproductive health got top billing from vaccine makers. But now that the HPV vaccine has moved out of the trial period and into the bodies of young women, I have a concern. Will getting vaccinated stop girls ... |
| Just the Facts: Immigration and Reproductive Justice Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - STI/HIV/AIDS Prevention February 7th, 2008 Over the summer, the 110th Congress failed to push through flawed, yet essential legislation that would have moved the immigration debate forward. Despite this setback, comprehensive immigration reform will continue to be a key issue throughout future election seasons and legislative sessions.Immigration is a multifaceted issue, but one component that should not be overlooked as progressives continue to work on this issue is the reproductive health of immigrant women. About 36 million foreign-born people live in the United States as of 2005--12 percent of the U.S. population. Over half of these immigrants are from Latin America, just under one-third are from Asia, 14 percent are from Europe, and the remaining 6 percent are from Africa, ... |
| The Third Rail: Reproductive Health Needs of Immigrant Women Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Contraception February 7th, 2008 Gloria Steinem's recent New Yor Times op-ed, "Women Are Never Front-Runners," got one thing right: feminism is absent from the 2008 presidential debates. What it means to be a woman and what we contribute to this country has been lost in the recent political discourse. What we as women of color and immigrant women contribute is not even close to entering into the conversation--not to mention the absence of meaningful discussion about our broken immigration system. Instead, how we can fix our immigration system has been skirted around or, even worse, used as a wedge issue. A meaningful discussion about how women are impacted by policies other than those that are considered just "women's issues," is long overdue, most simply because ... |
| Activists By Chance Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education February 5th, 2008 At the end of 2006, musician Damian Montagu and filmmaker Christian Banfield took a spontaneous trip to Cape Verde. "We didn't really know what we were doing. We just both loved Caesaria Evora's music, and thought we could maybe meet up with local musicians," Damian explains. On their first morning on the island of Mindelo, the two sat on their hotel veranda, not really believing that a spontaneous idea in a pub in London had actually got them to Cape Verde, and not really sure what to do next. As they drank their coffee and considered their options, a procession of school children and musicians danced by on the street below. It was December 1, and the procession was a World AIDS Day event. "It was one of those moments," ... |
| Bush Budget Slashes Women's Health Funding Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - STI/HIV/AIDS Prevention February 5th, 2008 Wow. Just wow. You wouldn't think President Bush would be working at this point to make his reign-of-disaster even worse.He's only got a few months left and we're all consumed with those darn campaigns so maybe he thinks no one is watching? It's not enough though, to rest on his destructive laurels. It's like some kind of withdrawal process for him (though not the kind progressives have been hoping for); wait too long between the slashing of taxpayer funded services for those who desperately need them and he starts twitching and shaking. President Bush released his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2009 today and guess what? Funding for international family planning and other sexual and reproductive health programs is cut ... |
| Bush Budget Slashes Women's Health Funding Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Contraception February 5th, 2008 Wow. Just wow. You wouldn't think President Bush would be working at this point to make his reign-of-disaster even worse.He's only got a few months left and we're all consumed with those darn campaigns so maybe he thinks no one is watching? It's not enough though, to rest on his destructive laurels. It's like some kind of withdrawal process for him (though not the kind progressives have been hoping for); wait too long between the slashing of taxpayer funded services for those who desperately need them and he starts twitching and shaking. President Bush released his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2009 today and guess what? Funding for international family planning and other sexual and reproductive health programs is cut ... |
| Double Dose: The Pill and Its Studies; Genital Pain is Taken Seriously; When the Sex of Your Surgeon Matters; Tracking Global and U.S. Gender-Based Violence Our Bodies Our Blog February 5th, 2008 The Pill's Long-Running Health Saga: "Last week, British researchers published decisively good news about birth control pills: They lower the risk of ovarian cancer -- substantially," writes Amanda Schaffer at Slate. "The new analysis pooled large amounts of data. It...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| Comprehensive Sex Education in Illinois Not All That Our Bodies Our Blog February 5th, 2008 One-third of all sex education teachers in Illinois are not providing comprehensive instruction, according to a new study. The survey by researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center appears in the February 2008 issue of the journal Obstetrics and...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!] |
| making teen sex a crime: another great way to ensure pregnancies and infections sex_ed_blog February 5th, 2008 Apparently, I wasn't the only one whose interest was piqued by a Maine middle school's decision to offer birth control to its students. Soon after the story broke, so did another piece of news. Maine will now start enforcing a little known law that requires people like doctors and teachers to report sexual activity of teens under 14 to the state's attorney general. That such a requirement even existed came as a pretty big shock to a lot of folks. All states have statutory rape laws. These usually make it a crime for someone over the age of consent to have sex with someone under it. Most states don't use these laws to make it illegal for teens to have sex with kids the same age. But some, like Maine, do. Texas, Kansas and Indiana also have ... |
| do you know your HIV status? sex_ed_blog February 5th, 2008 I've had a few HIV tests in my time, but I've never gotten totally used to them. My first test was when I was in 12th grade. Terrified of what I would hear, I never went back for the results. The second was a few months later. I was living abroad and was on a program that required an HIV test. When an envelope from the lab arrived almost a month later, I refused to look inside and instead handed it to my roommate. Then I held my breath as she read the word "negative." A few years after that, I got tested at a clinic which promised results in 20 minutes. On the bus ride there, I glanced out the window and saw the word "AIDS" glaring at me in huge red letters. I was convinced it was a sign--and not a good one. But like the previous results, ... |
| Blogging for choice : The business of outsourcing choice culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily January 24th, 2008 Today is January 22nd, 2008 and women across the United States will observe it as the 35 anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Many of them will even be blogging about how the right to choose is so important to them. Others will spend the day condemning it. Which just brings me to the topic of birthing. It seems like there is a baby boom in Hollywood. Everybody and their mother is pregnant. There is so much baby booming that it led Ricki Lake to make a documentary about the whole thing. In The Business of Being Born, Lake goes on to document the way women in the United States go about birthing babies and reveal it for what it is, a business. As an advocate for midwifery and non-invasive birthing, Lake hopes "this film educates people and empowers ... |
| What if it was YOUR kids? culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily January 24th, 2008 "If 28 percent of the white male population were in prison, I kind of think we'd be doing something about it." — Stacy Peralta, director of "Made in America" in an interview with Salon.com |
| Meet EMERJ: Expanding the movement for Empowerment and Reproductive Justice Feministing January 24th, 2008 In all the Blog for Choice hoopla yesterday, I forgot to post about this amazing new group, EMERJ. A national movement building initiative founded in January 2007 by a group of reproductive justice leaders, EMERJ seeks to grow and strengthen the reproductive justice movement. Hear what I'm telling you folks, this group is at the cutting edge of the activism being done for reproductive justice. These are the people doing the work, these are the people that you will start to hear a lot more about. So check them out.Moira Bowman, the Movement Building Director at EMERJ, had this to add about yesterday's anniversary: The anniversary of Roe is a time to celebrate that fact that abortion is still legal and the amazing efforts that have been ... |
| Must We Fear Adolescent Sexuality? Feministing January 24th, 2008 Girl with Pen has a fascinating guest post by sociologist Virginia Rutter on Juno and love. Anyone obsessed with the movie (which seems to be just about everybody, including Ms. Oprah, these days), should check it out. Be sure not to miss one of the links later on to an academic article called "Must We Fear Adolescent Sexuality?" by Dr. Amy Schalet. It is a cross-cultural study of parental attitudes towards teen sexuality in the United States (where adolescent sexuality is an evergreen hot button issues) and the Netherlands (where anxiety around adolescent sexuality is nill). She essentially asks: how is it that two countries similar in terms of wealth, education, and reproductive technologies have had the highest and lowest rates of teen ... |
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Equality Ride 2010 Call for Applicants!
Amplify Featured Diaries Image Credit: Soulforce, Taueret Manu, an Equality Rider from the Bronx, prepares literature for the stop at Liberty UniversityThe 2010 Equality Ride is hitting the road and it's seeking young adults ages 18-28 to be Riders!What is the Equality Ride?The equality ride is a traveling forum that gives young people a chance to deconstruct justice and allows emerging young leaders to unite in the struggle for common equality. According to the Association for Women's Rights and Development, "Everyday thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning people suffer harassment, violence, and discrimination at the hands of those who do not understand them. The idea is this. We get on a bus and journey to various institutions ... |
| Queering the 2010 Census Feministing This is a campaign from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to advocate for an additional question on the 2010 census that would allow for better reporting on the number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the US. There was already one victory for the LGBT community this past year, when the it was announced that married LGBT couples would be counted in the 2010 census. But this only counts LGBT folks who are partnered--single folks are left totally off the census, which is the biggest source of data collection researchers and government officials have. That's why NGLTF is calling for an additional question on the survey, which would allow folks to categorize themselves based on sexual orientation.You can sign their ... |
| Huge earthquake hits Haiti Feministing Yesterday evening, a magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti, a small island nation in the Caribbean. While exact reports of the damage are still to come, it sounds like a horrific situation for a country where almost 9 million of it's citizens are already living in poverty. Many buildings in the capital where demolished in the earthquake, including the UN Headquarters there. MSNBC has more details about the disaster and Talking Points Memo has constant updates on this site. White House officials have said sending money is the easiest way to help folks in Haiti (via TPM). If you want to donate money you can go to UNICEF or the Red Cross. UPDATE: Also, via the US State Department: "For those interesting in helping immediately, simply text "HAITI" ... |