feminist blogs

My girlfriend is a big fan of Hillary (Clinton, of course). My roommate is less of a fan, but a bigger one than I am. Sometimes they gang up on me a bit.

The gf thinks that Hillary should be the democratic nominee in 2008 and that she'd win. I'm a bit more skeptical. Will a woman really be able to pull enough many middle of the road voters? And aren't a lot of republicans still bitter towards the Clintons? (Not that they wouldn't hate anyone the democrats put forth.) But the gf insists that people like the Clintons and that as a woman she can pull in a lot of them middle of the road female voters.

All I know is that I keep getting surveys in the mail from Hillary and these surveys always ask the same stupid questions. I threatened to send the survey back with the comments: "Even if I gave you my opinion you wouldn't make any use of it anyway because it's too liberal for you. Of course, I'm guessing the real reason you send out these surveys is to try to convince middle of the road types and I'm not one of them, so save your stamp. If you win the nomination I'll vote for you, of course, and maybe even campaign for you or something. But I'd do the same for any democratic (i.e. the lesser of the evils) candidate." But alas, gf and roomie told me not to.

There is one sense in which I would be excited for Hillary to run--there's a great song just waiting to be her campaign's them song. Anybody heard "Hillary's Eyebrows" by Phranc? Here's some of the lyrics:

Hillary's eyebrows aren't the same color as the hair on her head
But that's okay, I'd rather have a new...health plan instead
And it's alright with me
If her eyebrows don't match perfectly
.
.
.
Cuz when they're furrowed, when they're arched
They can't help but give me a spark
Of hope that someday I will be
Half as smart as...Hillary


I can see it now, bumperstickers saying Clinton '08 with two big bushy eyebrows over the 0 and 8 !!!!

Has marriage been defined by history, culture and tradition since the dawn of Western civilization, or is it an evolving social institution that should change with the times?

Consider:
-Property rights for married women
-Credit rights for married women
-Interracial marriage
-The decline of child marriage
-States — not just religions — offering marriage rights
-Marriage for love instead of simple economic stability
-Choosing your own partner in marriage
-Wider acceptance of pre-marital sex
-Child-free-by-choice marriages
-Divorce

Now, would we say that marriage has evolved, or that it’s remained a stagnant, steady institution since the dawn of Western civilization?

The highest court in New York is reviewing this very question. I think anyone who is intellectually honest — or anyone who has any sense of history — will come down on the side of marriage as an evolving institution.

The arguments that the attorneys are making against same-sex marriage are incredibly weak:

Peter H. Schiff, senior counsel to the state attorney general, said there was no urgent need to change the law, and pointed out that same-sex couples accounted for only 1.3 percent of all households in New York State, a “very small” number.

“I don’t think anybody 100 years ago was thinking about this issue,” Mr. Schiff said. “It wasn’t on the radar screen.”

But the “it only applies to a few people” argument isn’t a good justification for denying basic rights to a group. Try again.

In yesterday’s hearing, the New York City plaintiffs were joined by three other groups of plaintiffs from across the state. New York City’s lawyer, Leonard Koerner, said yesterday that even in its own case law, the Court of Appeals had affirmed the reason for marriage as “the begetting of offspring,” not, as the plaintiffs argued, as the sanctioning of a loving and committed union between two people.

Except that we let infertile people get married, and the right of married people to prevent conception was affirmed in a Supreme Court case. How, then, can we say that the very purpose of marriage is to have children?

And even if we do agree that the marital unit is the best place to have and raise children, what about all those same-sex couples who are parents?

Let’s hope that the New York court comes down on the side of equal rights.

It’s about time.

Thanks to Anne for the link.

As promised, here’s the first part of a little series of posts on prostitution.

Back in The Thread That Won’t Die, I explained here and here what I have in mind:

First of all, I’m going to start a new post in a couple of days, or rather series of posts, to compare approaches to prostitution. I think a series because we need to distinguish between radically different situations — imprisoned sex slaves in Thailand versus Cicely’s lesbian friends, to take one extreme…The reason being that most debates revolve around the big Theory of Prostitution, with people arguing the same point using references to completely different situations. Hence anybody can prove anything. My idea is to take an atomic approach for a change. That might allow us to work back up to a Big Picture analysis, but one that hopefully is more informed by an appreciation of the diverse circumstances involved.

As a first case study, let’s talk about Thailand. I don’t suppose we’re going to come up with the magic bullet solution, but I’m interested in comparing how pro- and anti-prostitution feminists approach the problem.

Modern-day prostitution in Thailand seems to be essentially a continuation of that country’s age-old practice of female sex slavery. Before slavery was outlawed in the 19th century, low-class and “surplus” women were routinely sold as slave-wives. When slavery was abolished, the slave-wives transmuted into prostitutes.

Young girls are kidnapped in the rural villages or sold by their families as sex slaves; once they are imprisoned in brothels they are beaten, raped, physically prevented from leaving, and burdened with debt slavery so that the girls owe their owners for their food, medicine, and their own purchase price.

Foreign women are increasingly trafficked into Thai brothels as well, almost always under false pretenses (the women being told that they are going to jobs as waitresses, etc.).

Prostitution is almost universally engaged in by Thai men and has been for centuries, though the American military presence seems to have clearly contributed to Thailand’s modern emergence as a sex destination for foreigners.

Prostitution has been technically illegal in Thailand for the past few decades, though it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Child prostitution and slave trafficking are also illegal, and again, it makes no difference. The Thai government is interested now in re-legalizing the sex industry, undoubtedly tempted by the enormous potential tax revenues.

Legalization advocates argue that legalizing adult prostitution would give the prostitutes workers’ rights, labor protection, and so forth. I am frankly skeptical of this because what we’re looking at is a form of sex slavery that’s been going on for centuries and which has endured through various forms of legality and illegality. It is abundantly evident that Thai men — and the male-dominated Thai power structure — are not the slightest bit interested in the rights of female sex workers.

By the same token, this indifference also suggest the reason that anti-prostitution laws (both adult and child) and anti-trafficking laws have no effect.

But, I’m no expert on Thailand. And my little post here is not intended as an exhaustive description of the problem, since I’m sure we’ll flesh that out in the comments.

What I’ve read over the past few days has left me frankly depressed and feeling rather hopeless. The only thing I’m sure of is that Thai law needs to be adjusted so that the none of the women who are trafficked or enslaved are themselves liable to criminal prosecution. These people are victims, not criminals. It’s obscene and infuriating for these women — beaten, raped, and enslaved — to be treated like they’re the ones who have committed a crime.

Here are links to some of the material I’ve read on Thailand:

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Factbook: Thailand

A Modern Form of Slavery: Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand — Asia Watch/Human Rights Watch

Prostitution in Thailand: What’s the Solution?

I've learned today that a shared parenting bill has failed in Tennessee. The bill's sponsor pulled it the day before it was due to be heard. I read about this on a men's rights mailing list, and as usual, the guy who posted about it was livid. He complained that the bill was yanked because of "the Feminist and their supporters." The fathers' rights activist complained that the bill was originally held by the Joint Commission of Children and Families because it believed that shared parenting would cause problems for the custodial mother. I haven't read the bill, nor do I have knowledge of the workings of the Commission for Children and Families, so I don't know if that's what they really said, or if this guy is just speaking through his fathers' rights filter that blames custodial moms for everything. Of course, the fathers' rights activist said what the Commission did was "bull".

The guy also had to throw in false allegations, of course. Fathers' rights activists always do that. He whined that charges should be "filed upon those women who file false allegations, just to discredit the father and to destroy his chances of gaining anything other than visitation in court." That makes me wonder if his ex had filed abuse allegations against him. These guys usually complain about the very things they do all the time.

So, that make Tennessee and New York that have recently rejected shared parenting. That's good news. "Shared parenting" is fathers' rights-speak for "having control of the ex through the kids" as well as a means for the guys to avoid paying child support.

Reader Mary Claire has given me permission to share this response to my recent post so we can discuss some of the issues she raises. This is an emotional topic for many people, so if my responses seem a little clinical, it’s only because I’m trying to reason my way through a subject that has more to do with instinct and compulsion than reason. I take her response very seriously, even when I disagree.

She writes:

I think that I don't want to go in front of the judge for my rape case(for instance), his having reading himself to sleep over playboy or any other light or heavy porn and then facing me in the courtroom the next morning. He could well be wondering perhaps just what my vagina looked like instead of the real issues at hand, having so recently experienced a large dose of 'girlie as object' and vaginas to peek into. I don't like the idea of objectification that girlie magazines promote. I'm very uncomfortable seeing such magazines in the back pockets of guys on the street. I had a husband once, who could not understand my not accepting porn. He maintained he was just looking, what's wrong with that? He seemed to think it was a place to learn. Men do rely on the girlie zines to learn. Isn't that sad. It used to be sacred and men were blessed with the knowledge of pleasing. It's key to why some want to see women together. they (some/many) don't have a clue, nor care and think that that other woman will give them insight

Why on earth would marketing some people simulating non-consensual sex be any more ok than non-consensual sex? wouldn't that be make-a-believe rape? kind of reinforcing 'no' means 'yes' mentality. i don't get it. pretending to be having sex against your will for entertainment? to me that's very close to pretending to be beaten or choked or fucked by a bottle and calling it ok, because it is consensual. porn is usually consensual. for a buck, for the drug, for a high. You said pictures of this. You may as well go all the way and have pictures of all kinds of pretence and as long as it is pretense, it is ok. Answers to all this are big big big and I'm not going to sleep well tonight.

I have a child in my life that grabbed his librarian by the ass. he was a sixth grader. That was a sexual overture. A sixth grader! Some of his family members were alarmed that he got charged as a juvenile sex offender. She wore short skirts and asked for that kind of behavior. You are way beyond the times and i love you for that . . . but personally I get so confused over the sex stuff. . . accept my comments (for this is the first time I've participated) with a granny grain of salt. I'm wanting to be of the mind 'do your thing as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, but where have we gotten to that sex needs to be anything but loving, and fun? What's loving and fun about pretending to be having sex against your will? Where have we come from to need whips and make believe chains to have loving and fun sex? fantasy. I believe that the fantasy sex is a an addiction that needs more and more and more and i don't trust where that takes members of our society. What's the beef with real and loving and fun sex? Loving and fun sex doesn't need to be a something to protect your children from having knowledge of.
I'm starting to rant. sorry.



love and blessings,

mary claire

I understand the emotion behind the example of a Judge in a rape case, but it is emotion and not based in the realities of the world we live in. The existence of pornography doesn’t cause sexual obsession any more than the lack of it would preclude a Judge focusing on the wrong things. We all hope that a Judge would have an appropriate sense of gravity in a criminal case. We live in a world where this doesn’t always happen. Judges and public defenders in Texas have been known to fall asleep during capital murder cases in which innocent people may have been executed. There are many factors that might prejudice a judge in a rape case, including religious background, patriarchal conditioning, misogyny and the old “boys will be boys” attitude that is pervasive in patriarchal institutions. Pornography is the least of my worries in that respect.

I had a husband once, who could not understand my not accepting porn. He maintained he was just looking, what's wrong with that?

I know that some women feel this way, but I have to admit that I don’t understand it. My partners and I always enjoyed porn together. If anything, I liked more extreme stuff than they did. (I always seemed to attract guys who were more conservative than I.) I don’t find it threatening, and most of it is so dumb I can’ take it seriously.

He seemed to think it was a place to learn. Men do rely on the girlie zines to learn. Isn't that sad.

That’s really sad. Unfortunately, it’s the logical result of our erotophobic culture. Women are raised to be inhibited (though that’s changing, thank Goddess,) and politicians and preachers benefit from keeping people repressed. I think it’s pretty pathetic that most people know so little about sex, and have so many inhibitions. We’ll never be a healthy society until American moves past its sexual adolescence.

It used to be sacred and men were blessed with the knowledge of pleasing. It's key to why some want to see women together. they (some/many) don't have a clue, nor care and think that that other woman will give them insight.

When? That’s the way sex should be, but it never existed in the culture at large after the advent of patriarchy. Men want to see women together because they’re homophobic. There’s no guy there to make him feel threatened. I’m part of a subculture of women who like seeing two men together, primarily because women are conditioned to compete with each other. Instead of being distracted by how we measure up to the girl on the screen, we can focus on the sex. Men can enjoy the sex without risk of having an uncomfortable reaction to the guy. Americans need a whole new kind of sex education, and I feel it’s more productive to work toward creating that than to expend energy in trying to control media – prohibition only benefits criminals. With out Prohibition, there would have been no Al Capone. Legalize pot, and 1 in 7 adults will no longer be incarcerated. Make sex a healthy normal part of life and there’s less need for artificial outlets.

Why on earth would marketing some people simulating non-consensual sex be any more ok than non-consensual sex?

Because no one is being harmed in the simulation.

Wouldn't that be make-a-believe rape? kind of reinforcing 'no' means 'yes' mentality. i don't get it. pretending to be having sex against your will for entertainment? to me that's very close to pretending to be beaten or choked or fucked by a bottle and calling it ok, because it is consensual. porn is usually consensual. for a buck, for the drug, for a high. You said pictures of this. You may as well go all the way and have pictures of all kinds of pretence and as long as it is pretense, it is ok. Answers to all this are big big big and I'm not going to sleep well tonight.

I’m not sure why you’re going to lose sleep over this, but let’s look at the “high” you are talking about. Healthy people enjoy an endorphin rush, but unhealthy people can become addicted to sex just as they can anything else. There are people who pretend all the things you listed and more. There are people who pay others to simulated those things for them. I have a good friend who worked as a dominatrix for years. I would much rather have her clients go to a sex worker than to keep their obsessions bottled up, because that kind of compulsion demands expression. Better to do it in a controlled environment. I’d love to live in a culture that doesn’t produce people with sado-masochistic tendencies, but I don’t. Pretending that doesn’t exist and suppressing access to materials or situations that allow those tendencies to be assuaged is only going to create more violent acting out. That would be like taking a pill to mask pain while allowing a tumor to continue to grow. It might make you feel good in the moment, but you’re going to deal with worse later on. We have to deal realistically with the bad imprints that exist while we create an environment that stops producing them.

I have a child in my life that grabbed his librarian by the ass. he was a sixth grader. That was a sexual overture. A sixth grader! Some of his family members were alarmed that he got charged as a juvenile sex offender. She wore short skirts and asked for that kind of behavior.

So you have an abused or neglected 12- 13 year old acting out in a sexual way. My question is – is he in counseling? Have the parents been censured for allowing a child in their care to be exposed to information or activities not appropriate for a child his age? Have they been taught to do better? Bad parenting is a symptom of the larger problem we are talking about. People can’t tell the difference in censorship and parenting, or an overture and an assault. I don’t think children should be exposed to sexual content of any kind. Children should be taught to respect their fellow human beings. Do that when they’re young, and the debate we’re having becomes moot.

You are way beyond the times and i love you for that . . . but personally I get so confused over the sex stuff. . . accept my comments (for this is the first time I've participated) with a granny grain of salt.

Thank you for your kind words. I know that people can become very confused with sex – it’s a complex, very human subject. We aren’t computers, and we don’t come with instruction manuals so the best approach is not always obvious, and one solution may not apply in every situation or with every individual. Don’t hesitate to participate. As I said, I’m working on these ideas – it’s good to hear other views. It helps me to clarify things in my own mind.

I'm wanting to be of the mind 'do your thing as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, but where have we gotten to that sex needs to be anything but loving, and fun? What's loving and fun about pretending to be having sex against your will? Where have we come from to need whips and make believe chains to have loving and fun sex?

Again, this is not a new problem. Repression was born in the desert about 6,000 years ago and it created cultures where children are molested and sold, women beaten to death and traded as property, and normal sexuality inhibited with ancient mores, veils and lies. I perceive that we’d both like a world where sex is loving and fun. We just disagree on how to get there from here.

fantasy. I believe that the fantasy sex is a an addiction that needs more and more and more and i don't trust where that takes members of our society. What's the beef with real and loving and fun sex? Loving and fun sex doesn't need to be a something to protect your children from having knowledge of.
I'm starting to rant. sorry.

love and blessings,
mary claire

Sexual fantasy is healthy and normal, and will always exist. The deviant imprints I’m talking about are born of neglect, abuse or trauma of some sort. Once that imprint exists, we have to deal with it one way or another. I prefer approaches that protect other people from being victimized, which can only perpetuate the cycle. The imprinted trauma isn’t going to go away. With some serious education and social reform, we can reduce the number of people who are traumatized, but in the mean time, we have to deal with the ones that exist.

I don’t think you are ranting. I do think your reaction is understandable, and not an uncommon one. I’m sure more people feel the way you do than the way I do. I want to know how we work past the frustration you are feeling and create a culture that works, with a stated goal of making life better for everyone. That involves dealing with some very unpleasant realities. Our legal system as it exists now is only making matters worse, and the schools aren’t helping things, either.

I am in despair at the course our culture is taking. I can’t understand why we aren’t doing better in every aspect of life. We have enough food to feed everyone, but we don’t. We have enough wealth and resources to see that everyone has shelter, clothing, and basics like electricity and plumbing, but we don’t. We have the greatest communications system ever known, and can speak to the other side of the globe, but we still fight wars that benefit no one but the rich. We have free education and public libraries, but 1 in 6 Americans can’t read. The people in power in our government are corrupt and self-serving. Elections don’t matter if the machines can and are tampered with, so I don’t see anything improving any time soon. I can’t just relax and let the world go to hell around me, as I’ve been advised to do.

I believe that the more we talk, the closer we get to the change we so desperately need.

The Count and I are doing much better today. Thanks so much to everyone who had given us help and support. I'll write personal e-mails to everyone who sent us money over the next two days. We're not completely out of the woods yet, but your help has been appreciated.

We paid the trash bill today. Tomorrow we pay part of the rent, the electric bill, and the phone bill. We pay the rest of the rent early next week.

I called the restaurant today, and we were told to drop by tomorrow between one and three p. m. to fill out applications. It would be nice to work as a cook. The Count can cook to die for.

I'm going to spend the morning making glycerin soaps to take to the two stores interested in them. I hope they sell well. They are very nice soaps. Some look like cameos with women on them. Others are Celtic and Victorian. I even have a men's line that smells very nice. The fragrance is similar to Cool Water. It's perfect for me, since we live by the ocean.

I'm going to write a bio, a detailed synopsis of my supernatural erotic romance novel, and send some chapters to the publisher who is interested in reading it. Keep your fingers crossed! If I'm accepted, I could bring in a bit more money. That sounds good to me. I also have a second novel that I need to finish that the publisher might be interested in. That one is a family saga/mystery. It's good to have a second novel already in the works for a publisher. They want you to keep writing and selling so they can make money.

I found a bunch of writing opportunities at the Naughty Words blog. I'll check them out tomorrow, and come up with some new story ideas.

So far, things are looking up. Once we have a real lead on good jobs, I'll let everyone know.

I didn't watch last week's "Without A Trace" until now. I'm sure some of my readers (my "Without A Trace" fans) will want to know the name of the song that played at the end of the show. I knew it was by Coldplay, and I was right. The song is called "Fix You".

Many of the horrors in Iraq are oddly mundane. Take this recent horror story:

U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women - one of them about to give birth - when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials and relatives said Wednesday. Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday.

Jassim, the mother of two children, and her 57-year-old cousin, Saliha Mohammed Hassan, were killed by the U.S. forces, according to police Capt. Laith Mohammed and witnesses.

The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings.

``Shots were fired to disable the vehicle,'' the military said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. ``Coalition forces later received reports from Iraqi police that two women had died from gunshot wounds ... and one of the females may have been pregnant.''

Jassim's brother, who was wounded by broken glass, said he did not see any warnings as he sped his sister to the hospital. Her husband was waiting for her there.

``I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans. It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped,'' he said. ``God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here. They have no regard for our lives.''

Why do I call this mundane? Because of this:

Khalid Nisaif Jassim, the pregnant woman's brother, said American forces had blocked off the side road only two weeks ago and news about the observation post had been slow to filter out to rural areas.

He said the killings, like those in Haditha, were examples of random killings faced by Iraqis every day.

So Jassim didn't know that he was driving through an observation post. Because it hadn't been there very long. And his sister was in labor, so he drove fast and probably paid little attention to his surroundings. And so two women died and the baby was never born.

This is horrible in a different way from the alleged killings in Haditha, in a mundane way, and somehow that is almost worse. Almost.