feminist blogs

VI. Work/Life and Latino Families: 
How Are Latino Families Changing as Latinas Bring Home the Bacon?
 
Monday, February 1, 1:00 PM EST, here

Host: Veronica Arreola
Ana Roca Castro, Founder, Latinos in Social Media
Catherine Singley, Economic and Employment Policy Analyst, National Council of La Raza
Marisa Treviño, Publisher, www.latinalista.net

The Great Recession has impacted every family and Latino families are no different. Or has it been different? Join in the conversation as four Latinas from policy, punditry and community organizing discuss the impact of the recession on Latino families. What does a Latino worker look like? What are the contributions of Latino workers to the economy?  Can the government do more to encourage job creation? As more Latinas take on more jobs, who is caring for their children? How are Latino families changing to make room for Latinas who brings home the bacon?

With all the hubbub lately over Focus on the Family's Tim Tebow commercial, set to air during the Super Bowl, the Grey Lady has decided to weigh in on the advertisement in an editorial today.

The New York Times objects to women's rights groups that have pushed for the ad to be removed from the air as pushing censorship. There's merit to the advice that reproductive rights supporters take this commercial from the rabidly anti-choice Focus on Family and treat it as evidence that a woman deserves to make this decision herself (Amanda Marcotte makes a similar argument at RH Reality Check regarding the hypocrisy of groups trying to turn back Roe v. Wade celebrating a woman's choice). Hey, I'm thrilled to hear that we were mistaken, that this is not an anti-choice, but rather a pro-life and pro-choice ad, and Focus on the Family and the right-wing have had a sudden change of heart and now support a woman's fundamental right to choose! And I intend to hold them to this support for a woman's right to choose in the future. I guess we can go ahead and take those abortion restrictions out of the health care bill now? What, still no?

However, the Times leaves out a massive chunk of the story. Namely, while applauding CBS for changing its no-advocacy ads policy, the Times fails to mention that the network only claimed to have changed its policy conveniently after accepting the Focus on the Family ad. In the past, it has rejected an LGBT-friendly, pro-religious diversity commercial from the welcoming United Church of Christ (UCC) due to this policy. Thus, our petition on Change.org, which has garnered almost 4,000 signatures co-running on the Gay Rights and Women's Rights blogs, doesn't call for "censorship." It tells CBS not to use double standards to favor anti-choice, homophobic organizations -- that it should either uphold its no-advocacy policy and reject Focus on the Family, or it should offer the UCC another chance to air their ad.

For those who are interested, here is the very progressive, hardly controversial UCC ad that was rejected:

Oh, and another thing: The Times editorial writes, "After the network screens ads for accuracy and taste, viewers can watch and judge for themselves." Accuracy and taste, huh? I do think running an advertisement regarding abortion from a rabidly homophobic organization whose founder has suggested a link between abortion and the tragedy of 9/11 is in bad taste, but okay, I guess that's just me.

So let's talk accuracy instead: as I blogged a couple days ago, the Center for Reproductive Rights has raised the possibility that the Tebows' story is a big, fat lie -- since abortion has been criminalized, no exceptions, in the Philippines for over a century, the idea that Pam Tebow chose not to have an abortion against her doctor's advice is highly suspicious. Did CBS bother to screen this ad for accuracy before giving it the green light they denied UCC? Lawyer Gloria Allred has already warned that if the ad contains false advertising, CBS could face legal repercussions.

Since nobody has actually seen the planned ad yet, maybe the network can have Focus on the Family hurry up and attach a disclaimer that the stories presented in this commercial are fictional. Or, even better, they can change the ad to something that might be more accurate: the story of a woman lucky enough not to number among the thousands of women who die every year from pregnancy-related causes in the Philippines, where controlling a woman's body is more important than protecting her health or life.

Women are better than men at sharing? A new policy in Haiti bypasses men and gives food only to women. The U.N. says that experience teaches that food is shared more fairly by women. Disaster or not, women do the cooking and are in charge of distributing food, yet miraculously women manage to think of others before themselves. Yes, women as a group tend to put the needs of children, the sick, the elderly, husbands and boyfriends, above their own needs.

Politics Elizabeth Edwards News Gender

So the obsessive Dollhouse fans in the audience may have noticed that I’m not posting my reviews. I’m hoping to enter this competition and my dollhouse writing energy is going towards that. I will start on full reviews after I’ve submitted my essay in mid-February. But in the meantime I thought I’d open up a thread so people could talk about it.

Some thoughts:

• The show went down hill a lot in the last three episodes I think (after a run of truly fantastic episodes). Possibly it was a mistake to try and take the show that far into the story. Epitaph 2 was, in the end, a more powerful ending to the future than what we got, I think if they had tried to tell less of a story it would have been more effective.
• I take back anything mean I’ve ever said about Eliza Dushku - she was great all the way through these end episodes.
• The portrayal of Keith Harding rather marred the finale and the ideas about people’s relationship with food it portrayed was really depressing. It must suck so much to believe that your appetite is all consuming and you must control it at all times, because being fat would be horrendous.
• Sierra & Victor 4 eva.
• The second to last episode was really incoherent - I can’t even work up the will power to get offended at the worst bits (mostly stuff involving Paul Ballard), because it made no sense.
• I thought it was neat that Mag was into girls - but it would have been even neater if Zone hadn’t talked about it so much (although I liked the point that they were making that these people had fought together and knew so little about each other).
• The Attic was good, but sub-Restless, and had even skeevier politics around race.
• When Paul died we burst into applause - but why the hell won’t they let him stay dead.
• How did Topher become my favourite character?

I really enjoyed Dollhouse, but don’t think that the last few episodes celebrated what I loved most about it.

The New York Public Library posted a page from the first issue (September 1941) of Design for Living: The Magazine for Young Moderns that I thought was sorta neat for bringing some perspective to the increase in the amount and variety of clothing we take as normal today–but also, to my relief, the acceptance of a more casual style of dress. The magazine conducted a poll of women at a number of colleges throughout the U.S. about how many of various articles of clothing they owned. Here’s a visual (larger version here) showing the school where women reported the highest and lowest averages (the top item is a dickey, not a shirt):

Overall the women reported spending an average of $240.33 per year on clothing.

Hats for women were apparently well on their way out of fashion:

Can you imagine a magazine aimed at college women today implying that you might be able to get away with only three or four pairs of shoes, even if that’s what women reported?

At the end of the article they bring readers’ attention to the fact that they used a sample:

I can’t help but find it rather charming that a popular magazine would even bother to clarify anything about their polling methods. So…earnest!

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

“This woman-hating world needs dash of chivalry” by Laurent Le Pierrès in The Chronicle Herald.

1. ‘But my instincts still tell me it’s not right for a lady to be left standing while a gentleman sits.’ It’s not instinct telling a man to give up his bus seat for a woman, it’s social conditioning. And as much as it’s nice to be given a bus seat, it’s not so nice when someone’s doing it because of that same social conditioning which has harmed you in a thousand little ways.
2. ‘And no gal would want him to.’ If ‘no gal’ would want to be given a seat, (which I don’t accept, lots of pregnant and disabled women, for instance, would need that seat irrespective of your motive in giving it up) in what way is doing so prioritising women and their wishes? That’s right, it’s not really about women at all, it’s about the seat giver-upperer’s internal comfort.
3. ‘Women (and children) receive priority over men during mass evacuations or hostage dramas. On TV, anyway.’ …
4. ‘Why? Because they still do not have it as easy as men, even in this day and age.’ You know what men could do to make women’s lives as easy as men’s? Stop oppressing us. Give us that equal pay and representation, let us live our lives. ‘A touch of gallantry’ is a condescending smokescreen allowing you to feel better while doing nothing of substance. You’re not making it easier by perpetuating a system like chivalry.
5. ‘Women are so undervalued everywhere else on the planet that I think we should overcompensate here in the West.’ So many kinds of no.

I get so frustrated with this way of thinking, because, to mix metaphors, you can see the tipping point where it went off the rails. Because you know the person in question wants to do right by women, they just went hugely off track. Respect for women means respecting our wants, irrespective of your ideas of what’s best for us. It means making our lives easier through substantial change rather than through “courtesies” that make you feel good and make us feel less than. It means working for that everywhere and constantly.

Via Anna once more – that woman is on the ball!

by Pam Spaulding

Is there anyone in the 5th district of NC willing and able to run and unseat this horrible embarrassment of a Congresswoman? I’m sorry there just are not any kind words to bestow against the vile, homobigoted politician, who claimed on the floor of the House that Matthew Shepard’s gruesome death was a hate crime hoax, and battled with Michelle Bachmann to put her hands all over GWB at a SOTU?

Now, true to form, even as she complains about the current President’s “lecturing” of her party, she’s got her priorities in line—she brags that she nabbed his autograph.

Flame-throwing conservative Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) was not a big fan of President Barack Obama’s appearance before the House Republican caucus retreat on Friday.

The North Carolina Republican categorized it as “another lecture” from Obama. She suggested that “independent fact checkers” were needed to confirm the veracity of “his comments.” She insisted, against some countervailing evidence, that her Republican colleagues “asked great questions.”

But she also seemed delighted by the fact that she got the president’s autograph. Foxx tweeted that she secured Obama’s signature and a White House official confirmed her account.

***

Speaking of wingnuts, in Hawaii, the RNC is meeting to figure out how to improve its image with voters (good luck with that), and have mostly been cranky with one another over how to distinguish itself from the Dems. You may have heard about the extremist wing’s ”Purity Test” proposal by Indiana’s James Bopp which would mandate that required a GOP candidate had to support 10 specific positions in order to receive backing and funding from the party.

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

During this conference that proposal was defeated by the “moderates” in the party in favor of a non-binding test submitted by Bill Crocker of TX urging party leaders around the country to “screen" potential candidates for any views or votes that do not align with the party platform.

The new rule will not prevent support for moderate Republican candidates but will bar funding for those judged to be too far to the left, Crocker said.

“No more Scozzafavas, please. No more Specters, please. No more Chafees, please,” Crocker said, referring to Dede Scozzafava, a GOP candidate for a U.S. House seat in New York whom conservatives opposed; U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who switched his party registration from Republican to Democrat last year, and former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a liberal Republican.

Crocker urged the party to “present candidates who will be attractive” to the people who, like those in the Tea Party movement, “are really dissatisfied with our political conduct over the past several years.

Related:
* NC Congresswoman Virginia Foxx - evil to the core
* Foxx tries to backtrack on Shepard comments: ‘hoax’ was a poor choice of words
* Judy Shepard: that was no apology, Virginia Foxx
* Tony Perkins Supports Foxx, Death Threats Claimed.
* Virginia Foxx sends ‘apology’ to Judy Shepard

Sociologists have noted that race and gender have been more politicized in the U.S. than class.  In contrast, class is highly politicized in Europe, leading to a much stronger labor movement.   The weak labor movement in the U.S. is partly to blame for the stingy federal policies around vacation and holidays.  The U.S. federal government dictates that employees are given exactly zero paid holiday and vacation days a year (that means, if you get such things, it is because your employer is being generous/in a benefits arms race with other employers).  This is in stark contrast to most other OECD countries:

 

Yep, that’s right.  In every country included except Canada and Japan (and the U.S.), workers get at least 20 paid vacation days.  In France and Finland, they get 30… an entire month off, paid, every year.

When I show figures like these (and there are many of them, parental leave, work hours, military spending, class inequality, etc) to my students, they are STUNNED.  Most Americans are woefully ignorant of how pro-business U.S. policies are compared to the policies of like countries.  I think this ignorance contributes to the resistance many Americans display when politicians and activists talk about improving protections for workers.

Gin and Tacos:

We’re a nation of people working harder and harder for less and less, and the merest suggestion that we should do anything other than work 9 hour days without pause until we drop dead is met with cries of socialism…

The quality of life of a typical American certainly suffers from our ignorance of life in other nations.  If we were more aware of what a strong labor movement could offer, we might be more supportive of those movements.

I’ve always loved this bumper sticker:

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

Adapted from A People’s History of the United States, via Stuff White People Do.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)