feminist blogs

Dana Goldstein on how the pill may be free and what Obama needs to do to ensure this.

Religious hospitals are under investigation for potentially denying women adequate care.

The UK won't allow an Iroquois lacrosse team compete for world championship.

A state by state breakdown of the gender pay gap.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCVAP) just put out their annual report (pdf.) on violence against the LGBTQ community and the findings are scary. I took a look at the report myself and it seems that overall the reporting of violent crime is down. It is hard to get a sense of exactly how grave the situation is when we know that so much of the violence goes unreported, but if the numbers represent a trend then it is a frightening one.

Furthermore, there is a trend in communities of color who are afflicted with higher rates of violent crime against the LGBTQ community. Of the 22 murders last year 79% of them were people of color and 50% were transgender women. Waymon Hudson writes at Huffington Post,

As evidenced in this report, members of traditionally marginalized communities continue to be disproportionately targeted for severe violence. "These facts are deeply disturbing as these are the same people who are more likely to face discrimination, criminalization or further violence when interacting with criminal legal and social service systems. What we see is that they are less likely to seek and access support from these institutions," said Maria Carolina Morales, Intervention Director of Community United Against Violence (CUAV) in San Francisco.

The report also covers other causes of crime such as reaction to hate crime legislation and decrease in services for GLBTQ communities due to current economic conditions. They also found that police misconduct towards GLBTQ folks was up from 2008 and this includes false arrests, harassment, entrapment and raids. And finally, that the majority of violent crime is committed by strangers which is just horrifying, as they are generally unpredictable but targeted acts of violence that are impossible to predict and difficult to protect yourself from.

Also, read Jos on why hate crime legislation doesn't lead to a decrease in violent crime in the LGBTQ community.

A study was released by American University and the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante on Wednesday that documents experiences of Mexican women who have migrated to work as crab pickers in Maryland. Crab pickers are generally women because it is considered "lighter" work. They interviewed 43 women of the approximately 1,000 women that worked with crab companies last year. The findings resemble the human rights abuses of many companies that hire low wage labor from overseas and claim to support them effectively.

They described being charged illegal fees by recruiters in Mexico and enduring substandard working conditions in Maryland.

The women, few of whom spoke English, said they lived in housing with backed-up sewage and no working stove, lacked transportation to buy groceries or seek medical care, were not trained for their jobs or told how their paychecks and taxes were handled, and had a hard time picking enough pounds of crabmeat to make minimum wage.

"They get no formal training, they get cuts and infections, and they are charged fees to participate," said Jayesh Rathod, an American University law professor who co-wrote the report.

Jack Brooks, president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, claims that the crab pickers are paid and treated well. Different owners have different stories of what is considered good working conditions, but take "treated well," with a grain of salt. One seafood store owner said in response to his employees sleeping ten to a room that, "they want to sleep in one room together." Uh, right. The authors of the report recommend stricter oversight of guest-workers working conditions and better enforcement of rules protecting temporary workers.

Tea Partiers are good at reminding us why resolutions such as the one passed by the NAACP on Tuesday condemning racist elements of the Tea Party are needed. A revisionist sense of history and a complete denial of how racism works in the United States has led to the current political mindset of the Tea Party set. While the Tea Party is denying racism within their ranks, it is pretty clear they are bonafide race baiters. (Think: Obama not a citizen??)

Mark Williams, national spokesman for the Tea Party Express said,

"You're dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It's time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history," Williams said.

Um, seriously? Can we get some numbers to back this up? Anyone that denies the financial, social and cultural impacts of the slave trade and has the audacity to compare it to the work of civil rights groups is denying that racism has the impact it does. Making a statement like that is racist and Williams is their spokesperson, so I'm not really buying the "we don't tolerate racism in the Tea Party," line.

The question remains is NAACP's resolution enough to draw attention to the blatant racism of the Tea Party or do we need more? Sally Kohn suggests we might need a little more,

So, do I agree with the NAACP resolution? Absolutely. With two caveats. First, it's pretty safe for the NAACP to indeed play to its base with this (still relatively tame and incontrovertible) resolution. But what I'd really like to see are white liberal organizations take the same level of responsibility to call out racism in the Tea Party as well as throughout the political and social sphere --- left and right, by the way --- and be strong advocates for racial justice. There are a few examples of white groups and leaders doing this but nearly enough. Second, I do think that the NAACP is clearly drawing on the Tea Party's current publicity to activate NAACP membership and generate attention and energy for the organization's efforts at revitalization. That's understandable, but it's emblematic of a general trend on the left right now to jealously ogle at the seemingly vast and energetic Tea Party on the right while bemoaning the ossified, stale, centralized organizations on the left that are vestiges of vibrant movements of the past but lack that character today.

Interesting.

Thoughts?

Argentina has passed a bill that allows same sex couples to marry and adopt children. It is the first South American country to pass this type of legislation.

via Reuters.

Following more than 14 hours of charged debate, during which thousands of Argentines protested outside the Congress, the upper house voted 33-27 for the proposal, with three abstentions.

"I believe this has advanced equal rights," Senator Eugenio Artaza told reporters after the debate in which many lawmakers in the upper house invoked their Roman Catholic beliefs to explain their stance.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez supports gay marriage on human rights grounds and is expected to sign the bill into law after her return from a state visit to China. It cleared Argentina's lower house in May.

Word.

Vaseline's "Healthy White" Skin Lightening Cream

Skin lightening creams have been the rage in India for a while now. Even India Vogue's attempt at embracing "color" diversity failed to show a woman with dark skin. Vaseline marketing on the growing trend of skin lightening has released an application that allows people to lighten their Facebook profile pictures.

Skincare group Vaseline has introduced a skin-lightening application for Facebook in India, enabling users to make their skin whiter in their profile pictures.

The download is designed to promote Vaseline's range of skin-lightening creams for men, a huge and fast-growing market driven by fashion and a cultural preference for fairer skin.

The widget promises to "transform your face on Facebook with Vaseline Men" in a campaign fronted by Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur, who is depicted with his face divided into dark and fair halves.

Astounding. I don't know what is more upsetting to me, that Vaseline would make this product or that India is so market-ready for it. Skin color is a very controversial issue in India and the desire for "fairer" skin dates back almost before colonization.

India is not the only country where skin lightening creams have become popular and the circulation of American advertising, movies, magazines and fashion has some impact on Indian desires for fairer skin. But it is not just Western influence alone, the multi-million dollar entertainment industry in India has independently held up white standards of beauty.

What is even more frightening is they have found a lot of these skin creams to have unknown health risks associated with them and they have been sold despite attempts at regulation. So shame on Vaseline for not only marketing off a disgusting, racist trend but also potentially harming its customers.

Related Posts: Indian Vogue takes on color prejudice
Colorism on the Rise
Sexist/Racist Ad Watch: Skin Whitening Edition

More on Joel Stein's immigrant problem for Slate. Best line, "Joel Stein is a soft writer in a soft gig, dressed up in an older generation's clothing, with an expired comic license in his pocket. Testimony to the power of the melting pot: he's just another white dude."

An Iranian widow, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, is slated to be stoned to death for being convicted of adultery. Human rights groups are fighting to appeal the sentence.

"But is legal in Africa," is not a very good defense of child molestation.

Amanda on "women as incubators."

We are waiting still for the Oscar Grant verdict. Stressful.

Rebekah Spicuglia on the Hollaback Iphone app.

UN Women has finally been established.

A powerful and courageous speech from Dan Cho at the Campus Progress National Conference this last week, with an impassioned plea for immigration reform and to support the Dream ACT.

This just gave me chills. Thanks to Jorge Rivas for the link.

Check out our very own Jos Truitt's Op-Ed at the Metro Weekly on telling stories to humanize experience.

Raising awareness of violence against trans folks is important, and I'm glad the media is starting to pay more attention. But to end violence we need cultural change. We need everyone to see trans folks as complex, valuable people, not just dead bodies. To help do this we need stories about the humanity of trans folks, stories like mine about The Little Mermaid.

Love you Jos!

*Trigger Warning*

So last week's news about Mel Gibson's horrifyingly offensive comments, to the mother of his child, who he is currently in a custody battle with, gave us a glimpse of just how sick and twisted he is. In response to the "way she dresses," he said, "You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault." As a friend said to me, if he had an assignment for finding the worst way to use the n-word, he wouldn't be able to think that up.

As if that wasn't bad enough, in another section of the tape, he admits to hitting Oksana Grigorieva as well claiming she "fucking deserved it."

Mel Gibson is an abusive asshole and we shouldn't support any of his movies. He has a history of violent, misogynist, anti-Semitic and racist behavior and that is good enough for me to never patronize a movie of his again. Not that I really watched them anyway.