feminist blogs

The most diverse county of the United States will have the first US branch of the world’s best known microcredit lender.

We have children eating mud pies -- literally, pies made of mud, water and a little butter [audio] -- while at the same time Mars, a candy company, buys Wrigley, a chewing gum company, for $38 billion.

Thirty-eight billion dollars.

What an opportunity Mars/Wrigley has to donate some big money to help alleviate the food crisis that is killing people worldwide.

Buy gum, feed a child. Sounds like good PR to me. Otherwise, it's kind of sickening, people spending billions on such crap that they don't need to consume at all, while people are dying of starvation and malnutrition.

You know, the jungle. Where the savage brown people and ferocious animals are defeated by heroic white folks:

Jill is writing her own follow-up post about this subject, but I feel so nauseous and sleepless about this whole thing that I felt the need to weigh in as well. I felt the need to post these pages, which I saw in person earlier tonight at a bookstore. The images were scanned by Wolfa and posted by Ico after being poitned out by Radfem. These pages are chapter headers from It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, published by Seal Press and written by Amanda Marcotte.

More than 20 years ago, I made my very first contributions to feminist writing in a book that was published by Seal Press. This might be a little surprising given that I’m in my early 30s. But at the time, I spoke better English than the editor and translator of that anthology of fiction by women authors: my mother, a Japanese immigrant and a lifelong feminist. She grew up in a city that was devastated by American bombs when she was a young girl, and then run by American soldiers. When she got older, she attended the first women’s college in Japan, and eventually immigrated here, although she never naturalized; she couldn’t stomach the “swear to defend and bear arms” loyalty oath. In the early 80s, Seal started publishing her collections of translated stories, fiction by Japanese women writing in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before the war. I was a little too young to help out with the first book, but as I got older she’d ask for my help with editing and choice of words more and more. I was so proud to be helping out.

Today I don’t know where that pride has gone.
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This kind of out-of-control globalization, wherein wealthier women are able to rent the wombs of poorer ones, makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I’m certainly sympathetic to the plight of couples who can’t conceive for whatever reason. And it certainly makes sense for women to voluntarily carry someone else’s pregnancy if it means making a lot of money. But I think it’s possible to be skeptical of this situation without passing judgment on the people involved in it, most of whom are doing the best that they can in tough circumstances.

An article published in The Times of India in February questioned how such a law would be enforced: “In a country crippled by abject poverty,” it asked, “how will the government body guarantee that women will not agree to surrogacy just to be able to eat two square meals a day?”

One could argue that surrogates are simply providing a service like any other. But I’m not sure that we want to turn reproduction into a service industry. The inequalities here are so stark — and the carrot of thousands of dollars so tempting for women in a country with astounding poverty rates — that writing if off as purely business is inadequate.

“Surrogates do it to give their children a better education, to buy a home, to start up a small business, a shop,” Dr. Kadam said. “This is as much money as they could earn in maybe three years. I really don’t think that this is exploiting the women. I feel it is two people who are helping out each other.”

Mr. Gher agreed. “You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth,” he said. “We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India.”

In the Mumbai clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the clients’ signatures.

Thoughts?

This article certainly has a controversial premise, and I don’t agree with a lot of it, but it’s an interesting piece nonetheless — and hopefully will provide fodder for some (civil, please!) conversation.

Ren has a whole bunch of resources you should check out. Other sites worth browsing today: Bound Not Gagged; SWOP East; and Sex in the Public Square.

There’s also a celebration tonight at Judson Memorial Church in NYC for sex worker rights. Details below the fold.
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I first saw this ad when I was in Germany, and took note of it mostly because the dude is smokin’ and because I was surprised to see men kissing on television (we don’t get that in ‘merica):

Then I saw it again on TV in the gym a few days ago. In the USA. Guess which part was cut out.

In an effort to get the city’s budget balanced, New York is developing ways to level taxes on certain services that are disproportionately utilized by the wealthy. And I’m all for that — right up until the point where they level especially high taxes on services that are used almost entirely by women.

As government reports go, it is highly readable stuff. In the soak-the-rich category (our name for it, not theirs), the city could raise $24.2 million annually by slapping a 1 percent tax on those who pay $3,000 or more a month for their apartments.[*] Another $40 million could come from a new tax on dry cleaning, laundering and tailoring services — after all, it’s the affluent who do not wash their own clothes.

Among the more intriguing proposals is a new tax on cosmetic procedures, i.e. face-lifts, chemical peels and dermabrasions, which would generate $65 million annually. However, the report notes there will be opposition from those who see such treatments not as luxuries but as “vital to improving self-esteem and general quality of life.’’

I’m not sure that cosmetic surgery and treatments are “vital,” but it does seem a bit unfair to target women for what amounts to a beauty tax — especially when it’s been shown that a woman’s physical appearance has a direct impact on her compensation and her hiring prospects. Older women are offered lower salaries than younger ones; fat women make less money than thin women; mothers make less money than women without children. It’s economically rational for women to try to make themselves look younger. For a lot of women, it does feel like a necessity, not a luxury.

Perhaps instead they should tax businesses that hemorrhage female workers, or largely higher younger, prettier women. Or companies that air-brush photos. Or “women’s magazines.”

Or maybe just structure the tax system so that it doesn’t disproportionately impact women.

Thanks to Julia for the link.

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*I can’t stop myself from pointing out that a $3,000-a-month apartment is not a major luxury in New York. A $3,000 one-bedroom occupied by a single person or a couple? Yeah. But simply a $3,000 apartment? I live with two room mates in a three-bedroom, and we collectively pay more than $3,000 a month — we’re two law students and a teacher. My apartment is a fifth-floor walk-up in the East Village (i.e., not one of the priciest neighborhoods). And we’re actually getting it for below market value. I pay less in rent than most people I know. And a tax on my “luxury” apartment would not be targeting rich people.

I get to skip past ads like this one. (via) Oh, sure, one occasionally slips past me and grates my nerves like a microplaner (”He went to Jared!” or one of those tense and misanthropic Sonic ads. I don’t even know what Sonic is). But for the most part, I can avoid the Valentine’s “How much is that pussy in the window?” advertising blitz. And the candy will be half-price tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I realized that I may have to deal with the Valentine’s juggernaut somehow, because I’m selling my apartment and I need some flowers to put out because it’s being shown tomorrow. Goddammit, I don’t want to pay $75 for a bunch of tulips, and I *really* don’t want to have to be in the same room as some tacky red teddy bears.

Time to party.

And in celebration of the Texas sex toys ban being struck down, check out this absolutely fabulous video featuring the hilarious and brilliant Molly Ivins: