feminist blogs

Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy) - Rodney Atkins   Lyrics: The Declaration of Independents, Think I could tell you that first sentence, but then I'm lost, I cant begin to count the theories, I've had pounded in my head, that I forgot, I don't remember all that Spanish or the Gettysberg Address, but there is one Speech from High School I'll never forget, [Chorus] Come on in boy sit

A couple notes before getting into this week's Sunday reading column. One, Spare Candy is now on Tumblr: rosietint.tumblr.com. It's the "lighter side" of Spare Candy. Shorter posts (for the most part), more pop culture-y stuff, photos, stuff like that. Stop by some time! Secondly, I'm hoping to get together a group of 8 to 12 females (in any sense of the word) to play in a fantasy baseball league. I'd love to start one and about 5 people have shown interest so far, so we just need a couple more. You definitely do not have to be an expert to play. :) If it sounds like something you'd want to do, either send an e-mail to rosiered23 (at) sparecandy (dot) com, or let me know here or on Twitter. Third, anyone is welcome to submit something to the Sunday reading column (or a guest post or cross-post) anytime. Just e-mail me! Onto Sunday reading:

• The Carnival Against Sexual Violence 89 on Abyss2hope has tons of great reading material. And on a related note, if you haven't yet seen this story about religious leaflets being passed out to women that basically say "the way you dress makes men rape you," do read it. While I know this kind of thing is easy to shake your head at and dismiss because it is that absurd, it's really a perfect example of rape culture. Unlike many other types of victim shaming, this one doesn't even hide it. And do read Shakesville's post about this, too.

• I love this, on The White Coat Underground: "Hey, guys, this one is for you," about how men need to be part of violence against women prevention.

• New York Times: "New York's Choking Loophole." This has to do with the Gov. Paterson scandal (the one involving him trying to obstruct a domestic violence case), the fact that the woman who was abused was choked, and that there is no law in the state specific to choking unless it results in "physical injury." But one has been introduced.

• Bitch profiles a woman (for Women's History Month) who you may not have heard of in "Adventures in Feministory: Wilma Mankiller" (pictured). She is the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

• On the Issues: "Loretta Ross Unmasks Black Anti-Abortion Message, Media Spin."

• Huffington Post: "Hitler abortion poster sparks outrage in Poland." Shocking, I know.

• Feministing: "Utah miscarriage criminalization bill withdrawn." Sounds like it's just going to be rewritten though.

• From unaids.org: "UNAIDS, Annie Lennox, launch action framework for women, girls and HIV."

• The Edinburgh Journal: "Violence against women is 'acceptable', say Glasgow pupils." This is so disheartening.

• Women's Law Project: "Sexting: Potential legislation on teen offenders could unfairly punish girls."

• Idaho Reporter: "Idaho could alter statutory rape laws." A state senator is introducing a bill that would "decriminalize sex between teenage girls aged 16 or 17 with partners up to three years older than them." Consensual sex assumed, I think this could be a good thing.

• Shakesville: "In Other Things That Are Women's Fault, Too."

• On Slate: "The Shame Cycle: The new backlash against casual sex." (Is it me, or does an article about casual sex and it's rightness/wrongness come out almost daily these days?)

• Gulf News: "The woman breaking the UAE gender barrier."

• CBS News: "Military to Review Sodomy Ban." You see, because Don't Ask Don't Tell might be repealed. Sigh. I didn't even know there was a military ban on sodomy. There's one on oral sex too -- even between a married couple.

• This is one of the worst stories I've read all week: The Virginia State attorney general has formally told public colleges and universities that they should not include "sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy." That is the same as saying "it's OK to discriminate" against people who fall into those categories. Absolutely shameful.

• And finally, this piece of art made out of tampons, stainless steel and cotton thread is gorgeous.

 [image of the Decalogue parchment by Jekuthial Sofer, 1768 ECD is from here]  In Egypt, the Jews--who were never white--were slaves, and then they got away. Some time post-slavery, they wrote stuff. One of the things they wrote, in Hebrew, was what has come to be termed "The Ten Commandments" and most USers believe that Charlton Heston was the person who received the Word of G-d, which was not

That’s what Hillary Clinton called Nujood Ali, a twelve year old Yemeni girl who recently published “I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.”

Married to a 30 year old man at age nine by her father, Nujood was beaten and raped by her “husband” for two months before visiting her family home to see her sister. Her father’s second wife advised her to seek a divorce, and Nujood made her way to the courthouse. After sitting there for half a day, a kindly judge recognized her. Her father and “husband” were taken into custody, and the original judge housed Nujood for the trial. After refusing a judge’s original suggestion of taking a break for up to five years, then returning to the “husband,” Nujood was granted a divorce. Her memoir is now being published in nearly twenty languages, and she is enrolled in elementary school full-time.

There’s another great woman in this story: Shada Nasser, Nujood’s lawyer. The first female lawyer in Yemen, Shada started her career by offering legal services to incarcerated women.

Both women have been honored with multiple awards, though they were barred from attending a ceremony in Vienna, Austria, by the Yemeni government. Follow up stories indicate that Nujood may not be treated well by her family, and suffers from the stigma of divorce and reaching out to Western media.

More about the situation for Yemeni women: there is no minimum marriage age, though husbands are encouraged to wait until the wife is “ready.” Over 65% of women are illiterate, and kidnapping and rape are constant threats. Once married, women must obtain spousal permission for actions that involve leaving their house.

Educate someone on women’s situations in other countries today, please! We have a long way to go in so many countries, including my own.

According to UN program on HIV/Aids (UNAids), the immunodeficiency disease is now the leading cause of death among women of a reproductive age.

Violence against women is the leading cause of the spread of this disease in women, with an estimated 70% of women “forced to engage in unprotected sex.” Translation: rape and sexual assault are largely responsible for the continued spread of HIV. As UNAids Executive Director Michael Sidibe reports, women who experience violence are much less able to negotiate safe-sex practices.

Although women are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, there is still little attention given to addressing the specific needs of women and girls. The UN is now working on a five-year plan to do just that.

Reproductive needs and childbirth are also a growing concern. As Sidibe says:

“…400,000 babies are born every year in Africa – 400,000 babies with HIV/AIDS…it means that 400,000 women, mothers, have not been checked, have not been having access to services, have not been able to at least avoid transmission from mother to child. But also they will be at risk to not live with us for years to come.”

The new UNAids initiative will target women, helping disseminate information, education, preventive care, and “negotiating techniques.” But until communities of men become less likely to commit acts of violence against women in such high numbers, the bleak picture for women is unlikely to change.

Answer: Dick-whipped white het men don't deal with the realities feminists describe. Question: Why don't they deal with reality? Answer: Because they're too busy misunderstanding and misquoting white radical feminists, and they're too busy benefiting from the privileges and rights, entitlements and lack of stigma that they enjoy. Including the right and entitlements to systematically misquote

 [image is from here] I haven't read either book, and if anyone has, I'd be interested to know how helpful they are. I am always dubious about things like this, after watching an Oprah show. As you may know, Oprah Winfrey is a survivor of child molestation and incest and has worked to make sure predators are caught and arrested. The program featured mom's who had done all the right things in

Over at YouTube, just within the last few years, the place has gone from being an antifeminist video playland to also including a few profeminist and feminist videos and speeches. It's about time. What follows was posted by micksmum26  on February 24, 2010 ECD. She introduces this speech this way: Andrea Dworkin, feminist, gives a speech in Brighton, UK, in 1996 [on 10 November]. She discusses

This post is a part of the Blog for International Women’s Day BLOG One women dies every minute of every day because of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. About 75 million children who should be in primary school are not, and at least 55 percent of those – nearly 41 million children – are girls [...]

If the first segment is any indication of the rest, this NPR series is a must-read or must-listen. Why is this super important? Because "the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 1 out of 5 college women will be sexually assaulted," and as a whole, colleges and universities aren't doing much about it.

The first part of the series is "Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle For Justice." You can read and/or listen to it here. The rest of the series:
Part 2: All Things Considered, Feb. 25
Part 3: All Things Considered, Feb. 26
Part 4: Morning Edition, March 2

One thing in the first story that bothers me is a quote from Kevin Helmkamp, associate dean of students at the University of Wisconsin. He's talking about sexual assault cases on campus, and he said "They clearly are very, very difficult cases to investigate. Usually, there is not a lot of corroborating evidence for one side or the other. It does tend to come down to one person saying this happened and the other person saying, no it didn't happen that way." OK, makes sense, and I think that's pretty much exactly how it goes 9 times out of 10.

But then he says: The result, "I can assure you, is that someone is going to be unhappy" with the outcome of a decision.

People who would be unhappy:
1. Someone who was assaulted and the assailant was found not guilty or wasn't punished.
2. Someone who was falsely accused who was found guilty.
3. I'm going to assume that if someone was assaulted and the assailant was found guilty, the assaulted would be "happy" with that. Leaving, in this scenario, the guilty assailant to be unhappy. Hey, I think I know a way to avoid that: DON'T SEXUALLY ASSAULT PEOPLE. Then you won't be "unhappy" when you get caught! How about that.

Anyway, because this information is so important, I'm reprinting it from the article. Please pass it along to anyone who might need it, now or in the future:

Rights Of Sexual Assault Victims

What's now called the Clery Act, enacted in November 1990, requires that higher education institutions publicly disclose all crime that happens on campus. The idea was that students and their parents should be informed — and that public scrutiny would force colleges to get serious about preventing crime.

A 1992 amendment to the Clery Act added a victims' bill of rights, which requires schools to provide certain basic rights to survivors of sexual assaults on campus, including:

• Giving the alleged victim and the alleged assailant equal opportunity to have others present in disciplinary proceedings.
• Notifying alleged victims of their right to pursue justice through local police, and of the availability of counseling services.
• Notifying alleged victims that they have the option of changing classes and dormitory assignments in order to avoid their alleged assailants.

If a university fails to appropriately handle a reported case of sexual assault, alleged victims can report this to the U.S. Department of Education. Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 — a civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination — sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape are also considered discrimination on the basis of sex.

If a college or university is aware of but ignores sexual harassment or assault, it may be held liable under the law.

Visit the Web site of Center for Public Integrity to learn more about the law and resources for victims.

— From NPR research and reporting by the Center for Public Integrity

Photo credit: rapedattufts.info