Change.org has a good article that has some bearing on the Okinawa base quarrel.
Serving in the United States military is about honor, dignity, and strength. So it makes sense that the U.S. military would make visiting brothels and having sex with women and kids forced into a prostitution a big no-no for American soldiers, right? On paper, establishments that sell sex are off-limits for men (and women) in uniform. But in practice, sex trafficking flourishes near U.S. military bases. Should U.S. soldiers be abusing people in another country while protecting people in this one?
Of all the countries where an American military presence attracts prostitution, both voluntary and forced, South Korea may feel the effects most acutely. U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea since 1945, and the brothels around the U.S. military bases have been there just as long. In 2004, the Pentagon drafted a policy to reduce the sex trafficking growing wherever American soldiers, sailors, and airmen were stationed, with specific attention to South Korea. Under that policy, military personnel caught visiting a brothel or "massage parlour" could be subject to court martial. However, there is very little information available about how often that sanction is enforced.
There is evidence, however, that the policy has not worked in reducing demand for prostitution, evidenced by the continuing high levels of prostitution and human trafficking near U.S. military bases. The U.S. military has finally begun to make some clubs and bars known to traffic women or sell children off-limits to service members, but one report indicates that only 4 out of 25 such places in the area have been listed as off-limits. The South Korean government, too, has been cracking down on sex trafficking in the past few years. However, the areas surrounding the U.S. military base have been exempted from the crackdown by the Korean government. So brothels around U.S. military bases are falling through the cracks of both U.S. government and Korean government policy.
If government policy is in place and sex trafficking is still going on, then what can be done to prevent it? The Pentagon took a good first step in putting a policy in place to prevent American military uniforms from showing up at brothels where women and children are forced into prostitution. However, they need to do more. Specifically, they need to enforce that policy, including against officers, whose indiscretions are sometimes ignored. They also need to work to change the culture in the military that views women as sexual objects. Addressing the latter will not only make a difference in the amount of sex trafficking around bases, but also the sexual harassment, rape, and assault of women serving in the military.
Men Can Stop Rape has a great campaign called "Our Strength is Not for Hurting," which focuses on equating masculinity and strength with respect for women. They have a similar campaign aimed specifically at military personnel. This would be a great starting point for the U.S. military to truly tackle the demand for sex trafficking which exists around their bases.
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
NYT Economix blog: Who's taking care of your mother?
Nancy Folbre, a University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor, shows that women play a crucial role in caring for their elders, and that men aren't able or willing to play the same role.
Who’s taking care of your mother? And who’s going to take care of you when you fall ill, break your hip or are diagnosed with dementia?
Amid the noisy policy debates about health care and long-term-care insurance we sometimes forget what an important role family and friends play in our larger elder-care economy.
Just imagine what would happen if they changed their minds, and decided not to take care of us, after all.
The National Alliance for Caregiving has sponsored a series of surveys that reveal the breadth and depth of informal elder-care provision. The numbers show what a crucial role that women play — and why it is hard for women to change this role.
The most recent report on care-giving in the United States provides rich details on the type of care that most of us both expect to give and hope to get: About 19 percent of United States residents provide some care to those 50 or older, averaging about 19 hours a week.
If we paid for these services, the total price tag would exceed total Medicaid expenditures — or, if you prefer a private-sector comparison, total sales of Wal-Mart.
Most of the money would go to women, who represent 67 percent of all caregivers. If care recipients themselves paid the bill, most of the money would come from women, who represent 68 percent of elder-care recipients. Indeed, the average unpaid elder-care provider, at age 50, balances on the cusp of the dependent age category.
Women live longer than men on average and therefore become more vulnerable to the care-intensive problems of extreme old age.
Economists tend to assume that women simply choose to provide care because it gives them satisfaction. But more than 43 percent of all caregivers in the survey reported that they felt that they had no choice. They stepped forward for a variety of reasons: because no other family member or friend was willing or able to provide adequate care or because paid services were economically out of reach.
Those who felt they had no choice were more likely to report emotional stress, poor physical health and financial hardship.
About 45 percent of women, compared with 38 percent of male caregivers, put themselves into the “no choice” category.
Many women would prefer to share care responsibilities more equally with others, but if they can’t, will take on them regardless, as a moral duty central to cultural ideals of womanhood.
Our gender norms tend to assign women greater moral responsibility than men for family care. Consider the following bit of dark humor from episode three of the first season of “Mad Men,” a series that highlights the overt sexism of the early 1960s:
It’s hard to imagine a similar joke with the gender roles reversed.
And there’s some empirical evidence that the joke is not entirely out of date. A study of men and women with serious illnesses found that women are far more likely to be divorced by their partner than the other way around.
Women face an economic double-bind. Taking more responsibility than men for the care of family members lowers their lifetime earnings and leaves them vulnerable, especially in the event of illness, divorce or widowhood.
Partly as a result, older women remain dependent on younger women for unpaid care. They have an economic stake in younger women’s sense of obligation.
The bittersweet result is that the social organization of care reproduces some aspects of gender inequality. And vice versa.
Who’s taking care of your mother? And who’s going to take care of you when you fall ill, break your hip or are diagnosed with dementia?
Amid the noisy policy debates about health care and long-term-care insurance we sometimes forget what an important role family and friends play in our larger elder-care economy.
Just imagine what would happen if they changed their minds, and decided not to take care of us, after all.
The National Alliance for Caregiving has sponsored a series of surveys that reveal the breadth and depth of informal elder-care provision. The numbers show what a crucial role that women play — and why it is hard for women to change this role.
The most recent report on care-giving in the United States provides rich details on the type of care that most of us both expect to give and hope to get: About 19 percent of United States residents provide some care to those 50 or older, averaging about 19 hours a week.
If we paid for these services, the total price tag would exceed total Medicaid expenditures — or, if you prefer a private-sector comparison, total sales of Wal-Mart.
Most of the money would go to women, who represent 67 percent of all caregivers. If care recipients themselves paid the bill, most of the money would come from women, who represent 68 percent of elder-care recipients. Indeed, the average unpaid elder-care provider, at age 50, balances on the cusp of the dependent age category.
Women live longer than men on average and therefore become more vulnerable to the care-intensive problems of extreme old age.
Economists tend to assume that women simply choose to provide care because it gives them satisfaction. But more than 43 percent of all caregivers in the survey reported that they felt that they had no choice. They stepped forward for a variety of reasons: because no other family member or friend was willing or able to provide adequate care or because paid services were economically out of reach.
Those who felt they had no choice were more likely to report emotional stress, poor physical health and financial hardship.
About 45 percent of women, compared with 38 percent of male caregivers, put themselves into the “no choice” category.
Many women would prefer to share care responsibilities more equally with others, but if they can’t, will take on them regardless, as a moral duty central to cultural ideals of womanhood.
Our gender norms tend to assign women greater moral responsibility than men for family care. Consider the following bit of dark humor from episode three of the first season of “Mad Men,” a series that highlights the overt sexism of the early 1960s:
So, the doctor says to him, I hope you’re happy. While you were out playing a round of golf, your wife was in a horrible accident. She’s going to need round-the-clock care — bathing, toilet … I’m just kidding. She’s dead. Hey, what did you shoot?
It’s hard to imagine a similar joke with the gender roles reversed.
And there’s some empirical evidence that the joke is not entirely out of date. A study of men and women with serious illnesses found that women are far more likely to be divorced by their partner than the other way around.
Women face an economic double-bind. Taking more responsibility than men for the care of family members lowers their lifetime earnings and leaves them vulnerable, especially in the event of illness, divorce or widowhood.
Partly as a result, older women remain dependent on younger women for unpaid care. They have an economic stake in younger women’s sense of obligation.
The bittersweet result is that the social organization of care reproduces some aspects of gender inequality. And vice versa.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
MP Dunleavy (MSN Money): Why it costs more to be a woman
There are a number of structural factors that put women behind men in terms of economic progress. They are usually the ones to care for children and for aging parents, and taking time off from the work force hurts their lifetime earnings. They do experience job discrimination. Even if they make progress in certain fields, men are more likely to take the more prestigious jobs in the field; for example, even though women can be priests and bishops in the U.S. Episcopal Church, and even though the Presiding Bishop is a woman, women are still less likely to be the rectors of larger parishes and cathedral deans, or to hold other major appointments. And then, there's one absolutely nonsensical way in which women are penalized: MP Dunleavy of MSN Money documents the fact that many women's personal care products are basically more expensive versions of the same products marketed to men:
Babasol justifies charging 70% more per ounce for the female-branded shaving cream by claiming it meets a woman's needs. As Marks says, "You're paying for a convenience factor."
Say your boyfriend tells you that his apartment costs $500 a month and that one just like it is available in his building. When you go to check it out, the landlord tells you the rent will be $850 -- 70% more.
That's crazy, right? That would never happen in real life, would it? Don't bet your depleted dollars on it:
A 2006 study (.pdf download) by the Consumer Federation of America indicated that women were 32% more likely than men of similar income to carry subprime mortgages. Those subprime interest rates topped 7.66% when the average prime mortgage rate was 5.87%. On a $100,000 loan, that's nearly $120 a month more -- about $43,000 more over 30 years. Women were 41% more likely to end up with high-cost subprime loans, at rates above 9.66%.
Most recently, during the debate over health care, another nasty reality was brought back into the spotlight: Many insurance companies charge women higher premiums and/or impose harsher terms (by rejecting claims or curtailing coverage), especially for those of childbearing age. Examples ranged from 22% to 50% higher, depending on age and state.
That adds up to a lot more than a buck here or there at Walgreens.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Washington Post: Our leadership crisis: Where are the women?
Marie Wilson blogs on the Washington Post.
Marie C. Wilson is founder and president of The White House Project, co-creator of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work ® Day and author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World.
In spite of Sarah Palin's prominence as best-selling author, Hillary Clinton's stature as Secretary of State, and 51% of the workforce now being female, we still face a crisis in women's leadership, according to The White House Project's just-published study, Benchmarking Women's Leadership.
The majority of Americans are comfortable with women leading in all sectors, but the reality is women hold only 18% of leadership positions across the 10 sectors we examined, including politics, business, law, sports, academia, journalism, religion, film/TV, nonprofit, and military.
In politics, for example, women have lost ground in the last decade as elected statewide executive officials and have made only incremental gains in Congress, where they currently comprise 17% of leadership. On a global scale, the U.S. ranks a dismal 71st out of 189 countries, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in terms of women in legislatures, trailing behind nations such as Pakistan, Cuba, and United Arab Emirates.
At Fortune 500 companies, women hold only 15% of board seats, 16% of corporate officer positions, and a mere 3% of CEO positions, while women of color make up only 3% of board officers and 1.7% of corporate officer positions.
Even in sectors that have traditionally welcomed women - such as the nonprofit field - the numbers reflect the same disparity. Women comprise 75% of nonprofit employees, but hold only 26% of leadership positions. Women nonprofit CEO's make only 74% of what their male counterparts earn.
The list goes on: from sports and military to religion and journalism, women are underrepresented in the halls of power and underpaid when they get there. So why does this matter, particularly when our nation faces such trying economic times?
As our Benchmarks report illustrates, the rose-colored lens through which we have examined gender in the workforce clouds this grim reality: women - and particularly women of color -- are far from achieving parity in the arenas in which their participation and inclusion matters most: positions of leadership. And contrary to the popular talking points of today, the cultural ideal for women has not shifted to an all-encompassing and gender-neutral space, but remains firmly embedded in models of wifedom and motherhood. If anything, there is evidence that this cultural ideal is becoming further entrenched as the economy triggers anxieties about gender roles within both the public and private spheres.
I have been an advocate for women's issues for over 30 years. From the feminist and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s to today's "post-modern" struggles for equality, I have learned three important things: increasing numbers and changing culture are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing vehicles; action must be taken from the top down and the bottom up; and instituting change cannot be limited to one sector, but must be tackled in every sphere.
When we set out to write The Benchmarks Report, we were determined not only to puncture the conventional wisdom that women are leading in record numbers, but to poll experts in each sector and determine what steps need to be taken to achieve a critical mass of women leaders across the board. Here are our recommendations for closing the leadership gap:
• Work to achieve a critical mass of women in leadership roles in every sector. A critical mass of one-third or more women in leadership positions is essential for implementing and maintaining the changes recommended in this report.
• Use financial resources strategically. In choosing which firms to hire or which non-profits to fund, look through a gender lens, considering the representation of women, and women of color, on the board and in top leadership.
• Amplify women's voices in the public arena. Prominently include women leaders in public forums and media so that they in particular--and women in general--are recognized as role models and considered for boards and other top-level positions.
• Collect and analyze the data. Surprisingly little information exists regarding the representation of women, and particularly women of color, in positions of leadership in individual organizations. Regular tracking and reviewing of the numbers - including the wage gap --- are essential for setting benchmarks and monitoring progress.
• Maintain accountability through setting targets. If you lead an organization, set specific goals for including women in leadership. Create a timeline to achieve targets and impose actual consequences for failure to meet these targets.
• Improve flexibility in workplace structures. For women and men alike, increased flexibility--and a recognition of the need for work-life balance--promotes career satisfaction and job retention.
Nothing has surprised me more in working to advance women's leadership than women's own measurement of personal success and the routes they must navigate to get there. As a young woman in a major financial firm told me, "They watch you here, and if you are perceived to be too involved with your children, you are not seen as a good candidate for leadership. If you are not involved enough, you are seen as a bad mother and not to be trusted." I was shocked to hear that an older woman pulled her aside after the meeting and remarked, "There are lots of children you can love; go find them. But if you want to succeed here, don't have children of your own."
Unfortunately, that naysayer seems to be right. Perhaps that's why so many executive women who have been on the leadership track have chosen to never marry or have children (52% and 61%, respectively, according to a UCLA-Korn Ferry study; for executive men, 5% and 3%, respectively). The sacrifices women must make to ascend the leadership ranks are still disproportionate to those made by their male peers. Numbers like this show that the lack of flexibility and childcare in the U.S. is not improving fast enough to allow the numbers of women stuck in the pipeline to really ascend. Instead, they remain in lower positions or opt-out completely from the workforce. In either case, the pool of ideas, talent, and experience among our decision makers shrinks.
Over the long term, I am optimistic about making change. Three polls conducted over five years as part of our Benchmarks report revealed that 90 percent of Americans are comfortable with women leading across the ten sectors profiled, from business and politics to film and journalism. As a 2008 Pew Research Center study found, the public thinks that women - even more than men - have what it takes to be leaders in today's world, scoring women higher than men in five of eight character traits they value highly in their leaders. The recent report from Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress, "A Woman's Nation," shows that, by and large, everyone believes that the inclusion of women at all levels, from government to business to our faith communities, is good for our economy and our country.
The acceleration in moving women into leadership will only occur if there is a thoughtful, creative, and committed approach to doing so. We must promote a national dialogue that sees women not as competitors for male jobs, but as allies in building a stronger economy and better institutions.
Most importantly, we need a cultural shift that values the unique leadership traits and diverse perspectives that both genders - men and women -- bring to the table, and a commitment to having them work side-by-side to tackle the challenges we collectively face. These are difficult times, indeed. Yet history has taught us that these are the moments which are ripe for greatness, if we dare to imagine and embrace a new way.
Marie C. Wilson is founder and president of The White House Project, co-creator of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work ® Day and author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World.
In spite of Sarah Palin's prominence as best-selling author, Hillary Clinton's stature as Secretary of State, and 51% of the workforce now being female, we still face a crisis in women's leadership, according to The White House Project's just-published study, Benchmarking Women's Leadership.
The majority of Americans are comfortable with women leading in all sectors, but the reality is women hold only 18% of leadership positions across the 10 sectors we examined, including politics, business, law, sports, academia, journalism, religion, film/TV, nonprofit, and military.
In politics, for example, women have lost ground in the last decade as elected statewide executive officials and have made only incremental gains in Congress, where they currently comprise 17% of leadership. On a global scale, the U.S. ranks a dismal 71st out of 189 countries, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in terms of women in legislatures, trailing behind nations such as Pakistan, Cuba, and United Arab Emirates.
At Fortune 500 companies, women hold only 15% of board seats, 16% of corporate officer positions, and a mere 3% of CEO positions, while women of color make up only 3% of board officers and 1.7% of corporate officer positions.
Even in sectors that have traditionally welcomed women - such as the nonprofit field - the numbers reflect the same disparity. Women comprise 75% of nonprofit employees, but hold only 26% of leadership positions. Women nonprofit CEO's make only 74% of what their male counterparts earn.
The list goes on: from sports and military to religion and journalism, women are underrepresented in the halls of power and underpaid when they get there. So why does this matter, particularly when our nation faces such trying economic times?
As our Benchmarks report illustrates, the rose-colored lens through which we have examined gender in the workforce clouds this grim reality: women - and particularly women of color -- are far from achieving parity in the arenas in which their participation and inclusion matters most: positions of leadership. And contrary to the popular talking points of today, the cultural ideal for women has not shifted to an all-encompassing and gender-neutral space, but remains firmly embedded in models of wifedom and motherhood. If anything, there is evidence that this cultural ideal is becoming further entrenched as the economy triggers anxieties about gender roles within both the public and private spheres.
I have been an advocate for women's issues for over 30 years. From the feminist and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s to today's "post-modern" struggles for equality, I have learned three important things: increasing numbers and changing culture are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing vehicles; action must be taken from the top down and the bottom up; and instituting change cannot be limited to one sector, but must be tackled in every sphere.
When we set out to write The Benchmarks Report, we were determined not only to puncture the conventional wisdom that women are leading in record numbers, but to poll experts in each sector and determine what steps need to be taken to achieve a critical mass of women leaders across the board. Here are our recommendations for closing the leadership gap:
• Work to achieve a critical mass of women in leadership roles in every sector. A critical mass of one-third or more women in leadership positions is essential for implementing and maintaining the changes recommended in this report.
• Use financial resources strategically. In choosing which firms to hire or which non-profits to fund, look through a gender lens, considering the representation of women, and women of color, on the board and in top leadership.
• Amplify women's voices in the public arena. Prominently include women leaders in public forums and media so that they in particular--and women in general--are recognized as role models and considered for boards and other top-level positions.
• Collect and analyze the data. Surprisingly little information exists regarding the representation of women, and particularly women of color, in positions of leadership in individual organizations. Regular tracking and reviewing of the numbers - including the wage gap --- are essential for setting benchmarks and monitoring progress.
• Maintain accountability through setting targets. If you lead an organization, set specific goals for including women in leadership. Create a timeline to achieve targets and impose actual consequences for failure to meet these targets.
• Improve flexibility in workplace structures. For women and men alike, increased flexibility--and a recognition of the need for work-life balance--promotes career satisfaction and job retention.
Nothing has surprised me more in working to advance women's leadership than women's own measurement of personal success and the routes they must navigate to get there. As a young woman in a major financial firm told me, "They watch you here, and if you are perceived to be too involved with your children, you are not seen as a good candidate for leadership. If you are not involved enough, you are seen as a bad mother and not to be trusted." I was shocked to hear that an older woman pulled her aside after the meeting and remarked, "There are lots of children you can love; go find them. But if you want to succeed here, don't have children of your own."
Unfortunately, that naysayer seems to be right. Perhaps that's why so many executive women who have been on the leadership track have chosen to never marry or have children (52% and 61%, respectively, according to a UCLA-Korn Ferry study; for executive men, 5% and 3%, respectively). The sacrifices women must make to ascend the leadership ranks are still disproportionate to those made by their male peers. Numbers like this show that the lack of flexibility and childcare in the U.S. is not improving fast enough to allow the numbers of women stuck in the pipeline to really ascend. Instead, they remain in lower positions or opt-out completely from the workforce. In either case, the pool of ideas, talent, and experience among our decision makers shrinks.
Over the long term, I am optimistic about making change. Three polls conducted over five years as part of our Benchmarks report revealed that 90 percent of Americans are comfortable with women leading across the ten sectors profiled, from business and politics to film and journalism. As a 2008 Pew Research Center study found, the public thinks that women - even more than men - have what it takes to be leaders in today's world, scoring women higher than men in five of eight character traits they value highly in their leaders. The recent report from Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress, "A Woman's Nation," shows that, by and large, everyone believes that the inclusion of women at all levels, from government to business to our faith communities, is good for our economy and our country.
The acceleration in moving women into leadership will only occur if there is a thoughtful, creative, and committed approach to doing so. We must promote a national dialogue that sees women not as competitors for male jobs, but as allies in building a stronger economy and better institutions.
Most importantly, we need a cultural shift that values the unique leadership traits and diverse perspectives that both genders - men and women -- bring to the table, and a commitment to having them work side-by-side to tackle the challenges we collectively face. These are difficult times, indeed. Yet history has taught us that these are the moments which are ripe for greatness, if we dare to imagine and embrace a new way.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Church of England: legislation to allow women bishops is passing its final hurdle
It appears that the Church of England is taking the final steps on the road to consecrating female bishops. This is slightly ironic in a church whose mother country has had female heads of state (several Queens and one Prime Minister, albeit Margaret was a right-wing maniac) before.
LEGISLATION to bring in women bishops passed its first hurdle in General Synod when it was carried by a majority of about two-thirds during a debate on Wednesday morning.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, who chairs the legislative drafting group which drew up the proposals, moved that the Measure be considered for revision in committee.
He said that the debate marked a new stage in the process, and that “it is open season once again, and everything is reviewable”. He also spoke of the difficulty faced by the drafting group in trying to strike a balance between prescription and flexibility.
He said the final code of practice would come from the House of Bishops, and warned that there would be searching and unwelcome dilemmas over the next 18 months. “Let none of us expect others to set aside convictions that they hold as deeply as our own. Instead, let each ask what it might mean for each of us to go the extra mile for our brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Christina Rees, from the group Women and the Church, expressed concerns over the proposal for specially nominated suffragan sees, and questioned the relationship these bishops would have with the House of Bishops. She suggested that aspects of the provisions perpetuated the idea of a woman being a “flawed creation”.
The Bishop of Beverley, the Rt Revd Martyn Jarrett, urged Synod to reject the proposals. He said the legislation failed to solve the central problem of jurisdiction, and that no code of practice could compel a priest holding traditionalist views to come under a bishop they could not regard as a true father in God.
The Archbishop of Canterbury explained that he abstained from the vote in the July Synod because he felt the Measure did not make adequate provision for those who opposed women bishops, and that he wanted to back something that was good news for everyone.
The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham James, criticised the draft legislation, which he said left episcopacy “damaged and fractured”. He was pessimistic about being able to find a satisfactory way forward, and said that opponents would not find the proposals satisfactory and might well leave for another Communion, leaving the Church “pressed into deeper schism”.
More than 80 Synod members requested to speak during the debate, but many did not get the chance.
After a final summary by Bishop McCulloch, the motion that the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) be considered for revision in committee passed by 281 votes to 114, with 13 abstentions.
The linked Draft Amending Canon No. 30, which will alter legislation from the 17th century, also passed comfortably, by 309 votes to 79, with 14 abstentions.
LEGISLATION to bring in women bishops passed its first hurdle in General Synod when it was carried by a majority of about two-thirds during a debate on Wednesday morning.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, who chairs the legislative drafting group which drew up the proposals, moved that the Measure be considered for revision in committee.
He said that the debate marked a new stage in the process, and that “it is open season once again, and everything is reviewable”. He also spoke of the difficulty faced by the drafting group in trying to strike a balance between prescription and flexibility.
He said the final code of practice would come from the House of Bishops, and warned that there would be searching and unwelcome dilemmas over the next 18 months. “Let none of us expect others to set aside convictions that they hold as deeply as our own. Instead, let each ask what it might mean for each of us to go the extra mile for our brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Christina Rees, from the group Women and the Church, expressed concerns over the proposal for specially nominated suffragan sees, and questioned the relationship these bishops would have with the House of Bishops. She suggested that aspects of the provisions perpetuated the idea of a woman being a “flawed creation”.
The Bishop of Beverley, the Rt Revd Martyn Jarrett, urged Synod to reject the proposals. He said the legislation failed to solve the central problem of jurisdiction, and that no code of practice could compel a priest holding traditionalist views to come under a bishop they could not regard as a true father in God.
The Archbishop of Canterbury explained that he abstained from the vote in the July Synod because he felt the Measure did not make adequate provision for those who opposed women bishops, and that he wanted to back something that was good news for everyone.
The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham James, criticised the draft legislation, which he said left episcopacy “damaged and fractured”. He was pessimistic about being able to find a satisfactory way forward, and said that opponents would not find the proposals satisfactory and might well leave for another Communion, leaving the Church “pressed into deeper schism”.
More than 80 Synod members requested to speak during the debate, but many did not get the chance.
After a final summary by Bishop McCulloch, the motion that the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) be considered for revision in committee passed by 281 votes to 114, with 13 abstentions.
The linked Draft Amending Canon No. 30, which will alter legislation from the 17th century, also passed comfortably, by 309 votes to 79, with 14 abstentions.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Roman Catholic priest faces excommunication over women's ordination
By Laurie Goodstein, for the NY Times
The Vatican has informed a Roman Catholic priest in the United States that he will be excommunicated next week for participating in a ceremony it considers illicit and invalid: the ordination of a woman as a priest.
The priest, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, 69, has been a member of the Maryknoll religious order for 36 years. He said he was anguished at the thought of excommunication, but could not disavow his actions.
“Who are we as men to say that we are called by God to the ministry of priesthood, but women are not? That our call is valid, but theirs is not?” he said in an interview. “We profess as Catholics that the invitation to the priesthood comes from God, and it seems to me that we are tampering with the sacred.”
Father Bourgeois served as a missionary in Bolivia and El Salvador, and concerned by what he witnessed, returned to the United States and became nationally known as a peace advocate.
He lives in an apartment outside the gates of Fort Benning, Ga., where he leads an annual protest against the United States Army School of the Americas, which trains military personnel from Latin America. Last year, 17,000 people joined the protest.
In August, Father Bourgeois joined a ceremony in a Unitarian Universalist church in Lexington, Ky., in which a friend from the peace movement, Janice Sevre-Duszynska, claimed ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. Father Bourgeois gave the homily and laid hands on her.
He had known that excommunication was possible but said he thought it unlikely. His order summoned him to headquarters and gave him a warning but did not discipline him.
Then he received a letter dated Oct. 21 from the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, warning that if he did not recant, in writing, he would be excommunicated within 30 days.
“When I got the actual letter, I had to sit down,” he said. “I felt nauseous. I thought, this is serious stuff. The first thought that came to mind was, How am I going to explain this to my dad and my family?”
After weeks of prayer, Father Bourgeois informed the Vatican that he would not repent.
Ms. Sevre-Duszynska, a veteran agitator for women’s ordination, is the 35th American woman to claim ordination from an increasingly vocal group known as Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
She grew up in a Polish Catholic community in Milwaukee and grew enamored of a priest’s work after her mother arranged for her to help a nun clean the priest’s sacristy every week.
“I have felt called to the priesthood since my childhood,” Ms. Sevre-Duszynska said.
The Womenpriests group has been holding its own ordinations of women as priests, deacons and even bishops across North America and Europe, starting in 2002 with a ceremony on a boat on the Danube River. Some of the ceremonies in Europe were done in secret, so even Womenpriest leaders say they do not have a complete count.
The Vatican and local bishops have notified the women that they are automatically excommunicated. But Father Bourgeois is the first priest to face discipline for his involvement.
Leaders of the Womenpriests say that three bishops in good standing have performed ordinations in Europe. But they have pledged not to identify the bishops until their deaths.
Pope John Paul II reiterated the church’s position in 1994 in an apostolic letter which said that because Jesus chose only male apostles, “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.”
A Roman Catholic nun who worked for the Archdiocese of St. Louis was removed from her position by her archbishop this year, and banned from receiving sacraments, after she attended a women’s ordination ceremony.
Father Bourgeois said he would try to appeal the Vatican’s decision. Excommunication, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is “the most severe ecclesiastical penalty.” The person is forbidden to receive or administer sacraments.
On a practical level, Father Bourgeois also faces the loss of his benefits and the $1,000 he receives monthly for living expenses. But, he said, “if I am without health care, I will be joining millions of people in the U.S. who don’t have health care.”
He has been at peace, he said, since he drove to his hometown in Louisiana and told his 95-year-old father, his 3 siblings and 13 nieces and nephews.
His father cried a little, Father Bourgeois recalled, then said: “God brought Roy back from the war in Vietnam, from his mission work in Bolivia and El Salvador, and God’s going to take care of him now. I support Roy.”
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
To save his marriage, a man gave PEACE a chance
Fiona Morgan, writing for Indy Weekly, details the story of a domestic abuser who enrolled in a batterers' treatment program, called People Ending Abuse through Counseling and Education.
It's not easy. In fact, Jack, the person featured in the story, relapsed after his first 26 week session. His wife left him and he re-enrolled.
It's not easy. In fact, Jack, the person featured in the story, relapsed after his first 26 week session. His wife left him and he re-enrolled.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Wage gap also a problem in Germany
Women in the US make about 75 cents on the dollar compared to men. Being a primary caregiver is hard on your earning potential, and women tend to be primary caregivers. They engage in more part time work than men, which explains part of the gap, and there are differences in education (fewer women in engineering or business). However, some of the difference is likely discrimination.
It turns out that the wage gap is even more a problem in German than in the US, and than in most Western European nations. The New York Times has an article.
It turns out that the wage gap is even more a problem in German than in the US, and than in most Western European nations. The New York Times has an article.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Boys to men: why guys aren't growing up
Michael Kimmel, a professor of gender studies, has a new book titled Guyland. An excerpt from MSN:
Guyland is the world in which young men live. It is both a stage of life, a liminal undefined time span between adolescence and adulthood that can often stretch for a decade or more, and a place, or, rather, a bunch of places where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, girlfriends, jobs, kids, and the other nuisances of adult life. In this topsy-turvy, Peter-Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood, while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men despite all evidence to the contrary.
Males between 16 and 26 number well over 22 million — more than 15 percent of the total male population in the United States. The “guy” age bracket represents the front end of the single most desirable consumer market, according to advertisers. It’s the group constantly targeted by major Hollywood studios, in part because this group sees the same shoot-em-up action film so many times on initial release. They’re targeted in several of the most successful magazine launches in recent memory, magazines like Men’s Health, Maxim, FHM, Details, and Stuff. Guys in this age bracket are the primary viewers of the countless sports channels on television. They consume the overwhelming majority of recorded music, video games, and computer technology, and they are the majority of first-time car buyers.
...
Recently, a teacher at a middle school told me about his own 16-year- old son, Nick. “When we’re together, he’s excited, happy, curious, and so connected,” he told me.
“But when I drove him to school this morning, I watched an amazing transformation. In the car, Nick was speaking animatedly about something. As we arrived at his school, though, I saw him scan the playground for his friends. He got out of the car, still buoyant, with a bounce in his step. But as soon as he caught sight of his friends he instantly fell into that slouchy ‘I don’t give a sh--’ amble that teenagers get. I think I actually watched him become a ‘guy’!”
...
Every time we read about vicious gay-baiting and bullying in a high school, every time the nightly news depicts the grim horror of a school shooting, every time we hear about teen binge drinking, random sexual hookups, or a hazing death at a college fraternity, we feel that anxiety, that dread. And we ask ourselves, “Could that be my son?” Or, “Could that be my friend, or even my boyfriend?” Or, even “could that be me?”
Well, to be honest, probably not. Most guys are not predators, not criminals, and neither so consumed with adolescent rage nor so caught in the thrall of masculine entitlement that they are likely to end up with a rap sheet instead of a college transcript. But most guys know other guys who are chronic substance abusers, who have sexually assaulted their classmates. They swim in the same water, breathe the same air. Those appalling headlines are only the farthest extremes of a continuum of attitudes and behaviors that stretches back to embrace so many young men, and that so circumscribes their lives that even if they don’t want to participate, they still must contend with it.
Guyland is the world in which young men live. It is both a stage of life, a liminal undefined time span between adolescence and adulthood that can often stretch for a decade or more, and a place, or, rather, a bunch of places where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, girlfriends, jobs, kids, and the other nuisances of adult life. In this topsy-turvy, Peter-Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood, while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men despite all evidence to the contrary.
Males between 16 and 26 number well over 22 million — more than 15 percent of the total male population in the United States. The “guy” age bracket represents the front end of the single most desirable consumer market, according to advertisers. It’s the group constantly targeted by major Hollywood studios, in part because this group sees the same shoot-em-up action film so many times on initial release. They’re targeted in several of the most successful magazine launches in recent memory, magazines like Men’s Health, Maxim, FHM, Details, and Stuff. Guys in this age bracket are the primary viewers of the countless sports channels on television. They consume the overwhelming majority of recorded music, video games, and computer technology, and they are the majority of first-time car buyers.
...
Recently, a teacher at a middle school told me about his own 16-year- old son, Nick. “When we’re together, he’s excited, happy, curious, and so connected,” he told me.
“But when I drove him to school this morning, I watched an amazing transformation. In the car, Nick was speaking animatedly about something. As we arrived at his school, though, I saw him scan the playground for his friends. He got out of the car, still buoyant, with a bounce in his step. But as soon as he caught sight of his friends he instantly fell into that slouchy ‘I don’t give a sh--’ amble that teenagers get. I think I actually watched him become a ‘guy’!”
...
Every time we read about vicious gay-baiting and bullying in a high school, every time the nightly news depicts the grim horror of a school shooting, every time we hear about teen binge drinking, random sexual hookups, or a hazing death at a college fraternity, we feel that anxiety, that dread. And we ask ourselves, “Could that be my son?” Or, “Could that be my friend, or even my boyfriend?” Or, even “could that be me?”
Well, to be honest, probably not. Most guys are not predators, not criminals, and neither so consumed with adolescent rage nor so caught in the thrall of masculine entitlement that they are likely to end up with a rap sheet instead of a college transcript. But most guys know other guys who are chronic substance abusers, who have sexually assaulted their classmates. They swim in the same water, breathe the same air. Those appalling headlines are only the farthest extremes of a continuum of attitudes and behaviors that stretches back to embrace so many young men, and that so circumscribes their lives that even if they don’t want to participate, they still must contend with it.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Gender and leadership
Shoshana Zuboff, a retired Professor of Business Administration at Harvard, writes about Hillary Clinton, Hillary's campaign, and her (Zuboff's) own experience as one of the trailblazers for women in a very male field.
And she closes the article with this absolute gem:
And she closes the article with this absolute gem:
A Woman Who Could Lead Like a Man
But Senator Clinton blinked. She didn't take the leap of faith that so many of us had. She chose to present herself as a woman who could lead like a man, rather than as a woman who could lead. The female vote was taken for granted; she courted the men. As the campaign faltered, the need to prove herself more than a mere woman propelled her to a grim place of bluster and swagger where she tried to outmacho the machos. Instead of forging a path to a new postgender candidacy, she succumbed to counterfeiting a warrior's résumé—dodging sniper fire and forging peace treaties—while threatening Iran, knocking back boilermakers, and posturing for those 3 a.m. phone calls. But voters in Indiana and North Carolina showed they were not impressed by her manly strut.
It was only then that she turned to her female identity and, in a last-ditch effort to rally more women, she blamed her failures on sexism. In the ultimate paradox, it was her unlikely opponent—a young man of two races, raised by a woman, father of young daughters—who took up the challenge of postgender leadership. He sustained a moral center that could not be reduced to any gender stereotype and refused to be drawn into her macho game.
So where does Clinton's candidacy leave us? No one can now doubt that our country will back a nominee for high office who is a woman. Among the ironies of unintended consequences, the disrespectful nonsense aimed at Senator Clinton might serve to rekindle our national determination to confront sexist attitudes and practices at work and in society. But perhaps most compelling about Hillary Clinton's journey is that it invites every woman to reflect on how she chooses to behave in the daily rendezvous with sexism. It is a cautionary tale that reminds us we are not condemned to ricochet between the two poles of sexist stereotypes. It suggests that many of us are eager, hungry even, for a postgender conversation. We may even be ready to ask ourselves if the choices we make reflect the human beings we wish to be.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Church of England falling apart - women bishops to be debated in Synod
The Church of England will debate whether to allow the consecration of female bishops in July.
There is already much shouting and screaming, with some predicting a mass exodus of disaffected male clergy.
The Brits are also debating what sort of provisions to make for those not in agreement with female bishops. Their Bishops are backing some sort of voluntary code of practice.
Respecting people's consciences is all well and good. However, by the same logic, couldn't a country ban discrimination against women, and still allow men to, for example, beat their wives if their consciences demanded it?
I exaggerate, of course, but it does place the church in an odd spot to consecrate women as bishops, and to make provisions for some to not accept the authority of those bishops and still be part of the church. There are limits to church unity; this sort of thing will create a schizophrenic church down the road, and perhaps it's best to make no provisions and let the misogynists leave if they choose.
There is already much shouting and screaming, with some predicting a mass exodus of disaffected male clergy.
The Brits are also debating what sort of provisions to make for those not in agreement with female bishops. Their Bishops are backing some sort of voluntary code of practice.
Respecting people's consciences is all well and good. However, by the same logic, couldn't a country ban discrimination against women, and still allow men to, for example, beat their wives if their consciences demanded it?
I exaggerate, of course, but it does place the church in an odd spot to consecrate women as bishops, and to make provisions for some to not accept the authority of those bishops and still be part of the church. There are limits to church unity; this sort of thing will create a schizophrenic church down the road, and perhaps it's best to make no provisions and let the misogynists leave if they choose.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
In Europe, a debate over Islam and cirginity
A fascinating NY Times article highlights the contradictions between modern democracies and respect for religious tradition, as well as modern life and tradition.
PARIS — The operation in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.
But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.
Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse.
“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”
As Europe’s Muslim population grows, many young Muslim women are caught between the freedoms that European society affords and the deep-rooted traditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.
Gynecologists say that in the past few years, more Muslim women are seeking certificates of virginity to provide proof to others. That in turn has created a demand among cosmetic surgeons for hymen replacements, which, if done properly, they say, will not be detected and will produce tell-tale vaginal bleeding on the wedding night. The service is widely advertised on the Internet; medical tourism packages are available to countries like Tunisia where it is less expensive.
“If you’re a Muslim woman growing up in more open societies in Europe, you can easily end up having sex before marriage,” said Dr. Hicham Mouallem, who is based in London and performs the operation. “So if you’re looking to marry a Muslim and don’t want to have problems, you’ll try to recapture your virginity.”
No reliable statistics are available, because the procedure is mostly done in private clinics and in most cases not covered by tax-financed insurance plans.
But hymen repair is talked about so much that it is the subject of a film comedy that opens in Italy this week. “Women’s Hearts,” as the film’s title is translated in English, tells the story of a Moroccan-born woman living in Italy who goes to Casablanca for the operation.
One character jokes that she wants to bring her odometer count back down to “zero.”
“We realized that what we thought was a sporadic practice was actually pretty common,” said Davide Sordella, the film’s director. “These women can live in Italy, adopt our mentality and wear jeans. But in the moments that matter, they don’t always have the strength to go against their culture.”
The issue has been particularly charged in France, where a renewed and fierce debate has occurred about a prejudice that was supposed to have been buried with the country’s sexual revolution 40 years ago: the importance of a woman’s virginity.
The furor followed the revelation two weeks ago that a court in Lille, in northern France, had annulled the 2006 marriage of two French Muslims because the groom found his bride was not the virgin she had claimed to be.
The domestic drama has gripped France. The groom, an unidentified engineer in his 30s, left the nuptial bed and announced to the still partying wedding guests that his bride had lied. She was delivered that night to her parents’ doorstep.
The next day, he approached a lawyer about annulling the marriage. The bride, then a nursing student in her 20s, confessed and agreed to an annulment.
The court ruling did not mention religion. Rather, it cited breach of contract, concluding that the engineer had married her after “she was presented to him as single and chaste.” In secular, republican France, the case touches on several delicate subjects: the intrusion of religion into daily life; the grounds for dissolution of a marriage; and the equality of the sexes.
There were calls in Parliament this week for the resignation of Rachida Dati, France’s justice minister, after she initially upheld the ruling. Ms. Dati, who is a Muslim, backed down and ordered an appeal.
Some feminists, lawyers and doctors warned that the court’s acceptance of the centrality of virginity in marriage would encourage more Frenchwomen from Arab and African Muslim backgrounds to have their hymens restored. But there is much debate about whether the procedure is an act of liberation or repression.
“The judgment was a betrayal of France’s Muslim women,” said Elisabeth Badinter, the feminist writer. “It sends these women a message of despair by saying that virginity is important in the eyes of the law. More women are going to say to themselves, ‘My God, I’m not going to take that risk. I’ll recreate my virginity.’ ”
The plight of the rejected bride persuaded the Montpellier student to have the operation.
She insisted that she had never had intercourse and only discovered her hymen was torn when she tried to obtain a certificate of virginity to present to her boyfriend and his family. She says she bled after an accident on a horse when she was 10.
The trauma from realizing that she could not prove her virginity was so intense, she said, that she quietly borrowed money to pay for the procedure.
“All of a sudden, virginity is important in France,” she said. “I realized that I could be seen like that woman everyone is talking about on television.”
Those who perform the procedure say they are empowering patients by giving them a viable future and preventing them from being abused — or even killed — by their fathers or brothers.
“Who am I to judge?” asked Dr. Marc Abecassis, who restored the Montpellier student’s hymen. “I have colleagues in the United States whose patients do this as a Valentine’s present to their husbands. What I do is different. This is not for amusement. My patients don’t have a choice if they want to find serenity — and husbands.”
A specialist in what he calls “intimate” surgery, including penile enhancement, Dr. Abecassis says he performs two to four hymen restorations per week.
The French College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians opposes the procedure on moral, cultural and health grounds.
“We had a revolution in France to win equality; we had a sexual revolution in 1968 when women fought for contraception and abortion,” said Dr. Jacques Lansac, the group’s leader. “Attaching so much importance to the hymen is regression, submission to the intolerance of the past.”
But the stories of the women who have had the surgery convey the complexity and raw emotion behind their decisions.
One Muslim born in Macedonia said she opted for the operation to avoid being punished by her father after an eight-year relationship with her boyfriend.
“I was afraid that my father would take me to a doctor and see whether I was still a virgin,” said the woman, 32, who owns a small business and lives on her own in Frankfurt. “He told me, ‘I will forgive everything but not if you have thrown dirt on my honor.’ I wasn’t afraid he would kill me, but I was sure he would have beaten me.”
In other cases, the woman and her partner decide for her to have the operation. A 26-year-old French woman of Moroccan descent said she lost her virginity four years ago when she fell in love with the man she now plans to marry. But she and her fiancé decided to share the cost of her $3,400 operation in Paris.
She said his conservative extended family in Morocco was requiring that a gynecologist — and family friend — there examine her for proof of virginity before the wedding.
“It doesn’t matter for my fiancé that I am not a virgin — but it would pose a huge problem for his family,” she said. “They know that you can pour blood on the sheets on the wedding night, so I have to have better proof.”
The lives of the French couple whose marriage was annulled are on hold. The Justice Ministry has sought an appeal, arguing that the decision has “provoked a heated social debate” that “touched all citizens of our country and especially women.”
At the Islamic Center of Roubaix, the Lille suburb where the wedding took place, there is sympathy for the woman.
“The man is the biggest of all the donkeys,” said Abdelkibir Errami, the center’s vice president. “Even if the woman was no longer a virgin, he had no right to expose her honor. This is not what Islam teaches. It teaches forgiveness.”
PARIS — The operation in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.
But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.
Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse.
“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”
As Europe’s Muslim population grows, many young Muslim women are caught between the freedoms that European society affords and the deep-rooted traditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.
Gynecologists say that in the past few years, more Muslim women are seeking certificates of virginity to provide proof to others. That in turn has created a demand among cosmetic surgeons for hymen replacements, which, if done properly, they say, will not be detected and will produce tell-tale vaginal bleeding on the wedding night. The service is widely advertised on the Internet; medical tourism packages are available to countries like Tunisia where it is less expensive.
“If you’re a Muslim woman growing up in more open societies in Europe, you can easily end up having sex before marriage,” said Dr. Hicham Mouallem, who is based in London and performs the operation. “So if you’re looking to marry a Muslim and don’t want to have problems, you’ll try to recapture your virginity.”
No reliable statistics are available, because the procedure is mostly done in private clinics and in most cases not covered by tax-financed insurance plans.
But hymen repair is talked about so much that it is the subject of a film comedy that opens in Italy this week. “Women’s Hearts,” as the film’s title is translated in English, tells the story of a Moroccan-born woman living in Italy who goes to Casablanca for the operation.
One character jokes that she wants to bring her odometer count back down to “zero.”
“We realized that what we thought was a sporadic practice was actually pretty common,” said Davide Sordella, the film’s director. “These women can live in Italy, adopt our mentality and wear jeans. But in the moments that matter, they don’t always have the strength to go against their culture.”
The issue has been particularly charged in France, where a renewed and fierce debate has occurred about a prejudice that was supposed to have been buried with the country’s sexual revolution 40 years ago: the importance of a woman’s virginity.
The furor followed the revelation two weeks ago that a court in Lille, in northern France, had annulled the 2006 marriage of two French Muslims because the groom found his bride was not the virgin she had claimed to be.
The domestic drama has gripped France. The groom, an unidentified engineer in his 30s, left the nuptial bed and announced to the still partying wedding guests that his bride had lied. She was delivered that night to her parents’ doorstep.
The next day, he approached a lawyer about annulling the marriage. The bride, then a nursing student in her 20s, confessed and agreed to an annulment.
The court ruling did not mention religion. Rather, it cited breach of contract, concluding that the engineer had married her after “she was presented to him as single and chaste.” In secular, republican France, the case touches on several delicate subjects: the intrusion of religion into daily life; the grounds for dissolution of a marriage; and the equality of the sexes.
There were calls in Parliament this week for the resignation of Rachida Dati, France’s justice minister, after she initially upheld the ruling. Ms. Dati, who is a Muslim, backed down and ordered an appeal.
Some feminists, lawyers and doctors warned that the court’s acceptance of the centrality of virginity in marriage would encourage more Frenchwomen from Arab and African Muslim backgrounds to have their hymens restored. But there is much debate about whether the procedure is an act of liberation or repression.
“The judgment was a betrayal of France’s Muslim women,” said Elisabeth Badinter, the feminist writer. “It sends these women a message of despair by saying that virginity is important in the eyes of the law. More women are going to say to themselves, ‘My God, I’m not going to take that risk. I’ll recreate my virginity.’ ”
The plight of the rejected bride persuaded the Montpellier student to have the operation.
She insisted that she had never had intercourse and only discovered her hymen was torn when she tried to obtain a certificate of virginity to present to her boyfriend and his family. She says she bled after an accident on a horse when she was 10.
The trauma from realizing that she could not prove her virginity was so intense, she said, that she quietly borrowed money to pay for the procedure.
“All of a sudden, virginity is important in France,” she said. “I realized that I could be seen like that woman everyone is talking about on television.”
Those who perform the procedure say they are empowering patients by giving them a viable future and preventing them from being abused — or even killed — by their fathers or brothers.
“Who am I to judge?” asked Dr. Marc Abecassis, who restored the Montpellier student’s hymen. “I have colleagues in the United States whose patients do this as a Valentine’s present to their husbands. What I do is different. This is not for amusement. My patients don’t have a choice if they want to find serenity — and husbands.”
A specialist in what he calls “intimate” surgery, including penile enhancement, Dr. Abecassis says he performs two to four hymen restorations per week.
The French College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians opposes the procedure on moral, cultural and health grounds.
“We had a revolution in France to win equality; we had a sexual revolution in 1968 when women fought for contraception and abortion,” said Dr. Jacques Lansac, the group’s leader. “Attaching so much importance to the hymen is regression, submission to the intolerance of the past.”
But the stories of the women who have had the surgery convey the complexity and raw emotion behind their decisions.
One Muslim born in Macedonia said she opted for the operation to avoid being punished by her father after an eight-year relationship with her boyfriend.
“I was afraid that my father would take me to a doctor and see whether I was still a virgin,” said the woman, 32, who owns a small business and lives on her own in Frankfurt. “He told me, ‘I will forgive everything but not if you have thrown dirt on my honor.’ I wasn’t afraid he would kill me, but I was sure he would have beaten me.”
In other cases, the woman and her partner decide for her to have the operation. A 26-year-old French woman of Moroccan descent said she lost her virginity four years ago when she fell in love with the man she now plans to marry. But she and her fiancé decided to share the cost of her $3,400 operation in Paris.
She said his conservative extended family in Morocco was requiring that a gynecologist — and family friend — there examine her for proof of virginity before the wedding.
“It doesn’t matter for my fiancé that I am not a virgin — but it would pose a huge problem for his family,” she said. “They know that you can pour blood on the sheets on the wedding night, so I have to have better proof.”
The lives of the French couple whose marriage was annulled are on hold. The Justice Ministry has sought an appeal, arguing that the decision has “provoked a heated social debate” that “touched all citizens of our country and especially women.”
At the Islamic Center of Roubaix, the Lille suburb where the wedding took place, there is sympathy for the woman.
“The man is the biggest of all the donkeys,” said Abdelkibir Errami, the center’s vice president. “Even if the woman was no longer a virgin, he had no right to expose her honor. This is not what Islam teaches. It teaches forgiveness.”
Homosexual agenda: improving heterosexual marriage?
An excerpt from a NY Times article on studies on same-sex couples. This is not good news for the folks who are allegedly trying to destroy marriage.
One well-known study used mathematical modeling to decipher the interactions between committed gay couples. The results, published in two 2003 articles in The Journal of Homosexuality, showed that when same-sex couples argued, they tended to fight more fairly than heterosexual couples, making fewer verbal attacks and more of an effort to defuse the confrontation.
Controlling and hostile emotional tactics, like belligerence and domineering, were less common among gay couples.
Same-sex couples were also less likely to develop an elevated heartbeat and adrenaline surges during arguments. And straight couples were more likely to stay physically agitated after a conflict.
“When they got into these really negative interactions, gay and lesbian couples were able to do things like use humor and affection that enabled them to step back from the ledge and continue to talk about the problem instead of just exploding,” said Robert W. Levenson, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
The findings suggest that heterosexual couples need to work harder to seek perspective. The ability to see the other person’s point of view appears to be more automatic in same-sex couples, but research shows that heterosexuals who can relate to their partner’s concerns and who are skilled at defusing arguments also have stronger relationships.
One of the most common stereotypes in heterosexual marriages is the “demand-withdraw” interaction, in which the woman tends to be unhappy and to make demands for change, while the man reacts by withdrawing from the conflict. But some surprising new research shows that same-sex couples also exhibit the pattern, contradicting the notion that the behavior is rooted in gender, according to an abstract presented at the 2006 meeting of the Association for Psychological Science by Sarah R. Holley, a psychology researcher at Berkeley.
Dr. Levenson says this is good news for all couples.
“Like everybody else, I thought this was male behavior and female behavior, but it’s not,” he said. “That means there is a lot more hope that you can do something about it.”
One well-known study used mathematical modeling to decipher the interactions between committed gay couples. The results, published in two 2003 articles in The Journal of Homosexuality, showed that when same-sex couples argued, they tended to fight more fairly than heterosexual couples, making fewer verbal attacks and more of an effort to defuse the confrontation.
Controlling and hostile emotional tactics, like belligerence and domineering, were less common among gay couples.
Same-sex couples were also less likely to develop an elevated heartbeat and adrenaline surges during arguments. And straight couples were more likely to stay physically agitated after a conflict.
“When they got into these really negative interactions, gay and lesbian couples were able to do things like use humor and affection that enabled them to step back from the ledge and continue to talk about the problem instead of just exploding,” said Robert W. Levenson, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
The findings suggest that heterosexual couples need to work harder to seek perspective. The ability to see the other person’s point of view appears to be more automatic in same-sex couples, but research shows that heterosexuals who can relate to their partner’s concerns and who are skilled at defusing arguments also have stronger relationships.
One of the most common stereotypes in heterosexual marriages is the “demand-withdraw” interaction, in which the woman tends to be unhappy and to make demands for change, while the man reacts by withdrawing from the conflict. But some surprising new research shows that same-sex couples also exhibit the pattern, contradicting the notion that the behavior is rooted in gender, according to an abstract presented at the 2006 meeting of the Association for Psychological Science by Sarah R. Holley, a psychology researcher at Berkeley.
Dr. Levenson says this is good news for all couples.
“Like everybody else, I thought this was male behavior and female behavior, but it’s not,” he said. “That means there is a lot more hope that you can do something about it.”
Monday, June 09, 2008
What Hillary Won
Gail Collins writes in an opinion piece for the NY Times.
As the sun was sinking on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the nation’s wounded feminists were burning up the Internet.
They vowed to write in Hillary’s name on their ballots in November; to wear “NObama” T-shirts all summer; to “de-register” as Democrats. One much-circulated e-mail proposed turning June 3, the day Barack Obama claimed the nomination, as a permanent day of mournful remembrance “like the people in Ireland remember the Famine.”
“The passion is very intense,” said Muriel Fox, a retired public relations executive in New York who was one of the founding members of the National Organization for Women. “It’s very much a feeling that Hillary has not been respected.”
Feel free to make fun of them. The women of Fox’s generation ought to be used to it by now. The movement they started was the first fight for equality in which the opposition deployed ridicule as its most lethal weapon. They won the ban on sex discrimination in employment by letting a conservative congressman propose it as a joke. When they staged their historic march in New York in 1970, they heard themselves described as “braless bubble-heads” by a U.S. senator and were laughed at on the evening news.
They had always seen a woman in the White House as the holy grail. Now their disappointment is compounded by the feeling that Clinton’s candidacy was not even appreciated as a noble try.
“She stayed in and showed she could take it. I feel she’s taken this beating for us — the abuse and the battering and the insults,” said Fox.
I get asked all the time whether I think Hillary lost because sexism is worse than racism in this country. The answer is no. She lost because Obama ran a smarter, better-organized campaign. It’s possible that she would have won if the Democratic Party had more rational primary rules. But Obama didn’t make up the rules, and Clinton had no problem with them until she began to lose.
Here’s where the sexism does come in. If Barack had failed in his attempt to make history by becoming the first African-American presidential nominee, you can bet we’d have treated his defeat with the dignity it deserved. Even if he went over the deep end at the finale and found it hard to get around to a graceful concession.
For a long time, Obama supporters have seen party unity as something that Hillary could provide by capitulating. It also requires the Democrats to acknowledge what she’s achieved. If that makes them feel like wimps, let them take it out on John McCain.
Clinton is very much a product of the generation that accepted a certain amount of humiliation as the price of progress. She wrote in her autobiography that when she ran for president of her high-school class against several boys, one of them told her she was “really stupid” if she thought a girl could be elected president. She lost, and later, the winner asked her to head a committee “which as far as I could tell was expected to do most of the work.” She swallowed hard, accepted and, she admitted, really liked organizing all the school parades and dances and pep rallies.
This is one of the things you have to admire about Hillary Clinton. She still enjoys the work.
Over the past months, Clinton has seemed haunted by the image of the “nice girl” who gives up the fight because she’s afraid the boys will be angry if they don’t get their way. She told people she would never, ever say: “I’m the girl, I give up.” She would never let her daughter, or anybody else’s daughter, think that she quit because things got too tough.
And she never did. Nobody is ever again going to question whether it’s possible for a woman to go toe-to-toe with the toughest male candidate in a race for president of the United States. Or whether a woman could be strong enough to serve as commander in chief.
Her campaign didn’t resolve whether a woman who seems tough enough to run the military can also seem likable enough to get elected. But she helped pave the way. So many battles against prejudice are won when people get used to seeing women and minorities in roles that only white men had held before. By the end of those 54 primaries and caucuses, Hillary had made a woman running for president seem normal.
Her campaign was messy, and it made some fatal tactical errors. But nobody who sent her a donation could accuse her of not giving them their money’s worth.
For all her vaunting ambition, she was never a candidate who ran for president just because it’s the presidency. She thought about winning in terms of the things she could accomplish, and she never forgot the women’s issues she had championed all her life — repair of the social safety net, children’s rights, support for working mothers.
It’s not the same as winning the White House. But it’s a lot.
As the sun was sinking on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the nation’s wounded feminists were burning up the Internet.
They vowed to write in Hillary’s name on their ballots in November; to wear “NObama” T-shirts all summer; to “de-register” as Democrats. One much-circulated e-mail proposed turning June 3, the day Barack Obama claimed the nomination, as a permanent day of mournful remembrance “like the people in Ireland remember the Famine.”
“The passion is very intense,” said Muriel Fox, a retired public relations executive in New York who was one of the founding members of the National Organization for Women. “It’s very much a feeling that Hillary has not been respected.”
Feel free to make fun of them. The women of Fox’s generation ought to be used to it by now. The movement they started was the first fight for equality in which the opposition deployed ridicule as its most lethal weapon. They won the ban on sex discrimination in employment by letting a conservative congressman propose it as a joke. When they staged their historic march in New York in 1970, they heard themselves described as “braless bubble-heads” by a U.S. senator and were laughed at on the evening news.
They had always seen a woman in the White House as the holy grail. Now their disappointment is compounded by the feeling that Clinton’s candidacy was not even appreciated as a noble try.
“She stayed in and showed she could take it. I feel she’s taken this beating for us — the abuse and the battering and the insults,” said Fox.
I get asked all the time whether I think Hillary lost because sexism is worse than racism in this country. The answer is no. She lost because Obama ran a smarter, better-organized campaign. It’s possible that she would have won if the Democratic Party had more rational primary rules. But Obama didn’t make up the rules, and Clinton had no problem with them until she began to lose.
Here’s where the sexism does come in. If Barack had failed in his attempt to make history by becoming the first African-American presidential nominee, you can bet we’d have treated his defeat with the dignity it deserved. Even if he went over the deep end at the finale and found it hard to get around to a graceful concession.
For a long time, Obama supporters have seen party unity as something that Hillary could provide by capitulating. It also requires the Democrats to acknowledge what she’s achieved. If that makes them feel like wimps, let them take it out on John McCain.
Clinton is very much a product of the generation that accepted a certain amount of humiliation as the price of progress. She wrote in her autobiography that when she ran for president of her high-school class against several boys, one of them told her she was “really stupid” if she thought a girl could be elected president. She lost, and later, the winner asked her to head a committee “which as far as I could tell was expected to do most of the work.” She swallowed hard, accepted and, she admitted, really liked organizing all the school parades and dances and pep rallies.
This is one of the things you have to admire about Hillary Clinton. She still enjoys the work.
Over the past months, Clinton has seemed haunted by the image of the “nice girl” who gives up the fight because she’s afraid the boys will be angry if they don’t get their way. She told people she would never, ever say: “I’m the girl, I give up.” She would never let her daughter, or anybody else’s daughter, think that she quit because things got too tough.
And she never did. Nobody is ever again going to question whether it’s possible for a woman to go toe-to-toe with the toughest male candidate in a race for president of the United States. Or whether a woman could be strong enough to serve as commander in chief.
Her campaign didn’t resolve whether a woman who seems tough enough to run the military can also seem likable enough to get elected. But she helped pave the way. So many battles against prejudice are won when people get used to seeing women and minorities in roles that only white men had held before. By the end of those 54 primaries and caucuses, Hillary had made a woman running for president seem normal.
Her campaign was messy, and it made some fatal tactical errors. But nobody who sent her a donation could accuse her of not giving them their money’s worth.
For all her vaunting ambition, she was never a candidate who ran for president just because it’s the presidency. She thought about winning in terms of the things she could accomplish, and she never forgot the women’s issues she had championed all her life — repair of the social safety net, children’s rights, support for working mothers.
It’s not the same as winning the White House. But it’s a lot.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
In honor of Hillary - a fairy tale
This is a repost from the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton's blog. Elizabeth is an Episcopal priest, President of the Episcopal Women's Caucus, and is a board member of Integrity, a national LGBT Episcopal organization.
King Arthur and the Witch - a cautionary tale in these cautionary times.
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur’s youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.
The question… What do women really want? Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch’s proposition to have an answer by year’s end.
He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer.
Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer.
But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.
The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first.
The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur’s closest friend!
Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc. He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life.
He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur.
He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur’s life and the preservation of the Round Table.
Hence, a wedding was proclaimed, and the witch answered Arthur’s question thus:
What a woman really wants, she answered… is to be in charge of her own life.
Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth, and that Arthur’s life would be spared.
And so it was, the neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom, and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.
The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened.
The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half.
Which would he prefer? Beautiful during the day… or night?
Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous intimate moments?
Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.
Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.
Now… what is the moral to this story?
The moral is… The next time you're in an airport and are tempted to purchase a "Hillary Nutcracker" - think twice. The nuts you save may be your own.
To quote Tina Fey: "Bitch is the new Black."
(Doug sent me this, but with a different moral ending. Thanks, Doug.)
King Arthur and the Witch - a cautionary tale in these cautionary times.
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur’s youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.
The question… What do women really want? Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch’s proposition to have an answer by year’s end.
He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer.
Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer.
But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.
The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first.
The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur’s closest friend!
Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc. He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life.
He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur.
He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur’s life and the preservation of the Round Table.
Hence, a wedding was proclaimed, and the witch answered Arthur’s question thus:
What a woman really wants, she answered… is to be in charge of her own life.
Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth, and that Arthur’s life would be spared.
And so it was, the neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom, and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.
The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened.
The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half.
Which would he prefer? Beautiful during the day… or night?
Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous intimate moments?
Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.
Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.
Now… what is the moral to this story?
The moral is… The next time you're in an airport and are tempted to purchase a "Hillary Nutcracker" - think twice. The nuts you save may be your own.
To quote Tina Fey: "Bitch is the new Black."
(Doug sent me this, but with a different moral ending. Thanks, Doug.)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Re the previous post
Wouldn't it be nice if racism and sexism were dead?
Wouldn't it at least be nice if they were at least dead in America?
Well, they aren't. This election has shown us that.
I remember watching a video, in a psych class, detailing some of the comments made about Geraldine Ferraro, a US Vice Presidential candidate who ran with Walter Mondale on the Democratic ticket some time in the 1980s (I think). If someone made comments like that in my home, I'd ask them to leave.
And then, during the campaign, Ferraro essentially said that Obama wouldn't be where he was if he wasn't Black. She was working with Clinton's campaign. For that, I might not have asked her to leave, but I sure wouldn't have invited her back.
The Democratic campaign has been rather close (partially due to the way they count their votes, with delegates divided proportionately rather than winner takes all). As the campaign has gone on, the comments have got more and more bitter. I'm not sure that I've heard either Hillary or Barack disavow comments made against the other candidate's race and gender.
I hope America's Presidential candidates and nominees can take the high road.
Wouldn't it at least be nice if they were at least dead in America?
Well, they aren't. This election has shown us that.
I remember watching a video, in a psych class, detailing some of the comments made about Geraldine Ferraro, a US Vice Presidential candidate who ran with Walter Mondale on the Democratic ticket some time in the 1980s (I think). If someone made comments like that in my home, I'd ask them to leave.
And then, during the campaign, Ferraro essentially said that Obama wouldn't be where he was if he wasn't Black. She was working with Clinton's campaign. For that, I might not have asked her to leave, but I sure wouldn't have invited her back.
The Democratic campaign has been rather close (partially due to the way they count their votes, with delegates divided proportionately rather than winner takes all). As the campaign has gone on, the comments have got more and more bitter. I'm not sure that I've heard either Hillary or Barack disavow comments made against the other candidate's race and gender.
I hope America's Presidential candidates and nominees can take the high road.
Do you think sexism is dead in America?
An article by Marie Coco, posted on Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton's blog.
Misogyny I Won't Miss
By Marie Cocco
Thursday, May 15, 2008; A15
As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.
I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.
I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.
I won't miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site.
I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.
Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.
I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, begone.
The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).
But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it's mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN).
When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News).
I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."
Most of all, I will not miss the silence.
I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?
There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.
Marie Cocco is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is mariecocco@washpost.com.
Misogyny I Won't Miss
By Marie Cocco
Thursday, May 15, 2008; A15
As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.
I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.
I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.
I won't miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site.
I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.
Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.
I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, begone.
The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).
But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it's mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN).
When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News).
I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."
Most of all, I will not miss the silence.
I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?
There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.
Marie Cocco is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is mariecocco@washpost.com.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Woman beats anorexia to give birth ... three years after she was given 10 days to live
This story was posted on Daily Mail, which is a UK tabloid. There is a rather shocking photo of Ms. Wilde when she was severely anorexic at 16, which I have not reproduced here.
I normally wouldn't do tabloids. OK, I have to be honest, I might glance at the pictures of (ahem) attractive women. And therein lies the problem. Body image is a problem, and it is a driver of anorexia and other forms of disordered eating. I could write or post an essay about how images of models have distorted our perception of what the ideal female body should be.
Her frame was so skeletal that doctors warned Hayley Wilde she was just over a week away from death.
But three years on, after an eight-year battle against anorexia, she has bounced back in the most emphatic fashion by giving birth to a boy.
Her son Michael was born last month weighing a healthy 7lb 14oz, something that would have been unthinkable when she was at her lowest ebb.
Yesterday the 20-year-old and her mother Jane released a harrowing photo of Hayley when she weighed just over five stones to show the devastating effects of anorexia - and also to prove that however bleak things seem, there is always hope.
The picture was taken when Hayley was 16. She had been fighting the condition since she was 11. Her 5ft 7in frame was down to 5st 1oz, and doctors warned she could have ten days left to live if she did not start to put weight on.
She was hospitalised for months on end and fed through a tube. Her hair started to fall out and her periods stopped for four years. But expert medical help and the support of her parents saw her pull back from the brink, and last year she and her partner were thrilled to discover she was pregnant.
"Michael will never want for anything," Hayley said. "I will make sure that he eats well and has a healthy diet. And he will have lots of love."
As well as risking permanent damage to a woman's fertility, anorexia can cause other problems for sufferers who do become pregnant.
For someone who has spent years trying to be thin, the temptation to lose weight following the birth can provoke a relapse. But Hayley and her 50-year-old mother, who live together in Blackpool, are aware of the potential pitfalls and are confident that the need to put Michael first will see her avoid them.
"I had to eat a normal diet, for my baby," she said.
"I was eating healthily because of him. I like to be thin, thinner than I am now, but I don't want to go back into hospital. I don't want to be like that picture again."
Her problems began when she started secondary school and, lacking confidence, started skipping meals. "I thought being thinner would make me more popular," she said.
At home, she concealed what was happening from her parents . "I used to hide food in a napkin and put it in my pockets," she recalled. "I would hide it in a carrier bag in my wardrobe and when my mum and dad went out, threw it in the bin."
When her her mother eventually found out, she was devastated. "It was as if someone had battered me over the head with a bat," she said. "It was the worst shock of my life."
Hayley was diagnosed with anorexia, but in her mid-teens her weight continued to plummet and she had five spells as an in-patient at a specialist clinic in Manchester.
Despite her strong reservations, her mother took the photograph of her at her thinnest in 2005 to show how bad things had become. "I felt dreadful when I took it, but it was something I had to do," she said.
The following year, Hayley spent all but seven weeks on a ward. But all the support, combined with falling in love, helped her reach a more healthy weight, and last year came the news she was pregnant. Michael was born two weeks early on March 8 and is doing well.
"The birth of my grandson was something I had only dared to hope and pray for," said Mrs Wilde. "Michael is a miracle for us, and the wonderful thing is that having him has meant we've seen Hayley grow into a young woman for the first time as well."
Despite missing so much school, Hayley passed her A-levels and is training to become a teacher. Her mother, who has set up a support group, Fighting for Freedom with Anorexia Nervosa, said: "I hope by telling our story, other parents of anorexics will see there is hope."
I normally wouldn't do tabloids. OK, I have to be honest, I might glance at the pictures of (ahem) attractive women. And therein lies the problem. Body image is a problem, and it is a driver of anorexia and other forms of disordered eating. I could write or post an essay about how images of models have distorted our perception of what the ideal female body should be.
Her frame was so skeletal that doctors warned Hayley Wilde she was just over a week away from death.
But three years on, after an eight-year battle against anorexia, she has bounced back in the most emphatic fashion by giving birth to a boy.
Her son Michael was born last month weighing a healthy 7lb 14oz, something that would have been unthinkable when she was at her lowest ebb.
Yesterday the 20-year-old and her mother Jane released a harrowing photo of Hayley when she weighed just over five stones to show the devastating effects of anorexia - and also to prove that however bleak things seem, there is always hope.
The picture was taken when Hayley was 16. She had been fighting the condition since she was 11. Her 5ft 7in frame was down to 5st 1oz, and doctors warned she could have ten days left to live if she did not start to put weight on.
She was hospitalised for months on end and fed through a tube. Her hair started to fall out and her periods stopped for four years. But expert medical help and the support of her parents saw her pull back from the brink, and last year she and her partner were thrilled to discover she was pregnant.
"Michael will never want for anything," Hayley said. "I will make sure that he eats well and has a healthy diet. And he will have lots of love."
As well as risking permanent damage to a woman's fertility, anorexia can cause other problems for sufferers who do become pregnant.
For someone who has spent years trying to be thin, the temptation to lose weight following the birth can provoke a relapse. But Hayley and her 50-year-old mother, who live together in Blackpool, are aware of the potential pitfalls and are confident that the need to put Michael first will see her avoid them.
"I had to eat a normal diet, for my baby," she said.
"I was eating healthily because of him. I like to be thin, thinner than I am now, but I don't want to go back into hospital. I don't want to be like that picture again."
Her problems began when she started secondary school and, lacking confidence, started skipping meals. "I thought being thinner would make me more popular," she said.
At home, she concealed what was happening from her parents . "I used to hide food in a napkin and put it in my pockets," she recalled. "I would hide it in a carrier bag in my wardrobe and when my mum and dad went out, threw it in the bin."
When her her mother eventually found out, she was devastated. "It was as if someone had battered me over the head with a bat," she said. "It was the worst shock of my life."
Hayley was diagnosed with anorexia, but in her mid-teens her weight continued to plummet and she had five spells as an in-patient at a specialist clinic in Manchester.
Despite her strong reservations, her mother took the photograph of her at her thinnest in 2005 to show how bad things had become. "I felt dreadful when I took it, but it was something I had to do," she said.
The following year, Hayley spent all but seven weeks on a ward. But all the support, combined with falling in love, helped her reach a more healthy weight, and last year came the news she was pregnant. Michael was born two weeks early on March 8 and is doing well.
"The birth of my grandson was something I had only dared to hope and pray for," said Mrs Wilde. "Michael is a miracle for us, and the wonderful thing is that having him has meant we've seen Hayley grow into a young woman for the first time as well."
Despite missing so much school, Hayley passed her A-levels and is training to become a teacher. Her mother, who has set up a support group, Fighting for Freedom with Anorexia Nervosa, said: "I hope by telling our story, other parents of anorexics will see there is hope."
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A joke
(Weiwen was showing the new acolyte the ropes)
Weiwen: ...and if the Antichrist shows up, bash him on the head with the censer.
Everyone else: Or her!!
Weiwen: ...and if the Antichrist shows up, bash him on the head with the censer.
Everyone else: Or her!!
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