Women's Rights

Appeal to Pam Tebow to Protect, and Respect, Choice

by Alex DiBranco

category: Reproductive Rights

Published February 03, 2010 @ 01:42PM PT

The countdown to the Tim Tebow commercial -- I mean Super Bowl -- continues. Feminist blogs have been cross-posting a letter from the blog at the National Women's Law Center (NWLC): "To Ms. Tebow at the Super Bowl: You Had a Choice."

The letter, addressing the planned controversial Focus on the Family Super Bowl ad featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, begins: "We would like to give Ms. Tebow a one-person-in-a-quiet-room round of applause for having the opportunity to make the choice that was right for her." It goes on to recognize the difficult decision Pam Tebow faced during a life-threatening pregnancy, a decision no expectant mother planning to welcome a new baby wants to be confronted with.

However, women's rights groups have been justifiably concerned about the content of the ad, given Focus on the Family's anti-choice agenda to repeal Roe v. Wade. The NWLC asks Ms. Tebow not to let her family's story be used to criticize or disrespect women face with a similar situation who chose abortion as right for them. If her message is pro-life, it should also be pro-choice. There is no one right decision: it depends on the individual woman. The letter asks that Ms. Tebow not leave out the importance of the fact that she was given the opportunity to make her own decision in the story she tells. That she wasn't forced to have an abortion, or not to.

The appeal continues, "As the face of choice, we hope that you won't disregard the stories of many other women while you are telling your own. Please don't mislead the millions watching the Super Bowl into thinking that we should remove the right of choice, the one you so coveted in that doctor's office."

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Mortality Rate of California Pregnant Women Has Tripled

by Alex DiBranco

category: Reproductive Health

Published February 03, 2010 @ 08:41AM PT

In the biggest spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s -- yep, that's Great Depression era we're talking -- the mortality rate has almost tripled in the last decade. As the California Watch article points out, it's now "more dangerous to to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia."

Thus far, the Department of Health has declined to release the report on pregnancy mortality rates, citing a need for further revisions. But the initial findings were reported at a conference in 2007, and researchers say the public needs to know about this trend now, and fixes must be made.

So what's to blame for the sudden increases? In the past, some have alleged that improvements to death certificate reporting had given an artificial appearance of greater deaths. But estimates find that not even a third of the spike can be attributed to administrative reporting changes. Instead, people are looking cross-eyed at the C-section, which has become the most common surgical procedure in the U.S.

C-sections have also been a valuable life-saving device in many cases. However, giving birth by C-section can also leave women with a condition that increases the danger of their next label. Doctors say it's difficult to weigh future risks against the immediate benefit of the procedure to the mother and her child. This suggests a need for better research into, and understanding of, the costs and benefits of the procedure, so doctors are better equipped to make that judgment call.

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Bikinis Caused the Rape of 9-Year-Old Girl

by Alex DiBranco

category: Sexual Assault

Published February 02, 2010 @ 08:59PM PT

The guidebook entry for Goa, India, should read: Beware of a state tourism ministry that blames the rape of nine-year-old girls on too many bikini-clad women on the beaches.

Goa's beaches have been a popular destination for tourists looking to have a little sandy fun in the sun. But the recent rape of a nine-year-old Russian girl, after a series of sexual assaults against vacationers, has sparked international outrage. And the government's decision to go the victim- and swimwear-blaming route isn't winning it any extra points.

Pamela Mascarhenas, Goa's deputy director of tourism, is quoted by New Delhi's Daily Mail as saying, "You can't blame the locals"; rather, the assaults are the fault of foreign women who don't show adequate "modesty," which "is bound to titillate the senses." Other officials join in by excusing the attacks as caused by "culture shock."

If Mascarhenas means "those who perpetrate rape and sexual assault" when she says you "can't blame the locals," she is dead wrong -- you can and should blame those individuals. (And isn't it kind of offensive to defend rapists by suggesting that all locals are unable to control themselves at the sight of bikini-clad women?) Making excuses and victim-blaming just perpetuates an unsafe atmosphere for women and girls.

And another thing: this victim was nine years old. Seriously, she was just such an immodest and sexy nine-year-old she brought this on herself? The girl hadn't even reached puberty. But those factors are not what rape and child molestation are about. Oh, and by the way, this child rape wasn't even close to a crime of passion. It was a calculated move -- the alleged rapist apparently had a friend distract the girl's mother while he assaulted her child.

But, by all means, blame bikinis and nine-year-old girls instead.

Photo credit: jemsweb

Fake Democrat Harold Ford Calls Opponent a "Young Lady"

by Alex DiBranco

category: Sexism

Published February 02, 2010 @ 04:39PM PT

What is it with these fake Democrats and their sexism? No wonder even though we have a supposed "majority" we can't get health care passed that protects women's reproductive rights. Blue Dogs my foot.

Coming on the heels of former Republican and crotchety old senator Arlen Specter's admonition to Rep. Michele Bachmann to "act like a lady," women were in no mood to hear Harold Ford, Jr. patronizingly refer to Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) as a "young lady." (She's four year older than him, by the way.) "Young lady" is what my mother used to call me as a teenager when I was in trouble for something -- it's not how you refer to a political opponent.

Ford, a former Tennessee Congressperson and current carpetbagger, is expected to challenge Gillibrand for her seat in the upcoming Democratic primary. I'm not sure why he thinks New York will want a conservative flip-flopper instead of a woman with a strong pro-choice record to represent them, but I hope that "young lady" crushes him at the polls.

A Youtube video created by NARAL and Planned Parenthood shows just how not-liberal "Ann Coulter's favorite Democrat" is. I particularly like the way he laughs and laughs at the notion of having ever been a liberal at the end.

Obama's Proposed Budget Protects Women's Programs

by Alex DiBranco

categories: Reproductive Health, Womens Health

Published February 02, 2010 @ 11:50AM PT

After heavy criticism from women's rights organizations, President Obama has unveiled a proposed budget that would preserve or increase funding for a number of programs for women and girls, despite the overall three-year domestic spending freeze he called for in the State of the Union address. (Though Obama aides deny this, there has been speculation that the president is reacting to pressure from women's advocacy groups.)

To fight the recent spike in teen pregnancy, the proposed budget will kick in extra dollars for family planning. And it will provide a significant boost in funding to combating violence against women, to the tune of over $100 million more, which includes increased support for domestic violence and sexual assault victims. The budget includes the optimistic assumption that health care reform will pass, and increases access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

Immediately after the proposed budget was released, members of Congress began criticizing the president for overreaching. And, unsurprisingly, Republicans don't like the plan to gain revenue by letting Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy quietly expire (they're probably also not to keen on charging the banks who we recently bailed out). On the other hand, the Center for American Progress points out that there are savings to be made beyond domestic spending -- namely, in the massive defense budgets. I prefer butter over guns, myself.

I'm still concerned that Obama choose to make a domestic spending freeze his priority on the budget. When push comes to shove, if Congress doesn't share Obama's protection priorities, or preferred cuts, will he consider standing firm on domestic freezes to be most important? Or will he stand up for the health of women and girls? While reducing the deficit is important, this freeze seems to be a heavy-handed approach geared toward making a flashy political statement, not thinking about what the country really needs.

Photo credit: blvesboy

"Our Bodies, Ourselves" Is Looking for Real Women's Stories

by Pema Levy

categories: Feminism, Womens Health

Published February 02, 2010 @ 07:00AM PT

Before my freshman year of college, my mother ceremoniously gave me a going-away present. It was a book, a big book, the cover was pink, and it had smiling middle-aged women on the cover. Really, Mom? When I got to school I kept it hidden away in a drawer because I was embarrassed. What I didn't realize at the time was that this book, Our Bodies, Ourselves, is one of the greatest products of the feminist movement.

Our Bodies, Ourselves is one of the most valuable products of the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s; today, it continues to be a vital aspect of feminist activism. Developed by feminists in Boston in the early 1970s, Our Bodies, Ourselves was a radical response to the negligent and even harmful treatment and portrayal of women by the medical establishment.

When Our Bodies, Ourselves was first breaking ground, single women lacked equal access to contraception, and breast cancer meant social shame. You get the idea: women's health and sexuality were either viewed as shameful or nonexistent. Since its original publication in 1973, Our Bodies, Ourselves has not only been translated into over 20 languages, but has also been adapted to reflect the contexts of women's health in other countries. To convey the great importance of the book, history professor Linda Gordon provocatively called it "the American left's most valuable written contribution to the world."

As feminism has evolved to include the diverse perspectives of women, so has Our Bodies, Ourselves. It is actively dedicated to a distinctly inclusive and up-to-date understanding of women's lives and experiences. As one history of the book notes, "the original authors soon came to understand how saturated their book was with the perspective of educated, middle-class, white American women." Today, Our Bodies, Ourselves is getting ready for its next edition, due out in 2011. In preparation, they are seeking the experiences of women of all stripes so as to truly represent the diversity of women's experiences and backgrounds.

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Could Abstinence-Until-Ready Programs Work?

by Alex DiBranco

category: Sex Education

Published February 01, 2010 @ 09:20PM PT

Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have been a major moralistic fail in delaying sexual activity and preventing teen pregnancy. But apparently there's a new kind of abstinence education in town, one that has shown more promising results.

MSNBC headlines: "Abstinence-ed, minus the morals, may work." The key point in the recent study is that the program under evaluation is not your typical inaccuracy-ridden, condoms-bashing, slut-shaming, gender stereotyping abstinence education. Instead, the program encourages abstinence-until-ready -- a message I can definitely get behind. It's vital that young people understand that they control their own bodies, and that nobody else has the right to pressure them into having sex too early. But it's also unrealistic to expect that the majority of American students will share the moral condemnation abstinence-until-marriage programs dish against premarital sex.

Comprehensive sex education advocates point out that the study targeted 6th and 7th graders, who are young enough that a focus on abstinence might be more useful than for older students. Importantly, since the program refrained from denouncing and lying about contraceptive use, for the one-third of abstinence-educated students who did end up having sex within the next two years, there was no negative impact on condom use. (42% of students who underwent a comprehensive sex ed program, including abstinence education, started having sex in that time span, and 52% in a program that only taught safe-sex techniques.)

What's most intriguing about this study, yet was buried in the news articles I read on the subject, is that researchers were only looking at African-American students. Fellow Women's Rights blogger Whitney Teal wrote just last week that, while ab-only-until-marriage programs have failed to prevent teen pregnancy, comprehensive sex ed also hasn't been doing the trick for many minority teens, and called for an alternative approach. Could this be it? We'll need further studies to figure that out. But Monica Rodriquez of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States says optimistically, "One of the things that's exciting about this study is that it says we have a new tool to add to our repertoire."

Photo credit: meddygarnet