Friday Femme Fatale: Cairo, Cartoons & Defending Choice

by Jen Nedeau

category: Friday Femme Fatale

Published June 05, 2009 @ 06:32PM PT

There has certainly been a lot going on in the world of women's rights this week. From the murder of George Tiller to President Obama's speech in the Middle East, there have been hundreds of discussions about the feminist movement and where we need to be focusing our efforts and continue to make progress toward equality not only in the United States, but also the world.

First, the editorial from the Washington Post this week, Double Standard, describes the hypocritical conservative attacks on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's resume. This article comes out at the same time during which the cartoon above was published by the Oklahoman where cartoonist Chip Bok depicted Sonia Sotomayor as a piñata. As Jessica Valenti says in her post on Feministing, "Sometimes there are no words."

In other news, the Pro-Life Feminism oxymoron creates debate over at The Women On the Web, while New Hampshire becomes the sixth state where gays can marry this week.

Additionally, President Obama gave a big speech in the Middle East this week. Some feel he could have highlighted human rights with greater detail and concern, while others just wish he would address the local acts of terrorism on abortion providers in the United States.

Amanda Marcotte over at RH Reality Check shares the catalyst for such murders against pro-choice doctors in her post, The "Pro-Life" Movement's Hot Rhetoric and All-Out Lies:

One of the most contentious issues now in the news, in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, is how much moral culpability the anti-choice movement bears for motivating the man who took Dr. Tiller's life.  I've had innumerable discussions with folks who are confused about the extremism and anger that characterizes the "right to life" movement, people who mistakenly believe that it's a mostly harmless group of rosary-shuffling grandmothers who, at worst, sit around abortion clinics looking doe-eyed. Or that the picketers at women's clinics could be reasonably described as peaceful.  Discrediting these myths isn't fun or easy, but something that fell into my lap in the past week coincidentally turns out to be quite helpful in convincing people that the anti-choice movement, rather than being composed of generally good-hearted folks who just have a thing for fetuses, is in fact composed of hard-hearted sexist ideologues.  I've got my hands on a 113-page training manual (PDF) for protesters working for Justice For All, an anti-choice organization that targets college campuses (in keeping with the anti-choice obsession with singling out young, middle class women, whom they wish to preserve as symbols of virginal innocence).  Don't worry. My sources got this manual the old-fashioned way, by asking.

While Amanda investigates the shady tactics of the pro-life movement, the Justice Department has launched an investigation into federal crimes in connection with the murder of Dr. George Tiller. On this same topic, YourCall Radio.org, hosts a compelling discussion with the likes of Jennifer Baumgardner and Gloria Feldt about how to strengthen the pro-choice movement by calling for President Obama to visit abortion clinics and publicly defend the legal right of women in the United States to choose to have an abortion.

Meanwhile, internet land continues it's sexist rampage against women and Allyson Kaplin over at Fast Company write a great summary of the most recent offenses in a piece titled, "Social Media Roundup: Sex and Drama":

Sex and drama have filled the social media world this week. Between prominent tech figures and investors spouting more crude images of women to make their points about website usability to a Harvard study that claims men have more of a following then women on Twitter, it's been a whirlwind. And lets not forget the AOL debacle where senior management supposedly fired liberal blogger Tommy Christopher for standing up to Playboy and their super empowering article "So Right, It's Wrong" which ranked 10 conservative women they would like to hate fuck. Talk about a #FAIL! Lets get down to business.

Finally, in honor of LGBT Pride month, President Obama issued a statement to commemorate the events of June 1969 and commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans.

Happy Friday everyone - let's hope that next week is a little less controversial, upsetting and difficult compared to this week!