Abuse in Juvenile Detention Centers

This article from CNN discusses the horrendous conditions of juvenile detention centers in the U.S. The images that start off the analysis are appalling:
"Girls as young as 13 say they were shackled for weeks at a time in Mississippi."
"A Texas teen was allegedly offered birthday cake in exchange for sex."

Reports about this type of abuse have been public for many years and yet this horrendous abuse still persists, because these teens and children are some of the most vulnerable people in our societies, with no one to speak for them.

On another note, it is interesting how abuse of girls is almost always presented as sexual and abuse of boys is almost always physical, when in reality the children in these jails suffer from both, regardless of their gender.

Vegan Strip Joint?

In a recent NY Times article I discovered something oh so interesting. There are an increasing amount of strip clubs that pride themselves on being vegan and/or vegetarian. Dancers wear animal friendly outfits and the menus offer a wide array of healthy food items. Article author Kara Jesella writes, "At his Casa Diablo Gentlemen's Club, soy protein replaces beef in tacos and chimichangas; the dancers wear pleather, not leather" (NY Times March 27, 2008: E1 Thursday Styles).

Jesella continues, "Casa Diablo is just the latest example of selling veganism with a "Girls Gone Wild" aesthetic" (NY Times). What do you all think about this?
check out the article!

Women Face Bias Worldwide According to the UN

This brief article from BBC discusses a UN-commissioned report which as found that women are discriminated against in almost every country in the world. The report was compiled from the legal perspective and focuses on divorce, maternity benefits, legal age of marriage etc.

While it is absolutely necessary that laws do not discriminate, it is also extremely important that in countries where laws do exist, they are enforced. In many countries, the commitment to women is only on paper and fails to become reality. Especially with laws which encroach into the private sphere, like ones that prohibit marital rape, prosecution is often not enforced.

Five brave women take on the system!

About two weeks ago, I came across one of those little blurbs in The Economist about five women whose husbands were killed by FARC guerillas in Colombia and are now suing Chiquita Brands Int. (you know, of banana fame) for indirectly funding the guerillas by providing them money to look after their banana plantations.

Basically, here’s the story, FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia/ Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia)is a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist revolution organization and they are responsible for political chaos in Colombia because of their violent guerilla tactics that include kidnappings and murders. Chiquita Brand International, fearful of a loss of business has sided with FARC and has been paying them off to protect their lucrative banana plantations. Check out the very sketchy Washington Post article here that talks about how Chiquita contacted the United States Justice Department asking them for advice on how to pull-out of this hostile situation, and how the Justice Department essentially turned a blind eye. This quote really captures the central issue here:

What transpired at the Justice Department meeting is now a central issue in a criminal probe. According to these sources' account, the Bush administration was pulled in competing directions, perhaps because its desire to avoid undermining a newly elected, friendly Colombian government conflicted with its frequent public assertions that supporting a terrorist group anywhere constitutes a criminal offense and a foreign policy mistake.

Fast forward to 2008 and five amazingly brave women are now suing because their husbands were kidnapped and murdered by the FARC guerilla group. At the time when both right-wing and left-wing guerilla groups are accused of kidnapping and murdering countless people, Chiquita was paying them to protect their lucrative banana plantations. Now, the five widows of missionary husbands are suing the company for unspecified damages and taking on a huge North American company for aiding and abetting the senseless deaths of their husbands and for the kind of business that profits off of violence. It is a gargantuan task and hopefully, with a successful outcome, this case, led by very strong women, will send a message of warning to other companies that engage in business overseas and are involved in the same sort of gross violations of basic human rights (Coke Inc. ahem).

Read this!

I arrived last Saturday morning to the WAM! Conference, like so many of my peers, jet-lagged, bitter about the conference being in Boston and not in Hawaii, and desperate for coffee. Fortunately, I got a rush when I spotted the impromptu feminist book store.

Sidenote: I work for a non-profit, I do NOT have the cash to be spending $100 on books.

But I did it anyway. Hooray! Here is a list of some of the awesome reads available (the ones that I can remember) starting with the three books I bought.

• Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild by Deborah Siegel


• Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice by Rebecca Walker, Gloria Feldt, and Krista Jacob


• Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times by Helen Thomas


• Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How it Has Failed the Public by Helen Thomas


• Juicy Mangos: Erotic Collections by Michelle Herrera Mulligan


• City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman’s Account of War and Resistance by Haifa Zangana


• Women on a Journey: Between Baghdad and London by Haifa Zangana


• Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture, and Political Participation in Boston by Carol Hardy-Fanta
  


• Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela! Cartoons by Mikhaela B. Reid


• It’s a Jungle Out There! The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments by Amanda Marcotte


• Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body by Courtney Martin

Ugh. Unfortunately that’s all I can remember, but they’re some awesome reads so check ‘em out!

Sexual Assaults in Iraq

"In fact, a growing number of women employees working for U.S. defense contractors in the Middle East are coming forward with complaints of violence directed at them. As the Iraq war drags on, and as stories of U.S. security contractors who seem to operate with impunity continue to emerge (like Blackwater and its deadly attack against Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16, 2007), a rash of new sexual assault and sexual harassment complaints are being lodged against overseas contractors -- by their own employees." From The Nation.

It seems that the combination of the fact that these contractors are immune to criticism and regulation with the fact that they are operating in an obviously extremely militarized and violent area has led to the immense amount of sexual violence that has yet to be discovered. The description in the article is rather graphic, just to warn you, but clearly the most difficult part to face as a reader is the way she was treated after the the violent rape.

"Even more appalling, the Justice Department, which can and should prosecute most of these cases, has declined to do so. "There is no rational explanation for this," says Scott Horton, a lecturer at Columbia Law School who specializes in the law of armed conflict. Prosecutorial jurisdiction for crimes like Jones' alleged rape is easily established under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Patriot Act's special maritime and territorial jurisdiction provisions. But somebody has to want to prosecute the cases."

Sally Kern is a Hater

The hysteria surrounding the "rise of homosexuality" and its connection to the downfall of society parallels some of the hysteria that grew when women started to gain a more prominent role in society and began demanding the rights to go along with it. Anyway, its no secret that believe women's rights and the LGBT community are deeply intertwined. So, watch this video, and, if you see Sally Kern out and about, tell her that a bigger threat that homosexuality might just be prominent politicians that like to give speeches in which they foster hatred towards a specific community--but just a thought.

Fem Watch

Check out Fem Watch, which is Sudy's way of giving an entertaining and insightful look into the way in which the feminist blogosphere can fail to live up to our expectations in terms of racism, homophobia, etc.

Georgetown Grilling Society Uses Sexist Marketing Strategies

The Georgetown University Grilling Society (GUGS) will be sponsoring a week of events from April 21st- April 25th that they have chosen to call "Grills Gone Wild." In conjunction with this, the t-shirt for their event reads "GUGS Grade A, Size D." Wow. The connection is pretty simple--women are meat. Students are currently mobilizing on Georgetown's campus to find a creative and radical way to counter this sexist advertising! Let me know if you have any good ideas...

Alimony for men

I came across this article on the Wall Street Journal that discusses male alimony. This is not as common as female alimony for very familiar reasons. It was interesting to read about men's and women's views on alimony.
Something that really bothered me was the fact that in not one of this cases did the men have custody of the children and in most cases where women's alimony is discussed they have custody of the children.
One of the men in fact was talking about how he deserved the alimony payments to take care of his car collection. Children and cars, not the same thing.

Anyhow, I strongly believe that men and women should be treated equally and alimony should be treated fairly for either sex.