Latent Biases Against Women

Cathy Tinsley, a professor at Georgetown (woot!) and executive director of the GU Women's Leadership Initiative, wrote this editorial in the Washington Post featuring work that she has done which has shown gender bias in the corporate world. She specifically uses two examples from her research where women are judged more harshly than men when it comes to being assertive and taking time off for an emergency. Check it out.

Alice Walker and Rebecca Walker

Rebecca Walker, one of the pioneers of third wave feminism, has written an article "How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart." It delves into her personal relationship with her mother, Alice Walker, and how besides being inattentive when Rebecca was growing up, also taught her that "motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman." Rebecca describes her happiness at being a mother herself and how Alice Walker's feminism has caused a generation of women to dismiss their biological clocks.

Though Alice Walker may not have been the best "mother," I disagree with her Rebecca Walker's view that women nowadays don't focus nearly enough on their biological clocks. People in our generation do. We do think about when we're going to have kids along with our careers and still have godlike images of soccer moms coloring our perspectives.

I agree with Rebecca Walker that motherhood should not be viewed as something bad--certainly it should be celebrated--but with caution, because Mother's Day, while offering some sort of symbolic recognition does not hold up to the truth that childcare providers who do the work of "mothering" everyday are paid far less than most other professions. Alice Walker's feminism really did exclude a lot of women who chose to be feminine, etc, and thus is far too ideological, but I think that that generation's feminism's attempt to wrest motherhood out of its sacred stranglehold was important for women. Has it gone too far? I would say no, but perhaps others would disagree.

Student Protest of Phyllis Schlafly

I'm sure many of you have heard about the protest of Phyllis Schlafly, professional anti-feminist and conservative leader, as the graduation speaker at Washington University. Here is a clip from CNN that summarizes it quite well and highlights her opinion that marital rape is not rape (refreshing!). Fortunately, around half of the student body was estimated to have turned their backs in protest. Go WashU!

Via.

Contraceptive pills

Chile banned the distribution of the morning-after pill in the country's public health system. Chile is a Catholic country and abortion is illegal, so many women resort to unsafe underground abortions. Well, banning the morning-after pill will for sure increase the number of the latter.


Article

Little greek island

I came across this article and I thought I would share.

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!