Check out a collection of pictures here. Or browse the twitter hashtags #MuslimahPride and #Femen. And here’s an article providing some context.
All organized religions seem to get themselves mixed up in some shady hierarchies…..but F*** imperial feminism.
opposes
gay marriage
gay adoption
abortion
contraception
Women priests (no doubt)
Sometimes people become radicalized when they enter the upper positions in an extremely conservative institution. The US Supreme Court demonstrates some instances of this transition. So let’s hope that Pope Francis can do the same.
A new pope is thought to choose his name to signal the tradition he will align himself with. Francis I is not situating himself in such a line. So let us hope.
This time in Indiana, with double the ultrasounds.
“The bill, approved by the state Senate Health and Provider Services Committee on Wednesday, would require clinics to conduct trans-vaginal ultrasounds on women both before and after dispensing the abortion-inducing drug known as RU-486.”
Oh, and the “argument” against medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasounds being too invasive? Sue Swayze, the legislative director of Indiana Right to Life, had this to say:
“I got pregnant vaginally. Something else could come in my vagina for a medical test that wouldn’t be that intrusive to me. So I find that argument a little ridiculous.”
I take it the natural reductio to this argument is obvious.
In a black and white photo, a woman stands outside by a table, microphone in hand. She has shoulder length straight hair and glasses. She is wearing a dress and sandals. She is smiling.
I found this short bio on tumblr and wanted to share it:
Sandra Jensen: Why she kicks ass
- She devoted lots of her time working as an advocate for the rights of people with disabilities; she worked part time as well as being heavily involved in volunteering.
- She was denied a heart-lung transplant by the Stanford University School of Medicine in California because she had Down syndrome. She then (along with supporters) began a very public battle, gaining nationwide attention arguing that Down syndrome should not be enough to automatically deprive a patient of a chance to survive, this resulted in her receiving the transplant (1996).
- She became the first person with Down Syndrome to ever receive a heart-lung transplant.
I’ll be over here in awe
I also found her obituary from 1997, which you can read here.
Jensen, an activist for disabled rights, served as president of a Sacramento disabled-rights group and was invited to watch then-President George Bush sign the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Despite her disabilities, Jensen lived on her own, graduating from high school and busing tables at the Capitol cafeteria.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about her or her story online, but I did find this report, which is taken from NYT and US News articles.
Let’s suppose you were given a prescription for a pill that will mean you lose 2-3 lbs a week, while you eat as much as you want of anything you want.
But it has some side effects. One is getting seized by itching, which seems to move around your body at random. (Cortisone cream helps.) Another is that you can get tense and a bit bad tempered; your partner’s new and strange desire to help with dinner is irritating you a lot. Digestion is not as simple as before, there may be mild hair loss(temporary), sleep can be disturbed easily and you have quite dry mouth. And even with insurance, it is $10 a pill, one pill daily.
Of course, you strongly disapprove of the cultural obsession about women’s weight that is all around you. But then you remember the recent remark on this blog that if you lose 20 lbs, your course evaluations will go up. So it isn’t that you are endorsing these norms; you are trying to survive them.
Not everyone gets all the side effects. How much would you tolerate to lose 15 lbs in 5 weeks? Without ever being hungry, eating what you want, etc.
Take Our Poll——————————
By the way, there really is such a pill. Do you know which it is?
Seventeen is a magazine that tries to cater for late teen tastes. I used to look at it occasionally when I was a teen, and so when I was trapped waiting for 45 min for a friend, I decided to take a look at its prom issue. I could divide the comments in my head into two types:
From long ago: 1. Some of these dresses look like night gowns; do you want to go to the prom in your underwear?
( a bit of a non-sequitur, but you get the idea)
2. Thank goodness some of them are not strapless.
(the nuns would roam around with muslim muslin and safety pins to cover up an immodest girl.)
And then voices from the present century:
1. Some of the dresses are sized 2-18 and others go as large as 24. Fabulous.
2. Big bottoms are clearly allowed and maybe even enouraged. Yea! (When I was buying Seventeen, we – already poorly endowed white women/girls – all wore girdles.)
3. No more photoshopping of bodies, Seventeen says, and that’s actually likely. Plus-size models are genuinely plus. Hooray!
The down side: the burning questions of today look awfully like those of the 50′s and 60′, which means way too many of them are about how he will react to you/her. Gay couples don’t have any problems?? There are no important problems that don’t have to do with sex?
O, Tra-la-la. Life is deliciously trivial
The words of Savita Halappanavar, who died last month in Ireland. According to the Irish Times, after being told that she was miscarrying, she requested multiple times over the course of three days that her pregnancy be terminated. Her requests were denied. She was told, “This is a Catholic country.” She miscarried. A week later, she died of septicaemia.
This moving series of writings is definitely worth your while:
CATCALLED is a two-week long writing project by women living in New York on their experiences with being objectified and sexually harassed on city streets. Each daily log was kept by one of our 11 participants over the course of two weeks in August 2012. In the entries the women reflect on vulnerability, power, objectification, and safety in their urban environments.
Thanks, JT!
In “Abolishing Prostution: A Feminist Human Rights Treaty,” Kathleen Barry “argues that the time is ripe for a UN treaty to bolster ongoing efforts to end prostitution.”
Barry tells us of Normal Hotaling who founded SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) which has worked to end prostitution in San Fransicso in part by offering customers who are first time offenders the opportunity to attend a “school for Johns directed and taught by prostitution survivors.” Seems to work, too. Over 12 years only 4-5% of johns have been arrested a second time.
On the treaty,The Convention Against Sexual Exploitation, Barry supports:
“In addition to arresting, jailing and fining johns, this treaty would requires state to provide women with health and training programs and jobs, the absence of which sends so many women to streets, brothels and to immigrate for work. It would require that states prevent the sexual exploitation of women during wartime and insure the safety of migrating women. In other words, criminalizing customers must be accompanied with women’s equal access to jobs and their special vulnerabilities to sexual exploitation (prior sexual abuse, poverty, immigration, war) requires state support.”
I understand and appreciate the sex workers’ movement to an extent, but feel it obscures much of the suffering of and violence against women as well as the human trafficking and exploitation that are too often part and parcel of sex work. In other words, I support the treaty. What do you think?
Recent Comments