Guest Post: A Doctor on Transvaginal Ultrasounds A friend of mine is a physician who wants to speak about transvaginal ultrasounds but whose position makes it precarious to speak publicly about it. So I’m letting this doctor borrow my site for an entry to speak anonymously on the matter. Obviously, I will vouch for the doctor being a doctor and being qualified to speak on the subject. Update, 9:14pm: This post is being linked to far and wide, so we’re getting lots of new readers and commenters. It’s important that before you comment you read the site disclaimer and comment policy. I delete comments I find particularly stupid. Update: 12:13am, 3/21: I’m going to bed, so I turned off the comments for the night. Update: 1pm, 3/21: As a head’s up to people, at 8pm eastern time tonight, I will turning off the comments for this thread permanently. Update: 8pm, 3/21: Comment thread is now closed. Right. I’m speaking, of course, about the required-transvaginal-ultrasound thing that seems to be the flavor-of-the-month in politics.
Lori Sokol: No Country for Weak Women While the Republican War on Women continues to try to turn back the clock on women's rights by threatening to stop funding Planned Parenthood, supporting the Blunt Amendment, and attempting to enforce Trans Vaginal Ultrasounds on pregnant women, just to name a few, one can't help but wonder why we are the only minority group that is repeatedly targeted by others without fear of their losing their jobs, or of having their reputations ruined. Rather, some political candidates are actually adopting these prejudicial pledges as platforms to become our next President. So, why the continual backlash? The answer is quite simple, really. Women represent the only minority group that doesn't include any men as its members. Think about it. But instead of placing all, or even most, of the responsibility for sexism on men, women must bear the brunt of the blame as well. But all of the above should only serve as a foundation upon which women must continue to build.
Women, democracy and dictatorship The electoral success of Islamic parties in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, has raised worries about policy and legislation on family and gender issues, this despite re-assuring noises from leading figures. Earlier electoral successes of Islamists in Iraq had brought about a disorderly mix of family policies and rule of disparate religious authorities, accompanied by much constraint and intimidation. This may be a good time to reflect on the record of various Middle Eastern countries on these issues over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century and their relations to political regimes. In the early and middle decades of the twentieth century it was always dictators who embarked on policy and legislation which liberated and empowered women in both family and society. Flickr/Al Jazeera English. What were the institutional forms of the reforms of the twentieth century? Demotix/Luke Somers. Demotix/Sabrina Belkhouja. Flickr/Hamed Saber.
Chuck Winder, Idaho Lawmaker, Suggests Women Use Rape As Excuse For Abortions The sponsor of an Idaho mandatory ultrasound bill, state Sen. Chuck Winder, made some highly controversial comments Monday during his closing arguments, suggesting women might falsely use rape as an excuse to obtain an abortion. Just before the Idaho's Senate passed the bill, which requires woman to have an ultrasound prior to obtaining an abortion, opponents of the bill pointed out that it makes no exception for rape victims, incest victims or women in medical emergencies. Winder, a Republican from Boise, responded to those concerns by raising the question of whether women understand when they have been raped. “Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this," Winder said on the Senate floor. Women reported 84,767 "forcible rapes" in the United States in 2010, according to the FBI's most recent Uniform Crime Report; the figure does not include statutory rape, incest or any other kind of rape that falls outside the FBI's narrow definition of the crime. Also on HuffPost:
Beauty and the New Lego Line For Girls Cross-posted at Ms. A few years back we published this fantastic ad for Legos as an example of gender-neutral advertising. It appeared in 1981; during my childhood, I’m happy to say. The ad offers nice context for the new effort by Lego to capture The Girl Market. Their new line of Legos, Lego Friends, has gotten a lot of attention already. In the circles I run in, it’s being roundly criticized for reproducing stereotypes of girls and women: domesticity, vanity, materialism, and an obsession with everything being pastel. The new line also includes a new Lego figurine that is taller, thinner, and more feminine, with boobs. Examples of the old “mini-fig” and the new “mini-doll”: (source) The company is framing their new line for girls with “science.” But it’s no accident that girls feel alienated from Lego. According to Business Week, Lego has spent most of the last decade focusing their products on boys. (An ad that deserves being looked at over and over.)
Frank Rich: The GOP’s Problem With Women At the time, back in January in New Hampshire, it didn’t seem like that big a deal, certainly nothing to rival previous debate flash points like “9-9-9” and “Oops!” But in retrospect it may have been one of the more fateful twists of the Republican presidential campaign. The exchange was prompted by George Stephanopoulos, who seemingly out of nowhere asked Mitt Romney if he shared Rick Santorum’s view that “states have the right to ban contraception.” Afterward, Romney’s spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom accused Stephanopoulos of asking “the oddest question in a debate this year” and of having “a strange obsession with contraception.” As we know now, Santorum, flaky though he may sound, is not some outlier in his party or in its presidential field. The hostilities would break out just weeks after the New Hampshire debate, with the back-to-back controversies of the White House health-care rule on contraceptives and the Komen Foundation’s dumping of Planned Parenthood.
Mapping the (In)Visibility of Gender in Politics and International Relations « The Disorder Of Things Do elite institutions teach the global politics of gender and sexuality on any scale or in any depth? Emma Foster, Peter Kerr, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Byrne and Linda Åhäll (all of Birmingham, at least when they did the research) have an Early View piece up at The British Journal of Politics and International Relations addressing just this question. Surveying the course content of the 16 top Politics and IR Departments in the UK (‘top’ meaning either in the top 10 in student satisfaction scores or in REF scores), they give some empirical confirmation of what many of us might have known anecdotally: Our findings…show, in our view quite strikingly, that few political science and international relations departments offer extensive or in-depth coverage of gender and sexuality issues. Of 629 modules in IR and Politics identified across those Departments, only 9 existing full modules related to gender or sexuality (increasing to 12 if Aberystwyth’s ‘forthcoming’ courses are included).
s Magazine Winter 2011: Is the ‘F’ word co-opted by conservatives & consumerist media? Where are real icons & core values? On The Issues Magazine, Winter 2011, considers feminist icons, feminist values and feminist cons. Next Chapter in the 'Republican War Against Women' by Tanya Melich Republican women have become a not-so-subtle weapon for breaking apart the Democratic coalition, grounded in the women's vote, that gave Democrats control of the House and Senate in 2006 and 2008 and made Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House. This month's mid-term elections were a watershed for women's electoral politics. In fact, national Republican strategists have finally decided that electing women, especially women of color, brings power to the party. Numbers do not tell the whole story. Yet overall, despite this huge switch to Republican candidates, women voters are the reason why the U.S. The Real Story So forget for a moment the angst that has swept the feminist community since Sarah Palin's entrance on the national stage.
Consuming Women The first lap dancing club in the UK opened in 1995. Since then lap dancing has become part of mainstream culture, with the 300+ lap dancing clubs nationwide visited by well-known figures such as Stephen Hawkings and Rihanna. Jennifer Hayashi Danns, 28, worked as a lap dancer for two years whilst studying at university. She spoke to Ian Sinclair about the industry and her new book Stripped: The Bare Reality of Lap Dancing, which she co-authored with Sandrine Leveque from feminist campaigning group OBJECT. What factors have driven the rapid increase in lap dancing clubs in the UK? Many feminist groups believe that the rise in lap dancing clubs is related to a piece of legislation that allowed lap dancing clubs to open under the same licensing regulations as cafes or karaoke bars. The lap dancing industry and parts of the media present lap dancing clubs as harmless, safe, titillating entertainment akin to visiting a nightclub. What do you propose as a solution to the current status quo?