What Trans People Want

With all the ignorance and bigotry about trans people out there, the project of achieving equality for all people regardless of their gender can seem overwhelming. Recently, a DC trans coalition delivered a list of the trans community's priorties to the Director of GLBT Affairs. Hopefully this list will give advocates ideas of what issues to start with to work towards a fairer, more welcoming world for trans people.

So what do trans people want? Turns out they would like to safely use bathrooms, not be kicked out of their homes, avoid being sexually assaulted, receive fair treatment in the criminal justice system, and not be completely ignored in the city's educational and social services systems.

You can view the list in its entirety here.

NY Times Series: Race Remixed

The New York Times has been running the series "Race Remixed," which examines the "growing number of mixed-race Americans." I have found this series really interesting, particularly the below video. I would be really interested in hearing your thoughts on the series in general, the topic, and the video specifically.

Italian Women Protest Sexism, Berlusconi

Italian women are getting fed up with their poor treatment and are starting to take a stand, showing disapproval of their prime minister Berlusconi.

Berlusconi’s approval rating among women has dropped from 48 percent a year ago to 27 percent—an all-time low. True to form, Berlusconi has his own statistics. “Did you hear about the latest poll?” he recently joked. “They asked women between 20 and 30 years old if they want to make love to Berlusconi. Thirty-three percent said yes, and 67 percent said, ‘Again?’”

Arcidonna, a woman’s group, filed a lawsuit against Berlusconi last month for 25 years of abuse against Italian women. “The conduct of the prime minister—now charged with child prostitution—is the final straw,” says Valeria Ajovalasit, the group’s president.

Berlusconi is only part of the problem. According to recent data, Italy is even more sexist than comparable nations.

According to the 2010 Global Gender Gap report by the World Economic Forum, Italy ranks 74th in terms of women’s rights, behind Colombia, Peru, and Romania. Indicators include wage parity, labor-force participation, and domestic violence. Other statistics reveal 95 percent of Italian men have never used a washing machine, and that Italian women spend 21 hours a week on housework while Italian men spend only four.

Luckily, women have started wide-reaching protests across Italy against Berlusconi's sexist speech. Let's hope that this is the start of a larger movement towards equality.

SaVE Act: A Step in the Right Direction

As we have said before, rape on college campuses is a huge issue that needs to be better addressed. It looks like the proposed SaVE Act may be a step in the right direction.

The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, or SaVE Act, would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 and expand the 1990 Jeanne Clery Act to "improve education and prevention related to campus sexual violence, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking."

Co-sponsored by Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the SaVE Act (S. 835) would expand the framework of sexual assault education and victims' rights to include domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking, and addresses the issue of how to define consent in sexual relationships. Schools would be required under the act to include sexual violence statistics in their annual crime reports. Colleges and universities would also be required to explain how to obtain protective orders and other victims' rights whenever a student reports being a victim of sexual violence.

Frankly, the fact that colleges are not already required to do such things as inform survivors of sexual violence about how to obtain a protective order should be disturbing and should move senators to vote for this act. However, the senate often does not do what they should. Here's hoping that the senate does the right thing this time.

Kate Middleton & the Trouble with Fairytales

I just finished reading this article, the upshot of which was that

...there are certain undeniable truths about the sacrifices this young woman [Kate Middleton] has already made for her upcoming nuptials in addition to her career in fashion (Kate shortly worked for the British clothing brand, Jigsaw), and her photography (Kate had planned an exhibition she ended up not showing). As Cochrane states, "What's deeply dangerous about Kate for the monarchy, is that she looks as purposeless as the rest of them."

In many ways, Middleton has already failed to use her entry into this family as an opportunity to make them more modern. Instead she has convinced the Queen that she will not been reaping havoc and causing scandals galore like Diana, making herself much easier to "manage" (read: control). Kate is more willing to adjust to the royal family's ways than have them adjust to her, and in the process allowing the monarchy to remain unchanged when what it so desperately needs is to change.

All this being said, Kate clearly loves William and maybe at the end of the day, she is doing all this for love. But something about that doesn't sit too well with me. Perhaps it's the whole fairtytale factor thing.

Or maybe, just maybe, Kate Middleton has bigger plans than any one of us could imagine. I mean, Queen Elizabeth is not getting any younger, and guess who happens to be waiting in the wings to be Queen? Perhaps that was the ambition of "Waity Katey", as the British press famously dubbed Middleton, all along.

Maybe Ms. Middleton will get to have her fairytale, the last laugh, and show us all how it's done- as Queen of England.

Thoughts? Does Kate Middleton represent a new, more feminist version of women in the English royal family? Is it even fair to use her as a starting point from which to discuss the role of fairytale and marriage in modern society given her exceptional circumstances?

Update: Planned Parenthood's Budget

Luckily the Senate voted down the ridiculous bill passed by the House of Representatives that would have cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. But women's health advocates can't celebrate just yet.

"As the negotiations for the spending bill continue, it's clear that social conservatives want to ban funding for Planned Parenthood in future spending (negotiations)," said Planned Parenthood Federation of America spokesperson Tait Sye.

The organization also faces a longer-term funding threat in H.R.3, the "Stupak on Steroids" bill, for which congressional subcommittee hearings are set for March 16.

That bill blocks private insurance plans from covering abortion care in the new health care system and imposes tax penalties on small business owners and many other individuals who purchase private insurance plans that cover abortion care. The legislation now has 219 co-sponsors, enough votes to pass the House.

Daniel Craig in Drag for International Women's Day

Yesterday was International Women's Day. In honor of that fact, Daniel Craig stood up both in drag and in his James Bond attire while statistics were read by Judi Dench about how the life of men and women in the UK are different. I know that these statistics are UK based, but unfortunately they apply very well to the U.S. as well.



Anyway, I am not a big James Bond fan so I was not on the Daniel Craig bandwagon until my friend showed me this video. Now I totally get it. Those legs! That feminist advocacy! *drool*

ESPN Discusses Title IX

This makes me really happy:

To celebrate Women’s History Month, ESPN is discussing Title IX in a three-part video series. The series features female sports writers and coaches talking about the impact of Title IX, the pros and cons that have developed from it, its influence on their own careers, and its impact on gender notions.

For more information and a link to the site where you can watch the videos, click here.

Make Love Not Porn

My best friend just directed me to the site "Make Love, Not Porn" which is an initiative I am really excited about. The site primarily consists of information about porn norms and how they don't match up to real life. Here is what the author, Cindy Gallop, says her site is all about:

•MakeLoveNotPorn is not about judgement, or what is good vs what is bad. Sex is the area of human experience that embraces the widest possible range of tastes. Everyone should be free to make up their own mind about what they do and don't like.
•MakeLoveNotPorn is not anti-porn. I like porn and watch it regularly myself.
•MakeLoveNotPorn is simply intended to help inspire and stimulate open, healthy conversations about sex and pornography, in order to help inspire and stimulate more open, healthy and thoroughly enjoyable sexual relationships.

Cindy does a good job of not demonizing what we see in pornography, but of emphasizing that it is not necessarily how sex is for everyone. Some of my favorite tidbits of information readers can find while scrolling through the homepage compares the norms regarding pubic hair and gagging while performing oral sex in pornography and real world.

Stand with Planned Parenthood

The House of Representatives has voted to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

By law, federal funds haven’t paid for abortions since the 1970s, so the House hasn’t voted to cut abortion funding. They’re cutting funding for the entire Title X program — funding for contraception, cancer screening, STI tests, sex education, mammograms, HIV testing and diagnosis, and pregnancy screening and counseling. Title X is the only federal program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and preventive health services, particularly low-income families. Last year, 5 million people benefited from the services funded by Title X.

Planned Parenthood is the target of this legislation, and American women the primary victims. This isn’t about abortion — it’s about cutting access to health care for women.

Take action against what could have hugely detrimental effects for women's health care. Sign Planned Parenthood's "open letter to every single representative in the House who voted for this cruel, unconscionable, unthinkable law, and to every senator who still has a chance to stop it."

Update: Women in Publishing

I have written before about the fact that significantly less female than male authors have their work reviewed in major publications.Well, some number crunching has been done since I last posted about this topic and it seems like the disparity does not originate with the reviewers, but with the publishers.

...These numbers we found show that the magazines are reviewing female authors in something close to the proportion of books by women published each year. The question now becomes why more books by women are not getting published.

It is unclear why less women are getting published but it seems to have something to do with a possible bias in literary journals.

Of the new writing published in Tin House, Granta,and The Paris Review, around one-third of it was by women. For many fiction writers and poets, publishing in these journals is a first step to getting a book contract. Do women submit work to these magazines at a lower rate than men, or are men’s submissions more likely to get accepted? We can’t be sure. But, as Robin Romm writes in Double X, “The gatekeepers of literary culture—at least at magazines—are still primarily male.” If these gatekeepers are showing a gender bias, there’s not much room to make it up later.

While it is unfortunate to hear that female authors are not properly represented, I am happy to hear that people are trying to get to the bottom of the disparity.

Men's Health Feminist Blog

This made my day.

Yeah, you read that right: Men’s Health magazine, full of “how
to have better sex” and “how to lose the belly fat!” advice for men, has a blog
for men about feminism. This unequivocally rocks for three reasons.

First, it’s a sign that the feminist blogosphere has moved into the
mainstream. When feminist verticals like Broadsheet and Double X are either
disappearing or folding back into their original publications, it’s a good
indicator for the future that a mainstream popular men’s magazine has taken up
the feminist cause.

Second, hopefully a blog like this can help de-stigmatize the label “feminist” for readers.
...

Finally, the blog could help bring men to the movement. For men, feminism and what it entails is rarely discussed outside of a historical context...

You can read the Men's Health Feminist Blog here.

Miss Representation: Taking on Objectification of Women in Media

The film Miss Representation (currently being screened at Sundance) addresses the sexualization and objectification of women in media and how this relates to the oppression of women in general.

I am personally really excited about seeing the film but Jezebel commentator Irin is wary of the trailer as it

paints a rather broad brush (and yes, trailers are wont to do this — we'll reserve final judgment til we see the actual movie), seemingly uncritically describing all public displays of sexuality as inherently demeaning. It's not that Britney Spears has nothing to do with how female politicians are treated on cable news, but conflating voluntary displays of sexiness in entertainment with demeaning sexualization of public figures, played over ominous music no less, is unnuanced. So are the vague references to the "media" and "Hollywood" as faceless, catchall entities.

Thoughts?

Santorum: Obama's Race Should Shape Abortion View

This is fucking infuriating.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum says it is surprising that the nation's first black president is willing to deny civil rights to fetuses.

Santorum, who is a potential Republican presidential challenger to President Barack Obama in 2012, linked civil rights with abortion during an interview posted Thursday with the Christian Broadcasting Network. Santorum, who lost his 2006 Senate re-election bid in Pennsylvania, is an outspoken critic of abortion rights.

Santorum notes that for decades, slavery allowed African-Americans to be treated like property. And he says fetuses are denied the right to life because they are considered property.

Santorum says he is disappointed that Obama, a former law professor, refuses to treat fetuses as humans under the Constitution.

The White House declined to comment on Santorum's criticism.

The comparison between the Civil Rights movement (which was about gaining rights) and the anti-choice movement (which is about stripping away the right women have to their own bodies) is ridiculous and upsetting.

Gay Parenting Most Common in South

This article is very interesting and enlightening on a number of levels.

In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

My first reaction is to hope that the fact that the South is home to the most gay parents will serve as a wake up call to residents of other states that consider themselves progressive but aren't forcing their state legislatures to make a real push for gay rights (I am looking at you, New York). What are your reactions? What stood out to you about these findings?

U.S. Racial Disparities in Health

File this under unsurprising, but nonetheless upsetting, news: a recent federal report found that the poor and racial and ethnic minorities are less healthy than their more affluent, white counterparts.

The agency did not delve into why suffering is so disproportionate, other than to note the obvious: that the poor, the uninsured and the less educated tend to live shorter, sicker lives...

“Some of the figures, like the suicide rate for young American Indians, are just heartbreaking,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, who ordered the report compiled.

He ordered it, he said, after promising at his agency’s African American History Month celebration last February that he would do so.

“We wanted to shine a spotlight on the problem and some potential solutions,” he said.

Many of the differences are large and striking

To find out more detailed information on the report's findings, click here.