Forty years ago today,
Iceland's women got together and went on strike, and changed the course of the country.
One of the important lessons of feminism is that societal problems require something more than an individual solution. Americans in particular seem to love the myth of the individual who changes the world just by changing their attitude. It's the plot of every action movie.
Thus we get books and articles advising women how to adapt their behavior to corporate culture, how to be juuuust forceful enough when stating an opinion or asking for a raise, without coming off as emotional or a b*tch. How to make the right compromises to balance her family life with her work life. Suggesting changes in corporate culture instead - that's practically taboo.
Every article I've ever seen on harassment is followed by a comments section filled with individual advice on how the victim should have just said X or done Y. None of which can hold a candle to the employer having a harassment policy that actually gets enforced.
We get rape prevention advice that consists of an endless list of restrictions that women should place on their lives. Don't go out alone, don't drink alcohol, don't touch your soda until you've checked it with your roofie-detecting nail polish, etc. "Don't be the drunkest girl at the frat party" may be good advice individually - but someone's going to be the drunkest girl at the frat party, so how about we look at ways to change the behavior of rapists and wannabe-rapists? We'll get a lot further with campaigns like Don't Be That Guy, and making consent a vital part of sex education. (Inevitably, an individual is complaining about a mandatory class about consent in England, because he's sure he doesn't individually "look like" a rapist.) And for those who do commit rape, let's try having actual consequences for the perpetrator and refusing to slut-shame the victim.
Conservatives love individual solutions. Your burger-flipping job doesn't pay well? Work your way up to general manager! (But someone has to flip the burgers, or there isn't anything to manage.) A resume with a "black-sounding" name gets fewer interviews than one with "white-sounding" name? Use your initials! (Doesn't that just delay the problem until the interview?)
And thus we get Paul Ryan, who announced that he wouldn't give up his family time if he became Speaker. Gee, how nice - Sheryl Sandberg even gave him the "Lean In Award of the day" for acknowledging that men need family time too. Except, whoops, Ryan voted against family leave for people in less privileged positions than his.
If we want to replace Paul Ryan with Nancy Pelosi, we're going to have to work together.
The good, the bad, and the ugly below the orange collective of pixels.
Violence and Harassment:
Well-known astronomy professor Geoff Marcy resigned from the University of Berkeley after four women reported sexual harassment, including unwanted kisses, massaging, and groping. In a separate case, three Berkeley students are suing the school for mishandling sexual assault cases.
The Institute in Basic Life Principles, a powerful arm of the right-wing Christian home-schooling organization, is being sued by five women for enabling and concealing sexual harassment.
Oscar Pistorius was moved from prison to house arrest, having served one year for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
In Turkey, women seeking divorce may be murdered.
After a notorious scandal ended his predecessor's career, new Missouri House Speaker Todd Richardson (a Republican) has proposed a series of reforms, including bans on relationships with subordinates, outside investigations of harassment cases, and mandatory anti-harassment training.
A gutsy woman fought off an armed home-invasion rapist by...I'm just gonna warn you that it's pretty revolting, but effective, and good for her.
Health care:
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Which means a zillion products festooned with pink ribbons, including some cancer-causing items. Putting a pink ribbon on a bottle of alcohol doesn't make it healthy. And don't get me started on the pink fracking drill bit.
In Nepal, age-old taboos force menstruating women and girls to be literally untouchable.
New York's MTA was originally skittish about running ads for Thinx, the new "period-proof" underwear. After much mocking on social media about the racy ads they've posted in the past, it looks like they've decided the word "period" isn't so shocking after all. (Reminds me of the 90's when MTV still showed music videos: nonstop objectification of women's bodies was ok, but Madonna kissing another woman "didn't meet their standards.")
Intersectionality:
Indian Health Services will finally be providing emergency contraception for First Nations women.
Ebony raised a storm of controversy with a cover highlighting the rape accusations against Bill Cosby. Tamara Winfrey Harris notes the long history of stereotyping African-American men as rapists, but warns that automatically circling the wagons comes at a high cost for African-American women:
African-American women are more likely to face sexual abuse than their white counterparts. According to Black Women’s Blueprint, 60 percent of black girls have experienced sexual abuse by age 18--most at the hands of black men. (Over 90% of sexual assaults occur between people of the same ethnic or racial background.) What space does the black community give those women to heal and receive justice if its primary concern is always burnishing the public face of always-victimized black manhood? Can’t talk about the deacon, because what about the flock? Can’t talk about the basketball star, because what about the season? Can’t talk about the community activist, because what about the community? Can’t talk about Bill Cosby, because what about Malcolm Jamal Warner’s residuals? Just shut up and let those black men be admired--whether they deserve it or not.
Reproductive Rights:
The Republican-controlled House continues to attack Planned Parenthood.
The situation around abortion accessin Texas has become grim. Texas cut Panned Parenthood out of Medicaid funding, then raided clinics to demand patient records and personnel files for an obvious fishing expedition.
Salvadoran women fight back against criminalizing miscarriage.
Meanwhile, in Ohio and Oklahoma, anti-choice TRAP measures have been blocked for now.
You may recall a bizarre law in Arizona demanding that doctors falsely tell patients that it's possible to "reverse" a medical abortion. Now that the law's being challenged in court, Arizona can't find an expert to support this claim.
Economics:
When presented with hard evidence of gender bias in STEM fields, men are more likely to disregard it.
The myth of welfare's corrupting influence doesn't match the evidence.
Sexuality:
A really amazing, hard-to-summarize article by Rebecca Traister on what it would mean to center women's pleasure, and acknowledge that even when it's consensual, sometimes sex can still be sexist, exploitative, or just crummy, and this can't change if we won't talk about it:
“A lot of sex feels like this,” Gattuso wrote in May, after her popular Crimson columns drew the attention of Feministing, a website at which she has since become a contributor. “Sex where we don’t matter. Where we may as well not be there. Sex where we don’t say no, because we don’t want to say no, sex where we say yes even, when we’re even into it, but where we fear … that if we did say no, or if we don’t like the pressure on our necks or the way they touch us, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t count, because we don’t count.”
This is not pearl-clutching over the moral or emotional hazards of “hookup culture.” This is not an objection to promiscuity or to the casual nature of some sexual encounters. First of all, studies have shown that today’s young people are actually having less sex than their parents did. Second, old-fashioned relationships, from courtship to marriage, presented their own risks for women. Having humiliating sex with a man who treats you terribly at a frat party is bad but not inherently worse than being publicly shunned for having had sex with him, or being unable to obtain an abortion after getting pregnant by him, or being doomed to have disappointing sex with him for the next 50 years. But it’s still bad in ways that are worth talking about.
Good News and Action Items:
As for Hillary Clinton this week, what can I say that hasn't been said? You rock, madam.
Justin Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister-Elect, has promised a Cabinet with gender parity, plus national action plans on violence against women, national child care, and more.
Tell congress to support the EACH Woman Act.
Help close the boyfriend loophole that allows abusers to have access to firearms if they don't live with or marry the victim.
Major thanks to ramara and elenacarlena for contributing links, making this week's diary a great example of a group effort!