Welcome to This Week in the War on Women
Probably not a surprise to you that lots of this week’s depressing news is about abortion restrictions and more forced-birther activities. Or that there’s news about rape, and violence against women. However, you may not have expected the report that elephants rule the earth from hovercraft, or the news that all the white guys on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are now black women!
The GOOD News:
Making a Life After Prison: Becoming Ms. Burton, Susan Burton’s inspiring story. After six drug-related prison terms, she’s not only rebuilt her life, she’s helping other women recover too —
www.npr.org/…
The Rapist Isn’t Always a Stranger: Madeleine Pownall compares her actual rape with the Netflix show 13 Reasons, and Hollywood’s usual high-drama depictions, finding that 13 Reasons gets a lot closer to her reality — www.thefword.org.uk/…
UN Women — A Mixed Review: The good news is that the United Nations in 1993 issued a ‘Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women’ — the not-so-good news is that their efforts have not resulted in much progress in the past 24 years. www.unwomen.org/… BUT they have collected an impressive array of data: www.unwomen.org/… And they are providing tools and advice for policymakers, presumably based on what they’ve learned: www.unwomen.org/…
Remembering Roger Ailes: Amanda Marcotte discusses his real legacy — www.salon.com/...
Morocco: Ten years of women’s activism is shaking the patriarchal foundations of Moroccan society. The Sulaliyyaates, a grassroots movement, is fighting for tribal lands, but its women are also pushing for equal land ownership rights. — www.nytimes.com/...
Nigeria — a TimesTalks interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Concepción de León has a conversation with Adiche about the evolution of her upcoming book, Dear Ijeawele; Or, A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. — www.nytimes.com/...
Somalia: new hope for rape victims? Currently, Somali prosecutors must prove that penetration occurred in order to secure a rape conviction. Getting a medical certificate that attests to this can prove difficult. Until recently, there was only one doctor, at one hospital in the capital, who was legally empowered to give out such certificates. A few more hospitals have been authorized to issue certificates, but cases depend almost entirely on these certificates and police reports, while very little weight is given to the testimony of the rape victim. Not surprising that many more rapes occur than ever get reported, and few of the ones which are reported ever get to trial. The current laws are almost unchanged since the 1930s code written by the Italian colonial government. There’s a bill pending in the Somali parliament that could make prosecuting rapists a little easier, by giving more weight to survivor testimony, and putting less emphasis on the medical certificates.
Tweets to Make You Laugh While Crying: "Men statistically have larger brains than women, which is why men are usually smarter and elephants rule us all from their laser-hovercraft." “We need to stop asking famous women which inspiring woman made her into a feminist and start asking her which act by a mediocre man did.” — www.buzzfeed.com/...
The NOT Good News:
Iowa: Almost 15,000 patients will have to find a new health care provider by June 1st. Planned Parenthood just announced that it will be forced to close four health centers in Iowa next month because of a new state law that prevents Medicaid patients from seeking health care at the family planning provider. — www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Kentucky: Remember all the Republican accusations that the Resistance is a just bunch of “outside agitators” and “paid protesters”? Well, it seems that they are speaking from their own experience — Forced-Birthers trying to close down the last remaining clinic in Kentucky were being egged on by Rusty Thomas, national director of the anti-abortion group Operation Save America, who says he’s coming back in July: “That is a tremendous opportunity before you all to become the first surgically abortion-free state in the United States of America and so, we’re praying Kentucky will lead the way out of this blood guiltiness that’s upon the land.” jezebel.com/… The video heading the Courier-Journal story shows large white men in a pack: www.courier-journal.com/…
Does any reporter ever ask these self-righteous fanatics what their positions are on gun control? the death penalty? Aid to Families with Dependent Children? free school lunches? dead-beat dads?
Texas: Four years ago, Texas turned down $35 million in federal Medicaid funding in order to exclude Planned Parenthood from a family-planning program serving low-income families. Now Texas is coming to the Trump administration, admitting that they deprived a lot of poor women of necessary care, and asking that $35 million be given to Texas now. The Catch: they want the Trumpites to waive an Obama-era requirement that states must allow Medicaid patients to use those funds wherever they wish, including choosing Planned Parenthood as their healthcare provider. As has been endlessly repeated, not a penny of this funding would ever have gone to pay for abortions at Planned Parenthood, but would have been used for PP’s other services, like cancer screening, contraception, and prenatal care. More lawsuits ahead?
Wyoming: The Planned Parenthood clinic in Casper, Wyoming, opened in 1975, and serves about 500 patients per year, but it is one of six Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains clinics which will be closing this year. It is the only PP clinic remaining in Wyoming. — rewire.news/...
The Lie That Never Dies: Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) meets with David Daleiden, who is facing 15 felony charges for his role in a discredited smear campaign, coordinated with GOP lawmakers, to falsely accuse Planned Parenthood of profiting from fetal tissue donations. What’s a Democrat doing listening to this guy? Manchin is “totally pro-life.” But are majority Democrats going to throw a woman’s right to choose or Planned Parenthood under the bus to gain anti-choice Democrats’ cooperation on other issues? — rewire.news/…
Dignity for Our Daughters?: FitzGibbon Media shut down in December 2015, amidst allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Trevor FitzGibbon, but the U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. declined to press criminal charges against him. Now he’s repackaging himself, launching an anti-harassment campaign called Dignity for Our Daughters: “I am sincerely sorry for my behavior and for any women who were harmed. Moving forward, I have a newfound compassion and sensitivity for what women go through on a daily basis. . .” — jezebel.com/…
The Rape and Incest ‘Defense’: Nolan Bruder, age 20, pleaded guilty earlier this month to the charge of rape of an intoxicated person. In his confession, he said that his sister, age 16, had refused to have sex with him. He said that he gave his sister high-potency marijuana known as ‘dabs’ to smoke, until she was so stoned she could no longer recognize him as her brother. Judge William H. Follett sentenced Bruder to just three years, then suspended all but 240 days of that, and then gave Bruder probation. Judge Follett believes “the stigma” of Bruder’s conviction along with ‘mandatory sex offender registration’ will prevent Bruder and others in the community from reoffending. The defense attorney didn’t have to earn his fee on this one — the judge did his job for him. — bluelivesmatter.blue/…
The Gender Pay Gap is Getting Wider for Some: In their first four years out of school, female college graduates make $17.88 an hour on average, while their male peers earn $20.87, according to the new report from the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. One theory for the cause of this is that the highest-paying jobs in the U.S. are paying even better, and it’s mostly men who are landing those positions. However, the difference in pay between male and female high school graduates has shrunk. — www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Medical News:
The Vaginal Ring: A study has been launched on a new contraceptive ring designed to also prevent HIV which, if successful, could mean a massive reduction in the transmission of HIV —
www.newvision.co.ug/…
Medical Abortion Where Access to Abortion Services is Restricted: Study of 1000 women in Ireland who underwent self-sourced medical abortion — www.medscape.com/...
Arts and Culture:
And God Created...: Artist Harmonia Rosales envisions Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel masterpiece “The Creation of Adam” with an all-new cast — www.teenvogue.com/…
Fresh Talk: The National Museum of Women in the Arts is hosting an event tomorrow, May 21, on an intriguing topic. Can the arts communicate data and scientific evidence in ways that inspire advocacy or change attitudes and behaviors? Artists across disciplines and around the globe are creating works in response to climate change and other environmental issues. — nmwa.org/…
France: There’s a serious debate in France about titles in French — should titles like le général, le ministre or le président — all the powerful titles that have been given only to men in the past — be feminized? — www.economist.com/...
Worth the Read:
From The Atlantic: ‘My Family’s Slave’ — www.theatlantic.com/…
It certainly generated a lot of comments and discussion — My take: If SLAVERY is a ‘cultural value’ then that culture needs to change — no culture is static and unchangeable. Isn’t all human progress based on change? — I don’t understand apologists who defend the indefensible as something that must be accepted because it’s part of “their culture.” The U.S. has a huge amount of horrifying cultural baggage, but we don’t have to continue making or condoning the same evil choices just because our predecessors did.
From The Appalachia Life website: ‘My Mother Wasn’t Trash’ — www.thisappalachialife.com/…
From MedScape: ‘What Deportation Centers Are Like for Kids: AAP Takes a Look’ —
www.medscape.com/…
Why Tax is a Feminist Issue: Government spending cuts affect women more adversely than man across the globe, while powerful corporations and the wealthy constantly pressure their governments for lower taxes and other advantages, which lead to budget shortfalls and more spending cuts. The travails of the working poor, mostly women, are subsidizing the rich, mostly men. — womenfortaxjustice.wordpress.com/...
Please Sign:
UltraViolet has campaigns to oust a rape apologist, denounce Trumpcare’s threat to rape survivors, protest fake clinics in Pennsylvania run by Forced-Birthers, and demand FoxNews stop funding sexual harassment — one-stop signing: weareultraviolet.org/...
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Find the answer at WOW2!
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This Week in the War on Women is truly a group project.
Gold Stars and special thanks to:
Besame, elenacarlena, mettle fatigue, ramara, and
Tara the Anti-Social Social Worker for all the links!