I’m quite sure I’m not the only one who has spent the past week or two immersed in an exploration of whiteness and racism, largely through videos. I cannot be out in the streets due to age and health, but have taken part in some online forums and rallies. But mostly I have spent a lot of time listening to both white people and black people talk about racism, people including Angela Davis, Jane Elliot, Robin DiAngelo, and James Baldwin, and the soul-searching that goes with that. I have also spent a lot of time reading commenting on the militarizing of policing over the past few decades and the need to demilitarize and rethink policing going back to funding human services and medical care, not to mention education, and what constitutes safety.
Then this morning a friend emailed me a law journal article called The Myth of Enforcing Border Security Versus the Reality of Enforcing Dominant Masculinities. Though this focuses on immigration law and enforcement, it readily applies to all law enforcement.
The writer says that discussion of immigration policy, especially under Trump, is usually focused on racism and xenophobia, while discussion Trump’s toxic masculinities are generally aimed at his treatment of women. This separation omits applying Trump’s appeal to his base in a broader way to his immigration policies, and not just in the treatment of women, children, and families at the border. Trump’s appeal is his projecting a dominant masculinity by demeaning and feminizing opponents during the 2016 primary campaign and immigrants from day one, warning of great danger and proposing himself as savior (another of the masculinities).
The article is well worth reading, though I think it left out two very important factors, namely Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I don’t understand how one discusses Trump’s rise to power based on “fear-and-anger, anger-and-fear” without discussing the presidency of our first black president, nor his presenting himself as dominant male and savior by presenting toxic masculinity, without noting that he was running against the first major party candidate who was a woman. Much of his appeal to his base and those who changed parties from Democratic to Republican during the Obama presidency was based on their fear of losing dominance by sex and race (or race only for women) by seeing a black man in a position of dominant power, and by seeing a woman poised to gain that position. I do acknowledge that the racism and xenophobia of immigration law (and all law enforcement) of course goes back to its beginning, but Trump’s rise must include Obama and Clinton.
I apologize for not being able to copy and paste quotes from the PDF of the article.
There’s a lot of news this week, and I thank the WoW team who helped gather it: TaraTASW, mettle fatigue, J Graham, officebss, SandraLLAP, elenacarlena, and noweasels.
Women’s Health
In a global economy, we become dependent on other countries for things we can’t imagine. The novel coronavirus has disrupted the
supply chains for reproductive health products, which in some places is already causing more unplanned pregnancies than usual.
DKT’s struggles highlight the fragility of a global supply chain in which essential goods and medicines are often sourced from a small handful of countries whose competitive advantage has allowed them to dominate various steps of the production cycle. This is not a challenge limited to reproductive health: All over the world, manufacturing, shipping, and logistics have slowed or halted altogether as governments have closed factories, grounded flights, and sealed off borders in response to the coronavirus. But whereas for most goods, this represents little more than an inconvenience, when it comes to vital sexual- and reproductive-health commodities, such breakdowns can put lives at risk.
Women who trust a specific brand of contraceptive might find it out of stock at the pharmacy. Couples stuck at home, unable to locate the inexpensive condoms they normally buy, might skip protection. Central warehouses may not be able to supply the mobile clinic vans that travel to rural communities unserved by the national public-health system. The results of a disrupted supply chain in this field could be disastrous. The United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, the organization’s sexual- and reproductive-health agency, has flagged stockout risks over the coming months in 46 countries. Marie Stopes International, which provides family-planning services in 37 low-income countries, has warned that up to 9.5 million women and girls are at risk of losing access to contraception and safe abortion services, which could result in 1.3 to 3 million unintended pregnancies, and 1.2 to 2.7 million unsafe abortions. This could, in turn, lead to an estimated 5,000 to 11,000 pregnancy-related deaths.
I missed this story from a couple of weeks ago — maybe you did too — but good news is always welcome. Missouri’s one abortion clinic has won its battle over licensing.
The arbiter, Administrative Hearing Commissioner Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi, overruled the state on Friday after finding the Planned Parenthood clinic “provides safe and legal abortion care.”
“In over 4,000 abortions provided since 2018, the Department has only identified two causes to deny its license,” Dandamudi wrote. “We find that Planned Parenthood has demonstrated it meets the requirements for renewal of its abortion facility license.”
Violence
Six women have filed a lawsuit again USA Swimming, claiming that they were sexually abused by Andy King (now serving a 40-year sentence for child molestation) and that other coaches and people in the hierarchy of USA swimming were aware of his abuse and did nothing to stop it. Swimming of course is not the only sport that has to deal with this issue, it has come up in gymnastics, figure skating, football, and probably others I’m not aware of. Winning isn’t the only thing.
Mexico’s president doesn’t believe women who make emergency calls about domestic violence.
The numbers were startling: In March, Mexico’s government said, the country’s emergency call centers were flooded with more than 26,000 reports of violence against women, the highest since the hotline was created.
But Mexico’s president brushed aside his own cabinet’s announcement, suggesting, without evidence, that the vast majority of the calls for help were little more than pranks.
“Ninety percent of those calls that you’re referring to are fake,” said the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, when asked about the surge in calls at a recent news conference. “The same thing happens with the calls the metro gets about sabotage or bombs.”
Transgender
The Trump administration has reversed a rule in the ACA that protected LGBTQ people from discrimination in healthcare.
The rule focuses on nondiscrimination protections laid out in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. That federal law established that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of "race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in certain health programs and activities." In 2016, an Obama-era rule explained that protections regarding "sex" encompass those based on gender identity, which it defined as "male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female."
Under the new rule, a transgender person could, for example, be refused care for a checkup at a doctor's office, said Lindsey Dawson, associate director of HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Other possible scenarios include a transgender man being denied treatment for ovarian cancer, or a hysterectomy not being covered by an insurer — or costing more when the procedure is related to someone's gender transition.
There is a very controversial article by JK Rowling about a plan in Scotland for issuing gender identity cards to anyone who says they identify as the other sex, whether or not they transition with hormones and/or surgery. We had a good deal of discussion about this during the week, and I’d like to open it up. The issues of trans-women are women’s issues.
Congratulations!
In 1984, NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan made history as the first American woman to walk in space. Now, 36 years later, Sullivan has made history again as the first woman to travel to the deepest part of the ocean floor.
[link]
Recent college graduate Kennedy Mitchum got tired of arguing about what racism is — as a black woman, she has experienced it over and over again. But she realized the dictionary definition didn’t include systemic oppression because of race, and wrote to Merriam-Webster to complain that their definition was inadequate.
After a few back and forth emails, the editor of Merriam Webster Dictionary agreed and wrote back, "While our focus will always be on faithfully reflecting the real-world usage of a word, not on promoting any particular viewpoint, we have concluded that omitting any mention of the systemic aspects of racism promotes a certain viewpoint in itself."
Alex Chambers, the editor of Merriam Webster Dictionary, said a revision to the entry for "racism" is now being drafted.
"This revision would not have been made without your persistence in contacting us about this problem. We sincerely thank you for repeatedly writing in and apologize for the harm and offense we have caused in failing to address the issue sooner. I will see to it that the entry for racism is given the attention it sorely needs," wrote Chambers.