Poetry break

I’ve decided this is what I will do when my posting slows to… like, no posting at all.  I will post something previously written!  Hopefully this will get me back into the swing of things.  Trust me, I’ve been reading plenty of articles that I’ve wanted to write about, but the time and focus to actually post on ’em just seems to escape me.  So let me just take a poetry break and hopefully I’ll get back into regularly posting shortly 😉  Actual poem (and not just my incessant ramblings) after the jump

An activity for you to do while I’m out of town!

Hi guys,

Sorry for the slowdown (again), but I’ll be out of town for a few more days.   (Don’t worry–Dashaway is still here!)

But since things will be a bit slow for a while, here is something for you guys to do.  (I believe in you!  You can do it–it’ll be fun!)

What are your guilty pleasures as feminists?  You know . . . those things that you know are misogynist/sexist, but you read/watch/listen to anyway?  How do you guys justify that taste?  Do you feel guilty about it, resigned?

I’ll start:

1) Sir Mixalot’s “Baby Got Back”

2) Nip/Tuck

3) The film M*A*S*H

4) South Park (I know it’s awful, but I laugh anyway.)

I always feel a twinge of guilt when I listen to/watch those, but I cannot bring myself to give them up.  Is it all right to appreciate the humor/entertainment value in something as long as we acknowledge that they are also offensive?  What if our tastes have been formed in an offensive society–shouldn’t we try to change the way tastes are formed?  (After all, the fact that offensive things are humorous is not, in my opinion, natural–I believe that taste is a created object.)  Am I promulgating an offensive taste through my participation as an audience member?

Think about it.  Comment about it.  Peace out.

Pregnancy Discrimination

Women who choose to work and have a child are often discriminated against–accused both of being poor mothers for working, and of being poor workers for mothering. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that incidents of pregnancy discrimination keep rising, which is a disturbing trend.

I wonder if this might be a product of the poor economy, the backlash against civil/women’s rights, or some perverted combination of the two. (I’m thinkin’ it’s that last one.)

I have heard some very upsetting stories about women not being paid for maternity leave even if it is in their contract, women being forced to save up sick days in order to prepare for giving birth because they are not given adequate time off, women hiding pregnancy from colleagues for fear of being punished somehow, or women being told outright that they should not even consider having a child.

Sometimes, I feel we live in a very scary world . . .

Speaking of Ireland . . .

According to those helpful newsbriefs MU sends out (but that everyone deletes), former Irish president Mary Robinson is coming to campus next Tuesday!  This is a very exciting opportunity to hear a talk from a successful, powerful, and active female political leader.  Robinson has worked consistently to make lives better for women, families, homosexuals, and the developing world.

Here is the official announcement:

Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland and former United Nations high commissioner for human rights, will give a free, public lecture at Marquette University at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 1. Robinson will speak on “Responding to Human Rights Challenges” at the Varsity Theatre for the Allis Chalmers Distinguished Lecture Series in International Affairs.

Depressing Irish Statistics

Thanks to feministing.com for this link from The Irish Examiner exploring why it is that Ireland has the lowest rape conviction rate in Europe and why only a fraction of rape victims decide to pursue legal action.

According to this article,

* More than 30% think a victim is some way responsible if she flirts with a man or fails to say no clearly.

* 10% of people think the victim is entirely at fault if she has had a number of sexual partners.

* 37% think a woman who flirts extensively is at least complicit, if not completely in the wrong, if she is the victim of a sex crime.

* One in three think a woman is either partly or fully to blame if she wears revealing clothes.

* 38% believe a woman must share some of the blame if she walks through a deserted area.

The results also show that defence barristers, looking to swing the deciding three members in every 12-person jury, can exploit misgivings in certain demographics about the perceived responsibility of female victims.

Dramatic differences in empathy towards victims based on age and social class are revealed. Gender, however, had little impact.

Although this is a discouraging article, at least the issue is getting some attention. The statistics are shockingly bad–but hopefully they can shock people into confronting their own misogynistic and invalid viewpoints about those who are victims of sexual assault.

Back . . . with a Vengeance! (Not really . . . well, maybe . . .)

After a nice and (not really) relaxing spring break, we are back, refreshed, and ready to continue some blogtastic discourse.

Last night’s panel (thanks to all those who showed up, by the way!) brought up some interesting questions about women’s involvement in politics.  One question I would like to focus on in this post: why is it that women make up less than a quarter of public officials in ALL levels of government (federal, state, local–school boards excepted)?

One of the possible reasons given was that women feel as if they need to prove themselves to a greater extent than men do.  For example, men are asked to run based on a “potential for success,” while women need to have a long-established track record of success before they are asked to run.  Thus, building women’s confidence and creating strong support networks for female candidates is vital in that first step of encouraging women to run for office.

Another problem comes in terms of voting as well.  Women are much more likely to lose elections than men.  In numerous, repeated trials, it has been found that voters look at speech transcripts more harshly if the transcript is ascribed to a woman politician, and view the identical transcript as better when a male name is put on it.  (This is known as the “Goldberg Paradigm”.)

Another problem is that women need to run multiple times in order to be successfully elected. Since women tend to have less money than men, and are treated horribly by the press, this of course makes women even more hesitant to run in the first place.

Some countries have quotas, but these tend to bring up their own problems, such as resentment toward women and difficulty finding qualified women who are willing to put themselves into a vulnerable public position.  Part of me wishes for an affirmative action type of program for political positions, but I doubt that would be as successful as other affirmative action programs have been.

What do you think some solutions might be?  Quotas, stricter campaign finance laws, grassroots efforts?

This is an important issue not only in terms of equity but also because when women are in office, issues labeled (often erroneously) as “women’s issues” (they are really “people issues”, but whatevs) such as health care, education, reproductive rights, and other social programs get more attention.

Come to this Event!

Come to the panel co-sponsored by Empowerment and College Democrats on Women and Politics!

Professor Janet Boles, Law Professor/Advocate Jackie Boynton, and Marquette students will discuss identity politics, how women are portrayed in the media, and the importance of having strong women in government. Followed by a group discussion.

When: Wednesday, March 26, 7-8 p.m.
Where: AMU #157

RSVP to the Facebook event here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=9831328406

Toothpaste for Dinner on Feminism

Thanks to my roommate for giving me the link to this hysterical cartoon!

Laura Ingraham says some stupid shit

Okay, so I am not originally from Wisconsin.  Therefore, I am willing to admit that I will most likely never be able to fully comprehend the enormous passion and love Wisconsin residents seem to have for their football team (read: Brett Favre).  But I will say, after watching an emotional and crying Favre at the press conference announcing his retirement a couple weeks ago, I was quite moved.  Yeah, not so much for conservative talk show host, Laura Ingraham, I guess.  Instead, she had this to say, calling Favre a “woman” (as if that’s some kind of jab…pshhh):

“All these years, and I didn’t know there was a woman quarterback in the NFL,” said Ingraham to start her Friday show that aired on replay on Monday at 2:00 a.m. on Newsradio 620 WTMJ.

“Brett Favre…we’re watching this in the studio, obviously retiring from the NFL, great quarterback, handsome 38-year-old man, he gets up there and he does this press conference that was frankly one of the most embarassing things I have ever seen.“That’s a great message for young boys. ‘Get up there and act like a girl and start blubbering like a baby.”  

Then, in her best impersonation of a crying toddler with its favorite toy taken away, she wah-wah-wah’s while uttering in a mocking tone, “It’s about me, it was never about me, but it is about me, bla, bla, bla” before returning to her regular voice and stating, “I could not believe what I was seeing.”

Wisconsin, you rock! (for now)

Some great news to follow up from an earlier post.  From The Capital Times:

Flanked by two survivors of sexual assault, one with tears welling in her eyes, Gov. Jim Doyle signed a long awaited bill Thursday that requires hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. 

“This is one bill I’ve been working to get on my desk for a long, long time,” Doyle said.

He credited rape survivors like Linda Gage and Amanda Harrington, who provided testimony before the state Legislature and appeared next to him at the bill signing, with being instrumental to the bill’s passage.

“I would like to recognize all of the survivors who have been willing to come forward with their stories … and to tell what they went through,” Doyle said. “The survivors really made this happen.”

This is certainly a move in the right direction.  I just can’t believe it took so damn long.  

This is the first time in a decade Wisconsin has a new law on the books that significantly expands access to birth control. The trend, reflected in recent Republican proposals to prohibit the University of Wisconsin System from offering emergency contraception and to ban the state from funding family planning services for low-income women, has been to restrict access to birth control.  

Hopefully this trend is reversed once and for all.  The bill was co-authored by Republican, Terry Musser, so that’s a good sign, at least.  Finally, some commonsense was used in working across party lines.  Women’s health and well-being is not a partisan issue, people!  Overall, thumbs up Wisconsin.