WOMEN'S
RIGHTS
3/17/03 <link>
Happiness-in-Marriage
poll
Results? Well, they are interesting. We will restate what the CNN
article says (bold text our emphasis):
"...Researchers
tracked more than 24,000 people from 1984 to 1995, asking participants
every year to rate their overall life satisfaction from zero (totally
unhappy) to 10 (totally happy). The
average boost from marriage was small -- one-tenth of one point on the
scale, researchers said. The study, which took 15 years to complete,
also found that people who were already satisfied with their lives
before marriage were more likely to stay married longer. "People
who get married and stay married are more satisfied than average long
before the marriage has occurred," the study said..."
2/16/03 <link>
An eRiposte survey of President Bush's appointees/nominees in a
number of areas including agencies that are important to women
Available
here.
2/1/03<link>
President
Bush proposes expanded funding for AIDS inside and outside the U.S.
Our comments on this proposal are here.
1/22/03 <link>
(UPDATED 1/24/03)
President
Bush appoints "AIDS=Gay Plague" believer to Presidential
Advisory Commission on AIDS and HIV
This is a fella by the name Jerry Thacker who formerly worked for the
repulsive Bob Jones University - you know the one that also banned
interracial dating?
As much as we find it disturbing to have to point
out painful facts, we feel compelled to do so to reveal the
repulsiveness of the Thacker appointment (and others like Tom Coburn -
as described below). As the National
Institutes of Health points out,
"...Worldwide, more
than 80 percent of all adolescent and adult HIV infections have
resulted from heterosexual intercourse....". Moreover,
note that, "...By the end of 2001, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO), 19.2 million women
were living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, accounting for 46 percent of the
42 million adults living with HIV/AIDS...
Women are
particularly vulnerable to heterosexual transmission of HIV due to
substantial mucosal exposure to seminal fluids. This biological fact
amplifies the risk of HIV transmission when coupled with the high
prevalence of non-consensual sex, sex without condom use, and the
high-risk behaviors of their partners. Older
women are also increasingly being diagnosed with HIV infection. In
2001, women aged 45 and older accounted for 18 percent of the female
AIDS cases reported to CDC.
HIV infection
disproportionately affects African-American and Hispanic women.
Together they represent less than 25 percent of all U.S. women, yet
they account for more than 82 percent of AIDS cases in women. In
1999, HIV/AIDS was the fifth leading cause of death among women ages
25 to 44 and the third leading cause of death among African-American
women in this age group. Women suffer from the
same complications of AIDS that afflict men but also suffer
gender-specific manifestations of HIV disease, such as recurrent
vaginal yeast infections and severe pelvic inflammatory disease, which
increase their risk of cervical cancer. Women also exhibit different
characteristics from men for many of the same complications of
antiretroviral therapy, such as metabolic abnormalities.
Frequently, women with HIV infection
have great difficulty accessing health care, and carry a large burden
of caring for children and other family members who may also be
HIV-infected. They often lack social support and face other challenges
that may interfere with their ability to adhere to treatment
regimens..."
With that perspective, lets come back to Thacker,
about whom the WP article points out,
"...In his speeches and writings on his
Web site and elsewhere, Thacker has described homosexuality as
a "deathstyle" rather than a lifestyle and asserted
that "Christ can rescue the homosexual." After word of
his selection spread among gays in recent days, some material
disappeared from the Web site. Earlier versions located by The
Washington Post that referred to the "gay plague," for
instance, were changed as of yesterday to "plague."...Thacker's
promotional materials stress the need for compassion toward all people
with AIDS, and they urge churches to think "Christianly"
about people with AIDS and to hate the sin, but love the sinner.
"Be compassionate to those caught up in this sinful deathstyle,"
the Bob Jones summary said. "Only when homosexuals know it is a
sin can they repent."
Separately quoted in this article is Carl Schmid, "...a
Republican gay activist who worked on President Bush's 2000 campaign,
said he was disappointed and frustrated that HHS disregarded warnings
that Thacker's selection would overshadow the commission's valuable
work. 'We need to have a
scientific-based approach to the problems of HIV-AIDS and not this
radical agenda he's pushing,' Schmid said. Aside from the harshly
anti-gay tone of Thacker's rhetoric, Schmid said, his major objection
to Thacker is his aggressive lobbying for abstinence-until-marriage
education. 'Abstinence-until-marriage does not help anyone in the gay
community, because we can't get married," he said. "If you
are a gay youth, who is addressing your concerns?'..."
Atrios
has more on this outrage. In the meantime, the Washington Post is
reporting that Thacker
has withdrawn due to the criticism.
Additionally, Mr. Bush has appointed other perverse
people to the Commission as well as NSD
shows [via Atrios]
(bold text is our emphasis):
"...
Tom Coburn, Co-Chair
Former Rep. Tom Coburn
(R-OK) received a 0% Congressional voting rating in all three of his
terms from the Human Rights Campaign. In addition to his poor record
on issues of concern to the gay and lesbian community, Coburn consistently
voted against needed HIV/AIDS legislation. Coburn also called for
the firing of the Director of the Centers for Disease Control
because the CDC promotes condom use to prevent transmission of the HIV
virus. Rich Tafel, Executive Director of LCR, has called
Coburn’s past votes "morally wrong and politically
dangerous." (Washington Blade, May 07, 1999)
Louis Sullivan, Co-Chair
Dr. Louis Sullivan was HHS
Secretary for President George Bush. Sullivan is known for addressing
HIV/AIDS issues in communities of color, and for supporting needle
exchange efforts. However, as HHS Secretary, Sullivan extended the
Bush Administration’s ban on allowing HIV-positive people, and gays
and lesbians, from entering the country. Sullivan also encouraged
HIV-positive people, and gay men, to stop having sex. As HHS
Secretary, Sullivan argued for guidelines that would have prevented
HIV-positive surgeons and dentists from operating, and he repressed
a government study on suicide among gay teens so that it would not be
linked to the Bush Administration. Sullivan’s relationship with
a scam artist, who claimed to have a vaccine for AIDS, was used to
swindle millions out of investors before Sullivan realized that the
vaccine did not exist.
Pat Ware, Executive Director.
Ware’s appointment is disturbing due to her advocacy that undermines
safe-sex education and that shifts away money from prevention efforts
in the gay community. Ware
has been associated with anti-gay organizations such as the Family
Research Council and is most closely linked to her work with Americans
for a Sound HIV/AIDS Policy (ASAP), which has since changed its name
to the Children’s AIDS Fund. ASAP was an abstinence-only
organization opposed to most HIV/AIDS education and prevention
measures. ASAP also lobbied against including HIV and AIDS in the
Americans with Disabilities Act. Ware
herself is a strong abstinence-only proponent, lobbying against any
effort that promotes education and protection over abstinence.
Ware is also opposed to condom use. Pat Ware has advocated that
the government shift away funds from groups that serve gays and
towards abstinence-only education. At the 2000 Republican Convention
in Philadelphia, Ware referenced the "innocent babies"
infected with HIV, a comment that implied that others are
"guilty" victims of the epidemic.
Joe McIlaney
Dr. Joe McIlaney is the
founder and director of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health
(MISH) in Austin, Texas. MISH is an abstinence and anti safe-sex
organization. Dr. McIlaney is most noted for his repeated
attacks against the idea of using condoms to prevent HIV and other
sexually transmitted diseases. Among his books, McIlaney co-wrote The
Myth of Safe Sex with James Dobson, president of Focus on the
Family (which runs a prominent ex-gay ministry). McIlaney frequently
interprets medical statistics for his own liking, and those
interpretations are often used by anti-gay groups. On November 15,
2001, McIlaney testified before Congress to promote abstinence.
McIlaney also enjoyed influence over the state health curriculum while
George W. Bush was Governor of Texas.
Rashida Jolley
As a young person, Rashida
Jolley has given much to her community. Jolley was named Miss District
of Columbia in the year 2000. She is a college student and sexual
abstinence advocate. Jolley travels with a group of beauty pageant
winners promoting abstinence for Project Reality, an abstinence
organization. After promoting
the administration’s faith-based initiatives, and interning with the
Heritage Foundation, President Bush appointed her to PACHA. A
biography of Ms. Jolley states that she hopes to become an attorney or
a professional harpist. While Ms. Jolley has done much to better
her community, she still does not bring the level of expertise on
HIV/AIDS issues that would benefit the council.
Dandrick Moton
Dandrick Moton, 25, is a man
whose background in HIV/AIDS policy consists of traveling with his
mother as dual motivational speakers to promote abstinence for youth
until marriage.
Anita Smith
Anita Smith is the
co-founder of the Children AIDS Fund (formally Americans for a Sound
HIV/AIDS Policy). Smith has stated that her organization "believes
abstinence is the only true prevention." (Family Voice,
July/August 2001). Smith’s organization lobbied against including
HIV/AIDS status in the Americans With Disabilities Act. The
organization has also pushed to take money from prevention efforts in
the gay community and reassign it to less effective efforts. Smith has
also worked extensively to promote abstinence-only programs. Smith
has appeared in articles by the Concerned Women for America, who have
lobbied to keep gay men off the council. Referencing potential
appointments to the council, Concerned Women for America stated:
"What we have here,
frankly, is a power struggle between homosexual white men who have
used all the government AIDS programs fundamentally to fund their
subculture and political activities, versus the other dominate
demographic group who’s suffering from AIDS, - namely, black women."
(Battle Underway of AIDS Panel, Family News in Focus. October 29,
2001).
Joseph Jennings
Joseph Jennings is a
motivational speaker, and former gang leader, who travels the country
speaking to children about drugs and violence. Jennings’ background
in HIV/AIDS comes mostly from telling teenagers to abstain from sex.
Jennings is a frequent speaker for Acquire The Fire youth
conferences. Acquire The Fire, organized by TeenMania Ministries, promotes
among other issues, religious conversion as a cure for homosexuality
and sexual abstinence until marriage."
1/20/03 <link>
An
attack on feminists by right-wing moron Kay Hymowitz
Alas a Blog has a nice
takedown on the morally and intellectually bereft incompetence of
right-wing "writer" Kay Hymowitz who claims
that "Feminism is AWOL on Islam". We quote Alas a Blog
here (bold is our emphasis):
Let's
address one of Ms. Hymowitz's specific claims:
[Feminists] have averted
their eyes from the harsh, blatant oppression of millions of
women, even while they have continued to stare into the
Western patriarchal abyss, indignant over female executives
who cannot join an exclusive golf club and college women who
do not have their own lacrosse teams.
Have feminists paid more
attention to Augusta and lacrosse than to the oppression of
women under Sharia law? I decided to search the websites of the
two largest feminist organizations in the US; how many hits
would I get for Sharia versus Augusta?:
Google
search results:
Where are feminism's priorities?
| |
Sharia,
Afghanistan,
or Islam |
Augusta
or
lacrosse |
| NOW |
133 |
10 |
| FMF |
1340 |
674 |
FMF
(w/o newswire) |
191 |
11 |
Contrary to Ms. Hymowitz's accusation, feminists
overwhelmingly pay more attention to women under Sharia than to
women golfing. Her entire argument is based on a
factual mistake - and one that she could have easily have
corrected herself, if she had bothered to do fifteen seconds of
research. (That feminists pay more attention to the plight of
women in Saudi Arabia than the plight of women excluded from
Augusta is no surprise; conservatives have been far more
obsessed with Augusta than feminists. Body
& Soul has an excellent post about the
"feminists-only-pay-attention-to-Augusta" silliness.)
Of course, none of the
many
right-wing
bloggers
who
blogged this article checked to see if Ms. Hymowitz's thesis was
true, either.)
[eRiposte: He has more
- go read the whole article]. |
1/12/03 <link>
New
York Times: The War against Women
You can read more in the article, but here is a leading snippet:
"...Yet two years into the Bush presidency,
it is apparent that reversing or otherwise eviscerating the Supreme
Court's momentous 1973 ruling that recognized a woman's fundamental
right to make her own childbearing decisions is indeed Mr. Bush's
mission. The lengthening string of anti-choice executive orders,
regulations, legal briefs, legislative maneuvers and key appointments
emanating from his administration suggests that undermining the
reproductive freedom essential to women's health, privacy and equality
is a major preoccupation of his administration — second only,
perhaps, to the war on terrorism..."
1/6/03 <link>
Anti-abortion
forces in the U.S. working with Government to distort science
The disgrace in the Health Services Administration continues. The New
York Times reports on how the lack of a proven link between abortion
and breast cancer is being distorted to make the National Cancer
Institute state that some studies show a link and some don't. Emma
at Skydreams opines that this is conservative power flexing its
muscle over women.
12/9/02 <link>
Treasury
Secretary nominee John Snow to quit Augusta
We applaud his decision, following in the footsteps of the former CBS
executive (below). Although Mr. Snow's other
credentials leave us somewhat unconvinced that he is the right man
for the job, on this issue at least his stance is welcomed.
12/3/02<link>
Former
CBS Executive quits Augusta National Golf club protesting its no-women
policy
It is heartening to see that there are some people with the strength
to say and do what is right.
11/19/02 <link>
Percentage
of women in leadership positions in U.S. corporations on the rise
Some very promising statistics reported by the Washington Post,
although the percentage of women in CEO/President type positions in
Fortune 500 companies is still quite very low. Some of the statistics
from the article are reported verbatim in following.
1. Women now hold 15.7 percent of corporate
officer positions at large U.S. public companies, up from 8.7 percent
in 1995, according to the report by Catalyst, a New York City-based
research group.
2. There are six female chief executives among the Fortune 500 firms,
up from two in 1995.
3. ...women now make up 5.2 percent
of all top-earning executives, up from 1.2 percent seven years ago,
when Catalyst first began studying female employment patterns.
4. In August, the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of
Pennsylvania reported that fewer than one in five board members of one
industry sector -- the largest communication companies -- are women
and that only 16 percent of presidents and chief executives of 120
television and cable networks are women.
(In a statement the center referred to these levels of female
participation as "tokenism.")
The Washington Post has also provided this
chart showing the woeful percentage of women CEO/COOs/Chairpersons/Presidents
in Fortune 500 companies.
11/17/02 <link>
Domestic
Abuse
Deborah Sontag's long article in the New York Times on domestic abuse
(mainly in the context of spousal or domestic partner abuse) tries to
address the emotional aspects of both abusers and the abused. She
tries to emphasize that jail-time and prosecutions may not necessarily
be the most effective means to deter future abuse, especially by men.
She cites the results of a single study to provide a more
quantitative basis to this position, "...An
experiment in 1984 in Minneapolis played a defining role in reshaping
the police approach. On the basis of 314 domestic violence cases, a
study conducted by the criminologists Lawrence W. Sherman and Richard
A. Berk concluded that arrests discouraged batterers from committing
future acts of battery. The authors cautioned that the sample size was
small and the findings preliminary, but their caution was not heeded.
Citing their work, a federal task force recommended that arrest become
the standard response to misdemeanor domestic violence cases. It did;
most states now have mandatory arrest laws.
After his Minneapolis study, however, Sherman refined his thinking on
the basis of further studies that revealed a far more complicated
picture. He oversaw one such study in Milwaukee, which showed that
arrest makes low-income men more violent than does a simple warning by
the police [our emphasis]. The low-income men in Milwaukee, most
of whom happened to be black, were three times as likely to be
arrested than employed white men were. Therefore, by his study's oddly
precise calculations, mandatory arrest in Milwaukee prevented 2,504
acts of violence against primarily white women at the price of 5,409
additional acts of violence against primarily black women.
Although the results were expressed in racial terms, Sherman said
the men's status in society was the determining factor. Arrests
generally deterred employed offenders, the studies showed, but
provoked unemployed offenders to commit up to twice as many more
assaults [our emphasis]. That is, if a goal of the arrest policy
is to protect women, the policy seems to backfire when applied to the
low-income population that is most likely to be arrested for domestic
violence.
Sherman, now a University of Pennsylvania professor, began to argue
that laws mandating arrests for misdemeanor domestic violence offenses
should be repealed. 'Until you admit that mandatory arrest is a
failure in our inner cities, you won't get anybody to spend a penny on
looking for other alternatives,' he told me. Defenders of pro-arrest
tactics say that mandatory arrest laws work much better when they lead
to prosecution and treatment. But Sherman and others counter that
prosecution and treatment are problematic, too...."
In our view, the article mostly raises questions
(including from "experts") rather than trying to answer
them, even from an "expert opinion" standpoint. For example,
merely stating as Lawrence Sherman did (above) that "laws
mandating arrests for misdemeanor domestic violence should be
repealed" does not solve the real problem, when it is known that
such arrests deter at least one portion of the population. Perhaps
what is being asked for is a balance between arrests and psychological
counseling or warnings. In some sense we would not be against a
case-by-case treatment of the problem, using the appropriate solution
for each case. However, it behooves the experts to put forth a
framework for such a proposal that can be implemented in law - and
practiced by the cops on the street who see the violence and its
results on a daily basis. Keep in mind that the
more ambiguous the laws become, the less we can hold law enforcement
responsible for not prosecuting cases effectively.
The law also cannot help people who are unwilling to
help themselves. Women who choose to remain in battered relationships
for various reasons, must do so taking full responsibility for
potential grievous injury or death at the hands of their abusers,
without placing blame on the police or judges. In
this situation, society as a whole must also be more willing to place
responsibility for personal safety on the women who decline legal
protection.
At the minimum, we hope Sontag's article promotes a
call for more research on a national scale on this issue.
11/9/02 <link>
Women's
Rights in Islam
The New York Times reports on the must-read remarkable story of a
Muslim woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a resident of the Netherlands and
formerly a Somali refugee. What is most interesting about her is not
how she built a new life successfully in the Netherlands, but the
following (quoted directly): "...She
made a name for herself pressing for the emancipation of Muslim women
and documenting how thousands, living even here [in the Netherlands],
were subjected to beatings, incest and emotional and sexual abuse. To
the surprise of many, she became a leading voice condemning the
government's support for multiculturalism, programs costing millions
of dollars a year that she considers misplaced because they help keep
Muslim women isolated from Dutch society...." With death
threats pouring in, Ms. Ali has sometimes been "...called...[the]
Dutch Salman Rushdie. In paid advertisements, more than 100 Dutch
writers have offered her support...." Ms. Ali highlights
the forced genital mutilations, beatings, incest and attendant
abortions that many Islamic women face and the fact that men (and
other women) seem to be doing nothing much about it. "...'At
the very least Islam is facing backward and it has failed to provide a
moral framework for our time,' she said in one conversation. 'If the
West wants to help modernize Islam, it should invest in women because
they educate the children'...The government, she says, should impose
Dutch law on men who beat their wives and daughters, even if the
Muslim clergy say it is permissible. It should also end teaching the
immigrants in their own language and stop paying for the more than 700
Islamic clubs, most of which, she said, "are run by deeply
conservative men and they perpetuate the segregation of women..."
While this is a drop in the ocean of the Islamic population of the
world, the lack of significant women's rights in Islam it is not
exactly a deep secret. There are certainly exceptions, including in
seemingly (but not really) unlikely places like Iraq (as
Nicholas Kristof recently reported, reminding us of the benefits
of secular states). But, it would not be overreaching to point out
that Islam does need to reform significantly to move towards the
future. President Bush and others in the West should
be tough in demanding that this reform occur, and not be fazed by
arguments about philosophical differences and sovereignty. Women's
Rights should not be subject to negotiation.
Additionally, Islamic civilians integrated into Western
societies should not be allowed to have separate rules of law. They
must integrate or they should simply not emigrate. Not that we are
singling out Islam though - this rule should apply to any immigrant
population, regardless of religion or nationality. Some of the West's
superior values on women's rights (and human rights) must be
propagated even at the cost of political correctness.
10/10/02 <link>
Why
women's rights in the U.S. have some ways to go
Madhavi Sunder addresses the gap between rhetoric and reality in the
U.S.'s approach to women's rights. President Bush said the right
things when he highlighted the torment and abuse that some women in
Iraq and Afghanistan endured. However, he refuses
to ratify, as have his predecessors including Bill Clinton, the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
- on unfounded concerns. What's worse, as Sunder points out, "...the
United States, despite its claim to be a "leader" on women's
rights, is the only industrialized democratic country not to
have ratified it...." If that is not astonishing
we don't know what is!
Other statistics pointed out by Sunder include:
"...at
the start of the twenty-first century, only 13 of our 100 senators are
women, and there are only 61 women serving in the House of
Representatives out of a total of 435 members. A mere 11 women
currently lead Fortune 1,000 companies--that's only 1.1 percent!
Furthermore, in the ever-powerful culture industries, men continue to
define how we see and understand the world. For example, men directed
more than nine out of ten films released in 2001. It is men's points
of view that are valued - not women's...."
It doesn't take much for us to also point out that India, which is
considered by some to be a "Third World" country, has had a
world-famous female head of state (Indira Gandhi) decades ago. Even Pakistan has
had in its past a female head of state (Benazir Bhutto)! Put in that
context, it is indeed quite astounding that the U.S., which has
undeniably been amongst the strongest voices for women's rights in the
past, has never had a female head of state! 10/5/02 <link>
Who
benefits more from marriage and are they better off than being
single/divorced?
(You can't deny this is an appropriate topic to kick off this section
:-))
The link above is to an article citing the most recent bit of research
(involving ~10000+ Australians) on this matter. The wealth of debate
on the web on this subject is high - so this article will only be the
beginning of our deeper foray into this topic eventually.
Nevertheless, here are some of the findings reported here, and out
take on those findings:
1. "...David Popenoe, co-director of
the Family Research Project at Rutgers University, said U.S.
researchers have reached similar conclusions...The study found mental
illness in 16 percent of the women and 16 percent of the men.
Depression and anxiety was more common among women, while drug and
alcohol abuse tended to afflict men. Divorced people fared the worst,
with 25 percent of both the women and the men suffering emotional
problems. Singletons fared slightly better, with 22 percent of women
and 26 percent of men afflicted with mental disorders. Married
people were best off, with only 13 percent of women and 13 percent of
men suffering emotional disorders...."
Popenoe says this research shows Feminist scholar Jessie
Bernard's 1972 work "The Future of Marriage", where she
expressed the view that marriage oppresses women, to be wrong.
OUR TAKE:
a. The data does not show Jessie Bernard was wrong. First of all,
Bernard's work dates back ~3 or so decades - and no one can deny
women's rights and roles in marriages have improved over that period.
Second, it is somewhat strained to refer to alcohol abuse as a mental
"illness". One could argue that alcohol abuse may arise from
depression, but it does not appear that the authors argue that. In the
absence of that it is hard to make much sense of the conclusions.
b. From this research, it does appear that marriage is beneficial to men and women, over
being single or divorced. But folks, we live in cultures where parents
and relatives make life very difficult or painful for singletons and divorcees,
taking pains (unintentionally or intentionally) to make them
feel either like idiots or like shit (pardon us). When one is forced to believe
they are pathetic because they are single or divorced, you have
already tilted the results in favor of being married. So, to some
degree, we could
have predicted the results of this "research" in advance.
Nothing surprising here!
c. The extent of unhappiness also depends on the period over which
people were polled. As this older
article shows, divorcees recover and build happy lives most of the
time.
In a nutshell, we don't find convincing
evidence that there is any
independent reason why one cannot be happier while single or divorced,
if the impact of nosey parkers and insensitive relatives are taken out of
the picture. This doesn't mean we advocate being divorced just
for the sake of it - obviously that is not the case. What we are
saying is that people who are divorced or single should be given more
support from friends and family than they are today. With such
support we will be on our way to a happier society. As to being married, we all know that's no
cakewalk either. :-)
|
