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Informational Rape
by LeanneB, SheKos editor
I remember when I first applied for my driver's license. I went down to the DMV, took a test, filled out a bunch of paperwork... then I was forced to experience an actual traffic accident. My head hit the driver's side window hard enough to spider-web cracks through it and I suffered a concussion. My chest and ribs were bruised from the restraining force of the seat belt.
This was necessary for me to fully understand the potential consequences of becoming a driver.
When my cousin sought a permit to carry a gun, he didn't just file an application with the police department, pay fees, and submit his fingerprints. He was also required to shoot someone so that he would have as much information as possible about his decision to carry a weapon.
The woman he had to shoot was a cadet at the police academy. Taking a bullet was a graduation requirement, ensuring that she was fully versed in the dangers of a career in law enforcement.
The events I just described are, of course, absurd and untrue. Our society does not force its citizens to undergo torture and other gross violations under the guise of providing education. And yet, 122 state legislators in Oklahoma have passed a bill that mandates exactly that.
HB 2780 (click top link in list), like laws in three other states, force women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds so they can "see" the fetus they want to abort. The emotional blackmail inherent in this is both obvious and utterly lacking in subtlety - the anti-choice movement wants women to think of the fetus as a baby and that abortion is the same as "killing her baby." But this wasn't quite enough for Oklahoma anti-reproductive freedom activists. HB 2780 goes a huge step further.
B. In order for the woman to make an informed decision, at least one (1) hour prior to a woman having any part of an abortion performed or induced, and prior to the administration of any anesthesia or medication in preparationImage may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.for the abortion on the woman, the physician who is to perform or induce the abortion, or the certified technician working in conjunction with the physician, shall:
- Perform an obstetric ultrasound on the pregnant woman, using either a vaginal transducer or an abdominal transducer, whichever would display the embryo or fetus more clearly;
The bolded section highlights the astonishing mile the legislature took upon getting the inch. Satisfying an ultrasound requirement is an extraordinary and unjust burden for a woman to bear simply to be able to exercise her legal rights, but under this bill, a traditional external ultrasound isn't enough. It specifically mandates a vaginal ultrasound if it would "display the embryo or fetus more clearly." More bluntly, a woman could be forced to allow a technician to place a probe inside her vagina in order to be allowed to carry out her decision to have an abortion.
You may wonder why such an invasive form of ultrasound is specified. Well, abortions are only legal - barring medical necessity - within the first trimester. At that early stage of pregnancy, the fetus may be little more than a yolk sac or embryo, and all but invisible via abdominal ultrasound. Therefore, there is little "information" for the woman to gain by being forced to see the "baby" that looks like a piece of shrimp. So the only tool remaining to those who want to prevent women from having abortions is... punishment.
Lacking the emotional impact of "Look at the baby you want to kill," the Oklahoma legislature settled for imposing a legal form of ritual rape. If a woman wishes to exercise her legal right to abortion, she must submit to a procedure that involves pushing an object into her vagina. Consent is forced - if she wants the abortion, she MUST submit - and therefore, there is no ability to say no. And yes, she can elect not to have the abortion to avoid this. Again, that is denying her a choice.
A law that turns medical technicians into rapists, doctors into accomplices to rape, and women into rape victims has no place in a free society. And the very fact that people who claim to be "pro-life" celebrate this bill's passage as a victory for their movement says something extremely chilling about them, as human beings.
The long and short of it is this: If you think so little of a woman's personal privacy, her bodily integrity, her goddamned human rights, then you are NOT "pro-life." You are NOT a "Christian." And you are most assuredly NOT a "true American."
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THIS WEEK IN WOMEN'S HISTORY: Women on the Leading Edge
by joedemocrat, SheKos contributor
- This week in 1845, Isabel Barrows was born. She was the first woman to work for the U.S. State Department, for the U.S. Congress, and the first woman to have her own medical practice (in ophthalmology).
- This week in 1851, Anna Garlin SpencerImage may be NSFW.
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was born. She was a feminist, a Unitarian minister, and a founder of the NAACP. She was active in the peace and temperance movements. She also worked against child labor. In one famous chapter of her publication, Woman's Share in Social Culture, she eloquently talks about the horrendous treatment of persons accused of being witches. This chapter is definitely worth reading! - This week in 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. She was also the first woman to receive a pilot's license, which she received in 1911.
- This week in 1916, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the world’s first female head of government, was born. She succeeded her husband as the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom party after he was assassinated in 1960, and continued his socialist policies while she was in office.
- This week in 1959, author Susan Faludi was born. In 1991, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for her writing about the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores. She is perhaps best known for her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (published 1991), in which she described a backlash in the 1980s against the successes of feminism as part of a historical trend that occurs whenever women make any substantial progress toward equal rights.
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Clik here to view. WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE: The Tech Sector
by pat of butter in a sea of grits, SheKos contributor
This weekend the New York Times ran an article about the fact that there are relatively few women in the technology industry. Tech continues to be dominated by men, far more than many other industries, such as health care or education.
Women account for just 6 percent of the chief executives of the top 100 tech companies, and 22 percent of the software engineers at tech companies over all... Aileen Lee, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the big venture capital firm... says this could reflect the different educational paths men and women follow in high school and college: men, for a variety of reasons, are more likely to pursue computer science and engineering degrees and subsequently rise through start-up or management ranks. Women now outnumber men at elite colleges, law schools, medical schools and in the overall work force. Yet a stark imbalance of the sexes persists in the high-tech world, where change typically happens at breakneck speed.
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result to some degree parallels the demographic surveys of the Daily Kos community that DrSteveB used to run. Results showed that a majority of Daily Kos participants were male. In his diary with poll of March 4, 2008, about 61 percent of 5,614 Daily Kos respondents reported being male, and about 37 percent female (with a small percentage being transgender or other categories). (Small note - the poll itself actually says 60 / 36, but if you do the math, it rounds to 61 / 37. I guess the polls around here truncate rather than rounding.)
Why are women less represented in tech? One woman interviewed in the NYT article says, "It just never dawned on me to do it...You’re just sitting there pecking away. I need more human interaction." Girls often don't want to go into science or technology.
Just 1 percent of girls taking the SAT in 2009 said they wanted to major in computer or information sciences, compared with 5 percent of boys, according to the College Board. Only 18 percent of college students graduating with computer science degrees in 2008 were women, down from 37 percent in 1985, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology.
The stereotype of a computer programmer may feed into this fact; women don't find themselves represented there, or for the most part in video games, either, which may be a significant driver toward an interest in programming. The long hours required for tech jobs may also play a role. It's difficult to balance family life with work if you are working 70 or 80 hours a week; many of the dads who do it likely have a wife at home who either doesn't work or works far fewer hours, while moms rarely have a husband at home with the same kind of work flexibility.
However, there are some positive signs.
Silicon Valley shows signs of changing, albeit slowly. New organizations are sprouting up for young women in tech, like Girls in Tech and Women 2.0. One-quarter of the partners at Kleiner Perkins, the venture capital firm, are women, and some of the hottest start-ups — including Gilt, Hunch, Ning, Eventbrite and Meebo — were founded or co-founded by women.
Maybe we need to view tech as one of the next (last?) frontiers for women in the workplace.
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Clik here to view. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
by Oke, SheKos contributor
- In Ban This Book -- Please!, Frederick Clarkson revises and updates a prior diary Image may be NSFW.
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about his book Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America, in which a number of progressive religious leaders voice their concerns about the Religious Right. A diary worth reading, before it's banned! In Dorothy Height, Civil Rights Hero, dies at age 98, incondite diaries about "The Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement", a black woman who worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and marched against lynching in the 1920s. As we remember an icon of the civil rights movement, let's all remember, as Dorothy said, to "agitate, agitate, agitate!"
In Are you? Sexual Assault Awareness Month., rb137 provides some surprising advice about rape prevention, counter to what you've heard for years. Agree or disagree with the advice, it's well worth a read as we think about the problem of rape in our society, and what we can all do about it.
- In Why the Day of Silence is Important, hippiechick13 muses on the meaning of the National Day of Silence, a day to "speak out" against LGBT bullying and discrimination by remaining silent. Relating a personal experience, the diarist tells the chilling statistics about gay bullying and worse, and reminds us that the fight for equality is far from over.
And from outside the Orange:
- Obama Administration to Rescind Bush-Era Title IX Sports Regulation
The Obama Administration will rescind a Bush-era sports policy regulation on Title IX. Title IX was originally created to prohibit discrimination in education on the basis of sex. According to BusinessWeek, Vice President Joseph Biden said in a statement, "Making Title IX as strong as possible is a no-brainer. What we're doing here today will better ensure equal opportunity in athletics, and allowing women to realize their potential - so this nation can realize its potential."
- UN Secretary-General Launches Global Effort on Women’s Health
UNITED NATIONS — With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is announcing the development of a Joint Action Plan for accelerating progress on maternal and newborn health.
"No woman should die bringing life into the world," said Secretary-General Ban. "We must create a seamless continuum of care that helps to improve the health of women from pregnancy through childbirth and builds the foundation for a healthy society."
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Clik here to view. GLBT NEWS THE KAT DRAGGED IN: A Bit of Good News
by KentuckyKat, SheKos contributor
A lot of times, we in the GLBT community find ourselves in an adversarial position with certain religions. The Catholic Church claims that pedophilia is linked to homosexuality. Evangelicals are pushing a bill legalizing murder for acts of homosexuality. So, when I come across a church that is doing something to support equality for GLBTs, I want to shout it from the rooftops. And on that note, here's a video that I found from the United Church of Christ:
Anybody else get a little misty over this one? Okay, maybe it's just me. It shouldn't come as any surprise that the church is supportive, given that the UCC was the first mainline Christian Church to support marriage equality. If the UCC isn't your thing, but you still want an affirming church, you can look here to find a church that is right for you. It is so nice to know that more and more GLBTs are able to find a church that meets their spiritual needs and affirms the value of their lives!