A new study that indicates that abstinence-only education accomplishes something has generated interest from abstinence-only curriculum advocates, as well as the feminist community advocating for thorough, meaningful sex education designed to provide tools for safe, consensual sex to young people.
The study found that an abstinence-only curriculum delayed sexual initiation, and did not reduce condom use. "The classes also did not portray sex negatively or suggest that condoms are ineffective, and contained only medically accurate information," according to the New York Times. Medical News Today explained that "the abstinence-only curriculum included in the study differed greatly from current abstinence-only programs" actively in use in schools.
Even with these alleged benefits to dropping a comprehensive sex education program, Feministing rightly said, "We still have a moral responsibility to teach young people about contraception. Teenagers deserve the truth about sexual health - and as much information as we can possibly provide." The Guttmacher Institute points out some of the truths here.
This study comes on the heels of findings that "the nation's teen-pregnancy rate increased by three percent in 2006. The Guttmacher study is the latest evidence that our nation is facing an adolescent-reproductive health crisis, with one in four teenage girls having a sexually transmitted disease and one-third of teenage girls becoming pregnant before reaching the age of 20," according to Naral Pro-Choice. To knowingly pull away from comprehensive sex education in an environment like this would compromise the long term reproductive health of young men and women. -TLF
Friday, February 5, 2010
Police and domestic violence
The other day I was Googling the name of a public information officer with the Dallas police department, a friendly, chipper man who used to provide me with press releases and quotes when I was on deadline as a reporter at the Dallas Observer. I had a question that I thought he might be able to answer, and though it had been a couple years since we'd talked, I was confident that he'd remember me.
Rather than finding his contact information, however, I stumbled upon an article about him that was published on a blog called Behind the Blue Wall, which chronicles (without commentary) instances of police officer perpetrated domestic violence in the news. The story linked to a Dallas Morning News article that said that the officer, Sergeant Gil Cerda, was issued a restraining order after he threatened to kill his wife and beat up her child. At first, Cerda's wife was hesitant to come forward. According to the article, "she didn't seek to file a police report or go to the department's internal affairs division because she feared that would ruin her husband's career or harm his reputation. She said she also feared his influence within the Police Department."
Sergeant Gil Cerda's violent behavior shocked me to the core. Here was a person who seemed to embody the ideal police public relations person--a democratic nice guy who didn't spew bullshit to the press. And yet, in his domestic life, he morphed into a violent, threatening character, the very instance of a corrupt law enforcement agent--someone who uses his publicly sanctioned role as a peacekeeper to terrorize his family or other people in his community. Gil Cerda's wife, like so many victims of police officer violence, felt she had no recourse. How could she go to the police? Her husband was one of them.
The Gil Cerda story is no singular affair. According to the National Center for Women and Policing, a project of the Feminist Majority Foundation, at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence. (The domestic violence rate in society at large is 10 percent.) Aside from the larger psychological questions about whether the stress of police work (or military work) leads to violence in the home, there are major practical problems when it comes to persecuting violent officers. According to a Women and Policing report, abused women and children have a difficult time escaping the violence because the officer knows the locations of women's shelters. (These addresses are typically shielded from the public.) Officers and their colleagues are also known to sweep violence under the rug. Rather than produce an official police report detailing a violent incident, the issue will be dealt with internally and the perpetrator will receive nothing more than small slap on the wrist.
The stories detailed on Behind the Blue Wall are as heartbreaking as they are manifold. They also speak to the larger trend of domestic violence in our society, perpetrated by officers and civilians alike. As the Women and Policing report notes, "a police department that has domestic violence offenders among its ranks will not effectively serve and protect victims in the community." -Naomi
Rather than finding his contact information, however, I stumbled upon an article about him that was published on a blog called Behind the Blue Wall, which chronicles (without commentary) instances of police officer perpetrated domestic violence in the news. The story linked to a Dallas Morning News article that said that the officer, Sergeant Gil Cerda, was issued a restraining order after he threatened to kill his wife and beat up her child. At first, Cerda's wife was hesitant to come forward. According to the article, "she didn't seek to file a police report or go to the department's internal affairs division because she feared that would ruin her husband's career or harm his reputation. She said she also feared his influence within the Police Department."
Sergeant Gil Cerda's violent behavior shocked me to the core. Here was a person who seemed to embody the ideal police public relations person--a democratic nice guy who didn't spew bullshit to the press. And yet, in his domestic life, he morphed into a violent, threatening character, the very instance of a corrupt law enforcement agent--someone who uses his publicly sanctioned role as a peacekeeper to terrorize his family or other people in his community. Gil Cerda's wife, like so many victims of police officer violence, felt she had no recourse. How could she go to the police? Her husband was one of them.
The Gil Cerda story is no singular affair. According to the National Center for Women and Policing, a project of the Feminist Majority Foundation, at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence. (The domestic violence rate in society at large is 10 percent.) Aside from the larger psychological questions about whether the stress of police work (or military work) leads to violence in the home, there are major practical problems when it comes to persecuting violent officers. According to a Women and Policing report, abused women and children have a difficult time escaping the violence because the officer knows the locations of women's shelters. (These addresses are typically shielded from the public.) Officers and their colleagues are also known to sweep violence under the rug. Rather than produce an official police report detailing a violent incident, the issue will be dealt with internally and the perpetrator will receive nothing more than small slap on the wrist.
The stories detailed on Behind the Blue Wall are as heartbreaking as they are manifold. They also speak to the larger trend of domestic violence in our society, perpetrated by officers and civilians alike. As the Women and Policing report notes, "a police department that has domestic violence offenders among its ranks will not effectively serve and protect victims in the community." -Naomi
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Obama on Uganda: summing up today's news
Today, President Obama denounced a Ugandan proposal to make homosexuality punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty. Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama said "we may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether it's here in the United States or ... more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda," according to Reuters.
Ms. Magazine covered the Ugandan bill late last year, writing that James Nsaba Buturo, Uganda's minister of state for ethics and integrity, said the country is "willing to lose funding and withdraw from international treaties, including the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights, if necessary. 'We are talking about anal sex. Not even animals do that...We believe there are limits to human rights.'"
Jezebel has also been covering the proposed legislation, commenting on a Daily Monitor profile of out Ugandan lesbian Val Kalende, who has vowed to speak in public about her orientation in spite of increasing threats to her physical safety. Jezebel also quotes an anonymous gay Ugandan blogger who says that "the bill is making us recklessly courageous" by provoking some closeted individuals to come out in protest. The blogger also responded to Obama's statement today, saying, "Hey, I must say that the gay lobby in the US is strong. He has weighed in again, and it will be interesting to see what pressure that does for Uganda. I am quite aware that it was because of the anger of the LGBT people in the US that there is this unprecedented level of intervention." -TLF
Ms. Magazine covered the Ugandan bill late last year, writing that James Nsaba Buturo, Uganda's minister of state for ethics and integrity, said the country is "willing to lose funding and withdraw from international treaties, including the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights, if necessary. 'We are talking about anal sex. Not even animals do that...We believe there are limits to human rights.'"
Jezebel has also been covering the proposed legislation, commenting on a Daily Monitor profile of out Ugandan lesbian Val Kalende, who has vowed to speak in public about her orientation in spite of increasing threats to her physical safety. Jezebel also quotes an anonymous gay Ugandan blogger who says that "the bill is making us recklessly courageous" by provoking some closeted individuals to come out in protest. The blogger also responded to Obama's statement today, saying, "Hey, I must say that the gay lobby in the US is strong. He has weighed in again, and it will be interesting to see what pressure that does for Uganda. I am quite aware that it was because of the anger of the LGBT people in the US that there is this unprecedented level of intervention." -TLF
Hysterical about Hysteria
Hysteria, Denver's only feminist, LGBTQ-friendly, sex-positive toy, video, and book boutique (and purveyor of fantastic, educational workshops) will be shuttering soon due to financial difficulties. According to an email sent out this morning, owners Elizabeth Hauptman and Pete Yribia have been unable to secure small business loans in this tough economic climate. Hysteria's closure is a huge loss to the Denver community and beyond. As the only local sex shop that sold medical grade silicone toys and feminist porn, the outlet was committed to safety, security, experimentation, and consensus in sex.
When I first visited Hysteria a year ago, I felt a surge of relief. Here, at last, was a sex shop void of the grubby, exploitative, secretive vibe at mainstream sex stores in Denver. Hysteria was brightly lit and colorful. Sample sex toys were displayed, unpackaged, along the wall so that customers could get a good feel for the vibration, size, and texture of the items. (Sex toy shopping is largely intuitive, Elizabeth once told me. Clients know the toy they want when they hold it.) In addition to glass and silicone toys, Hysteria sold vegan and organic lube, harnesses, calendars, porn, books, condoms, non-erect "dildos" for packing, and even little plastic wedges to help women pee while standing up. The store was committed to making sex better for people of all stripes and persuasions. One thing I loved about Hysteria was Elizabeth's open and unassuming nature. She held no sacred cows about sex and was democratic and sensitive in her advice.
With the store's closing date on the horizon, Hysteria is holding a massive going-out-of-business sale in the brick-and-mortar store. (You can check out the full-priced merch online.) While you're perusing the site, you might want to send Elizabeth and Pete an email to thank them for five years of serving the Denver community. Reach them at customerservice (AT) hysteriashop (DOT) com. -Naomi
When I first visited Hysteria a year ago, I felt a surge of relief. Here, at last, was a sex shop void of the grubby, exploitative, secretive vibe at mainstream sex stores in Denver. Hysteria was brightly lit and colorful. Sample sex toys were displayed, unpackaged, along the wall so that customers could get a good feel for the vibration, size, and texture of the items. (Sex toy shopping is largely intuitive, Elizabeth once told me. Clients know the toy they want when they hold it.) In addition to glass and silicone toys, Hysteria sold vegan and organic lube, harnesses, calendars, porn, books, condoms, non-erect "dildos" for packing, and even little plastic wedges to help women pee while standing up. The store was committed to making sex better for people of all stripes and persuasions. One thing I loved about Hysteria was Elizabeth's open and unassuming nature. She held no sacred cows about sex and was democratic and sensitive in her advice.
With the store's closing date on the horizon, Hysteria is holding a massive going-out-of-business sale in the brick-and-mortar store. (You can check out the full-priced merch online.) While you're perusing the site, you might want to send Elizabeth and Pete an email to thank them for five years of serving the Denver community. Reach them at customerservice (AT) hysteriashop (DOT) com. -Naomi
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Pro-life advertising on CBS: summing up today's news
College football star Tim Tebow has made it big in the past week, not for his stardom, but for his upcoming appearance in a Super Bowl ad paid for by Focus on the Family in which he will appear with his mother, Pam Tebow, who will say something to the effect of, "I could've had an abortion; my doctor recommended I did. But I didn't, and look at the vigorous son I bore, whose strength and masculinity would never have graced our football fields if I'd had an abortion. I urge you to choose life, too!"
Besides its controversial content, the ad has generated significant debate regarding CBS's policy against airing advocacy ads. Feminists have responded loudly, garnering over 100,000 petition signatures asking CBS to pull the ad. Here's a good introduction on The Daily Beast; Feministe brought us a smart bit of analysis on the controversy. From Feministing, "raging grannies" singing against the ad; and a round-up of major coverage from Jezebel is here.
There's been disagreement a'plenty, though. Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about the shortcomings of the pro-choice movement, and celebrating the activism tactics on the pro-life side. More importantly, though, they helped shift the debate away from an issue of finding a particular ad distasteful and offensive (do we expect to see any that aren't?) to a question of censorship and agenda-pushing.
Jaclyn Friedman got to the heart of some bigger issues on The Nation today. This is a must-read that addresses the problem with generating a culture of sexual violence in football and the nagging feeling that women are "second sex" when it comes to football, even its advertising, since "now we have a CBS-sanctioned ad telling us that if we get knocked up as a result of all that (relentlessly heterosexual) sex, we have only two choices: have the baby, or become an enemy of Football Nation." -TLF
Besides its controversial content, the ad has generated significant debate regarding CBS's policy against airing advocacy ads. Feminists have responded loudly, garnering over 100,000 petition signatures asking CBS to pull the ad. Here's a good introduction on The Daily Beast; Feministe brought us a smart bit of analysis on the controversy. From Feministing, "raging grannies" singing against the ad; and a round-up of major coverage from Jezebel is here.
There's been disagreement a'plenty, though. Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about the shortcomings of the pro-choice movement, and celebrating the activism tactics on the pro-life side. More importantly, though, they helped shift the debate away from an issue of finding a particular ad distasteful and offensive (do we expect to see any that aren't?) to a question of censorship and agenda-pushing.
Jaclyn Friedman got to the heart of some bigger issues on The Nation today. This is a must-read that addresses the problem with generating a culture of sexual violence in football and the nagging feeling that women are "second sex" when it comes to football, even its advertising, since "now we have a CBS-sanctioned ad telling us that if we get knocked up as a result of all that (relentlessly heterosexual) sex, we have only two choices: have the baby, or become an enemy of Football Nation." -TLF
What makes a man?
The photo, titled “undesirable,” is essentially about me ultimately beginning the journey of accepting my disability as I have my blackness. More broadly, it is to protest what I refer to as the negative fetishism of poor bodies, bodies that are deemed broke and broken, crooked and criminal, dilapidated and degenerate, ugly and useless....The “I AM A MAN” sign represents a protest of how labor, disability and masculinity had come to define my own conception of manhood....Orthodoxy teaches us that muscles are the currency of masculinity....Cracked and splintered male bodies cannot perform the masculine ethic, and this inability to perform an identity that is inculcated illegitimately and relentlessly, can place a disabled male at the perilous risk of being emasculated at best and feminized at worst. And for a man, or for a male who wants to be one, convention dictates that the only thing worse than being a eunuch is being a woman because to be a woman is to be an expletive.
Ford's personal story is moving, but so is his insight into the negative judgement that is passed on men who are "feminized at worst." To understand the expectations that are placed on men to conform to a gender role is worth while to help begin understanding how we've created such a hierarchically disturbing world in which "to be a woman is to be an expletive," or to be a woman means to be without individuated identity. -Sara
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Don't Ask Don't Tell: summing up today's news
Hearings on President Obama's proposed repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which was a weak compromise in 1993 that allows openly gay people to serve in the military (as long as they're not open about it, which is grounds for discharge), began today on Capitol Hill at the urging of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Feministing said that "DADT must be overturned immediately; Senator Carl Levin wrote a persuasive piece in Politico that says, "We should end 'don't ask, don't tell,' and we should do it in a way that honors our nation's values while making it more secure," and points out that "more than 60,000 gays and lesbians are serving today, forced to hide their orientation and at constant risk of losing the chance to serve"; back in October, Meghan McCain wrote in favor of repealing DADT as a national security issue and said, "Let’s give [members of the military] more credit. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, I suspect it could be said that there is no homophobia in foxholes either"; The American Prospect offers a great analysis of why DADT is damaging, and why its repeal matters for civil rights.
You can also read a compelling report by The Center for American Progress on why DADT should be repealed here. -TLF
Feministing said that "DADT must be overturned immediately; Senator Carl Levin wrote a persuasive piece in Politico that says, "We should end 'don't ask, don't tell,' and we should do it in a way that honors our nation's values while making it more secure," and points out that "more than 60,000 gays and lesbians are serving today, forced to hide their orientation and at constant risk of losing the chance to serve"; back in October, Meghan McCain wrote in favor of repealing DADT as a national security issue and said, "Let’s give [members of the military] more credit. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, I suspect it could be said that there is no homophobia in foxholes either"; The American Prospect offers a great analysis of why DADT is damaging, and why its repeal matters for civil rights.
You can also read a compelling report by The Center for American Progress on why DADT should be repealed here. -TLF
Monday, February 1, 2010
Degrees of sex scandalousness
Celebrity sex scandals are back in the spotlight after Andrew Young, a former staffer to John Edwards, published The Politician this week in which he chronicles his time working for Edwards, and the former presidential candidate's personal and professional shortcomings. Double X found Young's portrayal of Elizabeth Edwards to be even harsher than the unforgiving dissection of John: "Has ever a woman been tortured to such a degree? There must be something to these [many negative] accounts, since they all sound the same. But they only make me pity her more. Clearly, she was a woman driven to insanity, our own American Medusa, a beautiful maiden transformed by the abuse of men into a poisonous monster." Elizabeth may have had personal failings, but to sympathize with the cuckolded spouse, as The Lady Finger has done in the past, feels gracious.
In the mean time, Jezebel revisited the series of celebrity extra-marital affairs with a snarky commentary of the comparative, competitive tendencies we have when it comes to watching other people's marriages fall apart (whose heterosexual or homosexual transgressions were worse?) Their accurate equation: (Respectability) (Hypocrisy) (Public Nature of Family Values ÷ Likability of Wife - Number of Adult Kids + Number of Cute Kids) x Number of Affairs (Number of Mistresses) ÷ Homosexual Activity (Public Opposition to Homosexuality)√ Cross-Dressing - Physical Attractiveness + Kinks x Mistresses' Tabloid Confessions (Sex Tapes)Illegal Activity ÷Tearful Public Confession or Wife's Tell-All(Extant Out-of-Wedlock Child) = Shame Quotient -Sara
In the mean time, Jezebel revisited the series of celebrity extra-marital affairs with a snarky commentary of the comparative, competitive tendencies we have when it comes to watching other people's marriages fall apart (whose heterosexual or homosexual transgressions were worse?) Their accurate equation: (Respectability) (Hypocrisy) (Public Nature of Family Values ÷ Likability of Wife - Number of Adult Kids + Number of Cute Kids) x Number of Affairs (Number of Mistresses) ÷ Homosexual Activity (Public Opposition to Homosexuality)√ Cross-Dressing - Physical Attractiveness + Kinks x Mistresses' Tabloid Confessions (Sex Tapes)Illegal Activity ÷Tearful Public Confession or Wife's Tell-All(Extant Out-of-Wedlock Child) = Shame Quotient -Sara
Normalizing violence through fashion
I snapped this photo the other day while walking to work. I’ve gotten accustomed to seeing weapons and symbols of violence depicted on clothes and accessories lately—an assault rifle on the T-shirt of a guy in baggy pants walking down the sidewalk, tiny delicate handguns on a necklace worn by a young female coworker, razor blades, skulls, and brass knuckles on hoodies and shoes, even those marketed toward small children. I’d chalked it up to living in a violent society, to the psychological stress caused by the constant stream of news reports about war, terrorist threats, shooting sprees.
These dresses, though, took me off guard. I didn’t expect to spot this trend in the most affluent shopping district in the city, designed for the people whose privilege affords them the most distance from random acts of violence. This is the only neighborhood in the city where I feel completely at ease walking around by myself at night. (This has a great deal to do with my own privilege—I am not at all likely to be harassed by the ever-present police force, for example, as many would be.) What is the appeal in a fun, flirty dress with handguns and bullets printed all over it? Is it, like the hoodies printed with skulls, just a symptom of living in a society where we are told that we could be attacked at any moment, where for some it is a real possibility? Is it an acknowledgement that even super-wealthy women are very often victims of violent attacks, likely perpetrated not by a stranger but by a partner or acquaintance? Is it an attempt to take back some of the power robbed from women in our society, to enable women to give off a tough impression? Is it appropriation? Is it just fashion?
Sara’s recent post on violence against women being presented as fashion (or art) showed some particularly blatant, disturbing examples of this trend. But I worry too about the not-so-blatant examples, the violent imagery that permeates culture in more covert ways. I worry about weapons and violence, or their images, being so commonplace that we don’t question them anymore. -Adrienne
Sunday, January 31, 2010
J.D. Salinger's Glass women
Subsequent to author J.D. Salinger's death this week, I've been reflecting on one of my favorite fictional families. Glass family members are featured in Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, Seymour: An Introduction, and the short stories "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Down at the Dinghy." Generally the most developed and complex of their family narrative are male characters.
Boo Boo, the older sister, has a dedicated story in Nine Stories, in which she is defined in relation to her housekeeper and her son. Her young son tells her, when she tries to play sailor, "You aren't an admiral. You're a lady," which he says his father told him. Boo Boo is unable to effectively assert herself as a wife (to defend her husband from the housekeeper's name calling) or as a mother, in which she has little control or even the capability to teach.
Seymour, who is discussed mostly posthumously and is memorialized in a story by his brother Buddy, is the iconic eldest child. In the story in which he appears alive, his wife is a mere accessory, and they never even interact.
Gender roles are dominant presences in the lives of the Glass children. In Franny and Zooey, we meet Franny, the youngest daughter of the Glass clan, when she is on a frustrating date, and in which it is clear that "sometimes it was hell to control her impatience over the male species' general ineptness." Zooey is consistently condescending to their mother, and appears mostly while in the process of a men's ritual while she looks on: shaving in the family's bathroom.
Despite the overwhelming traditional gender roles though, the characters are often self-aware enough to be frustrated by the accompanying expectations. Seymour cancels his own wedding last minute, but then caves and ends up married anyway. Buddy lives alone in a cabin in the woods. And for Franny and Zooey, their quest for spiritual meaning transcends gender roles. -Sara
Boo Boo, the older sister, has a dedicated story in Nine Stories, in which she is defined in relation to her housekeeper and her son. Her young son tells her, when she tries to play sailor, "You aren't an admiral. You're a lady," which he says his father told him. Boo Boo is unable to effectively assert herself as a wife (to defend her husband from the housekeeper's name calling) or as a mother, in which she has little control or even the capability to teach.
Seymour, who is discussed mostly posthumously and is memorialized in a story by his brother Buddy, is the iconic eldest child. In the story in which he appears alive, his wife is a mere accessory, and they never even interact.
Gender roles are dominant presences in the lives of the Glass children. In Franny and Zooey, we meet Franny, the youngest daughter of the Glass clan, when she is on a frustrating date, and in which it is clear that "sometimes it was hell to control her impatience over the male species' general ineptness." Zooey is consistently condescending to their mother, and appears mostly while in the process of a men's ritual while she looks on: shaving in the family's bathroom.
Despite the overwhelming traditional gender roles though, the characters are often self-aware enough to be frustrated by the accompanying expectations. Seymour cancels his own wedding last minute, but then caves and ends up married anyway. Buddy lives alone in a cabin in the woods. And for Franny and Zooey, their quest for spiritual meaning transcends gender roles. -Sara
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