Sneak preview: summing up today's news

With the Academy Awards coming on Sunday, everybody's rushing to see the nominated films and to weigh in on them.

The feminist blogosphere has been discussing the significance of and the problems with director Kathryn Bigelow's best feature nominee, The Hurt Locker (the movie has been plenty controversial gender issues aside; in the spirit of full disclosure, I'll say that I loved it.)

The Daily Beast contemplated the historic implications of the first-ever best picture win for a woman director. The Women's Media Center noted an even more striking gender-role exploding observation: "In spite of the deep and abiding desire to see a woman break through this particular glass ceiling, the real possibility that the first Oscar award winning woman director will win for making a war film is almost a kick in the gut to many who make the types of films that most interest female ticket buyers. Bigelow works in a male paradigm and is being rewarded for that."

Shira Tarrant expands on Girl w/ Pen: "Bigelow likes the big bang in her movies — guns, explosions, a rough-punch to the gut. And in The Hurt Locker, there’s plenty of that rugged, isolated individualism that so often defines modern manhood. But Bigelow is more deeply interested in the warrior codes of masculinity that are intertwined with men’s fears and feelings, and their conflicted impulses around loyalty and leadership, posturing and parenthood.

We're not sure why the LA Times is so squeamish about feminism, but an insightful blogger writes, "Although her perspective shouldn't be tagged as 'feminist,' it's one that shakes up traditional notions of what men are and how they behave, whether on a battlefield, in the depths of a nuclear submarine or surfing off Malibu." The piece goes on to note that "by asserting her right as an artist to enter into that combat zone, Bigelow has established herself as one of the gutsiest filmmakers around." It's exciting to see a woman making great movies, making successful movies, and making movies that aren't chick flicks. Though some voices in the feminist blogosphere complain that the minor roles women play in The Hurt Locker are powerless and domestic, the LA Times got it right that Bigelow's "deeper interest lies in men's tribal rites and rituals; their fears, posturings and warrior codes; their feelings about sex and fatherhood; their conflicted loyalties and clashing ideas of what leadership and heroism mean," not just machine guns and combat boots.

We'll be watching this year's stars on the red carpet this weekend.
-TLF

Abortion and the health care debate: summing up today's news

The partisan tug of war that continues to hold up the health care bill has a new (or recycled) focal point this week: abortion restrictions that Democratic Bart Stupak has said are pivotal in getting his vote in favor of the bill, and as NPR noted, "Of the remaining issues with the potential to bring down the entire health overhaul effort, the one that lawmakers fear most is abortion."

RH Reality Check called Stupak a "petulant child," which is perhaps more generous terminology than The Lady Finger would use at this point. "In my eyes [the president] has to be a little more flexible, especially on this issue of no public funding for abortion,” Stupak said, as recounted by the New York Times today.

In a separate post, RH Reality Check expanded on the details of what proposed language by Senator Ben Nelson would mean for women: "In terms of abortion coverage, women will not only be worse off with this version of health reform, they will also face institutionalized sex discrimination for basic reproductive health care." On Stupak's insistence that there can be no federal funding for abortion, RH Reality Check explains that that's not even on the table. In fact, "the Senate bill does not contain language allowing public funding of abortion and... will result in the elimination of women's access to private coverage for abortion care." Hot Air explains the history of the Nelson-Stupak controversy, and The Atlantic Wire has a great round-up here.

Nancy Pelosi said it most clearly: "There is no federal funding for abortion. That is the law of the land. It is not changed in this bill." What we're left to fight for is basic protections for the status quo in reproductive health care.  According to Politico, abortion language may simply be relegated to a separate bill if it's the only hold-up on the much anticipated, long awaited health care reform bill. But if Congress can't work it out, Stupak will  undermine health care reform, as he told ABC today. Yes, it's a man who has no uterus who's engineering these decisions for the entire country. -TLF

Baby daddies: summing up today's news

Earlier this week, Washington City Paper's The Sexist column commented on a study that evidences that men are more likely to be "pleased" with the idea of an unplanned pregnancy than women are. The study, which was conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, found that 42 percent of men between the ages of 20 and 24 would be pleased with the news of a partner's unplanned pregnancy, as compared with 16 percent of women in the same age group.

The surprising results of the study have feminist bloggers, including yours truly, scratching their heads. This certainly flies in the face of the commonly held sexist notion that women dupe their men into fatherhood by "accidentally" getting pregnant.

Over at Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte theorizes that some men might feel emasculated by engagement and marriage rituals. For some couples, an unplanned pregnancy pushes the idea of marriage to the fore. Instead of playing into gendered, suffocating wedding planning, "....you could get her pregnant and be the conquering hero by making an honest woman of her...It’s the perfect way to get what you want (marriage, babies) without having to say you want that girly stuff. It certainly explained a handful of men’s erratic behavior and opinions that I’ve known in my time."

Here's another idea: men just don't--and really can't--understand the cramp that unplanned pregnancy puts on a woman's style. (Abortion? The cost and the public shaming. Adoption? The physical and emotional toll. Motherhood? Hello!) As The Sexist writes, "I don’t know: Perhaps our joy is muted by the fact that unexpected pregnancies tend to put us ladies out a touch."-TLF

To have them, or when to have them? The baby dilemma.

The Lady Finger has grappled with the competing demands made on women and the limitations women face when they try to achieve domestic and career success at once. There are expectations when it comes to healthy childbearing, and the uncertain struggle with navigating traditional career paths for women who also raise children. Then there's the relatively new attempt at sharing household tasks across gender lines, with a rising number of househusbands. It is in this context that a guest blogger considers her own personal plans and her future as a parent:

The Washington Post reported last week that a woman's fertility declines as she ages. This is not news: years of research have shown this to be true, and every woman I've ever spoken with about babies is all too aware of that "biological clock." Yet this story was particularly sobering: "Now it appears that the old biological clock may start ticking much earlier -- and faster -- than once thought."

Earlier and faster? I read this, and I think--it's not fair! I want children. I want a husband. And I want a career. I'm 28 now, I don't have even one of those three, and the new research says I will have only 12% of my eggs remaining in two years, when I turn 30. Eeeek!

These aren't questions I ever considered when I was growing up. I grew up in the 90s, and my friends and I were empowered: we dreamed of careers, we poured effort into our education. We went to college, studied hard, devoted ourselves to our extracurriculars--debate, model UN, lit mag. We graduated, celebrated, and dug in for more demanding years of graduate school, because this was the way to achieve success in our field, to pursue the careers we aspired to. We turned 24, 25, and 26. And 27. And 28.

In graduate school, I sat with female friends and worried about when to have children. It takes 5 or 6 years to complete the degree, a period of stress and pressure to produce an outstanding 300-page dissertation, and then, our professors told us, it gets even worse: assistant professorship, when another clock--the tenure clock--starts ticking. Teaching, committees, advising, research, and publishing would consume the next 6 years. Then maybe, just maybe, we'd have tenure, and we'd be (relatively) secure. At the age of 35.

But we wanted to start our families earlier. We didn't want to be "old" mothers. I thought of 35 as the age associated with a significant increase in risks to the baby's health, and it became my line in the sand: I wanted children before then.

The dilemma over when to have kids was just one piece of a larger puzzle, how to achieve that holy triumvirate: husband, kids, career. Looking around the academy, we noted that strikingly few women had all three. To have two of the three was common; two was doable. Had times changed significantly enough from when our professors were starting out, such that now we could have all three? Or were we likely to lose one along the way, as well? And if we thought we could have all three, did it simply mean that we would not get to choose the one we lost? It may be 2010, but it still feels like a mutually exclusive choice: family or career.

And now I find out the clock is ticking faster than I imagined. This has always seemed like a woman's issue, and of course, it is. When I read the WaPo article, I immediately wanted to share it with my female friends. But I realized, perhaps because I am now in a long-term relationship with a man in which I can envision children, that for men who want children, and who plan to have children with women their age or older, they must mind the ticking clock, as well. This frustrating biological reality was a frustration we shared.

And share I did, when I got home, telling my boyfriend about the article. We agreed that when we think of the challenges of having a child, it scares us silly. And when we think of the positives, well, what can you say?-- it's a child, it's a miracle, it's the greatest joy. Of course, we can't truly imagine what it's like to have a child, just as we can't know what it would be like to be 45 and childless. Some things can't be known. Many things, in fact. But we tentatively decided, in two or three years, we would try to have a child. -Anonymous

Responding to sexual assault on campus: summing up today's news

Trigger Warning:

Naomi blogged last week about the upsetting findings that one in five women on college campuses are sexually assaulted, noting that "on-campus rape has not diminished, in no small part because campus authorities do next to nothing to deter it." Dialogue about the epidemic of rape on college campuses, seemingly safe and bucolic spaces, has been explosive this week in response to a study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity.

CNN explained the context for the CPI study: "The shocking statistics of rape and attempted rape on campus came to light in a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice nine years ago. But the recently released series published by the Washington center shows that while federal law requires schools to act on sexual assault allegations and look out for the rights of victims, many higher-education institutions aren't making the grade."

Jezebel described the study as "chilling." Among CPI's findings: "Many student victims don’t report incidents at all, because they blame themselves, or don’t identify what happened as sexual assault. Local criminal justice authorities regularly shy away from such cases, because they are 'he said, she said' disputes sometimes clouded by drugs or alcohol." Although this isn't new, CPI brings renewed attention to a "culture of indifference." RH Reality Check rightly criticized college administrators and said, "While I...understand that the role of a college is first and foremost to foster personal growth through learning, there is no excuse for turning one person’s rape into another’s 'teachable moment'" and "valuing an educational ideal over the health and safety of other students is unacceptable...and dangerous."

Feministing plugged the Campus Accountability Project as a "great tool for student organizers who are trying to change policy and programming on their campus, but it also plays a big role in promoting administrative transparency and reminding schools that policy matters." CAP, with SAFER (Students Active For Ending Rape) is "the only organization that fights sexual violence and rape culture by empowering student-led campaigns to reform college sexual assault policies."

Distressingly, these are uphill battles. As CNN noted, "Many said administrators appeared more concerned with protecting their employer, or the school's reputation, than they were with protecting students."

Kristen Lombardi, CPI's lead researcher on this report, wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle about the dismissive stance that campus administrators often take: "Many incidents go beyond 'miscommunication' among two drunk students - a common characterization among school officials - to predatory acts."

To teach college students that rape is a forgivable transgression undoes so much of the important progress that student advocates and educators have worked for. But, as Naomi expressed in her post last week, the coverage of CPI's report has "made me a bit hopeful that things will get better." We'll keep hoping and working for improvements. -TLF

Suicide and LGBQ youths

A recent study conducted by Canadian researchers and published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry shows that for LGBQ youths contemplating suicide, the primary risk factor is whether one identifies as LGBQ, not whether one is attracted to people of the same sex or whether one acts on that attraction. I was unable to find a link to the actual publication but the Science Daily article I linked to above gives some of the particulars. According to the article, the researchers found that “those teens who self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, or who were unsure of their sexual identity, were indeed at higher risk for suicidal ideation and attempts. However, teens who had same-sex attractions or sexual experiences--but thought of themselves as heterosexual--were at no greater risk than the population at large. Perhaps surprisingly, but consistent with previous studies, the majority of teens with same-sex sexual attraction or experience considered themselves to be heterosexual.”

Yue Zhao, one of the authors of the journal article, explains, "The main message is that it's the interface between individuals and society that causes students who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual the most distress.” This flies in the face of claims from right-wing and religious groups that it is the “gay lifestyle” or the fact that LGBQ people have gay sex that puts them at risk. As one site called Chastity.com claims, “While prejudice against homosexuals can play a role in their unhappiness, evidence suggests that the lifestyle itself causes further pain,” but the site does not say what this “evidence” is. Other anti-LGBTIQ sites refer to the “Gay Youth Suicide Myth” or the “Homosexual Urban Legend.” As the study suggests, the blame for the increased rate of suicide ideation and attempts among LGBQ youths sits squarely on the shoulders of mainstream society and on groups and individuals who continue to stigmatize, marginalize, and oppress LGBTIQ individuals. -Adrienne

Abortion distortion: summing up today's news

Last week, The New York Times ran a story about the anti-abortion movement's efforts to reach out to black women by telling them that abortion is a form of eugenics meant to eradicate people of color. An organization called Georgia Right to Life has paid for billboards around Atlanta with the phrase "Black children are an endangered species." In addition, anti-choicer Mark Crutcher's video detailing a racist conspiracy on the part of family planning groups has been screened at many organizations in the South. The Times quotes Loretta Ross, executive director of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective in Atlanta: “'It’s a perfect storm,' [she said], listing a lack of access to birth control, lack of education, and even a high rate of sexual violence. 'There’s an assumption that every time a girl is pregnant it’s because of voluntary activity, and it’s so not the case.'"

Feministing calls the article "biased," saying, "unfortunately, the entire article is a detailed explanation of the Right to Life group's opinion, analysis and tactics. Loretta Ross, National Coordinator of Sistersong, is quoted in response, but her arguments barely make a splash on the piece. This doesn't seem like fair and balanced reporting to me."

RH Reality Check comes in where the Times left off, providing much-needed context regarding "factors underlying reproductive and sexual health problems among African-American women," and noting that "perhaps the greatest weakness of this article--and one that is unforgivable given the stakes around women's health and rights--is that the Times failed entirely to point out that the very groups--Georgia Right to Life is but one example of many--spend a good deal of their time and energy opposing funding of the very basic preventive reproductive and sexual health services that would reduce unintended pregnancies (and by extension, the number of abortions), reduce sexually transmitted infections, and dramatically improve the health of African-American women in these areas."

And in response, Racialicious has published a powerful, first-person account of working in family planning clinics in the South. "Women of color are not children unable to make health care decisions, our children are not a species on the brink of extinction through an organized genocidal plot and justice is found when a people are unbound and empowered by medically accurate knowledge rather than dogma." -TLF

Department of Defense education cuts adversely affect women

Just one month after presenting its enormous $708 billion budget, the U.S. Department of Defense has abruptly halted a popular program of providing educational grants to spouses of soldiers--who are typically women--claiming it ran out of money.

The year-old program, the Defense Department's Military Spouse Career Advancement Account (MyCAA), provided up to $6,000 in grants for college and other educational training programs to wives and husbands. About 98,000 people were involved in the program when it ended last week.

According to the Associated Press, these spouses greatly need additional education to boost their employment odds. Employers "are hesitant to hire military spouses," as their military connection often forces them to move an average of once every three years. In addition, "they often do not keep jobs long enough to earn promotions and raises." Indeed, the unemployment rate in 2008 for military spouses was three times higher than for civilians, according to the DoD.

Many spouses have expressed anger. The AP quotes Rebecca Duncan of Corpus Christi, Texas, the wife of a Navy sailor: "The DoD showed lack of respect for the spouses...To me this was a huge slap in our faces."

Because military spouses are mostly women (men comprise 86 percent of active duty soldiers and 83 percent of reservists), the development is particularly frustrating. American women already face tougher employment odds than their male counterparts in terms of salary and promotion, and military wives are likely to care for the family's children. These wives could truly use the cash. The DoD claims it could no longer afford the program. However, its 2010 budget, at $708 billion, is the largest ever since World War II, 33 percent higher than the biggest DoD budget during the Vietnam War. Much of the current budget funds the development and purchase of massive new weapons.

Several online hubs for military spouses, including MilSpouse.com and MilitaryWives.com, have posted updates on the MyCAA news. About 80 percent of 200 respondents to a MilSpouse.com poll have said their education plans were disrupted by the program's end.

The military, however, holds a weak track record for its efforts to improve conditions for women within the military world. Sexual assault of servicewomen within military ranks continues in huge numbers (check out this fact sheet from the Servicewomen Action Network here), and the military until recently refused emergency contraception to women soldiers.

The DoD has released little information on the future of the program. To continue the program, it could develop tougher standards of acceptance to the program or search for funds for the program elsewhere. If it chooses to definitively cancel the program, perhaps more Americans might wonder why the priorities of its military do not lie in the quality of life for its servicemen and women and their families, and what sort of military America values. -Jean