Post from my blog (http://tenderhooligan.wordpress.com/):

Yesterday, my day was ruined by reading about some stalker “research”; today, it’s been ruined by reading about a law which is about to be enacted in Virginia. Under this law, women who seek abortions will be forced to undergo a “stunningly invasive procedure” beforehand “for no medical reason whatsoever”. The state wishes to see an ultrasound of the foetus before a woman can have an abortion. The aim? Well, presumably to shame the little tart into changing her mind. And here’s where it gets gruesome:

Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced.

Nice, huh? One would hope that the authors of this law had just not realised exactly what it is that they’re doing, and how brutal this procedure really is, but that’s not the case, as the following statement by one GOP lawmaker suggests. The thinking? Well, they’ve already consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.” *

Atta boy! If she’s a little slut already, then we can assume she won’t mind a lump of metal shoved up there. And, you know, that would be a proper shaming for the little tramp, amirite?

–

(Source: thinkprogress)

–

* UPDATE: Please note that this quote was initially attributed to Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R). That was an error. Gilbert is reported to have actually said: “in the vast majority of these cases, [abortions] are matters of lifestyle convenience,” which some might argue illustrates as little understanding of, or sympathy for, women’s lives, needs, and decisions as his GOP colleague above.

This might well be the most important thing I post all year.

PLEASE follow this link and write to your local MP.

We need you to stand up for access to safe, legal abortion and the right to impartial information.

The Department of Health is planning to introduce new counselling requirements for women seeking abortion, which could limit their access to impartial advice and delay access to services.

Based on amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill, the proposals strip abortion providers of the right to provide pre-abortion counselling, and could see anti-choice groups invited to offer pregnancy counselling in their place.

The purpose of these proposals is to limit access to impartial information and deter women from having the procedure. We believe they are damaging, unnecessary and should be rejected.

The amendments could be debated and voted on in the House of Commons as early as 6th or 7th September.

We want to make sure MPs know the facts about what these changes would mean for women and hear the views of the pro-choice majority who support the right to safe, legal abortion in this country.

Post from my blog (tenderhooligan/ wordpress)

(Trigger warning.)

Photo caption: “Whenever I saw him, I hid. I hated to see him,” Tahani (in pink) recalls of the early days of her marriage to Majed, when she was 6 and he was 25. The young wife posed for this portrait with former classmate Ghada, also a child bride, outside their mountain home in Hajjah.

National Geographic have compiled a series of photos about child brides. I was discussing with a colleague the other day the problem of western feminism trying to colonise the Middle East and women in that region. We western feminists often have a very set view of what is acceptable and unacceptable, what is oppressive and problematic, and what needs to change.  But those views are generally based on western experiences which are embedded in western cultural and societal norms. In short: it is very likely that these norms do not apply to non-western women. And nor should they. The most glaring example of such colonisation is the on-going discussion of the wearing of the Islamic veil. We in the west tend to disagree with the veil because we see it as a symbol of the oppression of women and evidence of their mistreatment in Islam. If we’re France we ban Muslim women from wearing the veil. That’s colonisation.

So when it comes to the discussion of child brides in non-western cultures, it’s fundamental to remove our western lens and to consider the practice within non-western culture. (Maybe it’s the case that we shouldn’t be having this discussion at all?) But that’s easier said than done, even on an abstract level. And when you see pictures such as those on the link above, it becomes harder still.

Photo caption: Kandahar policewoman Malalai Kakar arrests a man who repeatedly stabbed his wife, 15, for disobeying him. “Nothing,” Kakar said, when asked what would happen to the husband. “Men are kings here.” Kakar was later killed by the Taliban.

This is not a quandary that I can solve here and now.

From my blog (tenderhooligan/ wordpress)

I didn’t hear about this case until this morning (trigger warning for image).

In a literal application of the sharia law of an eye for an eye, Iran is ready for the first time to blind a man with acid, after he was found guilty of doing the same to a woman who refused to marry him.

Majid Movahedi, 30, is scheduled to be rendered unconscious in Tehran’s judiciary hospital at noon on Saturday while Ameneh Bahrami, his victim, drops acid in both his eyes, her lawyer said.

The first part of the story I heard was about the proposed punishment. I felt sickened upon hearing it – the barbarism of such a punishment (particularly as we know that it’s habitually used to punish Muslim women for their lack of “compliance”) could never be justified. When I heard about the rationale for the punishment a few seconds later, however, I felt conflicted. Movahedi is due to receive this punishment from his female victim, whom he blinded with acid. This decision is taking eye-for-an-eye to a whole new level.

But that’s the rub. I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty, which is arguably the most extreme eye-for-an-eye punishment that exists. Research tells us that the death penalty has neither a general nor a specific deterrent effect, and it offers little cathartic or healing effect to victims’ families. (Its system costs a fortune to run in the US but that issue is unimportant, in the scheme of things.) However, I can’t help but think that the punishment Movahedi is due to receive is warranted and deserved. Because this time, it’s personal. Women in too many places are living in fear of acid attacks for doing something as minor as being seen in public without a male chaperone. Movahedi’s victim, Ameneh Bahrami, suffered such an attack for refusing to marry him; for making a decision about her life and her future that women the world over make every day, without fear of repercussion. But not Ameneh Bahrami; she had to be punished for not doing as she was told.

I defy anyone to tell me that they’ve not had desire for retribution when they’ve been wronged – it’s as human an emotion as joy and sadness. This is retribution for a horrible, vicious, life-changing wrong, and I don’t think I’m going to bother apologising for feeling that it’s deserved. Are there lots of “what ifs”? Certainly. Will it achieve any deterrent effect? Unlikely. But will it help Ameneh Bahrami? Very probably.

That women in Iran might now be given a stronger voice, and that female victims there might be allowed a real say in the judicial process, is a whole other debate (heck, we still don’t know what we’re doing with victims in our “civilised” justice system in the west), but that’s something that won’t be clear for a while. For now, if one woman gets to throw acid in some patriarchal, violent fucker’s face, and in doing so achieves one tiny little bit of liberation for her sisters, then she can have at it as far as I’m concerned.  

Post from my blog (tenderhooligan/ wordpress).

Ok, yes, I possibly have been on the Interbets all week. Here’s some of what’s been happening:

• It’s quite unbelievable, still, that France passed the “Ban on the Burka” law last week, but it did. Needless to add, there was outrage. The irony of telling women that they’re not allowed to wear what a patriarchal culture tells them to wear is not lost on Sarkozy, I’m sure, even if he is brainless. You cannot beat oppression with oppression. (Though we shouldn’t fool ourselves that Sarkozy et al were thinking of the women at all here. No, this is thinly veiled - pun intended - Islamophobia at its best.) And as if it’s not offensive enough as it is, the Guardian reported that refusing to comply with the ban will result in a fine or a condition to have lessons in “French citizenship”. Arrange the following words in a sentence: off, fuck. Within hours of the ban coming into force, women were being arrested for continuing to wear the veil. Well, you would wouldn’t you! There are several excellent blog posts around the Interweb which discuss this issue in much more detail than I do here: thefword, delilah-mj, msmagazine, and lattelabour for starters.

• Budget 2011 leaves women out in the cold (fawcettsociety). The 2011 budget spells trouble for women in Britain. There’s been talk for a some time now of how the vast array of cuts introduced by the coalition government will affect women, and the picture is now becomnig clearer. First, a piece from the Guardian reveals that job losses have affected women the most and, second, a report produced in partnership with the Fawcett Society (‘The Impact on Women of the Budget 2011’) highlights the following issues. It is not looking good.

- The current economic strategy looks set to undermine gender equality in the labour market: if current trends continue, more women than men in the UK will be unemployed, for the first time since records began. - The bonfire of regulations will remove the protections that women and men with caring responsibilities need in order to be able to work. - The increase in the Personal Tax Allowance threshold will not touch the most vulnerable, and among those who will benefit, men will gain £140 million more than women. - Without action to tackle entrenched gender inequality within the apprenticeship sector, where women earn on average 21 per cent less than men, the Government’s flagship expansion in apprenticeships and training opportunities will not improve the employment opportunities young women face and do nothing for older women. - The businesses set to benefit most from new tax breaks and other incentives are typically owned and invested in by men while schemes to support women in business are scrapped.

• The Ivory Coast standoff ends, but the nightmare for women continues (msmagazine). Most mornings when I wake up, I’m inclined to be rather discontent with my lot for a few minutes before I come to (I’m tired, it’s cold, I have too much to do; that sort of thing). Reading about the women in the Ivory Coast reminds me that I don’t even know I’m born. Though the conflict in the Ivory Coast has come to an end now, women and girls there are still being persecuted (kidnapped, beaten up and raped) daily. They’ve been through all of this before in 2004 and they’re going through it all again. And we don’t know the half of it.

Pender [a gender-based violence Technical Advisor for IRC] conveyed reports from women of gang rapes, rapes of entire families and sexual slavery, as women and girls are “taken as wives” for weeks at a time. “These women have experienced things that we cannot even imagine–and many for the second time,” said Pender. The collective memory of rape and violence from the last Ivorian war, in 2004, is still fresh. In fact, the recollection of “what happened last time,” and the threat of new violence has driven many girls and women to flee.

• Finally, Americans seem to [want to] forget slavery (prospect). When a research centre asked why the American Civil War took place, a frightening number of respondents answered that they thought it was about the rights of states. The reason for the war is disputed, of course, but even I (a European) know that slavery was as central a reason as any other.

That so many young Americans believe a revisionist account of the Civil War is, if anything, another sign of our collective refusal to deal with our difficult past. Slaves built the White House and fueled Wall Street, but we want nothing more than to forget slavery and the central role it played in our nation’s history.

Couple this finding with the recent revisionist adaption of Huckleberry Finn (to remove the n-word) and one wonders if America wants to forget all about its sordid past altogether. I hope not.

Nearly 70 years ago, Recy Taylor was gang-raped at gunpoint. Her attackers admitted to kidnapping and raping her. And nothing was ever done about it.

As a young African-American woman living in Abbeville, Alabama, in 1944, when Jim Crow laws institutionalized discrimination against black people, her hopes of legal redress were slim. Though Taylor’s cause gained international attention through the efforts of a well-known civil and human rights activist, Rosa Parks, she couldn’t force racist and sexist law enforcement in Abbeville to take action.

Today, Recy Taylor’s name and story have been swept under the rug and go largely unrecognized in America. “The sheriff never even said he was sorry it happened. I think more people should know about it … but ain’t nobody [in Abbeville] saying nothing,” Taylor lamented in an interview with The Root.

“It’s curious, to say the least, that Taylor’s name is not mentioned in history books,” Cynthia Gordy criticizes in her article at The Root. “While most analyses of circumstances that inspired the civil rights movement focus on black men — being lynched or railroaded into jail, or facing down segregationists — the stories of countless black women like Recy Taylor, who were raped by white men during the same era, have gone understated, if not overlooked entirely.” The modern ignorance of a case that launched a major campaign run by an impressive coalition of progressive groups, one that was successful in pressuring the Alabama governor into investigating but was then blocked by city law enforcement, is a sad reflection on our attention to the darkest spots of American history.

“It was a long time ago,” Taylor told The Root. “But I still think something should have been done about it.” Not so long ago that Taylor isn’t still pained by the memory of the assault and failure of justice. Her brother, Robert Corbitt, has spent the last decade of his retirement searching for information on her case and seeking a long-delayed justice, after Taylor broke down into tears while telling him about the gang rape 55 years after the fact. “I’d like a public apology from the city of Abbeville and the state of Alabama,” Corbitt asks, and Taylor agrees that this simple measure represents the least that could be done, after police took the lead in covering up the horrific assault against her.

Help Recy Taylor get the apology she deserves and public recognition of the injustice perpetrated by signing this petition to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, Abbeville Mayor Ryan Blalock, the Abbevile police department, and state and city representatives.

Two teenagers are seeking a judicial review into the government’s decision to allow university tuition fees to almost treble to up to £9,000 from next year.

Public Interest Lawyers, which specialises in human rights cases, is representing Callum Hurley, 16, from Peterborough, and Katy Moore, 17, from London.

The pair claim minsters broke the law in the way in which they decided to raise fees from £3,375 a year this autumn to up to £9,000 next autumn.

They believe the increase penalises students from poorer homes and from ethnic minorities, who are disproportionately from lower-income homes.

Well this is interesting. The new UK coalition government has single-handedly excluded an entire generation from higher level education. So much for the Great British Social Mobility…