Just because I think this is funny.
As always, there is too much good stuff out there and not enough time to blog it all. A few things to check out today:
-Female race car drivers in Iran kick ass — and one of them, a feminist icon, is the only female athlete to have competed against a man in the past 25 years:
She is a pioneer in Iran, the first female athlete to have competed against a man in the 25 years since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established the theocracy. It was in 2004, during a long-distance race in Tehran. “I broke a taboo. I’m proud of it. Why should Iranian women be weak? I don’t know,” she says in fluent English. “Our Prophet Mohammed never claimed that women should be locked up at home and doomed to watch the children while the man enjoys himself outside. On the contrary: He wanted men to encourage their wives and daughters to develop their personalities to the fullest. To be a successful country, we need strong women.”
Thanks to Kyle for the link.
-And here in the United States, a young Muslim athlete (and one of the fastest young women in DC) is being disqualified from track meets because her religious dress violates the uniform code, despite the fact that it gives her no advantage and is unobtrusive: “The custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard covers her head, arms, torso and legs. Over the unitard, she wears the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.”
-“No shit” story of the week: Financial strain is a factor in abortion. But what I particularly like about this story is that it points out the fact that financial strain is also a major factor in becoming unintentionally pregnant in the first place. Which would suggest that perhaps, if “pro-life” people actually want to decrease the abortion rate, they’ll focus on issues of class and poverty and support social programs that promote upward mobility and financial security. (I won’t hold my breath for that). The article also gets into the “black genocide” argument, essentially arguing that pro-choicers trick foolish black women into genocide. Which is, of course beyond offensive, not to mention totally counter-productive. It is telling and problematic that black women have abortions at disproportionate rates — it means that issues of race and class cannot be separated from issues of reproductive rights, and clearly black women are not getting the financial and health-related resources they need. But of course, dealing with that problem might force us to do something beyond telling black women that they’re genocidal baby-killers.
-Thankfully, groups like the Chicago Abortion Fund help low-income women afford the procedure. My favorite quote from the story comes from activist Gaylon Alcaraz:
“You don’t see poor black women talking about abortion in public,” she said. “You don’t see them asking, ‘Why is it they don’t want me to have an abortion but they’re not doing anything to help me with work or child care?’”
The South Dakota Women’s Health Fund also helps low-income women access abortion.
-Putting a Guy in His Place: New York Times style writer Guy Trebay says that Miuccia Prada “has some complex sexual issues to work through,” but I’d suggest that it’s Mr. Trebay who has issues with sex and gender, as he apparently thinks that to be a woman is to be humiliated and mistreated, and is thoroughly upset when the feminine things long imposed on women are turned on men:
Speaking after Sunday’s show to Suzy Menkes, the fashion critic for The International Herald Tribune, Ms. Prada quipped that the collection was revenge on men for the social and sartorial contortions they impose on women. She laughed when she said it, but she clearly wasn’t kidding around.
It is no stretch to suggest that the Prada collection read like the manifesto of a gender revanchist. The man in Ms. Prada’s current vision was domesticated and so passive as to be a neuter. One notes this not merely because the models looked abnormally robotic and were given nothing to wear outside the house.
Like a flipped version of the Unwomen in Margaret Atwood’s feminist parable “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the Prada Unman was gotten up in humiliating tutu belts, severe high-collar shirts that buttoned up the back and odd cummerbunds that disappeared in a chevron down the front of trousers conspicuously lacking a fly.
As usual with this designer, there were things to admire: a lean clerical silhouette, the severity of a nearly monochrome palette, the way color and its absence were used to mark out the torso in floating zones. But when designers stop conceding to biological function, they move away from the realm of fashion and into that of social engineering. It is one thing to nudge men toward exploring their girly sides and quite another to suggest they sit to urinate.
Thanks to Kiru B. for the link.
-Obama is being smeared — with accusations that he’s Muslim. And the accusations are being circulated within the military, violating all kinds of regulations and laws. I’m not sure what’s worse: The fact that “he’s Muslim” is a damning insult, or the fact that such an accusation may be quite effective in impeding his electability.
-Tim Russert thinks it’s ironic that feminists have emotions. Clearly, our Angry Fembot Army is slipping. Get it together, ladies.
-Good Roe-Day news: Anti-choice asshole Missouri governor Matt Blunt is not seeking a second term. Thanks to Sean for the link.
-The women of the National Women’s Law Center reflect on what choice means to them. Lots of powerful stuff.
-Jessica Wakeman at HuffPo writes about slut-shaming on Gossip Girl. I will simply add that I want all of Blair’s dresses and underwear.
-Revisiting King’s Dream. Dr. King and reproductive justice.
-Thanks to the hard work of feminist activists, the ACLU and others, important pay equity legislation has passed in the House.
-One Woman’s Abortion: Mrs. X tells her story. From the August 1965 issue of The Atlantic. It is very much worth a read.
-Chuck wants to know: If your opposition to Sen. Clinton for President isn’t sexist, which female candidates would you endorse, were they to enter the race tomorrow?
-Mainichi sounds like an MRA dream — a lecture on domestic violence was recently canceled because opposing domestic violence might lead to the breakdown of families:
Opponents criticized the Law for the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims, which allows the government to provide shelters for domestic violence victims, on the grounds that it would lead to the breakdown of families.
Apparently beating up your partner has no impact on breaking down families. Thanks to Natalia for the link.
-The American Constitution Society gives us a fantastic piece by Professor Dawn Johnson titled A Progressive Agenda for Women’s Reproductive Health and Liberty on Roe v. Wade’s Thirty-Fifth Anniversary.
-Fibromyalgia, a disease that primarily affects middle-aged women, is finally becoming treatable — despite the fact that many doctors think it doesn’t exist. Women are often assumed to be “chronic complainers” instead of in chronic pain, and a male-dominated medical establishment continues to take women’s self-reporting on medical issues less than seriously. Thanks to Simon for the link.
-And finally, a little vomit-in-your-own-mouth humor. Thanks to Tatiana for the link.
Wouldn’t this thought experiment work better if there were a larger base of famous female political leaders to choose from? THAT’s where the sexism comes in, not when I say that Run H.R.C. is too authoritarian to avoid a ’10 backlash.
Matt Blunt=governor of Missouri
(Mississippi has their own anti-choice gov, Haley Barbour)
And that Atlantic article is great
I like the one about opposing domestic violence leading to the breakdown of families because it reminds me of how Canada was shamed into removing the US and Israel from the list of countries that torture. It’s not torture in violation of international laws and basic human decency that is bad for international relations, but rather embarrassing torturers that is bad. Similiarly, it’s not abusive spouses who break up families, but rather nosy jerks who tell women that they are people and shouldn’t be abused.
D.N. Nation:
There are currently 8 women governors and 16 female senators in the US. There is obvious sexism in the fact that these numbers aren’t closer to 25 and 50 respectively, but there are still a number of potential candidates. Another issue is the fact that outside of Clinton, very few of these women are known nationally.
[...] Oh, so I must have imagined Cathy Freeman’s winning performance in the 400m at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. H/T: Feministe. [...]
To answer the Chuck question (because I can’t comment on his site without using a blogger login): Barbara Boxer and Louise Slaughter, off the top of my head. I’m sure that there are many other intelligent, progressive and qualified women who, like Isaac says, I just don’t currently know enough about to endorse but would given the chance.
Also, Mitt Romney IS SO NOT HOT. Ew ew ew ew ew. So the thong is not only sexist and disgusting on concept alone, it’s also very, very false. Unless we’re working under a scenario where the Republican presidential candidates were the last men on earth. And then, I would probably either start seeing women or form a very close relationship with a vibrator. Not do or even look at Mitt Romney. Ew. *shudders*
At the risk of bringing down a hail of fire on my head, I have to say that I have my doubts about the validity or utility of fibromyalgia as a diagnosis. The symptoms are valid – the pain is real and deserves attention and treatment. And I recognize that the biomedical/scientific model is not the only way to understand health and disease. But within the biomedical/scientific model, the disease definition does not stand up to scrutiny.
OUTSIDE of the biomedical model, I can think of a great many reasons why people have pain and sleep disturbance, and many of them aren’t physiologically based. That doesn’t mean the pain is “made up”, or “in her head”, or anything else. The pain is real, but the cause may not lie in the body. We’re so mired in the biomedical that we have to shoehorn every kind of suffering into the same box. That doesn’t serve anybody well, least of all the people who are in pain.
Lyrica, the medication recently approved for fibromyalgia, has been available for several years. I use it regularly to treat chronic pain. The approval doesn’t change anything for patients and doctors; a medication can be used for any indication once it’s approved, no matter what the original indication*. The primary beneficiaries of the new approval will be Pfizer. Lyrica is currently a second- or third-tier drug on many formularies, because it’s expensive and there’s no evidence that it’s better than an older drug that’s now available as a generic medication (gabapentin).
Are there lots of people out there experiencing real suffering? Yes. Are they often inappropriately dismissed by physicians, especially when those suffering are women? Yes.Will some of them benefit from Lyrica? Yes. Are they suffering from a distinct physiological syndrome that can be described as fibromyalgia? Not in my opinion.
*The only exception to the rule that a licensed doc can prescribe any approved drug is methadone, which I am not allowed to prescribe for its approved indication. But that’s another rant.
DH,
The under-representation of women in elected office is not news. But how can progress even begin if we can’t start imaging some of them in the top job?
Even so, the depletion factor of women in politics is only a factor of three over even, so the odds of an unbiased top 20 list being all-male is fairly low.
I’m going to seond (or third) Barbara Boxer. I would vote for her in a heartbeat.
Jay, if the cause isn’t in the body, where is it? Seriously, there isn’t anything that doesn’t come from the body that affects health. Even your state of mind is, in a very real way, caused by something in your body — namely, the functioning of the brain. You seem to either be implying that what we’re currently calling fibromyalgia is psychological, in which case it should be treated the same way as other mental illnesses (which themselves often have a biological or biochemical basis), or it’s supernatural, in which case, you’ve got a daunting standard of evidence to meet.
I’m particularly curious about this one, because I have a (middle-aged male) friend with fibro (diagnosed by five specialists) and I’m wondering if I don’t have it myself. The best description I’ve heard yet for fibro and it’s physical effects (which include more than just sleep disturbances and pain, like inflammation of the soft tissues around the joints) is “fibro is to the soft tissues what rheumatoid arthritis is to the bones,” and there’s some speculation as to whether the two conditions are linked. (Another possible diagnosis for the as-yet-undiagnosed thing that’s going on with me is early RA, for what it’s worth.)
Interrobang, I don’t know where it is. I’m open to the idea that there’s a physiological disruption we don’t yet fully understand, or that it’s “psychological”. I don’t know. Nobody really knows. So there’s no way to treat the underlying cause and eliminate the problem. Once I’ve ruled out things like RA and other conditions with disease-modifying treatments available, I can confidently treat the symptoms – and I do.
I’m not sure what you mean by treating it “the same way as other mental illnesses”. There’s no standard effective way to approach all the things we call “mental illness”; again, we treat the symptoms as best we can.
There are deep, complex connections between the mind and the body and the emotions that we don’t fully understand. I’m OK with not understanding. The suffering is real, even if I don’t fully understand the cause, and I will intervene with that as best I can.
Off the top of my head, I’d be more fond Pelosi, and I’d love another LaDuke run.
With unitards accepted in the Olympic competitions, that story was rather irritating.
Hi Jill – Somebody randomly sent me your “10 Reasons Why the Fight for Reproductive Justice Is Still Essential”, not knowing that we know each other and I was so psyched to see your name! Outstanding article – I’ve alway been so impressed with your thinking and efforts. Drop me an email and let me know the latest with you when you can! Yvonne
For whatever it’s worth, I think Shirley Franklin (Atlanta mayor) would make a fine enough candidate. Loads better than Ghouliani if we were to tap the mayor pool.
I love and admire Shirley Franklin. We could really use someone like her in Detroit. What is we were willing to trade a million gallons of Great Lakes water for 1 year of Shirley Franklin as our mayor?
Water we got, forward thinking leadership, not so much.
Thanks for the offer, but we got some rain this week. Snow, too!
Kathleen Sebelius!!! Governor of Kansas. I’ve spoke of her before. She’ll be doing the Democratic response to the state of the union so the whole nation will be exposed to her greatness. She doesn’t have Obama’s oratory prowess, but I love, love, love her.
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