Sex, Power, and Politics Blog

I found this article and thought it was fairly interesting. In Canada, where prostitution is theoretically illegal (see article), some of the women who are prostitutes are challenging the country’s ban on “acts associated with prostitution”. The primary reason for the opposition to the ban is it decreases the security for the women who run fairly complex and “classy” operations. There is opposition to the prostitutes though. The Ottawa based group REAL Women of Canada is a large opponent, along with, who would have guessed it, religious groups such as the Christian Legal Fellowship and the Catholic Civil Rights League, who are all in favor of completely outlawing prostitution all together. I thought this was fairly relevant, because we had the debate about reckless sex, but also because it deals with personal privacy, and the consequences of having privacy. I also think it brings up an important question: why is prostitution illegal? If it were legalized, and strong efforts were made to limit the spread of disease to the average rate (that being the rate of spread between consensual, non-prostituted sex), then what’s the problem? An important debate that needs to be brought up more, instead of being pushed under the rug because sex is a taboo topic.

Recently, Elizabeth Lambert, a University of New Mexico soccer player, was suspended indefinitely from her team because she punched and pulled the hair of a girl on the opposing team. (The video is posted in the article.)

In “Who You Callin’ A Lady?” Newsweek’s Kathleen Deveny writes about the incident and claims that women athletes are held to a higher standard than their male counterparts. She writes, “If it had been two men in a Division 1 college game, I doubt we would have gotten so exercised. …Even Michael Vick is playing football again—and he killed puppies!” Deveny goes on to say that society pressures women to be “nice” – on and off the field. She gives the example of female executives. We don’t have many in the United States because the standard is that executives should be aggressive, and women do not fit into that definition if they are living up to society’s ideal image of them.

Someone, Natalie, I think, was asking me about crisis pregnancy centers in class last week and whether they engage in deceptive advertising practices in order to get pregnant women in the door and to dissuade them from getting abortions. To be sure, many don’t. Many are simply attempting to provide resources for pregnant women and girls who have no interest in procuring an abortion. But deception and lies are common enough that the Baltimore City Council, responding to a NARAL Maryland report and an investigation by Representative Henry Waxman, voted to require “crisis pregnancy centers” in Baltimore to post signs saying that they don’t provide abortions or birth control.

Slate does a nice job covering the story and the kinds of deceptions all-too-commonly used by these centers. It’s worth a read:

http://www.slate.com/id/2236707/pagenum/all/#p2

My mom showed me this page from the Avon catalog and asked me if I noticed something upsetting about it. Can you see it? Look in the middle of the left hand page. It says: because you appreciate how hard he works. My mom and I looked and looked for a similar page urging men to buy gifts for the women in their lives because they appreciate how hard she works, but we couldn’t find one. Doesn’t this seem like something out of the 1950s? Maybe Avon used the wrong text by mistake…

 Last year, after participating in Gustavus’ performance of the Vagina Monologues, a “vagina not so fun fact” (in my opinion ridiculous fact) stuck with me: Vibrators are not legally sold in all states of the United States. As I was conducting research to remember where specifically the ban on sex-toys still existed, I came across this really neat (and perhaps outdated) entry from a blog entitled Objectify This: The radical notion that people are people. 

The blog post (dating back to October, 3rd 2007) mentioned the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a case challenging Alabama’s ban on the sale of sex toys, and the law’s subsequent upholding. The post includes the reactions of pleasure store owners and also descriptions of how nonsensical it is: the law “does not ban the possession of sex toys… Residents may legally purchase sex toys out of state for use in Alabama, or they may buy sexual devices in Alabama that have a “bona fide medical” purpose.”  

Not only was I pulled into the specific post about Alabama’s continued ban on sex toys, I noticed how the blog touches on so many themes from our class: female sexuality, objectification, gender roles, women’s rights, racism, sex, power and politics (all three words were tagged!)  The most recent post talks about both the Stupak Amendment and Sarah Palin. Check it out!

The post about Alabama: http://objectifythis.com/?p=163

Objectify This! http://objectifythis.com/

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/11/16/am.boy.no.pledge.cnn

CNN published a story about a 10-year old Arkansas boy who refuses to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance until “liberty and justice for all” includes equal rights for gays and lesbians.

Due to the fifth-grader’s desire to become a lawyer, he was analyzing the Pledge one weekend, and decided he did not want to proclaim “liberty and justice for all” until it was true for everyone. Although he explained to his teacher that it is his First Amendment right to not stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, he has been ridiculed by his classmates. Fortunately, his passion for this issue has not diminished and he claims that he will remain seated until everyone is able to get married.

This story reminded me of our class discussions about taking action for something that is important to us. Just because we have the right to stand up for something does not mean we do not have to pay a price. While many people claim to care about certain issues, some fail to take action in fear of the consequences they may endure, and this 10-year old set an excellent example for others to follow.

On Thanksgiving I had a conversation about Gay rights with a friend of mine who has a sister who’s lesbian 🙂   She told me that the church that her family attends is trying to separate itself from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to be part of the new Lutheran CORE (Coalition For Reform) Assembly.  Confused? Ok, here’s a Little History:  On August 21, 2009, The ELCA changed its standards to endorse gay marriage and to allow pastors and other leaders in the church to be in committed same-sex relationships.  Immediately, those against this decision began to act and decided that they needed to branch away from the ELCA to form their own.

 The most interesting part about this is that my friend’s pastor is a woman.  About only 30 years ago she would have not been allowed to be a pastor due to her gender because in their bible women are not allowed to be pastors.  It is mind-blowing that people who were once discriminated against are the first to step forward and discriminate against others for something that they cannot control. 

http://www.lutherancore.org/pdf/newsrel-8-21-09.pdf

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was watching CNN this evening and it was the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year episode! This show honored 10 women and men from all over the world who are just average people doing extraordinary things. These people do things like make wheelchairs for Iraqi children, run orphanages for children in Timur, and the winner this year has set up a volunteer traveling school that goes all over the Philippines where ever they are needed with the hopes of preventing teen gang violence! To be honest, it made me feel extremely inadequate as a human being, but I have lots of time right?!?

Anyways, the woman who affected me the most (which is hard to say because they were all amazing) was a woman named Betty Makoni, who was raped as a young girl in Zimbabwe and has set up an organization called Girl Child Network to rescue young girls from sexual assault and to help them regain their confidence in themselves as human beings! It is truly an amazing story! I want to do something. It is still rustling around in my head, but it will come out sooner or later!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/06/04/cnnheroes.betty.makoni/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/politics/09abortion.html?scp=8&sq=abortion&st=cse

This article from New York Times, details the success pro lifers have gained in the denial of abortion funding to individuals of middle to low income. According to the Guttmacher Institute, “In 2000, 21 out of every 1,000 women of reproductive age had an abortion. Women who are aged 18-29, unmarried, black or Hispanic, or economically disadvantaged—including those on Medicaid—have higher abortion rates” (Guttmacher Institute 1996-2009). With these ideas in mind, the middle lower class more commonly seeks abortions and are more avidly seeking funding for an abortion. The act of prohibiting federal funding to women of lower/ middle class will essentially lower the amount of abortions that are taking place, which will further limit the amount of abortion doctors even further. In the long run, this legislative move may in the end, make it close to impossible for women to receive an abortion.
Some claim women “could buy separate insurance riders to cover abortion, though some evidence suggests few would, in part because unwanted pregnancies are by their nature unexpected” (Kirkpatrick 2009).
This move that Congress has publicly stated by passing this legislation claims that as long as a right is legal, it doesn’t matter if it is accessible or not. As least for the group most commonly known for seeking to carry out that right. Good job Congress!

All of the below is quoted from this post at Talking Points Memo. You want to read this.

Study: Stupak Amendment Will Eliminate Abortion Coverage ‘Over Time For All Women’

A new study by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services adds some expert imprimatur to what many progressives have been saying all along: The Stupak amendment to the House health care bill–which will prevent millions of women from buying health insurance policies that cover abortion–is likely to have consequences that reach far beyond its supposedly intended scope.

The report concludes that “the treatment exclusions required under the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.”

In other words, though the immediate impact of the Stupak amendment will be limited to the millions of women initially insured through a new insurance exchange, over time, as the exchanges grow, the insurance industry will scale down their abortion coverage options until they offer none at all.

“As a result, Stupak/Pitts can be expected to move the industry away from current norms of coverage for medically indicated abortions. In combination with the Hyde Amendment, Stupak/Pitts will impose a coverage exclusion for medically indicated abortions on such a widespread basis that the health benefit services industry can be expected to recalibrate product design downward across the board in order to accommodate the exclusion in selected markets.”

Furthermore the study finds that the supposed fallback option for impacted women–a “rider” policy that provides supplemental coverage for abortions only–may not even be allowed under the terms of the law. “In our view, the terms and impact of the Amendment will work to defeat the development of a supplemental coverage market for medically indicated abortions. In any supplemental coverage arrangement, it is essential that the supplemental coverage be administered in conjunction with basic coverage. This intertwined administration approach is barred under Stupak/Pitts because of the prohibition against financial comingling.”

The authors also note that though the direct impact of the Stupak amendment on women who receive insurance from their employers will be initially minimal, the provision’s tentacles could nonetheless reach into the employer-provided insurance market, too, “further driv[ing] the industry to shift away from current abortion coverage norms and toward product designs that meet exchange and Hyde Amendment requirements.”

You can read the entire report here.