Sex, Power, and Politics Blog

I was browsing Feministing and I came across a post about a Danish advocacy group’s new tactic to raise awareness about violence against women.  The tactic is simple: click to the website (entitled “Hit the Bitch”), use your mouse to virtually hit a woman as many times as you want!  Feministing provided a link to Feministe.  The article I linked below asks similar questions I asked myself. One of those being – aside from what I am assuming are statistics about violence against women, HOW does this do anything to stop violence against women?? In my opinion, it turns it into a laughing matter, a game even. What would this teach a child who got on the website and can’t understand or read the “intent” of the message?

See for yourself. The “game”, Hit the Bitch is linked in the article posted below (be patient, it takes a little time to load…that fake fist must need time to gain strength in order to beat the crap out of a woman!).  I took my hits and I was horrified. There HAS to be a better way to end violence against women.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/11/17/hit-the-bitch/

So I grab one of the less-than-academic magazines in Lund to entertain myself while I run, and to my surprise and interest, I flipped the November 16^th issue of In Touch open to an article on an 8-year old boy who, with the support, encouragement and aid of his parents, has started living as a girl.  Not only is Josie Romero (formerly Joey) embracing the dress and appearance of a girl her age, but her parents have also changed her birth certificate, passport and social security number to appropriately fit her desired gender identity.

I can only imagine the reactions that this situation is receiving; people might be saying that Josie is too young to make such a permanent, life-altering decision (especially since she will start hormonal treatments soon); that her parents are reacting too sensitively to Josie’s feminine inclinations and that they shouldn’t be encouraging what most people would just call a “phase”.  Nonetheless, these parents have chosen to be supportive of their child and open to other possibilities instead of contributing to the pressure that our society puts on gender roles.

* SO while I scanned the article I initially read, my limmited knowledge in technology prevented me from successfully posting it on this blog.  However, please see the related links!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6333217/Boy-8-has-sex-change.html

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=joey+romero+sex+change&emb=0&aq=f#

Last November, there was a voter initiative – Proposition 8 – on California’s ballot to overturn a court ruling that legalized same sex marriage. Prop 8 passed, effectively reversing the court’s decision and outlawing same sex marriage.

However, two lawyers famous for their work in the 2000 Supreme Court Case Bush v. Gore, Theodore Olson and David Boies along with the American Foundation for Equal Rights, have posed a federal challenge to Prop 8. The chief judge has set a trial date for January 11, 2010. This is the first time in our nation’s history that same sex marriage will be addressed by the federal courts.

Basically, this is just a heads up to keep watching the news and see what happens in January.

Here’s the American Foundation for Equal Rights’ press release: http://www.equalrightsfoundation.org/pressDownloads/AFER_courtDate_PR.pdf

Here’s the Facebook “event” if you’d like to get involved: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210238489967&ref=mf

I hope that you all are attending the WAC WEEK events this week! It is really going to be a good time! We will also be tabling all week, make sure to stop by!

Monday, November 16th

-Inequality Bake Sale… Outside the caf after 10:00am.

-Vagina Monologues Interest Meeting… Confer 331 at 8:30pm.

Tuesday, November 17th

-Heterodoxy Release Party… The Courtyard Cafe at 7:00pm.

Wednesday, November 18th

-Smitten Kitten… The Dive at 8:00pm.

Thursday, November 19th

-Silent Protest… All day! Wear black and pick up a sign in the WAC to wear. Be silent, unless someone asks what you are doing and then feel free to tell them what we are up to!

-Speak Out… We break the silence at 9:00pm in the Chapel.

Friday, November 20th

-Transgender Day of Remembrance… All day! Stop by the table outside the caf and take a ribbon to wear in remembrance of those who have died.

As I was “stumblingupon” – if you don’t know what that means it is a great time waster and check it out at stumbleupon.com – I found this great site titled NOMAS – National Organization for Men Against Sexism. They are currently celebrating 35 years of their movement. With all of the websites/feminist blogs out there I never thought to look for a site that focused on ways to engage men in pro-feminist, gay-affirmative, and anti-racist movements. Take a look at some of the articles on the page – they are quite interesting!

http://www.nomas.org/

I found this story at aol.com.  Even though Richard Ramsey knew he was meant to be a girl at age 5, he waited 72 years to become Renee, because “he was in love with his second wife.”

http://www.aolhealth.com/health/senior-health/news/article/_a/bbdp/richard-ramsey-has-sex-change-operation/761734?icid=main|hp-laptop|dl5|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolhealth.com%2Fhealth%2Fsenior-health%2Fnews%2Farticle%2F_a%2Fbbdp%2Frichard-ramsey-has-sex-change-operation%2F761734

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) — Indian election authorities Thursday granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country’s voter lists.

Before, members of these groups — loosely called eunuchs in Indian English — were referred to as male or female in the voter rolls.

But now, they will have the choice to tick “O” — for others — when indicating their gender in voter forms, the Indian election commission said in a statement.

The rest of the article is here.

Speaking of Title IX…from Salon: Was Elizabeth Lambert’s meltown a guy thing?

When University of New Mexico defender Elizabeth Lambert faced off against Brigham Young in the Mountain West Women’s Soccer semi-finals last week, she did not bend it like Beckham. She tantrumed like Tyson. She punched. She went old school and pulled hair. She racked up an alarming number of penalties and got herself suspended indefinitely from her team. Inevitably, she also went viral, as footage of her going medieval on her opponents hit YouTube. In the ensuing days, she’s been called “the dirtiest player in soccer” for her “despicable losership.”

…

a woman behaving aggressively is still something of a novelty. When Serena Williams got into it with an official at the US Open over a foot fault in September, the Daily News called it a “display of testosterone… proof that women athletes can behave every bit as irrationally as men.”…Adding to the Lambert fascination is that where there are physically fit 20-year-old women playing dirty, there are those who find their actions hot. CBS News’s 48 Hours called Lambert an “attractive, aggressive…” player

…

Without disputing the basic fact that men and women are physically, hormonally and socially conditioned to be different, maybe it’s time to put aside the facile explanation of aggressive behavior as strictly maculine. …Maybe anybody, male or female, who’s in the throes of an intense soccer game and gets elbowed and crotch grabbed might react in a spontaneous and physical way. That’s not excusing it, by the way, that’s simply not assuming it’s a guy thing.

Lambert, the most despicable person in sports and the hot warrior babe, is in fact like any other  athlete out there. She fouls and fights and screws up and plays her heart out.  And she does just like a woman.

One of the things I like about this article is that it acknowledges that not only do women have anger, anger itself is an emotion, too.  It’s the one emotion the men are allowed and assumed to have, yet somehow never seems to count in discussions of which sex is more “emotional.”

While reading for tomorrow’s class, there was a sentence about “white feminism”. Being naive and curious, I searched it. This blog came up. It is about a disconnect within the feminist community concerning white women and women of color. An eye-opening read.

http://dearwhitefeminists.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/an-open-letter-to-the-white-feminist-community/

Gang, the article I mentioned in class today:

This weekend, a group of male pro-life Democrats gambled with women’s health, and women lost.  By broadly writing in that insurers can chose whether or not to cover “abortion services,” pro-life amendments don’t just affect their intended victims — women seeking a way out of an unwanted or medically harmful pregnancy.  They also affect another group of victims — women whose pregnancies have already ended but have not yet miscarried.

Read the rest here: Will the Stupak Amendment Affect Insurance Coverage for Miscarriages?

Also, the link to the article I distributed in class today for those of you who asked for the URL: The Real Life Effects of Stupak-Pitts