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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Feb
23
Anti-Choicers Target Women of Color: How Should Pro-Choicers Respond?
Filed Under abortion, activism, anti-choice extremism, class and economics, feminism, legislation, misogyny, paternalism, patriarchy, pregnancy, race and racism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | 7 Comments
Earlier this month, Renee wrote a post about an Atlanta billboard targeting black women’s reproductive rights by pointing to the higher rates of abortion among black women, and claiming that abortion clinics are attempting to abort black children out of existence. It’s a great post, touching on many things that will come up here, and you should go read it.
It turns out this issue is about more than a billboard campaign — SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective clues us in to the fact that it’s also turning into an issue of legislation and public policy. Anti-choice legislators in Georgia have introduced HB 1155 – The Sex and Race Selection Bill, and while it sounds warm and fuzzy on the outside, SisterSong assures us that it’s not (pdf):
This bill seeks to ban the solicitation and targeting of women of color by abortion providers throughout the state.
This misleading issue of abortions for sex- and race-selection in Georgia means that we have to use facts and science to stand up for women of color without undermining our support for abortion rights or without enforcing racial stereotypes about women of color. Intent on driving a wedge between reproductive justice and racial justice organizations, and pro-choice advocates, the bill reflects the false assumption that abortion providers throughout the state “solicit” women of color. If implemented, this bill will adversely impact abortion providers by requiring them to prove that they are not targeting women of a certain race or ethnicity. This burden could result in delayed medical services, particularly for women of color. Additionally, this legislation would alter the racketeering laws of the Georgia Code to include abortion providers. This is unacceptable as abortion is legal in the State of Georgia, and the alleged abuses of this medical procedure are unfounded. Such a bill would have a terrible effect on women’s ability to access reproductive health care services throughout the state.
While explicitly targeting women of color and attempting to coerce them into abortions would obviously be a horrific, racist thing, as the press release states, there’s no indication that it’s an issue requiring legislation. Further, the legislation is not a benign preventative measure, but an effort to restrict abortion access further than it is already restricted. The women who would be impacted, as is always the case, are those who are already marginalized. It’s clear that proponents of this bill, and those behind the billboard, do not have black women or children’s best interests in mind. They are rather simply opposed to any and all abortions, and find that non-white targets are easy to hit, for a myriad of reasons.
For all of the above reasons, and because I always trust people on the ground to know what is best for their communities much better than I ever could, I strongly support SisterSong in their campaign to defeat HB 1155. As of yesterday, the bill was approved through sub-committee, but the full Judiciary Committee has suspended consideration and not yet voted. SisterSong is urging Georgia residents to call Chairman Rich Golick of the Non-Civil Judiciary Committee TODAY and urge him to VOTE NO TO HB 1155. His office number is 404.656.5943, and his email address is rich.golick@house.ga.gov. If you are someone who can take action, SisterSong has also prepared a list of talking points for your email or phone call (pdf).
But while we are on the topic, I’d also like to discuss the subject of these types of anti-choice attacks a little more closely.
Feb
19
Montana State Hospital Pays $375,000 Settlement to Rape Victim
Filed Under disability, human rights, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls, women’s health | 7 Comments
Trigger Warning for graphic descriptions of sexual violence.
Moodybpgirl recently wrote about a really horrifying case in which Montana State Hospital at Warm Springs paid a six-figure settlement to a woman who was raped during her stay there, by a fellow patient who also just so happened to be a convicted sex offender.A female patient at Montana’s psychiatric hospital was reportedly raped by a convicted sex offender in March 2008, and the state recently paid a $375,000 settlement to avoid litigation in the case.
More glaring than the sexual assault on a mentally ill, newly committed patient, however, is the lax supervision and lack of oversight that allowed the rape to happen at a state-run hospital, according to a Montana civil rights group that investigated the claim.
Disability Rights Montana, a private nonprofit law firm required by the federal government to investigate allegations of abuse or neglect, not only found that hospital personnel failed to comply with their own policies – a lapse in procedure that gave a convicted rapist unfettered access to the hospital’s general population – but that other patients notified staff of the rape while it was in progress, and yet still no steps were taken to investigate the claim.
This rape was entirely predictable and preventable, but hospital staff did nothing. They gave a convicted sex offender who was categorized as having a strong likelihood of offending again unsupervised access to female patients, and failed to tell other patients of the fact that he was a rapist.
Feb
15
Book Review: Promises I Can Keep
Filed Under books, class and economics, feminism, media, parenthood, paternalism, reproductive justice, reviews | 1 Comment
I’m the kind of person who hoards books, and finds difficulty getting the the time to read them all within what most people would consider to be an even remotely reasonable timeframe. While that’s something I’m working on getting under control, the consequence is that I’m also the kind of person, who, if she ever actually writes a book review, writes it long after the book has been released.Such is the case with Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, released in 2005. As the title would suggest, this book is about low-income mothers who have had children outside of marriage, and why this often demonized (or pitied) demographic has grown.
The shortened conclusion is that low-income single mothers are overwhelmingly purposely choosing to carry pregnancies to term and desperately desire to have their children. Under the classist, and for women of color (the interview subjects were split evenly among women who are white, African American, and of Puerto Rican descent), racist, circumstances in which these women live, college and middle-class financial stability are not seen as attainable goals — or at least, not as attainable goals that having children will significantly hinder — and so choosing to wait until after these supposed milestones to have children frequently makes little to no sense.
Low-income single mothers being presented as rational decision makers, women who are making the choices best suited to their circumstances (rather than accident prone leeches on the system), is a rare thing indeed, and that’s why I was drawn to the book. To that end alone, I certainly thought that it was a worthwhile read, and would recommend it to others. But, at the same time, I also found that it had a few significant faults.
Feb
9
Deaf Woman Was Not Told Her Cancer Was Terminal
Filed Under disability, discrimination, human rights, women’s health | 9 Comments
I’ve heard a lot of heartbreaking and enraging stories in my lifetime, but this still manages to rank pretty highly up there. Health care providers never gave a woman with cancer and her husband, both of whom were deaf, a repeatedly requested interpreter. And thus, they weren’t told for three months that she was dying.
For three months, the Nelsons met with doctors at North Memorial Medical Center, but they weren’t aware Mary Ann was dying of cancer. In fact, they thought she was doing well enough in her battle with the disease that she could go to her retirement party. So they were stunned in March 2006 when her oncologist abruptly put an end to their hopes — and their request — with a terse note saying, “We can’t cure the cancer!”
It was the first time the Nelsons, both deaf, understood the cancer was terminal, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Mary Ann Nelson died in May 2006.
The agency pointed to the incident as an example of the medical team’s failure to communicate effectively with the Nelsons. This week, state regulators announced that North Memorial agreed to pay $105,000 to settle charges that Nelson and another patient were not provided access to qualified sign language interpreters. Often, David Nelson had to read lips or write notes to communicate with doctors and nurses, despite his repeated requests for an interpreter.
“It was extremely difficult and painful for them,” said Rick Macpherson, Nelson’s attorney. “They couldn’t ask any questions. They couldn’t have any discussion. They couldn’t get any kind of comfort.”
I imagine that this news is among the worst that can ever be received, even with all of the empathy in the world. The very idea of receiving it like this, and three months after it should have been received — precious time that very well may have been used quite differently had the information actually been conveyed — both makes me want to sob into my pillow, and causes my blood to boil.
Feb
4
Court Ignores Man’s Domestic Violence Prior to Murder-Suicide
Filed Under courts, misogyny, parenthood, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 15 Comments
Via SAFER comes a really awful story about a man named Stephen Garcia who murdered his 9-month-old son Wyatt before taking his own life. Obviously any kind of violence like this is always horrible, but what makes it even more appalling is that the man’s actions were easily predicted by his previous threats and behavior, and evidence of that was presented by the boy’s mother Katie Tagle in court. And while it’s possible that a similar outcome might have unfolded had the court acted, the fact is that it did absolutely nothing (all emphasis mine).
Her family said Garcia abused [Katie] Tagle throughout their two-year relationship, which ended in August 2009, when, her family said, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious
…
On Dec. 15, Tagle asked for an emergency restraining order against Garcia, telling Judge Debra Harris in a Joshua Tree courtroom that Garcia had threatened Wyatt. “He had sent me text messages before that if his son was around certain people … that he would kill him,” Tagle told the judge, according to transcripts of the hearing. “And that if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, he’d find me and kill me.”
“What about the threat to shoot you, where did that occur, to hunt you down and shoot you with a gun?” the judge asked. “That was in a text message, Tagle replied. When Harris asked for copies of the text messages, Tagle said she had no way of printing them out and her phone was shut off. The judge denied the emergency order and set a hearing.
At that hearing, on Jan. 12, Tagle went before Judge David Mazurek in the Joshua Tree courthouse to show cause for a restraining order. “…On Dec. 31, we were doing our exchange, and he proposed to me, and I said no. He got angry and stole my phone and pushed me down. I made a police report about that,” Tagle told the judge, according to a transcript.
Garcia told the judge the report was “falsely made up.” Mazurek denied Tagle the restraining order. “If I grant the restraining order, how do you think that’s going to help with respect to you two being able to raise Wyatt together or work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy?” the judge asked, according to the transcripts.
Asked about an e-mail in which he confessed to hitting Tagle, Garcia told the judge he had slapped her during a fight, but it was Tagle’s fault for “pushing and pushing and pushing until she could get something from me.” Tagle pointed out she was nine months pregnant when Garcia hit her.
“I kind of get an idea of what’s going on,” Mazurek said. He denied the restraining order, saying, “I don’t think that Mr. Garcia poses a threat to Ms. Tagle.” Mazurek went on to suggest Tagle might have ulterior motives for alleging domestic violence. “I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between. It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other,” he said, according to the transcripts.
Unbelievably, the story gets even worse from here. The day after the hearing, Garcia sent Tagle a “story” about their relationship, which ended in him murdering their son and committing suicide. Tagle called the police and obtained an emergency restraining order, but a month later Judge Robert Lemkau not only refused to uphold it, but also ordered that Wyatt be handed over the Garcia for his scheduled visitation. A couple weeks later, Wyatt was dead.
Jan
29
Reproductive Coercion is Sexual Violence
Filed Under misogyny, patriarchy, pregnancy, rape and sexual assault, reproductive justice, violence against women and girls | 8 Comments
There is a new study which discusses a horribly prevalent but rarely discussed form of intimate partner violence: reproductive coercion. From a press release by The Family Violence Prevention Fund:
“Pregnancy Coercion, Intimate Partner Violence and Unintended Pregnancy” is the first quantitative examination of the relationship between intimate partner violence, reproductive coercion and unintended pregnancy. It finds that young women and teenage girls often face efforts by male partners to sabotage their birth control or coerce or pressure them to become pregnant – including by damaging condoms and destroying contraceptives. These behaviors, defined as “reproductive coercion,” are often associated with physical or sexual violence. Conducted by researchers at the University of California Davis School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Pubic Health, the study also finds that among women who experienced both reproductive coercion and partner violence, the risk of unintended pregnancy doubled.
From August 2008 to March 2009, researchers worked at five reproductive health clinics in Northern California, querying some 1,300 English- and Spanish-speaking 16- to 29-year-old women who agreed to respond to a survey about their experiences. They were asked about birth-control sabotage, pregnancy coercion and intimate partner violence. Approximately one in five young women said they experienced pregnancy coercion and 15 percent said they experienced birth control sabotage. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they had experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner. Thirty-five percent of the women who reported partner violence also reported either pregnancy coercion or birth control sabotage.
For many who have been in abusive relationships, the findings here will come as little surprise. But they are incredibly important, in that they prove the simple fact, for those who still needed proof, that teaching about how to use contraception isn’t always enough to prevent unwanted pregnancy. When a partner is sabotaging one’s birth control — whether it be through secretive tampering or open destruction, threats or outright force — knowing how to use contraception is can mean exceedingly little. Information is nothing without access, and in an abusive relationship that involves reproductive coercion, access has been denied. Awareness and resources about what abuse actually is, how it works, and how to handle it once it has already begun — both for medical professionals who need to screen for it, and those at risk of being victims — are absolutely vital.
But what the study also unintentionally shows is just how ill-equipped our society is to deal with the kind of abuse that does not begin and end with a fist.
Dec
23
Mother’s Disability Featured in Custody Dispute
Filed Under bigotry, courts, disability, discrimination, parenthood, reproductive justice | 10 Comments
Kaney O’Neill is a 31-year-old mother with a 5-month-old son. Her ex-boyfriend, and her son’s father, is now waging an ugly custody battle against her. So far, it’s an experience that countless parents have endured. What makes O’Neill’s story newsworthy, if not rare, is the fact that she has a disability — and her ex is using that disability as evidence that she is an unfit parent.
In September, Trais sued O’Neill for full custody, charging that his former girlfriend is “not a fit and proper person” to care for their son, Aidan James O’Neill.
In court documents, Trais said O’Neill’s disability “greatly limits her ability to care for the minor, or even wake up if the minor is distressed.”
O’Neill counters that she always has another able-bodied adult on hand for Aidan — be it her full-time caretaker, live-in brother or her mother. Even before she gave birth to Aidan, O’Neill said, she never went more than a few hours by herself.
The custody case, expected back before Cook County Judge Patricia Logue next month, raises profound questions about what rights disabled parents have to care for their own children.
Ella Callow, the director of legal programs for the National Center for Parents with Disabilities and their Families, said disabled parents are incorrectly “perceived as unable to perform to standard.”
“No judge wants to be the judge who sends a child home when the child gets hurt,” said Callow, of the Berkeley, Calif.-based advocacy group.
Callow said the bias against disabled parents is such that judges tend to grant custody to an able-bodied partner “even if they have a history that might usually be a heavy mark against them — not having been in the child’s life, a history of violence, etc.”
What Trais is attempting is repulsive, wrong, and inexcusable. But the bigger problem is that parents who try to pull this type of nonsense have a whole lot of backup. It ranges from the multitudes of ignorant online commenters who have agreed with him, to the judges who have ruled previous custody cases based on one parent’s disability, to complete outsiders who feel the right to speak on the matter as experts (emphasis mine):
But Howard LeVine, a Tinley Park attorney not affiliated with the case, said Trais’ concerns are legitimate and may hold legal weight.
“Certainly, I sympathize with the mom, but assuming both parties are equal (in other respects), isn’t the child obviously better off with the father?“
LeVine, who has specialized in divorce and custody cases for the last 40 years, pointed out that O’Neill would likely not be able to teach her son to write, paint or play ball. “What’s the effect on the child — feeling sorry for the mother and becoming the parent?”
Well here we see a bias exposed in all of its glory: you see, Mr. LeVine, all things being equal, the disability wouldn’t factor in to this decision at all.
Dec
2
13-Year-Old Girl Commits Suicide After Classmates Spread Nude Photos
Filed Under education and schools, media, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, sex and sexuality, sexual exploitation and harassment, slut-shaming, violence against women and girls | 60 Comments
Trigger Warning for discussions of suicide, descriptions of non-consensual sexual conduct, victim-blaming and slut-shaming
The Tampa Bay St. Petersburg Times has printed the truly gut-wrenching, tragic story of a 13-year-old girl named Hope Witsell, who committed suicide after a photograph of her breasts, which she sent to a boy’s cell phone, was forwarded all over the school.
At the end of the school year at Beth Shields Middle School, the taunting became so bad that Hope Witsell’s friends surrounded her between classes. They escorted her down hallways like human shields, fending off insults such as “whore” and “slut.” A few days before, Hope had forwarded a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked — a practice widely known as “sexting.” The image found its way to other students, who forwarded it to their friends. Soon the nude photo was circulating through cell phones at Shields Middle and Lennard High School, according to multiple students at both schools. … School authorities learned of the nude photo around the end of the school year and suspended Hope for the first week of eighth grade, which started in August. About two weeks after she returned to school, a counselor observed cuts on Hope’s legs and had her sign a “no-harm” contract, in which Hope agreed to tell an adult if she felt inclined to hurt herself, her family says. The next day, Hope hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 13.
Her death is the second in the nation in which a connection between sexting and teen suicide can clearly be drawn.
I recommend that you go read the full article, because despite the many problems with it, there is a lot of information there, some of which I will not have the time to discuss here.
As Veronica Arreola said on her Twitter, while the media insists on calling this a “sexting-related suicide,” it’s much more accurately referred to as a “slut-shaming suicide.” Because the photograph she sent is not what drove this poor girl to kill herself — the non-consensual spreading of the photograph, and the subsequent reaction that her classmates and all adults in positions of authority had to it seems to absolutely have been what drove her to despair. And that is a truly vital distinction to make if we actually care about the fact that a 13-year-old girl is dead, and why.
Nov
13
Support Sex-Positive Sex Education
Filed Under action alert, education and schools, feminism, sex and sexuality | 1 Comment
Scarleteen is, in my view, the absolute best sex education website out there. And while I can’t claim to be entirely impartial about that assessment — I know Heather, Scarleteen’s founder, and also received a free sex education training through the site this summer — I can say that it’s an assessment I’ve held since long before I had any room for bias.And right now, Scarleteen needs your help with their fundraising drive. You can read the full letter here, if you wish to learn about all of the things that the site has done this year, and what they plan on doing next year. But the part I want to highlight is this:
What you might not know is that Scarleteen is the highest ranked online young adult sexuality resource but also the least funded and that the youth who need us most are also the least able to donate. You might not know that we have done all we have with a budget lower than the median annual household income in the U.S. You might not know we have provided the services we have to millions without any federal, state or local funding and that we are fully independent media which depends on public support to survive and grow.
With all that Scarleteen does, they deserve a lot more.
What exactly Scarleteen does is not just provide comprehensive sex education, but provide honest, scientifically-sound, non-judgmental, sex-positive, and explicitly feminist sex education. They don’t just talk condoms and STDs — they talk sexual orientation, gender identity, relationships, sexism and double standards, abuse, masturbation, pleasure, and more. They don’t just talk about heterosexual intercourse, but about all sex acts as being equally valid and not existing in an arbitrary hierarchy of importance. And probably most importantly of all to me, they don’t just talk about sex — they include and emphasize in every single discussion of sex the importance and necessity of mutual, affirmative, and enthusiastic consent.
Those of you familiar with my writing will know that sex education is a subject that I feel very, very passionately about. You’ll also know that my standards for sex education are set a good deal higher than the standards we normally see stated in arguments favoring the bare bones of what can be considered comprehensive sex education. Scarleteen lives up to my ideal model over and over and over again. And that is something I’ve found to be very rare.
If Scarleteen is also a site near and dear to your heart, if my gushing has swayed you at all, if sex education is a subject of importance to you, or if you believe in investing in teenagers and young adults so that they become well-rounded, sexually healthy people, I urge you to make the largest gift you can:
- To donate to Scarleteen by credit card, online check or via a PayPal account: click here and choose the button at the top of that page for the donation amount and style you prefer.
- To donate by check or money order directly to Scarleteen: make checks payable to Scarleteen and send to: Scarleteen, 1752 NW Market Street #627, Seattle, WA, 98107.
- If you would like your donation to be tax-deductible: you can donate by check or money order through The Center for Sex and Culture, a fiscal sponsor of Scarleteen online here. To mail a tax-deductible donation, make your check out to The Center for Sex and Culture, writing “For Scarleteen” in the memo. Mail that to: The Center for Sex and Culture, c/o Carol Queen, 2215-R Market Street PMB 455, San Francisco, CA, 94114. They will send a written acknowledgment of your donation to you for tax purposes, and will send us donations made to them on our behalf after deducting a very reasonable percentage.
- However you choose to donate, if you want to be listed as a donor on our site, please send us an email to let us know how you’d like to be acknowledged.
And if you can’t donate — and looking at the extraordinary vet bill I paid this morning, I couldn’t possibly get that more — do your part to spread the word about an organization that we absolutely need to see continue and thrive.
Oct
8
All Denials of Coverage For Pre-Existing Conditions Deserve Equal Outrage
Filed Under disability, legislation, violence against women and girls, women’s health | 16 Comments
You’ve almost certainly heard: in certain U.S. states, insurance companies are legally calling domestic violence a “pre-existing condition” and are therefore refusing to cover any treatment related to it. If the person in question doesn’t disclose the domestic violence prior to taking on insurance, they can have their coverage dropped by the insurance company. And, in the cases that are making the most news, those who have previously been victims of domestic violence are being denied access to insurance entirely.
The story has been around for several weeks now. And seemingly, it’s not going away anytime soon. I keep seeing more details pop up in my Twitter feed. In my blog reader, someone shared an item at Jezebel about the Democratic plan to ban the classification of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Of course, this ban is a part of the plan to end the denial of coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, period — but for some reason, the issue of domestic violence deserves explicit mention. Indeed, we’re seeing it get all kinds of special attention at various feminist blogs — and by our First Lady.
The question that too few people are asking is “Why?” No, no, not “Why do insurance companies do this?” — I think we know that answer — but “Why does it deserve special attention and outrage?”
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
