Abortion: whose debate? July 2, 2008

There are probably too many thoughts for one post here, but here goes.

Following on from the discussion about women bloggers (see here here and here), liberal conspiracy brings us this post, which is full of interesting points. In particular, the author makes some observations about the fact that strategies for tackling domestic violence, and provision of services for survivors of domestic violence, are woefully low (if at all) on the list of local council priorities:

• ‘In terms of the numbers of councils choosing it as a priority, domestic violence services are somewhere on a par with tackling litter, graffiti and fly tipping.’

Also observed is the shocking fact that

• ‘rape doesn’t appear to be included in targets for tackling serious violent crime (go figure???), and while I found the target I’m still looking for a council, any council, that’s put rape support services up as priority any time in the next three years.’

How does this relate to the abortion debate? Bear with me, I’m getting there…

The author insightfully writes that one of the contributing factors to these distorted local council priorities is that such matters are usually dicated by knee jerk reactions to media attention and public opinion , and that the issue of violence against women just doesn’t get the coverage or the public outrage that would push it up the agenda. Thus the author calls on women and feminist bloggers to do more in raising the profile of such issues:

• ‘Okay, so this is, and should be, a two-way street in which male bloggers should have no qualms about flagging up news items that are, perhaps likely to be more of interest to female bloggers but, to some extent, I think there’s some justification for the rest of us to look to the feminist sector and say ‘well, how about it?’ simply in recognition of the fact that people are naturally inclined, in following their interests, to pick up on stories that the rest of us might well miss’

In particular, (and I’m getting to the point now!) he prompts writers to start something up with the amendments to the abortion act on the table and up for debate (see here for more details), and writes, addressing feminist bloggers:

• ‘the lead on this has to come from women and from the feminist sector - this is the point in this debate where women need to take centre stage, not just because its the right thing to do but because we’re at the point at which the key reference points for the debate lies on ground that women, and feminists in particular, are likely to be most comfortable and most effective… on the issue of supporting the liberalising amendments that are shortly to put to parliament, this is unequivocally your show.’

Ok, so here’s my concerns:

Of course, it is right that whether, and when, and how easily women have access to abortion are issues that need to be considered in light of the impact of pregnancy and potential parenthood on women’s lives. And in this respect, right on, women’s experiences and voices in the debate need to be attended to, and heeded.

But:

First, that women and feminist bloggers have had trouble getting their posts and blogs noticed has been mentioned (and experiences on this are still coming in). So the assurance that this is the ground in which feminists and women can be more effective is unclear; this will only be so if their lead is, in fact, taken up.

Second, whilst pregnancy and abortion has obvious and significant impacts on women’s lives, this doesn’t mean that it is an issue that *only* concerns the interests of women. Having an unwanted pregnancy is often the property of *a partner*, and unwanted pregnancies yield children with *fathers*. Perhaps male bloggers who are pro-choice can think a bit about how women’s lack of access to abortion might impact on their lives too, and give voice to that.

Third, and this plugs in to the previous point about flagging attention to violence against women; feminist issues are not just issues of interest to women! Stopping rape, stopping violence against women, stopping enforced pregnancies because women can’t get access to abortion within the prescribed time limit… all of this should be of interest to men as well as women.

Indeed, the author, unity, shows his sensitive eye for catching feminist issues (see top of this post). It has been asked how men might engage with feminist blogs. Here’s some advice for left liberal male bloggers: Notice that feminist issues are your issues too, and start blogging and campaigning on them!

 Final note: LC piece links this pro-choice site. worth flagging up!

Philosopher’s Carnival July 1, 2008

The new Philosopher’s Carnival is up, and Stoat’s got something in it– yay, Stoat! So do our friends Gender, Race and Philosophy: The Blog.

Carnival of Philosophers June 5, 2008

First, a general apology. We’re really rubbish at keeping track of the carnivals! But this time we found out about the Carnival of Philosophers because JJ’s got something in it. Congratulations to JJ, and many thanks to Big Ideas for including us! Go check it out– looks like a lot of great stuff to read (if only I wasn’t buried in marking).

A belated happy birthday June 2, 2008

to us, the Feminist Philosophers blog! It all began in March 2007, when Sally Haslanger suggested to me that a feminist philosophy blog would be a good thing. I said I wasn’t the blogging type, but she encouraged me to start thinking about how to do a blog that I might want to be a part of. So I decided to start trying it out mid-May last year. And I guess it’s pretty clear now that– for better or for worse– I am the blogging type. Stoat and Monkey blogged with me at the start, and since then we’ve been joined by Cornsay, Digivordig, Edna in the Sea, Heg, Introvertica, JJ, ProfBigK and Telbort and by now we’ve got quite a blog going! We’ve got to know lots of great feminist and philosophical bloggers (and even some at the intersection of the two) online and even started meeting up with bloggers off-line. Our top posts of all time (sigh) remain the oh-so-popular “Loving Wife Spanking”, “Incredibly Fat, Ugly Woman in Yogurt Ad”, and “Woman as Video Game”. Nothing against these posts, but I suspect that the scores of people who search every week for ‘ugly woman’ or ’spanking’ weren’t actually looking for feminism or philosophy. But hey, maybe they’ve actually liked what they found. So, what do you think? Should we change our tagline to “Come for the spanking; stay for the philosophy”? More seriously, many thanks to everyone who posts, comments, or lurks on this blog, and to everyone who’s been kind enough to encourage us!

Mother’s Maiden Name? May 19, 2008

There’s recently been a discussion on the FEAST mailing list about the fact that the APA uses as its online security question, “what is your mother’s maiden name?” And you know, despite all my years of teaching feminist stuff about language usage, I’d never reflected much on the problems with that very standard security question. (And that shocks me, as I’ve thought a lot about marital name change issues, which are obviously closely related. Really a nice demonstration of how something can be taken for granted no matter how vigilant we try to be.) Some problems are obvious, like the fact that it’s based on the expectation that all women change their name upon marriage; and the assumption that all mothers are married. Feminists have spent a lot of time on the problems with this sort of thing, so I won’t rehearse that here. But allow me to mention the really BIG one, which should convince even those who don’t see a problem with expecting women to change their names.

This is meant to be a SECURITY question, which asks for some information that’s not readily and publicly available. More and more women are not changing their names upon marriage, and more and more women are having children without getting married. Mother’s name before marriage is very easily accessible in the first case– especially if it’s THE SAME AS THE CHILD’S– and nonsensical in the second. Times have changed, and the question needs to change too– it’s currently providing lousy security. (And bad politics.)

Update: You know, I even failed to realise what terrible security it is FOR ME: My mother’s maiden name is my middle name, and that often appears on credit cards, etc. (Whenever I’ve been asked, I’ve felt mildly annoyed, but usually set that aside because I was trying to get something done and didn’t want to get distracted from that. So I never thought it all through.)

Want to know how to put together a beauty pageant? May 6, 2008

Ask the feminist philosophers. At least, that’s one of the things Google apparently suggests (and 5 people came here looking for that! Though they did all mis-spell ‘pageant’). Gosh, now I feel we really ought to do a post offering some advice on the topic!

Sadie Magazine March 18, 2008

Thought it might be nice to have something hopeful about gender and culture after Monkey’s well-justified Rants at the TV…. Reader Josie recently  told us about Sadie Magazine, a new magazine for teenage girls and young women. So I went over to have a look– at first glance, your typical teen girl mag. Lots of pink, an ‘I heart/I hate’ section, a cooking section, etc. A very slightly closer look revealed something much more interesting than that first impression: a rave review of a book about trans teens, a DIY section to go with the cooking section, an article on Cuban women rappers…. And ‘I heart/I hate’ contained an article about the awkwardness of seeking sexual health services in a small town. My feminist grandmother would SO have bought me a subscription to this when I was younger. But wait! It’s even better than that– it’s web-based and free. So tell anyone who might be interested. And they’re also soliciting contributions.

Carnival of Feminists No. 53 February 14, 2008

is up, and it’s *huge*.  So pour yourself and extra large cup of coffee (or whatever you prefer), and settle in.  We’re very pleased, by the way, to see that our own JJ has something in it!

Carnival! January 14, 2008

There’s a great new Carnival of Feminists up at Philobiblion, and we’re very pleased to see that our own Monkey has something in it!

Annoyed by biased and stupid campaign coverage? January 13, 2008

Here’s a quick and easy way to complain. Particularly annoyed by Chris Matthews calling Hillary Clinton a “she-devil” and her male supporters “castratos in the eunuch chorus”, and saying that “modern women” like Clinton are unacceptable to “Midwest guys”? Go here. A note: the first one of these does discuss racist coverage of Obama, but its focus is mainly on sexism in Clinton coverage, and the second is just about Matthews’ sexism.  If I come across a campaign more focused on racist Obama coverage, I’ll let you know.

Boxing Day Carnival December 26, 2007

Note: this has been updated in response to comments. 

Looking for a suitable Boxing Day activity?  (For those unfamiliar with the tradition: Boxing Day is the day after Xmas, traditionally devoted to semi-vegetative recovery from the day before.  Often devoted to watching trashy horror movies on TV.)  I’ve belatedly noted that there’s an excellent new Carnival of Feminists up at The Jaded Hippy (and we’ve even got something in it!).  You might want to spend some time surfing through it.

Carnival! December 11, 2007

An excellent Carnival of Feminists is up at Days in a Wannabe Punk’s Life. The Wannabe Punk has done an especially good job of writing little blurbs that make you want to click on all the links, so be warned that you may have a hard time getting anything else done!

Carnival of Feminists (A little late) November 24, 2007

We’re a little late to this one, but Debs at Feminist Fire has a great new Carnival up.  (And we’re mighty pleased to have something in it!)

“Why Man Look Like Girl” November 7, 2007

Caveman ask Google this question, come to our blog. Hope Caveman find good answer here.

Carnival Against Sexual Violence November 6, 2007

I hadn’t been aware of this Carnival before, but learned of it because our very own Edna in the Sea made it in (congrats to Edna!). Marcella at Abyss 2 Hope has put together a really impressive-looking, well organized collection of posts. There’s enough there to keep us all busy for a long time. Go check it out!

46th Carnival of Feminists October 26, 2007

It’s up at Cubically Challenged, and it looks great! Very sadly, I haven’t had the time to properly look through it. But if you do, and you have some recommendations, do put them in the comments to this post.

Document the Silence: 31 October October 26, 2007

The Document the Silence Project aims to end the lack of attention to crimes of violence against women of color in the US. They have an important event coming up on October 31, and I’d urge you to participate:

Recent events in the United States have moved us to action. Violence against women is sadly, not a new phenomenon in our country or in the world, however, in the last year women of color have experienced brutal forms of violence, torture, rape and injustice which have gone unnoticed, received little to no media coverage, or a limited community response. We are responding to:

The brutal and inhumane rape, torture, and kidnapping of Megan Williams in Logan, West Virginia who was held by six assailants for a month.

Rape survivors in the Dunbar Housing Projects in West Palm Beach, Florida one of whom was forced to perform sexual acts on her own child.

A 13 year old native American girl was beaten by two white women and has since been harassed by several men yelling “white power” outside of her home

Seven black lesbian girls attempted to stop an attacker and were latter charged with aggravated assault and are facing up to 11 year prison sentences

In a Litany of Survival, Audre Lorde writes, “When we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.” These words shape our collective organizing to break the silence surrounding women of color’s stories of violence. We are asking for community groups, grass-root organizations, college campus students and groups, communities of faith, online communities, and individuals to join us in speaking out against violence against women of color. If we speak, we cannot be invisible.

Join us and stand up to violence against women!

Be bold, be brave, be red. Wear red on October 31, 2007. Take a picture or video of yourself and friends wearing red. Send it to: beboldbered@gmail.com. We’ll post it!

Take Your Red to the Streets! Know of a location where violence occurred against a woman of color? Have a public location where you feel women of color are often ignored? Make violence against women of color visible by decorating the space in red. Be sure to send us pictures and or video of your display!

Rally! Gather your friends, family, and community to rally. Check out the Document the Silence website for the litany we’re asking participants to read together on October 31st. Be sure to send us pictures and/or video of the event! You could even gather where you created a display!

For more Information on how to Host a RED Rally, please click on the page “How to Host a Red Rally.”

Share your story of silence. Share your own story of silence by uploading it to the Document the Silence website (http://documentthesilence.wordpress.com/). You can send a story in any form you’d like – as a written statement, video clip, movie, documentary, or visual art.

For more information, go here.

Comment not appearing? September 26, 2007

Sometimes, we don’t know why, valid comments get marked as spam and filtered out. If your comment isn’t appearing, drop us a note via the ‘contact’ category and we’ll fix it. This is especially likely to happen with comments that have multiple links, but it also happens to some without such links.

If Only I’d Known September 23, 2007

Now that the Carnival’s over, I’m of course finding things I wish I could have put in it!

Top on that list is a really impressive brand new blog that I’d like to have told you about, Girl Sailor. It’s written by a female ensign on active duty in the US Navy.  Only 2 posts so far, but both excellent.  There’s one here about ‘coming out’ as a feminist in the navy, after an evangelical upbringing; and another here about why, despite his important role in giving Democrats the Senate, feminists should really not be so keen on Jim Webb (former Navy Secretary).

Next on the list is one that actually couldn’t have been in the Carnival, since it’s a response to the Carnival! Rachel McKinney has written an excellent post on ‘gray rape’, that raises lots of interesting epistemological and language-related issues.

Now I shall attempt to get myself out of that Carnival frame of mind and resume more normal service.

Carnival of Feminists No. 45 September 19, 2007

First off I just want to say what a huge amount of great feminist writing there is out there, and how tough it’s been to put this together.   There’s just too much important stuff out there,  and I feel really overwhelmed. I’ve organized the Carnival a little artificially into categories, just to make it easier to take it all in (hopefully).  In particular, the fact that there is an “Analysis” header shouldn’t be taken to suggest that other items lack analysis.  It’s just that these didn’t fit the other categories, really! So, enough faffing, here we go…..

Current Events

1. Diary of an Anxious Black Woman chronicles recent horrors, concluding with the horrific rape and torture of a black woman by six whites, and predicting that somehow this woman will end up blamed and that her experience will be somehow trivialised.  Just days later, the predictions are borne out as theDiary and Shakesville discuss.   Stunning. And yet not.
   
2. Inside Iran reports that photos of the Iranian Women’s Volleyball Team are circulating widely, and muses on why this might be.
   
3. Miss Teen S. Carolina’s unfortunate interview: Black Looks notes that ”this is how American nationalism and hegemony works; she can’t even identify the US on a map or even coherently answer a question about how Americans are geographically challenged, and yet somehow we (she) can help others because we think we are superior.” Packaging Girlhood discusses the interview in light of a study on how swimsuits affect math skills.
4. Larry Craig: some thought-provoking ruminations on outing from No Cookies For Me. The truth is that there’s almost nothing I adore more than a juicy Republican sex scandal. (This may be because I am a bad person and a rabid partisan, but there it is.) But Roy is right that there are some real concerns about what the effect of such outings is: there is indeed a worrying possibility that they only heighten the sense that gay sex is wrong.
5. Red Jenny writes about the impressive story of Ugandan women starting their own cooperative banks. 
6. Unapologetically Female writes on the recent Blog-Against-the-Telethon, and on how focusing on finding cures is like fighting sexism by trying to make women into men.
7. Women’s eNews brings us the great news that efforts to get more women and more Maya (both men and women) to the polls in Guatemala seem to be succeeding.
8. Knowledge and Experience reports on a woman who is suing to be allowed adequate break time and privacy for breast-pumping while taking her 9-hour medical boards.
9. Menstrual Poetry brings us the horrific story of a pastor getting a light sentence for incest because he was just teaching his daughters how to be good wives.
10. Goddess Musings, the blog of a feminist sports fan, discusses a pathetic commercial effort to woo women who love sports.
11. From Un-Cool: A woman who has recovered from her Borderline Personality Disorder is apparently going to have her baby snatched away within minutes of its birth for fear that she may abuse it.

Less Current Events That Need to Be Remembered

1. From Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters, an update on the apparent murder of PFC Lavena Johnson, which the army tried to pass off as a suicide.
2. From What About Our Daughters?, some updates on the horrific Dunbar Village rape case in which a woman was raped by 10 men for hours and forced to preform oral sex on her own son, and on the continuing lack of proper responses to this case.
3. A Woman’s Ecdysis suggests that there isn’t enough feminist writing about 9/11, at least not for free.
   
4. In a Strange Land tells us that on this day, 19 September, in 1893, New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. Yay New Zealand!

Appearance Issues

1. A fascinating post at Just Another Angry Black Muslim Woman, covering such issues as the complex interplay between sexy clothes and abayas (as well as the experience of being excessively warm) with the wonderful title Hot Girls in Kuwait.
2. Natalia Antonova has a really interesting post on feminine clothes and makeup as a symbol of strength, drawing on her grandmother’s experiences of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.
3. Shapely Prose has an impressive tribute to Anita Roddick, Body Shop founder, for helping with body acceptance issues.

Science

1. Primate Diaries offers an interesting discussion in answer to the question of why most cultures are much more prone to punish women who ‘cheat’ than men: it uses cross-cultural and historical evidence (a lot of it) to argue that this is not simply the result of human evolution.
2. A wonderful parody of the study showing that gendered colour preferences are innate at Occultum Iter: “New Breathrough in Goth Studies” 
3. Dr Signout offers pleasingly ill-tempered criticism of “another study that demonstrates that women and men are, well, you know. The way they are.”

Reviews

1. Lonergrrrl reviews a great sounding book on the Suffragettes, and reflects on their activism versus activism today.
2. Feminist Fire examines a recent shallow article in Observer Woman on young feminists– it’s especially interesting to read both Debs’s review and the comments. One of the women interviewed writes in, and the contrast between her account and the way the article came out is striking. 

Analysis 

1. Abyss2hope has 2 very interesting posts about so-called ‘gray rape’ here and here. The second one grabs me as a philosopher– she argues that cases of high-pressure ’senior investment’ experts who defraud seniors out of their life savings (fraud=clearly a crime!) could be understood as analogous to some of the more controversial cases of ‘gray rape’. Interesting and provocative thought.
2. The issue of men in feminism is one that many of us writing for this blog feel quite strongly about.  So I was very interested to read this post from Engage: Conversations in Philosophy on what is required for one to qualify as a feminist man.  There’s some good discussion in the comments, too.  
3.  The F-Word has an excellent discussion of claims that women love lad culture, as evidenced by their willingness to “get their tits out”.
4. From RH Reality Check, an interesting piece on the quite unfamiliar (to me) way that debates over abortion are framed in the Phillipines.
5. Feminist Law Professors writes about “how unaligned the interests of “progressive” men and progressive women can be”.
6. Piny at Feministe writes about the way that the intersection of multiple oppressions seems to make writers feel that it is legitimate to say things that they would deem unacceptable in other contexts. 
7. Broadsheet suggests that fear of pedophilia may be setting back some of the progress made in getting men more involved in childcare. 
8. Viva la Feminista offers a powerful post on homeless families and abuse.
9. Cruella points out the somewhat disturbing nature of the slogan “What Happens in Vegas Stays In Vegas”.
10. Pandagon is very insightful on another slogan, “The Personal is Political”. [Somehow this disappeared from my original post, so I've added it back in. Ooops!]
11. From Sex in the Public Square, a thoughtful critique of Bob Herbert’s recent column on sex work.
12. Fetch Me My Axe has an intriguing discussion of nature, nurture, and gay rights arguments, hitting on many things that have puzzled me.
13. Bernedette Muthien writes on heteronormativity (the enforcement of heterosexuality as a norm) in the African women’s movement.

Sites, Not Posts I realise I’m supposed to point you to posts, not sites.  But I just can’t resist mentioning a few sites which represent great projects that you need to know about.

1. Bangladesh from our view is a blog written by Bangladeshi women and girls as a part of Rising Voices, an effort to address global imbalances in the “global conversation” that is the internet.
2. The Women Philosophers Website, which is uncovering and publicising an amazing unknown history of great women thinkers worldwide through the millenia.
3. HijabMan’s store is the place to go for your “This is what a Radical Muslim Feminist Looks Like” T-Shirt.

First-Person Stories

1. From Objectify This, a really nice story of success in getting a biology syllabus changed to include such radical elements as discussion of the female reproductive system.
2. Female Science Professor writes of being told she was asking to be stalked by having her office door open.
3. Two Women Blogging tells the story of a woman whose doctor tried to shame her into never discussing her abortion.
4. Cara at the Curvature describes how a study of depression and smoking in pregnant women helped her to discover some biases of which she’d been unaware. This is an important sort of story to tell.
5. Hatshepsut, an Egyptian feminist blogger, offers us the revealing Overheard in Cairo. 
6. Miss Crip Chick writes powerfully of pride and the difficulty of maintaining it in the face of oppression.
7. From Writing Evolution, a tale of everyday sexism– the kind that sends the message that women are simply lesser beings (and perhaps not even that!).
8. Riverbend, the famous Iraqi blogger, recounts her very recent departure for and arrival in Syria.

And I’ll leave you with a supremely icky perfume ad, courtesy of Feministing.Many thanks to JJ, Stoat, and Mr Jender for their help with the Carnival!If you’d like to submit something to the next carnival, go here.