Maybe Halliburton Won't Get Away With This One

Okay...so they probably will.

The AP is reporting that a woman gets to take her rape case against Halliburton to court instead of hiding it in arbitration. Lucky her!

Jamie Leigh Jones filed a federal lawsuit last year, saying she was attacked while working for a Halliburton Co. subsidiary at Camp Hope, Baghdad, in 2005. Her lawsuit claims that after she endured harassment from some of the men where she lived in coed barracks, she was drugged and raped by Halliburton and KBR firefighters.

Jones...said a KBR representative imprisoned her in a shipping container for a day so she wouldn't report the assault...KBR split from Halliburton last year.

Apparently, she signed an agreement that said "any claims made by an employee against the company that in any way touch on his or her employment have to be settled through arbitration, in which a third party would resolve the case through a private hearing process."

Maybe this is a normal agreement, maybe not. But rape should not be confined to arbitration, and thankfully, U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison agrees with me. But first, "other workplace-related claims" have to go through arbitration. I wonder what those claims involve?Halliburton has gotten away with murder...literally. Maybe they'll finally have to answer for something. Or maybe Bush-ney will step in somehow and 'save the day'."Attorneys for Halliburton, KBR and other subsidiaries that have been sued have disputed Jones' allegations." Shocker.

I Think I Threw Up A Little

The concept for Pauper to Princes is bad enough alone.

"8 ordinary girls" are placed into a house where they learn etiquette and culture. We all know how tea parties can boost a woman's self esteem. And it all took place in my home state, Florida.

Yes, that alone is enough to make me throw up in my mouth a little bit. But Tampa Bay's 10 reported that these women were locked in the house. They were not allowed to leave or use their cell phones. They broke out over the weekend and called the police. The director of this lovely show, Marc Brilleman, has been arrested for false imprisonment.

The exec producer denies allegations that Brilleman locked the door and told them they couldn't leave.

Ugh. Reality TV just gets better and better.

"Rape" is a bad word

Well, for the courts at least. Last June, I wrote about a woman who refused to abide by the rules the judge set forth in her trial. The rule she broke? She used the word "rape" in her rape trial.

Sure, it's a powerful word. The judge thought it was too powerful, and that it would sway the jury. So a woman who had been raped was supposed to call this pivotal moment in her life "intercourse" or "sex."

The trial ended in a hung jury (maybe they were confused by all the euphemisms) and Terry Bowen, the woman who is fighting for her right to say "rape," sued. This is what the appeals court had to say (via Feministing):

The lawsuit argued that Lancaster County District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront violated Tory Bowen's constitutional rights in barring her from using certain words during her testimony in the trial, in which she said Pamir Safi sexually assaulted her.

While Cheuvront barred Bowen from using phrases and words like "rape kit" and "victim" in her testimony, he allowed Safi's attorneys to use words such as "sex" and "intercourse" when describing the encounter between Safi and Bowen.

Oh good. So now he'll ban the words "murder" and "robbery" from the courts, right? We wouldn't want to confuse the jury. What about "knife" is that safe to say? How about "he forced me to have sex"? Is that more appropriate?

Language is powerful (as we've seen demonstrated by the Bush years) and this Nebraska judge is abusing this power. This appeals court decision makes me want to scream.

Rape needs to be shoved into people's faces. It's a fact of life that we conveniently ignore. It's a symptom of a much larger problem: men (and sometimes women) in society who feel the need to demonstrate their power. Maybe that's why Jennifer Baumgardner is selling this t-shirt:The only way to start fixing the problem is by talking about it. If we can't even do that in a courtroom, where the hell are we?

Rape-ity Rape! Ha ha!

Via Feministing
Like Jessica at Feministing, I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of everything. It's why I haven't been posting. The Hillary/Obama stuff, the Virginia Senate is taking away funding for Planned Parenthood, doctors are refusing to perform paps on unmarried women, I'm just tired.

What is fucking wrong with this world? I'll get my ire up soon, but right now, I'm a little resigned. Meanwhile, go complain about the t-shirt here.

Let me just state the obvious: rape is NOT funny.

How is This Legal?

Via Feministing.

Playboy ad hits women where it hurts:


Porn is great, but only when it involves consenting adults. When it humiliates unsuspecting women, there's a definite problem. Plus, it gives porn a bad name. This should be taken down. I don't think there's a debate.

Truly Disgusting

The biggest attack since the surge killedat least 98 people and wounded over 200 today.

Two women were sent in to busy Baghdad markets and exploded.

Notice I say "were sent." That's because they were MENTALLY DISABLED women. The bombs were detonated by remote control.

Before it was reported that the women were mentally challenged, I was complaining about the fact that all the headlines said "female suicide bombers." They never say "male suicide bombers." I know, I know, it's much less common for women to kill themselves this way, but still, it feels wrong.

But this is an entirely different story. I hate delineating good and evil, but jesus...this is pure, untainted evil.

Female Circumcision

Every so often, a new article comes out about female circumcision. Yesterday, it was the New York Times' turn.

The NYT takes us to Indonesia. And I mean they take us there, to the annual free circumcision fest. There's a slideshow and everything. (The pictures are from the slideshow. I weeded out the heartwrenching ones - a little too manipulative for my taste.)I'm horrified at the practice, and even more so because they don't care if they cut the clitoris. But we circumcise men. Is there that big a difference?

Well, yes, because rather than the original idea of circumcised penises, cutting doesn't mark you as "chosen" or "worthy." According to Lukman Hakim, the foundation that gives the free female circumcisions, the reasons are three-fold:

“One, it will stabilize her libido,” he said through an interpreter. “Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology.”

Still, as far as I know, circumcised men feel less pleasure during intercourse than those who are uncircumcised.

The problem with cutting is that it stems from religious law that sees women as unstable temptresses. We're trying to get rid of a symptom of the problem, when we should be looking at the problem itself.

Some people feel it's right to call this torture, just like they call burkas oppression, but to dismiss someone's entire upbringing through your own paradigm is never excusable. Mothers who bring their baby girls to get cut are just doing what society expects of them.

It's like I always say, a lot of problems can be fixed with education. Let's help to educate these women, not by giving them a tirade on what's right for their children, but by showing them other options and creating those options for them.

Another parallel I can draw with out society is a topic I've been posting a lot about lately: plastic surgery. Some women are actually getting vaginal plastic surgery. Sure, the women aren't babies when they do this, but I wonder how many of them do it because "it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband."

I just don't think we should be so quick to paste our ideals on top of other countries. We have to look at the cause of the problem. Fixing the symptom will get us nowhere. Look at Iraq.

Is the UN actually helping?

There's a serious of articles that may prove the UN's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women might be working in Saudi women's favor.

(US participation in the CEDAW is not yet ratified, natch)

On January 18th, the committee called Saudi Arabia, a participant in CEDAW, out, pointing out that women have basically no rights in the country.

The committee sited these examples of oppression(via AFP):

Without the presence of this tutor (guardian), a woman cannot study, access health services, marry, travel abroad, have a business or even access an ambulance in an emergency," said one of the experts, according to minutes from the meeting.

"What is the legal basis in Saudi society that justifies this guardian system?" asked the same expert. "Is it necessary to maintain this system in the 21st century?"

Members of the committee asked the Saudi delegation why Saudi women do not have the right to drive.

In addition, they raised the case that made headlines around the world of a woman -- since exonerated by King Abdullah -- who had been convicted to six months in prison and 200 lashings after being gang-raped.

Saudi Arabia's response:

The Riyadh delegation reminded the committee that the country signed the convention with amendments made for Islamic law.

The kingdom is governed by Wahabism, a strict interpretation of Islam that -- in the name of Sharia law -- imposes complete separation of the sexes. As such, it is illegal for a woman to be in the company of a man who is not in her immediate family.

In its report, Riyadh also wrote that "Islam, as a realistic religion, admits that total equality between man and woman is contrary to reality, as various scientific studies on their psychological differences have shown".

On the subject of polygamy, the Saudi representatives replied that in the kingdom, men are permitted by law to have up to four wives.

Sometimes the sexual appetite of a man is not satisfied by his wife and he must take another wife to satisfy this, otherwise he would be obliged to satisfy it an illegal manner, outside of marriage, explained the delegation.

Yikes.

But something may have gotten through to Saudi Arabia. The Telegraph reports today that women will soon be allowed to drive, and four hours ago, the AP reported that Saudi women can now stay in hotels alone.

(I guess it makes sense not to let women stay in hotels by themselves. I mean, they're much better off sleeping on the streets.)

Are these just small concessions to keep women from revolting? To keep the UN off their backs? To keep the world out of their business? Or are things really changing. I find the latter pretty hard to believe.

Oh Good. Sean Paul will save her.

Just what Britney Spears needs. Some guy she's never heard of to "smack" and "spank" her.

Added bonus: the paparazzi fucking laughs. What's that about?

I love how everyone wants other celebs to give "advice" to Spears. That's what I would want if I went through a nervous breakdown: strangers telling me what to do.

Abuse is okay. The Qu'ran tells me so.

Picture (right) and story via the The New York Times.

Abused Muslim American women aren't much different from regular abused women, except that their religious text condones the abuse (it's usually public abuse of women that's condoned in the Christian bible.

The current interpretation of Chapter 4, verse 34 in the Qu'ran gives "husbands the right to strike their wives as the final step in an escalating series of punishments for being rebellious."

The problem is widespread. Even more so because within the Muslim community, the abuse is accepted. Even by women. If a woman asks for help, she is usually met with a cleric who offers marriage counseling (WITH the abusive husband) and/or family telling her to suck it up and be obedient.

If an American Muslim woman seeks help at a shelter, her faith is held in question. The article details this woman's story:

After enduring seven years of beatings from her husband, a young Yemeni-American woman recently fled to a local shelter, only to find that the heavy black head scarf she wore as an observant Muslim provoked disapproval.

The shelter brought in a hairdresser, whose services she accepted without any misgivings. But once her hair was styled, administrators urged her to throw off her veil, saying it symbolized the male oppression native to Islam that she wanted to escape.Instead the woman, who asked for anonymity because she feared further violence from her relatives, decamped to the Hamdard Center for Health and Human Services in suburban Chicago, a shelter that caters mainly to Muslim women by not serving pork and keeping prayer rugs handy. Such shelters are extremely rare nationwide, activists say, because Muslim Americans only recently began confronting the issue of spousal abuse.

Do we really need separate shelters for Muslim women? That's really sad. A shelter shouldn't be a place to question someone's beliefs. A woman comes to a shelter seeking help, and that's what she needs. She doesn't need someone to tell her that her entire life is based on something that oppresses her. And this woman filed for divorce, sought help from imams and family, and endured tremendous abuse because of it. The headscarf does not equal oppression for this 29-year old woman. The husband and family do.

It's good that she had a place like the Hamdard Center to go, but it's extremely sad that she needs it. Shelters are hard to start in Muslim communities, because they like to pretend it's not a problem. Well, I guess it isn't if the verse you take literally tells you it's okay.

People are working to change the interpretation, but it doesn't look good. I guess we should feel lucky that Christian and Jewish fundamentalists are a little wishy-washy on the whole literal thing. If I had to leave the city every time I had a period, I would probably have to kill someone.

Isabel Allende is a Goddess

Sure, I haven't loved every one of her books, but this is a great speech. It's worth watching the whole thing. I promise.

From last year's TED conference:

More opinions on "Reproductive Outsourcing"

I think Feministe does a much better job of saying what I meant about the recent India surrogacy boom. Here's where they really hit it:

If we’re going to do the surrogacy thing — and we already are doing it — then let’s call it what it is: An exchange of money for services. And let’s not pussyfoot around the fact that in a whole lot of service industries, the people providing services are poor, female and brown. Think of housekeepers, fieldworkers, childcare providers, elder-care workers — all of these women use their bodies in the service of others. Many of them are exploited, some are abused, and most are under-paid. But we only go into panic mode when the services provided are sexual.

But the article took it to the next, more important step:

Rich white American women paying poor women of color in developing nations to gestate their children for them seems wrong. I don’t oppose reproductive technologies, but it gets trickier when you’re paying someone in a far less privileged situation to be a human incubator for you. I have to roll my eyes at the way surrogacy is framed in order to fit in with acceptable constructions of femininity — women are surrogate mothers because they love being pregnant, not because they need to make money and pregnancy is a pretty good way to do that. Addressing the poverty issue would require us to actually look at who is getting ahead and at whose expense, and that doesn’t tend to go over so well. Addressing surrogacy as one service industry among many wherein the bodies of poor women of color are used to further the wants of wealthier white people would require us to look at the systematic racisms and inequalities that prop up the entire global economy. And that definitely does not go over so well.

Very nicely put.

Well, as long as it comes in pink...

It's a Taser party! It started with Tupperware, moved to Discovery Toys, then Pampered Chef, now Tasers! Okay, maybe it's just that my mom is a sucker for these kinds of things. At least I left out Longaberger Baskets.

Since Tupperware, the party sale has been an elusive yet tantalizing occupation for women in all walks of life. And Dana Shafman wants to bring the tradition into the self-defense field. Shafman travels around Arizona and hosts parties where women can hold, test, and buy Tasers. According to Shafman, most women go for the pink taser. "It's a girl power kind of thing," she says.
(Is that dude over on the top right of the picture part of your girl power? I would need a lady showing me how its done at MY Taser party.)

As far as self-defense goes, I think I would shock myself trying to get it out of my backpack or purse. But hey, I guess it's better than SLEEPING WITH A KNIFE UNDER YOUR PILLOW, as Shafman claims to have done!

The Yellow Wallpaper

Just finished reading The Yellow Wallpaper, by late 19th/early 20th century writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. You can read the short story by clicking here.

The story provides a lot of insight into the plight of women at the turn of the century. It's written in the voice of a woman suffering from postpartum depression before anyone knew what that was. She's put away and forced to rest, which only makes her depression worse.

Anyway, it's a good, quick read. And it says a lot.

Misguided

When asked who he'd like to feature on the new version of American Gladiators (yikes) , Hulk Hogan, freakishly blonde man/horse, said: "Without a doubt, Rosie O'Donnell. Somebody needs to shut that big mouth up."

First, let me say: what a fucking asshole. Sure, I think Rosie O'Donnell is a little annoying, but jesus christ. You could've just chosen not to answer the question.

Second, this was O'Donnell's response, which she posted on her blog:

(Rosie: you're not helping. I'm glad you feel you can speak your mind, as a proud, chunky, lesbian. Honestly. But dear god, stop writing poems. PLEASE!!!!)

Dead in Iraq

by Rosie O'Donnell

hulk hogan
the wrestler guy

wants to pummel me
isnt that sweet
and wildly odd

its like a gang of gross guys
a club almost
old dumb white and on tv

nearly 4000 dead in iraq
focus
we r in atlanta
for jane fondas b day
70 and stunning
she - i adore

GCAPP.ORG
peace out

Holy Crap

I saw this on Feministing today.

An actual headline from the actual New York Post about the death of notorious abuser Ike Turner. While at first, to some, this might seem clever and maybe funny, further thought reveals how offensive and distasteful it is.

Sorry, maybe feminists don't have a sense of humor. But to me, this is horrible.