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.

DC Madam: A Very Personal Eulogy From Susie Bright

Susie Bright, author of a bunch of great sexual politics books and all-around awesome lady has a touching post up on her blog about Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the DC Madam who hung herself recently.

I have to quote the whole thing, because it offers tremendous insight into Palfrey, and it's a wonderful picture of a woman seeking to understand another woman:

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the "DC Madam" whose call-girl service got busted in the cross-hairs of partisan payback, has committed suicide. She hung herself at her mother's home in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Susie's talk with Jeane, 2007 (mp3): Link

Transcript of DJP interview: Link

Jeane, I am so sorry. I know you swore to me that you'd never serve another term in prison for prostitution, or anything else. You almost lost your eyesight the first time. I'm sure you asked your lawyers if there was any hope for your sentencing, and I guess it must have looked bleak.

I know how pissed you were. This was an act of revenge, and I know who you're determined to haunt.

You were righteously furious at all the men who "walked away."

I'm sure that goes quite a ways back, but it certainly includes the esteemed gents on your client list: Louisiana fundamentalist, Senator David Vitter; Abstinence Ambassador Randall Tobias, who squashed AIDS funds all over the world; "Shock and Awe" war profiteer, Harlan Ullman.

And that was just the expendable layer. None of them were charged with anything; all are living quite comfortably, in particular because they have no conscience whatsoever.

Was Jeane suicidal, in the first place? Yes, but I'd describe that carefully. She wasn't irrational to think she wouldn't survive another round in a penitentiary; her health was poor. And she was brittle, the kind of person who is aware of her considerable intellect and education, but who finds herself in unlucky and vulnerable situations over and over again.

She was gullible to the wrong kinda guys, the kind of men who turned her out when she was young, whom she mistakenly placed faith in when she was looking for love, or a safe harbor. She's the kind of woman who should've been groomed for university when she was young, and cultivated for her bright mind and sensitivities. Instead, she was exploited and wasted— and her bitterness, her depression, was a result of that cruel awareness.

She tried to "go straight" after the first round in prison, and of course, was undermined by the typical prejudices against her record. She became more angry about the hypocrites, and determined to beat them at their own game. But it's clear that when Cheney bigwigs were on her tail, she wasn't going to beat their surveillance and manipulations.

Why doesn't everyone kill themselves when they're facing hard odds like Jeane did? Well, that's the million-karma question. All I can offer at this point, is painfully prescient rhetoric: Hell hath no fury like a smart woman scorned.... and justice has NOT been served.

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?

Lindsay Campbell vs. Silda Wall Spitzer

I commented on the site. Here's a little taste. Go check it out on the site. The discussion's getting REALLY heated.

Lindsay and I debate:

Amanda

A couple beefs with your argument:

1. If she hadn't shown up, if she'd been out at under-funded schools, Slida Wall Spitzer would've been attacked, just like she's being attacked now. This is a lose/lose situation for her. Just imagine: "What a bitch! She can't even support her husband as he apologizes to her!" Here's the headline: "Slida Wall Shuns Disgraced Husband." This is all about his career. If he resigns, she can't do all the good it seems she's trying to do. At least not as easily. (She's trying to convince him not to resign - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336688,00.html)
2. What would a visit to under-funded schools do? She'd get press, but for all the wrong reasons.
3. If this was a woman politician and it was her husband standing up there with her, he'd be considered a sensitive, forgiving man. This is how the game is played. It's a silent show of support when someone fucks up.
4. The "downcast eyes" - it looks to me like she was reading his speech along with him. Maybe she helped him write it.
5. In this case, as in the other cases you mentioned, the personal has become political. Slida Wall Spitzer made a personal choice to stand up next to her husband. The implications of her NOT standing up there would've been just as bad.

I like your rage and the discussion it starts, but I'm not going to judge Slida Wall Spitzer for a careful choice she made. Yes, it would've been cool if she had made another choice. Interesting, at the very least. But imagine how many people would've been calling her a bitch if she'd made that other choice. She may have taken the easy, expected way out, but she chose to keep her battle personal by not making any public waves. I can't blame her for that.

lindsaycampbell


"She may have taken the easy, expected way out, but she chose to keep her battle personal by not making any public waves. I can't blame her for that."

Yeah, Amanda, this is the exact part that I find so distressing. If there's no way to keep it personal, then the choice you make can't truly be your own anyway. You have to think about the headlines. And your job and your husbands job. Where is the humanity is all that?

I disagree that the same pressure would be on the husband of a powerful female politician. We've yet to test that out but I think the standard would change.

Amanda

There is no humanity. But it's not Silda Wall Spitzer's fault. It's politics. Games, deception, hypocrisy, it's all in there. Silda Wall Spitzer was essentially doing her job. She could've quit, yes, but she didn't want to. That's her choice.

It's hard to know if a husband would get as much pressure to stand up, but in a world where the positions in this situation were flipped, and Eliot stood next to his wife Silda, I think the reaction would be very different.

The Boobs Save the Day

We can count on FoxNews to report this one.

A Japanese pin-up model has had a legal verdict overturned after successfully arguing her breasts were too big to allow her to squeeze through a hole a man alleged she used to gain entry into his room.

Serena Kozakura was convicted last year of property destruction after a man accused her of kicking in his door and crawling inside to confront him about his activities with another woman, Agence France-Presse reports.

Kozakura won her appeal Monday after the Tokyo High Court agreed her 44-inch bust was indeed too large for her to gain entry through the hole, AFP reports.

"I used to hate my body so much," she told local media, according to the report. "But it was my breasts," she said, that won in court.

Tell me this woman would've gotten off if she just had a really big stomach. I don't think so.

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.

FoxNews Makes it "Classy"

Romney's suspended, Rove is on FoxNews, and I'm feeling better! Anyway, on with the post.

In a creepy attempt to wrap things up in a tidy bow, Oliver North (through FoxNews) has written this gem.

"Women, Children and Mentally Disabled are New 'Martyrs' For Al Qaeda
North gives us a history lesson about where the phrase "women and children first" came from to illustrate how tragic Al Qaeda's recent use of mentally challenged women was.

The best part:

The natural instinct of civilized human beings is to protect those who are more vulnerable in the face of danger. Civilized cultures have placed women on a pedestal, not because they are less capable, but because we honor them and hold them in a special place in our society.

The article notes this was not the first time, and that children have been taken advantage of in this way as well.

It then gives an example of women who were used as front-line soldiers. North ends the article with a sigh and a tear: "In radical Islam, the slogan “women and children first” has taken on a whole new meaning."

But the article doesn't talk about all the women who are volunteering for al Qaeda because they're angry, because everyone around them is dying, because extremism makes sense to them. These women aren't being used because they're "vulnerable," they're as angry as the male suicide bombers. Don't get me wrong: there's nothing good about any of this (North's article included).

At the base of this article is the assumption that women are (again) vulnerable, special. At the base of this article, women are not equal to the men around them. And while that is true under Sharia law, it's ostensibly no longer true here.

More Powerful Women Fighting Back

Women are so helpless. Via the AP:

Women Teach Suspects a Very Hard Lesson

10 hours ago

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. (AP) — It looks like a couple of suburban St. Louis purse snatchers picked the wrong women to attack. The victims fought back — with a snow shovel.

Police in Maryland Heights released details of the Sunday incident outside a Schnucks grocery store. The women were unloading groceries when the thieves tried to steal two purses from their cart.

One of the women grabbed a shovel from the suspects' pickup and smacked one of the men upside the head. The other woman jumped into the cab and attacked the other suspect, then grabbed the keys so he couldn't drive away.

Police tracked the men to a hotel. The man struck with the shovel required staples to close the gash in his head.

Both are jailed and charged with robbery.

Information from: KMOV-TV, http://www.kmov.com

Right on, ladies.

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.

The Short Bus

Mexico City announced today that they are rolling out women-only buses. There are (of course) pink signs in the windshield to ward off men.

Verbal and physical abuse is a daily occurrence for women in the city, and most residents seem very happy about the whole thing.

I'm glad women won't have to worry as much as they used to. No one should dread going outside because they fear they'll be groped or hooted at. (Do those assholes think we like that?) But is segregation really the way to go? Women are being forced to separate themselves because the men refuse to behave like people.

Yes, it fixes the problem right now, but I don't see this being a temporary thing. In addition to protection around the city (REAL protection), they should educate men, put laws in place, hell, advertise how horrible it is to terrorize women.

Hey, Hollaback, get your message out there for us!

I know all this is easy for me to say. I don't have to live there. And I'm happy Mexico City found a temporary solution that will help keep women safe. But I hope it's just temporary. History says it's not.

You stole my wife!

Women can be stolen legally in Mississippi.

And the Supreme Court couldn't be bothered. Of course the good news is, it's a unisex law that permits

a cuckolded spouse to seek damages for "loss of society, companionship, love and affection," as well as "the loss of sexual relations."

No, wait. NOT GOOD NEWS. People should NOT be able to sue for this kind of thing. Stating the obvious, or so I thought.

"Women Make Great Propaganda"...

Mohammad Hafiz told the AP (via the Huffington Post). It's not what you think. He's a professor at the University of Missouri, who specializes in Muslim extremism.

I've been reading articles on this subject, but this one is wrapped in a pretty bow.

The article is about the recent prevalence of female al-Qaida suicide bombers (2% since May 2005).

That's the thing about extremists. They get obsessed with one thing and forget all the pomp and circumstance. al-Qaida doesn't care that women shouldn't be involved in war according to Muslim taboos. They care that women can get through security checkpoints easily because male security guards are too conservative to give them a good pat-down.

I disagree with any type of extremism. I've always tried to see everyone's point of view, but I can't see how you get to whatever heaven or glory you're looking for by killing people.

Okay, off of my soapbox for tonight.

The article mentions that al-Qaida's use of women as suicide bombers could be an act of desperation. I don't have any primary knowledge or anything, but I don't think so. More women are getting angry or getting "spiritual," and, as Hafiz says, "women make great propaganda."

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!

Some Women Do Ridiculous Things

Woman wipes nose on cop.

She was arrested for slapping, biting, and spitting on a man. Then she blew her nose on the back of the police officer's uniform. Yikes.

Bhutto Assassinated

Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani opposition leader and former Prime Minister, was shot when she appeared at a political campaign rally (I don't know that the shot has been verified). She was then hit by shrapnel when a bomb went off. At least 22 others were killed in the attack.

Bhutto was a strong opposing voice in Pakistan(the first woman to be elected in a Muslim state), and this will likely affect the upcoming elections and the mounting tension within Pakistan. And what will Bush do? The candidates?

Sad Santa

If every woman who was a victim of sexual assault got this attention, we'd never hear any other news.

In Danbury, Connecticut, a woman on crutches was arrested for groping santa.

The 65 year old santa was embarrassed. The woman denies any unwelcome or unwanted (to borrow corporate sexual harassment slang) touch.

She was arrested for 4th-degree sexual assault and breach of peace. How, exactly, did she breach peace? Hmmm...

I don't think women should get any different treatment than men for this kind of stuff, but this seems unequal to me. Just check out Hollaback NYC for all the groping that's going on out there.

Is this woman being treated differently because she's a woman? Because he's 65? Because he's santa? I'd say all of the above.

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.

Australian Brutality

I don't know much about Australian history, except that it was the country where convicts were sent. Thanks to this Broadsheet article, I came across this poor girl's story.

Turns out Americans aren't the only ones who have problems with rape allegations. A ten-year old girl, in foster care forever and diagnosed as "mildly intellectually impaired" and a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome, must have agreed to have sex to the 9 boys who gang raped her. According to the judge: "I accept that the girl involved, with respect to all of these matters, was not forced, and that she probably agreed to have sex with all of you."

To be fair, Australians are already calling for Judge Bradley to step aside.

Uh...YEAH! To make matters worse, this is Judge Bradley:

The Yoga Stick of Death

We've all heard by now that Linda Stein's PA, Natavia Lowery, has been arrested for Stein's murder. Lowery confessed to beating Stein with her own four-pound exercise stick six or seven times. Case closed, murder solved.

This is a bizarro case in which no party comes out smelling rosy. Linda Stein apparently verbally abused Lowery. She waved the stick at her and blew pot in Lowery's face.

Lowery has been accused of identity theft and was in charge of things like social security numbers and bank accounts belonging to really rich people.

Anyone who's been a PA knows that it's thankless, tiring work. I've never wanted to kill a boss, but then I've never actually been a PA. If you aren't treated like a human being, you're not going to behave like one. For some, it takes longer than others. For Lowery, it only took four months. Why didn't she just quit?

Regardless, this is an issue of humans treating other humans like garbage. It happens every day and sometimes there are consequences.I'm not in any way condoning what Lowery did. She was stupid for not quitting a job that made her feel the way she did. But maybe this is the pound on the head people need to start treating each other better.

Just saying for the record: I love my bosses. They treat everyone equally and never condescend. Actually, I've been lucky most of my life to have good people telling me what to do. But I can only imagine what it must've been like for Lowery.

Aside from all the general human being stuff, what does this mean for women?

Linda Stein was a powerful woman. She managed The Ramones and went to Studio 54. She was a breast cancer survivor. She was a loud New Yorker. And Elton John is writing a song in memory of her. Lowery...all we know is she has this identity theft thing in her past and she murdered Stein.

The crime, the people involved, it all adds up to "those crazy women doing crazy things." All the papers are ringing with it. They love a good "catfight." I hate it. Sure, she was sort of famous. But would her murder be getting as much publicity if it weren't so...juicy?

And this yoga stick thing makes us all look bad. It's like a D-movie, where women pull hair and wear short skirts. It's like Chuck (seriously, cat fights factor in way too often in that show). I know neither party was thinking about the implications for women, nor should they have. But I, for one, can only hang my head and say: we're not all like that. I don't even USE a yoga stick.