This Week in the War on Women (October 26)
October 27, 2013
This is cross-posted at DailyKos.
WOMAN AS VESSEL DEPARTMENT
“Case Explores Rights of Fetus Versus Mother”
I get that the authorities really really really care about fetuses, because, God, but how come we women don’t get the God protection? You know, I’m fed up with trying to understand these bullies because there is nothing honorable about them and no bible thumping with prove otherwise (besides, my bible is a scroll). Honestly, Get Your Compassion Out Of Our Wombs!
“JACKSON, Wis. — Alicia Beltran cried with fear and disbelief when county sheriffs surrounded her home on July 18 and took her in handcuffs to a holding cell.
“She was 14 weeks pregnant and thought she had done the right thing when, at a prenatal checkup, she described a pill addiction the previous year and said she had ended it on her own — something later verified by a urine test. But now an apparently skeptical doctor and a social worker accused her of endangering her unborn child because she had refused to accept their order to start on an anti-addiction drug.
“Ms. Beltran, 28, was taken in shackles before a family court commissioner who, she says, brushed aside her pleas for a lawyer. To her astonishment, the court had already appointed a legal guardian for the fetus.” (highlighting mine)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/us/case-explores-rights-of-fetus-versus-mother.html?hp&_r=0
WOMEN WHO ARE TOO OLD TO BE PERT AND BOUNCY DEPARTMENT
San Diego, which brought us creepy Mayor Bob Filner, now offers Matthew Tucker, who fires the ladies who he doesn’t enjoy looking at because they’re too darn old.
“SAN DIEGO — A former employee of the North County Transit District has sued the public transportation agency, claiming its executive director, Matthew Tucker, illegally targeted employees -- specifically, older female employees -- for layoffs, then retaliated when his decisions were questioned.”
“Heidi Rockey, a former grants specialist who resigned from NCTD in July 2012, told inewsourceTucker made a habit of firing, laying off or demoting women over 40.”
And there you have it: “According to sources who were either the subject of the statements or witnessed the actions firsthand, Tucker frequently referred to older female employees as “grandma”; asked if they had enough energy to do their jobs; suggested they dye their hair to look younger; and repeatedly said younger women were “easier on the eyes” than their predecessors.”
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/oct/23/war-women-over-40-lawsuit-claims-sex-gender-bias-n/
http://inewsource.org/war-on-women-over-40-linked/
WOMEN BEING PUSHED BACK INTO THE KITCHEN DEPARTMENT
“The war on voting is a war on women” in Texas and Beyond
“The assault on voting rights is a naked attempt to suppress the votes of minorities, students, the elderly, and the poor. But don’t be fooled. This War on Voting is an essential part of the War on Women.”
“What is not commonly known, however, is that women are among those most affected by voter ID laws. In one survey, 66% of women voters had an ID that reflected their current name, according to the Brennan Center. The other 34% of women would have to present both a birth certificate and proof of marriage, divorce, or name change in order to vote, a task that is particularly onerous for elderly women and costly for poor women who may have to pay to access these records.”
Lesson Learned? Don’t change your name when you get married. That will show them!
And get out and vote, always, because this is an endless war against our rights.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-war-voting-war-women
Same story covered on the Rachel Maddow Show.
“And yet, state Republicans approved a discriminatory voter-ID law anyway. As Ari Berman explained, the law is off to a rough start: ‘Based on Texas’s own data, 600,000 to 800,000 registered voters don’t have the government-issued ID needed to cast a ballot, with Hispanics 46 to 120 percent more likely than whites to lack an ID. But a much larger segment of the electorate, particularly women, will be impacted by the requirement that a voter’s ID be ‘substantially similar’ to their name on the voter registration rolls. According to a 2006 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, a third of all women have citizenship documents that do not match their current legal name.’”
Unbelievable. Texas has a law that forces a women to change her name on her official Texas state ID card, speaking about major control issues. So instead of having a middle name and a maiden name, on a Texas ID card, your maiden name becomes your middle name. How the heck did that get passed? But, because of this name change, many women won’t be able to vote because none of their other documents that they need to further prove who they are, have their name written that way—because it’s not their name. So, Texas gets to rename just about every married woman in the state—and screw them at the same time.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-the-war-voting-meets-the-war-women
ENDLESSLY RECURRING DEPARTMENT: GIRL RAPED. BOY CHARGED. CHARGES DROPPED. GIRL HARASSED.
How the hell does this keep on happening? Why do boys deserve protection but not girls?
“I'M DAISY COLEMAN, THE TEENAGER AT THE CENTER OF THE MARYVILLE RAPE MEDIA STORM, AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED”
“You may have heard my story, thanks to Anonymous who trended #justice4daisy. I'm not done fighting yet.”
Wisdom from Daisy: “I not only survived, I didn't give up. I've been told that a special prosecutor is going to reopen the case now. This is a victory, not just for me, but for every girl.
“I just hope more men will take a lesson from my brothers.
“They look out for women. They don't prey on them.”
http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/daisy-coleman-maryville-rape
“One way to think about Daisy and Paige’s choice to come forward is that they are trusting in the transparency of good journalism and, yes, the Internet. Before their story ran in the Star, the girls were the targets of vicious victim-blaming in their town. Locally, their names had been shredded. Now that the lens for their story has widened beyond Maryville, they’re getting the support they didn’t before. Daisy wrote about how “#justice4Daisy has trended on the Internet, and pressure has come down hard on the authorities who thought they could hide what really happened.” She’s right: The county prosecutor has called in a special prosecutor to reopen the case.”
Information also here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/daisy-coleman-rape-case_n_4145104.html
http://www.dailykos.com/blog/This%20Week%20in%20the%20War%20on%20Women
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT WHY THIS MAY BE HAPPENING
The conversational rage this week, at least at Slate, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, seems to be that young women should not drink to excess because this may lead to their being raped. Is this news? Do we not know this even as we know that no matter how drunk, no woman asks to be raped, AND THE BLAME IS ON THE RAPIST.
The New York Times, in its Room for Debate section, examined this question: “With studies finding an association between binge drinking and rape on college campuses, is there anything wrong with telling women not to get blind drunk?”
Some of the voices:
“But, until that change fully takes hold, women remain vulnerable to forms of sexual violence against which the criminal law does not adequately protect them. Since that is so, it is essential – in some spaces, at some times, for some audiences – to make sure that women are told how to protect themselves.” Anne M. Coughlin is the Lewis F. Powell Jr. professor of law at the University of Virginia.
“Calling for young
women to become teetotalers as a solution to the problem of rape on college
campuses is not only old advice, but also wrongheaded and dangerous.”
Mychal Denzel Smith is Knobler fellow at The Nation Institute.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/10/23/young-women-drinking-and-rape
Apparently this was the article that got it started: College Women: Stop Getting Drunk. It’s closely associated with sexual assault. And yet we’re reluctant to tell women to stop doing it.” by Emily Yoffe
“The young woman laments the whole campus landscape of alcohol-soaked hookup sex. ‘Women are encouraged to do it, which ignores all the risks for us,’ she says. ‘You get embarrassed and ashamed, so you try to make light of it. Then women get violated and degraded, and they accept it. Who does this culture benefit? Alcohol predators. It doesn’t liberate anybody.’”
And Ruth Marcus at The Washington Post, in Thursday’s column notes, “The message of Emily Yoffe’s Slate article about binge drinking and sexual assault on college campuses was as important as it was obvious: The best step that young women can take to protect themselves is to stop drinking to excess.”
“Young women everywhere — not to mention their mothers — ought to be thanking Yoffe. Instead, she’s being pilloried.”
GEE, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN DEPARTMENT
154,000 Fewer Women Held Jobs in September; Female Participation in Labor Force Matches 24-Year Low
“In September, according to BLS, the labor force participation rate for women was 57.1 percent, down from 57.3 percent in August and 57.4 percent in July. The female labor force participation rate had also dropped to 57.1 percent this March.”
PETITION: CONCEALER SHOULD NOT CAUSE CANCER
“Revlon--one of the biggest cosmetics manufacturers in the country--is running ads promoting their support for breast cancer awareness while selling products to women that actually contain cancer-causing chemicals!”Sign the petition: http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/revlon_toxic_chemicals/
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