Kripa at the Abortion Gang describes her thought process in becoming pro-choice, and she explains that woman’s role in life is more complex than only being a biological mother.
I realized I’m pro-choice the first time I heard an IVF ad in high school. I was well aware that people can have trouble having babies when they really want to have one. I was well aware that realizing that you cannot have a child of your own when you really want one is heartbreaking. And I realized that it can make a woman feel like a failure as a woman. I sympathize, I really do. And I sympathized then.
But what I couldn’t condone was the way the ad played on this feminine insecurity. I couldn’t countenance how the ad upheld this idea that your worth is based on producing genetic spawn of yourself. I couldn’t condone a mindset that placed a premium on having biological offspring and completely marginalized the value of adopting. But what upset me the most was the underlying attitude that a woman’s place was having babies. Fuck that noise, I thought. Children or no, a woman’s life and livelihood can be full and worthwhile.
A 16 year old girl faces Afghan justice after she was sold, raped and jailed. Deepa Babington gives us the story at the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.
For the shy Afghan girl who sat quietly in a detention center with a pale blue headscarf, teenage rebellion had come at a heavy price: seven years in prison. Engaged to an older man who had offered $5,000 to her father but in love with a boy she spoke to on the phone, the 16-year-old girl was hauled before a court that found her guilty of running away from home, according to an account she provided.
"I was engaged to an older man and I was not happy. He was painting his beard black," said the girl, who cannot be named because of rules protecting juvenile detainees.
After years of the IUD being limits to younger women, a new generation finally supports the once beleaguered birth control. Meredith Melnick at Newsweek explains us the story of IUD and the revolution of birth control.
Before she began her freshman year at Stanford University, Jenny, 18, realized she might start having sex during college. She wanted to be prepared, so her doctor put her on birth-control pills. She quickly learned that she was allergic to the synthetic forms of estrogen and progesterone found in hormone-based contraceptives.
"I went on this birth-control odyssey," Jenny says with a laugh (she asked to use a nickname to save her religious family from embarrassment). "I couldn’t use the pill, the ring, or the patch."
After some investigation, Jenny decided on one of the only nonhormonal methods on the market, a copper intrauterine device (IUD), a method that would have been unavailable to her even a few years ago. For years, the IUD was FDA-approved only for women who had gone through childbirth: in 2005 the FDA broadened the approval to include all women.
Since the shift in FDA approval, women who are young, single, and childless like Jenny are turning to the device, which boasts the lowest failure rate of any reversible contraceptive on the market: 1 percent. (By comparison, the pill fails 3 percent of the time and condoms fail 12 percent when used imperfectly.) As a result, since 2005, IUD use has gone up by 161 percent with numbers continuing to increase, according to consumer health-care data from SDI Health. The company also found that IUD insertions went up 23 percent between January 2008 and January 2009. (During that same yearlong period, total contraceptive prescriptions fell by 2.6 percent.)
Becca Stanger wrote in WMC that we should fight for the supreme court nominee that women deserve.
In a letter to President Obama, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced this morning that he will be retiring by the end of June. Justice Stevens has been one of the Supreme Court’s strongest supporters of women’s right to choose, and we will miss his strong presence on the bench as we continue the fight for women’s rights.
President Obama responded to this news by declaring this afternoon his intention to quickly nominate and confirm a judicial candidate who “knows that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.” Let us hope President Obama models the qualities he hopes for in his nominee and fights for the often overpowered voices of women.Fortunately, rumor has it that President Obama’s current shortlist of three potential nominees includes two women – Solicitor General Elena Kagan and appellate court judge Diane Wood. This hope of a more just representation on our national bench is welcome news in light of the fact that women’s concerns were already thrown under the bus this year during health care reform.
Katrina Alcorn at MomsRising explains us the reason that she started taking sleep pills and the reason that she stopped taking them.
This morning, for the first time in almost a year, I did not take a pill when I got out of bed. The reason I took these pills, and the reason I stopped, has to do with a word I learned recently:
Iatrogenic, which means ’caused by the doctors.’
I’ll start at the beginning.
For six years, I “balanced” a demanding job, a commute, and raising young children. All things considered, I thought I was managing really well until just before my last child turned one year old. Then, the stress and exhaustion I’d been holding at bay engulfed me. I could barely get out of bed, or eat, or think. I couldn’t work, so I took a leave of absence.
I made an appointment with a psychiatrist who, naturally enough, prescribed anti-depressants. Makes sense, right? Because by the time I dragged myself into her office, I was really, really depressed.
I was also really, really anxious. I was having horrible, crippling panic attacks almost daily, and I was waking up in the middle of the night, shaking, heart pounding, unable to go back to sleep. (more…)
Finally, Tina Fey was on SNL last weekend and questions about her feminism started popping up immediately. The Frisky had the low-down.
I knew this was going to happen: Tina Fey hosted “Saturday Night Live” this past weekend and yesterday morning, our fellow lady blogs were all abuzz with complain-y posts. Bloggers I read and respect, including Sady Doyle at Feministe, Jessica Grose at Double X, and Irin Carmon at Jezebel, took to their blogs to react to Fey‘s hosting gig. And I understand why women were watching, fingers poised to the keyboard: Whip-smart and witty Fey is a role model for millions of women and girls.
Still, I’ll bet Jude Law didn’t have to deal with being over-analyzed to death the Monday morning after he hosted.
You want more feminist links? Check back here next Tuesday! And, if you have links to share, please email them to us or leave them in the comments.
