You are growing up in a house with no mirrors.  That’s right, no mirrors.  But wait a sec, it’s not just your house!  As you venture out into the world, you discover there are no mirrors anywhere.  You can’t see what you look like and must rely on other people to tell you about yourself.  

You are growing up in a family, a church, a school, a community that corrects you every time you speak for yourself, even if it’s only an idea in development or a dream or a wish.  They know what’s best for you to undertake as well as what’s best for you to think.

You are confronted with this education and advice so pervasively that ultimately you don’t know what you think.  You can’t tell what you really feel or what you really want and you have no authentic connection to a sense of self or agency.  You might even be angry but you can’t be sure because you can’t feel your own feelings and, anyway, you’ve been taught that angry women are ugly and will end up as lonely spinsters.

You are growing up in a family where the policy for misbehaving is to whup all the children in the family no matter who may have misbehaved and no matter what the cause of the misbehavior.  When something goes awry, all the children get a whupping right there, together.  It’s a family ritual.  It seems to really cut down on the hijinks of those kids, alright.

You are a member of a losing team and nobody on the team can figure out why they keep losing.  How can this be?  The team members practice, practice, practice.  They are perfectionists, trying so hard to please their coach, their school, their parents!  They scrutinize their performance and themselves so harshly that the sport is no longer fun. Feeling like losers has taken over their lives and they’re so desperate they’re ready to settle for one win!  Just one!  Is that so much to ask?  But no, this is a jinxed team.  This team never wins.  As the losing seasons roll on, the teammates begin to silently and secretly hate themselves.  They would never admit it, but they hate each other, too. Somebody on the team has to be the culprit, the one responsible for losing every game.

Do you have a metaphor for Internalized Misogyny?  Share it here!

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"Starting from the Scratch," the new book by Susan M. Gilber-Collins will make you laugh at some parts and weep in others. It’s a quick read but definitely worth it (via Feminist Review).

Lori Freedman is a sociologist and she wrote the book "Willing and Unable: Doctors’ Constraints in Abortion Care." Through this book, she “primarily wanted to find out what keeps physicians who feel positive about providing abortion from doing so.”  (via Feminist Review).

Events

Join  the Women’s Media Center, Women’s Campaign Forum Foundation, Political Parity, and Lake Research Partners online this Tuesday at 11am for the livestream of Name It. Change It. A national campaign to ensure accountability through a "coordinated rapid response network to dramatically decrease incidences of media misogyny directed at women running for elected office" (more info here).

Do you want to show your personal story behind these global targets? ViewChangeFilmContest.org is launching an online competition to find powerful new stories about the progress being made in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Don’t forget that the deadline for submission is August 31st (more info @ Association for Women Rights).

Women’s Voices from the muslim world. Women’s Voices Now (WVN) organizes a short-film festival to give voice to women of all faiths living in Muslim-majority countries and Muslim women living as minorities around the globe (more info at Association for Women Rights). 

Got an event coming up or a tip to share? Let us know!  

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Particularly relevant to the times: Eliza Griswold brings us "The Tenth Parallel," a book that describes “where Muslims and Christians drew lines in the sand" (via NY Time).

"The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter" is a true story by Holly Robinson — one she didn’t always want to share. She emphasizes in the best way that “ there is no such thing as a ‘normal’ childhood.” (Feminist Review)

"Eat, Pray, Love" became a bestseller again (surprise!) for a second time since 2006. Of course, the movie based on the book explains this phenom. However, the book touches an interesting subject: how you can recover and try to rediscover your life after an "unsuccesful" marriage. Reviews of the book (and movie) have always been mixed, but we think it’s worth taking a read if you haven’t. If you’ve read it, what did you think? (via LA Times)

From Prem K. Bhandari: millions of women die each year from all kinds of deadly diseases. Learn what they are, how to spot them and how to best deal with the medical community about preventative and remedial treatments. (at Amazon)

Events:

On Thursday, August 26th, you can join the discussion, “Ain’t I a Woman: A Complicated Story of Women’s Suffrage in Black and White” at the William G. McGowan Theater at the National Archives. "To commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum has joined with the National Archives Experience and the National Park Service’s Mary McLeod Bethune Council House for a panel discussion on the women’s suffrage movement and its lasting impact on race and gender in the United States. The discussion will analyze the women’s rights movement through the unique, historic, and parallel perspectives of these historic houses and museums." Visit the Sewall-Belmont website for more details. (via the Younger Women’s Task Force).

One more interesting discussion and celebration for women. On Thursday August 26th, Women ‘s eNews invites you to Women’s Equality Day in New York City— the day in 1920 when women gained the right to vote in the United States—to talk about equality in politics and media. (more info at feministing.com)

Across the pond? Go and hang out the “Sidney Feminist Meet-Up." It’s a good chance for a good chat and picnic in the Victoria Park. (more info at feministing.com).

Got an event coming up or a tip to share? Let us know! 

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A book full of feminine energy! "Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the heart" The book is a collection of essays edited by Nina Simons with Anneke Campbell (via Feminist Review).

How we can bridge the gap between two different worlds: Western students and Eastern teachers? Wise Teacher, Wise Student: Tibetan approaches to a Healthy Relationship, a new book by Alexander Berzin, tries to give us the answer (via Feminist Review).

The singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash is the writer of "Composed," the book that explains to us how she grew up with and without her father Johnny Cash and about how she finally became a gifted artist in her own right without the shadow of her father (via NY Times).

Events:

Is there something unique and powerful about the managerial style of women?  On Wednesday, August 18, @ 6:30pm the Younger Women’s Task Force in Washington D.C. organizes "The Effect of Women in Management: A Discussion with Dr. Cristian Deszo" (more info).

Are you participating in the Susan B. Anthony 5k in California this weekend? (via Feminist. org)

Also in DC, tomorrow from 9.30am-6.00pm go out to help the District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH) decorate their new housing resource for domestic abuse survivors, the Cornerstone Residence. Take a morning or afternoon shift to help with hanging curtains, making beds, stocking kitchens and bathrooms, and other tasks to get apartments ready for residents! Come with friends!  To sign up for a shift or get more information, contact Miranda at 202-726-3274 or mvargas@dashdc.org (via YWTF).

Nationwide: get geared up for Women’s Equality Day on August 26! (via Feminist.org)

Got an event coming up or a tip to share? Let us know! 

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Perhaps one of the biggest impediments to women’s equality in the United States is a pervasive, persistent and too-common myth: it’s all been done. It’s a cruel trick, as if the exhortation to girls that they can do anything is turned on its head into a "fait accompli" by mere affirmation and repetition. The struggle for women’s equality, we are somehow led to believe, is all but passé, as unnecessary as a typewriter, as "dead" as feminism, even when evidence to the contrary is right in front of us.

There is certainly still work to do. You’re still in a situation where women make 77 cents on the dollar, where any review of EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) charges or any scan through Westlaw (legal research service) would show you that there continues to be discrimination at work, at school. We still have work to be done to assure equality," said Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington D.C. "Whether they are able to label it as discrimination or not, most people are able to identify inequities at school, at work."

Yet, the overt may be easier to pinpoint than the subtle. In testimony in July to support the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U. S. Supreme Court, Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president and co-founder of the National Women’s Law Center, recounted the case of a 13-year old girl who was strip searched at school to see if she was hiding ibuprofen, a matter that came before the Supreme Court in 2009: "At oral argument, Justice Ginsburg, then the sole woman on the Court, described the humiliation and indignity a teenaged girl would have suffered by being forced to strip and even shake out her underwear in front of school officials. A number of male Justices questioned why it was so traumatic — one thinking back, for example, to experiences in locker rooms as a 13-year-old male." The court ultimately ruled in favor of the girl, noted Greenberger, due "at least in part to the perspective that Justice Ginsburg brought."

Greenberger has been at this work of trying to secure women’s rights as long as the existence of Title IX, the 1972 law that said educational institutions could not discriminate by gender. As a young lawyer she accepted a short-term assignment with the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) in D.C. to analyze whether there would be enough work for a women’s rights lawyer. Yes, she reported, and soon, she was heading the Women’s Rights Project, which, in turn, evolved into the National Women’s Law Center. It now has a staff of 60, an annual budget of $7.5 million … and the calls keep coming in.

"Our intake volume is high. There is no way that we can represent all of the people. We’re not sitting around fiddling our thumbs," said Graves.

Staff members monitor government policy, testify to Congress, issue public alerts,
lobby and litigate for the advancement of women and girls and working families in four core areas — employment, education, family economic security, and health and reproductive rights. "There are a lot of laws in place, and the question is how they are applied," said Graves.

Bush Fights for 1930s

Unfortunately, the George W. Bush administration answered that
question by trying to squeeze the life out of women’s equality in a thousand shreddings and shroudings, refusing to enforce existing laws, failing to staff women’s policy programs, removing information from public access, selecting judges indifferent or hostile to women’s equal rights. Efforts to conceal the shifts were often obscured, as well: one slap down of women’s athletic opportunities was announced late on a Friday evening after the news cycle had slowed to a dribble for the weekend.

"We saw a pretty serious rollback on equality in the Bush administration. We slid back during those years. There was a series of steady attacks and they continued," said Graves.

After only four years of the Bush presidency, the organization released a 77-page 
 report: Slip-Sliding Away. It details some of the most egregious assaults on the laws meant to protect women against discrimination.

Such as? The Department of Education suddenly archived its guidelines on sexual harassment. The Department of Labor removed materials on narrowing the wage gap from its website. The Department of Justice dropped cases challenging sex discrimination in employment. The Labor Department repealed a rule to help employees obtain paid leave for childbirth or adoption. The Department of Education refused to investigate the exclusion of women from math and science programs. Women’s Educational Equity, which helped schools comply with equal opportunities, was eliminated, even though funded by Congress. Emergency contraception was shoved into a stalled approval process, despite support of scientific panels. Low and moderate-income women didn’t stand a chance of benefiting from tax cuts, but did felt the resulting slash of social service programs.

"Actions with harsh effects on women are occurring almost completely ‘under the
radar,’" the report said. "And their low profile is no accident: these initiatives and positions are so out of touch with the views and aspirations of most American women – and men – that they would never be tolerated if subjected to public scrutiny."

One debacle offers a vivid example of regulatory dirty tricks. In 2002, Bush’s Secretary of Education, Rod Page, set up a commission to reevaluate Title IX rules, with the seeming intention of weakening women’s athletic opportunities and shifting the funding to men’s sports. ("Since Title IX was passed in 1972, it has been a source of extraordinary opposition and resistance by many," said Greenberger.) The commission made damaging recommendations that could have resulted in annual losses of 50,000 athletic participation opportunities and $122 million in scholarships for women, according to the law center.

One devious recommendation was to change the way that women’s athletic
participation is measured in colleges so that instead of using the campus population as a guide to divide up sports programs, women’s sports opportunities would be determined by the number of women (but not men) who responded to an email survey. Women who failed to reply – and email response is generally low — would be deemed uninterested, and the funds could be shifted to men’s athletic programming. Objections by two commissioners who supported women’s opportunities, soccer star Julie Foudy and swimmer Donna DeVarona, were drowned out, and Page would not even include their protestations in a minority report.

Public objections still arose against this loopy loophole, stopping Page – but only temporarily. He backed down. Then, after the mid-term elections in 2005 the rule was quietly put into place by Page in form of a regulatory "clarification." The public and the media were blindsided. Not until April 2010 could the standard be returned to its pre-Bush formulation when the Obama administration finally reversed it.

The Girls Are Not All Right

The devil really is in the details, as the cliché goes. These fiddly regulations, arcane language, collection and analysis of statistics are boring compared to the energizing movement moments: marching side-by-side under banners for liberation or even zipping email petitions to some member of Congress. "The conversation about data might not be a very exciting part of civil rights. But it really matters. It determines who gets paid attention to," said Graves.

Or, more clearly, who does not get attention. This is precisely, she said, how the skewed idea that girls are doing better than boys has been allowed to gain currency.

"There is a misperception that all girls are doing fine in school," says Graves, "but the
data doesn’t support that — especially when you look at race and gender together. Forty-nine percent of Native American girls, 43 percent of African-American and 41 percent of Latinas fail to graduate with their peers. There are very high pregnancy rates. We know that the treatment of pregnant and parenting girls is inconsistent, that there are schools that refuse to allow them to participate. When an article says "boys only"or "girls only," it misses the point – that lots of girls are not succeeding. You need to take a more nuanced look at girls and subgroups of girls, and then success by gender is limited. You can’t buy into ‘girls are doing fine,’ and move on. You need to look at the data."

Looking at the data, women’s advocates are pursuing concrete changes. Some are successful. In 2009 "gender" was included in a new federal hate crimes law; in 2010 the White House announced a multi-agency equal pay task force. Graves hails a provision in the 2010 health care reform that, for the first time, prohibits sex discrimination in health insurance. Left out of the mix, however, is abortion, which was, for all practical purposes, nixed from the legislation by creating convoluted provisions about how consumers must pay for abortion coverage, and closing off aid for the economically strapped and, in July, for patients in high-risk pools.

EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW

No single law prohibits gender discrimination in the United Staes. Women were not mentioned at all in the U.S. Constitution by the founding fathers and first became part of it in 1920 when the 19th Amendment gave women suffrage. For the first century or two of the nation’s history, the all-male justices on the Supreme Court upheld laws and practices that flatly discriminated against women – and there were many, including laws preventing women from practicing law, using birth control, serving on juries and being the executor of an estate.

Nondiscrimination against women began to gain new currency in the 1960s. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically prohibiting sex discrimination in certain employment under Title VII. The Supreme Court began to apply the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment to sex bias, striking down laws that discriminated against women without a reasonable basis, a lighter touch than the strict scrutiny applied to race-based challenges. The Supreme Court also recognized a zone of privacy in the Constitution and struck down laws that rendered contraception illegal and made abortion a crime in all circumstances.

An Equal Rights Amendment, while proposed, was never added to the U.S. Constitution. Instead, a patchwork of other laws was passed to address women’s equality, most notably, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibiting sex discrimination in education, including in athletic opportunities. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 was passed after disastrous decisions from the Supreme Court, and Congress adopted Equal Credit, Fair Housing and Equal Pay laws, and states also passed laws, some more expansive, against gender discrimination. At the same time, Congress allowed loopholes – for example, limiting employment claims to firms of 15 employees or more, and excluding religious institutions from compliance with non-discrimination laws.

-Cindy Cooper

Just as there is no single law on gender discrimination in the U.S. (see sidebar), there is no single measure of success. Problems persist. Pregnancy discrimination claims continue to rise. There are issues about securing equal and equitable pay, ending sexual harassment on the job, stopping gender violence in homes and on the street, securing paid family leave, dealing with cyber-snooping and bullying, safeguarding the jobs of breast-feeding mothers, securing access to abortion and contraception, redressing changes that lead to unacceptable stereotyping in single-sex schooling, ending the poverty that disproportionately harms women.

Hard to envision is the opposition to women’s equality: "There is not one set of groups. There are those that have an interest in maintaining the status quo. But not one group," said Graves, adding lightly, "If so, it might make it easier."

For whatever reason, the U.S. is well behind other industrialized countries in policies that support parents and working families. And, Graves noted, while 185 nations have ratified CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women), the U.S. stands with Iran, Sudan and a small minority of countries that hasn’t.

The reality is that it may take another spate of 38 years, and others after that, to reach gender equality or to secure full human rights for women. Although the road to equality turned out to be longer than most imagined and the surfaces more rocky to navigate, it will take the constancy of pragmatists and strategists to make truisms of the mantras of girls and the dreams for a just society. "I don’t think ‘equality’ is separate or apart from ‘human rights,’" said Graves. "Language matters a lot less than the critical outcomes."

Cindy Cooper, managing editor, is an independent journalist in New York and has a background as a lawyer. 

Photo credits: By Marjorie Price 

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For the past ten and a half months she’s been in solitary confinement in Evin prison, Iran. Before that she was traveling in Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia, writing about women in these cultures, struggling to understand them as she says in her blog title "Through Unfettered Eyes:  Dispatches from Addis Ababa to Damascus." Before that, as a 20 year old, she traveled to Chiapas to learn about women in a revolutionary state, as well as to confront issues of femicide in Mexico.  She was a student at Berkeley becoming sensitized to global issues. Her now husband-to-be, Shane Bauer (they got engaged while in prison), and friend Josh Fattal, are writers, activists and global citizens with a sense of responsibility to the world beyond the United States.

A few days ago I received a mailing from The Women’s Media Center asking that people blog about Sarah, Shane and Josh. It said that the mothers had reached out to women’s organizations asking for this. It said that Nora, Sarah’s mother, was available for interview. Interviewing is my bag — I like to understand people, their stories, the decisions they made along the way, what it was like for them, how it changed them, what they will do with the new person they’ve discovered in themselves. It turned out that Nora was looking for that kind of interview, a place to tell the story of her daughter Sarah so that people will care about her imprisonment and work toward her freedom. I spent a day getting my head around the story and then we did the interview on Saturday. I had the interview up on Sunday and as of [yesterday], Tuesday June 15, 435 people have listened to the interview.

You can help get Sarah, Shane and Josh out of prison and back to work as global citizens by listening to this interview and passing it on to your networks. There are other ways to help — see freethehikers.org. I’m invested in Sarah’s freedom not only as a human being but also as a feminist; I’m eager to see what Sarah Shourd does when she’s back in the free world, unfettering her eyes. I think she’s a global feminist to watch.

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May 30th is Military Sexual Trauma Awareness Day.  The issue is starting to get more traction in terms of visibility, Congressional hearings, and acknowledgement from agencies that span a full range of alphabet soup.

On Thursday, May 20th, a morning hearing was held. Healing the Wounds: Evaluating Military Sexual Trauma Issues, was presided over by John Hall (D-NY), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs, and Michael Michaud (D-ME), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health.  A series of speakers drawn from veterans’ organizations, networks devoted to women’s health and sexual abuse, and representatives from the Department of Defense and the Veterans Health Administration were present.  They each had five minutes to offer testimony.

Just three weeks prior on April 29th, Congresswoman Niki Tsongas (D-MA) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) announced the introduction of the Defense Sexual Trauma Response, Oversight and Good Governance Act (The Defense STRONG Act), a bipartisan piece of legislation.  Hoping to attack Military Sexual Trauma (MST) from the front end of the problem, The Defense STRONG Act will work to strengthen the pre-existing systems to “prevent sexual assaults, and provide support and guidance for victims that do report an incident.”  This would enable those harmed to access a military lawyer in order to fully understand their legal options.  Equally important, it will standardize training guidelines around MST prevention and response across all branches of the services.  When I spoke with Rep. Tsongas by telephone she explained that the act would be part of the Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 5136), and would put a “system in place patterned after the Equal Opportunity measures.”  She said, “If a victim speaks with a victim’s advocate, it will remain confidential.  It can’t be subpoenaed.”   Tsongas added, “I’m looking forward to making sure this language stays in the bill.”

Witnesses drilled down and pinpointed problems being faced by MST survivors as circumstances presently stand.  A wide range of symptoms, on the physical and emotional continuum, was referenced.  They included: mood disorders, depression, substance abuse, adjustment disorders, hypertension, eating disorders, sexually transferred infections (STI), unplanned pregnancy, self-destructive behaviors, and suicide.  It was noted that 75 percent of homeless female veterans have been sexually assaulted.

A sexual attack is a trigger for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Susan McCutcheon, The Director of Family Services,Women’s Mental Health and Military Sexual Trauma, Veterans Health Administration (VHA) stated, “MST is an experience, not a diagnosis.  PTSD is the diagnosis.”

The FBI ranks rape as the second most violent crime after murder.  Repeatedly, those testifying underscored that rape is an act of violence, not sexual desire.  It was acknowledged that males in the military are casualties of MST as well as women.

For those assaulted, career goals are disrupted as they face “isolation, retribution, ostracism, and accusations.”  Their situation becomes untenable, as they must continue to live and work in close proximity with their attackers.  As Helen Benedict, author of The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, testified, “some 90 percent of victims never report assaults within the military because the culture is so hostile to them.”  She explained how the victim is treated like a perpetrator, and in addition to not being believed, “they are intimidated out of pursing justice.”

Phyllis Greenberger, President and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research, told the committee that “women are the fastest growing sector of VA patients,” with “15 percent of women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan experiencing sexual assault or harassment.”  23 percent of the women using the VA services have reported MST, yet half of all cases go underreported. Jennifer Hunt, Project Coordinator, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, observed that the “majority of assailants are older and of a higher rank than their victims.” It is recognized that those who get immediate full care do the best.  Yet when women feel re-traumatized in their efforts to get help and in navigating the system, it makes moving forward problematic.

There was no lack of suggestions on how the situation could be improved. At the top of the list was the need to eliminate mixed-gender care settings. Creating separate facilities was put forth as the optimum goal. Using a civilian rape crisis model, which is not geared to a predetermined agenda, was another proposal.  Women report a dearth of properly trained personnel, with those in counseling positions resorting to what has been termed “pills and pep talks” (despite the fact that women are not responding well to commonly prescribed medications).

Benedict put forth promoting more women and distributing them across the forces to eliminate isolation, and rejecting recruits with a history of sexual violence. Greenberger dryly offered, “No victim should have to chase after their own care.”

Scott Berkowitz, President and Founder of RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network) sited a lack of “institutional support, leadership commitment and resources” to fix the problem and a commitment by base commanders and Pentagon Brass to “zero tolerance and routine prosecutions.”  He did, however, comment on the progress that has been moved forward under the auspices of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), which was established in 2005 by the Department of Defense “to function as a single point of accountability and oversight for sexual assault policy.”

Kay Whitley, the Director of SAPRO, addressed prevention through training, treatment, support of victims, and system accountability.  She related that during the past three years, reports of sexual assaults had increased by 10 percent annually.  Whitley broke the best-case protocol down into “care, reporting, response, and tracking.”

Getting appropriate and timely medical care is only part of the problem.  Steering PTSD claims through the system is formidable, and often exacerbates the original trauma.  Joy J. Ilem, Deputy National Legislative Director forDisabled American Veterans, was very clear about the obstacles. She informed those in attendance, “to receive disability compensation from an MST-related condition…the standard of evidence is stricter than for combat injuries, or even for military occupational injuries. She characterized veterans’ compensation claims for disabilities resulting from MST as “an uphill battle for VA Disability Compensation,” explaining that “if an assault is not reported by the victim during his or her military service, establishing service connection later on for disabling conditions related to MST can be daunting.”

The different aspects of reporting an attack and trying to receive benefits are complex at best. Bradley G. Mayes, Director, Compensation and Pension Service, Veterans Benefits Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, offered that there was “room for improvement, but we have taken steps.”  However, many concerns have to be taken into account, particularly as confidentiality is a paramount concern.

I contacted Thom Wilborn, a spokesman for Disabled American Veterans, to speak further about the two options for filing an MST report, via a Victim Reporting Preference Statement DD FORM 2910. He clarified the two different types of reports that service members can file after an attack.

• Unrestricted Reporting – Reporting a Crime which is Investigated
• Restricted Reporting – Confidentially Reporting a Crime which is not Investigated

A restricted report allows the victim to receive health care services, but the paperwork does not enter the realm of an official charge – thereby protecting the privacy of the victim.  It does not involve the chain of command.  In an unrestricted report, all records become public.  The information goes out to the commanding officer and division commander for a formal investigation.

A problem arises when a service member, who wants to apply for PTSD benefits and has filed a restricted report, can not get their records from one department agency to another.  Wilborn told me, “There needs to be a way to report MST and be able to advance it to whatever point the service member wants.”  He made clear that the report should be able to remain confidential, while simultaneously recorded in a way to be available for disability claims. The DAV’s primary concern is that the Department of Veteran’s Affairs be able to access restricted Department of Defense Documents.
Following the testimony, I contacted two of the invited presenters.  Jennifer Hunt, Project Coordinator, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, believed that “good steps have been made, but more must be done.”  She specifically pointed to “inter-operability” encompassing improved communication between the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration.  She remarked on how many people were in attendance for the hearing, and lamented that that there was no time for follow up questions due to the President of Mexico’s visit.

When I spoke with Anuradha K. Bhagwati, Executive Director of Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and former Marine Captain, she was quite concise in her evaluation of how things stand and what needs to be done.  She said, “The Veteran’s Benefit Administration (VBA) simply does not understand how traumatic it is for an MST survivor to file a claim for compensation. The Veteran’s Administration (VA) is coming from a theoretical place.  Their system is great on paper. The VA has made overtures, but their claims officers are poorly trained.  The system is broken.  Even if victims submit evidence of trauma, it’s not enough. The VA has not been able to get up to speed.  Their services work for some people, but they are in the minority. We need people to come forward in order to prosecute offenders, but right now DOD cannot guarantee the safety of survivors. Most commanders do not handle complaints responsibly. The fact of the matter is that survivors are not sufficiently protected.

There seems like a giant abyss.  It doesn’t seem like VA is talking to MST survivors or MST advocates. MST is best understood by MST orgs (VETWOW, stopmilitaryrape.org, militarysexualtrauma.org). SWAN is advocating for third party oversight. We believe a long-term solution is to applyTitle VII of the Civil Rights Act to the military.  Service members need to have the option to sue the military, if the military doesn’t protect them. Without that, commanders have no incentive to protect survivors. The Defense STRONG Act deals with the current system as we have it. It will fix some really broken pieces of the SAPRO reporting system, but it only deals with part of the problem.”

At the conclusion of Bhagwati’s testimony, she paid homage to the women from previous generations who had “suffered at the hands of fellow servicemen decades ago” – with their ordeals still yet to be recognized.  She read into the record the request of a Vietnam-era veteran who had survived MST. The sentence was a clear but simple appeal.  “Please help me feel validated before I die.”

This article originally appeared on the website Women Make News.

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From the press release:

“At the BP headquarters we will put our bodies on the line to hold BP accountable for the rape and plunder of our planet,” says Diane Wilson, a fourth generation fisherwoman from the Gulf who will join Monday’s action. “We call for stripping BP of its corporate charter and seizing its assets to pay the victims, clean up the Gulf and try to restore the devastated wildlife.”  We will also demand:

-there be no new permits on offshore drilling;

-instead, redirect that energy and financing into renewable fuels;

-expose the true costs of oil and the obvious disaster about to hit the coast in waves of oil, killing our fish and livelihoods;

-ensure that BP is held accountable for its rape, murder and profit on our backs.

Check out coverage across the web:

ABC, Protesters pose nearly naked at BP HQ

Reuters, Protesters bare nearly all at BP’s Houston office

Houston Chronicle, Protesters demand BP be shut down over oil spill

Houstin Press (slideshow), Boobs on Parade

Pinktank, The Naked Truth of It All…

Jezebel, There Will Be Blood

Feministe, Spill Baby Spill

Suburban Guerilla, Code Pink

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The debate occurred after an April 16 article at Newsweek made the declaration that young voters are not as involved in defending abortion rights as their older counterparts. It used data results from a study released exclusively to the magazine, which found that

"[m]ore than half (51 percent) of young voters (under 30) who opposed abortion rights considered it a "very important" voting issue, compared with just 26 percent of abortion-rights supporters; a similar but smaller gap existed among older voters, too. Worse still for NARAL, the millennials surveyed didn’t view abortion as an imperiled right in need of defenders."

These statistics didn’t match the reality on the ground for young women working for abortion rights. Erin Matson, VP of Action at NOW, led the charge, writing that she was "shaking with anger" that Newsweek chose not to interview any young women for the article and starting a Twitter petition aimed at Newsweek that asked them to correct their story to reflect the opinions of young women. Within days her actions led to blog posts and reactions around the web, including Meg’s recent post, "Where Are the Young Women? Right Here."

Newsweek responded — and Meg was asked to participate in a follow-up discussion with other young activists to discuss the article, the abortion rights movement of today and what the movement will look like in the future. Check out the full article and add your comments. In the meantime, here are some highlights:

Nancy Keenan, president, NARAL Pro-Choice America: …"That brings me to the question of how established groups can work with emerging groups. I think it’s essential. No one group or one person can do everything. We need political organizers (online and on the ground), more abortion providers, and the intellectual force of writers and commentators to accomplish what we seek to achieve for women. How we cultivate even more new leadership in all of these areas should spur new thinking, and I am open to hearing these ideas and sharing some examples of what I’ve heard in previous discussions on this topic.

Erin Matson, action vice president, National Organization for Women: [The NEWSWEEK] article was hardly the first time the media has made sweeping conclusions about the uncaring, unknowing young women who just have no idea they must defend Roe v. Wade—and the alleged failure of the women’s movement to connect with the millennial generation—without asking a single young woman for her opinion.

In its most simple, pure form, I am hopeful this conversation will serve as a loud lesson to the media: Young women are fully capable of speaking for ourselves. It’s irresponsible reporting to talk about us without talking to us. Due to the overwhelming frequency of this sloppy reporting, I believe after sharing their opinions about the future of the movement, older abortion rights leaders now must take responsibility to provide referrals to young leaders.

And who is Meg Massey? She’s a graduate student at Georgetown University, studying American Government. Meg has been blogging for us since November of 2009 (you can check out all her posts here) and we are thrilled to have such a talented new thinker on board.

 There’s room for a few more — we are always looking for new contributors. If you’re interested in blogging for Fem2.0, please email us at info@fem2pt0.com.
 

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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. 

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