But at a conference so committed to progress, and the progress of women, the gender disparity and poor showing of women is jarring, and worrying.

To give you an idea – only about 17% of the attendees were female.  And only 20% of those invited to attend the WEF and discuss issues on panels were women. It’s not that women are choosing not to attend the forum, it’s that they’re not being invited either.
The issue, of course, is not Davos-specific.

Davos is symptomatic of a much larger trend; the world economic forum invites leaders from around the world to attend, and the lack of women in attendance is a clear reflection of the fact that there are too few women in positions of power and influence across the world.

This is not to say that there haven’t been increasing numbers of women in positions of influence. We’ve had a female vice-presidential nominee and seen the likes of Meg Whitman and Sheryl Sandberg in business.

But these women are few and far apart: only 3% of the chief executives running Fortune 500 companies are women and women comprise only 18.9% of the world’s legislators.

The numbers really say it all.

Even though we are taking steps toward progress, we are far from equality. Even though we are seeing higher numbers of women getting college degrees and joining the workforce (even in traditionally male-dominated professions), they remain a minority at higher levels.  The world is still run, in large part, by men.

At Davos, Sheryl Sandberg tried to explain the reason for this situation, saying: “Little girls are called bossy…success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.”

While such culturally ingrained stereotypes ring too true and will take a long time to change, the fact that we’re now talking about bossy little girls is a step in the right direction.

And to work toward gender equality at all levels of leadership around the world, we need female leaders, such as Sandberg, to be part of the conversation.  That is to say, we need events like the World Economic Forum not only to acknowledge the significant disparity (as they have done), but also to help change the ratio themselves: to invite more women and involve them in the conversation.

Photo Credit: Wold Economic Forum via Creative Commons License.

I’ve spent a good deal of time reading about how to succeed in a career as a woman, how to climb the ladder, be a boss without being bitchy, and learning when it’s time to move on.  Women often end up staying in unsatisfying jobs, often because they have earned the right to maternity leave, flexible schedules and the ability to take time off to be with family.  A few years ago I was shocked to read about the number of women who didn’t have maternity leave.  Even more shocked to learn more recently how many of my friends don’t have this seemingly basic benefit.

Learning at 30 that you will need to use your vacation time, sick time and likely go on disability seems crazy.  What’s more is how many women have to do this all the time.  A bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives almost a year ago that would require 4 weeks off for federal employees.  It didn’t go anywhere.  Many European countries have laws requiring paid maternity leave, so why don’t we?  Are we anti-family, or anti-time off?  Women make up 47% of the workforce, so what gives?

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, approximately 178 countries have a national law guaranteeing paid leave for new mothers, while more than 50 include paid time off for new fathers.

According to the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993, anyone employed for at least 12 months by a business with a payroll of at least 50 employees may take 12 unpaid weeks and not lose their jobs, including federal employees.  This cuts out half the workforce, while others it does apply to cannot afford to take it. Only 16% of employers offered paid maternity leave in 2008, down from 27% in 1998.  Bottom line: The U.S. is one of four countries that doesn’t offer paid leave to new mothers.  Our esteemed list includes Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Lesotho.

The lowest income families are the ones who hurt the most.  They often cannot afford to take unpaid leave.  However Think Progress has found in recent years, data shows that less educated women “are nearly four times more likely than college graduates to be denied paid maternity.  More women now than just a few years ago are actually foregoing a paycheck to take the time off.  For any family taking unpaid time off can create huge financial issues.  For those making minimum wage and just getting by, it can be devastating. No wonder having a baby is a leading cause of “poverty spells” in the U.S.!

Much flak has been given young women in their 20s and 30s for waiting so long to have children. How dare we put our careers and financial stability ahead of procreation!  I have friends who have spent time the last couple years trying to change jobs in order to be in a place they want to stay for awhile, where they can rack up the necessary time with the company to be able to take maternity leave, only to find it doesn’t exist.  It changes our feeling of being financially secure, and ready for children.  My question is how do we change this at the company level?  How do we lobby our employers to say we want this benefit, it’s the right thing to do, and it will likely help keep employees like us around for years to come?

Better yet, how do we make this happen at the federal level?

The reason for the recall was a packing error.  With birth control pills it is crucial to take each pill in exact order, at the same time each day.  The recalled packages may have pills out of order, so women could be taking a placebo pill in the wrong week, or a week one pill during week three.  As pills are packaged in a precise order, changing that order or missing pills can cause the birth control to be ineffective.

Each type of pill has specific directions on how to take it.  Be sure to read and understand all the directions including what to do if you miss a pill and what may make the pill less effective.  For some general information on birth control pills and how to take them, check out Planned Parenthood.

The recall is voluntary and there are no immediate additional health risks (beyond unintended pregnancy and an increase in blood pressure).

A full list of the recalled packs are available at the bottom of Pfizer’s press release.  If you are unsure you should contact your prescribing physician.  If you think you’re pregnant, take a test!  Pfizer makes e.p.t. in case that sways you one way or another.

This is all part of the way women have been taught to almost be seen and not heard.  People are constantly trying to make us smaller!  Don’t laugh too loud, it’s unladylike.  Don’t eat too much, being more than 100 pounds is unsightly.  Don’t be too pushy, too aggressive.  And don’t take up too much time talking in a meeting or use up too much space on the conference table.  In essence, do everything you can to minimize yourself as a human being, and then maybe men won’t be so uncomfortable or threatened by your presence.

I thought this was incredibly insightful, and I realized that it wasn’t just me who was doing it on an individual level.  It was the women’s movement as a whole.  We’re always trying so hard not to offend people, to convince the mainstream that we’re not crazy, psycho feminists who are out to get you.  It takes something as extreme as the Stupak Amendment or the Mississippi Personhood Amendment to really get our engines going.

Actually, convincing the world that women are crazy and irrational is one of the smartest and most effective campaigns to destroy women’s lives that has ever been waged by the patriarchy, especially the US Republican establishment.  Instead of fighting on our issues and spreading awareness about perfectly legitimate threats to women’s rights, health, and well-being, we’ve gotten ourselves sucked into the argument about whether these threats really are threats.   It’s like being a candidate for President and spending all your time and energy just trying to get on the ballot.

Instead, we’ve taken to messaging around “women’s issues”  by demonstrating how little these things we fight for actually matter.  We sell our strategy by saying “but this wouldn’t allow any federal money to specifically fund abortion!” and “but Planned Parenthood only spends 3% of its money on providing abortion services!”

This messaging is dangerous, and it falls right into the category of “we want you to know that we value your concerns about abortion and we are doing everything we can to try to not get in the way of your beliefs while still saving women’s lives.”

You may be wondering what inspired me to write this post on this topic tonight.  It wasn’t just the disaster that was the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Foundation‘s decision to stop financially supporting Planned Parenthood, although that was the catalyst.

It was the collective support of my friends/colleagues/acquaintances, and other random people who happen to be Facebook friends with me, who clicked “Like” on a post I dashed off a little bit ago:

In the past 30 minutes, dozens of my Facebook friends have liked this status, and the number is growing even as I type.  This got me thinking.  Maybe I’m not the only one.  Maybe I’m not the only one who is tired of making excuses, tired of apologizing for “having to bring up feminist-y things again”, tired of pretending these things aren’t a big deal or aren’t that bad, just so that everyone else who is causing me problems in the first place won’t be so offended/annoyed/disturbed/threatened/bothered/harassed.

Know what?  Going to bat for – screaming at the top of lungs in support of – organizations that save women’s lives and protect women’s rights is not something I will apologize for.  It’s not something I will lower my voice for.  It’s not something I will attempt to justify because you’re a misogynistic moron who would rather see me and anyone who looks like me die than give me the rights all other human beings seem to be born with.

So I’m going to stop with the “qualifying justifications.”  With saying “oh but we’re reasonable because we’re allowing exceptions for this and that,” or “yes but here’s how we’re going to make sure that we don’t use any of your hard-earned money to support women – I mean, abortion.”  I’m done with that.

I will stop saying “this abortion-banning bill doesn’t even include an exception for the life of the mother!” as though such an exception would somehow make such a bill acceptable to me.  I will no longer consider it reasonable that federal money can’t be used to fund abortion or an abortion-related services.  And I will no longer try to reason with, or appear reasonable to, people who think women’s lives aren’t worth saving and women’s rights aren’t worth protecting.

Oh, and that Facebook post I mentioned earlier?  It’s at 33 likes and counting.  Looks like I won’t be alone in my newfound intolerance for dumbed-down messaging.

• Exaggerated, broad, strong, protective, manly shoulders? Check
• Wide, angled, muscular chest? Check
• Uncamouflaged, tiny, unfeminine, tight butts? Check
• Unabashedly endowed codpiece-protected privates? Check, check, check!

And, the cherry on the top, for good measure, an infinite variety of helmets with cosmetic grills that do nothing but emulate the head-gear of medieval armor. A men’s American Football uniform, to a woman or a man attracted to other men, is the male version of, well, a female cheerleader’s uniform to a healthy, red-blooded hetero-male gazer.

The male gaze (the degree to which men’s perspective dominates visual culture and turns women into objects) is why we don’t usually think about the football uniform as the peacock display that it is or think of players as unnecessarily overly-sexualized. But, hey, what can I say, that’s how I’ve always looked at men in football uniforms. I’m just not male and I’m a soccer fan. Not only does no one consider the female gaze and its possible economic potential, but recent developments show the ridiculous degree to which the male gaze has been taken to here-to-fore unplumbed depths as women make deeper forays into the world of sports.

For example, take FIFA president Sepp Blatter, that beacon of progressive thinking suggesting as he did last Fall, “Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. Female players are pretty.” Blah. Blah. Pretty mild, run of the mill stuff.

And then, of course, the 2012 Olympic preparations are getting into full gear and the question is: mini-skirts or no mini-skirts for women boxers??? This month the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) is meeting to finally decide whether or not to make mini-skirts mandatory for female boxers during fights. Soon I’ll be able to sleep again. This is, according to the kindly paternalistic dudes at the AIBA, for the women’s own benefit, as it will enable them to “stand out” from the men. Mind you, these are women who fought long and hard to even be able to participate in the Olympics as boxers and who have explained that they don’t even wear mini-skirts when they are NOT boxing.

Aahhh, the Male Gaze. It’s so deeply entrenched in our culture that we don’t consider some of it’s greatest ironies and most ridiculous adaptations. (Just so you know, I am compelled just thinking about it to bat my eyelashes in a sultry fashion as I type.)

Usually, I would chalk the two examples above to so much puerile twaddle, too stupid to spend more words and time on, but alas, I can’t help myself. Because now we have The Lingerie Football League and it’s not fading away as I’ve been longing, naively, that it would.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, let me introduce you to The Lingerie Football League: a “true fantasy” football league in which women play football in bras and panties. And padding. And athletic tape. Oh, and blackening face paint. Teams have phenomenal, sexy-girl names like “Fantasy” and “Bliss,” “Charm” and “Passion.” Their website quotes NBC Sports as saying that today the Lingerie League is “the fastest growing pro-sports league in the nation.” Now, some people castigate women like me (you know, the whiney ones who want equality and think that the planet would be a better place if female people can be understood as multi-dimensional and fully human) for not having a sense of humour. But, I’m here to say “I do! I do have a sense of humour! Otherwise, how on earth could I be a feminist???”

See, the LFL is growing SO fast that it recently announced it’s starting a feeder league to build a multi-generational pipeline of demi-cupped, tackle-football playing boy-toys. YES! Finally! An end to the gender discrimination of professional sports. Is your daughter athletic like mine are? Competitive? Fast? Strong? Here’s a dream opportunity!

The announcement, which I initially thought was a parody, made in October, claimed:

“Now, the league is taking measures to ensure many generations of young ladies have the opportunity.”

I love this! There is more:

“The ceiling on women playing tackle football was formally shattered with the arrival of LFL football in 2009… Inherently, [WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?] the LFL firmly believes that girls want to play football too.”

Kinda like Barcelona’s La Masia for young, talented soccer playing boys. Uh, no.

But, wait! Wait! In case you haven’t had your daily quota of Orwellian raunch culture sexist blather, there is more:

What excites us at the League is seeing the caliber of athletes improve so vastly each season, now imagine in five years when we start fielding athletes that have trained their entire life for the opportunity to play LFL Football’, said, Mitchell S. Mortaza, Founder & Chairman, Lingerie Football League, LLC.

When the LFL hooks up with Victoria’s Secret our 87 percent male Congress might finally find a reason to dedicate just one national holiday to the accomplishments of women in this country. (Remember, you read it here first.)

My question is, at what age exactly, as they go through the youth program, do our daughters have to strip down to their tensile strength skivvies? Thirteen? Fifteen? Last year, the adult women in the league, setting the groundwork for girls interested in this sport, got naked for the press, but not until after several of them posed for Playboy.

Hey, this seems like a super fun way to normalize stripper porn aesthetics and male dominance for girls and boys to me. Thousands attend these games and franchising opportunities abound. Why didn’t we think of this before?

And, if your daughter or even daughters (sisterly bonding over sports is always encouraged) want to learn how to play, there is a fantastic video of player’s butts that she can use to train. And, in case you want to make sure your daughter is no shrinking violet and don’t mind a little salacious, fist-flying, high-potential wardrobe malfunction, girl-on-girlness as a coaching tool… go for it!

Given the company’s devotion to girls’ development and the growth of women’s professional sports I am sure they will castigate some of their biggest fans for spreading rife untruths about girls and athleticism, like this editorial photo caption from Coed Magazine:

Watching chicks play sports is pretty painful, unless they’re wearing underwear and beating each other up. That’s why we love the Lingerie Football League — they know exactly what their audience wants. I know that sometimes watching girls throw an oblong ball can be a little difficult, but that’s why we’re focusing on what you really wanna see… the greatest butts in the league.

The players in this league are actually, really, phenomenal athletes. What are their choices? They have none: there aren’t other opportunities for adult women interested in professional football that match this one. Apparently, the price of playing is to accept your own objectification and sexualization and claim it as your own. Girl power! I’m sure these women are having fun. They’ve just bought into raunch culture’s appropriation and subversion of the language of female liberation and the definition of equality. We haven’t taught these women, because we don’t teach our children anything about gender and feminism.

Instead, we let mass culture with its promulgation of gender stereotypes in the service of profit, teach girls that for them being liberated, and sexually liberated, means having to imitate, or become, strippers and porn stars for someone else’s viewing pleasure: the male gaze. Sure, some women do it because they genuinely get a kick out of it, no pun intended, but most I would hazard a guess, do it because they get paid to and their choices are limited. And, I know that people have free choice and don’t have to take their kids to these games, sign them up to play, attend events, buy franchises. How many ways can we undermine our children? At some point societies actually do make decisions that change their cultures for long-term good. But first they have to be aware of what needs changing. We’re still like fish contemplating water.

Here are some words of wisdom for girls to think of and for boys to consider from women our culture would rather sweep under the rug:

“You think you’re being brave, you think you’re being sexy, you think you’re transcending feminism. But that’s bullshit.” — Susan Brownmiller
“Women’s liberation and empowerment are terms feminists started using to talk about casting off the limitations imposed upon women and demanding equality. We have perverted these words. The freedom to be sexually provocative or promiscuous is not enough freedom; it is not the only ‘women’s issue’ worth paying attention to. And we are not even free in the sexual arena. We have simply adopted a new norm, a new role to play: lusty, busty exhibitionist.” — Ariel Levy

“Being oppressed means the absence of choices.” — bell hooks

Girls are as terrifically athletic as boys, they are playing more sports and are interested in tackle football. But, they can play it clothed, like boys do. If you never read Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs and The Rise of Raunch Culture, pick up or down load a copy. If you did, dust it off and read it to your kids.

Photo Credit: Football Lingerie League

Even Tough Girls Wear Tutu

“Can you please alter Deborah’s birth certificate,” my mother asks in the letter to the family attorney, “from the Federal Women’s Prison in Alderson, West Virginia, to Seattle? Nothing good will come from her knowing she lived in the prison before foster care or that her birth mother was a heroin addict. After all she was born in Seattle, and if she finds all this out she’ll ask questions about the prison and her foster homes before we adopted her.”

This is what Deborah read one day when she found a letter in her parents’ room. She already knew that she was adopted, but not that she was born in prison? This completely changed her life, her relationship with her family, and mostly it changed the relationship she had with her adopted mother, a relationship that took over twenty years to return to a state of normalcy.

Deborah was born to a heroin addicted incarcerated mother in the Alderson Federal Prison in West Virginia. In the 1960s, she was adopted at the age of three by a rare mixed-race Jewish couple from Seattle, one of the few mixed-race families of that generation. Since she was just a young child, she was wondering why she had brown skin when her whole family and all of her friends at school were white. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t fit into some social groups. She knew that there was something different, something that she couldn’t explain.

Deborah grew up with many identity and personality issues. She wanted to know where she belonged in terms of education, culture, class, peer group, and more. By the time she was a young adult, she became addicted to drugs, she lost her path in life, and she put her life in danger.

This memoir is full of strong and emotional moments. It’s the epic tale of a woman who tries to find her roots and where she belongs. At the end, Deborah finds peace with herself and her family. Before the end of the book, she writes,

“I thank my mother for this wisdom and freedom, a woman who allowed the tension of opposites to live in me. I thank my prison mom for the spirit of this tug of opposites and how it stirs in me. Each mother, in a different way, taught me to embrace life.”

There is no stronger relationship than the one between a mother and daughter. Even if it’s not a link from birth, the mother’s love, patience, and support is always present.

The author’s incredible work doesn’t stop with that book. She created the non-profit organization, The unPrison Project. She also travels all over the country where she speaks to women in prison and tries to inspire them. She wants to help them and their children. She wants to inspire them and show them that life can change; life can be better.

When it comes to equal pay for equal work, I’m afraid women are in for a long wait.

The Equal Pay Act, which is supposed to prohibit any form of discrimination based on sex, was passed in 1963. That’s almost 50 years we’ve been waiting for wage equity! Hell, it’s going to take an additional 107 days into this year for women to just catch up to the wages a man made for the same job in 2011.

Women still make 78 cents to every dollar a man makes. In a failing economy, those cents really start adding up. Imagine what struggling families could do if they had that much more salary to live on!

In fact, Newsweek did just that: 8 months’ worth of groceries for a family of four. Or how about this number: $1.2 million. That’s how much less a female college graduate will earn compared to a man over a lifetime. Indeed, childless, full-time working women make 23 percent less than their male counterparts 10 years post graduation. (So much for the mommy track ruining your earning potential. Just have a vagina and you’re already screwed.) And the kicker? If we paid women the same as men the national GDP would go up by an estimated 9 percent!

Are you kidding me?

I’m glad we have the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But it’s just one step. And we have miles to go before we sleep when it comes to the pay gap issue. Let’s not kid ourselves, the effects of pay inequality are felt by all of us. (Isn’t that what the Occupy Wall Street movement was about?) It’s time to stop looking at this as a “women’s issue” and face the reality that it’s a national economic issue.

It’s time for fair pay. Now!

Originally posted on The Sin City Siren. Cross-posted with permission.

The UFC has signed a reported $700 million deal with FOX Sports and will premiere in prime time this year. Their ubiquity is a sign that they are entering the Big Leagues of sports. So it is time that they act like it and enact a code of conduct, similar to those of other major sports organizations including the NFL and NBA.

As the survivor of sexual violence, this cause is very personal for me.

You see, UFC fighters are rewarded for the popularity of their tweets and the effectiveness of their use of social media. There are monetary bonuses, in fact. So, when Forrest Griffin, Miguel Torres and Rashad Evans joked about rape — each of them making direct or indirect illusions to the Penn State scandal — it is more than just offensive (although that would be enough). It is as if the UFC is rewarding the behavior of perpetrators of sexual violence. When Rashad Evans joked that he was going to, “put my hands on you worse than that dude did to them other kids at Penn State,” well, that was like joking about the man who put his hands all over my body.

Look me in the eye, Mr. Evans, Mr. Griffin, Mr. Torres, and yes, even Mr. UFC President Dana White, and tell me how it’s funny that a man put his hands all over me when I was a child. Now… explain to me again why anything about Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky is funny. Explain it to me and all the survivors of sexual violence out there… and most of all to the (alleged) victims who have so bravely come forward with their gruesome stories.

But more importantly, the only way we change attitudes about sexual violence is through public discourse and to act as a society to stop it. And there is evidence that awareness campaigns and calls for greater societal standards does change minds — just look at the evolution of “wife beating” to domestic violence and the Violence Against Women Act. In fact, VAWA has been helpful on the sexual violence front, too. (Report, PDF)

Joking about rape and off-color remarks about sexual violence are not only offensive, but they are deeply hurtful to those who have survived such experiences. It can be a trigger for survivors to feel a whole host of difficult emotions, including anger, sadness, depression, shame, and frustration. For society as a whole, it is a terrible marker for the pervasiveness of rape culture and its bullying effect on the hearts and minds of women, men, girls, boys, transgendered individuals, LGBT people and more. Joking about rape and sexual abuse is an admission that taking away someone’s power is not only “funny” but somehow acceptable and even encouraged. (This places a cultural expectation on what it means to be a “real man” just as much as it does to be a woman.) This kind of thinking plays into slut-shaming, in which girls are ridiculed and, in fact, shamed for alleged sexual escapades. (Ex: At the age of 11 after developing breasts before any other girl in her grade, a girl can be marked as a slut and openly mocked and bullied by her peers for being promiscuous, even if she is still a virgin and has no desire for sexual activity. This phenomenon has been explored in great detail by Emily White in her book Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut. I highly recommend it.)

But that’s not the only reason to support this campaign. The UFC has a long history of anti-LGBT remarks made in public forums, including on twitter and in self-made youtube videos. Using gay slurs is another form of bullying and these UFC fighters are considered role models and are idolized by thousands of fans. Just like when Kobe Bryant got fined by the NBA for using the f-word on the basketball court, the UFC needs a code of conduct in place to take swift action when incidents like this occur.

If you feel like me, that it’s time the UFC grew up and enacted a code of conduct, please take a moment now and sign this petition.

Catch up on the campaign here:

• Ultimate responsibility (11/11/11)
• Rally against hate speech, rape jokes (11/11/11)
• Taking it to the octagon — includes links to media clips (11/13/11)
• Observations from the fight deck (11/15/11)
• Being ‘Over It’ (11/16/11)
• Here we go again (12/8/11)
• Tell FOX that rape is no joke! — petition created (12/11/11)
• More UFC rape jokes! (12/15/11)
• Year in Review: A look back at stories of sexual violence in 2011 (12/29/11)
• Take the fight to the UFC — updates to the petition (1/8/12)
• Have you signed the UFC petition? (1/12/12)

Media clips:

• Brief overview of our call for a code of conduct (AP)
• Coverage in the Nevada Appeal
• TV coverage on Channel 13 (ABC)
• The Bleacher Report
• Eddie Goldman of No Holds Barred mentioned it on his podcast
• The press release got mentioned on this MMA blog
• We were interviewed with Loretta Hunt on KNPR on Nov. 15
• Rashad Evans makes joke about Penn State scandal at UFC on FOX presser (SI.com)
• Rashad Evans’ joke about Penn State scandal is no laughing matter (Bloody Elbow)
• UFC reinstates a penitent Torres (Yahoo)
• Dana White responds to twitter troll with prison rape joke (Yahoo)
• UFC should consider measures to placate anti-MMA lobby (SI.com)
• UFC Should shut down homophobic slurs (MMAFighting.com)

This post originally appeared on The Sin City Siren. Cross-posted with permission.

I arrived in Mexico City on Saturday already worn out from a migraine and travel. As I rode in the car to the hotel I took in the sights while pondering why I was even there. I’m an academic and a blogger – why me? That night at dinner I started to understand.

During dinner we were briefed by human rights lawyers about the situation in Mexico and the women we would listen to over the next few days. Those of us in the US may think we know about the drug war. We see the headlines about kidnappings, beheadings and the lifestyles of drug lords. But we don’t know the full picture.

We needed to learn that it is not just that the drug war has gotten so violent that it has spilled out onto the streets, but rather that the Mexican government’s plan for winning the war on drugs is to send the army into the streets.

As we gathered to listen to women from different parts of Mexico at the University of Sor Juana, it was clear from the start that human rights, never mind freedom of speech, were the first casualties of the drug war. Mexico is the most dangerous place for journalists outside of Iraq. Women journalists have been murdered for writing about corruption and the impunity the army wields. One woman journalist was murdered and her body was left behind the newspaper’s office. On top of the overwhelming danger journalists — especially women journalists — face to get a story, they are then subjected to menial wages for their work. But they take the few hundred dollars a month because they know they must document what is happening.

Hearing and retelling stories is the mission of this delegation trip. We heard from mothers, sisters, nieces and representatives from organizations about the violence women face. Some organizations appear large, some were formed to address the disappearance of a few women. Maria, from Michoacán, came to tell us that nineteen young people have disappeared from her village — four of whom are her sons.

Yolanda detailed how families are left to search for loved ones on their own. She also discussed times when authorities not only ignore evidence, but destroy evidence and/or threaten the families to stop investigating.

Disappearances occur for many reasons, but the majority we heard about revolved around women and men who spoke out against injustice. A young woman from a family of bakers told of the murders of her family members, physical abuse and her own rape by authorities. Another young woman found the courage to speak of her parents’ disappearance that occurred just last month. She ended her testimony through tears with a plea for her mama to stay strong. Her parents crime? Organizing for environmental justice.

Fighting on behalf of farmers and land rights is another way to become one of the disappeared. At least two women spoke of a May 2006 incident in Atenco where women were arrested en masse, taken from their homes, and many were raped on the way to prison. Some were held in jail for 2-4 years. The women accuse a current candidate as being a responsible party to the atrocity.

This is an election year for both Mexico and the United States. This fact scares the women even more. In Mexican election years, there is a power vacuum. The current rash of violence began shortly after President Calderón came into office. He entered as a weak president and under a cloud of voter fraud. His method of showcasing his power was to empower the army to take to the streets. His drug war plan is taken straight from the plan the US has been using since the Nixon administration – attack the supply, ignore treating demand. This is where the elections in the US come into play. The US sets the stage for how the drug war plays out elsewhere.

Many of us on the delegation worried about the safety of the women testifying. Should we use their real names? Was it safe for them to speak out? The women we heard from have not much else to lose. They need to speak out on this international stage. Stories. It all comes down to stories. While some of the women spoke so fast our interpreters could barely keep up, we got the message. The government is failing the people of Mexico and hopefully the light we shine this week will help. But only if their stories are heard and retold.

This post originally appeared at Nobel Women’s Initiative. Cross-posted with permission.

While watching Kourtney & Kim Take New York and Real Housewives of Atlanta (ATL is the best one!) it occurred to me that these shows are pretty telling about the hetero-normative value-structure of marriage in our society. I know some of you are shaking your heads.

What could Kim Kardashian’s 72-day marriage say about the real value of marriage in our society? What could the multiple divorce plotlines (and kept-woman/mistress plotlines) of the combined Real Housewives franchises say about how seriously marriage is valued? Plenty!

After all, what’s more central to the American narrative than the White Picket Fence storyline?  That picture isn’t complete without Mom, Dad, 2.5 kids, and the family dog.  But the White Picket Fence story is just that, a story. It’s not reality — and I’m not just talking about TV.  The reality is that Americans are postponing marriage, co-habitating more, and the divorce rate is still very high (with Nevada as one of the highest!).

Because we’re in a presidential election year and the news is abuzz with all the Republicans making their way through the congo line of primaries/caucuses, we’re hearing a lot about “family values,” the definition of marriage (hint: it’s not for “the gays”), and all the ways that women are too stupid to manage their own bodies.  If the South Carolina primary results are any indication, news that Newt Gingrich asked his second (now ex) wife for an open marriage, is not such a big deal, which is funny if you don’t remember the Clinton Inquisition.  (But it might be a bigger problem than it seems at the moment, since research shows that 62% of Republicans view adultery as a big deal.)

But all of this just points to the elephant (no pun intended) in the room all the more!

Political candidates of all stripes trip over themselves trying to show how much they represent the White Picket Fence ideal (and often don’t). Celebrities want to bathe themselves in the spotlight of wedded-bliss of media-darlingness.  Even if their marriage crumbles like a house of cards Kardashian-style (or is that Britney-style?) or a mere year, Russell Brand-style.

If you think that pop culture and politics are not mirroring back what our true ideals are, then you are genuinely out of touch with reality:

• One-third (!!) of teen mothers didn’t use birth control because they didn’t think they could get pregnant… Hmm, sound like some Teen Moms?

• Americans are way more cool with co-habitation (especially if it leads to marriage) than in the old days, a la Kim Z. on Real Housewives of Atlanta and Kourtney Kardashian.

• And, let’s face it, we’ve come a long way from the days when the inclusion of an openly gay and HIV-positive roommate, Pedro Zamora, on the Real World seemed scandalous.  Well, maybe not a long way.  But a lot more people say that homosexuality should be accepted now than 20 years ago.

I’m not saying that everything on reality TV is realistic or even a good example of how people should live.  In fact, in most cases I think these shows reveal the worst in people.  From wig-pulling to sexist competitions to homophobic and racist comments, there’s a lot about reality TV that is very, very wrong.  And not in the good way.

But I can’t help but wonder if what reality TV is less fun-house mirror and more junior-high yearbook.

Happily married, I will celebrate 15 years with my husband this June.  He’s my high school sweetheart.  Ours is a story that so few have today.  It is, in some ways, the White Picket Fence. But because of that, our story is completely different than so many around us and so many people I meet.  I come from parents who have divorced many times over.  And at the age of 35, I have more friends in my peer group who are or have been divorced than not.

This is not about touting my life or putting down anyone else.  Marriage, like becoming a parent, is a deeply personal experience (and one that should be allowed for all people).  And each individual has to decide if it is right for them.  Each marriage has its ups and downs and only the people in it can decide if it is successful and happy.  And it’s nobody’s business but those people.

But reality TV turns this personal experience into a very public spectacle — from love and courting to engagement to marriage and divorce — it’s all on display.  People can live-tweet their opinions while the episode about someone’s life airs.  It’s almost macabre to me to see the tweets scroll by on E! as the latest Kardashian episode airs, in which Kim tearfully tells her sister that she doesn’t want to be married anymore.  Indeed, it reminds me of when I was in junior high and witnessed my friend breaking up with a boy I liked.

Now, I realize that almost all reality TV is staged in various ways and even scripted at times.  I am not suggesting that what we see in reality TV is pure, unedited documentary.  But there is only so much you can script and strategically frame.  Some of what gets captured is just who those people are. Nobody is “on” all the time!

So when Kim cries to her sister, there’s a part of me that is thinking, “I didn’t know you were such a good actress.”  But there’s another part of me that feels like even though the scene might be staged for full effect, that her remorse for being in that situation might just be coming from a very real place.  And that part of me, the part that sees the humanity in these reality TV stars, feels bad. It feels a little like misery mining.  Are any of these reality TV participants ever really paid the full value for how much of themselves they give away? Is being famous worth it?  Because after the cameras are gone and they are alone with themselves, I wonder if there is ever a moment when they think that maybe, just maybe, the private spaces of their lives were not worth some (fleeting) money or some (fleeting) fame.

But in the meantime, I think reality TV says a lot about our values.  The pandering, the staging, the egos, the fame-seeking manipulation, the lowest-common-denominator plotlines… it’s all just giving us what we want.  And Americans are nothing if not narcissists!

I told you reality TV was my guilty pleasure.  It makes me feel so guilty I won’t be able to watch anymore… until the next time I get sick.

Photo attribution: top photo by Dhammza  via the Creative Commons License.

Bottom photo by Luke Ford via the Creative Commons License.