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In the comments to an earlier post, Brad Benjaminson (who doesn’t identify as a men’s rights activist, but tends to cite writings by MRAs) cited several articles he thought of interest. I read the title of one - “Wives Also Kill Husbands-Quite Often” - and before I even saw the date the article was written (1994), I knew the article would use data from before 1990.

How did I know? Because I’ve read a lot of men’s rights articles about “intimate partner homicide” (that’s murdering a spouse, a girlfriend or a boyfriend), and nearly all of them use pre-1990 data. For instance, a quick search of two MRA (men’s rights activist) websites - Men’s Network.org and MenWeb - found seven articles arguing that women are about as likely as men to commit intimate murder. All of them used data from before 1990 to make their case. In fact, almost all of them used the same data set - a Bureau of Justice Statistics study of intimate homicide in 33 of the 75 largest-population (i.e., urban) counties, which was published in 1994 but used data gathered in 1988. The BJS has published more recent work - so why do the MRAs return to this one source over and over? (Or, if not this source, sources that also used urban data from before 1990?)

Because they want to prove - despite clear data, like these recent FBI figures, showing men are far more likely to murder wives and girlfriends than vice-versa - that men are “equal victims.” (This relates, I believe, to a larger project of trying to show that patriarchy doesn’t exist, women have nothing to complain about, etc.)

So what’s special about Urban data from before 1988? Check out these charts (source), both featuring more recent homicide data than the data the MRAs highlight:

This graph shows the reality: although there have always been more women murdered by intimates than vice-versa, the numbers used to be closer. In particular, there’s been a huge decline in male victims - which, unsurprisingly, isn’t something that MRAs with an ideology of male victimhood want to admit.

So that’s why MRAs avoid recent homicide data. Why do they prefer urban data, rather than countrywide data?

As you can see, before 1988 or so black husbands were more likely to be murdered by wives than vice-versa. The BJS data set the MRAs like to use, contains data from spousal-murder cases in 33 urban counties in 1988. In that data set, “Blacks comprised 55% of the 540 defendants, and whites comprised 43%. Among husband defendants 51% were black and 45% were white. Among wife defendants 61% were black and 39% were white.”

So using out-of-date urban data enables MRAs to use a historic anomaly - the high rate of husband-murder among blacks before 1988 - and pretend it represents the norm.

* * *

So why have husband-murder rates been dropping faster? Obviously, this is a complex question with multiple answers: but one part of the answer is that abused women now have more resources, “Studies of homicides between intimates show that they are often preceded by a history of physical abuse directed at the women, and several studies have documented that a high proportion of women imprisoned for killing a husband had been physically abused by their spouses… the weight of the available evidence shows that often wives kill their husbands in the context of a history of wife abuse.” (Mercy, J.A. & Saltzman, L.E. “Fatal violence among spouses in the United States, 1976-85″ American Journal of Public Health 79(5): 595-9 May 1989)

Many of these studies have found that wives who kill their husbands often felt “hopelessly trapped” in an abusive relationship. Therefore, it seems possible that the growth of resources for abused women since 1970 has made a significant number of such wives feel less “trapped,” hence reducing the murder rate of men. To test this possibility, Browne & Williams looked at state-by-state spousal murder rates compared to a “Resources for Abused Women Index,” (availability of shelters, hot lines, support networks, etc, in each state), after controlling for demographic variables (such as the higher general murder rate in many southern states). (Browne, A. & Williams, K. R. “Exploring the effect of resource availability and the likelihood of female-perpetrated homicides.” Law and Society Review, 23, 75-94, 1989.)

The study found that “the Resources for Abused Women Index, although negatively correlated with rates of both types of partner homicide, is more strongly correlated with female-perpetrated than with male-perpetrated homicide…. Moreover, such resources were associated with a =decline= in the rate of female-perpetrated partner homicide in 1980-1984 compared to 1976-1979.”

So it seems that, thanks to feminism, abusive men may now be less likely to be murdered by their wives.

It’s also possible, that if battered black women (on average) had less access to resources to get themselves out of abusive relationships, that could explain the unusually high rate of black husbands murdered before battered women’s shelters became (relatively) common.

Another question: Why has homicide of wives declined while homicide of girlfriends hasn’t? One factor, according to a paper (.pdf link) by Betsey Stevensen of Harvard and Justin Wolfers of Stanford, suggests that another part of the answer is the emergence of no-fault divorce laws - a change that assisted wives but not girlfriends. From an article written by Wolfers:

The findings reveal that under no-fault laws a wife can threaten to leave an abusive husband, and this becomes a credible threat. Under the old regime, this was not so. Our theory is that the fear of divorce creates a strong incentive for abusive partners to behave.

More generally, easy access to divorce redistributes marital power from the party interested in preserving the marriage to the partner who wants out. In most instances, this resulted in an increase in marital power for women, and a decrease in power for men.

Our analysis of US data revealed the legislative change had caused female suicide to decline by about a fifth, domestic violence to decline by about a third, and intimate femicide - the husband’s murder of his wife - to decline by about a tenth.

Unfortunately, as “marriage movement” and men’s right activists have become more influential in recent years, there has been a movement to defund battered women’s shelters and to repeal no-fault divorce laws. Either of these changes would be harmful to the interests of battered women.

* * *

(Below the fold are links to the seven MRA articles I looked at, with the relevant bits quoted).

Hey, sorry to call you all “dinks,” but hey, it rhymed.

• The Guardian has printed an essay by Andrea Dworkin about her bone disease and resulting disability, which is billed as “the last piece written by Andrea Dworkin.” As usual, Dwokin’s prose voice is clear and engrossing. Thanks to “Alas” reader “Maureen” for emailing the tip.
• From Geekery Today: A man sentenced to just four months in prison for killing his wife, after a jury concluded he acted in a blind fury, drew a 15-year term for wounding her boyfriend.
• No matter how many times you clean the toilet, you’re gonna have to clean it again and again. Which brings us to that stupid shit Paul Cameron, king of the homo-hating liars. I See Invisible People is on hand with the toilet brush.
• I couldn’t write prose this bad if you paid me: “The walls had fallen down and the Windows had opened, making the world much flatter than it had ever been—but the age of seamless global communication had not yet dawned.” It really is awesome - Thomas Friedman is no ordinary bad writer. Read the post and comments at Crooked Timber for more.
• Republicans, conceding that the private sector is unable to win a fair competition with the public sector, have proposed that taxpayers subsidize uncompetitive private-sector weather report services. Majikthise has more.
• Microsoft has apparently been pressured to stop supporting gay-rights bills by the threat of a right-wing Christian boycott. Daddy, Papa and Me has more: here and here.
• Interesting WomensEnews article about Angela Bonavoglia, a Catholic, feminist, Roman Catholic writer working to reform the Catholic Church. “Angela is exposing in her book that we have great women that the church is determined to turn into good girls.” Bonavoglia’s own website is here.
• This New York Times article reports that the divorce rate is not only falling, it was never as high as we’ve all seen claimed; the “50% of marriages end in divorce” claim is a myth.
• Seder-Masochism. A comic book about Passover (well, sort of) made from photos of action figures. So sue me, it totally cracked me up.

Jordon at Confined Space is enjoying the schadenfreude…

Recognizing the very real pain that ergonomic disorders cause, there is still something deliciously ironic about this:

Sandy Boyd’s BlackBerry had become her passion. Now it has also become a source of pain.

About three months ago, the National Association of Manufacturers vice president noticed that, as she started to type, the area between her thumb and wrist would begin to throb.

Orthopedists say they are seeing an increasing number of patients with similar symptoms, a condition known as “overuse syndrome” or “BlackBerry thumb.” In some patients, the disability has become severe.

For those of you just tuning in, the National Association of Manufacturers was one of the leaders in the campaign to stop OSHA from issuing an ergnomics standard, to repeal the standard in March 2001 after it was issued, as well as the current effort to force OSHA to withdraw the voluntary guidelines issued over the past three years because of the lack of “hard, verifiable scientific evidence.”

Read Jordon’s whole post.

Echidne of the Snakes, reminds us of what ‘W’ really stands for and it sure as hell isn’t for women. Certainly not for our reproductive rights. As some of you may know, the FDA has conveniently been taking its grand ole time in officially approving mass distribution of the emergency contraceptive pill, Plan B, though two FDA panels have already found it to be safe for women to use. The playing of politics with women’s health and rights continues. Echidne, please elaborate….

In fact, George Bush and his wingnuts care so much for the women of this world that they are prepared to have as many as 68,000 more of them dead:

Dead from what, might I ask?

The US government is trying to block the World Health Organisation from endorsing two abortion pills which could save the lives of some of the 68,000 women who die from unsafe practices in poor countries every year.

The WHO wants to put the pills on its essential medicines list, which constitutes official advice to all governments on the basic drugs their doctors should have available.

Last month, an expert committee met to consider a number of new drugs for inclusion on the list. They approved for the first time two pills, to be used in combination for the termination of early pregnancy, called mifepristone and misoprostol. In poor countries where abortion is legal, doctors currently have no alternative to surgery.

The Guardian understands that the US department of health and human services has been lobbying the director general’s office at the WHO to block approval of the pills, in line with President George Bush’s neoconservative stance on abortion.

While the availability of pills might make abortion easier and could increase the number choosing it, the experts want them listed to reduce the deaths and damage caused by surgery. Every year, 19 million women have unsafe abortions - 18.5 million of those take place in developing countries. An estimated 68,000 women die as a result of botched or unhygienic surgery, while many others suffer long-term damage, including sterility.

All of this sums up to what, Echidne?

[…]…The Bush administration calculus of values is clear: The loss of fetuses counts for more than the loss of already existing lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t another hidden value judgment in operation: Punish those women who don’t wish to be pregnant.

Similar sentiments hold sway here in the U.S.. The pro-life movement has expanded its definition of abortion to cover certain types of contraceptives, especially the contraceptive pill. Pharmacists now wish to decide if the contraceptive pill is an abortifacient and they want to have the right not to dispense it. Given this, it is not surprising that the most recent pro-life attack is against “the morning after” pill, also called Plan B, a high dose of progesterone taken soon after unprotected intercourse.

The wingnuts don’t like this pill. It encourages promiscuity, omits the necessary punishment for sexual activity and so on:

Specifically, sexual activity among unmarried women who do not wish to become pregnant. Can’t have that now can we?

Plan B’s most outspoken critic, the right-wing Concerned Women for America, insists it is actually worried about safety, given the lack of studies on the pill’s long-term effects. But the vast majority of medical experts say Plan B is completely safe, in part because birth-control pills have such a well-established safety record themselves. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Plan B was available in 2002 without a prescription in 26 countries, including Switzerland, Israel, and Congo.

A less flimsy argument against Plan B is that it is tantamount to abortion. While science has demonstrated that Plan B works, it has not shown definitively how Plan B works. And, although most researchers believe that it acts by postponing ovulation or preventing fertilization, it could also prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus–which, according to some pro-life groups, is murder. That’s a perfectly respectable, intellectually consistent position for people who believe life begins at the instant when sperm meets egg. But it’s also a very severe standard, given that fertilized eggs naturally fail to implant 40 to 60 percent of the time. This is one reason that the medical establishment defines pregnancy as beginning only when a fertilized egg has implanted.

When did many of these ultra-conservative “pro-life” groups relied on medical science to define anything concerning reproductive and sexual health?

The other serious argument against Plan B is that it will increase risky sexual activity by young people. But peerreviewed studies published in mainstream medical publications (like one just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association) have repeatedly found no such link. Of course, conservatives argue that making emergency contraception available sends a broader cultural message about the acceptability of premarital sex. But, even if that were true, there are the likely benefits of Plan B to consider. James Trussell, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, has estimated that, if emergency contraceptives were widely available in this country, they could reduce the approximately 1.3 million abortions that take place yearly in this country by half. If a culture of life is so sacrosanct, shouldn’t that trump the issue of premarital sex?

Echidne continues…..

How to answer that last question? There are specifications to the “culture of life” in wingnuttia and these exclude most anything that promotes better lives for already existing people. “Life” in the wingnut jargon usually refers to fetuses and to people who are brain-dead. Some already existing lives (such as those of Iraqis or Afghanis) don’t matter much. Women’s lives are valued as equipment for making future wingnuts but don’t seem to possess much intrinsic worth. And in general wingnuts lose all interest in the saving of any lives if it costs them something. Hence the eagerness to ban abortions and the reluctance to fund anything that would make bringing up children easier.

The “W”, by the way, stands for “wingnut”.

A nice sobering reminder. Yes, I’ll definitely be remembering this during my job interview today with Victoria’s Secret. I hate being fertile sometimes. Actually, I have never hate being fertile more so than during this administration. Hot flashes and night-sweats aren’t that bad are they? It still amazes me to no end that many of these “pro-life” groups fail to acknowledge or hell, believe that back alley abortions do happen. Women die because of them. And will illegalizing abortion and going further with banning contraceptives improve this situation? Or will the self-delusion of there being “no such thing as desperate women turning to back alley abortions even if abortion is illegal and contraceptives are incredibly difficult to obtain” continue? Especially with this administration’s politics?

I don’t really have much to say about it that many, many people haven’t said before, but I wanted to point out an interesting exchange about same-sex marriage that’s been bouncing around the blogosphere. I’m quoting brief snippets of each, for flavor, but there’s lots, lots more if you read the posts in full.

First of all, Megan of Asymmetrical Information (who “Alas” readers may remember I debated on a certain movie star’s radio show), a libertarian, argues that same-sex marriage advocates have been too easily dismissing the potential downside of legal same-sex marriage.

A very common response to this is essentially to mock this as ridiculous. “Why on earth would it make any difference to me whether gay people are getting married? Why would that change my behavior as a heterosexual”

To which social conservatives reply that institutions have a number of complex ways in which they fulfill their roles, and one of the very important ways in which the institution of marriage perpetuates itself is by creating a romantic vision of oneself in marriage that is intrinsically tied into expressing one’s masculinity or femininity in relation to a person of the opposite sex; stepping into an explicitly gendered role. This may not be true of every single marriage, and indeed undoubtedly it is untrue in some cases. But it is true of the culture-wide institution. By changing the explicitly gendered nature of marriage we might be accidentally cutting away something that turns out to be a crucial underpinning.

To which, again, the other side replies “That’s ridiculous! I would never change my willingness to get married based on whether or not gay people were getting married!”

Now, economists hear this sort of argument all the time. “That’s ridiculous! I would never start working fewer hours because my taxes went up!” This ignores the fact that you may not be the marginal case. The marginal case may be some consultant who just can’t justify sacrificing valuable leisure for a new project when he’s only making 60 cents on the dollar. The result will nonetheless be the same: less economic activity. Similarly, you–highly educated, firmly socialised, upper middle class you–may not be the marginal marriage candidate; it may be some high school dropout in Tuscaloosa. That doesn’t mean that the institution of marriage won’t be weakened in America just the same.

Megan goes on to give a number of somewhat dubious examples of government policy causing Bad Things (no-fault divorce caused a high divorce rate, that sort of thing).

Galios responds (in part; read the whole thing):

[Megan speculates that, if same-sex marriage is legalized,] some people might no longer choose to marry as it will no longer be an expression of an explicit gendered role. I had thought, however, that in such a conflict where one person wants a role to be explicitly gendered and another wishes to take that role in spite of his or her gender, the latter’s equality rights would generally trump the other’s interest in maintaining gender roles. If not we should reconsider a lot of issues. Perhaps women should no longer be allowed to be policemen as some men at the margins are no longer joining the force because it does not afford an opportunity to step into an explicitly gendered role. In this case it is not that I arrogantly suppose nobody would react this way. I simply feel the need for explicit gendered roles is far outweighed by the need to be free of them.

Tom at Family Scholars Blog, also responding to Megan, writes:

Hear, hear. Same-sex marriage could weaken marriage in numerous ways. I think there are clear reasons why marriage has always been understood as being between a man and a woman. Marriage has been about regulating sexuality and procreation (and property and other things), and we live in–and always will live in–a heteronormative world.

But not allowing same-sex marriage could also weaken marriage. (Marriage could increasingly be seen as a discriminatory institution, the compromise of civil unions could undermine marriage far more than same-sex marriage, and so on.) Just as many gay rights activists should think a bit more seriously about marriage, many opponents of same-sex marriage should think a bit more seriously about fairness and equality for homosexuals. I see no reason why society should condemn homosexuality and stigmatize homosexuals, and most opposition to same-sex marriage is rooted in opposition to homosexuality (Elizabeth and David are in the minority there, I’m afraid). I’m not sure if there are any rational arguments out there against homosexuality, either. That’s not to say that our ancestors were bigoted, repressed bastards. But sometimes societies make progress, and it’s difficult to see how the growing social acceptance of homosexuality can be categorized as anything other than progress.

Jim at Unqualified Offerings gets in the deal; answering Megan’s examples and also her Chesterson quote (which I’m not even getting in to here, space being limited and all), and also writing:

The form of the social conservative argument against gay marriage is entirely different: easing couple-formation among Class A is supposed to make couple-formation less attractive to Class B. One version of this argument would hold that Class B so reviles Class A that they will, at the margin, want less to do with any institution Class A has contaminated. Social conservatives on their best behavior are at pains to avoid this one. Instead they argue that marriage is deeply attractive because it is an opportunity to “step[] into an explicitly gendered role,”as Megan puts it, and opening the institution to Class A, gay couples, compromises that.

I can’t say definitively that it doesn’t, because one can’t prove a negative. I can say that the “gendered roles are the it thing about marriage” claim has a distinctly after-the-fact air about it; that is, it feels like the opposition to gay marriage comes first, and the reasoning afterward. […]

Social conservatives either need a more compelling causal explanation of how gay marriage would harm straight marriage, or they need closer analogies than Megan managed. Give me compelling historical cases of the form “We opened Institution X to Class A and that caused it to weaken among Class B” and you’ll have at least a level of surface plausibility that social conservatives currently don’t have. You won’t have won the argument by any means - at that point we have to weigh your story against the justice claims that have been patiently waiting to be brought back in to the discussion. But at least you’ll have an argument.

Kip Esquire makes a solid point as well:

The mile-wide blindspot in Jane’s tome is that all her examples are non-discriminatory. Look at the income tax: two clones with exactly identical financial profiles pay exactly the same income tax — whether that tax is too high is an entirely different discussion. Yes, libertarians — or anyone — can disagree about whether “taxes are too high,” but I would hope that a tax policy that discriminated against gays — or blacks or women or immigrants or any other group — would unite libertarians in saying “Now hold on a minute…” […]

I don’t give a damn whether recognizing same-sex marriage affects anybody else’s behavior “at the margin.” I’m being discriminated against, and I want it to stop. The margin be damned.

Over in Obernews, Brooke writes:

But I ask again, what does any of this have to do with gay marriage? Traditional marriage supporters seem to be flocking to this essay because it supposedly makes a compelling case for not allowing gay marriage. But do we learn anything at all about the possible consequences of gay marriage in this essay? No. So what have we learned? That change means change and incentives matter. Both good lessons with no discernable relationship to gay marriage. Because what are the incentives to marriage that are likely to change? Companionship, having children, economic security, fulfillment of religious duty, and, as McArdle says, “stepping into an explicitly gendered role” (which, incidentally, I think is increasingly rare and likely to become more so, and also, bullshit)? For heterosexual people who want any or all of those things, how are the incentives changed by allowing gay people to marry, even to people on the margin? What disincentive to marriage does allowing gays to marry create? McArdle doesn’t suggest any.

In the comments to Obernews, Jesse made what I thought was an on-target comment:

But Megan, the position you’re targeting doesn’t boil down to “Because I wouldn’t change my behavior, it is therefore true that no one else will change their behavior.” It boils down to “Why would this cause any heterosexuals to change their behavior?” Put another way, the point isn’t that the speaker doesn’t see how incentives that won’t affect him could affect anyone else. It’s that gay marriage doesn’t change any heterosexual’s incentives in the first place.

The proper response, if you object to the argument, is not to point out incentives that were pooh-poohed in the past but which turned out to be important after all; it’s to note some negative incentives that exist in the first place.

Since I haven’t seen any compelling examples of such incentives, I can’t say the argument strikes me as stupid at all.

In contrast, Justin at Dust In The Light argues that what this all shows is that gay marriage is a slippery, slippery slope.

…It’s true that the social mixing will remain intact even should the genetic mixing be withdrawn from the essential definition of marriage. However, McArdle’s point about each step making the next easier comes starkly into play: there are currently two reasons for the fence against consanguineous marriage: procreative and social. At the very least, same-sex marriage would invalidate the former, leaving only vague notions of clannishness that a society (or judiciary) that takes individual choice as the supreme principle would surely deem an inappropriate basis for the law.

Stepping outside of the narrow point, though, we observe that Henley has made the repeated assertion that he is leaving out the “justice claims” of same-sex marriage supporters. Those claims, and every other argument that Henley puts forward on behalf of same-sex marriage, would apply equally to any other couple or group that wished to have the government recognize its relationship as “marriage.”

One of Justin’s comment-writers argues that it’s not true that we have to be against same-sex marriage because it would be the end of the world. No, no - we have to be against same-sex marriage because it would led to the Muslims taking over.

You two are overstating our arguments. I’ve never claimed that humanity will die out. I don’t think any other commenters here have ever made that claim either. The real argument is that this particular society that you will have radically modified will become unviable and will be replaced. What the replacement will be nobody can guess. Some believe it will be replaced with a fundamentalist muslim society. In which case your ssm couples would have to start hiding again, only not from fear of being ostracized. Whatever replaces American society will not be as friendly to homogamous relationships as you hope to enjoy. It won’t happen overnight of course. It may not even happen until your ssm grandchildren, but it will happen just like it is happening in Europe.

Although it’s too difficult to find a bit to quote, Sebastian Holsclaw also has some interesting thoughts on the nature of reforming any institution.

Anyhow, with the exception of Justin’s (which is just more of the old “same sex marriage will lead to incest” fearmongering), all the above posts - including Megan’s original post - are well worth reading.

Now this ought to piss some of you off, especially the ladies. This was on Trish Wilson’s take on this issue and the attitudes of certain South Carolinian politicians who JOKED about women being abused.

But the amendments never got introduced. Instead, advocates said, committee members joked about the title of the bill and then tabled it with little discussion.

According to a tape of the meeting obtained by The State newspaper, Altman asked why the bill’s title — “Protect Our Women in Every Relationship (POWER)” — just mentioned protecting women. Harrison suggested making the bill the “Protecting Our People in Every Relationship” Act, or “POPER.”

A voice on the tape can be heard pronouncing it “Pop her.” Another voice then says, “Pop her again,” followed by laughter.

Cobb-Hunter and victims advocates didn’t think it was funny.

“And they wonder why we rank in the bottom on women in office and we lead in women getting killed by men,” she said.

Harrison said critics were “overreacting” and the comments weren’t intended to diminish the gravity of domestic violence. “If you take it that way, you’re overly sensitive,” he said.

Fuck Harrison and Altman. Hard to believe that some of these beating-up-women-is-funny-and-if-you-think-otherwise-then-you’re-being-sensitive-politicians are married. Those poor women. Please tell me, somebody, that not all men of South Carolina are like this.

If you’re a victim of domestic violence living in South Carolina, guess what?! Cockfighting is a felony, while domestic abuse is just a misdemeanor! From the President-for-Life Sheelzebub of Pinko Feminist Hellcat…

The South Carolina Judiciary Committee passed legislation that turned cockfighting into a felony. The same committee tabled a bill to protect victims of domestic violence–beating up your spouse is still just a misdemeanor.

And if you question this logic, you’re obviously not very bright, at least according to SC State Rep. John Graham Altman III.

And here’s a little spat between Altman and a reporter named Kara Gormley who dared to do her job and ask why the fuck would anyone place more value on a rooster’s life over a domestic violence victim.

Rep. Altman responds to the comparison, “People who compare the two are not very smart and if you don’t understand the difference, Ms. Gormley, between trying to ban the savage practice of watching chickens trying to kill each other and protecting people rights in CDV statutes, I’ll never be able to explain it to you in a 100 years ma’am.”

News 10 reporter Kara Gormley asked Altman, “That’s fine if you feel you will never be able to explain it to me, but my question to you is: does that show that we are valuing a gamecock’s life over a woman’s life?”

Altman again, “You’re really not very bright and I realize you are not accustomed to this, but I’m accustomed to reporters having a better sense of depth of things and you’re asking this question to me would indicate you can’t understand the answer. To ask the question is to demonstrate an enormous amount of ignorance. I’m not trying to be rude or hostile, I’m telling you.”

Gormley, “It’s rude when you tell someone they are not very bright.”

Altman, “You’re not very bright and you’ll just have to live with that.”

In the follow-up interview, Rep. Altman commented, “I wanted to offend that snippy reporter who come in here on a mission. She already had the story and she came in with some dumb questions and I don’t mind telling people when they ask dumb questions.”

Oh and what dumb question was that? Why the SC Committee tabled a bill that would increase the penalties for domestic abusers, but readily passed a law that would make it a felony to hold cockfights?! Yeah, real stupid question.

Oh Amp, maybe we should add a “douchebag politician zaniness” category.

[I don’t have time to post today (drawing), but I thought I ought to post this, so I’m swiping every word from Hannah at Feministing. (Think of it as a special “involuntary guest post.”) –Amp]

The U.S. Senate will have an up-or-down vote on the Federal Refusal Clause as soon as this Thursday, April 21. Why does this matter, you ask?

According to NARAL Pro Choice America, the Federal Refusal Clause provision slipped into the federal budget at the end of the 2004 and “allows any health-care company (including hospitals, health-insurance corporations, and HMOs) to refuse to comply with any federal, state, or local law that assures women have access to abortion services. It lets a health-care company gag its doctors, and bar them from providing abortion services - or even information - to their patients. Doctors could even be blocked from referring women clients to another doctor under this proposal even when a woman’s health is at risk. Under the Federal Refusal Clause, many women may lose access to vital reproductive health services, and in some cases may not even be told what options are available to them.”

Take action against this insanity and write your senator today.

[I will say that I followed the link at the end and sent an email to my senators, and it took all of 20 seconds. Maybe less. –Amp]

I’m getting back into drawing Hereville (which will slow down blogging on “Alas” a lot - my new rule is that I’m not allowed to blog unless I’ve made some progress on Hereville first). Page 27 can now be seen here.

Actually, I drew page 27 one and a half times. I drew it and started drawing page 28. Then, partway through drawing page 28, I realized that the scene I was drawing sucked. So I rewrote the scene, which made it necessary to redraw the bottom half of page 27 (and to throw away many of the pencils for page 28, as well).

And, for those of you who are curious, the original page 27 can be viewed here. Although I hate the script for the bottom half of the page, I like the visual pattern formed by the line of word balloons.

The New York Times has an article summing up the same study that I talked about yesterday (thanks to “Alas” reader Katie for the tip). The big finding: it’s better to be a little “overweight” than to be “normal” weight.

People who are overweight but not obese have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight, federal researchers are reporting today.

The researchers - statisticians and epidemiologists from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - also found that increased risk of death from obesity was seen for the most part in the extremely obese, a group constituting only 8 percent of Americans.

And being very thin, even though the thinness was longstanding and unlikely to stem from disease, caused a slight increase in the risk of death, the researchers said.

The new study, considered by many independent scientists to be the most rigorous yet on the effects of weight, controlled for factors like smoking, age, race and alcohol consumption in a sophisticated analysis derived from a well-known method that has been used to predict cancer risk.

Perhaps the Times just didn’t mention it, but it sounds like they didn’t control for the negative health effects of weight cycling (aka “yo-yo dieting”). Multiple studies have shown that weight cycling can take years of of people’s lives; a morbidity study of fat that doesn’t control for this factor will inevitably exaggerate the risks of fat.

The article’s conclusion:

“The take-home message from this study, it seems to me, is unambiguous,” Dr. Glassner said. “What is officially deemed overweight these days is actually the optimal weight.”

And hey, while I’m on the subject, let me recommend this terrific Paul Campos article from the New Republic, “The Weighting Game” (pdf link - the article begins on page 3). Thanks to “Alas” reader Richard Bellamy for the link. Here’s a sample, but the whole thing is good:

If fat is ultimately irrelevant to health, our fear of fat, unfortunately, is not. Americans’ obsession with thinness feeds an institution that actually is a danger to Americans’ health: the diet industry.

Tens of millions of Americans are trying more or less constantly to lose 20 or 30 pounds. (Recent estimates are that, on any particular day, close to half the adult population is on some sort of diet.) Most say they are doing so for their health, often on the advice of their doctors. Yet numerous studies–two dozen in the last 20 years alone–have shown that weight loss of this magnitude (and indeed even of as little as ten pounds) leads to an increased risk of premature death, sometimes by an order of several hundred percent. By contrast, over this same time frame, only a handful of studies have indicated that weight loss leads to lower mortality rates–and one of these found an eleven-hour increase in life expectancy per pound lost (i.e., less than an extra month of life in return for a 50-pound weight loss). This pattern holds true even when studies take into account “occult wasting,” the weight loss that sometimes accompanies a serious but unrelated illness.

For example, a major American Cancer Society study published in 1995 concluded in no uncertain terms that healthy “overweight” and “obese” women were better off if they didn’t lose weight. In this study, healthy women who intentionally lost weight over a period of a year or longer suffered an all-cause increased risk of premature mortality that was up to 70 percent higher than that of healthy women who didn’t intentionally lose weight. Meanwhile, unintentional weight gain had no effect on mortality rates. (A 1999 report based on the same data pool found similar results for men.)

I know Amp’s already linked to a post on Bitch Magazine’s article on “I had an abortion” tees that are certainly creating an uproar. But what’s the reasoning behind creating such provocative and “shock-value” shirts?…

There’s a new front in the battle for abortion rights—the literal front, that is, of a t-shirt designed by writer and feminist activist Jennifer Baumgardner that proclaims “I had an abortion.” The shirt, initially for sale on Planned Parenthood’s national website and now available on Clamor magazine’s website, has generated controversy among not only the antiabortion community but also pro-choice feminists.

Sounds somewhat similar to how some, certainly not all, African-Americans using the “n-word” like Chris Rock or Dave Chappell, or Gay/Lesbian people who use the words “queer,” “fag,” and “dyke” amongst each other. Can claiming word(s) that your ideological opponents have stigmatized and turned into social taboos as “your own” so to speak, a positive, suitable, or even productive way of de-powering your opponents’ attacks on your cause or fellow activists? Is there even a possibility of removing the stigmas and taboos placed on these particular words by using this means? I leave it up to you people to decide. I’m actually very much undecided on this issue, even though I am a pro-choice feminist. I just get the awkward feeling of “lowering yourself to their level” for some reason. But this also applies to derogatory words that have historically been used against minorities and people of the LGBTQ Community.

Over at Willow Tree, Rachel Ann asks:

Under what circumstances is it okay to break the law? I don’t mean jaywalking, or grand theft auto either, I mean something in between.

Pretty much whenever I think 1) there’s virtually no chance I’ll get caught, and 2) I don’t believe that by breaking the law I’d be making a significant contribution to hurting another person. (Breaking the law in the context of a political protest is a different matter; there sometimes I’d find it worthwhile to break a law even if there’s a significant chance I’d be caught. But I don’t think that’s the sort of thing Rachel Ann was thinking of.)

So, for example, I don’t hesitate to get stoned (or when I do hesitate, it’s not because I’m disturbed by the law-breaking). Nor would it bother me morally to shoplift from a huge corporation. (I don’t shoplift anymore - haven’t for years - but that’s not a moral decision, I’m just not as fearless as I once was. Or as needy).

Of course, I realize that shoplifting - and, for that matter, smoking pot - does contribute in a small way to harming other people. If I was the only person in the world to shoplift, it would be pretty harmless; but the cumulative effect of millions of shoplifting incidents is to raise prices and unemployment by some degree. But to me, this sort of “cumulative” harm is similar to the harm caused by driving when you could walk, or flying across the country, or failing to protest my government vigorously, or not buying the most fuel-efficient car available, or any other activity in which some of the costs are externalized. Yes, it’s the wrong thing to do; but being one of millions who contributes a tiny bit to a larger social harm is something I’ve learned to live with on a day-to-day basis.

Sesame Street’s producers, reacting to the “obesity epidemic,” have decided that the Cookie Monster should moderate his eating habits; a new song for C.M. will have the title “A Cookie Is A Sometimes Food.” When I read the story, I didn’t give it much thought; just another example of mindless anti-fat hysteria.

But as Jason at Positive Liberty points out, this isn’t just mindlessness; it’s bad art:

You know, even when I was a kid I think I understood the point of Cookie Monster, which was that you’re not supposed to be like him.

I know this is pedantic for most of you, but look at the original Sesame Street characters. They all had faults that kids were meant to learn about and avoid: Oscar the Grouch was dirty; Cookie Monster ate junk food; Big Bird could be a bit naive. Kids learned by watching that these traits aren’t always the best ones to have–but that they aren’t the end of the world, either. And we liked the characters anyway.

Dimensionality. Complexity. Literature, or as much as a four-year-old can understand of it. And they’re squashing it flat. Behold the damage that can be done by a momentary phobia passing through the pundit class.

I wish I didn’t suspect that it’s somehow patronizing for an uptight white guy like me to say “word,” because if I didn’t, then right here would be the perfect place for me to say “word.”

On the other hand, isn’t it sort of racist for me to keep myself from using obviously useful and eloquent words like “dis” and “word” just because I don’t want to seem patronizing?

So, then. Er.

Word.

The nineties, especially the late nineties early 2000s, experienced somewhat of a “Gay explosion” in television and culture. Shows like “Will & Grace”, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” “Queer as Folk,” and “The L Word,” (and “SpongeBob Squarepants” if you believe the homophobic neoconservative conspiracy theorists) seem to have brought Gay/Lesbian characters into the mainstream of television, and broke down old barriers that prevented people of the LGBTQ Community from being represented positively and realistically in the media. Slowly but surely, seeing characters who belong to the LGBTQ Community is becoming less taboo and contraversial. Sure we’re given characters who display some of the over exaggerated stereotypes of Gay men and Lesbian women; Gay men are hyper-effeminate and Lesbian women are “butch.” Still, television and Pop-Culture have made significant strides in portraying the people of the LGBTQ Community in a positive and non-homophobic fashion.

For the viewers, this could have positive affects as well. Simply seeing more and more Gay men and Lesbian women in television, certainly in shows that happen to be the audiences’ favorites, could possibly reduce and perhaps even squash any anti-LGBTQ prejudices they could harbor. According to this newsbyte from G.L.A.A.D., a study done by the University of Minnesota found this to be true…

New studies by University of Minnesota researchers have found that watching positive portrayals of gays on television can reduce anti-gay prejudice. In three separate studies, researchers measured the attitudes of a total of 475 college students toward gay men before and after watching episodes of Bravo’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” NBC’s “Will & Grace” and HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” In all three instances, exposure to portrayals of gays resulted in a significant reduction in prejudice, the university reported.

“The more they learned about gay men as a group, the more their attitudes toward gay men moved in a tolerant direction,” said lead researcher Edward Schiappa, a U of M professor of communications. The amount of change was greatest among those with little or no prior interpersonal contact with gay men.

From their studies, the researchers have created a theory called the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis, which contends that positive experiences with minority characters can reduce prejudice in a manner similar to direct contact with people. “Through the medium of television, viewers actually develop a relationship with the characters,” Schiappa said, “and this parasocial relationship leads to lessened prejudice.”

It could be argued that this is quite similar to when more African-Americans were featured in television and movies in the early seventies and how it affected White people’s view of that particular community. Or even women featured in more positive and progressive roles. The more one views a group of people in entertainment and Popular Culture with positive and progressive depictions, the more likely they are to develop an open-minded opinion of this group. It’s probably one of the best ways a society could rid itself of bigotry against those who have historically been at a disadvantage, especially when it came to culture and the entertainment world. With it becoming more and more common place to see people of the LGBTQ Community in television and movies, the possibility of ending cultural and hopefully legal discrimination against them seem to be greater. It’s about damn time.

Then of course, there is the homophobic backlash to all of this. Such as the neocons’ “SpongeBob Squarepants conspiracy” of an “extremist homosexual agenda even in cartoons, that’s trying to turn kids gay.” Yeah……sure there is. Maybe show children and people in general that people of the LGBTQ Community are not the “perverted, mentally ill deviants” as some belligerent homophobic politicians and organizations try to portray them as. We still have a ways to go.

Oh, one more thing. Amp and I decided not to change the blog’s name. So all of you can stop planning a coup d’etat against us. Thank you :-)

From an AP story:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated today that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.

The new analysis found that obesity — being extremely overweight — is indisputably lethal. But like several recent smaller studies, it found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight.

Biostatistician Mary Grace Kovar, a consultant for the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center in Washington, said “normal” may be set too low for today’s population.

Keep in mind that the 365,000 number was itself a retreat from the CDC’s recent figure of 400,000 deaths a year. Don’t worry, though… the fact that they overestimated fat deaths by 1400% isn’t going to make them do anything crazy like revise the publicity materials based on false figures.

CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the brand-new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back its fight against obesity.

I’ll be interested to see if this new study accounted for the effects of yo-yo dieting as a separate cause from merely being overweight; if they didn’t, then even the new figure of 25,814 may be an exaggeration. And given the near-universal failure of diets to turn fat people into “normal” people over the long term, I think that describing being fat as a “preventable” condition is dubious.

“This analysis is far more sophisticated,” said Kovar, who was not involved in the new study. “They are very careful and are not overstating their case.”

A related study, also in Wednesday’s JAMA, found that overweight Americans are healthier than ever, thanks to better maintenance of blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Diabetes is on the rise among people in all weight categories, however.

I think that last paragraph relates to an important point: Fat people who are concerned about their health are better off using moderate exercise and improved diets to work on reducing blood pressure and “bad” cholesterol, and not paying attention to what the scales say. Unlike trying to lose weight, this is an approach that can be successfully applied by most fat people over the long run.

It’s stunning how irresponsible the CDC has been throughout the “fat is the new smoking!” saga. On the bright side, I’m surprised and pleased that the CDC is releasing this new data, rather than finding ways to cover it up.

Thanks to Paul of Big Fat Blog for the tip.

Although I’ve written a fair amount about the rape prevalence controversy over the years, I haven’t discussed false rape reports. Feminists tend to claim that false rape reporting is relatively uncommon; anti-feminists and men’s rights advocates (MRAs) tend to claim that false rape reports are almost as common as true rape reports.

I haven’t said much because I’ve looked into the research and found it very inconclusive. This Columbia Journalism Review article (link via Julie Saltman at Washington Monthly) sums up the state of the research pretty well. At the low end, some studies and sources have claimed that 2% of rape allegations made to police are false. The FBI finds that about 8% are false. Some studies - most famously one by sociologist Eugene Kanin, examining rape reports in a single, small Midwestern city - have found false reporting rates as high as 41%.

(It should be noted that what many studies report as false reporting rates are in fact recanting rates. However, can we really safely assume that 100% of all women who recant an accusation were not raped? There are other reasons to wonder about the highest numbers. In some studies, police interrogation or polygraph exams were used, tactics which can sometimes lead to false confessions. In other cases, the sample considered - a tiny Midwestern city, women in the military, etc - seems likely to include many women who have a much stronger-than-average motivation to not admit they voluntarily had sex. In no case is the honesty or possible bias of the police investigators ever questioned.)

Both feminists and anti-feminists sometimes talk about this question as if what’s at issue is how honest women are. That’s a mistake - what percent of reported rapes are false says nothing about women in general, or rape in general. As Eugene Volokh points out, since relatively few (I’d argue a minority) of rapes are ever reported to police, even if very few women would ever lie about being raped it’s quite possible to have a relatively high percentage of false rape reports.

Let’s say, for instance, that only 2% of all women age 16-19 would ever lie about rape; and that any particular year, only 2% of that tiny fraction actually do falsely report a rape to the police. So 98% of all women (including relatively young and not very mature women) would never lie about rape, and even of those who might under the right circumstances, most never will. (I use the 16-to-19 age group because the risk of rape is highest there; the same analysis could apply, though, to other age groups.)

There are, however, about 8 million women in the 16-to-19 age group in the U.S., and 2% x 2% x 8 million = 3200 false rape reports per year. The National Crime Victimization Survey (2002 data, see table 3) reports that 2.7 out of 1000 people age 16 to 19, which means 5.4 out of 1000 women age 16 to 19, are raped each year. This is an estimate based on a survey, not on police reports, and it may well be low (the actual rate may be higher) [it almost certainly is higher -Amp]; but in any event, we know that the rate of rapes reported to the police is roughly half that estimated to the NCVS (compare the Uniform Crime Reports data, and remember that the UCR data aggregates rapes and attempted rapes, while the NCVS breaks them out). This means that roughly 2.7 out of 1000 women age 16 to 19 report an actual rape each year, for a total of 2.7/1000 x 8 million = 21,600 true rape reports per year.

Under this model, then, 13% of all rape reports to the police would be false (in the 16-to-19 age group), even though only 2% of all women in that age group would ever make a false rape report, and only 2% of those actually make a false rape report each year. Ninety-eight percent of all women may be completely truthful on this subject, and yet we may still have a substantial false rape report rate.

It’s also important to realize that the connection between false rape reports and false rape convictions is weaker than most people assume. First of all, it’s quite possible to make a false rape report without making a false rape accusation. For example, a teen girl seeking an alibi for staying out late - or for being pregnant - may make up a story of being raped by a stranger. But if all she claims is that a stranger raped her and she can’t identify him, then no one has been falsely accused.

Second, it’s unfortunately possible for a genuine rape report to lead to a false rape conviction. A woman who is raped by a stranger may mistakenly think she recognizes an innocent man; a lot of research has shown that all crime victims, including victims of traumatic violence, are much more likely to make mistaken identifications than most people (and most juries) believe.

Finally, the large majority of reported rapes never lead to convictions at all; and, since false rape reports probably have less evidence supporting them than true rape reports, it seems likely that they lead to convictions even less often. Even true rape reports, unfortunately, are unlikely to lead to a conviction; how much more unlikely when the report is fiction?

None of this is to suggest that it’s ever acceptable to make a false rape report; that a falsely accused man doesn’t suffer unjustly even if there is no conviction; or that any number of false accusations and convictions - however small - is acceptable. Nonetheless, the speculations by some men’s rights activists that there is a nationwide epidemic of men falsely imprisoned for rape don’t seem well founded.

P.S. It’s common, when people discuss this issue, to hear claims that “rape is the only crime where people are convicted based on the word of one witness.” That’s just nonsense; lots of crimes are based on the word of one witness (often a cop). Resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, drug dealing, solicitation… unless someone happened to take a video, these sort of crimes commonly come down to one person’s word against another’s.

Samhita at Feministing links to this Salon article criticizing pop star Gwen Stefani for hiring four Asian women to follow her around. The article’s subtitle neatly sums up its point: “Gwen Stefani neuters Japanese street fashion to create spring’s must-have accessory: Giggling geisha!” From the article:

Real harajuku girls are just the funky dressers who hang out in the Japanese shopping district of Harajuku. To the uninitiated, harajuku style can look like what might happen if a 5-year-old girl jacked up on liquor and goofballs decided to become a stylist. Layering is important, as is the mix of seemingly disparate styles and colors. Vintage couture can be mixed with traditional Japanese costumes, thrift-store classics, Lolita-esque flourishes and cyber-punk accessories. In a culture where the dreaded “salary man/woman” office worker is a fate to be avoided for this never-wanna-grow-up generation, harajuku style can look as radical as punk rockers first looked on London’s King Road or how pale-faced Goths silently sweating in their widows weeds look in cheerful sunny suburbs. […]

Stefani fawns over harajuku style in her lyrics, but her appropriation of this subculture makes about as much sense as the Gap selling Anarchy T-shirts; she’s swallowed a subversive youth culture in Japan and barfed up another image of submissive giggling Asian women. While aping a style that’s suppose to be about individuality and personal expression, Stefani ends up being the only one who stands out.

The writer’s critique of Stefani seems pretty on-target. The description of harajuku fashion made me curious, so I googled and found some photo galleries: here, here, here, here, and here. The girls seem to be very creative and having a lot of gothy fun. Even the “sexy” outfits seem more like satire or appropriation than like dressing up to attract boys, and there’s a lot of wit going into the outfits. (There’s also some stuff that’s disturbing - a couple of photos I saw showed girls who had made themselves up to look as if they’d been beat up, or dressed like Nazis, etc..)

Okay, here’s my first post on Alas….

As Cardinals lock themselves within the confines of the Vatican and observers watch the billowing smoke from a chimney to see if the next Pontiff has been selected, members of the Catholic Church wonder what, if anything, will this next pope have in store for its followers. Specifically–the women of the faith. The Church hasn’t exactly been up to speed on women’s social progression to equality and it certainly hasn’t recognized women’s reproductive rights. And the prospect of female priests, bishops, cardinals, and who knows–pope?! Viewing women as more than just wives and mothers or even accepting and respecting a woman’s choice to not become a wife or a mother, and still view her to be a “good Catholic?” A woman’s right to divorce? How about a woman’s right to control her own reproduction and use contraceptives, and even obtain an abortion? Women’s sexual freedom?! Will the Church and the next pope retain their Medieval view of women or as society at large has, become more progressive in regards to women’s social status?

In my opinion–they’ll stay Medieval in their views of women for a long time to come. I foresee more women feeling alienated from the Catholic Church and even abandoning it, and certainly, there will be more women rightfully demanding to have their voices heard. Faithful women flock to Sunday Mass and yet their Church can, and many times over, turn a deaf ear to them. And some women are doubtful of seeing the Church absorb more progressive, even feminist ideals in its view of women any time soon. A recent article from Women’s eNews reported on the concerns of Chilean [Catholic] women who anxiously await the announcement of the next pope and his own gender politics.

As the world waits to hear who is chosen to lead the Catholic Church, women in Chile are divided on whether a new pope is likely to bring any change to the status of women in this deeply conservative and Catholic country.

SANTIAGO, Chile (WOMENSENEWS)–Sister Maria Ines Concha, dean of the faculty of theology at the Catholic University of Chile in Valparaiso, remembers Pope John Paul II as a staunch proponent of women’s rights.

“I think it’s irrelevant who is chosen when it comes to women’s issues,” said Concha, referring to the naming of the next pope, “because no one is going to regress in terms of the progress that has been made. I don’t think you can stall those advances.”

Concha recalled how the pope allowed women to serve at the altar and said that by expanding women’s church participation John Paul may have paved the way for his successor to permit the ordination of female priests.

She recommended the following passage from his 1995 letter to women:

“As far as personal rights are concerned, there is an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancements, equality of spouses with regard to family rights and the recognition of everything that is part of the rights and duties of citizens in a democratic state. This is a matter of justice but also of necessity.”

But while multitudes of women in Chile look back on the deceased pope with gratitude for his advocacy of women’s rights, others chafe at his opposition to divorce, female ordination, abortion and contraceptives.

Behold, the mixed legacy of John Paul II; good here and there, but over there….not so good. It’s more a schizophrenic legacy, really.

“In all international conferences on women, the Vatican has consistently been against us on issues like divorce, contraception, homosexuality, abortion,” said Loreto Ossandon, a researcher with the Foundation Institute for Women, a Santiago-based think-tank. “So where is their advocacy of women’s rights?”

I doubt there’s any advocacy for women’s rights. The Vatican’s gender politics are pretty cut and dry when it comes to its treatment of women. But that’s just my cynicism of the whole issue.

Ossandon believes that since John Paul chose the majority of the voting cardinals, his successor will likely toe his line.

Which means Catholic women might have to wait another twenty-six years before another opportunity for progression within the Catholic Church’s position on women’s rights. Or they might have to wait another millennia or so. Will there even be women within the Catholic Church if they remain so constant and backward in their view of women, a thousand years from now?

Others said that female priests in themselves would not necessarily mean a shift on issues such as reproductive rights.

“It would likely be a female wearing the same pants and professing the same ideas of the current male-dominated church,” said Veronica Diaz, a coordinator with the Valparaiso-based grassroots organization Catholic Women for the Right to Choose. “It would only make a difference if we had a feminist female priest.”

Given the scarcity of feminist Catholic organizations in Chile, Diaz shrugged off the issue as a non-starter.

And women compromising their reproductive rights in order to receive “scraps from the Vatican’s table” continues.

Divided on Legacy
In Chile–one of the most conservative countries in the most Catholic region of the world–women are divided about John Paul’s legacy on women’s rights.

Divorce was only legalized last year. Abortion in all forms is illegal and prosecuted. Children of separated parents are barred from attending some Catholic schools. Last month, the long hand of the Church was widely suspected as playing a role when a health minister was fired for expressing support for free distribution of the morning-after pill.

And they say Papal interference within national governments went out with Henry VIII’s grandstanding against the Catholic Church.

[…]…”On some issues, like divorce and abortion and that stuff, the church needs to be more tolerant nowadays,” said 20-year-old Fernanda Farcuh, a student at Chile’s Catholic University in Santiago. “It’s a very conservative Church here in Chile and it has very much power over politics. It can stop things that people need. I think we need a more open-minded church.”

Best of luck convincing those Cardinals over in Vatican City.

Farcuh believes young people might stop leaving the church if leadership changes brought new policies on issues such as birth control.

Diaz, with Catholic Women for the Right to Choose, said young people are alienated by a Church removed from their day-to-day reality.

“Asking that women enter marriage as virgins, not have abortions, not get divorced,” are all examples, she said. “And I don’t think any of the papal candidates will change any of those fundamentals.”

Hence why some women are simply fed up with the Church and are leaving, or staying and working for change.

Monica Silva is a researcher at Chile’s Catholic University in Santiago and a member of the National Commission on Women in the Church, an organization created by the Episcopal Conference of Chile to advise on women’s issues.

It’s debatable what can be labeled women’s issues,” said Silva. “Take an issue like abortion. That’s not a women’s issue to me. That comes down to the most basic right of all human beings; the right to life.”

I can’t believe she said that. Well yes actually I can. If women can’t even form a consensus on what are “women’s issues and rights” (or what constitutes women’s reproductive rights) and what we feel the Church needs change, then how the hell can Catholic women, longing for change, convince the Church what are women’s rights, especially reproductive rights?! Personally it doesn’t matter to me what the Church does as I am not Catholic, and not even a believer in a supreme being or souls. However, I do sympathize with the many frustrations that the women of the Church hold. The institution constructed around the faith you follow barely holds you to a second class status, ignores your rights, and simply ignores your voices? Sure you’re noticed every once in a while, but is it merely a condescending novelty act from the Vatican?

Women have struggled and succeeded in gaining access into once male-dominated/controlled institutions and even re-constructing those particular institutions. Progressive Catholic women happen to be struggling with the Roman Catholic Church; a male dominated/controlled institution with very little regard for women’s rights. For this feminist onlooker, it’s just another “women versus patriarchal institution and its teachings” scenario. But it’s actually occuring within the institution. There are women within the institution but they are shut out from positions of authority and ’say’ on the institution’s teachings. I’m quite certain the struggle and women’s strong disagreements with the Church has nothing to do with the Church core belief in an all powerful deity who sired a son, who would be named Jesus Christ (duh), with a woman named Mary, and later on Christ would nailed to a cross and all that. No, the grievances of progressive Catholic women concern the Church’s stubborn and even arrogant backward position when it comes to women’s “place” within the faith. And even within society as a whole.

In a nutshell, a significant number of Catholic women don’t like their ‘just barely’ second class status within the Vatican’s teachings and views concerning divorce, contraceptives, abortion, sexuality, and “what makes a good Catholic woman.” How will this next pope treat the women of the Church? What will those Cardinals take into consideration when choosing the next pope and will the “woman question” play a roll in that at all? Will some Catholic women be left disappointed yet again by another staunchly anti-feminist pope? Yeah probably. So I’m not getting all giddy over the Conclave as I doubt the Cardinals will elect a progressive pope. I’m betting on an ultra-conservative yet anti-war, anti-excesses-of-capitalism, and pro-humanitarian pope with Medieval views on women’s role (and rights) in the Church and society at large. But once again, I’m just a cynic.

There! My first post. Chatter amongst yourselves.

Here’s a neat announcement: Pseudo-Adrienne, of Pseudo-Adrienne’s Liberal Feminist Bias, is going to be joining “Alas” as the younger, cooler co-blogger. If all goes well, she’ll be blogging here permanently. I’m really excited about this.

Also, we’re planning to rename “Alas, a Blog” to something else, but we haven’t determined what yet. Suggestions are welcome.

An interesting Forward article discusses “what feminism can teach jewish organizations.” I particularly liked this bit:

A nationwide study released recently by Ma’yan: the Jewish Women’s Project, “Listen to Her Voice,” reveals that feminism has had a transformative effect on the Jewish community over the last 30 years. Respondents to the survey were not only thrilled with the many changes that have occurred — the ordination of women as cantors and rabbis, unprecedented access to learning and sacred texts, women’s leadership on the bimah and in the boardroom — but they also believe that there would have been little to hold their interest in the Jewish community without these changes.

Many of the women reported leading their families to synagogues in which they could be counted as full participants. Others note the sweeping effects that feminism has had on Jewish theology, liturgy and ritual over the last three decades. One would hardly know it from the rhetoric of most of the organized Jewish community, but without feminism, Jewish continuity today would be much more seriously jeopardized than it is. Feminism has given many women and men a reason to again be involved Jewishly.

So that all sounds good. But, on the other hand:

Is that good enough? Can a community that purports to value families and the rearing of children above all else offer no paid parental leave to most of its employees? Is it feasible that Jewish women — who are the most highly educated women in America and who, according to numerous studies, are also singularly dedicated to the Jewish community — are unqualified for positions of leadership in the Jewish community? If feminism has transformed Jewish religious life in just 30 years, might it not have an equally powerful contribution to make to the communal world?

How might we transform this reality? We can begin by simply listening to what Jewish women are saying. Nearly half the women surveyed by Ma’yan reported being discriminated against in the Jewish community on the basis of gender. Forty-two percent have experienced pay inequity. Roughly two-thirds believe that women are underrepresented as communal leaders. Only three in 10 feel that they “often” have a way to make their voices heard about issues of local concern to them.

Read the whole thing.