VIOLENCE
OH, MY GOD Category
There is no religious or cultural reason that can possibly support the rape and death of an eight-year old by her “husband’s” boy thing. There has got to be a way for financially struggling families to make ends meet that does not entail the selling of their daughters to pedophiles. And I don’t care what kind of protection these men think they get by having sex with a virgin (if that’s what’s at play here), there has got to be a baseline of decency and understanding of how the world goes round.
“An eight-year-old Yemeni girl has died of internal sexual injuries after spending her wedding night with a husband five times her age.”
“Al Bawaba reports over a quarter of young girls in Yemen are married before the age of 15.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/...
Boys-Will-Be-Boys, with an Accent
Here, there, and everywhere. Is a woman safe anywhere? Turns out that boys everywhere think that they deserve sex, whether or not they are in a loving and thoughtful relationship that entails mutual nurturing, meaningful conversations, and lots of laughter.
“About 1 in 10 men in some parts of Asia admitted raping a woman who was not their partner, according to the first large studies of rape and sexual violence. When their wife or girlfriend was included, that figure rose to about a quarter.”
“A previous report from the World Health Organization found one-third of women worldwide say they have been victims of domestic or sexual violence.”
And BINGO is the name-o:
"’It's not enough to focus on services for women,’ said Charlotte Watts, head of the Gender, Violence and Health Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was not part of the study.”
http://hosted.ap.org/...
If you have the ability, this is the link that can lead you to the original paper:
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/...
Rape as a Political Tool: Egyptian Version
“Concealed within the opposition to the Morsi administration, cloaked within popular protests, a gender war is being waged in Egypt. Mob rape is being used as a tool of political repression within Egypt’s uprising. Vicious sexual assaults are being orchestrated to intimidate and humiliate women demonstrating in Tahrir Square and the presidential palace.”
“According to human rights groups, eight out of 10 women in Egypt have been sexually harassed or assaulted. 173 sexual assaults have occurred since July 1 alone, according to Harassmap, a website that maps and tracks assaults that were anonymously reported by SMS.”
“This is part of a worrying trend of deterioration of women’s human rights during regime change, even in transitions to democracy. Behind the veil of democratization, nations in transition experience debilitating violence, and women pay the price. There is a paradox at work.”
http://www.jpost.com/...
Women: Low on the List of Priorities for Police
And what is government for if not to protect us?
“If you’ve called the police to report a sexual assault, chances are you will be waiting for a while before an officer shows up. That’s because many police departments, faced with dwindling forces and budget cuts, prioritize response to rape victims lower than other emergency calls where people may be in immediate danger. In Denver, after at least one rape victim walked out of the hospital because it took more than two hours for police to arrive, the city police force is revamping its sexual assault policy.”
http://thinkprogress.org/...
ABORTION, CHOICE
Texas: When will it turn blue?
“At least four abortion clinics in rural Texas are closing because of tighter restrictions on facilities that offer the procedure, and three others likely will close, the Dallas Morning News reports.”
And for not being able to say “I told you so, ” but rather, we knew: “Abortion-rights opponents lobbied for the restrictions, which they said would decrease abortions and increase clinics' health and safety standards. During debate on the law, state Sen. Glenn Hegar (R) -- a sponsor of the bill -- disputed allegations that clinics would close because of the restrictions, saying, ‘I firmly believe a large number of these clinics will come up to the standards’” (Dallas Morning News, 9/5).
http://go.nationalpartnership.org/...
Is Their Next Plan to Claim that Illegal Abortions Are Safe?
More than six million unsafe abortions take place in Africa annually, resulting in about 29,000 deaths, and another 1.7 million women are hospitalized each year from complications related to unsafe abortions, according to statistics from the World Health Organization.
http://go.nationalpartnership.org/...
HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: BEING A WOMAN
Tough Luck Being a White Woman in the South
“Everything about Crystal’s life was ordinary, except for her death. She is one of a demographic—white women who don’t graduate from high school—whose life expectancy has declined dramatically over the past 18 years. These women can now expect to die five years earlier than the generation before them. “
“Researchers have long known that high-school dropouts like Crystal are unlikely to live as long as people who have gone to college. But why would they be slipping behind the generation before them? James Jackson, a public-health researcher at the University of Michigan, believes it’s because life became more difficult for the least-educated in the 1990s and 2000s.” (Emphasis mine)
“But the researchers discovered something else that was driving women like her to early graves: Whether the women had a job mattered, and it mattered more than income or other signs of financial stability, like homeownership. In fact, smoking and employment were the only two factors of any significance.”
“The rural South is a place that often wants to remain unchanged from the 1950s and 1960s, and its women are now dying as if they lived in that era, too.”
http://prospect.org/...
IDIOT POLITICIANS
Indiana Version: Careful, the compassion might overwhelm you.
“Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is calling on the legislature to help reduce the number of babies being exposed to narcotics while still in the womb.”
Sounds good so far.
“Attorney General Greg Zoeller says treating NAS [Neonatal abstinence syndrome] at Indiana hospitals cost an estimated $30 million in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available.”
“Zoeller says one solution is requiring pregnant women take drug tests to identify the problem and start treatment before birth.”
So it’s not about the suffering of the baby or the suffering of the mother, no, it’s about having to spend money on sick infants.
http://indianapublicmedia.org/...
Insightful interpretation of said compassion:
“That something, as you might have guessed, is drug screens! Yes, they are considering drug screening every pregnant person in the state. Supposedly, it's only one of the options they are considering, but the fact that it's on the table at all is appalling to me. Here in Indiana, we are pressing fast forward to the day when we legally strip personhood from actual living, breathing people, to give it to fetuses.”
http://www.shakesville.com/...
Bye bye to the men who weren’t up to… expectations
Filner in San Diego resigned. Spitzer and Weiner both lost: thanks New York!
http://www.slate.com/...
Another Idiot Politician, this time from down under
Insensitivity Award goes to…Australia’s new prime minister
The list of offensive remarks reprinted here starts with a doozy: “Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.” March 17th, 2004
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/...
Women Always Have to Wait
“Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's (D-N.Y.) proposal to overhaul the military's handling of sexual assaults is on hold as the Senate focuses on whether to authorize military action in Syria, Politico reports” (Samuelsohn, Politico, 9/8)
http://go.nationalpartnership.org/...
PETITIONS
Planned Parenthood: Support comprehensive health insurance for all womenhttps://secure.ppaction.org/...
Many actions to take part in via the National Partnership for Women & Families
https://secure2.convio.net/...