The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that schools cannot strip search students, with Clarence Thomas as the lone dissenter. In the case, a 13 year old was accused of having ibuprofen by an ex-friend. Though the school never searched her locker or desk, they strip searched the girl. For ibuprofen.
Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.
"Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too," Redding says.
Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn't see her fighting back tears.
I've already discussed why I feel that this was assault, so I won't go into that again. The ruling, however, was interesting.
He seems to feel that there'ssomething inherently wrong with second-guessing educators' decisions. Why? Isn't a wise to have someone double checking to make sure that people are doing the right thing?
He believes that a strip search helps "ensure the health and safety" of students, when quite the opposite is true. This strip search was extremely detrimental to the health and safety of the girl. She felt abused - which is exactly what she was. In the rare cases when a strip search is necessary, call trained professionals: the police.
The other interesting aspect of the ruling was that only two justices felt that the school administrators should not be shielded from liability. It is no shock at all that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman, was one of those two.
Justice Ginsburg singled out the assistant principal, noting that he had made Savana sit on a chair outside his office for more than two hours in what Justice Ginsburg called a “humiliating situation” when the case was argued.
“At no point did he attempt to call her parent,” Justice Ginsburg wrote on Thursday. “Abuse of authority of that order should not be shielded by official immunity.”
Indeed. You don't need to know the law to know that the following is completely inappropriate: searching a child's panties for painkillers - but never, say, searching her locker or her desk - and never calling her parents. And then making the child sit outside the office even though they never found anything!
Unfortunately, only two of the seven judges could understand that the school administrators abused this girl.
This is why we need more women on the Supreme Court. Women will not only be more likely to understand issues like this, but through sharing their experiences, they can help men understand.
Mike Galanos wrote an opinion piece for the CNN asserting that Plan B is risky for 17 year olds. His argument, however, doesn't hold water. Let's take a look at it, bit by bit:
Think of a 17-year-old girl. Most of the time she's a high school senior, still living at home with Mom and Dad.
Ok, thinking, thinking... got it: A 17 year old girl, terrified to admit to her parents that she not only has sex (gasp!), but had unprotected sex. Will she take the chance at pregnancy to avoid telling her parents? Yeah, probably.
She still needs her parents in the tough times. But they will be cut out of a traumatic situation.
Wait, what's traumatic here? The sex? That's not traumatic. Unprotected sex? Not traumatic, as long as it doesn't result in pregnancy. So, actually, we're preventing a traumatic situation.
Now keep in mind birth control pills require a doctor's prescription, but a drug that is more powerful doesn't?
Ok - so maybe we should make birth control pills over the counter too? And, also, while Plan B is more powerful per pill, but birth control is a much more serious health concern because you're on it for weeks, months, years. The depression and other things that can result from birth control isn't really a risk with Plan B.
Some argue that a girl can get an abortion without parental notification in some states, so why not Plan B? But just because those states got it wrong by leaving parents out of the loop doesn't mean others should follow suit.
Let's make sure we can follow his argument here (where the ">" means "more serious than"): Abortion > Plan B > Birth control pills. States allow abortion without parental consent, but that doesn't imply allowing Plan B. But, earlier, he basically used the opposite logic: if states don't allow birth control, why would they allow a more serious drug? Inconsistent logic.
In most states, minors can't get a tattoo, body piercings or go to a tanning salon without a parent's permission, but we are going to leave them alone to take Plan B.
Well, yes, this makes sense because of the consequences of not providing access to Plan B: pregnancy. What's the consequence of not providing access to tattoos?
Timing is essential to the drug's effectiveness, Plan B supporters say, so getting parents and doctors involved would unnecessarily delay the teen's ability to pop the pill the "morning after." Does it really take that long to get a prescription?
First, it can take a while if it's on a weekend (and teens do have this tendency to have sex on weekends). Second, it would unnecessarily prevent the teen from telling her parents. Do you not know teenage girls? They don't really like getting grounded or barred from seeing their boyfriends.
The New York Times reports that since 18-year-olds were allowed to get Plan B without a prescription in 2006, there has been no evidence of it having an effect on the country's teen pregnancy or abortion rates.
True, but they also showed no increase in risky behaviors. So, 1 point for each side here.
We're enabling teenagers to act carelessly with an easy way out.
Yeah! Let's punish them with unplanned pregnancy! Brilliant!
"Teenagers are known for thinking they're untouchable and here we are saying that they can continue to do that and that there aren't any consequences."
Ah, so you admit that teens tend to think that nothing bad could happen to them? So, given that attitude, if they have unprotected sex, will they tell their parents so that they can get Plan B? I didn't think so.
The boyfriend will talk his girlfriend into unprotected sex with the promise of buying the "morning after pill" the next day.
Please, show me some data stating that this is a concern. Last I checked, boys were also scared of pregnancy - especially since, as you stated, Plan B is only 89% effective. (In fact, boys might be more scared of pregnancy, since they don't get any say in abortion.)
Yes, this could encourage unprotected sex and that means a greater risk for sexually transmitted diseases.
(A) Studies have shown that it doesn't increase promiscuity. (B) Isn't Plan B like $40 a pop? I don't think people are going to really rely on this as their sole method of birth control.
What about the 17-year-old girl who may get Plan B for her 15-year-old sophomore friend?
What about it? I'm ok with that, since it's certainly better than the 15 year old not taking it at all.
Yes, teens have sex and difficult situations will arise, but should we open the door for our girls to go through this alone? That is not what is best for our daughters.
See, here's the thing: Plan B supporters are trying to make sure your daughters don't have to go through "this" at all (where "this" is an unplanned pregnancy).
And, allow me to make a few additional points:
The average age in the US for people to lose their virginity is about 17. So to say that parents need to be informed that their 17 year old is having sex is a little extreme. If you have a 17 year old, they're probably having sex. This is not a crisis that needs to be averted. It's normal.
When a 17 year old girl has to chose between taking Plan B and informing her parents, and not taking it at all, she just wouldn't take Plan B. So, the parents won't be informed that their teen is having sex anyway.
It's not that I want parents to be uninformed. It's that I don't want unplanned pregnancies. Given that, I'll take uninformed parents and fewer unplanned pregnancies.
In an entire article about why 17 year olds should need a prescription to get Plan B, Galanos never even responds to the core reason why many people disagree. That's a rather glaring omission.
I often debate as to whether this blog should be strictly tech-based, but then I read these articles that, well, get to me. To change the statistic that 25% of women are sexually assaulted, people need to start talking about it.
Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.
"Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too," Redding says.
Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn't see her fighting back tears.
And all this for what is basically Advil. Ugh.
This was more than a strip search. This was assault:
A young girl was forced to show her private parts.
The school did not search the girl's locker or desk, but they did search the girl's crotch.
The harm in traumatizing a girl far outweighs the harm of a couple of students from taking ibuprofen.
When you look at these facts, you see that the school's search was not conducted in a way to find the ibuprofen (since they didn't search the girl's locker or desk), nor did they balance the harm of an invasive search against the risks of mild pain killers. Thus, it seems that the administrators were on a powertrip that ended in assaulting a girl.
I hope that the Supreme Court makes the right decision. While there is a time and place to do strip searches (eg, in jail), school officials are not trained to do so. If you think a student poses that much of a danger that an invasive search is required, then call the cops. Strip searches should never be conducted by school officials.
Racism is rampant. Maybe this election has made people less racist, maybe it hasn't. At the very least, I hope that it has made people realize that, yes, racism is still very much alive. As a quick illustration, check out the top 10 Google search suggestions for Obama: 30% are race-related issues: "birth certificate", "muslim" and "antichrist".
The most frustrating part is that people don't even see the racism and sexism. A Google coworker who had a "Hillary Nutcracker" displayed in his office window - he probably didn't think about how that's dripping with sexism. Nor did the Republican friend who asked online for one good thing that "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" has ever done. Nor does the other friend who asserts that Colin Powell only endorsed Barack Obama because he's black.
We don't see these things because we see them all too often. We've become immune to it. It's time that we wake up and call these things out for the racist, sexist acts that they are.
McKinney, charged with kidnapping and rape over thirty years ago, has recently emerged. Time Magazine tells us that in the winter of 1977, McKinney and a friend kidnapped a Mormon missionary by the name of Anderson, whom McKinney had been stalking since their relationship ended in 1975. Anderson was chained to a bed for three days and raped repeatedly by McKinney.
In an odd - if not shocking - choice of words, Time Magazine describes the details as "sexy and surreal". Instead of calling it rape, Time calls it "forcibly having sex." It's also called a "sex scandal."
So how could Time possibly describe an abduction and rape this way? The rapist was a woman and the victim was a man.
I believe God, in order to make certain that the human race would continue on, made sex one of most powerful desires known to mankind. But here’s the problem. If a guy created a baby every time he had sex and he had to take care of each and every baby and it’s mother for the next 20 years of his life and… THERE WAS NO PLEASURE IN THE ACT… how many guys would have sex? None! You think God didn’t know that? Of course he did. So, he had to make the desire for sex so pleasurable that most guys would do just about anything to have sex, baby or no baby. That way the generations would go on and on.
But the problem is, what if he made both men and women with the same desire? What if all men and women had the same intensity sexually as men? What would happen to our society? We’d never get anything done. We’d have so many babiesit would overrun the Earths capacity. It would be terrible.
But on the other hand, what if both men and women had the same sexual intensity as most women? What would happen to our society then? We’d die out in one generation.
If the (alleged) difference in men's and women's sex drives is just God achieving population control, couldn't an omniscient, omnipotent God achieve this in other ways? Compared with creating the earth and the sun, tweaking fertility rates should be relatively easy.
Somehow, I find the evolutionary explanation a lot easier to follow...
Fascinating. An Albanian custom permits women to take an oath of virginity and live their life as men. The gender-swapping custom has its roots in gender inequality: it provided a patriarch for families who were left without one.
The sworn virgin was born of social necessity in an agrarian region plagued by war and death. If the family patriarch died with no male heirs, unmarried women in the family could find themselves alone and powerless. By taking an oath of virginity, women could take on the role of men as head of the family, carry a weapon, own property and move freely.
When traditional Albanian culture accepts sworn virgins as men - complete with men's responsibilities and duties - it is actually demonstrating a belief that women are just as capable as men. Why, then, do you have such strictly defined gender roles? Is it solely due to religion?
A few other thoughts:
On Transgender vs. Homosexuality
Taking an oath to become a sworn virgin should not, sociologists say, be equated with homosexuality, long taboo in rural Albania.
This line sort of caught me off guard. Next time you write about, say, theatre, why don't you just throw in a line like "but enjoying theater should not be equated with homosexuality." Gender identity and sexual orientation are very different things.
On Gender Pronouns Normally, one should use "he" to refer to people who were born female but identify as male, yet this article uses "she." Is this ignorance on the part of the reporter to this "rule", an inability to accept a different custom, or do sworn virgins continue to use the female pronouns? Given the thoroughness with which they are treated as men (including use of the word "uncle"), I'm inclined to believe that they use the male pronouns. So why didn't the article?
On the Future of Sworn Virgins As women gain more rights, the incentives to become a sworn virgin become less and less. Some of the remaining sworn virgins, however, appear to encourage the same gender roles that pushed them into becoming men:
“Today women go out half naked to the disco,” said Ms. Rakipi, who wears a military beret. “I was always treated my whole life as a man, always with respect. I can’t clean, I can’t iron, I can’t cook. That is a woman’s work.”
The girls, ages early grade school to college, had come with their fathers, stepfathers and future fathers-in-law last Friday night to the ninth annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball. The first two hours of the gala passed like any somewhat awkward night out with parents, the men doing nearly all the talking and the girls struggling to cut their chicken. ... For the Wilsons and the growing number of people who have come to their balls, premarital sex is seen as inevitably destructive, especially to girls, who they say suffer more because they are more emotional than boys. Fathers, they say, play a crucial role in helping them stay pure.
Between STDs and pregnancy, it's great if a girl chooses abstinence. However, the Father-Daughter Purity Ball is saying so much more than that. It's specifically fathers and specifically daughters. If purity is so important, where are the sons? Is virginity not important for boys? If it's about encouraging virtue, why aren't the mothers there supporting their daughters?
Instead of encouraging girls to respect and value their bodies, this propagates a distorted world view in which boys are the blameless aggressors, girls are the guardians of purity, and their strong, manly fathers must protect from those silly boys. After all, boys are boys - can they really be expected to keep their d*ck in their pants? Better make that the girl's responsibility.
“Fathers, our daughters are waiting for us,” Mr. Wilson, 49, told the men. “They are desperately waiting for us in a culture that lures them into the murky waters of exploitation. They need to be rescued by you, their dad.”
Indeed, rather than encouraging a girl to choose abstinence, this promotes the idea of a girl being unable to make her own decisions about her body and needing a man to make the decisions for her. Guess who's going to make the decisions when she gets a boyfriend?
Furthermore, purity balls like this one can be counterproductive as parents are unlikely to educate their children on safe sex:
Recent studies have suggested that close relationships between fathers and daughters can reduce the risk of early sexual activity among girls and teenage pregnancy. But studies have also shown that most teenagers who say they will remain abstinent, like those at the ball, end up having sex before marriage, and they are far less likely to use condoms than their peers.
Parents: Encourage your children to wait to have sex. That's great. But encourage all of them equally - boys and girls. And, just in case the kids don't listen (as kids are known to do) teach them about condoms and safe sex. Preparing for the "what if" scenario is just common sense.
The Virginia Senate recently voted to cut off state funding for Planned Parenthood because it offers abortions. Ironically, Planned Parenthood probably does more to prevent abortions than almost any other organization in the country. Planned Parenthood offers pregnancy prevention education, contraception, breast exams, STD testing, etc. Why is it that the people who claim to care so much about the death of a fetus aren't doing anything to stop the fundamental cause? To stop abortions, you need to stop unplanned pregnancies. That's what Planned Parenthood is doing.
Here's the thing that gets me: the US claims to have a separation of church and state. However, we still fund faith-based charities and educational institutions. Sure, the government will only fund the non-religious activities, but doesn't that seem like a somewhat silly distinction? If you give a $1000 to a church's homeless program, you free up $1000 of the church's money that they can then use to expand their religious activities.
Despite the separation of church and state, we are essentially funding religious institutions on the grounds that one service they provide is worthwhile. Other services (eg, religion) provided by the religious institution are unconstitutional to fund. We still fund the institution.
Planned Parenthood of Virginia provides many services with goals that Pro-Lifers would support. They offer contraception to prevent abortion, STD testing to save lives, etc. Yet, because law makers simply don't like one service (which is perfectly legal to fund), they revoke funding for all of these services.
Where's the logic? Why does a church get funding because of one service even though it's unconstitutional to fund another, while Planned Parenthood loses funding for all services because law makers morally oppose one (legal and constitutional) service?
Thanks for making it out on a rainy Saturday, kids. Slippery out there, huh? Let's get started. We're gonna have some fun today!
Car accidents are a leading cause of death for teenagers. The school board and your elected representatives want to make sure that you and your families are spared from such a tragedy, which is why the money for driver's ed was eliminated from the budget. Whereas last year I was teaching your older siblings how to shift and brake and three-point-turn during a six-week course, it has since been decreed that I actually need just one afternoon to tell you the only piece of safety information I'm permitted by law to share:
The ONLY 100 percent effective method for avoiding car accidents is to ABSTAIN from driving until marriage.
"Dedicated to keeping Hillary Clinton out of the Oval Office and in the kitchen"
It's funny how overt sexism is so much more accepted than over racism. This got me thinking about some stuff...
Racism vs. Sexism
Much as I enjoy my little urban bubble where I don't hear extreme racist or sexist remarks on a daily basis, a quick perusal of Facebook shows me that that's woefully not the case. Any large group quickly turns into a discussion of why {insert race, gender, sexual orientation} sucks. Oops - did I say discussion? I meant punctuation-less rant, LOLs and all. Racism and sexism permeate our society in advertisements, jokes, and in each and every person's minds.
Though they both permeate our society, racism and sexism are different beasts. They have different histories, different present day struggles, and different futures.
History
Historically, black people have won certain rights before women - namely, the right to vote. Black people won the right to vote in 1870, while women didn't receive this for another fifty years. Additionally, if my college legal professor is to be believed, the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1977 only narrowly added in the gender clause. The ADA was really targeting at eliminating racial discrimination - protection for genders was afterthought.
While black people obtained certain rights before women, the struggles were very different. Black people were slaves - (white) women in this time period may have very limited freedom, but there was still pressure to "respect" women. The civil rights movement was marked with more violence than the women's rights movement.
Present Day
Currently, at least in my urban bubble, sexism is more condoned than racism. Take, for example, that facebook group (which I sadly discovered one of my own family members joining) and let's flip it around to race. Which would be more offensive:
Hillary Clinton: Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich
or:
Barack Obama: Stop Running for President and Go Pick Me Some Cotton
I'd argue the second one would be more likely to elicit a jaw-dropping response, whereas the first one might get a little chuckle. Racism is a big no-no, but sexism is kind of ok. [Disclaimer: I've never lived in the rural south. Things might be very different in other parts of the country.]
What's interesting is that while black people and women both face some sort of "stupid" stereotype, the tone of it is a little different. According to the stereotype, black people are uneducated whereas women are educated and yet un-opinionated (they don't really "think" about things).
Future Races blend, but genders do not (generally speaking). What steretypes would a person who is 1/4 Black and 1/2 Chinese and 1/4 Caucian experience? People are not, generally speaking, part-male and part-female. Gender has a strict binary divide: you're either male or female. There is no such divide for race.
Socially, we might eventually treat different races equivalently but we will never treat genders equivalently. The fact is that the vast majority of the world is attracted to either men or women, but not both. You might regard a black, hispanic, asian, etc person as "just anyone", but men will identified as men and women will be identified as women. Gender will always be a thought that is front and center in your mind.
The flip side of the social point is that even if you're a man who thinks women are stupid / crazy / some other offensive stereotype, you still probably want them around (unless you're gay, that is - I wouldn't want to be heteronormative ;-)). The extremes of sexism probably won't result in a thought of "I hate this group so much that I don't even want them around." The extremes of racism do. Sexism leads to superiority, violence, etc. Racism leads to all that, and to elimination / exclusion.
Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama: Who's More Impacted by Prejudice?
Suppose Clinton and Obama try to leave the race / gender issues behind by acting more like the typical politician (eg, white male) - how does that impact how people view them? That is, what happens when a person violates the stereotypes of their race or gender?
Obama would be a black person acting "white". Some people might resent him for betraying "his people," but the general public probably wouldn't hold it against him too much.
Clinton, however, would be a woman acting like a man. Women who act like men are seen as cold bitches. Every candidate has opposition, but people hate Clinton on an emotional level that you don't see with other politicians. Ask someone why they hate George W. Bush, and you'll probably hear something about the war, economy, etc. With Clinton, you'll often get an articulate arguments such as, "I just hate her - she's a nasty person."
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If she acts feminine, she's too weak to be president. If she acts masculine, then she's a bitch.
Does that mean that Clinton faces more severe sexism than Obama does racism? No. The problems are just different. Sexism is more condoned in society, but racism can be more severe.
Then again, this is all coming from a white girl who lives in a city in the northwest. One should never forget how their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc affects their experience with prejudice.
More than one friend has read my blog and asked, "when did you become such a feminist?" The assumption is, of course, that all feminists must be bra-burning and man-hating lesbians. Having never observed me actually burn a bra, universally hate men, or, well, "swing the other way" (much to some people's disappointment), you can see their confusion.
Out of the 100 or so RSS feeds I read, Feministing and Feministe are two of the more interesting ones. Feminists are not man-hating - they're pro-equality. They're not anti-sex - they're believe in each person making their own choice. They are women and men. If I had to generalize about the actual beliefs of feminism, I'd say that they don't believe in generalization. They believe in the individual.
In Indiana, the state senate passed a measure that would allow pharmacists to refuse to do their jobs. If a woman wants contraception (including emergency contraception), pharmacists would be within their rights to refuse to fill her prescription. The bill’s sponsor initially said that it wouldn’t apply to contraception, only emergency contraception — a statement he later had to backtrack on, probably when someone informed him that emergency contraception is the exact same thing as standard birth control pills, just in a higher dose. Plus, you know, it’s contraception. And yet, “he claimed this week that it would not apply to birth control pills.”.
So there it is: ugly and worthless, or live bait/freak magnet. Those are the choices patriarchy offers to our girls. Picking on young girls for being awkward is cruel; so is sexualizing them. Men should just leave them alone until they’re grown up. But apparently that’s too much to ask.
The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion — some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.
The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other “rules” that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.
I have been an abortion provider since 1972. Why do I do abortions, and why do I continue to do abortions, despite two murder attempts?
The first time I started to think about abortion was in 1960, when I was in secondyear medical school. I was assigned the case of a young woman who had died of a septic abortion. She had aborted herself using slippery elm bark.
And Republicans have… outlawing abortion and telling people to keep their legs closed until they’re married. The very things that never work. And they oppose the measures that have been proven to decrease the abortion rate. Because they’re pro-life like that.
They’re going after Dr. Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider, for approximately the 340,986th time. Dr. Tiller is a favorite of theirs because he’s one of the last abortion providers in Kansas, and he provides late-term abortions. One of their followers shot him in both arms a few years ago, his clinic has been vandalized on numerous occasions, his workers are regularly harassed, and he’s Target #1 for a “pro-life” movement that murders doctors. Tiller’s home address, family members’ information, and pictures are all posted on “pro-life” websites. For protection, he lives in a gated community, has a high-level security system surrounding his home, and wears a bullet-proof vest to work every day.
Jamie Leigh Jones was raped by her American co-workers in Baghdad. She was then imprisoned in an effort to cover up her assault.
They believe that sexism is rampant in this presidential election.
Using overtly sexist language, he has referred to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) as a "she devil" and compared her to a "strip-teaser." He has called her "witchy" and likened her voice to "fingernails on a blackboard." He has referred to men who support her as "castratos in the eunuch chorus." He has suggested Clinton is not "a convincing mom" and said "modern women" like Clinton are unacceptable to "Midwest guys." He has called her "Madame Defarge" and "Nurse Ratched."
The CDC said 23.6 percent of women and 11.5 percent of men reported being a victim of what it called "intimate partner violence" at some time in their lives.
The CDC defined this as threatened, attempted or completed physical or sexual violence or emotional abuse by a spouse, former spouse, current or former boyfriend or girlfriend or a dating partner. The CDC estimates that 1,200 women are killed and 2 million injured in domestic violence annually.
A state lawmaker used a derogatory term Wednesday to describe unmarried teen parents as sexually promiscuous and complained that society condones premarital sex.
"In my parents' day and age, (unmarried teen parents) were sent away, they were shunned, they were called what they are," Republican Rep. Larry Liston said during a GOP legislative caucus meeting in Denver. "There was at least a sense of shame."
Liston continued: "There's no sense of shame today. Society condones it ... I think it's wrong. They're sluts. And I don't mean just the women. I mean the men, too."
I think that having a woman president would be a bad idea for our country. Women are not meant to rule countries and be in charge. They are meant to make decisions but not confirm them.
Our president deals with some countries that don't respect or allow women in leadership positions. I wonder if the United States would have more terrorist attacks because we would be seen as weak with a woman leader. I agree that women can do many things, but leave the ruling of the countries to the men.
Rape can be confusing, it doesn't make it "gray." Feminists have long fought to dispel the myth that initially consenting to one form of intimacy does not make it okay for someone to force another kind on you. In this case, the young woman was hooking up with her eventual-attacker when he forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Feminists believe in equality for men, women and transgendered individuals. They are pro-choice. They believe that teens should receive comprehensive sex education. They do not believe in shaming women on the grounds of their sexual decisions. They believe that sexual violence is a very real problem in the US and beyond. They believe that sexism - and many forms of prejudice - permeate the world.
So am I a feminist? Well, aren't you?
DISCLAIMER: No group can speak for the views of all its members. Opinions vary. Not all feminists are pro-choice, etc.
... viewers of the incident, which took place on Saturday afternoon after an extended drinking bout which ended in copious vomiting and apparent blackout for Molokwu, remain adamant about what they saw: Bezuidenhout lay down next to the comatose young woman and penetrated her vagina with his fingers. He carried on despite the pleas of another female housemate for him stop.
The TV station asserts that the incident was consensual:
if a "non-consensual physical relationship" began there, the producers - Endemol SA - would have intervened. "There is no indication that she was unconscious at the time," said Joseph Hundah, an executive at M-Net.
No indication? Really? Yeah, I know the media distorts things, but I'm having a hard time understanding this. How could a woman have clearly given consent while viewers perceive her as comatose and another housemate pleas for him to stop?
Bezuindehout, defending his sexual behaviour in a show that has featured copious nudity, recently told his housemates, "Well, this is Africa."
Yes, indeed. It is Africa....
In addition to being a fairly wealthy country, South Africa boasts the title of Rape Capitol of the World:
1.7 Million rapes per year, in a country of 23 million women. 7.3% of women are raped annually (assuming an even distribution of rape - which is probably not quite correct, but the alternative isn't any less scary).
A girl is more likely to be raped than to learn how to read (more)
Of South African men who know someone who was raped (doesn't that have to almost everyone?), 16% believe that the survivor enjoyed their experience and had asked to be raped. (more)
50% of women will be raped in their lifetimes (more)
About 30% of adolescents report that their first sexual experience was forced (more)
I've heard this argument before - that women who wear revealing clothing are "asking" to be raped or assaulted. That doesn't necessarily mean that the women deserve it, or that they're glad it happened to the women. Instead, they argue that dressing too sexy is like leaving your doors unlocked - you don't deserve to be robbed, but it doesn't mean you weren't being stupid.
If the woman was wearing sexy or revealing clothing, 6pc said she was totally responsible and 20pc said she was partially responsible.
If the woman behaved in a flirtatious manner, 6pc said she was totally responsible and 28pc said she was partially responsible.
Men, incidentally, blame women slightly higher than other women do. I'm not sure if this is surprising or not, as (in my experience) women are often more judgmental than men about other women.
In each of these scenarios a slightly greater proportion of men than women held these views - except when it came to being drunk, when it was equal.
Something about this idea of calling women partially responsible bothers me. If a woman is partially responsible for being raped, does this make the rapist less responsible? I would hope no one's actually suggesting that.
So, should women "lock their doors" so as to not be "asking" for it?
Several studies contradict this conclusion and suggest that women who dress sexy are actually less likely to be raped:
The men were then asked to evaluate which of the two women he would prefer to approach to do something she did not want to do. The men picked the submissive woman. These researchers also evaluated the differences in non-verbal cues between dominant and submissive women. They found that the submissive women generally gestured with less expansive movements and wore more body concealing clothing than dominant women.
Submissive women are more likely to be raped, and submissive women are less likely to wear revealing clothing. Who knew...
Robbery is about easy money, so that's why we don't walk around with a wad of cash on the street. That's why we lock our doors.
Rape, on the other hand, isn't about lust - it's about power, dominance and violence. "Locking your doors" doesn't make you any less likely to be a victim.
IBM Camp apparently has a camp which tries to get teen girls interested in technology. That's great - it really is. But their approach seems something like "hey, let's get women to learn about computers by showing them how to look up recipes!" The article scares me. Here's a few snippets:
Look! Pretty pink flowers!
... they watched a scientist from M.I.T. (Massachusettes Institute of Technology) dip a pink carnation into a vat of liquid nitrogen, and then shatter the frozen flower against the side of a tank.
Let's hold hands and make bracelets!
... girls learned how to make "binary bracelets" (of beads that sported ones and zeroes on them)
Girls like cooking and candy!
The girls learned ... how to make bubble gum
Seriously - whatever works to get girls more interested in technology, and I do applaud their efforts to try to look at it from a girl's perspective. I just question if this is really the way to get girls interested in learning about technology, any more so than little girls playing a barbie computer game would want to learn how to program. Instead, the camp seems to just reinforce existing stereotypes.
Contrast the image of pink flowers, making bracelets and cooking candy with the 7th and 8th grader's essays:
The application process involved an essay in which the girls imagined an invention that would improve their worlds. Yehia wrote about a biodegradable trash bag. Gidla wrote about a USB-based application-specific device designed to help organize her schedule. Bahnham wrote about a double-sided television that would allow family members watch two different shows, while still spending time together in the same room.
Call me crazy - but it sounds like these 7th and 8th grade girls might want to do more than make bracelets, cook candy and play with pretty pink flowers.
Way to go IBM - you've taken geeky girls and shown them how to do things "more appropriate" for their gender.
I raised my hand and (desperately not to scream) explained that there is actually a huge issue with women and sexual harassment online, and on blogs. I mentioned Kathy Sierra, Devious Diva, and the fact that women are threatened with rape and violence, simply for speaking their minds online.
While I've never been threatened online, I have seen my share of, well, offensive behavior. I've noticed that guys are more likely to be physically or verbally aggressive at a club where the music is loud and the lights are low. I've noticed that guys are more likely to make an inappropriate comment, gesture, etc, if you're walking by them than if you're standing next to them. I guess it feels more anonymous if you aren't going to stay physically near them. Is it that they think no one will notice, or that they actually think it's ok?
I've also noticed that a woman can't be in the news without someone making remarks about the woman's looks. It's as though many people lack the ability to assess one set of attributes (intelligence, etc) without assessing all attributes (looks, etc).
None of this is particularly shocking, I suppose. I guess what surprised me is how inappropriate the comments get.
About two years ago, the Seattle Times wrote an article about why people are choosing to work at Google over Microsoft. The first few paragraphs were about me, and I stumbled across some forum where they were discussing the article. I started from the beginning of the four pages of comments and at first, it was pretty much on topic. Around the end of page 2, someone found my website and some pictures of me. Pretty quickly the comments degenerated into a very sexual and very vulgar nature. When someone found a picture of me and a Black friend of mine, they became not only vulgar and sexual, but also racist. I would repost some of the comments, but frankly, I don't even feel comfortable re-printing it.
Just a few weeks later, I posted something about Google and Open Source. You expect the usual set of pro-Google or anti-Google comments there. You do not expect someone to make this comment (which, incidentally, didn't even begin to compare to some of the comments on the previous forum): "You certainly are a slut when it comes to corporate fanboyism. I hope you're this easy in getting into the sack."
More recently, digg.com posted a New York times article about students in CS which features a photograph of a few male and female students programming. As expected, a huge chunk of the digg comments were assessing the attractiveness of the women.
After a while, you just start to expect this kind of behavior. You take it as a given that guys will grab your waist in a club, that they'll grab your arm if you're walking away from them, that they'll argue with you if you won't give him your number, that if your name or picture ever appears in the news, that they call you "hot", "ugly", "fat", "easy", etc.
Such is life, and such is the behavior you expect from strangers. But here's what gets me: is it just that the guys I know are that much better, or do they not have enough anonymity to act like the rest?
Last week, at lunch with two Microsoftie-friends, we got into a discussion about why there aren't many women in Computer Science. I've heard so many theories, but all we really know is that there are so many factors and some of them date back to childhood.
"So how'd you do it?" Jim asked, as though there was some huge obstacle I had to overcome, what with my being a woman and all. "Well, much the same way as you", I replied.
I applied to Engineering school. I was accepted. I did my homework. I took exams. I interviewed for internships. I got offers for some, I got rejected from others. Jim and I - we did the same thing. Was it harder for me to correctly prove that p is prime in discrete math? Do I deserve special recognition because I was able to do that proof despite my having an X chromosome where Jim has a Y?
My mother studied Electrical Engineering and no doubt, she had actual obstacles: people who would actually say "Kathy, I'm not sure Engineering is really for you. Perhaps you'd want to consider something more suitable for you, like fine arts?" Although you'd never hear her say it, women probably did have to fight professors to get into class, or to find an employer who would consider hiring a woman. But look at where we are thirty years later - no one's ever told me "go away - you're a woman."
Instead, we have so much special recognition that it's as though there are two types of programmers: regular programmers and then female programmers. Does it really help encourage this latter type if we give them a special attribute?
I'm not saying there aren't subtle ways which make women less likely to pursue Computer Science. A quick comparison of the United States to other countries tells you that that must be the case. But, by and large, society does not actively push women out of technology - women just aren't getting drawn into it as much.
Is that a problem? Yes, it is. Let's try to fix that.
Was it harder for me to get here because I'm female? No.
So that's all I'm saying - while various cultural issues make women less likely to pursue Computer Science, it's no harder for women to do it. So why label women programmers as "special" if they're doing the same thing as the "regular" programmers?
Being a woman in computer science, I can't deny that I've seen some sexism over the years. Not the blatant "you can't do this" sexism that was prevalent thirty years ago, but rather subtle assumptions from people within the industry.
I've noticed, for example, that if I say that I work for Google and a male friend says he works for Microsoft (most of my friends in Seattle work for Microsoft), someone is much more likely to ask me what my position is - that is if they haven't just assumed outright that I'm in HR or marketing. When I say I'm a Software Engineer, many people are visibly shocked and almost skeptical.
A few months back, I went to an event where all of the 16 guys there happened to work for either Microsoft or Amazon. Guy #1 says to me after introducing himself, "So I assume you don't work for Microsoft." Guy #2 says "It must be great for you to meet all these techies... at least you have someone fix your computer." Guy #3 proceeds to explain to me what "beta" means. Thanks, boys, but I work for Google, I can fix my own computer, and I know all about "beta" ;-).
In truth, I really don't get offended by this kind of sexism; statistically, women in the US are much less likely to go into engineering and it would be difficult for anyone to be blind to this. The question is, why are there so few women in Computer Science and what can we do to change it? Actually, let's start with this: is the percentage of women in Computer Science that low (given our society, the times, etc)?
The Male / Female Ratio in Computer Science
I believe Computer Science is currently around 15% female. That figure alone doesn't worry me (hey, times change, it'll grow, right?). The problem is that the number has actually declined since 1980. Yikes.
Furthermore, I've been told by several people that parts of asia actually have very close to a 50/50 ratio. Why does the US lag so much?
Additionally, recall that fields such as medicine and law were at one point in time a male dominated field, but now have at least as many women as men - if not more.
So while things have gotten better in other fields or in other countries, it seems to have gotten worse within the US. So, yes, there is a problem... and time isn't just magically fixing it.
Why Aren't Women Drawn into Computer Science
This is a big question with many possible answers, but one important one is that women tend to be drawn to more social fields. From a young age, girls are taught to work together whereas it's seen as more "ok" for a boy to show off. As girls get older, it's almost difficult for them not to be social. Think of the uber-nerdy anti-social guys you know: how many women are equally anti-social? I can't think of a single one. Computer Science has an impression of cube monkey staring at their computer all days, and, if you're lucky, talking to those uber-nerdy engineers. That's just not that attractive of an industry to women who emphasize social interaction.
What can we do to change it?
Wish I knew... here are a few of my thoughts though with respect to this:
Women in Computer Science clubs: I'm honestly not sure how I feel about those clubs. Personally, they're not for me. I don't feel any need for this support network, and I worry that they promote a victim mentality to both to the women in the clubs as well as to men. But, perhaps if other women need this support network, then ok...
Developing an awareness of subtle sexism: Just because it's statistically true that a woman you meet is less likely to be an engineer doesn't mean that it's ok to make that assumption. While I'm not personally offended by these assumptions - I actually think it's somewhat amusing - it does affect the way you view women in the field. If you look at a woman and assume she's not an engineer, then you're more likely to assume that female engineer is less technical... and that's where the problem is. But, if you can consciously recognize that you make this assumption, it's easier to overcome it.
Turn it social: If women are less interested in computer science because it's less social, make it a more social field in college. Encourage students to work together and set up study groups for freshmen. Create social activities that people want to go to so that students meet each other. Assign team projects where different teams need to work together (for example, defining common protocols). Turn it into a social field.
Does being female hurt you in Computer Science?
There are pluses and minus. Sure, more people will know who you are, but people know you for the wrong reasons. It's probably easier to get an interview, but probably tougher to get the job (it's tougher to convince someone that you're technical if you're female). I'm not really sure how it all evens out, but here's what I will say:
Everyone will be judged prematurely for something. If it's not your gender, it's your race. If it's not your race, it's your sexual orientation, how you dress, what school you went to, what degrees you have, how much money you have, etc. At the end of the day, does it really matter what people are judging you for? Everyone's going to face prejudice; you just have to learn to shrug your shoulders and develop a thick skin.
Gayle Laakmann is a Wharton MBA student and owns two businesses, CareerCup and Seattle Anti-Freeze. She has previously worked for Microsoft, Apple, Google and, most recently, EmptySpaceAds.
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