niyad
niyad's JournalDon't Say Rape: How the Book Banning Movement Is Censoring Sexual Violence (trigger warning)
Don’t Say Rape: How the Book Banning Movement Is Censoring Sexual Violence (trigger warning)
3/4/2024 by Sam LaFrance and Kasey Meehan
The erasure of books on sexual abuse is striking amid an epidemic of sexual violence.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Ma.) holds a copy of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison during a news conference to announce a bicameral resolution recognizing Banned Books Week outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 27, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
In 2021, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey found that more than one in 10 teenage girls reported having been raped—an estimated one million girls nationwide. That same year, book bans in public school districts across the country took off with unprecedented magnitude and coordination. During that school year, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans recorded 2,532 instances of book bans across 32 states and 138 public school districts. In the next school year, from July 1, 2022, to June 31, 2023, a quarter of over 3,000 book bans that PEN America recorded were books with scenes of rape or sexual assault. Of the 12 most frequently banned titles, five contained scenes of rape or sexual assault: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Sold by Patricia McCormick, and Identical by Ellen Hopkins.
The erasure of books on sexual abuse is striking amid an epidemic of sexual violence. The book-banning movement is efficiently eradicating an already narrow space to learn about sexual violence in public schools. A book about sexual assault may certainly be triggering to some readers, or just plain difficult for others. But to make them unavailable for all students—when districts serve students who range in age from 5 to 18—is to cut off a lifeline and put students at further risk. These books aren’t harmful—censorship is. Locally, school boards across the country have excised curriculum about consent and healthy relationships. Nationally, increased rhetoric about “porn in schools”—rhetoric that continues to falsely conflate depictions of nudity, sexual experiences, sexuality, gender and rape with “porn”—has placed extreme pressure on schools and libraries.
In Idaho, for example, the West Ada School District banned The Nowhere Girls, a young adult novel that challenges and examines rape culture, because a community member called it “vulgar and obscene.” The same district went on to ban several more books about sexual violence, believing them to be inappropriate—including poetry by Rupi Kaur that offers a personal account of the trauma of sexual assault and Jaycee Dugard’s memoir about her own kidnapping and rape. If West Ada follows statewide trends, about one in 10 girls in the district have already been raped; while banning these books, the committee did not comment on the vulgarity or obscenity of the real rapes occurring in their state—only the ones in print.
. . . .
Access to information is crucial to addressing sexual violence and improving sexual health. Banning such information, from the curriculum or from the shelf, ignores the realities faced by students. There is strong evidence that comprehensive sex education protects teens from abuse, unwanted pregnancy, and disease. Similarly, allowing students to read and learn about sexual violence doesn’t cause more violence. In fact, the opposite is true: Allowing students to learn about rape can help prevent it, and it can help those who have experienced it learn how to talk about it. Rape cannot be censored away in the real world. It shouldn’t be censored in our libraries either.
. . . .
Students deserve to see themselves in books and to cultivate empathy for the experiences of others. Books like Speak and The Nowhere Girls elevate the voices of young women and girls, and they help teach others about the traumatic realities of violence against women. Rape cannot be censored away in the real world. It shouldn’t be censored in our libraries either.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/03/04/book-bans-censorship-rape-porn/
A Thousand Little Moments: The Insidious Loss of Women's Freedom to Christian Nationalism
A Thousand Little Moments: The Insidious Loss of Women’s Freedom to Christian Nationalism
2/28/2024 by Chloe Nazra Lee
Republicans and anti-abortion politicians cannot ignore their role in the IVF ruling out of Alabama—yet another devastating turn for women.
A mural in Rochester, N.Y., by Sarah Rutherford. (Courtesy of Chloe Lee)
I hold many other identities than “Dr. Lee.” I once taught Sunday School. I love reading and community artwork. And I want to be a mother.
Sublimating my excess maternal energy into my preschoolers, I tried to make my classroom feel cozy and fun. We made bracelets, colored beads representing different verses of the Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father, who art in heaven,” pale blue). We played Memory Match to learn the 10 Commandments using homemade cards. I wanted the children’s spiritual life to be welcoming and enjoyable. I taught that God is love, respect, integrity and empathy. My first true crisis of faith happened when I left my marriage to a person whose least problematic feature was his proclivity for prostitutes and Ashley Madison. I could not stay married to someone who treated me with cavalier contempt. Beyond my ability to keep a clean home and to tend to his practical needs, I believe I was worthless to him, a wife only on paper.
. . . .
Ignorance and Ideology Have Led Us Here
Republicans cannot ignore their role in this devastating turn. Rigid anti-abortion efforts, enacted without an iota of nuance, led to this point—where embryos are equated with children. But it turns out that cutting off people’s chance to start families is wildly unpopular. Republicans are abruptly appreciating the precarious political position in which the Alabama ruling leaves them. We can arguably attribute this outcome to sheer thoughtlessness. Politicians’ ignorance of basic biology that informs policy is historically well-established and offers a scathing indictment of the American education system. As recently as 2019, Ohio introduced a bill banning abortion and demanding that physicians treat ectopic pregnancies by re-implanting the embryo in the woman’s uterus. (No such medical procedure exists.
. . . . .
Abuse and hypocrisy, often from men, threaten family stability more than feminism or divorce ever could. I’ve written extensively on what it means to be a good man, and I wish Johnson would encourage men to follow these examples, which would actually be consistent with his stated biblical worldview. But men who believe in the inherent inferiority of women will never own their destructive actions.
Meanwhile, feminism gave me an education and career, helping me escape male contempt. Women who preceded me, including my grandmother and great-aunts, of minimal education and few resources outside marriage, were less fortunate, confined to lives of sexual and physical abuse by “Christian” husbands, some of whom even served as church deacons. Their families only remained intact because the women could not leave. I left my ex-husband for many reasons, and I’m lucky that I had the option to choose a better life for myself. I want the same for women nationwide. Women must resist the future that hypocritical men flying under false colors of morality have designed for us. *************IF OUR COUNTRY'S CONCEPT OF FAMILY STABILITY RELIES ON DEPRIVING WOMEN OF THEIR CHOICES, WE DO NOT HAVE STABLE FAMILIES, WE HAVE PRISONERS!!! *************
https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/28/women-choice-freedom-republicans-religion-ivf-fertility/
A Thousand Little Moments: The Insidious Loss of Women's Freedom to Christian Nationalism
A Thousand Little Moments: The Insidious Loss of Women’s Freedom to Christian Nationalism
2/28/2024 by Chloe Nazra Lee
Republicans and anti-abortion politicians cannot ignore their role in the IVF ruling out of Alabama—yet another devastating turn for women.
A mural in Rochester, N.Y., by Sarah Rutherford. (Courtesy of Chloe Lee)
I hold many other identities than “Dr. Lee.” I once taught Sunday School. I love reading and community artwork. And I want to be a mother.
Sublimating my excess maternal energy into my preschoolers, I tried to make my classroom feel cozy and fun. We made bracelets, colored beads representing different verses of the Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father, who art in heaven,” pale blue). We played Memory Match to learn the 10 Commandments using homemade cards. I wanted the children’s spiritual life to be welcoming and enjoyable. I taught that God is love, respect, integrity and empathy. My first true crisis of faith happened when I left my marriage to a person whose least problematic feature was his proclivity for prostitutes and Ashley Madison. I could not stay married to someone who treated me with cavalier contempt. Beyond my ability to keep a clean home and to tend to his practical needs, I believe I was worthless to him, a wife only on paper.
. . . .
Ignorance and Ideology Have Led Us Here
Republicans cannot ignore their role in this devastating turn. Rigid anti-abortion efforts, enacted without an iota of nuance, led to this point—where embryos are equated with children. But it turns out that cutting off people’s chance to start families is wildly unpopular. Republicans are abruptly appreciating the precarious political position in which the Alabama ruling leaves them. We can arguably attribute this outcome to sheer thoughtlessness. Politicians’ ignorance of basic biology that informs policy is historically well-established and offers a scathing indictment of the American education system. As recently as 2019, Ohio introduced a bill banning abortion and demanding that physicians treat ectopic pregnancies by re-implanting the embryo in the woman’s uterus. (No such medical procedure exists.
. . . . .
Abuse and hypocrisy, often from men, threaten family stability more than feminism or divorce ever could. I’ve written extensively on what it means to be a good man, and I wish Johnson would encourage men to follow these examples, which would actually be consistent with his stated biblical worldview. But men who believe in the inherent inferiority of women will never own their destructive actions.
Meanwhile, feminism gave me an education and career, helping me escape male contempt. Women who preceded me, including my grandmother and great-aunts, of minimal education and few resources outside marriage, were less fortunate, confined to lives of sexual and physical abuse by “Christian” husbands, some of whom even served as church deacons. Their families only remained intact because the women could not leave. I left my ex-husband for many reasons, and I’m lucky that I had the option to choose a better life for myself. I want the same for women nationwide. Women must resist the future that hypocritical men flying under false colors of morality have designed for us. *************IF OUR COUNTRY'S CONCEPT OF FAMILY STABILITY RELIES ON DEPRIVING WOMEN OF THEIR CHOICES, WE DO NOT HAVE STABLE FAMILIES, WE HAVE PRISONERS!!! *************
https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/28/women-choice-freedom-republicans-religion-ivf-fertility/
Women's Status Is Declining in the United States
Women’s Status Is Declining in the United States
3/12/2024 by Elena Ortiz
When it comes to the best countries to be a woman,****** THE US RANKS 37th******—thanks largely to two indicators: maternal mortality and political violence.
People rally in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 8, 2024, to pay tribute to International Women’s Day. The U.S. has by far the highest levels of maternal mortality among developed countries, with levels nearly twice as high as its closest counterpart, Portugal. (Lucas Neves / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The status of women in the United States is declining: The U.S. ranks 37th globally in terms of the best countries to be a woman, compared to its ranking of 26th in 2017 on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index.
What’s Driving the Decline?
Between 2017 and 2023, the U.S. saw a decline in its score of about 2.5 percent on the WPS Index, while on average, countries around the world have improved by about 3 percent. The Index report, published by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), uses 13 indicators of women’s inclusion, justice and security to rank and score 177 countries on women’s status. Two indicators of women’s status have significantly worsened in the United States: maternal mortality and political violence against women. Since 2017, maternal mortality has risen from 19 to 21 deaths per 100,000 live births. The U.S. has by far the highest levels of maternal mortality among developed countries, with levels nearly twice as high as its closest counterpart, Portugal.
Rising levels in the U.S. reflect worsening inequalities as maternal deaths accelerate faster for women of color.
The CDC estimates that as of 2021, maternal mortality rates for Black women soared to nearly 70 deaths per 100,000 live births, while Native American women are more than twice as likely as white women to die from conditions caused or exacerbated by pregnancy. Women of color frequently experience systemic racism and biases in healthcare access and are also more likely to face financial barriers to quality care, resulting in higher risks of maternal death.
Political violence against women, or attacks perpetrated against women as part of a political agenda, have also significantly increased in the U.S. since 2017. Taking on leadership roles has become more dangerous, as women politicians are the frequent targets of violence and harassment. Comparable data at the country level is only available for physical forms of political violence, which doesn’t account for the rapidly escalating threats of online violence and harassment facing women, especially by extremist groups.
. . . . .
Overall, however, areas of decline have outweighed areas of improvement, highlighting the urgent need to address challenges facing women, especially concerning women’s health and safety. The WPS Index shows that countries where women are doing well tend to be more prosperous, peaceful, democratic and better prepared to respond to the impacts of climate change—prioritizing women’s well-being in the U.S. advances the well-being of everyone in society. With the 2024 election quickly approaching, it is more important than ever to elect leaders at all levels who will prioritize investments in women.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/03/12/best-country-to-be-woman-equality-usa-politics/
The Taliban Leader's Order to Resume Public Stoning of Afghan Women Must Serve as an Urgent Call to End Gender Aparthei
The Taliban Leader’s Order to Resume Public Stoning of Afghan Women Must Serve as an Urgent Call to End Gender Apartheid.
Emma Hall | March 29, 2024
In a distressing new statement released from Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban chief condones the public stoning of women for committing what the Taliban deems as adultery and other ‘crimes and violations’ of strict Taliban edicts. Such harsh and barbaric violence against women is the next step taken by the Taliban and their ruler as they continue to perpetuate violence and oppression for Afghan women and girls throughout the country.
As the UN and the global community urge the Taliban to reverse all edicts and decrees, including those sanctioning flogging, public executions, and stoning, the Taliban remains defiant, issuing further decrees. This harsh reality persists for many Afghan women and girls, unjustly subjected to the strict Taliban rules that have deprived them of their human rights. Such strict punishment stems from the Taliban’s own ideology, much of it in contradiction with Islamic principles and Afghan values. The Taliban claim it is their interpretation of Islam, in which they use their leader’s strict interpretations of the religion to perpetuate violence against and oppression of Afghan women and girls.
The Taliban Chief criticizes democracy and the increased concern of western critics of his regime, stating that other nations across the globe only deem the Taliban’s actions as human rights violations as they “conflict with your [other nations] democratic principles.” This cruel view towards human rights coupled with a lack of regard for international laws and obligations suggest a dark outlook on future Taliban action.
Distressing actions such as the ones that Akhundzada has taken to ensure oppression of women and girls further exemplifies the pertinent need for action in Afghanistan. Public humiliation and physical punishment and the involvement of barbaric harm accompanying unjustifiable decrees is yet another direct attack against women and girls. The Taliban’s relentless attacks on women and girls are destructive, with more and more women each day dependent on aid due to job loss and restricted personal freedoms at the hand of the Taliban.
The actions of the Taliban must serve as a catalyst for the criminalization of Gender Apartheid, with perpetrators held accountable for their actions. Normalizing relations with the Taliban would only signal complicity in their oppression of women and girls. The women and girls of Afghanistan are entitled to basic human rights, and it is the responsibility of the global community to stand in solidarity with them and resist any attempts to normalize their subjugation.
https://feminist.org/news/taliban-leader-orders-public-stoning-of-afghan-women-urgent-call-to-end-gender-apartheid/
The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement (trigger warning)
(a lengthy, horrifying, disturbing,angry-making, important read)
FUCK THE GODDAMNED CHRISTOFASCIST WOMAN-HATING GESTATIONAL SLAVERS
The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement (trigger warning)
4/7/2024 by Jodi Enda
American conservatives have been busy launching attacks on reproductive rights on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.
A teen mother breastfeeds her infant during a break from her classes at the Serene Haven Girl’s Secondary School, an informal school that boards underage mothers with their infants, some of whom are victims of sexual violence, in Kyeni, Kenya, on Sept. 24, 2021. The overwhelming stigma surrounding abortion means that many women resort to backstreet procedures that put their life in jeopardy or carry unwanted pregnancies to term. (Tony Karumba / AFP via Getty Images)
This article was originally published on The New Republic and was produced in collaboration with The Fuller Project.
Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera. Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me.
Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old. As traumatic as her experience was, Ochieng was more fortunate than many women in Kenya, which bans most abortions. She, at least, survived.
Like Ochieng, most Kenyan women facing unwanted pregnancies have no good choices. They live in a culture that gives women little agency over their bodies; they experience high levels of poverty—two-thirds of residents live on less than $3.20 a day—and they must contend with conflicts between abortion laws codified in the country’s 2010 Constitution and an older, harsher penal code that remains on the books. Because the penal code criminalizes abortion, relatively few women are able to obtain the procedure legally, and then only if a health professional determines that their life or health is in danger or, technically, if their pregnancy was the result of rape. That final exception dates only to 2019—13 years after Ochieng’s three acquaintances raped her—and is rarely applied. Despite the prohibitions, more than half a million Kenyan women have abortions every year. The small percentage with means might find a trained professional willing to perform a clandestine, but safe, abortion.
. . . .
One big reason: American anti-abortion policies.
For half a century, the United States has used the power of the purse to force poorer nations to abide by the anti-abortion values of American conservatives or forgo aid for family planning and, more recently, other healthcare. Of the several policies adopted over the years, two have been particularly onerous, according to several studies and more than 20 interviews with researchers and reproductive rights advocates in the United States and abroad. Touted to reduce abortions, the policies actually have driven up their numbers sharply and led to tens of thousands of unnecessary maternal deaths. “Anything that happens in the U.S. has a huge impact on the rest of the world,” said Giselle Carino, director of Fòs Feminista, an international alliance that promotes sexual and reproductive health and justice. When Washington places restrictions on abortion, “we have a lot of evidence how it hurts, particularly the women who need the most care and services.”
That anti-abortion policies would lead to more abortions seems counterintuitive, except when you consider that the organizations that perform, counsel and educate people about abortion are often those that provide condoms, pills, IUDs, and other forms of birth control. If healthcare providers so much as mention abortion, they can lose money for broader healthcare services, including contraceptives. Fewer contraceptives equal more unwanted pregnancies. More unwanted pregnancies equal more abortions. More abortions in countries that greatly restrict them equal more unsafe abortions. And more unsafe abortions equal more maternal deaths. The United States is not to blame for all the internal political and cultural strife in other countries. But as the largest funder of healthcare in the world, what it does matters. Essentially, this nation has given women around the globe no alternative but to seek backstreet abortions that send some to emergency rooms and others to their graves.
Anything that happens in the U.S. has a huge impact on the rest of the world. … Abortions happen anyway, the rule just makes it unsafe, and particularly unsafe for those women who are already in the most difficult circumstances in life.
Giselle Carino, Fòs Feminista
. . . .
The Population Connection Action Fund projects a message onto the Trump International Hotel to protest the global gag rule, which bans healthcare providers that receive U.S. global health aid from referring, providing or discussing abortion with their patients, on Jan. 23, 2019. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
. . . .
“When the U.S. is making any decision, the reality is it affects directly a woman who is on the ground and a woman who is very, very poor,” Ochieng said. “We cannot wait for so many women to die to have change.”
Sign up for the Fuller Project’s newsletter (https://fullerproject.org/sign-up-to-our-newsletter/), and follow the organization on X or LinkedIn.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/07/anti-abortion-usa-foreign-policy-hiv-aids-menstruation-helms-global-gag-rule/
My little amusement for the day: As I was wandering over to produce
at my King Sooper's this morning, I walked past a conversation that apparently concluded with, "It's all Biden's fault, letting in all those immigrants!" (something about supply chain issues, I gathered). As I came even with her, I muttered (loudly) "fucking idiot!" She beamed at me and said, "I agree!" I shook my head, and said, "No, I meant YOU!" She walked off in a huff. I did not see her the rest of the time that I was in the store.
I was in a great deal of pain, and, therefore, had even less patience than usual for the few idiots I encounter in my little, slightly bluer, enclave.
Just tried posting in Pets in response to Siwsan, and got that weird
error thing immediately.
Also tried posting a reply to your announcement, and it simply froze.
About the proposals to eliminate no-fault divorce. . a weird thought struck
me while reading DU'er moniss' most excellent OP:
These woman-hating patriarchal assholes are going to have to make laws preventing women from buying guns, poisons, etc., one would think. Maybe kitchen implements as well. Many medicines. Why? Obvious, yes?? You trap people into intolerable situations, some WILL find a way out. As a character in a recent novel stated, shaking and crying after just shooting her murderous, abusive husband, "Is he dead? I don't care if I go to jail, as long as he is dead."
Or, will the marriage rate decline? Birth rates? Will they bar women from professions again, hoping to force them into marital servitude?
Or, will women rise up in righteous anger, and stop this patriarchal, woman-hating insanity?
The Daily B***h*: "I am sorry for being a little s### earlier, but, in my
defense *motions at EVERYTHING!!!
*Both a noun, and a verb, depending on the context.
Profile Information
Member since: Tue Jul 29, 2003, 02:30 PMNumber of posts: 120,308