Feminist Peace Network

Actually nothing, so don’t feel bad if you’re stumped by the title to this post, but check out this revolting bit of dialog that Rachel posted on Our Bodies Our Blog in a discussion of why ob/gyn’s don’t do more vaginal hysterectomies since the outcome tends to be better for the patient:

“Ob/gyn Mark Vizer says,

“I asked a general surgeon about this and how he felt about learning to perform a vaginal hysterectomy. He looked at me funny. He was concerned about lack of visualization and exposure and wondered why we even did this. It made as much sense to him as changing spark plugs from under the car.”

(Julian) Thomas (writing in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology) responds in kind, asking:

“Regarding your general surgeon’s comments—again, two questions: How does he change his oil? Would he cut a hole in the hood of the car to get at the spark plugs or use the opening that the maker provided?”"

Think I’ll share that one with the mechanic next time I get my oil changed.

Seriously, you don’t hear urologists making lug nut analogies now do you, so let’s just rephrase this–WHERE DO YOU GUYS THINK YOU CAME FROM??  How about if the hysterectomy is really necessary in the first place, and many of them aren’t, you remove the uterus like the sacred life-giving vessel that it is with the utmost care in a manner that is respectful of the woman who must undergo its loss rather than acting all squeamish about vaginas and profiting up the wazoo from more expensive abdominal surgery which, according to Rachel’s post appears to be a major deciding factor.

And that, we devoutly hope will be the end of this week’s  discussion of auto mechanics.

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Miss Piggy Rocks!

Many thanks to my friend Ellen for sharing this!

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My kids refuse to teach me how to use Facebook, but Krista over at Beauty and the Breast took the plunge and found, much to her horror that among the ‘gifts’ you can send to your friends is a set of boobs–there are motivational boobs, fake boobs (which Krista points out is a tad oxymoronic since all of  the boobs in question were fake) and sporty boobs.  Now while I can see some possibilities here–do they come with a pink ribbon during October?  And what about a phallic equivalent?–the real question is what does this say about the oh so kewl concept of social networking? As Krista eloquently sums it up,

“Who, but an immature teenager would think receiving and sending photos of fake breasts is interesting, cool, or “okay” for that matter? Aren’t we inundated with fake breasts ENOUGH? What is this teaching the millions of teenagers that are part of Facebook, that women’s bodies and breasts are just objects?”

I’m going to put it a smidgeon more bluntly–GROW UP!  Objectifying women is misogyny pure and simple–it isn’t funny and it isn’t cute and Krista is absolutely right, the message sent is very damaging.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Atrocities, Misogyny | 1 Comment »

From the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network:

Dear Friends,

We have had a major media breakthrough in the “DHS – Give Us Back Our Children” campaign (see below for background). Elmer Smith, who has a regular column in the Philadelphia Daily News and is also on their Editorial Board, did a GREAT piece on the case of Tili Ayala, a Latina/Native American mother who lost custody of her children to DHS and has been fighting for 3 years to get them back, the last 2 years with us and with other families backing her. The new DHS Commissioner, Anne Marie Ambrose, took office on June 23, and Mr. Smith used the occasion to highlight this issue and to put her on the spot.

This article is a victory and a breakthrough, since the media usually sensationalizes cases, demonizes the mothers, and has been behind the “foster care panic” in Philadelphia. It is the culmination of a great deal of work on the part of many, beginning with Tili Ayala, and including all the other mothers, grandmothers and others who are fighting DHS for their children, the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network, and everyone in the “DHS – Give Us Back Our Children!” group.

What you can do!

• Go online at and post a comment at the end of the article. Some of the comments there now are truly awful. You can also write a letter to the Editor to tell them how you feel. Here is the address: views@phillynews.com. The letter from Every Mother is a Working Mothers Network sent is below.
• Sign our petition online.
• If you live locally (in Philadelphia, PA/US), come to the monthly picket, the first Thursday of every month, usually from 4-5pm. This month the picket will be held from 3-4pm on Thursday July 3 outside DHS at 16th and Arch streets in Philadelphia.
• Volunteer to help with the case work – we accompany women to court and hearings, find legal help & make sure the attorneys do what they are supposed to, strategize together and support each other.
• For more information and to get involved, email the Crossroads Women’s Center.

Background: Across the US, women and families are losing custody of children to child protective services, that is children are losing their families – at an alarming rate – Philly’s among the highest. The underlying cause is almost always poverty – but instead of helping with housing, childcare, legal needs or abuse, the Department of Human Services (DHS) removes kids from their homes, particularly from families that are of color, young, older, alternative – though most children and youth are better off and safer at home than in foster care or residential facilities. At the same time, DHS does not act to adequately protect children who are truly in danger – racism rearing its ugly end at both ends of the spectrum! In addition, some non-profit organizations which have contracts with the departments are profiting by keeping the children. DHS – Give Us Back Our Children is a self help support group of families and supporters founded by Every Mother is a Working Mother Network and Justice for Families which began the weekly picket outside DHS in 2005. We challenge the state sponsored child abuse by supporting those with cases, lobbying and other protests.

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The exploitation of people crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. is certainly nothing new. But one of the aspects of this abuse that has received very little notice is the sexual abuse against women that is taking place. Several months ago we were horrified at reports of Iraqi women being forced to work as prostitutes after having to flee their homes. I am dubious that we will accord the same horror to the sexual abuse of women coming into our own country. Below are snippets from the Tucson Weekly’s excellent coverage of this story, I recommend reading the piece in its entirety on their site. Many thanks to the National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights (NCIWR) for bringing this story to our attention:

“According to experts, rape is now considered “the price of admission” for women crossing the border illegally.

But this scourge goes largely ignored, and is suspected to be vastly underreported. Not surprisingly, few women care to describe their ordeals to authorities in stark government detention facilities. And if they do, it’s often as they’re already being deported back across the border–sometimes back into the very situations where the assaults occurred.

This grim scenario played out in early May, when three women–ages 16, 17 and 20–reported having been raped by masked men. A few days later, two more women were found alive but badly beaten near Arivaca, south of Tucson. That same week, yet two more women reported having been raped. The reports didn’t slow deportation proceedings against them.

Further complicating matters, it’s often difficult to determine whether the assaults occurred on U.S. soil or in Mexico. But such details probably matter little to the victims. Civilian border-watchers tell of hearing these women’s cries.”

“(H)ard numbers are tough to come by. According to the United Nations, up to 70 percent of women crossing the border without husbands or families are abused in some way.”

“(The) saga of exploitation isn’t limited to the desert, and points to well-documented incidents of U.S. Border Patrol agents or other officials pressuring migrants into having sex in exchange for their freedom. Other times, the women are raped by those with the power to deport them.”

Filed under: Uncategorized, Atrocities, U.S. Politics, Misogyny, Gender-Based Violence, Violence Against Women, Rape, Sexual Assault | No Comments »

Press Release from Madre:
MADRE: Rights, Resources, and Results for Women Worldwide

Women Leaders Submit Letter to the G8, Demand Action on Food CrisisContact:
Diana Duarte,
Media Coordinator
PHONE: 212-627-0444
EMAIL: media@madre.org

Next Monday, as the G8 gathering of the world’s wealthiest countries begins, devising solutions to the food crisis raging across the planet will be high on the agenda. Today, MADRE and four of its sister organizations submitted an open letter to the G8, demanding that it uphold the right to food. The women’s letter details the action needed to address this crisis and illustrates the central role that women must play in ensuring food security. The text of this letter and its signatures are available here.

This year, the G8 agenda includes discussions on the world economy, climate change and development. In the letter, MADRE and its partners show how proposed solutions to these challenges—such as tariff reductions and biofuel plantations—have contributed to the rising rates of hunger and malnutrition, while claiming to combat these problems.

Vivian Stromberg, Executive Director of MADRE, said today, “We know that the world has the capacity to produce all the food we need. But economic policies put forward by the G8 nations have acted to keep basic necessities out of the reach of millions. As the G8 meets to make decisions that will impact people across the planet, we must demand dramatic changes in policy to promote a more just global economic system.”

MADRE emphasizes that the inaccessibility of food is the result of failed economic policies and not any absolute shortage of food. Furthermore, the letter cites recent reports indicating that agricultural policy must move towards small-scale and organic agriculture, a viable solution that would better provide food for the global population. A key recommendation of the letter calls for a particular focus on women in this effort, who make up the majority of the world’s small-scale farmers.

For more information on MADRE’s analysis of women’s human rights and the current food crisis, click here.

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For a blogger, there is nothing that says welcome back after being on the road like finding a really good story about a major misogynist from your hometown on a seriously obscure website rather than in the morning paper where it belongs. But kudos to Ethics Daily which reports that Bruce Ware, who teaches Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY delivered a sermon that he said describes his “complementarian” view of SB theology as part of a series of sermons at the Denton (TX) Bible Church on “Biblical Manhood & Womanhood,” According to the article Ware claims that,

“One reason that men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband’s God-given authority.”

and that,

“(W)omen desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husbands because of sin.”

and,

“And husbands on their parts, because they’re sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged–or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches,”

Now aren’t you sorry you didn’t crawl out of bed on Sunday morning to hear that spew?

Filed under: Uncategorized, Atrocities, Misogyny, Violence Against Women | 6 Comments »

And yet another fine reason why the military is bad for women:

“While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women.

By comparison for 2006, about 35 percent of the Army’s discharges and 36 percent of the Air Force’s were women, according to the statistics.

The information was gathered under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a policy advocacy organization.”

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Little doubt that one of the all-time things that screams vulnerability is lying flat on your back in a hospital bed with your feet in stirrups, likely with all manner of monitoring equipment and an IV attached, having childbirth contractions every few seconds. And that is exactly where the American Medical Association wants women to be when they give birth. A recent resolution calling for states to outlaw homebirths calls for members to,

“(S)upport state legislation that helps ensure safe deliveries and healthy babies by acknowledging of the concept that the safest setting for labor, delivery and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the AAP and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers.”

“(T)he original version of the resolution included the following language specifically attacking Ricki Lake: “Whereas, There has been much attention in the media by celebrities having home deliveries, with recent Today Show headings such as ‘Ricki Lake takes on baby birthing industry: Actress and former talk show host shares her at-home delivery in new film.”"

The reference to Lake has been taken out after a huge outcry. In a response to the bizarre reference to her, Lake asks,

“What are they so afraid of?

Just last week, Medical News Today reports that “about 8.2% of infants born in the US in 2005 had low birth weights, the highest percentage since 1968.” US infant mortality rates continue to rank us below 30 other countries, 22% of pregnancies are induced, and most worrisome of all, in the last 4 years, the maternal mortality rate has risen above 10 per 100,000 for the first time since 1977. To us, these seem like the troubling trends, not home birth.”

Add to that the sky-rocketing use of c-sections in this country.

Are homebirths dangerous? True, sometimes problems arise with homebirths, but I do not recall reading anything about a rash of deaths because women choose not to give birth in a hospital. And the urge to push (sorry) for hospital births is hardly universal, read here for the conclusion of a British study issued in April, 2007:

>“The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) support home birth for women with uncomplicated pregnancies. There is no reason why home birth should not be offered to women at low risk of complications and it may confer considerable benefits for them and their families. There is ample evidence showing that labouring at home increases a woman’s likelihood of a birth that is both satisfying and safe, with implications for her health and that of her baby.”

So let’s be clear–this resolution has nothing to do with infant or maternal health, what this is about is the AMA’s power-hungry delusion that they are the keepers of health and that they deserve to maximally profit from a process that in many cases does not require their services at all.

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From IRIN:

“Most women arriving in parts of the province of Kasai Occidental in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) among a new wave of some 27,000 deportees from Angola, have been sexually abused, a local health official said.

“There are many injured people and 80 percent of the women [who arrived] had been raped,” Pierre Didi Mpata, a doctor and director of an NGO running a local health centre in Kamako village. The village is located along the Congolese border with Angola.”

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