malalai joya denied entry to u.s.: four things u.s. readers can do to help

As you may know, Afghan writer and activist Malalai Joya has been denied entry to the US. Joya opposes the Western occupation of her country, and with a clear majority of USians now opposing the war in Afghanistan, those who profit from the occupation want to prevent her injecting public opinion with facts and motivation.

I saw Joya speak - report here and here - and I know the peace movement in the United States needs her.

When Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's flunky stupidly declared former UK MP George Galloway "inadmissible" to Canada, the ensuing publicity for Galloway's tour became Jason Kenney's nightmare. Eventually that nightmare ended up in court, and Galloway is now a regular guest of peace activists in Canada. I hope the US peace movement will get behind Joya's visit in a similar way. [For details on that, click on the wmtc category "george galloway in canada".]

United for Peace and Justice, the umbrella coalition of 1,400 US anti-war groups, has four ways you can help.

1. Have your elected representatives sign onto a letter urging the US Embassy to reconsider their decision.

Six Congresspeople and three Senators have sent such a letter, which is posted at here and here.

Ask your Senator or Representative to send a similar letter as soon as possible.

2. Sign an online petition demanding Malalai Joya be granted a visa to the US.

Click here to sign the petition.

Share the petition on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, email.

3. Attend one of the many events organized for Malalai around the country.

Whether Joya is allowed to enter the US or not, the events will go on as scheduled, with Joya appearing either live or by video. Transform these events into declarations of your right to free speech and free association.

Tour details here.

4. Demand media coverage of Malalai's visa denial.

Contact local and national media, urge them to cover Malalai Joya's visa exclusion. The denial of a visa to Afghanistan's most intrepid and well known feminist should make headlines! See the Afghan Women's Mission's media release for details.

And I'll add number 5: share this post.

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naomi wolf: women are at the centre of middle east revolutions

Naomi Wolf in Al Jazeera English:

Among the most prevalent Western stereotypes about Muslim countries are those concerning Muslim women: doe-eyed, veiled, and submissive, exotically silent, gauzy inhabitants of imagined harems, closeted behind rigid gender roles. So where were these women in Tunisia and Egypt?

In both countries, women protesters were nothing like the Western stereotype: they were front and centre, in news clips and on Facebook forums, and even in the leadership. In Egypt's Tahrir Square, women volunteers, some accompanied by children, worked steadily to support the protests – helping with security, communications, and shelter. Many commentators credited the great numbers of women and children with the remarkable overall peacefulness of the protesters in the face of grave provocations.

. . . .Other citizen reporters in Tahrir Square – and virtually anyone with a cell phone could become one – noted that the masses of women involved in the protests were demographically inclusive. Many wore headscarves and other signs of religious conservatism, while others reveled in the freedom to kiss a friend or smoke a cigarette in public.

Supporters, leaders

But women were not serving only as support workers, the habitual role to which they are relegated in protest movements, from those of the 1960s to the recent student riots in the United Kingdom. Egyptian women also organised, strategised, and reported the events. Bloggers such as Leil Zahra Mortada took grave risks to keep the world informed daily of the scene in Tahrir Square and elsewhere.

The role of women in the great upheaval in the Middle East has been woefully under-analysed. Women in Egypt did not just "join" the protests – they were a leading force behind the cultural evolution that made the protests inevitable. And what is true for Egypt is true, to a greater and lesser extent, throughout the Arab world. When women change, everything changes - and women in the Muslim world are changing radically.

Read more here.

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sexism in the child-care debate: it's worse than i thought

A few weeks ago, when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley made some horribly offensive comments about working parents, I noted:

I find it shocking how this discussion in Canada focuses almost exclusively on working mothers. I was so accustomed to hearing "working parents" in the US that when I moved here, I was really taken aback by the difference. To me, this is akin to seeing the choice of "Miss" on Canadian forms, or "Dear Sir or Madam" instead of "To whom it may concern". But those phrases, although important, are largely symbolic. The unquestioned assumption that women choose between staying home or earning income, while men do not make similar choices, should have been retired at least 30 years ago.

Little did I know, these assumptions about gender and child care are actually written into Canadian law! Perhaps Canadian readers already know this, but when I inadvertently discovered it a few weeks ago, I was shocked.

In my Research Methods class, we had a guest lecture by Melissa Fritz, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. Fritz is examining the language used in government policy documents, specifically child care policy. Her talk described her methods of analyzing Hansard transcripts, but I got stuck on the content of her research.

Fritz pointed us to Canada Revenue Agency and the Universal Child Care Benefit:

The Universal Child Care Benefit is designed to help Canadian families, as they try to balance work and family life, by supporting their child care choices through direct financial support. The UCCB is for children under the age of 6 years and is paid in instalments of $100 per month per child.

Leaving aside that these are taxable benefits, that the benefit amount ($100 per month) is totally inadequate for child care, and that the tax benefit does nothing to create quality child care for so many families that need it - leaving all that aside - the UCCB is actually sexist by design, stemming from the sexist assumptions embedded in the Income Tax Act.

On the application for the UCCB, Canada Revenue explains:

...there is a presumption that when both a male and female parent live in the same home as the child, the female parent is considered to be primarily responsible (see the definition on page two of this information sheet) for the child and should apply. However, if the male parent is primarily responsible, he can apply if a signed note from the female parent is attached to the application...

Primarily responsible for the care and upbringing of a child means that you are responsible for such things as supervising the child's daily activities and needs, making sure the child's medical needs are met, and arranging for child care when necessary. If there is a female parent who lives with the child, we usually consider her to be this person. However, it could be the father, a grandparent or a guardian. [See Income Tax Act, Section 122.6(f)]

This floors me. In the 21st Century, an antiquated, gendered division of labour is actually written into federal policy. And it's not like the present government wrote this. It dates back at least as far the 1970s. Although tax codes are constantly evolving, this has never been changed.

Obviously this blatant sexism offends me, but beyond that, it doesn't reflect the realities of contemporary life. Families with equally shared parenting responsibilities have to pretend otherwise to receive their $1,200. Stay-at-home fathers need a note from Primary Earner Mom before their responsibilities can be legally recognized. And same-sex parents... well, good luck with that. They have to convince Canada Revenue Agency that one of them - but not both of them! - is raising a child.

And it's not only the presumption of the mother as primary caregiver; if you look a little deeper, there are all kinds of assumptions going on. If the female parent is assumed to be the primary caregiver, then the male parent is assumed to be the primary income earner, which in turn assumes the female parent earns less than her male partner. Those are some pretty ridiculous assumptions to make these days.

According to Fritz, as recently as 1993, some women's organizations argued in favour of continuing the gendered presumption of care, feeling it protected women's benefits after divorce. Honourable ends, but ridiculous means.

In 2005, former MP Dave Chatters, a Conservative from Alberta, tabled a private member's bill to amend the Income Tax Act to remove the female presumption of child care. Chatters had a constituent who was a single father with full custody of his two children. At some point, the man's female partner - not the children's mother - moved in with him. She did not legally adopt the children, yet the child-care benefit was automatically paid to her! The man tried to fight it, without success. Canada Revenue would only pay the benefit to the man's girlfriend! Chatters sought to change the law on this man's behalf, but the private member's bill went the way of most, dying when an election was called. Chatters, a Conservative, has since retired.

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the uterus police: georgia politican wants every pregnancy loss investigated by law enforcement

[allan guest post]

There are far too many US politicians - on both sides of the aisle - who despise equality, hate women, and have no shame in pushing legislation that would sound right at home in any of the world's worst dictatorships. Here are what two of them are doing.

Georgia Representative Bobby Franklin wants abortion classified as murder (of course), but he also wants to force the police to investigate all "miscarriages" (the antiquated term for a spontaneous abortion) to make sure that they were indeed spontaneous. From Daily Kos:

Franklin wants to create a Uterus Police to investigate miscarriages, and requires that any time a miscarriage occurs, whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated. If the woman can't tell how it happened, than those Uterus Police can ask family members and friends how it happened. Hospitals are required to keep records of anyone who has a spontaneous abortion and report it. ... Needless to say, there are no exceptions allowed. Not for rape victims. Not for incest victims. Not to save the life and health of the mother ...

(I first saw this at Care2.)

Two weeks ago, it was reported that Franklin has filed a bill that would remove the term "victim" from rape, stalking, and domestic violence cases and replace it with "accuser". A post at Creative Loafing notes that Franklin once actually

conjured the phrase "My body, My choice" while discussing a piece of legislation he introduced that would prevent the government from making vaccinations compulsory in the event of a pandemic. Irony at its worst.

Franklin is also not keen on having homosexuals in the military:

The Bible says it's a capital offense. You want someone with unrepentant criminal behavior? And it's not just that, neither should adulterers, neither should thieves, neither should a lot of things.

Well, I actually agree with this. Let's have the US military conduct a rigorous weeding out of its troops by strictly applying the 10 Commandments.

Have you ever said "goddamn it"? Out! Have you ever worked on Sunday? Out! Did you ever disobey your parents? Out! Have you ever stolen anything, ever? Out! Have you ever looked at anyone else in the world who was not your wife/husband and had a sexual thought? Out! Have you ever wished you had the same cool gadget as that guy over there? Out! And even if you somehow passed the test and were sent off to fight in a war, as soon as you killed one person ... Out!

Get 'er done, Congress!

Mother Jones reports that the South Dakota GOP-dominated House of Representatives will soon vote on House Bill 1171, which is sponsored by Representative Phil Jensen. The bill would

expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus - a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. ...

[The bill seeks to alter] the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion - even if she wanted one.

The bill has already passed out of committee on a 9-3 party-line vote.

Sara Rosenbaum, a law professor at George Washington University: "It takes my breath away. Constitutionally, a state cannot make it a crime to perform a constitutionally lawful act."

The magazine continues:

South Dakota already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, and one of the lowest abortion rates. Since 1994, there have been no providers in the state. Planned Parenthood flies a doctor in from out-of-state once a week to see patients at a Sioux Falls clinic. Women from the more remote parts of the large, rural state drive up to six hours to reach this lone clinic. And under state law women are then required to receive counseling and wait 24 hours before undergoing the procedure. [There are ongoing attempts to increase this to 72 hours. - ed.]

Before performing an abortion, a South Dakota doctor must offer the woman the opportunity to view a sonogram. And under a law passed in 2005, doctors are required to read a script meant to discourage women from proceeding with the abortion: "The abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." Until recently, doctors also had to tell a woman seeking an abortion that she had "an existing relationship with that unborn human being" that was protected under the Constitution and state law and that abortion poses a "known medical risk" and "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide." In August 2009, a US District Court Judge threw out those portions of the script, finding them "untruthful and misleading." The state has appealed the decision.

But, remember: the procedure is still legal -- even though the state has not had anyone able to perform the procedure practicing in the state in almost 20 years. (Also, see this Common Dreams article from 2005.)

An update to the story states that Jensen is considering adding specific protections for abortion providers to the bill. "There's no way in the world that I or any other representatives wish to see abortion doctors murdered," Jensen told the Washington Post.

Oh, my goodness gracious, no.

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orenstein, porter and the disneyfication of (very) little girls

Last year, I highlighted a story about a study proving that "almost nothing we do with our brains that is hard-wired. Every skill, attribute and personality trait is moulded by experience." This inspired one of my better posts, "science proves that men and women are from the same planet", relating the belief that so-called traditional gender roles are innate to to a right-wing worldview, especially anti-intellectualism and anti-feminism.

I thought of those ideas when I read a column about Peggy Orenstein's recent book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. I haven't read the book yet, but I have read Orenstein's superb 1994 book Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap. I was working with teens at the time, and this book was so powerful, I wrote to the author - on paper, pre-email! - to thank her. So when I see Orenstein's name, I pay attention.

This column by Catherine Porter in the Toronto Star sums up the ideas from Cinderella Ate My Daughter.

In her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein of the New York Times examines the hypergenderized world of little girls, who by age 3 are taught — through their Cinderella tiaras and Belle ball gowns, and mostly by our “oohs” and “ahhhs” over them — that being pretty in a Disney way is what matters most.

That’s the first glass-slippered step on the shimmery slope of objectification, she argues, that leads to black camies and knee-high boots at Hannah Montana concerts by 10, no undies Britney Spears-style by 13, and carefully posed photographs of themselves sent to all 622 Facebook friends. . .

The lesson our daughters are learning, starting with that Disney gown: their lives are performances; they are consumers and marketers.

“Rather than raising a generation of Cinderellas, we may actually be cultivating a legion of step-sisters — spoiled, self-centred materialists, superficially charming but without the depth or means for authentic transformation,” Orenstein writes.

. . . .

• Nearly half the girls surveyed in Grades 1 to 3 want to be thinner.

• Nearly 43,000 children under 18 had “surgically altered their appearance” in 2008, over twice as many as a decade earlier. In 2009, American teenagers had received 12,000 injections of Botox.

• Two-thirds of college students tested by psychologists scored high on the “Narcissistic Personality Inventory,” meaning they are excessively self-involved.

• Close to half of 6- to 9-year-olds girls regularly use lipstick or gloss. Almost one in five girls, aged 8 to 12, wear mascara.

This was before Walmart released its makeup line for 8-year-olds.

These trends are not natural. Our kids aren’t growing up faster, Darwin-like. They’re being pushed by marketers — who created the toddler and tween categories — and we are letting them. We think they are just expressing themselves, the same way we express ourselves by squeezing into skinny jeans and paying $30 to get our eyebrows “weaved.” They’ve just stepped onto the beauty machine earlier than we did.

. . . .

Disney announced this month a deal to enter 580 maternity hospitals in the U.S. to give new mothers a free Disney onesie if they signed up for DisneyBaby.com email alerts.

This is painful to read, its implications monstrous to consider. Among other things, it sickens me how something as elemental as giving birth becomes just another marketing opportunity. Among other things, I wonder how anyone could read this and still believe gender roles are innate.

Porter uses an excellent analogy - one close to my heart - to describe Orenstein's advice to parents:

Orenstein hopes her book is to processed girldom what The Omnivore’s Dilemma was to processed food — a call to action. Her message isn’t to ban all princesses. It’s for parents to chaperone their daughters through that world consciously.

“It is strategic then, absolutely vital — to think through our own values and limits early, to consider what we approve or disapprove of and why,” she writes. “I refuse to believe that parents are helpless.”

Parents are not helpless, I agree. But they are often overwhelmed. And they must first believe these trends are harmful before deciding to consciously help their daughters navigate these minefields. What happens to the girls whose parents are oblivious - or cheerfully complicit?

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diane finley and the harper conservatives insult all working parents

How could anyone take seriously a party that would say this out loud? And how could such a party come to govern this country for so long?

“It’s the Liberals who wanted to ensure that parents are forced to have other people raise their children. We do not believe in that,” Finley said in the Commons Thursday, the same day that Liberals were promising to revive the national program scrapped by the Conservatives five years ago this week.

Liberals are calling Finley’s remark an insult to working Canadian mothers and fathers and a clear declaration of bias in favour of stay-at-home parents — a rarity in Canada, where most mothers with children work.

“For decades we’ve realized that women are working, men are working and the second thing we’ve realized is that there’s a great benefit to children from working and playing with others and learning with others,” said Liberal MP Bob Rae. “The notion somehow that child care is some form of alien abduction is just completely preposterous.”

New Democrats, who have put forward their own national child-care legislation in the Commons, were also outraged by Finley’s characterization of child-care programs.

“Finley insulted all teachers, all early childhood educators, child-care workers, organizers of parents’ resource centres and even babysitters. She is trying to inflict guilt on all working parents — a truly shameful, divisive behaviour,” said NDP MP Olivia Chow.

On a sidenote, I find it shocking how this discussion in Canada focuses almost exclusively on working mothers. I was so accustomed to hearing "working parents" in the US that when I moved here, I was really taken aback by the difference. To me, this is akin to seeing the choice of "Miss" on Canadian forms, or "Dear Sir or Madam" instead of "To whom it may concern". But those phrases, although important, are largely symbolic. The unquestioned assumption that women choose between staying home or earning income, while men do not make similar choices, should have been retired at least 30 years ago.

In any case, the Conservatives are neanderthals on this issue. If there was any hope for any kind of coalition government, we'd be rid of them in no time.

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in which a woman draws a cartoon about sexism

In which we betray our gender, by gabby of Gabby's Playhouse.

Let me state unequivocally that I am proud to know many feminist (i.e. non-sexist) men. Indeed, any male I call my friend qualifies, by definition.

Gabby's observations are no less accurate because of this. A quick perusal of the comment thread will confirm.

Many thanks to James for sending this - long ago!

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naomi wolf: typical responses to rape and the global collusion in silencing dissent

Naomi Wolf, HuffPo:

How do I know that Interpol, Britain and Sweden's treatment of Julian Assange is a form of theater? Because I know what happens in rape accusations against men that don't involve the embarrassing of powerful governments.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is in solitary confinement in Wandsworth prison in advance of questioning on state charges of sexual molestation. Lots of people have opinions about the charges. But I increasingly believe that only those of us who have spent years working with rape and sexual assault survivors worldwide, and know the standard legal response to sex crime accusations, fully understand what a travesty this situation is against those who have to live through how sex crime charges are ordinarily handled -- and what a deep, even nauseating insult this situation is to survivors of rape and sexual assault worldwide.

Here is what I mean: men are pretty much never treated the way Assange is being treated in the face of sex crime charges.

. . . . [Continue reading for Wolf's recounting of sex crimes globally and in the Western world and what typically happens to men who rape.]

In other words: Never in twenty-three years of reporting on and supporting victims of sexual assault around the world have I ever heard of a case of a man sought by two nations, and held in solitary confinement without bail in advance of being questioned -- for any alleged rape, even the most brutal or easily proven. In terms of a case involving the kinds of ambiguities and complexities of the alleged victims' complaints -- sex that began consensually that allegedly became non-consensual when dispute arose around a condom -- please find me, anywhere in the world, another man in prison today without bail on charges of anything comparable.

Of course 'No means No', even after consent has been given, whether you are male or female; and of course condoms should always be used if agreed upon. As my fifteen-year-old would say: Duh.

But for all the tens of thousands of women who have been kidnapped and raped, raped at gunpoint, gang-raped, raped with sharp objects, beaten and raped, raped as children, raped by acquaintances -- who are still awaiting the least whisper of justice -- the highly unusual reaction of Sweden and Britain to this situation is a slap in the face. It seems to send the message to women in the UK and Sweden that if you ever want anyone to take sex crime against you seriously, you had better be sure the man you accuse of wrongdoing has also happened to embarrass the most powerful government on earth.

Keep Assange in prison without bail until he is questioned, by all means, if we are suddenly in a real feminist worldwide epiphany about the seriousness of the issue of sex crime: but Interpol, Britain and Sweden must, if they are not to be guilty of hateful manipulation of a serious women's issue for cynical political purposes, imprison as well -- at once -- the hundreds of thousands of men in Britain, Sweden and around the world world who are accused in far less ambiguous terms of far graver forms of assault.

Anyone who works in supporting women who have been raped knows from this grossly disproportionate response that Britain and Sweden, surely under pressure from the US, are cynically using the serious issue of rape as a fig leaf to cover the shameful issue of mafioso-like global collusion in silencing dissent. That is not the State embracing feminism. That is the State pimping feminism.

Thanks to James for sending.

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when we train people to kill, why are we so surprised when they kill?

Russell Williams in context:

First: Colonel Williams and violence in the military by Dr. J of your heart's on the left.

Follow the trail of violence from basic training, to whatever foreign war you can think of, and back home again. When we train people to dehumanize and kill other people, why are we so shocked when they do just that?

Then: The horrific Williams murders were about power not personal fetishes by Elizabeth Pickett, writing at Rabble.

These were not only murders: they were rape-murders. Watching media reaction, you'd think Williams' victims were the only women raped and murdered in Canada, ever.

Please read both these excellent pieces: here and here.

If we don't look at this in context of both war and everyday violence against women, it's just another celebrity story.

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Others who get it: La Zerbisias and Rose DiManno, who I would have never seen, so double thanks to Antonia.

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science proves that men and women are from the same planet

The second story that confirms my beliefs touches on something more controversial and more challenging to many people. This story in The Guardian profiles scientific evidence showing that gender-based behavioural differences are not genetic, but the result of socialization.

There is almost nothing we do with our brains that is hard-wired. Every skill, attribute and personality trait is moulded by experience.

The "nature vs. nurture" debate - whether human behaviour is innate or the product of environment - is centuries old. Somewhere through the decades, the terms of the debate moved from "which" to "how much". It became widely acknowledged that human behaviour is influenced by both environment and genetics, but to what degree each affects us is still the subject of much debate.

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, the dominant trend emphasized environment. In a period of expanding civil rights and social welfare, it was seen that improving social conditions would improve lives. One famous and landmark note in this realm was Dr. Kenneth Clark's famous doll study, which concluded that educational segregation negatively affected the psyches of African-American children. The study was used as court evidence in early school desegregation cases that were direct antecedents to wide-scale social change, such as Brown vs Board of Education.

During my university years and beyond, the nature-vs.-nurture pendulum began swinging towards the innate. It's no coincidence this occurred during a rise of conservatism and right-wing-radicalism. If everything about us is innate, what need is there to concern ourselves with social inequality, or indeed with social conditions at all? If behaviour is predetermined by DNA, people will be who they will be, regardless of environment. Look at this one man who pulled himself up from his bootstraps! If he can do it, everyone can. And if you can't do it, it's your own fault. If a whole bunch of children can't do it, don't blame poor nutrition, abuse at home or grossly inferior education. Just claim it's genetic and cut social spending.

[An aside: this cross-references nicely with my thoughts on Barbara Ehrenreich's most recent book, Bright-sided, which speaks to US society's extreme emphasis on individualism and revulsion for collective solutions.]

Through the 1990s and into this century, new evidence of the genetic basis for diseases has augmented the general trend towards viewing human behaviour as innate, and thus inevitable. And it is especially popular to use this lens to view gender differences and relations between men and women.

This is a very specific subset of the society's rightward march: the backlash against feminism. Feminism teaches that women and men are equally human and should be socially equal. In order to create an equal society, where each of us can achieve our full human potential, not only do women need full access to the boardroom, the academy and the halls of political power, but men need full access to the supermarket, the vacuum, the diapers and the laundry room.

But how much easier it is to say "we were born this way"!

After all, if men and women are from different planets, no one has to change, or even seek to understand each other's needs. Women must accept the double-duty of income-earning and child-raising. Men don't need to communicate or dirty their hands with household drudgery. Boys can be forgiven violence and disrespect. Girls should accept that inferior destiny is already written in their genes.

And this supposedly dates all the way back to the cave, as pseudo-scientists cherry-pick evolutionary "evidence" to support an anti-feminist viewpoint. A former friend - a woman - once told me that the glass ceiling is natural, because women are good at repetitive tasks and men are natural planners. Her evidence? In pre-industrial societies, women gathered while men hunted.

Well, there you have it. Who cares that in modern society, income-earning is not necessarily linked to physical size and strength. Ignore the facts that the advent of reliable contraception has radically altered the modern family structure, and that modern technology means we no longer work from dawn to dusk hauling water, baking bread and weaving cloth. Throw out centuries of human experience in which women have thrived as inventors, artists, astronauts, engineers and leaders of nations. Thousands of years ago, women gathered and men hunted. So stop complaining and do your job.

While thinking about this post, I read an excellent blog post related to this on The Oscillator, part of ScienceBlogs.

Even when not discussing human evolution and inborn intelligence, studies of animal sexuality continually are framed in terms of traditional gender roles (the coy, choosy female; the aggressive, studly male) while species or individuals that don't fit this narrative are ignored. Science news stories about duck rape become hugely popular because we apologize for rape as a "natural" event caused by the male evolutionary need to spread their seed widely. Biases and prejudices become natural, women's bodies are explained as in terms of men's desires, in our culture, in our media, and too often in our science.

There is political and social advantage to be gained in claiming that a certain power structure is "natural" therefore desirable. (The conflating of those - natural and desirable - is another assumption that must be questioned.) But the movement towards viewing gender differences as innate also dovetails with anti-science and anti-intellectualism: "I don't need some expert telling me what I already see with my own eyes!"

I've heard it dozens of times: parents claim that their boy children naturally gravitated towards playing with trucks, and the girls naturally reached for the dolls. They use this "evidence" - which is not evidence at all, but personal observation - as proof that boys and girls are inherently different. Here are some questions for those parents. Were both types of toys given freely and without comment to both children? Did the children grow up seeing other boys play with dolls and other girls play with trucks? What is it about a toy truck and the way a child interacts with it that you believe is inherently male?

And another important question. Has the male child ever seen an adult male caring for a baby? When I was a nanny, I overheard my boy and his friends playing grown-up. My little guy said, "OK, you be the mommy and go to the office, I'll be the daddy and make dinner. Bye honey, don't work too late!" His friend said, "Nuh-uh, daddies can go to work, too! Both mommies and daddies can go to work." And they argued about it.

I don't think it's possible to factor out the influence of environment. Gender socialization permeates every facet of our society. It is pervasive, omnipresent, insidious, inescapable. And you know what? It just may be responsible for everything we think we know about gender.

It is the mainstay of countless magazine and newspaper features. Differences between male and female abilities – from map reading to multi-tasking and from parking to expressing emotion – can be traced to variations in the hard-wiring of their brains at birth, it is claimed.

Men instinctively like the colour blue and are bad at coping with pain, we are told, while women cannot tell jokes but are innately superior at empathising with other people. Key evolutionary differences separate the intellects of men and women and it is all down to our ancient hunter-gatherer genes that program our brains.

The belief has become widespread, particularly in the wake of the publication of international bestsellers such as John Gray's Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus that stress the innate differences between the minds of men and women. But now a growing number of scientists are challenging the pseudo-science of "neurosexism", as they call it, and are raising concerns about its implications. These researchers argue that by telling parents that boys have poor chances of acquiring good verbal skills and girls have little prospect of developing mathematical prowess, serious and unjustified obstacles are being placed in the paths of children's education.

In fact, there are no major neurological differences between the sexes, says Cordelia Fine in her book Delusions of Gender, which will be published by Icon next month. There may be slight variations in the brains of women and men, added Fine, a researcher at Melbourne University, but the wiring is soft, not hard. "It is flexible, malleable and changeable," she said.

In short, our intellects are not prisoners of our genders or our genes and those who claim otherwise are merely coating old-fashioned stereotypes with a veneer of scientific credibility. It is a case backed by Lise Eliot, an associate professor based at the Chicago Medical School. "All the mounting evidence indicates these ideas about hard-wired differences between male and female brains are wrong," she told the Observer.

"Yes, there are basic behavioural differences between the sexes, but we should note that these differences increase with age because our children's intellectual biases are being exaggerated and intensified by our gendered culture. Children don't inherit intellectual differences. They learn them. They are a result of what we expect a boy or a girl to be."

Read more here.

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message of peace and solidarity from codepink to afghan women

A message from CODEPINK, Women Say No To War:

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September 10, 2010

Won't you join me in wishing the women in Afghanistan a happy Eid to mark the end of Ramadan and letting them know your commitment to building a more peaceful, tolerant world? We will send the greetings tomorrow, 9/11, to the Coalition of Afghan Women--a wonderful network of Afghan groups working to improve the lives of women and their families. You can simply sign our message or send a personal note.

I am the head of CODEPINK in Gainesville, Florida, now known as the home of the infamous Terry Jones who has threatened to burn the Qur'an. We are ashamed that he was become the face of Gainesville and we are using this debacle as an opportunity to counter the dangerous explosion of Islamophobia in this country.

This week, we have joined with the local Muslim community to organize a Read a Qur'an Day and to serve dinner to the homeless. Campus CODEPINK, University of Florida, has been educating themselves and others about Islam. Their faculty advisor is a professor of Islamic Studies, and all of them have taken an Introduction to Islam course.

We are raising $12,000 to build a girl's school in Afghanistan and even before the Qur'an-burning threat, we had approached our wonderful mayor Craig Lowe about creating a sister city with a town in Afghanistan. He was all for it--150 percent--and now we're even more determined to move forward on this.

We have also created a Peace Ribbon composed of over 300 panels that pay tribute to the soldiers and civilians victims of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The display has travelled throughout the United States, and is currently being shown in towns across Arizona, another focal point of racism and hatred in our country. Let me know if you would like to bring the Peace Ribbon to your community.

I joined CODEPINK precisely because of its commitment to honoring the sanctity of all lives. Let us mark the sad anniversary of September 11 by recommitting ourselves to ending violence and by sending a message of peace to our Afghan sisters.

With love,
Jacque Betz
CODEPINK Gainesville, Florida

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chelsea baker, little league superstar

If Eri Yoshida doesn't break baseball's gender barrier, maybe Chelsea Baker will.

This is the kind of story I used to go after when I wrote for kids' magazines. So if you know any kids, send them this link. The original on ESPN.com has video, plus a sidebar about women in profressional baseball.

In a league of her own
By Ben Houser

PLANT CITY, Fla. -- She registered another perfect pitching record this year, 12-0, for her Little League team.

She threw her second perfect game -- and predicted this one just hours before she did it.

Her fastball hits the mid-60s, and she can send opponents to the bench in tears, embarrassing them with a knuckleball she learned from former major league knuckleball legend Joe Niekro.

Meet Chelsea Baker, a girl pitcher in a boys' league.

Heads are turning in Plant City, where Chelsea hasn't lost a sanctioned Little League game in four seasons.

Although it is a little early to call the 13-year-old the next big thing in baseball, she's a sought-after pitcher who has the attention of respected talent evaluators, including former Boston Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette. They see grand possibilities in her developing knuckleball, already-hopping fastball and strong hitting skills that sparked a .604 batting average this past season.

"She is definitely one-of-a-kind," said Keith Maxwell, one of her coaches and a former minor leaguer who coaches Little Leaguers across several states. "I've had an opportunity to play with some girls coming up in Little League, and they were actually pretty good ballplayers. Some of them actually made all-star teams and that kind of stuff. Chelsea is on a whole different planet compared to them.

"Chelsea Baker is by far the best female 13-year-old girl [baseball player] in the United States. She is the best I've ever seen in my life hands down. The sky is the limit."

Baseball until she no longer wins

It's baseball, and it will be that way so long as Chelsea has a say.

"I don't like to play softball," she said.

Opponents' parents often remark about Chelsea -- not always quietly or kindly.

The most common: "'Go play softball with the girls' -- we get that a lot, and we have gotten that a lot over the last three years," her mother, Missy Mason Baker, said. "'When is she going to move to softball?' At some point, maybe she might have to go play softball, but right now as good as she is doing and she is able to keep up … and that is her goal, I am going to stand behind her and let her continue playing baseball as long as possible."

"She tried softball," said Rod Mason, her stepfather and coach. "She doesn't like it, so baseball is her deal."

His thoughts about when softball may enter the picture: "When she can't strike out little Johnny no more."

Such talk does not affect her, Chelsea said; it just motivates her.

"I think they say stuff like that because they are jealous," she said.

Chelsea's Little League teams are 95-8-2 the past four years with three city championships, one city championship runner-up, two tournament of champions titles and two District IV championships. She struck out 127 batters in 60 innings this year.

"After I usually strike somebody out with a knuckleball, they sometimes start crying back to the dugout, and a lot of them just like open their mouth like they can't believe it," she said.

"There's no crying in baseball, right?" said Duquette, the former Red Sox executive. "It's embarrassing to strike out anytime, but I'm sure for young boys it's probably more embarrassing to be struck out by a girl."

Corey Blanchette, a player on a team of all-stars from Pittsfield, Mass., laughed after recently becoming a victim.

"She got me on the two fastballs, and I didn't know she had a knuckle curve, and then the knuckle came in and it was just so dirty [good] I didn't know what to say," he said.

. . . .

Chelsea learned the knuckleball from one of the best: former major leaguer Joe Niekro, who died shortly after he taught her how to throw it. She met him in 2005 when she was a player on a baseball team he coached.

"I'm so happy that Joe's memory is living on; his legacy is continuing through Chelsea Baker learning how to throw the knuckleball," Duquette said. "The key for her will be commanding her knuckleball pitch and getting it in the strike zone consistently."

Breaking down barriers

All agree that consistency will be key for Chelsea.

But maybe just as important will be how she handles navigating the traditional boys' game as she moves forward and how the traditional boys' game treats her.

"It's unfortunate that boys feel so much pressure to perform well against the girls," Siegal said. "I know that Chelsea would like to be seen as a player, not just a girl playing baseball. And in our society, we have this myth that girls are weak and boys are strong. Chelsea's debunking that myth. And as soon as girls and boys realize that they can play the game together -- the whole game -- baseball, the greatest game on Earth, will become a better game for everyone."

Lance Niekro, Joe's son, played in the major leagues with the San Francisco Giants for four seasons. He watched Chelsea pitch in her regular-season finale in a pitching duel against his younger brother, J.J. Niekro.

"Who are we to say that she can't play baseball?" Lance Niekro said. "There's no rule that states that. So as long as she's doing well and people want her on their team, I don't see why she shouldn't be allowed to play. If parents have something to say [about a girl playing baseball], then maybe that's the parent whose kid is striking out against Chelsea.

"With the success that Chelsea has had now, throwing a couple of perfect games … boys will learn not to make fun of her."

Siegal said that negative remarks are only now beginning for Chelsea and her family.

"Once you start playing in high school, the sexual jeers get more intense," said Siegal, who pitched and played shortstop on a high school boys' baseball team in the 1990s. "As a pitcher, I had a lot of sexual comments directed towards me that are not PG for ESPN. But as a pitcher, a female, who wants to succeed at the game, you have to be able to hear those words and then ignore them and continue your game.

"Chelsea's doing a great job with the taunts as a 13-year-old, and she'll have to do even better and continue to focus as she gets older with the high school level as the taunts get more intense."

Duquette seems to think that being a female won't be a factor in how far Chelsea is able to go in her baseball career.

"People will recognize Chelsea Baker, and they'll promote her based on her skill," he said. "Her gender won't really matter to anybody if she develops the skills. She'll find the opportunity.

"I know that there are some physical limitations that will not allow the girls to compete with the boys on higher levels, but if Chelsea Baker can perfect her knuckleball, she has a chance. The knuckleball is a great equalizer, and that would give her an out pitch, where she could get hitters out, irrespective of their sex and irrespective of their level."

As Chelsea heads into eighth grade next year, she is already thinking about high school. She plans to try out for the high school boys' baseball team.

Plant City high school baseball coach Mark Persails, who played for 12 years with Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros, is looking forward to her coming of age. . . .

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the knuckle princess and her canadian sisters

I have blogged about Eri Yoshida a few times, a young pitcher making a bid to be the first female to play Major League Baseball. And guess what? There's a Canadian connection! (There always is.) Here's a terrific story about women in professional baseball in BC, by Tom Hawthorn in The Tyee. Thanks to JoS.

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onslaught of anti-choice laws in u.s. continues a 30-year trend

For a long time, I've wanted to write a wrap-up of the latest anti-woman, anti-choice outrages going on in various US states. But there's so much of it! The post quickly became a monumental job that I never found time to tackle.

Long-time reader Andrea sent me a link to an article at CounterPunch, where author David Rosen has done the heavy lifting for us. I don't know if Rosen has compiled an exhaustive list, since new legislation is constantly popping up, but it does highlights some of the most disturbing and dangerous laws.

Rosen has written an excellent article and I appreciate seeing these issues highlighted in as many venues as possible. But his introductory critique of reproductive rights in the US surprises me, as it lacks recent historical perspective. He writes:

The U.S. is facing resurgence in the war against a woman's right to choose an abortion. Congress contained the Bush administration's more virulent anti-abortion efforts, especially after the 2006 election. Since Obama’s election and the Democrats takeover of Congress, abortion has been a hostage to political horse-trading as evident in the Stupak compromise restricting abortion from insurance coverage that finally got the health reform legislation passed.

Unfortunately, as national media attention has moved on to other matters, the battle over abortion and other culture-war issues has shifted from the Congress to state legislatures. Across the country, especially in what are known as red states, the Christian right has moved stealthily, yet aggressively, to further tighten restrictions on "legal" abortions. These efforts have been remarkably successful, likely foreshadowing a major campaign against Roe at both the federal and state levels following a likely strong showing by rightwing Republicans in the 2010 Congressional elections.

This new anti-abortion movement is a continuation of the old religious war against a woman’s right to choose and for sexual freedom, but with some important new twists. The domestic and foreign policy crises Obama inherited from the Bush administration, combined with Obama's own compromises, have provided a great cover for a refocused anti-abortion movement. The just-say-No Republican party, together with the inflammatory Tea-Party movement, has refocused the mainstream media away from abortion and other cultural issues to "big" government, the national debt and immigration.

The anti-abortion warriors have used this cover to wage campaigns...

I disagree. Having been involved in the pro-choice movement since 1981, I have followed the ongoing erosion of reproductive rights, almost all of it on the state level. While most federal lawmakers, the media and the public focused myopically on Roe v Wade, the right to abortion became a mere technicality, as the majority of US women lost access to abortion.

Anti-choice laws were passed in dozens of US states during the Reagan-Bush era. The trend barely slowed down during the Clinton years, then picked up renewed steam through the second Bush era. In other words, anti-choice legislation has been piling up in US state law - non-stop - for the past 30 years.

Three separate United States Supreme Court decisions have allowed most of these laws to stand: Webster (1989), Akron (1990) and Casey (1992). These decisions ruled as Constitutional laws requiring fetal viability tests, parental notification, mandatory waiting periods, and other obstacles designed to prevent women from exercising their human right to control our own bodies. The decisions opened the floodgates for anti-choice legislation, and left pro-choice advocates with few options except to battle each law, one at a time.

From the early 1980s until today, the anti-choice movement in the United States - quintessentially focused, organized, and well-fed by both the Catholic Church and the evangelical churches - has succeeded in passing hundreds of laws that restrict women's rights to control our own bodies. They didn't require the camouflage of tea-party protesters or racist anti-immigration fervor to get the job done. The media was always elsewhere. Whether it was O.J. or Tiger Woods, Janet Jackson's breast or Lady Gaga's genitals, or just the latest missing blond child, mainstream media has never lacked excuses to not report the news.

Even people who should know better, don't. When I was part of the Haven Coalition in New York City, most people I knew who were not pro-choice activists - educated, intelligent, engaged people - were shocked to learn that women in neighbouring states were forced to travel to New York City for abortions. Because after all, Roe has not been overturned, right?

For some details on abortion access in the US that pre-dates the tea-partiers, see my essays, For Millions of American Women, Roe Is Already History from 2005, and in "either margaret wente needs a fact-checker or the entire united states is a backwater" from 2008. Of course, since I wrote those, things have only gotten worse.

There are outrages on the federal level, too. The most visible was the Stupak Amendment, an extension of the Hyde Amendment, which has been in effect since 1976. These laws have successfully restricted a woman's right to abortion based on income. In between, there are things like repeated attempts to criminalize helping a young woman travel to another state to obtain an abortion.

I'm still searching for some evidence of Rosen's claim that "Congress contained the Bush administration's more virulent anti-abortion efforts, especially after the 2006 election." I'm not being snarky. I've been looking, but haven't found anything. If you know what the author might be referring to, please do leave the information in comments. I've been unable to find any positive developments in reproductive rights during the Bush years - although I did find a short list of what was lost.

* * * *

David Rosen's story at CounterPunch does give an excellent overview of the types of anti-abortion laws that are now being passed all over the US.

The most common category is insurance restrictions. Between the Stupak Amendment, the Hyde Amendment and specific state laws, most insurance coverage will be prohibited from including abortion in almost all states.

An increasing number of states are passing laws mandating waiting periods and sonograms. Many states are mandating that abortion providers engage in coercive tactics like detailed descriptions of fetuses. Missouri is requiring providers to offer anesthesia for the fetus.

Oklahoma stands at the forefront of the recent onslaught of anti-woman, anti-choice legislation. That state now requires pre-procedure ultrasound with mandatory viewing of images and hearing of a detailed description of the fetus, and a long series of obstacles that providers must clear before performing procedures. Another Oklahoma law prohibits patients from suing doctors who do not reveal fetal abnormalities during pregnancy. (Mary Alice Carr, with the National Institute for Reproductive Health, asks, "Oklahoma, what have you done?")

And there is always a slew of bills that are floated and not passed. Women in Iowa, for example, have been able to receive counseling and prescriptions for non-surgical abortions through videolink. Legislation has been introduced to restrict this.

For the most updated information on abortion rights both in the US and worldwide, always turn to the Guttmacher Institute. Their research is impeccable and their website is updated frequently.

* * * *

Despite what I may be overlooking or forgetting, the erosion of reproductive rights in the United States is not new. It is a continuation of a 30-year trend.

While it is technically true that a woman from Oklahoma can travel to New York City for an abortion, that technical right won't provide the Oklahoma woman who is burdened with an unwanted pregnancy with information, transportation, child care, time off from her job and the funds to make the trip and pay for the procedure. For American women - as for women around the globe - geography is destiny.

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reproductive justice and the limits of polls, part one

I attended a terrific meeting last night called "Harper's Attacks on Reproductive Rights at Home and Abroad". The room was packed with people of all ages and from many different communities - university students, women's health workers, socialists, veteran choice activists and those new to the barricades.

When the meeting began, there was a buzz about the recent Globe and Mail article showing the results of a new Nanos poll on Canadians' opinions on abortion.

Canadians believe that women in countries that receive aid from Ottawa should have access to safe abortions, according to new polling data which hints at a political risk for the Harper government in promoting a maternal health initiative that omits abortion.

In the poll by Nanos Research 67.7 per cent of respondents said women in countries receiving Canadian aid should have the same access to safe abortion as Canadian women.

A related Globe story showed that a large majority of people polled in every province believe that women need access to legal, safe and free abortion, ranging from a whopping 88.8% in Quebec to 69.5% in Alberta and in the upper 60 percents in the Atlantic provinces.

This is excellent, and it is a distraction.

Such strong polling numbers are important because they demonstrate that women's reproductive freedom is a mainstream Canadian value, and that the Conservatives tamper with this at their great political peril.

It shows the broad mainstream base behind the small activist voice currently agitating to ensure that reproductive rights in Canada do not backslide, whether through wholesale dismantling or through the stealth, piecemeal chipping away of rights.

And the poll numbers show the strong public opinion we can tap into as we organize around reproductive rights issues.

But our right to control our own bodies should not depend on public opinion.

Our rights to sex education, contraceptives, abortion, prenatal care - our right to control if and when we have children - should not be a function of majority opinion.

In countries where, because of a particular social, political, cultural milieu, public opinion shows strong opposition to contraception and abortion, women still have the right to control their bodies.

And if one day someone comes up with a poll that shows, say, 45% of respondents in such-and-such province oppose abortion rights, 100% of the girls and women in that province still have the right to reproductive freedom.

Reproductive rights are human rights. Human rights cannot depend on public opinion polls.

But the support is there and we must organize it.

This Saturday, at the main G20 protest march - "People First! We Deserve Better" - women will lead the march, carrying a giant coat hanger, both in protest of the Harper government's exclusion of abortion from their so-called "maternal and child health policy" and to say, as Canadians, WE WON'T GO BACK.

This decision was made and endorsed by all the organizing bodies - the Canadian Labour Congress, Greenpeace, Canadian Federation of Students, Oxfam Canada and the Council of Canadians - and it's an exciting development.

Every woman is invited to stand at the head of the march, in a demonstration of strength and solidarity with women around the globe.

The peace march feeding into the main march begins at 12:30 in front of the US Consulate, 360 University Avenue.

The main march will begin at Queen's Park at 1:00.

I'll report on the meeting in Part Two.

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