The anti-abortion movement is all about protecting the unborn fetus, yes? It’s not about criminalizing motherhood at all, right? Right!

Unless you live in Utah.

Jezebel has the Roundup of Outrage over a bill awaiting the governor’s signature that specifies up to life imprisonment for any woman who commits an “intentional, knowing or reckless act” that causes her pregnancy to terminate. (Abortion is excluded.) The bill is a reaction to a case in which a woman paid a guy $150 to beat her baby out of her.

Nice, right? Two people were involved in that incident, yet Utah fashions a bill that targets the one without a penis.

What’s so monstrous about this law is that, as Dan Savage notes, every miscarriage is a potential criminal case. Savage focuses on the impracticality of this: how do you track every miscarriage in the state when up to 20% of all pregnancies naturally miscarry? I’m thinking more of the impact on the woman herself. Have you ever known a woman who’s miscarried? If so, you know the pain and anguish that accompanies the experience. Can you imagine being a woman (or her partner) and having to endure criminal questioning by the police and state prosecutors during your recovery?

And I don’t give a good goddamn what anyone says – this law criminalizes abortion. If that’s not the intent, then why is the punishment – up to life in prison – equivalent to homicide?

If you think such laws won’t be used maliciously, then you (1) don’t know how power operates, and (2) didn’t hear about Christine Taylor, who narrowly avoided prosecution under Iowa’s feticide law after falling down a flight of stairs. Taylor’s case illustrates my fear: while being treated for her fall, the emotionally distraught mom-to-be confided in a nurse that she didn’t know if she wanted to continue her pregnancy. The nurse told a doctor. The doctor called the cops. Within a span of hours, Iowa had criminalized Taylor’s fears. Taylor avoided prosecution because Iowa’s law only because Iowa’s law applies to the third trimester, and she was at the start of her second.

All that can stop this bill at this point is a veto. It’s on Governor Gary Herbert’s desk. Herbert, while campaigning, made clear that he thinks prosecuting women for “illegal abortions” is just swell:

In concept, I understand what they’re trying to do [with the criminal homicide change]. There should not be the ability of the woman to have gotten off scot-free [when she obtains an illegal abortion]. What we don’t want to do, as we create laws with the best of intentions, is to have some unintended consequences.

We’ll know shortly whether this law falls under Herbert’s “unintended consequences” clause. Wanna take bets?

Uncategorized abortion, christine taylor, dan savage, feminism, health, iowa, miscarriage, reproductive freedom, utah

Poor M.D. Nalapat. The UNESCO Peace Chair India’s Manipal University has surely penned what he believes is a bitchin’ defense of Islam’s treatment of women against its detractors. And maybe it is…in India. But something gets lost in translation when an American reads it. After announcing that “the Koran espouses a gentle, moderate philosophy” that doesn’t enslave women, Nalapat says:

It is therefore ironic that many Western commentators regard as “pure Islam” the Kharijite practices followed by groups such as the Taliban, who claim that Islam legitimizes their policy of forcing women indoors except when absolutely necessary; wearing a chador that covers even the face; depriving women and girls of access to education and employment; making them in effect the chattels of their menfolk. Contrast this with the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who did not hesitate to serve as the employee of a woman, and who gave considerable freedom to the womenfolk in his care.

“The womenfolk in his care”? In other words, these women were chattel – but extremely well-treated chattel.

But oh, it gets worse. How does the Koran suggest you deal with adultery, for example?

Consider these lines: “As for those from whom you apprehend infidelity, admonish them, then refuse to share their beds, and finally [if such admonitions do not cause a change in behavior] hit them [gently]. Then, if they obey you, take no further action against them.” Contrast this gentle directive with the stoning to death practiced by those who claim to be following “pure” Islam, but in fact are deviating entirely from the word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

You’ll notice that “gently” is an editorial insertion. And hey, who can argue that a gentle beating is a step up from being stoned to death by your own village? This reminds me of how the so-called “Middle Way” of Buddhist enlightenment still enjoins you to give up sex, booze, and garlic. (I’m down with the booze. But forsake sex and garlic? You might as well shoot me where I stand.) So what are you supposed to do if the “gentle” beating fails? Bring out the stones? And what constitutes a gentle beating, anyway? Perhaps it’s of a piece with the parental stylings of Michael and Debbi Pearl, the fundamentalist parenting “experts” who command that you switch your children until their cries become a “wounded, submissive whimper.” Hey, perhaps the Pearls have found their home in the wrong religion!

Polygamy and soft beatings: the New Wave of Islamic feminism? Goddess help us.

Uncategorized afghanistan, feminism, india, islam, religion, spirituality, women

Oh…blech. Blech and ick upon Saudi Arabia, whose system still considers it right and proper that a father can marry his 12-year-old daughter off to his 80-year-old cousin in exchange for an ample dowry. At least this time, this suck-tastic story comes wrapped in a possible not-so-miserable ending. The country’s Human Rights Commission has interceded in the case, assigning the girl a government lawyer to argue her side before a local court. Whether this will do the poor child any good remains to be seen.

Traditionalists are arguing to keep the practice, because, hey, the Prophet Muhammed had a 9-year-old bride! Top Saudi Cleric Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh argued just one year ago that people who say a girl under 15 can’t take a husband are being “unfair” to the child. At the time, Al-Sheikh, a.k.a. His Venerable Horniness, was reacting to a judge who had refused to annul the “marriage” of an 8-year-old girl to a 47-year-old degenerate.

Sigh. And you wonder why some people hate religion. Two words, Saudi Arabia: human trafficking. These aren’t marriages. These girls were sold into sexual slavery.

I’m no American exceptionalist, but I’m glad to live in a country where men who even contemplate this are considered candidates for state-sponsored castration.

Uncategorized feminism, islam, marriage, saudi arabia, women

Oh, awesome – another reason to despise Dubai besides its financial excess, virtual enslavement of foreign workers, and jailing of expats who miss a car payment. An unnamed British woman and her fiance reported to authorities that the woman had been raped. In a fit of compassion, police jailed the couple for the crime of extramarital sex, which carries a six-year penalty.

The couple produced a marriage certificate. Authorities dropped the sex charges, and the pair ran like hell.

This isn’t the first time Dubai has wielded sex as a weapon. In 2008, Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors were convicted of sexing it up on a beach. The pair were deported before they could serve their three-month sentences. In the Palmer and Acors case, Emiratis and expats alike argued that the couple deserved what they got: when you visit a foreign country, you’d damn well better follow the rules. If the law says “don’t fuck without a license,” then keep your britches zipped.

But what’s the excuse this time? Yes, the couple were oblivious of local customs related to unlicensed drinking and sexy-timing. That justifies letting a potential rapist bastard roam free? The 23-year-old woman, who alleged she was raped by a waiter, wasn’t only jailed, but cajoled into signing a statement declaring that the rape never occurred. The charges were calculated to scare her silent. They worked like a charm.

In a civil society, a rape allegation would usurp other, minor crimes. In Dubai, the minor crime is the major offense. My condolences to this poor woman and her now-ex-fiance. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Dubai’s debt load signal the end of the Good Times, and that greed will no longer send people flocking to this high-tech monument to the Dark Ages.

Uncategorized crime, dubai, feminism, rape, sex

I don’t give a damn what’s happening at the Miss Universe pageant. I know it’s on. I know it’s full of bouncing breasts, etc. And yet, I can’t summon the inactivity needed to plop myself on a couch for 2+ hours and zone out to the world’s top unsigned models strutting across a stage.

It’s not a feminist thing. I have no innate hatred of beauty pageants – no belief that they’re attempting to subjugate women and return us to the “wholesome” days before that Betty Friedan bitch chucked a monkey wrench into the man-machine. No, my problem with beauty pageants is that they’re b-o-r-i-n-g as hell. There’s something dead and plasticine about the whole affair that makes it as erotic as Thanksgiving at grandma’s. All of the contestants look great, but when they speak…oh Lord. Thou hast never heard such a gushing of platitudinous hogwash as one hears at a beauty pageant. It’s like listening to someone read a press release.

You know what else is lacking? Tattoos. Tats are damn sexy. When’s the last time you saw a tatted Miss America? But there’s a reason for this. Pageants are a reflection of the larger mainstream culture in which they occur; ergo, subcultures get shafted. I think Estelle Carol is over the top in her declaration that pageants are a sexist anachronism, but she has a good point: Pageants trend toward culturally-averaged notions of beauty. If your tastes trend toward wild women, well, there won’t be a lot for you up on that stage.

“Sexy” has a definite physical dimension, and shame on those who would attempt to eradicate that. Yet “sexy” is a wide concept encompassing so many other things. Demeanor. Poise. Attitude. Look. Intellect, dammit! Smart people of either gender are hot. Even if someone’s lugging around an extra 50 pounds or so, if they can move you with the power of their words and ideas, odds are you’ll feel the urge to access the inside of their pants. At pageants, these multiple dimensions of “sexy” get collapsed into the physical, no matter how many bells and whistles and “phases” pageant organizers tack onto their competitions.

Uncategorized beauty pageants, feminism, miss universe

Akku Yadav terrorized the women of the Indian slum of Kasturba Nagar for years, raping some of them repeatedly and ordering others gang-raped. When some of these women overcame the shame and went to police, the officers told them that it was their fault for being “loose”.

Nadav finally surrendered to police to escape the boiling anger of other residents. When it became clear that he was going to be released on bail, the women of Kasturba Nagar finally had enough.

At 3pm on August 13 2004, Akku Yadav was lynched by a mob of around 200 women from Kasturba Nagar. It took them 15 minutes to hack to death the man they say raped them with impunity for more than a decade. Chilli powder was thrown in his face and stones hurled. As he flailed and fought, one of his alleged victims hacked off his penis with a vegetable knife. A further 70 stab wounds were left on his body. The incident was made all the more extraordinary by its setting. Yadav was murdered not in the dark alleys of the slum, but on the shiny white marble floor of Nagpur district court.

And even THAT was too good for him.

Pandagon’s post above doesn’t reprint the most interesting part of the Guardian article, which captures exactly how the murder unfolded:

On the day of Yadav’s hearing, 200 women came to the court armed with vegetable knives and chilli powder. As he walked in, Yadav spotted one of the women he had raped. He called her a prostitute and threatened to repeat the crime against her. The police laughed. She took off her sandal and began to hit him, shouting, “We can’t both live on this Earth together. It’s you or me.” It was a rallying cry to an incensed mob. Soon, he was being attacked on all sides. Knives were drawn and the two terrified officers guarding him ran away. Within 15 minutes, Yadav was dead on the courthouse floor. But his death has not brought the women peace. Five were immediately arrested, then released following a demonstration across the city. Now every woman living in the slum has claimed responsibility for the murder. They say no one person can take the blame: they have told the police to arrest them all.

The right thing to happen now would be for the Indian central government to pardon the women of the viillage, particularly the scapegoated Usha Narayane, and to arrest the corrupt cops who were in Yadav’s pocket. Oh, and actually abolishing the caste system, instead of just saying it’s abolished and turning your back when people rape and murder their fellow human beings? Yeah, that’d be a nice touch too.

Uncategorized caste system, feminism, india, women's rights

Earlier this year, I went off on male-only poker meet-ups that excluded women. For some reason, I found myself thinking about this today. Particularly, I wondered: why have all the “poker championships” I’ve seen on TV consisted only of men? And where are there tournaments solely “for the ladies”?

Little did I know that at least some women in poker want it this way. Debbie Burkhead makes the case in her article “Why Have Ladies-Only Tournaments?” that too many women are “intimidated” by a room full of male poker players. Burkhead further argues that ladies-only tournaments will attract more women to the game, thus increasing the paltry 10% female representation seen in professional poker today.

Personally, I think that’s bullshit. If you foster an independent “ladies’ circuit”, you’re doing nothing but ingraining prejudices that ought to be weeded out. But hey, I’m married to a strong woman who eats “intimidating” men for lunch, then grinds their bones to make her bread. Besides, I’m neither a woman nor a poker player, so what do I know?

Uncategorized feminism, poker, texas hold 'em, women

Make no mistake: the Washington State Poker Tour isn’t some prestigious championship, but a facetious name given by a group of guys to their poker night. Still, Stacey Stefanich was more than a little annoyed when she tried to join the game, which is being held at the Redmond Ridge community center, and was told that the group’s rules excluded her.

Why? Because she’s a girl, that’s why.

Stefanich said when she first contacted the group, she didn’t want to change the rule, just have it explained.[Dan] Gorman’s reply said the “WSPT board” would consider her as a potential member if she sent four photos, “one from the front, one from the back, one of your left side & one of your right side. The photos should include your entire body (not just a head shot) & wearing a 2 piece bikini is preferable.”

In her response, Stefanich sent an e-mail saying, “Let me keep this simple so you can understand, one, are you afraid of losing to a girl? And two, I’ll put on a bikini for you as soon as every single member of the WSPT does. Sound fair?”

Gorman explained that he sent this initial email because he believed that Stefanich was just one of the guys fucking with him (figuratively, of course). When he realized she was a real live “girl”, with boobs and all,

he sent a follow-up e-mail saying, “The actual reason that no girls are allowed is because a lot of us are married and we need the one night off a month from our wives. Hope you can understand. But if we ever allow women to play, you’ll be the first girl to know about it.”

I’ll grant that these guys have a legal right to exclude “girls”. Since the house doesn’t take a cut in this game, the state gambling commission regards it as a private affair, which means it’s exempt from anti-discrimination laws. Hell, they probably have a legal right to exclude gays, Japanese-Mongolian-Americans, people with facial tics, etc., etc. Their reasons for excluding women aren’t insidious: they want to have a “guy’s night” where they talk sports, crack off-color jokes, and sniff each other’s buttcracks.

So why does this annoy the living piss out of me? It annoys me as much as when I hear about mom’s clubs that exclude stay at home dads. This tournament is in my back yard, and yet there’s no way I would ever attend it even if I played poker on a regular basis. Not only does the idea of playing cards amid a sea of testosterone not fulfill my definition of a good time, it strikes me as repugnant and small-minded.

I’ve never understood guy’s/girl’s nights out, or segregating social circles by gender. It seems more like a consequence of paranoid monogamy than a healthful urge to be with one’s own kind. I find mixed groups fun; the conversation is generally livelier and more balanced. What’s mxore, I like hanging out with women. I’m never worried of saying something they might find “unladylike”, because Kim and I have strictly limited our social circle to our kind of people. (And no, that doesn’t include women who think dumb is beautiful, or who are into casual sex but can’t bring themselves to say the word “fuck”.)

What’s more, judging solely from the article, there seems to be an underlying, clandestine, and somewhat juvenile misogyny about this group’s attitude toward women. Their frequent use of the term “girls” makes me imagine them playing Texas Hold-’Em huddled up in a tree fort with a misspelled sign tacked on the front door. These guys are in their 30s and 40s. Can’t they free their minds enough to host an open game where everyone can have a rolicking, off-color good time? Can’t they be up-front with Stefanich about the character of the games, and let her decide if it sounds like fun?

Does anyone else get where I’m coming from? Or am I a freak? (“Yes and yes” is not an acceptable answer.)

Uncategorized equality, feminism, poker, texas hold 'em