UNM Women Studies

It's the Hypocrisy, STupid

2007-04-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

From Robin Morgan (www.RobinMorgan.us)

Beyond Imus—It’s the Hypocrisy, Stupid!

April 16

Periodically, some new wound rips the scab off our national, livid scar where sex and race intersect: the young law professor, Anita Hill, shaming Congress by her dignity and inspiring women with her truth; the O.J. Simpson circus trials; the Duke-Lacrosse mystery; Don Imus v. the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team.

We’re an adolescent country, ahistoric, not that well educated. Most Americans still don’t know that “races” do not exist, that what gets termed “races” are miniscule physical variations across our species, due to different survival adaptations we’ve developed since our human ancestors migrated from Africa to other geographical regions. (One instance: in a sun-drenched sub-Saharan climate, melanin in our pigmentation created darker skin as a protective necessity; under cloudier northern skies, paler pigmentation suppressing melanin became necessary so we could absorb more Vitamin D from the sun.)

Yet ironically, while believing “race” is real, many Americans think racism, sexism, and other bigotries are myths—a staggering feat of collective denial. How many times have you heard someone start (or finish) a diatribe with “Well, I’m no racist (sexist, homophobe, etc.), but . . . ?

Michael Richards follows his melt-down by proclaiming he’s not a racist; Mel Gibson weeps he’s not an anti-Semite; actor Isaiah Washington calls a colleague “faggot,” but insists he’s no homophobe. Politicians spew blatant or coded hate speech, then muster blame-the-victim, nonapology apologies (“Sorry if anyone mistook what I meant”). They all scuttle behind the excuse of work-stress or alcoholism while fleeing to the latest damage-control hideaway: rehab.

Howard Stern, who built his career on every form of bigotry, “libertarian” Bill Maher, and new neocon Dennis Miller all boast about attacking “the Establishment” while they parrot and reinforce its basest values, and hide behind the “equal-opportunity insulter” justification—as if pain lands with the same impact on the powerless as on the powerful. A few others walk a fine line of satirizing prejudices while trying not to reinforce them. Stephen Colbert has built a not-so-bright, archconservative character deliberately to skewer that character’s politics. Yet even Jon Stewart, whose work I admire, at times jettisons his political conscience where sexism is concerned—perhaps too eager to court that age 18 to 24 pale-male consumer demographic?

But all of these “truth-telling,” “ground-breaking,” “ballsy,” so-called rebels, however much they might now tiptoe around “the N word,” tiptoe more around words that would be really dangerous to use, especially in self-examination:

The R word: Racist. The S word: Sexist. The H word: Homophobe.

Well, after a lifetime of activism—from the civil-rights movement through antiwar, antipoverty, the birth of lesbian and gay rights, the founding and flowering of the contemporary feminist movement in the United States and globally—I am still a racist, a sexist, a homophobe. How could I not be? How can any of us—no matter our sex or ethnicity—not be sexist, racist, and all the other –ists? Our society sowed these seeds in our formative consciousness.

I remember my mother and aunts—good women, liberal whites, working-class, apostate Jews, proud members of the NAACP—unthinkingly saying “That’s white of you,” or “I’m free, white, and 21,” or even “You can’t wear those new shoes yet! Stop acting nigger-rich.” Yet these women once soaped out the mouth of a playmate who used “nigger” as an epithet; all the while they chuckled at “Amos and Andy” stereotypes on the radio and made “No tickee no washee” jokes at the Chinese laundry. Conveniently, they didn’t connect the dots.

As a child, I sure got their double message, though. Never since have I been able to cleanse myself totally of those messages, not under the blast of Southern sheriff’s fire hoses, not on picket lines or at sit-ins or in jail cells. I wrestle with those toxins—whispery, seductive, semiconscious—every damned day, in myriad ways, and will do so until I die. Hannah Arendt termed this a necessary vigilance about “the Eichmann within,” who gets loose only when not acknowledged. It’s the hypocrisy. I believe that each of us truly commits to fight bigotry only when we get royally pissed at how it has warped our own humanity. At least then, with enlightened self-interest, we’re less likely to play Lord or Lady Bountiful but abandon the direct victims when the going gets rough. There’s no vaccine for these poisons siphoned into our systems, no individual-case cure. But recognition is the prerequisite step in treating such diseases until we can eradicate them outright. For that we need to come off it and tell the truth.

It’s not about blame, but about responsibility; not about guilt, but about change.

The same is even truer of sexism—where denial and collaboration are epidemic. Racism is still taken more seriously because men suffer from it, too—and whatever any men do or feel must be more important than what happens “only” to all women. When a man says “I’m no sexist, but . . .” I groan inside. But when the rare guy begins, “I guess I must be a sexist, but I don’t want to be, so how . . .” he gets my attention: he’s owning up to reality, and already addressing not what but how.

Everyone over age 45 shares some version of my childhood brain-soiling experiences. Younger Americans share different pernicious messages: It’s cool to make fun of geezers, fat people, spastics, amputees. If certain hip-hop lyrics reek violent woman-hatred, it’s hip for everyone to echo that (and it rakes in dough for the pale-male-owned record companies). If chic fashion spreads celebrate sado-porn rape poses, well, that’s just edgy. If talk-radio’s crude propaganda spews words like “feminazis,” “retards,” “Lezzies,” “ragheads,” and “wetbacks,” gee, lighten up, nobody takes that seriously. (Who is nobody?) If “Hey, man,” “What’s up, dude,” or “You guys” have been resurrected as generic terms for greeting a friend/friends, then to point out wearily that these terms erase female presence is to invite rebuttals revived word-for-word from the 1970s: to be overly sensitive, uncool, and, naturally, one of those humorless, dreary PC types. (About 15 years ago, I wrote a Ms. editorial explaining “PC” as really standing for Plain Courtesy.) D’uh. We’ve been here before, oh yeah. But it still hurts.

It hurts. What part of “It hurts” don’t they understand?

I know, I know, it’s positive (however maddening) that our memory-challenged pundits now claim the Imus affair will “open” a national dialogue about which some of us Americans are already hoarse, yet still babbling. I know patience is not my strong suit. I know that over time, consciousness is contagious. Once you start connecting dots, you can’t help but connect more. Rep. Linda Sanchez recently suspended her membership in the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, the second to leave the group charging sexism; her sister, Rep. Loretta Sanchez resigned after accusing caucus chairman Rep. Joe Baca of referring to her as a “whore.” Star athletes, members of Congress, law professors, single moms dancing at frat parties to support their kids, presidential candidates—when in doubt, call ‘em whores. We’re none of us immune to the hurt. And we’re none of us immune to being agents for the hurt.

I don’t only mean obvious offenders, serial right-wing purveyors of hate like Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, et al. What about liberal compartmentalizers? Wasn’t that left-leaning Hollywood awarding an Oscar to the song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”? In a coyly intellectual version of “Ooops, my bad!” progressive politicians and journalists—Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Rep. Harold Ford, Frank Rich, Jeff Greenfield, a depressingly long list—now sheepishly admit to having been (caught as) enablers by appearing on “serious” segments of Imus shows, while they conveniently overlooked vicious sexist and racist “jokes” bracketing their discussions. I’ve heard feminist spokeswomen defend appearing on shock-jock shows or political shout-fest programs claiming the “need to reach those audiences.” To help generate more heat than light? To be a guest or a dartboard? To do outreach or to collaborate—conveniently compartmentalizing while hyping a book or oneself?

Language reflects and defines attitudes. Attitudes reflect and define action. It’s the hypocrisy, stupid.

From the media, as usual, we relearned Compartmentalization 101: Whatever Men Say and Do is More Interesting than Whatever Women Say and Do.

Feminist movement support for the Rutgers team has been close to eradicated in coverage, which positioned Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as leading the protests. Most pundits chose to play a sick Competition of Oppressions game, presenting the Imus debacle as more a racist story than a sexist one—as if human suffering should be compared, women appear in only one skin tone, and bigots can’t hate and chew gun at the same time. The Sunday morning TV political shows ignored the sexism entirely. Some commentators justly praised pressure brought by a 200,000 member African American women’s organization joining the protests, but neglected to mention that The National Council of Women's Organizations—11 million multiethnic women in 210 organizations—was among the first to demand firing Imus and his producer. Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation met privately with the team at the start, and her speech brought down the house at their Rutgers rally. NOW’s President Kim Gandy has been denouncing Imus for years, and from the first moment this story broke, she, together with heads of other national feminist organizations, attended those same pressure meetings with CBS and NBC executives. These were meetings where Sharpton and Jackson—each bearing personal baggage as an apologist for his own past sexist actions and ethnic hate speech—garnered the media spotlight.

The fall-out from such destructive divide-and-conquer reporting implies that African American male leaders cared, but women of all other ethnicities did not. Erasure again—partial-truth reporting that feeds racism and sexism.

By now, we ought to know better, right? We ought to know that, despite persistent, erroneous media references otherwise, women are not another minority: we’re 52% of the population—and of the species. And you can damned well bet we come in all sizes, shades, shapes, ages. You name it, we are it. That’s the F word: Feminism.

At least the women athletes from Rutgers (two of whom are stereotype-breaking European Americans, by the way) got it right. Refusing to compartmentalize, and continuing to demonstrate not only physical but moral grace, they made clear they felt all women had been degraded by Imus’s remark. As team captain Essence Carson said: “We’re just trying to give a voice to women who suffer from sexism. . . . Not just African American women, but all women.”

Slam dunk.

inus comments sexist

2007-04-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

By Roland S. Martin
CNN Contributor
Adjust font size:

Editor's note: Roland S. Martin is a CNN contributor and a talk-show host for WVON-AM in Chicago.

(CNN) -- No one would have thought that when Rosa Parks opted not to give up her seat to a white man in 1955, a dozen years later blacks would have the full right to vote, the ability to eat in hotels and restaurants and see Jim Crow destroyed.

We might look back in a few years and come to realize that the removal of Don Imus from the public airwaves put America on a course that changed the dialogue on what is acceptable to say in public forums.

The downfall of a long, successful and controversial career, on the surface, took eight days. But for Imus, this has actually been 30 years in the making. He has used his sexual and racial schtick to pad his pocketbook. Only this time, he ran up against a group of women who presented such a compelling story, his bosses couldn't ignore the reality of his sexist and racist rant.

Although the National Association of Black Journalists led the fight to oust Imus, there is no doubt that it was that moving news conference by the Rutgers University women's basketball team that cemented the demise of Imus. Vivian Stringer was poised and strong in demanding that America look at the 10 women and see them as the real face of Imus's slurs.

And that is really the issue we must focus on. So many people tried to make this a race issue. But for me, that wasn't the primary point. I never wavered from the attack as one of a sexist. It didn't matter that he was trying to be funny. He insulted a group of women who are already accomplished.

Then again, that happens to women every day.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, a New York Democrat, is smart and talented, but to many, she's nothing but an opportunist. She's called too aggressive, not cute and is slammed regularly. But she should be praised for being a woman who has achieved a lot in her career.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is portrayed as a bumbling idiot, but her academic credentials are impeccable. You can disagree with her ideology, but to question her womanhood is silly.

Women all across this country have to play by a different standard. They often make less than men, even when doing the same job; are accused of being too tough when they are the boss; and are treated as sexual objects.

America, we have a problem with sexism. Don't try to make this whole matter about the ridiculous rants made by rappers. I deplore what's in a lot of their music and videos, but hip-hop is only 30 years old. So you mean to tell me that sexism in America only started in 1977?

Now is the time for this nation to undergo a direct examination of the depths of sexism. My media colleagues shouldn't go just for the easy target ˇ rap lyrics. That is no doubt a logical next step, but sexism is so much deeper. It is embedded in our churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, Fortune 500 companies and in the political arena. We should target our resources to this issue and raise the consciousness of people, and expose the reality.

Don Imus should not be the period. He can be the comma. Civil rights organizations, media entities, women's groups and others have an opportunity that they can't pass up. We have the chance to seize the moment to begin a conversation ˇ-- an in-depth one ˇ-- that has the opportunity to redefine America along the lines of race and sex.

I hope and pray that we have the courage to do so.

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CNN contributor Roland Martin sees comments by radio host Don Imus as a mostly sexist attack.

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Imus: Racism AND sexism

2007-04-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons Don Imus's comments about the Rutgers basketball team was not only that it was a racist comment (all the media get that). What the media hasn't talked about so much is that it was also sexist and misogynist: using the generic term "ho" for all women, but particularly African American women, was as "ist" as the "nappy" comment. So Imus's was a double-whammy of a racist/sexist comment. Why doesn't the media discuss the sexist part more? What do you all think? gail

women soldiers

2007-03-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

From Salon.com; Rinita Mazumdar sends this to us:

The private war of women soldiers

Many female soldiers say they are sexually assaulted by their male comrades and can't trust the military to protect them. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," says one woman. "It was for the guys on my own side."

Editor's note: This story has been corrected since it was originally published.

By Helen Benedict
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March 7, 2007 | As thousands of burned-out soldiers prepare to return to Iraq to fill President Bush's unwelcome call for at least 20,000 more troops, I can't help wondering what the women among those troops will have to face. And I don't mean only the hardships of war, the killing of civilians, the bombs and mortars, the heat and sleeplessness and fear.

I mean from their own comrades -- the men.

I have talked to more than 20 female veterans of the Iraq war in the past few months, interviewing them for up to 10 hours each for a book I am writing on the topic, and every one of them said the danger of rape by other soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or showers without another woman for protection.

The female soldiers who were at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, for example, where U.S. troops go to demobilize, told me they were warned not to go out at night alone.

"They call Camp Arifjan 'generator city' because it's so loud with generators that even if a woman screams she can't be heard," said Abbie Pickett, 24, a specialist with the 229th Combat Support Engineering Company who spent 15 months in Iraq from 2004-05. Yet, she points out, this is a base, where soldiers are supposed to be safe.

Spc. Mickiela Montoya, 21, who was in Iraq with the National Guard in 2005, took to carrying a knife with her at all times. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," she told me. "It was for the guys on my own side."

Comprehensive statistics on the sexual assault of female soldiers in Iraq have not been collected, but early numbers revealed a problem so bad that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered a task force in 2004 to investigate. As a result, the Defense Department put up a Web site in 2005 designed to clarify that sexual assault is illegal and to help women report it. It also initiated required classes on sexual assault and harassment. The military's definition of sexual assault includes "rape; nonconsensual sodomy; unwanted inappropriate sexual contact or fondling; or attempts to commit these acts."

Unfortunately, with a greater number of women serving in Iraq than ever before, these measures are not keeping women safe. When you add in the high numbers of war-wrecked soldiers being redeployed, and the fact that the military is waiving criminal and violent records for more than one in 10 new Army recruits, the picture for women looks bleak indeed.

Last year, Col. Janis Karpinski caused a stir by publicly reporting that in 2003, three female soldiers had died of dehydration in Iraq, which can get up to 126 degrees in the summer, because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being raped by male soldiers if they walked to the latrines after dark. The Army has called her charges unsubstantiated, but Karpinski told me she sticks by them. (Karpinski has been a figure of controversy in the military ever since she was demoted from brigadier general for her role as commander of Abu Ghraib. As the highest-ranking official to lose her job over the torture scandal, she claims she was scapegoated, and has become an outspoken critic of the military's treatment of women. In turn, the Army has accused her of sour grapes.)

"I sat right there when the doctor briefing that information said these women had died in their cots," Karpinski told me. "I also heard the deputy commander tell him not to say anything about it because that would bring attention to the problem." The latrines were far away and unlit, she explained, and male soldiers were jumping women who went to them at night, dragging them into the Port-a-Johns, and raping or abusing them. "In that heat, if you don't hydrate for as many hours as you've been out on duty, day after day, you can die." She said the deaths were reported as non-hostile fatalities, with no further explanation.

Not everyone realizes how different the Iraq war is for women than any other American war in history. More than 160,500 American female soldiers have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East since the war began in 2003, which means one in seven soldiers is a woman. Women now make up 15 percent of active duty forces, four times more than in the 1991 Gulf War. At least 450 women have been wounded in Iraq, and 71 have died -- more female casualties and deaths than in the Korean, Vietnam and first Gulf Wars combined. And women are fighting in combat.

Officially, the Pentagon prohibits women from serving in ground combat units such as the infantry, citing their lack of upper-body strength and a reluctance to put girls and mothers in harm's way. But mention this ban to any female soldier in Iraq and she will scoff.

"Of course we were in combat!" said Laura Naylor, 25, who served with the Army Combat Military Police in Baghdad from 2003-04. "We were interchangeable with the infantry. They came to our police stations and helped pull security, and we helped them search houses and search people. That's how it is in Iraq."

Women are fighting in ground combat because there is no choice. This is a war with no front lines or safe zones, no hiding from in-flying mortars, car and roadside bombs, and not enough soldiers. As a result, women are coming home with missing limbs, mutilating wounds and severe trauma, just like the men.

All the women I interviewed held dangerous jobs in Iraq. They drove trucks along bomb-ridden roads, acted as gunners atop tanks and unarmored vehicles, raided houses, guarded prisoners, rescued the wounded in the midst of battle, and searched Iraqis at checkpoints. Some watched their best friends die, some were wounded, all saw the death and mutilation of Iraqi children and citizens.

Yet, despite the equal risks women are taking, they are still being treated as inferior soldiers and sex toys by many of their male colleagues. As Pickett told me, "It's like sending three women to live in a frat house."

Next page: "There are only three kinds of female the men let you be in the military: A bitch, a ho, or a dyke"

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Yale and sexual harassment

2007-03-26T23:44:00.002-07:00

The Silent Treatment

She was a Yale senior. He was the superstar professor she’d hoped to impress?until he put his hand on her thigh. Two decades later, she’s speaking out. But her alma mater still isn’t listening. A story of sex, secrets, and Ivy League denial.

How can we make universities commit to protecting students not just avoiding lawsuits?????

See her story at : nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9932. gail

Gail Turley Houston
Professor, English

witchhunts from Bhavana

2007-03-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

A different kind of witch hunt-- a literal one, in India. BhavanaWitch huntSona's mother was murdered and dismembered; Kalo was attacked with a saw and scarred for life. Hundreds of other Indian women are killed or disfigured every year after being branded witches by their neighbours. Raekha Prasad reports Wednesday March 21, 2007The Guardian A 65-year old Indian woman bears the scars of a witch-hunting attack in eastern India. Photograph: Sanjay Jha When I first encounter Sona Bindya, this small 10-year-old girl is perching barefoot on a mound of rubbish, squinting into the sunlight by the side of a cratered road. Beckoned to the car, she sits primly on the back seat in her grubby clothes, confidently answering my questions. Her nickname is Pinky, she says. Except for a mouth full of adult teeth, she looks young for her age.Until a few months ago, Sona lived in a one-room hut in an unremarkable slum hamlet of just 12 buildings with her mother, Ramani. Ramani had been bringing Sona up alone since her husband died from an unknown illness. Every day at 6am Ramani left home for her job as a labourer (painting the factories in an industrial area in the eastern Indian state of Jharkand), returning home 12 hours later.Article continues----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------One night in January, Ramani and Sona were fast asleep when two neighbours broke down their rickety front door and dragged Ramani out of bed. As Sona fled to a neighbour's hut, she saw one of the men's hands cover her mother's mouth and another close round her throat. Next morning, no one stopped Sona from seeing the pools of blood that had darkened on her doorstep. On the railway line 100m away, Ramani's mutilated body had been dumped on the tracks. Her severed limbs pointed in opposite directions.Ramani's death was not reported by India's rolling news stations and fast-proliferating newspapers, because, sadly, there was nothing distinctively "new" about the way in which she had died. Specifically, her death was the result of being branded a witch.Police in Jharkand receive around five reports a month of women denounced as witches, but nationally the figure is believed to run to thousands. These incidents usually occur when a community faces misfortune such as disease, a child's death or failing crops, and a woman is suddenly scapegoated. Those whose lives are spared face humiliation, torture and banishment from their village: some are forcibly stripped and paraded in public; some have their mouths crammed with human excreta or their eyes gouged out. The belief is that shaming a woman weakens her evil powers. And because these crimes are sanctioned by the victim's community, experts say many of them go unreported.Ramani and her neighbours belong to one of the country's many distinct tribes, who speak their own language and hold animist beliefs, insulating them from mainstream Indian society. The country's "tribals" are among its poorest people, often living without access to doctors, schools or electricity. People in the neighbourhood are predominantly of the Ho tribe, having migrated from their ancestral forests to the fringes of this part of urban India, carrying with them superstitions and a belief in the supernatural.Although police have arrested three men in the hamlet for her murder, none of the locals condemns Ramani's killing as a crime. Sona now lives with another family in a nearby village, and as I walk with her through her old neighbourhood, other residents avert their eyes. In the aftermath of the murder, many have fled until the dust settles. Those who remain are evasive. Even the murdered woman's own cousin denies any knowledge of what happened. He says he came back to the slum at 10pm that night. "I went straight to sleep so I didn't hear anything and I don't know anything," he says.Ramani was killed because she had been deemed a malignant force, wreaking death and misfortune on the hamlet. When a child fell ill in the slum, diagnosis and solutions were sought, as usual, from the resident medicine man or ojha. The ojha is a central figure in the community, believed to have insights into evil forces affecting the health and wealth of the village. When his magical incantations fail to cure a patient, he turns to divination, gathering together water, oil, leaves, twigs, vermilion, a mirror and dung, asking the villager for the payment necessary for him to enter a trance. He then hints at, or directly names, the "culprit" behind the illness. In this case, the ojha told the father of the sick child that Ramani was to blame, says Sona, and claimed that taking her life would lift the curse.This violence is part of an India that has perhaps been obscured by stories of its software boom and nuclear prowess; a culture sometimes forgotten amid news of such successes as the steel company Tata, which recently swallowed British giant Corus.Caught between the clash of tribal India and the modern-day nation is Shubhra Dwivedy, chief executive of Seeds, a Jharkand-based development organisation that focuses on girls and women. In the decade that Dwivedy has shuttled between the villages and her urban office, she has seen no decline in witch-hunting. "It's been so deeply ingrained for generations, socially and culturally, that it can't just be undone," she says.A Seeds report explains that the "witch" label is also used against women as a weapon of control; branding a woman is a way to humiliate her if she has refused sexual advances or tried to assert herself. And the deep fear of witches can also be whipped up to grab a woman's land or settle old family scores. "It is easy for influential villagers to pay the ojha to have a woman branded to usurp her property," states the report.These are the tactics that robbed Kalo Devi of her land and home. Crouching outside her daughter's house in a village in Jharkand's rugged interior, the 65-year-old widow pulls her sari blouse from one shoulder to reveal scar tissue knotted like bark. She holds out her left hand, disfigured by wounds, and traces the dark scar that runs across her nose and cheek.She was attacked at noon, she says, just after lunch in September 2004 in the village where she had raised her daughter and lived with her husband until his death 20 years ago. As Kalo squatted in her mud home, washing up, her neighbour Jogan burst in brandishing a saw. "He attacked my shoulder; then tried to cut off my nose. Blood filled my mouth and I couldn't shout," Kalo says, her voice shaking with the memory. "I fell on the ground and he kept hitting me. I passed out so I don't know how my hand got cut."A few days before the attack, Jogan had branded Kalo a witch in front of the entire village, and accused her of causing the death of his newborn baby. His outburst was an escalation in a litany of abuse, following her repeated requests for him to stop grazing his cattle on her land. During an earlier argument he had told her: "I will graze my cows in your field and cut you into pieces if you shout to stop me."Kalo is unequivocal about why she was branded. "There were no men in my house. That's why this happened. He deliberately brought his cattle to my field because he thought that he could dominate me."Although Jogan was arrested and charged, he was granted bail and is living locally again. With no police protection, Kalo fears he may succeed in killing her. That is why she has abandoned her home and land to live with her son-in-law and daughter 20km away. "What choice do I have?" she asks.This question has occupied the lawyer Girija Shankar Jaiswal for more than a decade. As secretary of the Free Legal Aid Committee - an advocacy group that represents disadvantaged groups in Jharkand - he has instituted legislation that specifically outlaws witch-hunting in the state and its neighbour, Bihar. Although this has not succeeded in punishing the perpetrators - fewer than 1% of reported cases lead to a conviction - Jaiswal claims that it has helped instil fear into potential offenders and police. "Now an officer has a duty to prosecute, despite his personal prejudices. And if a woman can put you in jail, then she becomes a powerful woman."But for someone like Ramani, the law could not legislate against beliefs. The fear now is for the life of her daughter, the sole witness to her murder. Sona saw four men standing watch outside her hut when she fled her mother's attackers within, and they threatened to kill her if she gave their names to the police. She did so anyway. They are all still living in the hamlet.· Some names have been changed.

New Campus Witch Hunts?

2007-03-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

These campus witch hunts by David Horowitz et all include feminist scholars too?

I've pasted two articles below, but you can go to the pages with the
following links, too. Serious.
Elaine

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Return of the Campus Witch Hunts
David Horowitz and the Thought Police
By DANA CLOUD
http://www.counterpunch.org/cloud03082007.html

Meet the New McCarthyites
Return of the Academic Witch Hunts
By DAVE LINDORFF

women regents now!

2007-03-07T11:55:00.001-08:00

Why won't Governor Richardson put more than one token (non-student) woman on the Board of Regents at UNM?

Madre Report on women in Iraq

2007-03-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

Elaine Baumgartel sent this: please respond:

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MADRE to Release Report on Gender-Based Violence in Iraq

On March 6, 2007, MADRE will release Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq, a groundbreaking report on the incidence, causes, and legalization of gender-based violence in Iraq since the US-led invasion. The report documents the use of gender-based violence by Islamists seeking to establish a theocratic state, and by the US in its efforts to appease Islamists and enforce its occupation.
Please join us for the release of the report on March 6th during the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. Copies of the report will be available at the event, and thereafter on MADRE's website.
Confronting Gender-Based Violence in Iraq
DATE: Tuesday March 6th, 2007
TIME: 2:00pm-3:45pm
LOCATION: United Nations Church Center, 10th floor
777 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017
SPEAKERS:
Yifat Susskind, MADRE
Houzan Mahmoud, Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq
Jennie Green, Center for Constitutional Rights
Frida Berrigan, Arms Trade Resource Center (World Policy Institute)
Sponsored by MADRE, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, and the Arms Trade Resource Center (World Policy Institute)
Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy:
Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq
Executive Summary
Note:
The term "Islamist" in this report refers to those who pursue a reactionary social and political vision in the name of Islam, as distinct from "Islamic" relating to the religion of Islam.
Amidst the chaos and violence of US-occupied Iraq, the significance of widespread gender-based violence has been largely overlooked. Yet, Iraqi women are enduring unprecedented levels of assault in the public sphere, "honor killings," torture in detention, and other forms of gender-based violence. Women are not only being targeted because they are members of the civilian population. Women—in particular those who are perceived to pose a challenge to the political project of their attackers—have increasingly been targeted because they are women. This report documents the use of gender-based violence by Iraqi Islamists, brought to power by the US overthrow of Iraq's secular Ba'ath regime, and highlights the role of the United States in fomenting the human rights crisis confronting Iraqi women today. Some key points include:
Imposing Theocracy through Gender-Based Violence
Under US occupation, Iraqi women have endured a wave of gender-based violence, including widespread abductions, public beatings, death threats, sexual assaults, "honor killings," domestic abuse, torture in detention, beheadings, shootings, and public hangings. Much of this violence is systematic—directed by the Islamist militias that mushroomed across Iraq after the US toppled the mostly secular Ba'ath regime.
Like religious fundamentalists in the US and elsewhere, Iraq's Islamists see the subordination of women as a top priority—both a microcosm and a precondition of the social order they wish to establish. As in Iran, Algeria, and Afghanistan, a campaign of violence against women was the first salvo in the Islamists' war to establish a theocracy in Iraq.
First They Came for the Women
Attacks on women began within weeks of the US invasion in 2003. US authorities did nothing to stop the violence, and soon the attacks spread. Within a year, Islamists were killing Iraqi artists, intellectuals, professionals, ethnic and religious minorities, lesbians and gays—indeed, anyone whom the Islamists perceived as a threat to their agenda. Women, who are seen as the carriers of group identity, have remained in the cross-hairs of Iraq's warring sectarian militias. Iraqi women's organizations report that militias "are taking revenge on each other by raping women," and targeting Christian women with rape and assassination as part of a broader attack on that community.
Iraq's War on Women: Made in the USA
Women have been systematically attacked by theocratic militias on both sides of the sectarian divide, but the most widespread violence has been committed by the Shiite militias affiliated with the US-backed government—the Badr Brigade and Mahdi Army. These groups have waged their campaign of terror against women with weapons, training, and money provided by the US under a policy called the "Salvador Option."
Gender War, Civil War
Neither the mainstream press, the alternative media, nor the anti-war movement has identified the connections between the attack on Iraqi women and the spiraling violence that has culminated in civil war. But violence against women is not incidental to Iraq's mounting civilian death toll and civil war—it is a key to understanding the wider crisis. Indeed, the twin crises plaguing Iraqi civilians—gender based violence and civil war—are deeply intertwined. For example, in the legal arena, the same provisions of the US-brokered constitution that codify gender discrimination (Articles 39 and 41) also lay the groundwork for sectarian violence: these articles establish separate laws on the basis of sex and religious affiliation.
Democracy and Women's Rights: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Although most assaults on women occur in public, violence against Iraqi women continues to be perceived mainly as a "private" or family matter, somehow outside the realm of "politics." Moreover, the characterization of violence against Iraqi women as "cultural" in nature deemphasizes the ways that such violence is used as a means toward political ends and obscures the role of the United States in fomenting gender-based violence.
Contrary to its rhetoric and its legal obligations under the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Bush Administration has refused to protect women's human rights in Iraq. In fact, it has decisively traded women's rights for cooperation from the Islamists whom it boosted to power.
A re-telling of the Iraq War from the perspective of Iraqi women illuminates the strong links between women's human rights and democratic rights in general and the Bush Administration's clear contempt for both.
By Yifat Susskind, Communications Director

Report will be available on MADRE's website as of March 6, 2007

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Women Faculty send message to Regents

2007-02-13T08:31:00.000-08:00

University of New Mexico Memo

To: Regents
From: Interested Women Faculty
Date: 2/12/07
Re: Need to hire a president who will be affirmative in supporting and hiring women and minority faculty and administrators

While not endorsing a candidate for the position of President of the University of New Mexico, as minority/women members of the UNM faculty, we believe that it is crucial to appoint a president who has seriously articulated a plan to increase the representation of women and minorities in the faculty and at all levels of the administration, especially at the executive. We believe that active support of diversity, equity, and excellence should be inseparable guiding principles of the president's vision for the university.

Gail Houston, Professor, English
Anita Obermeier, Associate Professor, Englishewsz
Jacqueline Hood, Professor, Anderson Schools of Management
Susan Ressler, Professor Emerita
Melissa Axelrod, Associate Professor, Linguistics?
Susan D. Rivera, Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese
Jane Slaughter, Professor, History
Kim Lopez, Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese
Ann Nihlen, Professor, Emeriti, LLSS
Eliza E. Ferguson, Assistant Professor, History
Laura M Andre, Assistant Professor, Art & Art History
Marissa Greenberg, Assistant Professor, English
Eleni Bastea, Associate Professor, Architecture & Planning
Linda Biesele Hall, Professor, History
Leslie Donovan, Associate Professor, Honors Program
Judith Bennahum, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Dance
Virginia Shipman, President, Faculty Senate
Tey Diana Rebolledo, Distinguished Professor, Spanish & Portuguese
Holly Barnet-Sanchez, Associate Dean, College of Fine Arts
Christine Rack, Part-time Faculty
Claudia B. Isaac, Associate Professor, Architecture & Planning
Rosemary Keefe, Professor, English/Women Studies University Wisconsin, Visiting Scholar, UNM
Natasha Kolchevska, Chair, FLL
Elizabeth Archuleta, Assistant Professor, English
Lisa Broidy, Associate Professor, Sociology
Helen Damico, UNM Presidential Teaching Fellow, Professor, English
Pamela Cheek, Associate Professor, FLL
Melissa Bokovoy, Associate Professor, History
Janet Cramer, Associate Professor, C&J
Christine Zuni, Professor, SOL, SW Indian Law Clinic
Mary Jane Power, Professor, English
Melissa Binder, Associate Professor, Economics
Laurel Lampela, Associate Professor, LLSS
Patricia Risso, Chair, History
Nancy Lopez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Sociology
Susan Romano, Associate Professor, English
Sharon Warner, Professor, English
Anita Bradle Pfeiffer, Professor Emerita
Margo Milleret, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Susan Tiano, Professor, Sociology
Elizabeth Hutchison, Associate Professor, History
Kimberly Gauderman, Associate Professor, History
Louise Lamphere, Distinguished Professor, Anthropology
Susan Dever, Chair, Media Arts
Ann Massmann, Associate Professor, Southwest Studies Librarian
Susan Deese-Roberts, Professor Emerita
Nina Wallerstein, Director, Masters in Public Health Program
Rosalie C. Otero, Associate Dean, University College
Celia Lopez-Chavez, Associate Professor, University Honors Program
Carolyn Woodward, Associate Professor, English
Ursula Shepherd, Associate Professor, University Honors Program
Aeron Hunt, Assistant Professor, English
Kathryn J. McKnight, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Michelle Kells, Assistant Professor, English
Wanda Martin, Associate Professor, English
Phyllis Perrin Wilcox, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Christine Sierra, Professor, Political Science
Leslie Chamberlin, Director, Tireman Library, COE
Carmen Nocentelli, Assistant Professor, English
Scarlett Higgins, Assistant Professor, English
Molly McLoughlin, Program Manager, Project for NM Children and Youth Who are Deaf-blind
Jessica Goodkind, Research Assistant Professor, UNM Health Sciences Center
Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Susan Romano, Associate Professor, English
Anne Calhoun, Assistant Professor, LLSS
Vera P. John-Steiner, Linguistics
Carol Nagengast, Professor, Anthropology
Lisa D. Chavez, Associate Professor, English
Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs, School of Law
Rebecca Schreiber, Assistant Professor, American Studies
Jeanne M. Logsdon, Professor, Management
Mary Jiron Belgarde, Associate Professor, Institute for American Indian Education, LLSS
Ruth Trinidad Galvan, Assistant Professor, LLSS
Cathleen D. Cahill, Assistant Professor, Interim Director, Center for the Southwest
Nina Stephenson, University Libraries
Michelle M. Arthur, Regents' Professor of Management, ASM
Mary Anne Santos Newhall, Assistant Professor, Dance
Diane Thiel, Associate Professor, English

Mamisma????

2007-02-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

"Last week, USA Today published an article by Harriet Rubin who made the case that gender doesn't have to work against female candidates. She wrote that "'mamisma', or femininity defined by mature and maternal qualities," may in fact be just what voters want right now. " What do you think??

Blog now open for comments/viewpoints

2007-01-31T15:40:00.000-08:00

The WS Blog is now open for comments and viewpoints and you do not need to be a "member" to do so. Enjoy!

Report on Equity at UNM

2007-01-26T13:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.unm.edu/~acadaffr/AcadAffairs_ProvostReports.html

Please go to this report on women and minority faculty salaries and work load (compared to white male faculty). The Provost is asking chairs and faculty to respond to this report. Women and minorities, I"m sure, will want to make sure that some concrete actions occur on the part of the university in response to this report.

Response to UNM President Search

2007-01-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

ear Gail and Fellow Women's Studies Scholars,

I tried to post to the blog but received a message that I am not a team member, so here is my post.

I was the graduate student representative on the UNM Presidential Search Committee which was lead by three regents including Regent Sandra Begay-Campbell, a fine woman leader and scholar.

The committee was composed of half women faculty plus myself and a woman representative from staff. We nominated candidates for consideration, interviewed, and participated in evaluating background checks on candidates. We recommended our final candidates to the regents.

The final group we recommended for the regents' consideration passed through a rigorous process. There was only one woman who made it through this process and she is a very fine candidate, excelling in every way. She can hold her own against any of the male candidates.

That there was only one woman who was recommended reflects on a general situation in the U.S.: there were relatively few qualified women in the pool. We cast a wide net. We were willing to look at the track records of women who had served successfully as Deans, Provosts, and Presidents of other colleges and universities. To get into the final cut they were to have demonstrated leadership of scholastically diverse academic colleges and also have demonstrated leadership in moving their colleges forward. For example we looked for scholars with experience in development, experience in increasing their institution's academic standing, increasing research funding. We looked for scholars who had these qualities and who also possessed good leadership and people skills.

The solution is not to decry our search process. The solution is to make a commitment in academia to cultivate and groom more women, especially minority women, to positions of Dean, Provost, and President at universities and colleges in the U.S.

The regents on our committee are interested in grooming minority and women candidates for future searches such that we can generate academic leaders here, send them out to make their mark, and hire them back as seasoned leaders.

Please support and encourage the regents in this regard.

Cordially,
Una Medina
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Communication and Journalism
Steering Committee
Peer Mentors for Graduate Students of Color

--On Wednesday, January 24, 2007 1:08 PM -0700 Gail T Houston wrote:

> http://unmwomen.blogspot.com

Prochoice at UNM in Oct 2006

2007-01-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

Here are 2 op-ed regarding pro-choice from our events at UNM in Oct 2006 for pro-choiceIn 1996 Senator Rick Santorum's wife suffered a miscarriage; the twenty-week-old fetus lived outside the womb for only two hours. Santorum wrapped the fetus in a blanket and then took it to his in-laws home, where he made his young children (they were 6, 4, and 1 1/2 at the time) cuddle and sing to their "dead brother." Santorum keeps a picture of the fetus, named Gabriel, in his Senate office (Washington Post article by Mark Leibovich, April 18, 2005). This ludicrous response to a very sad time for his family is suggestive. If pictures speak a thousand words, what does Santorum's picture of his wife's miscarriage reveal? Likewise, what do the pictures displayed this week in Smith Plaza by the radical right wing group Justice for All indicate about that groups tactics and rationale?

With their gigantic photos of aborted fetuses, this group literally forces their "view" of abortion upon innocent passersby (including young children). No fetus ever looked like that: the 70x80 blow up of a fetus that may in actuality be invisible to the human eye is disingenuous but it also reveals JFA's rabid focus on the unborn fetus to the detriment of every other interest group. The skewed picture reveals skewed logic and intensely skewed emotion.

Indeed, JFA's visual and verbal rhetoric borders on the inane and the violent. Attempting to link abortion to genocide, the holocaust, and lynchings of African Americans, JFA mistakenly equates the lives of human beings with entities that cannot yet live and breathe on their own. In fact, JFA's minimal interest in actually dedicating themselves to stopping racism and anti-Semitism puts into question their comparison of abortion with the holocaust and lynchings. When do we ever see them protesting the conditions of living, breathing minorities in this country or elsewhere? Here again, the fetus trumps everything else.

Also, by using such analogies, JFA implies that women who have abortions are perpetrators of genocide, equivalent to Nazi war criminals or rabid Ku Klux Klansmen. During their last visit to UNM they harangued women who said that they had had abortions. So fiercely protective of the unborn fetus, they violently attack women, whose pregnancies, too often, are the result of rape or incest. JFA doesn't care about the brutal poverty in America and across the globe that makes having another mouth to feed a tragic imposition on the lives of the already born. Nor do they have a clue that adults might like to decide how many children to have as well as when to have them; bottom line, there is an implied belief that women should have no choice about pregnancy even if it means their own lives are in danger. Like that gigantic picture of the fetus in the plaza, the unborn fetus's rights, according to JFA, are far more important than and literally outweigh the rights of the woman, her family, or her other children.

No one likes abortion, including pro-choice advocates. But abortions are not going away, no matter how often groups like JFA shove their gruesome pictures in our faces. Not until we can end rape, incest, poverty, unwanted or difficult pregnancies, defective fetuses, etc. will we ever be able to get rid of the need for safe abortions. Focusing on the bigger picture, if you will, of why unwanted pregnancies occur in the first place might stop folks like JFA from focusing so obsessively and luridly on pictures of aborted fetuses. And switching the focus might help us to make abortion rare and safe and really show our concern for justice for all.

Candidates for President of UNM

2007-01-24T12:01:00.000-08:00

So the search committee for the new President of UNM could only come up with 1 women candidate out of 5 chosen? Seems pretty token to me! For a school that has a bad track record on the glass ceiling and has never had a woman president, this is pretty form, as far as I can see. Comments?

Here's Looking at You, Brit

2006-12-06T20:25:00.000-08:00

Note from the Editor: Previously we brought you Rebecca Niose's (graduate of WS now in law school) article responding to the recent judicial ruling that a woman cannot say NO after she has agreed to have sex. Now we bring you Adriana Ramirez de Arellano's (teaches our Women and the Law courses) response to the recent Britney Spears "no panties" incident.

These are not necessarily the views of WS per se, but these 2 posts and the posts to come on our new blog represent highly articulate engagements with the daily events that indicate that we still need Women Studies and feminism. We hope you will find the new blog to be another avenue for give-and-take on the issues that so concern us. If you have a post you'd like to send, please reply to me privately. Enjoy! -- Gail Houston

Pussy and the Paparazzi

There are as many ways to read Britney Spears' latest scandal as there were camera angles capturing her no-longer-private parts. Ms. Spears' career reads like a female "Forest Gump" allowing us to travel through the poles of American idiocy, this time from a woman's vantage point. From Mickey Mouse Club kid to Madonna's little kissing pet, Britney Spears has invented and reinvented herself numerous times along the various codes of contemporary American female sexuality. First as teenage virgin-seductress, later as bride-for-a-weekend in a Las Vegas drunken stupor, Ms. Spears began to trace the "axis of sexy" for our times to which now she adds these latest images of her as a (rich) "Girl Gone Wild" whose nudity--instead of being sold for the low price of $9.99 (plus shipping & handling)--can be downloaded for free in the all-so-democratic internet.

The scandalous publicity stunt during the MTV Awards a couple of years ago when Madonna--at the center of a lesbian-chic triptych--kissed both Britney Spears and (fellow Mickey Mouse Club veteran) Cristina Aguilera on their pouty lips, now reeks of contagious magic. With these latest photos, Ms. Spears now seems to have been infused with Madonna's ability to cater to the needs of the American voyeur. As most of us may remember, Madonna's exhibitionism reached its apex in the early nineties with the publication of her book "Sex", in which racist, child-molesting, and gang-rape vignettes were all packaged in sexy couture and choreographed into slick fashion photo-shoots: imperialist status quo sold as high-brow rebellion. Once again, the Hollywood media machine feeds the masses with the parading sexual excesses of the oligarchy.

Yet these latest "Spear shots" must also be read as somewhat counter-hegemonic; there is something subversive in Ms. Spears' gratuitous beaver shot. In a country where, as recently as 1992, a California judge still asks the question, "why, in heaven's name, do you buy the cow when you get the milk for free," there is something revolutionary about giving free milk to the needy... in this case, the American people who are seemingly starving for a glimpse of Ms. Spears' genitals or a peek at Janet Jackson's breast. It is rumored that the reason why Ms. Spears recently divorced her latest husband is that he sold footage of the two of them having sex. If this is true, then Ms. Spears' decision to go out partying scantily clad in paparazzi-loaded nightclubs had the (unintended) effect of reversing the judge's question: "how (in heaven's name)could you make money by milking images of my sexuality now that these have been smeared all over the internet?"

This gratuitous montage featuring Ms. Spears' genitalia, then, must also be read under the sign of former porn-star turned feminist performance artist, Annie Sprinkle. In one of Ms. Sprinkle's most famous performances, aptly entitled "A Public Cervix Announcement," she inserts a speculum and invites members of the audience to look inside her vagina. In the photos she has posted on her web-site, Ms. Sprinkle has extended this invitation to anyone with internet access: "Please, be my guest. I invite you to take a long look at my cervix." She proudly points out that if one looks closely one is able to discern a drop of menstrual blood "making its debut" at the opening of her cervix. Ms. Spears in tabloid formula; Ms. Sprinkle in a series of daring solo acts of improvisation; both of these women's careers would seem to be running in opposing parallel lines... until now, when they have reached this juncture in which their pussies meet, eye to eye, with the gaze of the American public.

Whether one reads the pictures as subordinating or subversive, there remains an uneasiness in looking at Ms. Spears' sex--a feeling of being seen as one is watching. Something is revealed about America as it obsessively peeks into its starlets--or inside the lover of the President vis a vis a cigar. Women's sexes have for so long been the "black hole" around which patriarchal men, in particular fascist men, have spun their existentialist neurosis. But reality does not operate as a one-way mirror. As we look, we also become exposed. Thus, not just as a "vagina dentata" capable of pulling a multitude of cameras into its orbit, Ms. Spears' sex should be read also as a sort of pubis cameral for the digital age, in which America can be seen as it looks into Ms. Spears; a vagina obscura reversing the camera angle, allowing for something else to be exposed: America, The Lecherous. These photos can be read, not only as Ms. Spears saying "Here's my pussy, America," but rather as her pussy announcing, "America, here's looking at you, kid."

Degradation of Women in the Maryland Court of Appeals

2006-11-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

This editorial was written by Rebecca Niose, UNM Alumnus and 1st year law student at NESL.

This week’s legal news has rightfully alarmed feminists across the nation. An appeals court in Maryland has reversed a decision that found a man guilty of rape. While there are many issues that a feminist might find interesting in this case, the most provoking issue that has perplexed the Maryland Court of Appeals is whether a person who consents to sexual intercourse may withdraw consent after initial penetration. The Baby v. State case exemplifies how archaic patriarchal philosophies are playing out in today’s legal system.

From a legal perspective, the Baby case has been remanded back to the trial court for a third trial. After the first trial, there was a hung jury resulting in a mistrial. The second trial found Mr. Baby guilty of first degree rape and other sexual offenses. Then the defendant raised an appeal, which is his right in our legal system. Reversing the decision on October 30, 2006, the highest court in Maryland failed to define consent in a way conducive to the basic human right of autonomy.

How the court chose to define consent determined the outcome of the Baby case. The prosecution produced cases to persuade the Court that when consent is withdrawn after initial penetration, continued sexual intercourse will constitute first degree rape. However, the Court of Appeals is under no obligation to agree with the precedents provided by the prosecution, which are from Maine, Connecticut, and Kansas.

The problem is that the precedent for the defendant is a Maryland Court of Appeals Court, mandatory authority for the state of Maryland. This precedent, Battle v. State, declares that there is no rape if a woman consents prior to penetration and withdraws consent after penetration. Under this theory, consent is viewed as being absolute. In describing the logic behind this case, Justice Davis traces the roots of this argument to ancient laws, where the injury of a rape was viewed to be economic damage to the father or the husband of the woman who was raped. For example, a virgin who was deflowered lost marriage value to the father. Based on similar reasoning, a woman who consented to being deflowered may not withdraw consent after deflowering, because the economic injury was already committed in the initial penetration.

Such reasoning flies in the face of women’s rights activists. A woman is not property. A woman has a right to change her mind. A woman may choose to have sex. A woman may choose not to have sex. Some people claim it is too hard to prove whether a sexual partner has consented to sex, but that is the responsibility of each person who chooses to have sex. It seems reasonable enough that each moment of sex must be a moment to which the sex partners consent. Conversely, each moment of unwanted sex is another moment of personal violation. When a person communicates that his consent is withdrawn, it is the responsibility of the other person to refrain from a continued violation.

After a series of sexual assaults Jewel, the complainant, stated in her testimony that she “just clicked off and I just did whatever they said.” Baby, at 4. Evidence was produced that rape trauma theory helps to explain Jewel’s seemingly inconsistent behavior. This evidence was not permitted to help determine the crucial issue of Jewel’s consent. The Court of Appeals chose to undermine Jewel’s behavior, criticizing the choices that she made regarding her attackers. The Court, confounded by Jewel’s reaction to the attacks, has chosen to blame the victim.

In the interests of justice, the Maryland Court of Appeals should have taken a stand for human rights in the Baby case. Courts may use judicial discretion to further important policy interests and overturn outdated precedents, which cause more harm than good. The Maryland Court of Appeals had a golden opportunity to recognize that women’s rights must be safeguarded in the common law.

Welcome to the UNM Women Studies blog!

2006-11-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

This is a place for faculty, staff, students and alumni associated with UNM Women Studies to post opinions and news relevant to the UNM community and women and feminism nationally. This is a moderated blog, so please contact Gail Houston to post an opinion, or to be added as a regular "blogger."