We've done soooo much to help women internationally.

Tomorrow, March 8 2007, is International Women's Day ( also here, and here.)

Here's a small snippet

1918 - 1999
Since its birth in the socialist movement, International Women's Day has grown to become a global day of recognition and celebration across developed and developing countries alike. For decades, IWD has grown from strength to strength annually. For many years the United Nations has held an annual IWD conference to coordinate international efforts for women's rights and participation in social, political and economic processes. 1975 was designated as 'International Women’s Year' by the United Nations. Women's organisations and governments around the world have also observed IWD annually on 8 March by holding large-scale events that honour women's advancement and while diligently reminding of the continued vigilance and action required to ensure that women's equality is gained and maintained in all aspects of life.

2000 - 2007
IWD is now an official holiday in Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother's Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers. . .

. . . Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. While there are many large-scale initiatives, a rich and diverse fabric of local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women's craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more. . .

. . . So make a difference, think globally and act locally !! Make everyday International Women's Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.

So what have we, as a nation, done to advance women's lives throughout the world?

1. Despite the initial elation of the Taliban being overthrown in Afghanistan and women and girls being able to return to public life, go to school, get health care, etc. Due to our stupidity in not securing the country and giving it a year of two stable start, before starting anything with Iraq, the Taliban is once again gaining ground, retaking areas and resubjugating women.

2. We removed Saddam Hussein. No matter how much of a bastard he was, and he was, no matter how much he needed to be removed, and he did, he at least
allowed women to go to school, kept them in public life and left the burkha and the veil up to them.

Now with the emergence of hard line religionist women are being forced to adopt the burkha, chaddor and/or veil and to become less visible in public life, and even schooling is iffy.

3. We keep information on birth control/condoms out of the hands of the poor women in Africa and they are now suffering an up tick in deaths due to AIDS leaving many orphaned children.

Yes we as a nation have done so much to help the women of the world.

Here's how you can help turn it around:
Feminist Majority Foundation
CARE
Women for Women International
Aschiana
Malalai Hospital project of RAWA

Ending the Slave Trade coming into the US

From NPR:

"The legislation would also require that all cargo containers entering the United States be scanned for nuclear materials and other potential weapons.

Many lawmakers say that scanning everything that comes into American ports is just not practical. But this isn't the final version of the bill; the Senate Homeland Security Committee takes up its ideas later this month."

One thing that hasn't been discussed or even hinted at when discussing scanning all containers coming into American ports, is that it would discourage and/or end the trafficing of workers for the sweat shops and sexual slave trade. Human beings (mostly women) are loaded into containers, like cattle, like cargo, at other ports and and shipped here to the US, where they are off loaded to work in an underground economy here on American shores.

IF sweat shop and sexual slave trade can move people via cargo containers, why not a couple hundred terrorists? The functional lines or this mode of “travel” have already been well established and well known in many countries. It seems that all any aspiring terrorist would need is a way to grease some palms and to pay for passage. (That thought not only terrifies me by enrages me.)

But I guess hoping that those lawmakers (read Republicans) who have supported and not outraged by the goings on in the Northern Marianas Islands, it is too much to expect them to be outraged by people herded into cargo containers like cattle, to work in sweat shops and the slave trade here on the main land.

Searching all the containers would also leave the Republicans without avenue for the boogey man to get into this country AND end another item they could try to pin on the progressives and democrats of this country.

So much for the "Party of Lincoln!"

Let's hope the Democrats do NOT back down!

sources:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6768727
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mariana_Islands

The War on Eve and Women in General

Way back in the 1970's a fantastic book came on the scene. It was a book that caused the likes of Jerry Falwell and the “moral majority” tremble, to deride and speak of evil and caused feminists to cheer. It is sometimes hard to remember those days. We are so much more of an information rich, open and accessible society, but it’s important that those of us who remember those days impart those memories to a new generation. As the “faith based” anti-women screeds and organizations gain power, we seem to be returning to the “medieval” days of yore.

I shiver when I think about it. When just the suggestion of knowing what one’s own body looked like was enough to send Falwell and his ilk to the airwaves, denouncing the book. And it did too. In one passage the book directed women to place a mirror on the floor, stand over it/ sans panties, and look at themselves. Radical, that women should be encouraged to know what their genitalia looked like. According to the Moral Majority it threatened the very existence of the United States. Funny how anything promoting and encouraging female empowerment is viewed that way.

“Our Bodies, Ourselves” was frank, to the point, and it didn’t mince words. It was ground breaking, radical, hailed and denounced! It was scandalous! Imagine telling a woman that she was in charge of her own body and not to blindly accept what a doctor a pastor etc. told her, but to ask questions. It talked about relationships (straight and lesbian), the here-to fore-only-“bad”-girls-have-one; female orgasm, it encouraged sexual pleasure and sexual health, reproduction education, mental health, to ask questions and to know themselves, both physically and mentally.

Sex wasn’t just to be fun for men it said, it was supposed to be enjoyable for women too. In many places it was a banned book, so naturally I bought one.

It told us that we were not, to use Pseudo-Adrienne's term, “birthing chattel”. We had rights, we had a voice. The Seattle Times notes “under the prevailing medical wisdom in the late 1960s, nurses whisked newborns away from their mothers without giving them a chance to bond and doctors customarily banned fathers from delivery rooms.” Our essence, being and even our medicine was dominated and defined by men.

Unfortunately some things haven’t changed. But the anti-women, forced pregnancy organizations and those who support it, want to not only end abortion, but also end education about our sexual health and contraception, and even contraception all together. (I secretly wonder if they will force me to reverse my tubule legation. )

But while some see this as a war on sex, or even a war on fucking, it’s not. Sure, making contraception illegal removes sex for pleasure, even among married couples, but it does not seek to prohibit a man from enjoying sex. The very same people, churches, sects, organizations that want to end contraception are the very same that tell a woman that she cannot refuse her husband and be a “Godly wife.”

So while the result of this retrograde abomination may make condoms more difficult to get, the end results falls harder and squarely on a woman’s shoulders. Men can always walk away, and without strengthening and aggressively going after dead beat dads, it would seem to encourage this result.

Eve’s curse or man’s folly? Are we going to roll backward even more? With this current crowd in power and our guard let down, the answer may be "yes."

Before that happens we should make sure that every public library has books on women’s health, and that they are not removed by the anti-women abstinence only crowd, we should make sure it is translated in as many languages as are spoken in the United States, and we should educate the younger generation about what it was like way back then, when we were kept from knowledge, from controling our own bodies our own destinies.

For it seems history is want to repeat itself.

See also:

• New edition of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" updates the groundbreaking feminist book


• The War on Contraception and Women's Sexuality -- Pseudo-Adrienne


• The War on Peons Fucking -- Pandragon

aside:
I will take issue with the Seattle Times “Still, many pages in "Our Bodies," carry a vestige of its counterculture origin. For instance, the section on menstruation touts old flannel shirts and T-shirts as economical alternatives to tampons and pads” One wonders what the writer, Kyung M. Song, thinks women did at the turn of the last century. My grandmother, like her sisters and mother, used towels. She said it made them “waddle.”

If you are poor, married, monogamous, and/or do not have health insurance, Missouri lawmakers consider you promiscuous

If you are poor, married, monogamous, and/or do not have health insurance and living in Missouri:

1. Lawmakers define you as promiscuous.
2. Lawmakers deny you contraception

But they will tell you to keep your legs crossed if your husband wants to enjoy martial relations with you.

Law makers also define a woman/girl promiscuous if they've been raped or are the victim of incest. And as such have voted to deny victims contraception, so the state can victimize them again.

I do like what one commentor to Fired Up Missouri suggested: "Don't ban contraception, ban testicles!"

Sounds like a slogan and/or bumper sticker to me.

ob·jec·ti·fi·ca·tion

If I shopped at Ambercrombie and Fitch I'd join these girls and the "girlcott." And I hope my daughter does. As it is I can only say "brava, go girls!"

Finally girls are taking on the disturbing trend of more and more objectification of women. I was beginning to wonder if we'd start seeing a new version of the Doral "taste me" ad and jingle and I absolutely shuttered when I recently saw a woman draped all over a new car in an advertisement. We are going back in time.

The two tees that were discussed with Katie Couric, "With these who needs brains?," and "Gentlemen perfer tig old bitties" are not on the on-line Ambercrombie and Fitch website store, but probably can still be purchased on site.

With so many problems with girls and their view of self, why are we continuing to think this is okay? Interestingly enough Paula Zahn NOW" this week is taking on eating disorders 'Walking the Thin Line' . One girl's eating disorder started when she was 5 years old.


Attitude Tees - - - Embellished Tees


see also:
http://www.apieceofshirt.com/?p=39
http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=ee02ed52-4e68-4691-ba41-0ff00831a6e8&f=email
http://www.abc27.com/news/stories/1105/273986.html
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_389458.html
http://kdka.com/local/local_story_303162012.html
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/s_389458.html
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/s_387780.html