Jenny’s Pennies

People who say that if we outlaw abortion, it just goes away and a lot of lives are saved, should really, really read this:

Figures show that 10,000 women die every year in Nigeria from unsafe abortions, carried out by untrained people in unsanitary conditions.

That is 27 deaths every day.

According to the US-based Guttmacher Institute, that is one sixth of the total number of women who die worldwide from such procedures.

In Nigeria abortion is illegal unless the life of the woman would be at risk if she were to give birth.

But the Guttmacher Institute estimates that more than 456,000 unsafe abortions are done in Nigeria every year.

Some women go to traditional healers to terminate their pregnancies.

Methods include trying to break the amniotic sack inside the womb with a sharp stick. This causes infection and in extreme cases the tissue inside the body can start to die.

“They’re pulling out intestines,” says gynaecologist Dr Ejike Oji, of Ipas, an international organisation working to secure reproductive rights for women.

Another method is to pump a toxic mixture of fiercely hot Alligator chilli peppers and chemicals like alum into their bodies.

“The women go into toxic shock and die,” Dr Oji said.

Pro-life my ass.

Via Feministe.

I often wish I knew more about the law and legal matters. Because then I could understand things like this:

A pregnant teenager detained in jail only to make sure she’ll testify in court this week, according to her lawyer, is due to deliver any minute.
Noelly Mowatt, 19, who is not facing any criminal charges, and has been living in a jail cell at Vanier Women’s Centre in Milton since she was denied bail last Thursday, is worried the stress of her surroundings is affecting her health.
Expected to give birth to her second child April 15, Mowatt won’t be let out of prison until after she testifies at the April 11 assault trial of her boyfriend Christopher Harbin.
Harbin is charged with eight offences, including assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and breaching probation.
“She’s contracted the flu since she’s been in jail. She already had to seek medical attention,” defence lawyer Lydia Riva said yesterday. “She’s obviously stressed out and concerned about her pregnancy. She’s afraid to have her baby in custody.”
On March 20, a judge issued a material warrant for Mowatt’s arrest when she wasn’t in court for Harbin’s trial.
Riva said a judge can issue such a warrant if there is evidence someone won’t respond to a subpoena or is evading subpoena.
The Crown argued that after Mowatt called police in December to report that Harbin was abusing her, she refused to pick up her summons to appear at trial.

(From Canadian newspaper TheStar.com)

So, do I get this right:
The pregnant 19 year old, due to deliver any time now, is not facing any criminal charges but is detained solely to make sure she testifies against her boyfriend, who is on trial for abusing her? As I said, I’m not versed on the workings of the law, especially in Canada, but this seems too fucked up for me. Can you imagine being confined to a jail cell knowing that you basically can go into labour any minute (the expected delivery date is four days after the trial, but since when are babies always on the clock?), and to add to that stress, the reason you are in that cell is to make sure that you will testify against the man who has abused you. I understand that it’s important to make sure witnesses appear, but this just seems… cruel and unnecessary.

Today, many bloggers are taking part in the Blog Against Sexual Violence day. I know it’s an American event (as is this), but sexual violence is something which affects people all over the world, so I decided to participate from my side of the pond.

On the one side of the spectrum of why we need to raise awareness about sexual violence is this.

A senior BNP leader with a strong chance of winning a seat in the London Assembly next month has written that rape is a “myth” and that “some women are like gongs - they need to be struck regularly.”

The Standard can reveal that Nick Eriksen, the BNP’s London organiser and the second-highest candidate on its list for the Assembly, is the author of “Sir John Bull,” a notorious far-Right blog which has regularly advocated hatred and abuse against women. The disclosure will be a serious blow to the BNP’s hopes of London electoral success.

On 24 August 2005, Mr Eriksen wrote: “I’ve never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime … Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.

“To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that forcefeeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.

“The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors.”

(Emphasis mine.) Eriksen is now out of the race.

Some people say that we should not give any publicity to stuff like this, that parties like the British National Party (BNP), which is a disgusting racism-homophobia-misogyny trifecta, is living off controversy and headlines like this. That it just feeds to their rhetoric of being “misunderstood”, “taken out of context” and “silenced”. Eriksen himself has said that he was only “trying to create debate and discussion”.

But Eriksen was running for a political office, he wanted to represent people. And to ignore the hate he was spewing on his blog (even if it was three years ago) - no, we shouldn’t do that. Don’t feed the trolls and all, but if that troll is going to hold a political position, we should damn well call them out on it. You know: The only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for enough good people to do nothing.

You know, Eriksen’s views aren’t mainstream. But on the other side of the spectrum on why it is important to talk about this stuff are those who say that “yes, sexual assault is horrific and terrible, but…” (what was she doing walking alone at 3 a.m.?; she had sex with the guy previously; why was she acting so flirtatious?; she was a stripper, it comes with the trade; he was her boyfriend so was it really rape; there was no penetration so it wasn’t too bad; etc. etc.).

Yes, I think it is a spectrum. That views like Eriksen’s cannot be separated from the “that’s horrible, but…”-position. Rape apologism is all around. And it’s being spread by women and men alike.

A commenter over at the Curvature, Feminist Avatar, said something that I think is really true:

I think that women often blame rape victims, because that means that rape is something that can be controlled. It is a scary realisation to think that you cannot control whether or not some man chooses to have sex with you. For many women’s peace of mind, they would rather hold onto an idea that that sort of thing happens to ‘other’ people; people who then need to be defined.

I was sexually assaulted once. No it wasn’t rape. But it was definitely sexual assault, and rape was not far away. I’m not telling the details - and I’m actually shaking right now and wondering whether I should really type this. I feel guilty. But I decide to break the silence. I haven’t told anyone and now I’m telling the world.
If someone else would tell the story of the sexual assault that happened to me, I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that she was to blame, but yet I am feeling guilty and ashamed. That’s how deeply ingrained victim-blaming is in us. In me. Typing this makes me feel dirty. It feels as if I am trivializing the feelings and suffering of those “real victims” out there when I am presenting myself as one of them. My rationality and my feminist mind tells me that I have the right to own my feelings and experiences, that the blame rests solely somewhere else. But inside me is a nagging voice that says that I brought it on myself, that it wasn’t so bad, that I should have known better, that asks “how could I be so stupid and naive?”. I hear it now as well, telling me that I’m making too big a deal out of it. That I have a reason to feel dirty. It’s telling me to press the delete button. But today, I’m letting my rational and feminist mind win. I am not being silenced by myself any longer.

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PS. I really think you should visit Abyss2Hope who is organizing the whole Blog against sexual violence effort. Thanks for all your work Marcella!

French writer, economist and psychoanalyst Corinne Maier, author of Bonjour Laziness, in which she encouraged workers to do as little as possible, has written another provocative book: No Kid: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children. Now it’s here in Swedish and Svenska Dagbladet has picked up the story.

On her list of reasons not to have kids are that they will kill your sex life, force you to eat junk food, and kill the dreams of your youth. From what I’ve heard about Maier’s last book, I think a lot of it is tongue in cheek - she uses humor and irony and exaggerations. Granted, I haven’t read either of the books, but I have skimmed through a bunch of comments and reviews and many of them are appalled that she is taking on the biggest taboo of them all: regretting having children. You see, Maier is a mother herself.

You know, I do think some of us childfree-by-choice people sometimes use an overly insulting rhetoric, but bear in mind that it is a reply to a society in which, especially if we are women, are constantly belittled, pitied, questioned and deprived of our agency, and sometimes even blamed for the demise of civilization. Just look at some of these comments on Svenska Dagbladet’s article on Maier’s book:

Immoral not to have children
To all those who think they have the right to chose not to have children. The classical question “what would happen if everyone did as I do” is pretty sharp. It’s hard for a fully healthy human being to morally defend the decision not to have children just because you can’t be bothered. We human beings exist because we have an ability and an urge to procreate. Those who don’t contribute to that even though you could, leech on us who have children and endured the first 8-10 tough years.

Well, how is this for a moral defense of not having children: every child should be wanted and loved, and forcing people to have them against their will isn’t really a recipe for that. And saying that you had to “endure” the first 8-10 years: that isn’t recruiting me either (and if your kid’s childhood was something you had to “endure”, well, maybe they had to “endure” it as well).

Evil
This woman have been manipulated by the feminists. For these feminist, the woman should become like a man and not have anything to do with children at all. It is the most terrible thing that can happen when the women are becoming more and more like men and won’t take care of the children. It is actually pure evil!!!

Yes, because once the manly man has spread his seed, the sole responsibility for the children lays with the woman. And it’s not like feminists ever have children. And it’s not like it’s the feminists who have been, and still are, working with issues relating to childbearing and parenthood, such as health care, parental leave, better education, daycare and preschools. But thanks for telling me I am actually pure evil. BTW, speaking of evil…

See through the propaganda!
For decades there have been propaganda saying that Europeans shouldn’t have children. The people behind this should be exposed for what they are, treacherous Marxists and cosmopolitans with a Europe-hostile agenda. This propaganda are mostly directed towards white western women who are encouraged to “fulfill themselves” and live some kind of teenage life until well over 40, and when they realize that they want children after all, then it’s too late.

Are you comfortable in that tin-foil hat?
I have known for years that I don’t want any children, I can’t tell you when it first dawned on me, but I was definitely a young teenager (maybe even younger). But thanks for letting me know that it was some sneaky Marxists and cosmopolitans out to destroy civilization who brainwashed me in to it. So, did they place subliminal messages in the horse magazines I read or in the Pippi Longstocking TV-series?

Seriously though, by choosing not to have children, I am not stripping you of your choice (conscious or unconscious) to have them. Your life is in no way affected by my choice in this matter. And unlike others, I am not constantly trying to talk, scare or shame people over to my side.

I have found that my post “To the Swedish government: prostitutes may have something to say about prostitution! (radical thought, I know)” has been put up in the 1st installment of the Feminist carnival of sexual freedom and autonomy over at Uncool.
Thanks for linking to me! I’ll for sure try to write something for the next edition too - this is a very good initiative. And go check out all the links over at Uncool, she’s done a great job with this and there’s lots of good stuff to read!

In the arts section of yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter, there is an article called “The glamorous prostitution” (Den glamorösa prostitutionen). It starts: “They say sex sells. And the luxurious and happy whore sells even better. Now the Swedish books are here. But why is everyone so happy?”

Well, after reading that intro, I just knew what was coming.
The article then talks about pseudonymous London call girl Belle de Jour and Tracy Quan’s “Diary of a Manhattan call girl”. Now, a former Swedish stripper, Caroline L Jensen, is telling her story in “Champagneflickan. En svensk strippa berättar” (The champagne girl. The story of a Swedish stripper).

The author is (predictably) critical of the subject. In the end, the not so objective article reads (my translation):

Publishers are thus putting out books that portray prostitution and stripping as exotic occupations - but without caring about what signals they are sending out. A lot of the themes addressed in the books (buying sex, exploitation, the “happy whore”, free choice and so on) are of course pure mine fields. Behind the tough girls in luxurious packaging lays a lot of unanswered questions. As a reader you have to be careful not to be tricked by the glamour and the shiny covers.

You know, I have nothing against critical examination of the sex industry (or the publishing industry). I have read neither of the books, but I can buy that they might have been published more for cheap thrills and money than for their actual literary qualities. But then, isn’t that true of a lot of books?

To me it seems as if the article writer, Matilde Sköld, doesn’t want voices like those of Belle de Jour or Tracy Quan and Caroline L Jensen to be heard. Should the books include a mandatory chapter about the downsides of the sex industry? Advisory stickers on the covers? Or should they not have been published at all, because they don’t fit Sköld’s understandings of how sex workers are supposed to behave and feel?

And since then does publishing houses have to care about what “signals they are sending out” by publishing one book or another? You know, there are a lot of books out there which in detail describes sadistic murders and torture. In which sick and twisted individuals are portrayed without much, if any, criticism. In which the bad guy is getting away. And people that have done pretty awful stuff have published memoirs and biographies. Should books like those also be questioned on what “signals they are sending out”?

Belle and Tracy and Caroline have the right to tell their stories and to own their experiences and feelings (just as those who have terrible experiences of being sex workers have the right to their feelings and experiences). If they say they are happy, who are you to question them?

Apparently nipple piercings are the latest weapon al-Qaida. So thinks the American Transportation Security Administration (TSA) anyway.

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

“Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her,” said Hamlin’s attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. Allred is a well-known Los Angeles lawyer who often represents high-profile claims.

Applying pliers to the torso of a mannequin that had a peach-colored bra with the rings on it, Hamlin showed reporters at the news conference how she took off the second ring.

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

It’s clear that the male TSA agents, on a stupid power trip, used Hamlin for their own entertainment: A chance to ogle her breasts and snicker at her pain and humiliation. You know, setting off the metal detector should be the cause of a more thorough inspection. As in 1) a hand-held detector (that wand thing they run over your body), 2) a same-sex pat down and finally 3) same sex visual inspection. Once it was clear that the “threat” in this case was nipple piercings, the TSA agents should have apologized for the inconvenience and wished Hamlin a safe journey.

This story begs a lot of questions:
Why did they all have to be there to observe the piercing removal - to defend each other if she were to use her pierced nipple super powers and blow up the airport? Why did they only force her to remove her nipple piercings and not the belly-button ring? Is it a more dangerous threat to air travel safety to have metal in one part of your body than in another? If the nipple piercings were so dangerous, then why was Hamlin allowed to keep the jewelry and carry it on board the plane?

The TSA has said that the agents followed the policy (yeah, right), but that the policy regarding body piercings will now change.

You know, when this type of stuff happens, many people say that the victim should just suck it up and deal. That she or he is making too big a deal out of it. That it probably wasn’t too bad. That we need to accept things like this in order to be Safe^TM. I’ve traveled quite a bit, and have experienced power abuse and violations, although nothing as bad as what Hamlin went through, from security personnel and border agents. Most of the time, we just bow our heads and hold back our anger, relieved to be let into the country or onto the plane. Kudos to Hamlin for standing up for her rights and speaking out!

More about the story from Cara here and here, and at Shakesville here.

What’s with the asshats and their flower references? (more flower themed stupidity in previous post)

I often wish I read more languages so I could take on all the world’s dumbfuckery. Today, Natalia Antonova has done a great job of translating and taking on a Russian misogynist called Dmitrii Artemyev who concludes that International Woman’s Day is Teh Evil because:

I have to admit: the natural qualities of woman - for example, the ability to give birth, or, even more so, the ability to be a mother, raise children, and so on - may, perhaps, deserve respect and even admiration, though not in the form of a holiday. But this isn’t what we are talking about anyway; we would then celebrate Mother’s Day, or something along the same lines. Oh no, we are talking about the feminine in its most basic form. We are, factually, admiring the qualities of the feminine soul and body of the lowest, most sinful caliber. Female breasts, genitals, the womb - this is what we worship when we worship “woman.”

… This becomes apparent in the symbolism of the holiday. Women are given flowers, and the givers know well that a flower is a plant’s genital organ, opening up to be fertilized. A flower is a symbol of tempting lust. This is actually why having little flowers on your balconies is a sin, an innocent-seeming bouquet is an honest symbol of orgiastic sin, of group sex, and any interest or delight one might take in flowers is therefore sinful.

If you can smell a rose, this means you won’t be too disgusted to smell the unmentionable body parts of a woman - because this, at its essence, is the same thing.

So, according to Artemyev’s church (he’s a self-described Orthodox Christian) the Garden of Eden was, what, paved? Covered in manly concrete?

My eyes have rolled so far back in my head I need to sleep now.

Intimate partner violence and violence against women is an area where crimes are underreported. Shame, guilt and societal responses (shaming, trivializing, blaming) makes it hard for women to speak out about being abused by their partners.

Research from year 2000 found that about 2000 women each year in Sweden are subjected to violence by their partners during pregnancy and the first year thereafter. This is of course 2000 too many. Many antenatal clinics have therefore made the habit of routinely asking pregnant women if they have been abused by their partner, even when there are no indications of abuse. But is routine screening really a good way to address the problem?

Hanne Kjöller, editorial writer for Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest newspaper, thinks that routine screening isn’t a good idea. For once, I am agreeing with her.

Three researchers have written a letter to the editor in Läkartidningen, newspaper for the Medical Association of Sweden, regarding the screening for partner violence. They are critical of the process and calls for an ethical analysis of the practice, which takes into account both positive and negative aspects, for women who are subjected to violence as well as for those who aren’t.

Studies have shown that many women find it uncomfortable to be asked about partner violence. I understand them. I was asked the question, seemingly out of the blue, during a visit to get my prescription for the pill refilled, and my reaction was like “what? no!”. The doctor simply looked at me, ticked the box in her questionnaire and got to the next question. I often wondered what her reaction would have been if I had answered yes (I have never been a victim of intimate partner violence, but let’s say that I was). Should she have taken time out of her busy schedule to have that long and hard conversation? Simply ticked “yes” in her questionnaire and moved on? Handed me some brochures and the phone number of a women’s shelter and thought that was it?

That’s my second objection to this routine screening thing. What should be the ob/gyn’s response? If the woman answers yes and explains that the father of her child is abusing her, what should the ob/gyn do? It places them in a very difficult situation. As expressed by a midwife in a survey on the subject by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen): “It takes too long time to ask. You need time to listen to their response. You find those who have already gotten out of the relationship. It’s hard to catch those who are in it right now”. If the woman answers yes and then comes to the next visit with her partner with her, what does the doctor do? Legally they are obliged to report the abuse to the police, but it may put the abused woman in a much more dangerous situation. Without clear policies on how to handle “yes”-answers, it is quite contra productive to have ob/gyns and midwives ask the question.

The article in Läkartidningen also raises the issue that routine screenings for partner violence can make women skip their appointments at the antenatal clinic. There is a risk that women who are subjected to violence will face even more violence if their partner finds out that they have told someone about it, or that they have even been asked.

Obviously the ob/gyns and midwives try to ask the question on a visit when the partner is not present (in Sweden it is increasingly normal for the father to be present during the antenatal clinic visits). In the article, a midwife explains her strategy for keeping the partner away for one or more visits (apparently if a woman answers “no” to the question the first time, she is to be asked again), like saying that “he is not needed”. That just seems really dishonest to me.

And after hearing a radio program yesterday about the heteronormativity within our health care system, I can’t imagine what the response would be if a woman confessed to having been abused by her same sex partner.

As Hanne Kjöller points out, you’re always in a subordinate position when you seek health care and therefore it is the moral obligation of your caregiver to explain to you why they are doing or asking one thing or another and what relevance it has. If the reason for routine screenings of pregnant women regarding partner violence is to get statistics (which aren’t very reliable - reliability would increase somewhat if the woman was given a totally anonymous questionnaire), then I think that is a quite cynical way to treat these women - ask them about something so personal and then really offer nothing in return (e.g. counseling and legal advice). If the reason is to truly help women to get out of abusive relationships, then the state should instead put money into shelters, counseling, legal advice, education and so on, instead of, as it is today, rely on volunteers, charities and idealistic forces to provide those services.

Outsourcing is normal in today’s globalized economy. But now the global south are not only offering services such as customer support and low skilled assembly work to their wealthier counterparts. From the New York Times:

An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India’s mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.

Yes, it’s wombs for rent. For about 25.000 US dollars, you get payments for the surrogate mother, medical procedures, plus plane tickets and hotel nights for two trips to India, one for the fertilization and one for collecting the baby. The egg donor and the surrogate are different women, as it is said to be less likely for the surrogate to bond with the baby if there is no genetic connection.

The surrogacy business in India has made a sharp upturn in the last years, and people in the business are afraid that less scrupulous providers will smell the money and leave ethics aside.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development said in February that it was weighing recommending legislation to govern surrogacy, but it is not imminent.

An article published in The Times of India in February questioned how such a law would be enforced: “In a country crippled by abject poverty,” it asked, “how will the government body guarantee that women will not agree to surrogacy just to be able to eat two square meals a day?”

Some people might argue that we should view this as any business transaction, but I’m not at all comfortable with the idea of viewing reproduction as a commodity, especially when there is such huge power differentials in play.

“Surrogates do it to give their children a better education, to buy a home, to start up a small business, a shop,” Dr. Kadam said. “This is as much money as they could earn in maybe three years. I really don’t think that this is exploiting the women. I feel it is two people who are helping out each other.”

Mr. Gher agreed. “You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth,” he said. “We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India.”

In the Mumbai clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the clients’ signature.

This kind of globalization makes me very uncomfortable, and I think the practice should be examined with a critical eye. That does not mean that we should pass judgment on the persons on either side of the transaction - the couple who can’t conceive for whatever reason (Mr. Gher and his partner who are featured in the article are gay), and the woman who by carrying someone else’s baby can make a lot more money than she would on a normal job.

But there are so many issues here: what if the surrogate changes her mind? What if the couple changes their mind? What if the surrogate mother wants out? In India, this is regulated with contracts, but once again we have to look at the wealth and power differential here. As far as I can tell from quickly researching the subject, in the US, while surrogacy may not be illegal, contracts relating to it have been declared unenforceable. In Sweden, surrogacy is illegal, while in neighboring Finland, it’s legal. However, no money is allowed - the surrogate is doing it for altruistic reasons.

One thing which also makes me uncomfortable about the whole thing is that one reason why Indian surrogates are increasingly popular (besides the relatively cheap costs, good medical professionals and favorable legislation) is that Indian women are easier to “police”. As it says in the article:

Dr. Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford to hire surrogates at home were coming to her for women “free of vices like alcohol, smoking and drugs.” She said she gets about 10 e-mailed inquiries a day from couples abroad.

Just how much say should the couple using the surrogate have to say over what the surrogate mother does to her body? You’re using her womb, yes, but the whole body is affected by the pregnancy, and so is the mind. No drinking, smoking or drugs during pregnancy - perfectly fine and reasonable of course, but what else can you compel the surrogate to do? I think with this international reproductive outsourcing there is more potential for abuse and for using the power/money leverage to make unreasonable demands.