Pansynthesis

[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]

The (Gender) Politics of Pee

If you mostly travel along US highways with endless fast-food joints or in European cities with clean port-a-potties—Bonjour, Paris! Hej, Stockholm!—you may never have paid too much attention to the socio-cultural issues surrounding toilets, especially women’s toilets. But they have serious implications for womanity. [...]

Apparently having a safe, private place to use the toilet is enough of an issue in India that women have begun taking action. Last year the Washington Post ran an article entitled: In India, a New Seat of Power For Women–the seat of the title being toilets. Apparently young women in rural and modernizing parts of India are refusing to consider marriage to men who cannot provide them with basic plumbing. Because there are more prospective grooms than brides–the result of gender-selective abortions and female infanticide–women have more bargaining power [than] in the past…

Being able to go to the bathroom when necessary, without shame or fear, is one of those seemingly trivial issues that has huge ramifications, especially for women in the developing world. Even in the industrialized world, it’s a source of inconvenience for us, and can be yet another simple indicator of gender inequality. As someone with a tiny bladder and a tendency to overhydrate, it’s an issue that quite literally keeps recurring for me.

Birth Control Promoted in Afghanistan

In a country with the world’s second highest maternal mortality rate, health professionals are partnering with religious leaders to distribute condoms and promote spacing births. Afghanistan has one of the world’s highest fertility rates, averaging more than six babies per woman. The maternal death rate in Afghanistan is 1,800 per 100,000 live births; in the U.S. it’s 11 per 100,000 births.

[...] The Health Ministry collaborated with nonprofit organizations to educate people about birth control. Mullahs quoted from the Quran to promote breast-feeding for two years and explained the importance of spacing out births to give women and babies better health outcomes. The mullahs’ message–along with condoms–was often delivered during Friday prayers.

EDELSTEIN!

It’s that maneuver that is the massive male-privilege-fail of this sort of thing – the presumption that if the movie is saying she’s sexually attractive and she’s fifteen, that that is an invitation to pronounce, in a national publication, on whether you find her totally hot! (Or “sour,” the sort of mouth-feel evocation of which is kind of titillating too! Awesome!) Even worse, in the Edelsteinium continuum of “appropriate reactions to movies,” this is an invitation that Fanning is issuing herself by her supposed “relish” of “jailbait.” Too right. I can think of nothing Dakota Fanning cared more about, in doing a movie about a legendary all-female rock band, than if the dudes in the audience thought she was hot. And in any case, her ratification of his sweet and/or sour “experience” of her sexuality means there’s no way she would get the creeps when reading this, amirite??? Young women LOVE it when men publish their views on their fuckability in national magazines!

Sexist E-Mails: “Women Don’t Give Nice Guys the Sex They Want”

Some context for our first Sexist e-mail: Six months ago, I wrote a post called “Women And Gay Men Are Sluts,” which explained how the sexual double standard—as Jessica Valenti so aptly summarized, “he’s a stud, she’s a slut”—pretty much goes out the window when gay men are concerned. As I wrote—six months ago—when gay men are sexually promiscuous, they’re not considered “studs”—they’re decried as bad, immoral, evil sluts, just like us girls.

And now, after all this time, a reader has written in to explain the real sexual double standard to me. In short: Forget about gay guys! Are you aware of the great social problem of straight men being denied sex because they are just too nice?

D.C. Government Finally Explains How to Get Your Adopted Child Health Insurance

Last month, I wrote a story about Jenn Thomas and Kevin Fox, two local teachers who have spent three and a half years fighting with the D.C. government to get their adopted son, Max, added to their health insurance plan.

The parents, who are insured through Fox’s D.C. Public Schools job, were repeatedly told by D.C. government reps that Max could not be added to the health insurance until they produced a Finalization of Adoption Decree from the courts—a document that wouldn’t exist until Max was 18 months old, and the family had already racked up thousands of dollars in regular newborn medical fees. Thomas and Fox countered that federal laws required D.C. to insure Max from the day they became financially responsible—his date of birth. They argued back and forth like this for years…

D.C. Is In For A Whole Lot of Same-Sex Weddings

Thanks to the Economist for crunching the numbers on just how significant the legalization of same-sex marriage was for Washington, D.C. Of jurisdictions that currently allow gay marriage (or recognize out-of-state gay marriages, or grant equal rights to gay partnerships), the District of Columbia has the highest percentage of same-sex households by far.

The Link(s): Fri, Mar 12th, 2pm by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.