Reproductive Rights and Disparities in the Urban Area: Summit!

Urban areas tend to be ahead of the game when addressing issues of reproductive rights and access. On the one hand, this has to do with the fact that liberal, progressive populations have flocked to urban centers in recent decades. As centers of culture, intellectual life, and sexual revolutions, as well as a diversity of peoples, urban centers have a variety of perspectives and are thus much more open-minded than the average suburb. Having been raised in one of the much more conservative, suburban satellites, it has always been refreshing to live in cities where certain concepts of reproductive health and choice are the assumed norm.

On the other hand, it is also in cities where the disparity between the reproductive rights of women of different classes and races becomes the most apparent, as those who can afford greater and better access to abortions, contraception, and sexual health knowledge living side-by-side with those who have a dearth of such resources. It is thus utterly refreshing (and hopefully will be very productive!) that Mayor Bloomberg, along with the National Institute for Reproductive Health, is sponsoring a 2008 Urban Initiative for Reproductive Health National Summit (well that’s a mouthful) to address disparities in reproductive health and wyas public policy can address this. The press release on it is below the jump.

Horrifying Oklahoma “Informed” Consent Law

Yet another roadblock put in the way of women seeking abortions. This time from Oklahoma: the legislature overrode the governor’s veto on a new “informed consent” law requiring women seeking abortion to have either an abdominal or vaginal ultrasound. Take a look here for more information.

Again this is taking power out of the hands of the doctor and his/her patient and placing it into the hands of politicians who think they have the knowledge and right to mandate what should be a medical procedure requested by the patient. Such unnecessary requirements clearly derive from the moralistic underpinnings of the legislature.

Alternet has a story on this as well.

1.3 Billion Dollars to Abstinence-Only Education since 1990

Doesn’t the above statement make your jaw drop a little and a sickening pit in your stomach to grow? It does mine. But this is the latest number put forth as a panel in the House of Representatives debated continuing to fund such abstinence-only sex ed. There seems to be a growing outcry among experts who have published reports on how abstinence-only programs not only don’t work, but can be detrimental to teens’ health. As Dr. Margaret Blythe of the American Academy of Pediatrics told the committee:

Vast sums of federal monies continue to be directed toward these programs. And, in fact, there is evidence to suggest that some of these programs are even harmful and have negative consequences by not providing adequate information for those teens who do become sexually active.

And an ABC News story begins with this heartening anecdote:

At age 17, Max Siegel started a relationship and had unprotected sex with a man six years his senior. Siegel said he wanted to use a condom but his partner didn’t. Siegel contracted HIV.

Not only has over a billion dollars been devoted to seriously ineffective programs (1.3 billion dollars!) but 17 out of the 50 U.S. states have had to turn down money because they refused to teach abstinence only. Happily a number of Democrats are now actively working against the federal support of such programs.

Thanks to my friend, Cara, for sending me a number of links to news stories on the current debate: Los Angeles Times (free registration) (4/24), Reuters (4/24) , ABC News (4/23).

Cath Elliott on: Can Men Be Feminists?

In a continuing conversation on the state of masculinity and male roles in our society, here’s a great post from the Guardian’s Comment is free… on whether men can be feminists. At a certain point, you have to wonder how much we really want to get caught up in semantics of what is feminist, pro-feminist, feminist allied, partners in the patriarchal struggle, etc. To my mind, men can definitely work toward the feminist cause, and can provide a vital perspective by querying the way their own roles have been constructed within our society, and ideas on how to counteract this. I think Cath Elliott reaches some great conclusions in the following:

Can men be feminists?

Many feminists welcome men’s championship of the cause, but there’s much debate over their entitlement to call themselves feminists

Cath Elliott

April 23, 2008 10:00 AM

In the book Feminism is for Everybody, bell hooks defines feminism as “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression”, while the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of sexual equality.” You’ll get no argument from me on either of these interpretations; they’re straightforward, non-controversial, and best of all, inclusive. Ignore all the confusing sub-divisions like Marxist feminism, radical feminism and anarcha-feminism, and the arguments about whether we’re experiencing the third-wave or whether we’re in a state of post- feminism, and feminism really can be summed up this concisely. What’s even more exciting is that if we went by either one of these definitions we’d probably be hard pushed to find someone who wasn’t prepared to declare themselves a feminist.

For the rest of the article, visit here.

Sexism vs. Racism: Where Are We?

In her contribution to the debate over the state of feminism and the mother-daughter battle circling Hillary Clinton’s candidacy as the first viable female presidential contender, The Feminist Reawakening: Hillary Clinton and the Fourth Wave, Amanda Fortini writes, “In particular, the campaign has divided women and the men they know on the subject of race. Indelicate as it seems to bring up, the oft-repeated question is, why do overtly sexist remarks slip by almost without comment, while any racially motivated insult would be widely censured?”

An insightful comment, it is as much as asking whether Don Imus was (initially) kicked off the air for referring to members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as the racist “nappy-headed” or the sexist “hos.” Given how much words such as “slut” and “ho” are slung around in the American media today, I could probably take a wild guess.

Fortini continues on to write, “The point is not to determine whether it is harder to be a white woman or a black man in America today, nor which candidate would have more symbolic value. At issue is the fact that race is, as it should be, taboo grounds for criticism, but gender remains open territory.” I am grateful that Fortini is not entering the preposterous realms of Gerraldine Ferraro, who would argue that Obama’s success is due to his role as a black candidate (I’m sure the vast number of African-Americans elected to the Senate and Congress since Reconstruction could only agree…oh wait. And I’m sure those Democratic voters who gave Obama their vote for a complex of hard-thought reasons are equally appreciative of the statement). I am further happy that she is not entering the simplistic territory of Gloria Steinem, who would argue that “gender is probably the most restricting force in American life.”

By all means I do believe gender is vastly restricting, but I don’t think it can be reduced to such a blanket statement given the various manifestations of gender-cum-race-cum-class-cum-generation. Nonetheless, I do think it fair to state, and at this point in the presidential race, fairly obvious, that sexist remarks are tolerated in a way that racist remarks no longer are in American culture. Fortini provides a laundry-list of examples in her article. I was appalled when I saw my young female cousin join the Facebook group: “Hillary Clinton Shouldn’t Run for President She Should Just Run the Dishes,” and find it gut-wrenchingly unnerving that McCain would respond to an audience question: “How do we beat the bitch?” with the response: “That’s an excellent question!” On the other hand, we are (tremendously) having one of the most weighty and complex conversations on race this nation has had in… well, ever? Why the levity on the sexism end and the fine probing on the racism side? Why, that is, is sexism not taken seriously, while racism is?

Abortion Ban in Lithuania?

The feminists at Feministing have picked up on an abortion ban currently being considered by the Lithuanian Parliament, under pressure from the Catholic Church, to ban abortion in their country. They make the most significant point that such abortion bans only truly affect lower-income women, and this has been the case throughout much of history. In the case of Lithuania, wealthy women will be able to travel to other European countries for abortions, while women without economic means to do so will be unable to seek these options.

This is again why women in New York and the more liberal “blue” states should still be concerned about abortion bans in other states in the U.S. “Let them fly to New York,” they say, when faced with the prospect of bans in South Dakota. But who is this “them” and how will they have the funds, nevermind the resources if they are younger and without familial support, to do so? Within a state or country that bans abortion, wealthy women have historically been able to find doctors who, for the right price, will perform a medically-safe abortion. It is for this reason that we must be concerned not only with our regional laws, but with our national ones, and remember that while middle-class and higher-income women may have the means to circumvent such laws, many women do not have a plethora of options, or even one other option, at hand.

Getting From Here to There: Diversity, Women, and the PhD Pipeline

Well, after a temporary absence from the land of the internets, AdHoc Magazine, Columbia’s premier (=only) progressive magazine, is back online! As a kickback to the past, here’s an article we did the year it all began.

Columbia University, like many contemporary universities, has a problem with “leaks” in the academic pipeline: i.e. a significantly greater number of female PhD candidates drop out of their graduate programs than their male counterparts. In response to this problem, Columbia launched a “Diversity Initiative” to try to determine the reasons why women and minority PhD candidates were dropping out of their programs at this higher rate and to attempt to rectify this problem. In this article, which won the 2006 Campus Independent Journalism Award for Women/Gender Coverage, Alex Jung explores the status and success of the Initiative, creating a public record of one university’s attempt to improve diversity. In doing so, Jung looked at the role of mentors, the effect of seeing professors of the same gender or color as you, questions of other diversities such as sexuality, and the vast bureaucratization of the university.

While the story was written in March 2006, I doubt that situation is very different today (given the sluglike movements of the academic steamship), though if anyone knows any differently, I’d love to hear about it.

From the first paragraph:

Columbia uses the word diversity so often that it can sound like white noise in the background. But throw in $15 million and people start to pay attention and ask questions. Columbia created the Diversity Initiative in the Provost’s Office, appointed Jean Howard as vice provost, and earmarked $15 million to diversify the Arts and Science faculty. The creation of the Initiative was the result of a series of faculty-led initiatives. First, the Commission on the Status of Women, of which Howard was the chair, released the “Pipeline Report” in November 2001. The report found “leaks” in the academic pipeline from Ph.D. programs to tenured faculty positions. That is, females in academia, beginning as Ph.D. candidates, somehow left the road to tenure at a higher rate than their male peers. The Commission then formed an alliance with minority faculty members because, as Howard notes, it was “cryingly obvious” that there were not enough minority or female faculty members. They presented their concerns to University President Bollinger and Provost Brinkley, and in the fall of 2004, the Diversity Initiative was born. The question is what, exactly, it will do.

The full article can be found here.

Decolleté Coverage: Merkel vs. Clinton

German Chancellor Angela Merkel went to the new Oslo opera house this weekend and showed a bit of décolletage. Now, while this news is unworthy in itself (and yes, I do feel ambivalent about drawing attention to it), there does seem to be a gulf of difference between the German newspapers’ coverage of this versus the way Hillary Clinton’s cleavage was treated by the American news media which is worth exploring.

The Feminist Masculinity

Forget the title, we should probably just take “masculine” out of the picture just as we take “feminine” out. What female wants to be described as “feminine” (shrinking, timid, ladylike, well-kept), and what male wants to be described as “masculine” (grunty, gruff, muscular, insensitive, sports-watching)? (To be fair, I can think of a few on either side.) But, my guess is that more males prefer the latter than females the former at this point, most likely because “not masculine” is often a euphemism for “gay” in American society, and we all know how dire many males think it is to be thought gay. Gasp! When it comes down to it, though, there is something fundamentally wrong with a culture–a sexist culture–where “femininity” and “masculinity” are considered to the ideal for female or male. While feminism overtly addresses the issue for women, it shouldn’t be forgotten that feminism also has the aim to make men feel more free–and less culturally constrained by a “macho masculinity”. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we have a culture in which a person confronted by a “sensitive” man will not think that s/he has automatic information on his sexuality

The Politics of Research: POPLINE

Recently, POPLINE, which is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is both the “world’s largest reproductive health database,”and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), began to block searches using the word “abortion.” Such overt interference of politics and anti-intellectualism into research projects, databases, information dissemination is especially disturbing–particularly in an academic setting at a renowned research university.

Wired first broke the story of how this database, which indexes biomedical literature dealing with population data and is used by researchers, advocates, and clinicians who work in the areas of reproductive health, family planning and pregnancy, was blocking the search term “abortion”–a term some might see as vital for those researching family planning, pregnancy, and, oh right, reproductive health.

From the Wired story:
“Under a Reagan-era policy revived by President Bush in 2001, USAID denies funding to non-governmental organizations that perform abortions, or that “actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.’”

Which leads us into the whole issue of the economic implications of the “right” to abortion…

But for this particular instance, in a huzzah! moment, Michael J. Klag, Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, expressed his outrage at POPLINE’s decision and reversed it, issuing this statement:

I was informed this morning that the word “abortion” was blocked as a search term in the POPLINE family planning database administered by the Bloomberg School’s Center for Communication Programs. POPLINE provides evidence-based information on reproductive health and family planning and is the world’s largest database on these issues.

USAID, which funds POPLINE, found two items in the database related to abortion that did not fit POPLINE criteria. The agency then made an inquiry to POPLINE administrators. Following this inquiry, the POPLINE administrators at the Center for Communication Programs made the decision to restrict abortion as a search term.

I could not disagree more strongly with this decision, and I have directed that the POPLINE administrators restore “abortion” as a search term immediately. I will also launch an inquiry to determine why this change occurred.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH
Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

This shift in policy was a direct result of the Wired story (bad publicity!) and an influx of emails into the POPLINE message center (outraged citizens!). So huzzah! once more for getting your voice heard!