Laws and lawmakers that do not help women

Content Notice: This piece discusses sexual assault and violence.

The past weeks news and headlines has us tired and upset. We have been constantly reading about Swedish lawmakers disappointing responses to the suffering and harms of women. Sweden often prides itself in being one of the top countries in the world when it comes to equality between men and women. Still, lawmakers seem to be doing very little to protect women and their rights. Last week we blogged about a story reporting on a man who forcefully inserted two fingers into his girlfriend to check for evidence of her cheating, but was not sentenced for rape. According to the court, the crime was not “sexual enough” to be considered rape.

This week is however not proving much better. Just the other day we read an article in our local newspaper that discussed the murder of a woman by her former boyfriend. The woman and man had previously been in a relationship in which he physically abused her and she reported the abuse to the police. The woman thereafter filed for a restraining order since she was afraid that the man would contact, visit, or abuse her further. However, she was never granted a restraining order and only a few months after the request, he took her life by shooting her in the face and back.  [Read more...]

“Keep Calm and Rape a Lot”

Content Notice: This piece discusses rape culture, sexual assault and violence.

Rape culture is something that we have discussed at length here at Feminists For Choice. Rape culture normalizes and trivializes rape and sexual abuse. Still, there are some people who believe that rape culture does not exist and is a concept made up by angry man hating feminists. We believe that rape culture does exist in many forms and is perpetuated by a culture in which rape is not taken seriously.

So to the critics, read the following and state if rape culture is all in our heads:

Amazon has over the last few days removed t-shirts from the company Solid Gold Bomb, launched in Australia, with slogans that read: “Keep calm and hit her”, “Keep calm and rape a lot” and “Keep calm and rape them” that were on sale on the company’s website. Other t-shirts by Solid Gold Bomb also read: “Keep calm and knife her”, “”Keep calm and choke her” and “Keep calm and grope on”.

Amazon received hundreds of angry complaints about the t-shirts and the message that these t-shirts encourage. Many people are also very upset that Amazon has been making money out of encouraging and trivializing rape, sexual assault and violence against women. Suggestions have been made that Amazon should donate a substantial amount of money to women’s shelters and organizations that work to end violence against women.

There is hardly any better example than this to show how accepted rape culture is. Here we have a giant worldwide company selling t-shirts that perpetuate the notion that violence and sexual violence against women is acceptable. In short, we find it sickening.

Human Trafficking and Exploitation is a Global Issue

In many ways, we would like to think that the days of indentured servants and slavery are a thing of the past. But human trafficking–the selling and buying of people for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor–is a widespread practice, and it takes various forms. The most common types we usually think of include trafficking, prostitution, and pornography. But we can also include child labor, the buying and selling of organs and tissue, forced marriages, forced pregnancies, mail-order brides, dowry and bride price, human smuggling, and kidnapping, among others.

The buying and selling of humans for various reasons has been, and continues to be, big business all over the world. And this is steadily increasing, though as the United Nations reports, there are regional differences in the types of exploitation: “Countries in Africa and in Asia generally intercept more cases of trafficking for forced labour, while sexual exploitation is somewhat more frequently found in Europe and in the Americas.” The report also states that “[t]rafficking victims from East Asia have been detected in more than 60 countries, making them the most geographically dispersed group around the world.” In Behind the Red Door: Sex in China, Richard Burger writes that human trafficking and kidnapping in China is “… more lucurative than even the trafficking of drugs or weapons.” Droves of European men, especially Scandinavians, travel to Thailand to buy sex even though prostitution is illegal–officials often look the other way because of tourism profit–or search for wives. At the same time, the trafficking rates for young girls and boys is increasing: “Girls now constitute 15 to 20 per cent of the total number of all detected victims, including adults, whereas boys comprise about 10 per cent,” according to the UN report.

Human tracking laws have been established in many countries to protect the victims and punish the offenders, but these can be difficult to implement. The forms of human trafficking vary, but they are spurred by the same objective: monetary profit combined with a complete lack of human rights and value.

The Path to Choice: Abortion in France

January 22, 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wadedecision. All month, we’ll be running posts examining various aspects of this landmark ruling. If you’d like to contribute, let us know!

The right to choose and perform abortion in France dates from 1975, thanks to the Veil Act (named for the Minister of Health Simone Veil, who proposed and defended the law). Before that, the 1920 Act forbade any incitement to contraceptive and abortion, which was considered a crime. Under the Vichy regime during the World War II, abortion was a crime against state security and punishable by the death penalty—in 1943, for example, Madame Marie-Louise Giraud, who practiced abortions to provide for her family during German occupation, was guillotined. During the early 1970s, the country saw an increase in activism in favor of the right to choose abortion; the 1972 Bobigny Case, in which a teen rape victim risked her life to obtain an illegal abortion, caused a groundswell of opinion that led to the Veil Act.

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Sexual Assault Laws That Discriminate Against Women

Every now and then we read or hear about outrageous laws dedicated to protect patriarchy, defend rape culture, restrict women’s sexuality, or that are just plain discriminatory. We have three examples of such outrageous laws and proposals. One has been overturned (Italy’s rape law); one is being considered (Indonesia’s motorcycle law); and one continues to be both discriminatory and horribly sexist (Iran’s rape law).

The province of Aceh in Indonesia is proposing that women riding behind a man on a motorcycle should no longer be allowed to straddle the bike, since this might “provoke the driver.” A woman riding on her own may straddle the bike, but only if she is wearing proper attire. Not only is the law absurd in its own and reminiscent of the days when women had to ride “sidesaddle” on horses, but it also seems that “side saddling” a motorcycle could be a great safety hazard. The proposal also infers that in order for men to not to get “excited” and act on that excitement, women need to control their sexuality, while men are assumed to not be able to–or need to–control theirs.  [Read more...]

Sweden During the Time of Roe v. Wade

January 22, 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. All month, we’ll be running posts examining various aspects of this landmark ruling. If you’d like to contribute, let us know!

Ever since its enactment, the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade has been frequently debated as anti-choicers fiercely battle to overturn the decision, while pro-choice activists fight to maintain women’s rights to abortion. Even though legislature in some other countries may not be as famous or as controversial as Roe, they are equally important to women’s choices and reproductive rights.

Growing up in Sweden, we will focus on Sweden’s present abortion law, which was put into place two years after Roe. The first law concerning abortion in Sweden was presented in 1938 when women were allowed abortion on specific grounds, namely due to health reasons (when the woman’s life was in danger); if the woman became pregnant during rape; if a minor was taken advantage of sexually; or if the parents were likely to pass on a disease or disorder that would render the child with severe difficulties. However, parts of the law were based on eugenics–for example, if the mother availed of abortion due to “unfitting genes,” she was also sterilized.

The current abortion law was passed in 1975 and is the one most closely related to Roe, both in time and content. This law states that a woman can have an abortion without naming the reason until week 18. After that she will need to consult with the National Board of Health and Welfare in order to obtain permission to end her pregnancy. After week 22 the child is believed to be able to survive outside the mother’s body (parallel to the concept of viability in Roe) and abortion is no longer allowed. There is no age limit in regards to abortion, but if the woman is under 18 years old, it is recommended that she consults with her parent/parents or guardian.  [Read more...]

Ireland Legalizes Abortion Laws

Following the death of Savita Halappanavar in October, the Irish government has decided to legalize its abortion laws. The 31-year-old Halappanavar was seventeen weeks pregnant when she was admitted to Galway University Hospital on October 20 with back pains; tests performed at the hospital showed that the pregnancy was not viable. Though Halappanavar repeatedly requested an abortion, she was reportedly told that Ireland “is a Catholic country” and the pregnancy would not be terminated. Four days after Halappanavar was admitted, the fetal heartbeat stopped; however, her condition continued to deteriorate and she died of septicemia three days later.

Currently, abortions in Ireland are allowed only when the woman’s life (distinct from health) is in danger; however, there is no one agreed-upon method for determining when that is the case. The new laws, which, according to the Telegraph, are expected to be “ready by Easter,” would mean that abortion is no longer considered a criminal act. This legislation would also clarify when doctors can terminate a pregnancy when the woman’s life is considered to be at risk, “including by suicide.”

Sweden – An abomination, or a place where women’s reproductive rights are valued?

Overall, Swedes have a very liberal view when it comes to women’s right to abortion, which is most often mentioned in relation to Sweden being a very secular country. Most Swedes are however happy with this arrangement and believe that everything is a-okay. Well, maybe not everyone, as Edward Pentin has a few chosen words to share (Edward who?). And what better than a quick educational spiel by someone who is not Swedish and seems to know very little about Sweden overall. And why not throw in some biased people to further support your own preconceived notions. Interestingly, Edward Pentin (again, Edward who?), a writer for the Catholic “ZENIT – the world seen from Rome” basically believes that Swedes are an abomination. In his article “Secularism in Sweden: Where Irreligious Trends Leads After Decades”, he points out that Swedes not only support abortion, but that their marriage rates are down, and that they are very accepting of…HOMOSEXUALITY…can you believe it?  [Read more...]

Women’s Honor and Survival: When a Woman Kills her Rapist in Turkey

This past September, a Turkish woman shot and beheaded the man that had blackmailed and raped her for months. The woman, identified as N.Y., was also pregnant by her rapist; she had “repeatedly stated her to wish to abort the baby,” according to news reports, but her request was denied by a Turkish court. In Turkey, women are permitted to abort a pregnancy that was the result of rape up until the 20th week; since N.Y. was 29 weeks pregnant, the court said she could not legally obtain an abortion. Last month, she gave birth to a girl; N.Y. has said she will not raise a child that was the result of rape, and the girl will be placed in state foster care. (Interestingly, the widow of the man that raped N.Y. had initially offered to raise the baby, but her children objected so much that she withdrew her offer.)

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Lesbian Couples Forced to Pay More for Artificial Insemination

A recent article in our local Swedish feminist online paper, Feministiskt Perspektiv, discussed the fact that childless lesbian couples in some Swedish counties have to pay considerably more for artificial insemination than straight couples. While heterosexual couples usually turn to artificial insemination when they can’t conceive, lesbian couples are not seen as suffering from any diseases or disorders that would prevent them from conceiving, carrying, or giving birth to a child.

The reasoning behind such a decision displays a presumed heteronormativity where having children is inherently depicted as a privilege shared between a man and a woman only. Being a lesbian couple, and wanting a child, is consequently treated as a lifestyle choice: lesbian couples could find other ways to have a child, compared to heterosexual couples where artificial insemination is the last step before adoption or remaining childless. [Read more...]