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Is Gender Equality Not Important in Politics?

October 17, 2012 By 4 Comments

Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard is fed up with the sexist and misogynist views of opposition leader Tony Abbott and she is not afraid to speak up .

Gillard states that Abbott is sexist, misogynist and anti-woman and it seems that she has the proof to back it up. Stating that Abbott would not treat another man in a similar way, Gillard recounts the sexist strategies of Abbott, such as standing next to a sign outside of parliament saying: “ditch the witch and “man’s bitch”. Abbott has apparently also repeatedly acted in a demeaning manner towards Gillard, both catcalling her across the table at work and telling her to shut up while speaking in the past.

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Filed Under: International Issues Tagged With: , , , , , ,

“Feminism is about Activism” – Gudrun Schyman Comments on Feminist Politics

May 25, 2012 By 3 Comments

Feminist Initiative (Fi or F!) is a Swedish political party and organization formed in 2005. F! bases its politics on feminism, equality and anti-discrimination. When it comes to the party’s view on women’s rights and sexuality they support pro-choice. Their manifest states, among other things, that:

“Sexual liberation means being free to explore one’s sexuality and desires without feeling constrained by guilt and shame. This means everything from fantasies and masturbation to sexual relations with others. An individual’s sexual freedom, however, should always include limits as no one can require another individual to satisfy one’s desires against their will or through payment. It is important that sexual development occurs without fear of violence and abuse and that women have full control over their own reproductive capacity” (translated to English from feministisktinitiativ.se).

Gudrun Schyman is a spokesperson for Feminist Initiative. She was previously actively involved in the left wing party (Vänsterpartiet), served in congress between 1988 – 2006 and was the party leader for ten years. Nowadays, Gudrun is a “freelance feminist”, popular lecturer and member of council for Feminist Initiative.

Knowing that Schyman is a very busy woman I am very excited that she chose to share her views on feminist politics with Feminists For Choice.

1. What is your definition of feminism?

Knowledge of gender and power structures, awareness about its consequences at all levels, in all relationships (social and private) and a willingness to change. For me, feminism is about activism.

2. What was the initiative behind Feminist Initiative?

The need to present feminism as ideologically independent and as a possible ground for organized activism and work within the parliament. Previous attempts to take a feminist standpoint as a base for politics within other political parties (for my own part within the left wing) have failed.

3. What do you wish to accomplish with Feminist Initiative?

That the most essential and basic crimes against the idea of all individuals equal worth – the patriarchal thinking and patriarchal management (dominance thinking) – is acknowledged and understood as a social conflict which must be handled politically, within the democratic systems.

4. What are the biggest challenges for feminist politics?

The myth that we live in an equal country, that the fight has been won. Also, the contempt and dislike of gender knowledge and gender research. A lack of knowledge makes room for prejudice.

5. What sort of resistance or stereotypes do you encounter as a feminist?

When it comes to the question about resistance, see the above mentioned reasons. Common stereotypes of feminists are the imaginations that all feminists are lesbians, or angry hags who have not gotten laid for a long time, together with the belief that feminists collectively hate men!

 

Photo of Gudrun Schyman by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin.

Filed Under: Feminist Conversations Tagged With: , ,

The 2012 French Presidential Election: Independence and Women’s Rights Threatened by Marine Le Pen

February 27, 2012 By 1 Comment

Image courtesy of wikipedia.org

2012 is a crucial year for the future of the United States, but also for France. And France has its share of obscurantists, too. The country’s presidential elections are conducted differently from the U.S.: candidates are elected by members of their parties, and then multiple rounds of public voting determine the winner. The first round of voting will be held on April 22, 2012, and among the candidates is Marine Le Pen, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the now-retired politician who founded the far-right “Front National” (National Front) party.

“Women have to be generous”

France is among countries that offer financial assistance to encourage pro-natalist policy; as of 201o, it had the second-highest fertility rate of all European Union countries.

In her interview, Le Pen spoke about many issues relevant to women’s lives. About abortion, she said that “if the financial situation requires it [...] it will be considered to not refund abortion, except in cases of rape [...] women have to be generous by thinking about all the elderly and precarious who today, in France, refuse to be treated by lack of means.” By “not refund,” Le Pen is referring to changing the current system, by which individuals are allowed to receive a refund for health fees. This system is based upon solidarity, with individuals contributing to healthcare costs through payroll taxes. Thus, abortion detractors argue that abortion is not a medical issue, just a consequence of a choice and that the rest of the population shouldn’t have to pay for that.

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Filed Under: International Issues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Santorum Double Standard

January 25, 2012 By 5 Comments

With the way the Republican presidential campaign is going, it’s entirely possible that Rick Santorum will have dropped out of the race by the time this article runs. Yet before his third-place finish in the South Carolina primary, Santorum had been making a lot of news for his personal experience with terminating a pregnancy.

In 1996, the then-nineteen weeks pregnant Karen Santorum had undergone surgery to address a fetal kidney malfunction. Following the operation, she developed an infection, and the Santorums had to make the difficult choice of terminating the pregnancy, or risking Karen’s life. By all accounts they made the decision together, and Karen was given medication to induce labor.

Rick Santorum is stridently anti-choice. He has signed the Personhood Pledge; he opposes Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court decision that legalized birth control. Santorum considers late-term abortion procedures “medically unnecessary,” and opposes abortion in all circumstances, including rape; incest; if the fetus has no chance of surviving to full-term; and if a woman’s life is threatened by continuing the pregnancy.   [Read more...]

Filed Under: Election Watch Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Stephanie Schriock of EMILY’s List Explains Why Women Must Run for Office

July 6, 2011 By 2 Comments

Editor’s Note:Feminist Conversations is a regular column, where we talk to pro-choice activists from across the interwebs to find out what folks are up to in their neck of the woods.

Today we’re talking to Stephanie Schriock, the president of EMILY’s List. Founded in 1985, EMILY’s List is the country’s largest resource for women in politics, and has worked to elect 85 pro-choice women to the U.S. House of Representatives, 16 to the Senate, nine governors, and hundreds of women to state legislatures, constitutional offices, and other local offices.

When did you first call yourself a feminist, and what influenced that decision?
I was raised with feminist ideals by parents who were clearly feminists, but at the time and place I was growing up, the word itself was seen as a negative. So I never thought of myself as a feminist – just a strong woman who could do anything. I think there are lots of 30- and 40- somethings who feel the same way. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a new generation of women and men take back the word – and I am proud to join them.

What does feminism mean to you?
That women should be as free as men to pursue life, liberty and happiness. And I believe we will be. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Election Watch, Feminist Conversations Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Beyond Cowgirl Politicians

January 28, 2011 By 3 Comments

In last weekend’s New York Times’ Magazine, Rebecca Traister offered what may be the most, if not the only, constructive examination of the two female politicians who will now be forever linked by the January 8th shootings in Tuscon, Arizona.

Whether or not you believe there is any connection between the first assassination attempt ever made on an American female politician and the gun-slinging rhetoric of the first Republican woman ever nominated for the vice presidency, what’s undeniably true is that despite the vast philosophical and intellectual chasms between them, Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin have something in common: they are both cowgirl politicians. In this, they are symptomatic of the too-narrow ways in which the United States is willing to accept women as leaders.

I’m no fan of Sarah Palin, and I’m too ornery to believe that when you criticize one woman, you criticize them all, but I have to admit it was refreshing to read an article about these two women that didn’t somehow pit one against the other. It’s been such a common thread in the commentary since the shootings, much of it far more subtle than the gunsite image marking Giffords’ district on the Palin campaign’s map, that it was almost in its absence that I sensed it most.

That’s one of the reasons why I’m trying to do the same here. My first instinct was to go glass-half-empty and gripe about the ways the cowgirl politician type left real women, well, hogtied. But maybe that’s ground well-grazed. (Sorry, done now.) Though I hope this is only the first of many steps I take towards fulfilling my New Year’s resolution to improve my sometimes too-sour disposition, I will simply say that I suspect no cowgirl politician, real or iconographic, would occupy a place in the cultural imagination if the average American male did not also find the cowgirl in question sexually attractive.   [Read more...]

Filed Under: Election Watch Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Philadelphia Abortion Provider Charged with Murder

January 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday, a Philadelphia grand jury released a report detailing serious and gruesome charges against Dr. Kermit Gosnell. The charges are a result of a months-long investigation of Gosnell that began last February, when police raided his clinic, Women’s Medical Society, after receiving reports of prescription misuse. Following the raid, Gosnell’s medical license was suspended and the clinic was closed.

Gosnell has been charged with a number of crimes, including: infanticide of seven infants; the death of a patient who was given too much anesthesia at the clinic; drug offenses; and violations of abortion law. While Gosnell is innocent until proven guilty, the grand jury report is filled with details that make him sound at best staggeringly incompetent, and at worse monstrous.

The 261-page report has raised several other thought-provoking issues, including what responsibility, if any, lies with outside parties. For instance, it questions why the Board of Medicine at Pennsylvania’s Department of State did not investigate after receiving a number of complaints about Gosnell.  Likewise, the state’s Department of Health failed to adequately monitor the clinic and follow up on complaints. The report offers these reasons for the lack of oversight: “We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political football of abortion.”  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Sex Ed and Politics: Malleable Moral Beliefs Should Not Policy Make

September 27, 2010 By 3 Comments

I can respect a person who thinks that abortion is wrong and should be illegal; I may disagree, but I can respect theposition.  My respect wanes when the same person or people or political party, are also against policies that would help reduce the abortion rate. Making abortion illegal will not make it desist.  In truth what illegalizing abortion does is make the process riskier for women and more profitable for those willing to operate outside the law, and it will not significantly change the rate of occurrence.
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Filed Under: Sex Education Tagged With: , , ,

The Politics of Abortion

September 8, 2010 By 5 Comments

As a new staff writer for FFC, I thought I would start on a personal note.

Abortion. Everyone has a sharp emotional response to the word, in one way or another. I have never had an abortion. I have never been put in the position where I needed to decide to have an abortion or not. I don’t know what I would do if I were in such a situation. Truthfully, I don’t like the idea of abortion and one of my goals as a feminist is to reduce the abortion rate.  That being said, I also believe that abortion should be a legal right for every woman and have very few, if any, restrictions.  While these may sound like paradoxical statements, for me they complement each other quite well.  It comes down to many of the same tenets of feminism: trusting women, reducing  instances of rape, (re)defining motherhood, creating an employment system that is not biased against women/mothers/parents, teaching comprehensive sex ed, making contraception readily available, health care accessibility–the list goes on.  All of these things influence the instances and necessities of abortion.
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Filed Under: Abortion, Sex Education Tagged With: , , , ,

Obama’s Nobel Prize & Rampant Washington Sexism

October 9, 2009 By 4 Comments

Photo courtesy cienpies via www.123rf.comNews wise, there’s a lot going on this week. Chicago isn’t getting the 2016 Olympics, researchers found that women choose shoes that aren’t good for their feet (DUH!) The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its cost projections for the current incarnation of health care reform. And, on the heels of yesterday’s meeting to discuss strategy in Afghanistan–specifically whether or not to increase troop levels there or not–Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

As to Obama’s Nobel, I’m not sure he is the person I would have picked for it, but he isn’t undeserving either. But that’s a topic for another post.

On Afghanistan, I really have only one question–40,000 troops from where? Our pocket? Between what we already have going on there, Iraq and having troops stationed elsewhere–all over the world, in fact–we are spread very thin. Sure, we could probably divert some of the ones we are pulling out of Iraq, but that wouldn’t change the fact that most of the people fighting there are on their 4th, 5th or 6th deployment already. They’ve done their part.
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Filed Under: Activism Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,