About two weeks ago, the Utah legislature passed a bill that will allow the state to “charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion.” So far, though, the media has given it little attention. Given this lack of publicity⎯in addition to the fact that Utah’s governor still has to sign the bill⎯I thought I’d discuss it here.
The bill would make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by “reckless” behavior, regardless of whether or not the woman was actively trying to end her pregnancy. At first glance I understand why the legislature would think of creating such a law; the bill itself has roots in a recent case, where a 17-year-old pregnant girl paid a man $150 to beat her, hoping the damage would cause her pregnancy to end. Certainly we don’t want pregnant women running around hiring people to purposefully—but without proper medical procedure—terminate their pregnancies. That being said, this bill is problematic in so many ways; it will be a tragic step in the wrong direction for pregnant women if it gets implemented.
First off, the bill says nothing about any third party that might help with inducing a miscarriage; that is, the man who actually beat the 17-year-old would be unaffected by the law. Second, the bill lacks the language necessary to prevent the prosecution of pregnant women who accidentally miscarry. For instance, if a pregnant woman drove without a seatbelt and crashed, ending the pregnancy, she could be charged with homicide due to her recklessness. Same goes for a woman whose husband abused her, if she chose not to leave the man. In this sense, the bill is so sweeping as to be reckless itself, allowing for the possibility that women whose miscarriages already devastated them could end up serving long-term prison sentences.
Hey all! I’m working on a longer post with a few thoughts I’ve had for a while now about consent and how sexual violence prevention campaigns work, which seems especially appropriate given the discussions we’ve been having recently about consent here and in the Daily Princetonian. For now, I want to just let you all know about two exciting opportunities on campus to get involved in this discussion.
First, tonight is the “What is Consent? (And how to ask for it)” dinner discussion at Campus Club, co-sponsored by SHARE, SpeakOut, Let’s Talk Sex, Equal Writes, Pride Alliance, Sexual Health Advisors, Center for Jewish Life, and the LGBT Center. The dinner will be at 6pm:
Come join SHARE for a dinner-based discussion on the importance of consent in relationships of any kind. We will be feature small group discussions facilitated by SHARE peers about the recent articles and the debate surrounding them, followed by a larger group discussion, and we will close with a workshop – facilitated by UHS educator Laura Rubinstein – on the importance of clearly establishing consent in any sort of relationship. We invite everyone to come and join us – free T-shirts and food (kosher and vegetarian options) will be available!
I urge you to go to this event! I think that too often, an article like last week’s op-ed in the Prince creates a general commotion, but we forget about the issue. Sexual assault and a culture of sexual violence is the issue, and it would be sad if we lost sight of that for the sake of an important but short debate about one article. This problem hasn’t gone away just because people are starting to forget about that op-ed, so I urge you to get involved in a real discussion!
Also, I’m going to be organizing a men’s group dealing with issues of masculinity and sexual violence. The plans aren’t totally finalized, but the general idea is a meeting for an hour or so once a week or once every two weeks, possibly over dinner, to discuss experiences of masculinity and sexual violence. I think that it’s important that men have a space to work through these issues with other men. I’ll have more information soon, but if you’re interested send me an email at jbfrankl@ !
Contributing to continued confusion surrounding the abstinence/celibacy divide, Lady Gaga argued in support of celibacy in a sit down with the UK periodical The Star.
“I, for myself, make the choice to be single at this point in my life because I don’t have the time to get to know anybody. And you know what? It’s okay. Even Lady Gaga can be celibate. If you can’t get to know somebody, you shouldn’t be having sex with them. It’s okay at this point, in this day and age, we have grown up and we now know that we can’t be that free with our love. You have to be safe, so get checked. You are not invincible.”
While I applaud the general sentiment in Gaga’s interview, I think it’s important to note that in this case she is advocating abstinence, not celibacy. Celibacy is a state of life wherein a person refrains from sex and marriage, usually for religious reasons. Abstinence, on the other hand, indicates refraining from sexual activity for a certain period of time, be it until marriage, until a committed relationship, until a certain time, etc. As an ambassador for an organization that is helping to fight HIV/AIDS, it’s important for Gaga to note the distinction between the two, and choose her words accordingly.
We’re so inspired by how many of our bloggers and readers love their bodies!
What do you love about YOUR body? Participate in our campaign: in an email, attach a photo of yourself like the ones in this post (wear underwear; face should not be visible in photo). Do not resize the image! In the body of the email, tell us the POSITIVE things you want written on the photo along with the body parts said positive things correspond to. (We’ll superimpose the text over your picture). Send photos and text to Amelia or Thúy-Lan at equalwrites@gmail.com.
A big congratulations to the cast and production team of Company for a wonderful production. I saw the show on Saturday night and was impressed by the musical and acting talent. I had a bone to pick with Dave Holtz’s direction of the “homosexual” scene, however.
In this scene, newly divorced Peter asks his longtime friend Robert (the protagonist) whether he’s ever had a homosexual experience. Robert answers that yes, he has, and Peter goes on to describe how his feelings for Robert have changed in nature from being one of friendship to something more. This could have potentially been a very intimate scene about the relationship of friendship to sexuality and the diverse sexualities that find themselves trapped in heterosexual marriages (after all, the play can be read as a tongue-in-cheek critique of marriage).
Yet, instead of using this scene to problematize the association between heterosexuality and marriage, Dave Holtz used this scene as comic relief by inserting awkward silences and using the blocking to dismiss Peter’s feelings (Robert chuckles and abruptly leaves the stage after “realizing” that Peter was “joking”). However, the audience was well aware that Peter was not joking, and the direction did not literally have to be humorous.
Happy first day of Women’s History Month! You can celebrate by attending the screening of “Year of the Woman” tomorrow night:
Tuesday, March 2, 7:30 pm, James M. Stewart ‘32 Theater, 185 Nassau St
Sandra Hochman’ s raucous, electrifying and often quite moving documentary of the 1972 Democratic National Convention shows the raw emotion unleashed when a group of angry, organized and skilled women made inroads into the boys’ club of national politics. Thirty five years before Barack Obama entered the race, black Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran for president, and that’s only the beginning of this story…
The director, Sandra Hochman, will introduce and discuss the film. Co-sponsored by the Lewis Center for the Arts and the Program in the Study of Women and Gender, this event is free and open to the public.
While watching 30 Rock last week on NBC’s website, Proctor & Gamble’s new Olympic campaign commercial popped up. Part of a series of commercials and an entire campaign, this particular 30 second clip focused on how moms always see their children as children, even as they compete as adults for worldwide recognition as Olympic athletes.
I thought the commercial was cute at first glance- who really wants their kids to grow up anyway? But near the end of the commercial, I realized more clearly what the campaign was focusing on- mothers. P&G was thanking moms for the US’s Olympic athletes- not just ‘parents,’ and definitely not dads. When I went to the campaign website, browsing through pictures and commercials at first made me think that 1) the US team only has female athletes, and 2) these female athletes only have moms (and super supportive ones at that). Closer examination showed that there are indeed a few males on the US team, and perhaps a couple of the athletes do have dads as well (I guess that didn’t surprise me all that much).
It’s a nice idea- dedicating a campaign to thank people in your life for supporting you along the way. But why only one’s mom? I couldn’t help but feel a little sad for all those fathers (or aunts, uncles, neighbors) who might have played pivotal roles in their children’s success. From concrete things like driving future Olympic athletes to the skating rink at 6am to comforting those same kids after a bad fall on the ice, whoever was there for these kids really helped them along. Why do we (or in this case maybe just Proctor & Gamble) assume that that person was a mom? During my entire K-12 education, my dad drove me to school in the morning, and most of the time, he picked me up in the afternoons, too. Should I ever win a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize, I’d like him to be thanked as well as my mom.
What do you love about YOUR body? Participate in our campaign: in an email, attach a photo of yourself like the ones in this post (wear underwear; face should not be visible in photo). Do not resize the image! In the body of the email, tell us the POSITIVE things you want written on the photo along with the body parts said positive things correspond to. (We’ll superimpose the text over your picture). Send photos and text to Amelia or Thúy-Lan at equalwrites@gmail.com.
Living in the orange bubble as we do, you may not have noticed that this past week was National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Across the country, NEDAwareness volunteers, eating disorder professionals, health care providers, social workers, therapists, and others organized countless events to bring the plight of eating disordered individuals into the limelight. The theme of this year’s week was, “It’s time to talk about it,” and in that vein, NEDAwareness sponsored movie screenings, walks, talks, body fairs, art shows and even a karaoke bar to encourage dialogue about this incredibly difficult topic. Attendees at these events were asked to do just one thing (original emphasis) to help raise awareness and provide accurate information about eating disorders to the general public.
Sounds pretty non-controversial, right? Who wouldn’t want to help prevent millions of young women and girls – and increasingly boys as well – from developing a life-threatening illness? Well, it turns out quite a few people, and many of them happen to work at Ralph Lauren. I, along with thousands of other Americans, have recently joined a Boycott Ralph campaign initiated by an individual who did a lot more than just one thing to raise awareness about body image issues. His name – yes, that’s right, it’s a guy – is Darryl Roberts, creator of the incredibly moving documentary, America the Beautiful.
For anyone who did not catch the screening on campus last spring, Roberts’ film captures the angst and frustration of women who are told from cradle to grave that they cannot be beautiful unless they look like Twiggy (though even she would need to lose a few to compete with today’s models). Over the course of two years, Roberts traveled the country interviewing young girls and women both in and out of the fashion industry, asking them about their self-esteem, their hopes for the future, and in essence why they do not feel beautiful. In particular he follows the story of Gerren Taylor, an innocent and gawky 12 year-old whose 6 ft. frame and amazing runway strut lands her on the catwalks of Marc Jacobs, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, and other top designers. Gerren’s rise to stardom is halted only a year later when Marc Jacobs required that she get her 38” hips – she’s 6 ft. tall, remember – down to 35”. (The girl hadn’t even gotten her period yet!) Even more troubling are the comments made by her mother, a similarly slim and tall individual who, after taking Gerren to one fashion show after another, begins pinching her own stomach and complaining that she’s gaining too much weight with her age. If ever there was a need for a body image interventionist, this would be it.
What do you love about YOUR body? Participate in our campaign: in an email, attach a photo of yourself like the ones in this post (wear underwear; face should not be visible in photo). Do not resize the image! In the body of the email, tell us the POSITIVE things you want written on the photo along with the body parts said positive things correspond to. (We’ll superimpose the text over your picture). Send photos and text to Amelia or Thúy-Lan at equalwrites@gmail.com. ALL PHOTOS ARE ANONYMOUS.
Equal Writes is a writing project that hopes to start a dialogue about feminism and gender issues on and off campus. Co-Editors Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux '11 and Thúy-Lan Võ Lite '12 and Assistant Editor Josh Franklin '11 aim to give a voice to young feminist writers with a diverse range of perspectives on some of the most important issues students face here, and in the world at large. We believe in equal rights and opportunities for women. We believe in powerful, passionate women. We believe that men can be excellent feminists too. And we believe that "feminism" is not a dirty word.
Want to write for us? Have questions, comments or opinions you'd like to share with the editors? Email us at equalwrites@gmail.com
by Jillian Hewitt
by Lydia Dallett
