Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Woman’s Bible

Yesterday, I watched a 2002 Ken Burns documentary on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony

The lives of the two of them are certainly inspiring, but some of their decisions (and the decisions of the groups they led) can be questioned.  For example, they had constant struggles for how narrow or broad the focus of their efforts should be.  Although their thoughts changed somewhat at different times of their efforts, Anthony generally wanted to concentrate solely on women’s suffrage while Stanton had broader women’s rights in mind.  Their group, the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, obviously focused on voting rights, but who knows what would have happened if they had used their huge talents to form a group that had a broader range of women’s rights.  Anthony and Stanton also had conflicts as to whether to join with or oppose other groups such as the temperance groups or those that were seeking voting rights for black men.  In the views of many, Stanton and Anthony’s active opposition of voting rights for black men (even including some racist language by Stanton) set back the overall effort for civil rights.

While I was watching the documentary, I kept wondering what kind of decisions Stanton and Anthony would come to if they were alive today and were dealing with issues such as whether to broaden the scope of health care reform or what kinds of groups with which they would seek coalitions for women’s rights.

Handwritten draft from the Woman's Bible

I was also interested in the part of the documentary about the Woman’s Bible. I’m an atheist and my general thoughts about the Bible are that it is a fiction that should never be relied on by anyone for anything.  But, of course, billions of people do rely on it.  And, therefore, I was pleased to learn that Elizabeth Cady Stanton had written (with 26 collaborators) a Woman’s Bible.  The intent of the book was to comment on those parts of the Bible that they believed were biased against women and to highlight any parts that actually focused on women.  (Here is an excerpt from the Woman’s Bible about the book of Genesis ).  Needless to say, the book was highly criticized, but, in fact, it was a best seller.  Stanton was religious and, in the preface of the book, she praised her collaborators for showing “a more worshipful reverence for the great Spirit of All Good than does the Church.”

Delayed Sex, or Safe Sex?

There’s an editorial today in the New York Times, summarizing a recent study that seems to have favorable findings for abstinence-only education. The study focused on 622 African-American middle schoolers, and found that those who received abstinence-only teachings were less likely to have had sex in the follow-up period than those who received more comprehensive lesson plans.

The NYT article is appropriately skeptical about absintence-only groups using this information as proof that their argument is correct. A key difference between the approach tested and the Bush Administration agenda, is that morality and marriage is left out of the equation. The students in this study weren’t taught to wait for marriage, specifically, just to wait until they’re more ‘mature.’ And the focus was on avoiding pregnancy and STDs, not about morals, or virginity for some religious reason.

Furthermore, I have doubts about the the findings being completely reliable. For one, is this replicable across other demographics? Secondly, there’s no hard evidence – only self reports about sexual activity. It doesn’t seem wholly implausible for those in the abstinence group to have a lower rate of reported sexual intercourse. If kids in this group were told to abstain, they may feel less comfortable with reporting otherwise.

But most importantly, the study focuses on delayed behaviors– not safer ones. Nowhere in the NYT article does the author call in to question whether the goal of sex education should be to delay sex, or teach healthy, safe methods? Is this about not having sex early, or not having sex dangerously?

Ultimately, what are we trying to achieve? A world in which teenagers suppress urges until some arbitrarily defined moment of maturity? Or a world in which young people have the greatest amount of information and access to safe practices, and thus a much lower rate of unplanned pregnancies, or STDs? If you ask my opinion, it’s the latter. And though the two may not be mutually exclusive, the abstinence-only side of this debate seems to paint it this way. In comprehensive sex education, ideally abstinence should be explored, as an option. But abstinence-only is just that– it leaves no room for information about being safe and healthy and sexually active. My theory is: Sex is eventually going to happen, and when it does, I believe that the important question to answer is: will people be equipped with the proper knowledge to make the healthiest choices?

At the end of the day, I believe in choice. It’s why I’m pro-choice and pro-comprehensive sex education. Withholding options and information from people won’t make their lives better. But being honest with them, and trusting them just might.

Mexico City’s Law Allowing Same-Sex Marriage is Scheduled to Go Into Effect on March 4

In December, I wrote that the Mexico City government had just voted 39-20 to allow people of the same sex to marry and to adopt children.   This weekend, the New York Times had an article about the law, which is expected to become effective on March 4.  I say “expected” because the Roman Catholic church has asked the federal government (which is conservative) to intervene.

Whether or not the federal government is able to stop the law from going into effect, there is other good news in Latin America.  The Times reports that, in Argentina, while the debate over gay marriage is making its way through the courts, the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego had Latin America’s first gay wedding there on December 29.

Costa Rica Elects First Woman President

Laura Chinchilla has been elected as Costa Rica’s first woman president.  She had a very impressive margin of victory, getting 46.8 percent of the vote, with her main challengers getting 25.1 percent and 20.9 percent.  In her victory speech, she said “I want to thank the pioneering women who years ago opened the doors of politics in Costa Rica.”  And one of her female supporters said: ““I couldn’t be happier.  It’s the first time in the history of Costa Rica that we will have a woman president. It will give new opportunities to women all over the country.”  However, unfortunately, Ms. Chinchilla is a “social conservative” who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.Laura Chinchilla celebrates her victory

Ms. Chinchilla is a former vice-president and minister of justice and her campaign was centered on combating crime.  She is the third woman president in Central America’s history.  Violeta Chamorro led Nicaragua in the 1990s and, later, Mireya Moscoso led Panama.

Chuck Klosterman’s Hypthetical Question About Monogamy

I just finished reading the fourth book by pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman, titled “Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas”  (published in 2006).  The book is mostly a collection of previously released articles that were published in SPIN and Esquire, but he adds a new introduction and footnotes to each article.  In a section called “Things That Are Mostly True,” he introduces each article with a thought-provoking hypothetical question.

One of the most interesting hypotheticals is about monogamy and cheating.  Here it is in its entirety, but, after thinking about it, you might want to read what Klosterman has to say about it.  (You can go either to the book itself, or to the Esquire article where it was originally published.  Also, if you want to read a good review of Klosterman and his pop-culture status, see this.)

Today we begin with a hypothetical question, which–on its surface–may seem to have a straightforward, obvious, undeniable answer. However, this question raises a larger point about everything we pretend to understand about relationships, and particularly what we assume we understand about monogamy (and when infidelity technically begins). So while your answer to this question might seem unambiguous, the criteria you use to reach the conclusion are generally more important than the answer itself. In other words, what you say doesn’t matter as much as why you choose to say it.

The question s called the Jack and Jane Hypothetical, and it goes like this:

Let’s say you have two friends named Jack and Jane. They have been romantically involved for two years, and the relationship has always been good. Then one day Jack calls you and sadly mutters, “Jane just broke up with me.” You ask why this happened. Jack says, “She thinks I cheated on her.” You ask, “Well, did you?” Jack says, “I’m not sure. Something strange happened.”

This is what Jack proceeds to tell you:

“There is this woman in my apartment building who I barely know. I’ve seen her in the hallway a few times, and we’ve just sort of nodded our hellos. She is very normal looking, neither attractive nor unattractive. Last week, I came home from the bar very drunk, and I ran into her while I was getting my mail. She was drunk, too. So just to be neighborly, we decided to go to her apartment to have one more beer. But because we were intoxicated, the conversation was very loose and slightly flirtatious. And then she suddenly tells me that she has a bizarre sexual quirk: She can have an orgasm only if a man watches her masturbate. This struck me as fascinating, so I started asking questions about why this was. And then–somehow–it just sort of happened. I never touched her and I never kissed her, but I ended up watching this woman masturbate. And then I went home and went to bed. I told Jane about this a few days later, mostly because it was all so weird. But Jane went fucking insane, and she angrily said our relationship was over. Now she won’t even return my calls.”

Whose side do you take, Jack’s or Jane’s?

The Increase in Gender-Segregated Classrooms

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance magazine has an article on the rise of gender-segregated classrooms in America.  It includes this worrisome sentence: “In 2002, only 11 public schools in the United States had gender-segregated classrooms. As of December 2009, there were more than 550.”  The movement is called the Single Sex Public Education (SSPE) movement, and, as that sentence shows, it has been winning many converts.

The separation of boys and girls has, of course, been done in private and parochial schools for a long time.  But we have the Bush administration to blame for expanding the movement to public schools, since, in 2006, the Department of Education altered the Title IX provision of the No Child Left Behind Act to ease restrictions on gender-segregated education in public schools.

The article talks about the movement and the assumptions on which it is based.  But there is very little evidence to back up the assumptions and, so, in reality, the assumptions are just a set of stereotypes.

As an example, last year, the Mobile County Public School System in Alabama, with 66,000 students, implemented SSPE programs in eight of its 93 schools.  (The programs were later ended when the ACLU threatened to file suit.)   One of the schools made its girls and boys eat lunch at different times and prohibited them from speaking to one another on school grounds.  It directed its teachers to:

create “competitive, high-energy” classrooms for boys and “cooperative, quiet” classrooms for girls. Boys were to be taught “heroic behavior.” Girls were to learn “good character.” Sixth-grade language arts exercises called for boys to brainstorm action words used in sports. Girls were instructed to describe their dream wedding cake. Electives were gender-specific. Boys took computer applications. Girls took drama. No exceptions.

It has always seemed to me that gender-segregated classrooms are wrong.  All they do is continue stereotypes.  I agree with this statements by Emily Martin, Deputy Director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Program:

While schools might think that sex-segregated classes will be a quick fix for failing schools, in reality they are inherently unequal and shortchange both boys and girls.  There is no reliable evidence that segregating students by sex improves learning by either sex.

School districts across the country are experimenting with sex-segregated programs, which rely on questionable brain science theories based on outdated gender stereotypes.  Instead, these districts should focus on efforts that we know can improve all students’ education, like smaller classes and more teacher training and parental involvement.

(The SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance magazine also has an article titled “Unmaking Brown” on the growing resegregation of schools along racial lines. )

Feminist Culture in NYC

One of the things I’m loving the most about living in NYC is the abundance of creative and progressive-minded options for art and culture. For instance, I live in Brooklyn, about 3 blocks from the Brooklyn Museum, which contains the Sackler Center for Feminist Art. It’s wonderful to know that I’m a short walk from the permanent home of Judy Chicago’s famous Dinner Party installation. The Sackler gallery stands in stark contrast to the Museum of Modern Art’s dearth of female-made art. In 2007, NY Mag wrote that, even at the most generous count, MoMA’s percentage of women artists stands at a paltry 8%.  The numbers are slightly better for more independent galleries around the city. On The Issues shows that among Chelsea galleries, 34% are female artists.

Similarly, there are many great locations for queer theater or LGBT theater. Just last week I went with a friend to Dixon Place, to hear a night of queer text readings.

But what prompted this post is the fact that I wandered into Strand Bookstore earlier today. I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I went in looking for a gift. The huge NY independent bookstore houses about 2.5 million new and used books, and has special collections of rare & first edition finds. What struck me was its Women’s Studies section. I was completely astounded by the size of the WS area. While many bookstores have, at best, 2 shelves of feminist text, Strand boasts about 6 ceiling-high bookcases of women’s studies books. Many editions are old, some are broadly focused, and others undertake incredibly specific facets of feminist issues. The ghettoization of women’s works has long been a concern for many feminists, but if you’re ever in New York City, stop by Strand, and feminist knowledge will be at your fingertips.

Women and Computer Games

Last week, I wrote about a survey that had asked nearly 1,000 middle school students to rate the way they used cellphones.  The result was that both the girls and boys used their cellphones to talk and text, but, the boys, in addition to talking and texting, also used the phones to “play games, share photos and videos, listen to music and send e-mails.”

I took issue with the assumptions that the author (sociologist Shelia Cotten) had used when talking about what the results meant.  She said she was surprised that the boys used the phones just as much as the girls for talking and texting because she thought that more “girls [than boys] would use cellphones for talking and texting because females are socialized to communicate more with others than males.”   She also said that her assumption for why more boys than girls used the phones for game-playing, music, and e-mail was that “[f]emales traditionally have perceived themselves as less skilled in terms of technology, especially with regard to computers.”  My point was that it would have been better for the author to talk about the stereotyping that underlines “socialization” rather than her “assumptions” about perceived differences.

In any event, her assumptions about electronics use don’t necessarily hold up.  I just saw an article in the United Kingdom Marketing Week that talks about the “2009 UK National Gamers Survey.”  According to Stephen Yap, one of the managers of the group that funded the survey, the results show that “[gaming] has increased in popularity across all age groups. It’s also interesting to note how popular gaming has become among women of all ages.”  And, interestingly, using the word “communication” just as the cellphone author had done, Yap says that gaming provides “a channel for communications” for women.

The survey shows that, in the 12-19 age group, the percentage of females playing electronic games “only slightly lags behind the numbers of male players.”  In the 20-49 age group, the percentage of women is also fairly close.  In the 50-plus age group, the percentages are almost the same.  As far as the amount of time that “gamers” spend on the games, the figures are “similar across all age groups.”  (And, in a result we would rather not see, the females aged 20-34 spend as much time playing games (2.4 hours per week) as they do reading magazines (1.4 hours) and newspapers (1.4 hours)).

The interest of the gaming industry, of course, is sales.  That’s why the article says that “[t]he days of games being the domain of a moody teenage boy appear to be over. Advertisers that are brave enough to enter the world of gaming could potentially discover a large female audience that is more than receptive to their messages.”

For me, all that matters is that girls and boys have equal opportunity to do the things they want.  And one of the requirements for getting to equal opportunity is that there be no stereotyping.  I don’t think that the cellphone and gaming surveys are particularly important and I don’t even know if they have been supported by other studies.  But, for those people who think that females aren’t as interested (or as capable) in technology as males, surveys like the gaming study can help to break down those stereotypes.  And, as I said when ending my post about the cellphone survey, the only statement that I really liked from that survey is that the results “point out how much more needs to be done to teach girls about technology.”

A New Twist on Whether France Would Be Justified in Banning the Burqa

On many occasions, this blog has written about the issue of the French government’s proposal to ban the wearing of a burqa in all public places.  (For instance, see these posts in December and October.)   Emily and I have disagreed about the proposed ban.  I wrote that enacting such a ban was a positive step for women’s rights, even though it was clear that the proposal was intended as a means of slowing the growth of the Muslim population.  Emily wrote that such a ban would be anti-Islam rather than pro-woman.

But here is a new twist on the issue.  The French government is now refusing to grant citizenship to a Moroccan man who applied for citizenship so he could settle in France with his French wife.  France’s immigration minister said the application is being denied because, during a check into the man’s application, the man stated that he would never allow his wife to leave the house without wearing a full veil and that he believed a woman is “an inferior being.”  Francois Fillon, the French prime minister, said that he will bar the man from receiving French nationality, adding that the man “has no place in our country” and that “[t]his case is about a religious radical: he imposes the burqa, he imposes the separation of men and women in his own home, and he refuses to shake the hands of women.”

So this is a quite a different issue than whether a woman should be banned from wearing a burqa.  This is about preventing a man from obtaining citizenship because he would impose his religious beliefs upon his wife.  (It should be noted that two years ago a French court denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam was not compatible with French values.)

I would be interested in seeing what you think about this issue.

Rush Limbaugh ‘loves the women’s movement’

Rush Limbaugh,  no friend to progressive thought, feminism, or intellectual discussion, told Fox News earlier today that he is “a huge supporter of women.” Limbaugh was being questioned about his role in judging the Miss America pageant, and whether or not it was “appropriate,” given the fact that he does not have a reputation of supporting women.

Denying the accusation, Limbaugh replied that he is a is a supporter of women, just not feminism. In defense of his argument, he said:

“I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”

Oh, Rush. Not that I expected anything more constructive or intelligent from the man who also said that feminism “was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.” It seems that for Limbaugh, the only noteworthy characteristic a women can have is based on her looks.

Although to be fair, his comment isn’t entirely incongruous with the purpose of the Miss America pageant. I’d love to hear an argument that posits that Miss America, Miss Universe, and the like are productive at much else besides objectifying and reinforcing harmful beauty standards. Yes, they provide scholarships, but these scholarships are awarded based on physical characteristics, which only reinforces the concept that women should be judged and rewarded based on beauty. In fact, I believe Rush is exactly the type of audience these pageants are designed for– people who see women as little other than beautiful objects or poised dolls. Swimsuit and gown competitions serve to titillate, and question-and-answer sessions are a source of ridicule. The whole production reeks of pre-feminism gender standards. Not to mention the scary child pageantry spin-off reality shows like Toddlers & Tiaras or Little Miss Perfect.

Rush’s comment is just one more in a long list of examples of the dysfunctional valuing of women in society.