… Read the restA woman in Ireland who was forced to choose between carrying her foetus to term, knowing it would not survive, or seeking an abortion abroad was subjected to discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a result of Ireland’s legal prohibition of abortion, United Nations experts have found.
The independent experts, from the Geneva-based Human Rights Committee, issued their findings after considering a complaint by the woman, AM, who was told in November 2011 when she was in the 21st week of pregnancy that her foetus had congenital defects, which meant it would die in the womb or shortly after birth.
This meant she had to choose “between continuing her non-viable pregnancy or
The ashes were delivered by courier
Jun 9th, 2016 12:31 pm | By Ophelia BensonAn extra challenge
Jun 9th, 2016 11:28 am | By Ophelia BensonThe CBC also has advice about how to do a healthy Ramadan. It too fails to make it clear that going without water is not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe.
Ala’a Eideh, a PhD student in nutrition at the University of Manitoba, mainly recommends consuming anything that will not aggravate thirst throughout the day.
“The main things that should be avoided are spices, caffeine and sodium to prevent thirst to prevent fluid loss from the body,” she said.
But of course that day is 17 hours long, or longer (this is Canada we’re talking about). There’s no way to prevent thirst over 17+ hours with no water or any other liquid. Thirst=dehydration. This isn’t an issue of mere discomfort, it’s … Read the rest
Mubarak dehydration month
Jun 9th, 2016 10:41 am | By Ophelia BensonRamadan is certainly happening at the worst possible time this year, maximizing the number of hours people feel religiously required to go without water. That’s unhealthy at best and dangerous at worst – especially dangerous for people who do physical work in the heat.
The Independent takes a wrongheaded approach:
… Read the restAs the world’s one billion-plus Muslims gear up to fast over the next month during Ramadan – one of the five pillars of Islam – there is some concern this year may be particularly challenging with followers required to go without any food and water for some 17 hours a day as a test of personal strength and communication with Allah.
However, if done right – and if Muslims
Guest post: The sense of entitlement to a “good job”
Jun 8th, 2016 5:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Now he faces of lifetime of struggling for decent work.
Reading the references to Turner “struggling for decent work” and saying “Goodbye to becoming an orthopedic surgeon” reminds me of something else that really irks me: the sense of entitlement to a “good job,” i.e. well-paying, white-collar, high-status.
If I may quote a different judge, Caddyshack’s Judge Smails, “the world needs ditchdiggers, too.” Smails, of course, was being an asshole snob to the working-class caddie Danny Noonan, in response to Danny’s concern about not being able to afford college without the caddie scholarship that Smails controlled.
But the world does need “ditchdiggers” — well, maybe not literally ditchdiggers, but people who do … Read the rest
Archbishop says talk more about his special subject
Jun 8th, 2016 4:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnother religious mouthpiece tells us that religion must be taken more seriously, by law, and that it must be forced on everyone whether they like it or not.
The BBC should be legally required to treat religion on a par with politics, sport or drama, the Archbishop of Canterbury is to say.
I thought it already did treat it that way, but if it doesn’t, so what? I can think of a lot of reasons the BBC might prefer to keep its distance from religion, and I don’t see why it should be legally required to take it as seriously as politics.
… Read the restA recent Government White Paper includes calls for the BBC to be required to reflect the
Now he faces of lifetime of struggling for decent work
Jun 8th, 2016 11:47 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Guardian publishes samples of the many many letters urging Judge Persky not to sentence Brock Turner to prison.
… Read the restThe father’s letter, however, is just one of dozens of testimonials that Turner’s supporters sent to Persky – letters that the judge said he seriously considered in his decision to allow the former swimmer to avoid the minimum prison time of two years prescribed by law.
The Guardian has obtained copies of all the letters Persky received – statements that defend Turner’s actions, blame the victim for being assaulted, and decry the consequences the swimmer has faced while ignoring the suffering of the 23-year-old woman. The letters, along with Turner’s own statement, provide a window into a culture that critics
Judge Persky was not moved
Jun 8th, 2016 10:52 am | By Ophelia BensonAmy Goodman talked to Michele Dauber on Democracy Now yesterday.
… Read the restMICHELE LANDIS DAUBER: So, we are a group of Democratic and progressive women here in Silicon Valley who have come together to put together an actual recall campaign. So there are a number of Change.org petitions online, but those are not the official California recall effort. To participate in that, viewers and listeners should go to RecallAaronPersky.com, where they can sign up for information updates or donate to the effort. And we will be collecting signatures, getting this on the ballot and working to replace him with someone who understands violence against women.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Judge Persky’s handling of the case? Explain what
The free market in lies
Jun 8th, 2016 9:32 am | By Ophelia BensonMedia Matters has a depressing report on the way cable news in the US talks about abortion.
… Read the restA Media Matters study of 14 months of evening cable news programs found that discussions of abortion were weighted toward anti-choice speakers, which resulted in widespread misinformation on the topic. Of the three networks, Fox News aired the largest number of inaccurate statements about the most prevalent abortion-related myths, and MSNBC was the most accurate.
…
Media Matters analyzed the following four abortion-related misinformation claims:
1) Government funds given to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid are illegally used to pay for abortions;
2) Birth control acts as an abortifacient;
3) Planned Parenthood “harvests” or “sells” or is “profiting” from fetal tissue; and
4)
Guest post: “Sex work” and child labour
Jun 8th, 2016 8:22 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Bernard Hurley on The myth that it is possible to commodify consent.
The great genius of the neo-liberalism is that it can commodify anything.
Once there is general acceptance of this philosophy, terms like “sex worker” tend to get a free pass. If you take it as axiomatic that a so-called “free” market enhances the agency of all involved then it might seem draconian to interfere with the “sex market” and take away the agency of all involved.
The arguments advanced for the full decriminalisation of the “sex market” bear a striking resemblance to those advanced in favour of child labour in nineteenth century Britain. We are told “sex work is work like any other … Read the rest
The myth that it is possible to commodify consent
Jun 7th, 2016 6:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonAn extract from Kat Banyard’s new book Pimp State:
The steady creep of “sex work” into 21st-century vernacular is neither incidental nor accidental. The term didn’t just pop up and go viral. The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), an organisation that openly campaigns for brothel-keeping and pimping to be recognised as legitimate jobs, credits itself as largely responsible for “sex work” replacing “prostitution” as the go-to terminology for institutions such as the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
“More than mere political correctness,” the NSWP proudly states, “this shift in language had the important effect of moving global understandings of sex work toward a labour framework.”
Oh yeah? … Read the rest
Echoes
Jun 7th, 2016 4:52 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s a new way of being shitty: the [[[echoes]]] symbol.
Updating to say: those brackets should all be parentheses, as should all the brackets below, including in the quoted passages. Pretend you see three curved vertical lines facing right plus three curved vertical lines facing left.
… Read the restIn the early days of the social web, putting someone’s name in multiple parentheses was meant to give that person a cute virtual hug. Today, it’s something far more sinister.
Neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and white nationalists have begun using three sets of parentheses encasing a Jewish surname — for instance, [[[Fleishman]]] — to identify and target Jews for harassment on blogs and major social media sites like Twitter. As one white supremacist tweeted,
If your son were unconscious behind a dumpster
Jun 7th, 2016 11:57 am | By Ophelia BensonJen Gunter asks a very pertinent question about Brock Turner’s father that I wish I’d thought to ask myself.
And as for Brock Turner’s father who feels that his son doesn’t deserve jail for one 20 minute period of bad behavior (or an “action” as he called it) in a life of otherwise “good,” I guess I’d say if your son were unconscious behind a dumpster and an otherwise “good man” were caught raping your son would you think the injuries not serious and what punishment do you think that man would deserve?
And how deeply would you mourn for that man’s lost ability to enjoy a good ribeye steak?… Read the rest
Tortured to death for saying no
Jun 7th, 2016 11:36 am | By Ophelia BensonISIS on Thursday executed 19 Yezidi girls by burning them to death, activists and eyewitnesses reported.
The victims, who had been taken by ISIS terrorists as sex slaves, were placed in iron cages in central Mosul and burned to death in front of hundreds of people.
“They were punished for refusing to have sex with ISIS militants,” local media activist Abdullah al-Malla said.
“The 19 girls were burned to death, while hundreds of people were watching. Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment,” an eyewitness said in Mosul.
We’re a mistake. Human beings are a mistake. We must be, or we wouldn’t be capable of that kind of thing. All that brain power, … Read the rest
Where is the Milton of ableism?
Jun 7th, 2016 9:48 am | By Ophelia BensonFrom the “this must be parody” file, Yale students launch a petition telling the English department to stop requiring English majors to read Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton.
The prestigious Connecticut university requires its English majors to spend two semesters studying a selection of authors it labels the “major English poets”: “Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Donne in the fall; John Milton, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, and TS Eliot or another modern poet in the spring”.
Now, if I were in charge of that course I might swap Spenser for someone else – like, maybe push Milton back into the first semester and add Keats to the second. I can see quibbling over which “canonical” poets … Read the rest
The defendant is youthful
Jun 6th, 2016 5:19 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe judge who had so much sympathy for Brock Turner is facing a recall campaign.
… Read the restThe light sentencing, along with comments from Turner’s father, who said his son is paying a “steep price” for “20 minutes of action”, have sparked global consternation.
In a brief phone interview with the Guardian on Monday, the victim, whose emotional testimony has since gone viral, said the positive responses to her statement have been moving. “I’m worried that my heart is going to grow too big for my chest,” she said. “I’ve just been overwhelmed and speechless.”
The Guardian can also reveal that the judge who gave the former Stanford athlete the light sentence will now face a recall campaign led
Beheading a Woman for Prophet Muhammad in Northern Nigeria
Jun 6th, 2016 | By Leo IgweSome bloodthirsty Muslim fanatics, who wanted to please Allah by all means and get into the good books of Prophet Muhammad, have been on a rampage in Northern Nigeria. The savage quest by those who are drunk with ‘Allah delusion’ and who are desperate to inherit the phantom paradise that was promised to the Ummah in the afterlife has been on obvious display in the past weeks. The Mujaheddin of northern Nigeria have been on the loose and the horrific consequences of their actions are graphic and glaring.
The criminal silence of the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, the Kano state Governor, Umar Ganduje, and the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi 11, is deafening and sends worrisome signals about the threat … Read the rest
Guest post: Blaming the woman already has the structure in place
Jun 6th, 2016 10:48 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by iknklast on Not blaming her directly.
Another thing about the DUI – it is very possible, and in fact happens every day all over the driving world, that people who drive drunk may get safely home without hurting anyone (this doesn’t make it OK, mind you). A person who rapes drunk cannot, by definition, get safely home without hurting someone, because in rape there is always another person involved. Yet society is harder on someone who is driving drunk who has not hit a tree, a car, or a person, but who has just weaved in and out and can’t walk a straight line, than on a young man who uses his drunkenness as an … Read the rest
Promising young athletes
Jun 6th, 2016 10:01 am | By Ophelia BensonClementine Ford has some thoughts on Brock Turner.
… Read the restTurner did not present to the world as the archetypal monster dwelling in shadowed alleyways. He was attending Stanford on a sports scholarship as an accomplished swimmer with aspirations to one day compete at the Olympics. He is from a privileged white background, with enough family money and support to hire the kind of expensive lawyers who usually appear on behalf of the of well taken care of privileged white sons defending themselves against rape charges. It has been suspiciously difficult to track down the police mugshot taken after his arrest; instead, media reports throughout the trial have been littered with smiling photographs of what is no doubt an attempt to
Not blaming her directly
Jun 6th, 2016 9:10 am | By Ophelia BensonMore from the Brock Turner file. Via Stanford law professor Michele Dauber, who attended the trial, on Twitter:
#brockturner "reference" letter to judge: stop being so "politically correct" about rape thing,ok? @thehuntinground pic.twitter.com/0zUyr4eVve
— Michele Dauber (@mldauber) June 6, 2016
A reference letter to the judge.
… Read the restI don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next 10+ years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him. I am not blaming her directly for this, because that isn’t right. But where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on
Not even a little unique
Jun 6th, 2016 8:09 am | By Ophelia Benson… Read the restIn the interest of privacy, this person chooses to remain anonymous. Please keep it that way. But feel free to share the hell out of this.
“Today, I talked back to a catcaller. I do this often, and when I say I’m putting myself in physical danger when I do this, I’m laughed at. I’m told to stop overreacting. I’m called overdramatic.
Today, I talked back to a man who touched me in the street without my permission. It doesn’t matter what I said. What matters is that he grabbed me by the back of the head, called me a whore, and threw me into a wall. Because I stood up for myself after he put