Welcome to This Week in the War on Women, a news roundup which posts every Saturday at 5 pm pacific / 8 pm Eastern. We could use some volunteers for the upcoming weeks, so feel free to sign up in comments, or send a kosmail to ramara or me.
I wanted to highlight this piece by Dailykos's own Aji about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and the #MMIW campaign. Be warned: it's a grim but important read, dealing with rape, human trafficking, and more. Crimes committed by non-Indians on Indian land fall into a sort of jurisdictional limbo where it's nearly impossible to get authorities to do anything, and rapists will exploit this fact.
The good, the bad and the ugly below the orange earring.
Hat tips this week to ramara and elenacarlena, who set me more links than I knew what to do with. Here are this week's lowlights, and a couple of highlights:
Reproductive Rights
In 5 years, Arizona has gone from a place where it was relatively easy to get a safe,legal abortion, to one with an avalanche of abortion restrictions. Here's one doctor's description.
After their success with the made-up term "partial birth abortion," the latest tactic from anti-choicers involves the fiction of "dismemberment abortion."
An Indiana woman was convicted of feticide and felony neglect of a minor, even though the two charges were mutually exclusive.
Three "pro-life" Republicans want to remove maternity care from the Affordable Care Act.
School and Workplace Issues:
In an Israeli study, girls outscore boys at math when being graded anonymously - but not when the person doing the grading can see their names.
The Supreme Court says it's not sex discrimination to fire a woman for breast-feeding.
Reasons you were not promoted that are totally unrelated to gender.
Violence:
Another day, another horrifying Republican comment about rape.
Katie Halper discusses the attempts to define rape out of existence, whether it's because the victim was unconscious, or she had contact with the rapist afterward, or she "should have known the risks." It's all about the search for the acceptably perfect victim. See also Marge Piercy's The Grey Flannel Harassment Suit.
A horrible story from Japan: a man is accused of recruiting as many as 100 women for a fake "sleep study," then drugging and raping them.
In Britain, 18-year-old Ben Moynihan was found guilty of attempted murder, after stabbing three women and leaving a letter for police saying, "All women need to die." His story has a lot in common with Elliot Rodger.
In India, a girl films and berates the man who groped her on a plane, and the video goes viral.
Kevin Boellert was convicted of running a "revenge porn" site that posted nude pictures of women without their consent, along with contact info to harass them - then he offered to take the pictures down for a fee. He's now facing up to 20 years in prison. The problem is, his customers are still out there.
The anti-domestic violence ad that aired during the Super Bowl was based on a real woman who pretended she was ordering pizza while making the call to 911. And a Serbian anti-DV ad shows a domestic violence victim taking a selfie every day for a year.
Media:
Sports Illustrated includes its first plus-sized bikini model. (Will the bikini also be larger than the dental floss they usually wear?) Elsewhere, the first plus-sized model lands a major modelling contract.
A disturbing profile of professional misogynist Paul Elam. Here's more about him.
Jezebel mocks an unbelievably dumb article in USA Today whining that having women in politics is scaring off the men who are rightfully entitled to be there. The author should probably get together with Ian Swales, a British MP who says he's quitting politics because of the "reverse glass ceiling" in a country where 73% of Parliament is male. Props to jujymonkey, the first commenter on the Jezebel article:
In all fairness, men are known for being bad at math.
Uncategorizable:
The Vatican Conference on Women ("Equality and Difference") was promoted with the image of a statue of a nude female torso bound with ropes. No, I don't know why.
Good News and Action Items:
Teen pregnancies are down nationwide. In a development that should surprise nobody, sex education and accessible birth control are major factors. One major success story is Colorado, where free birth control has led to a 40% drop in teen pregnancies, and a 35% drop in teen abortions.
In Texas, a high school girl's pitching gets her a college scholarship to play baseball with the guys.
Republicans in Congress are trying to push through a forced ultrasound bill to punish women getting abortions. Ultraviolet petition telling them to drop it.
If you missed last night's Top Comments, it has an amazing story of a woman who spoke out about the troll who was tormenting her - and got a genuine apology from the harasser.
This last one is another piece from Aji. Like the first, it's a painful read, but I'm including it with action items because it ends with links to organizations that could use donations and other help. Y'all know what to do.