From the article in the Washington Post:

The effort to track sexist comments and put pressure on advertisers who help bankroll the media figures responsible for some of the remarks comes as women campaign in several high-profile races this year, including competitive Senate seats and governorships in South Carolina and California.

(Complete political coverage on PostPolitics)

The Women's Campaign Forum, Women's Media Center and Political Parity plan to spend $250,000 on research and outreach for the initiative, which they have dubbed NameItChangeIt. The idea is to call out a range of issues - everything from what the groups see as an unfair focus on women's clothes and family responsibilities to profane name-calling.

The money will pay for an online advertising campaign, including a website, spoofy videos and the development of a smart phone application that allows users to report sexist comments in the media.

Their list so far, which goes back several years, includes a comment by conservative radio host G. Gordon Liddy about Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor: "Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate," Liddy said on his show. "That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."

The women's groups also point to a quote in a Wall Street Journal story about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's run for vice president where a liberal voter asks, "Who's watching the baby? And what kind of nurturing is going on in that 17-year-old's life if she's pregnant?"

The comments were only lightly condemned, said Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center, and they keep coming.

Read the rest here.

--Cyra Akila Choudhury

.

The new law guarantees domestic workers time-and-half pay after working more than 40 hours and ensures at least a day off each week. They will also be covered under the state’s worker compensation and anti-discrimination laws and gain access to unemployment insurance. The law mandates the state Department of Labor to study the feasibility of collective bargaining for domestic workers and report its findings by November.

Read the full post here.

At the signing ceremony, Governor Paterson drew heavily on references from Harriet Tubman (see here) and characterized the legislation as a major human-rights victory.

-Bridget Crawford

For those facing infertility, using assisted reproductive technology to have genetically related children is a very expensive proposition. In particular, to produce a live birth through in vitro fertilization (IVF) will cost an individual (on average) between $66,667 and $114,286 in the U.S. If forced to pay these prices out of pocket, many would be unable to afford this technology. Given this reality, a number of states have attempted to improve access to reproductive technology through state-level insurance mandates that cover IVF. Several scholars, however, have worried that increasing access in this way will cause a diminution in adoptions and have argued against enactment of state mandates for that reason.

In this paper, which was selected for presentation at the 2010 Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum, we push against that conclusion on two fronts.

First, we interrogate the normative premises of the argument and expose its contestable implicit assumptions about how the state should balance the interests of existing children waiting for adoption and those seeking access to reproductive technology in order to have genetically related children.

Second, we investigate the unexamined empirical question behind the conclusion: does state subsidization of reproductive technologies through insurance mandates actually reduce adoption; that is, is there a trade-off between helping individuals conceive and helping children waiting to be adopted? We call the claim that there is such an effect the “substitution theory.” Using the differential timing of introduction of state-level insurance mandates relating to IVF in some states and differences in the forms these mandates take, we employ several different econometric techniques (differences-in-differences, ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares) to examine the effect of these mandates on IVF utilization and adoption. Contrary to the assumption of the substitution theory, we find no strong evidence that state support of IVF through these mandates crowds out either domestic or international adoption. 

The full paper is available here.

Cohen and Chen bring much-needed empirics to the legal conversation.

-Bridget Crawford

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY
FEMINIST LEGAL STUDIES QUEEN’S

Call for papers for workshop on —

Women and Equality — Gender-based Analysis,
Law, and Economic Rights

Sex equality in the twenty-first century:
Long before the 2008 global economic crisis occurred, women in large economies began to see the promise of equality eroding. ‘Crisis’ policies have done nothing to reverse that trend. A decade ago, Canada and the US were ranked first and third on the UN gender-related development index; by 2009, they had already fallen to fourth and nineteenth respectively, and are ranked even lower on equality-specific indexes (e.g., 25 and 31 on the World Economic Forum index, 74 and 105 on the UN gender disparity measure). Similar patterns can be seen in the UK and many European countries.

At the same time, countries such as South Africa continue to demonstrate that ‘feminism works’ as they accelerate their movement toward increased sex equality. For women in those countries, the question is still ‘when will women achieve equality?’ But for growing numbers of women, the question is now becoming ‘will women ever achieve equality?’

This workshop will examine current developments affecting the status of women with particular concern for legal, economic, and equality rights. What roles do race, immigration status, Aboriginal heritage, education, family composition, and other factors play in shaping the current issues facing women? Can specific roadblocks to the attainment of further equality be identified? Are there better policies that governments can enact? What role have neoliberal, neoconservative, and economic ‘crisis’ politics played? Can international obligations such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women counter sexist politics? And what impact are emerging environmental, security, budgetary, and regulatory issues having on women as compared with men and across class and race lines?

Call for papers:
This workshop invites paper and panel submissions on equality issues grounded in law, public policy, economic rights, international and transnational gender studies, foreign affairs, health/medicine, women’s studies, and other multidisciplinary studies.

Date and location:
The conference will be held at Queen’s University Faculty of Law, Kingston, Ont. on Saturday October 23, 2010, with an informal reception/discussion on Friday evening.

Submitting paper topics:
If you are interested in presenting a paper at this conference, or in organizing a panel on specific issues, please email your proposal and a short description to Bita Amani at amanib@queensu.ca or Kathleen Lahey at kal2@queensu.ca. This can be sent any time until approximately September 25, 2010. Participation is being confirmed on a rolling basis.

-Bridget Crawford

[C]ount me a skeptic. My hunch is that we’re moving into greater gender balance, not a fundamentally new imbalance in the other direction. Don’t hold your breath for “the end of men.”

One reason is that women’s gains still have a catch-up quality to them. Catch-up is easier than forging ahead. * * * 

I think we exaggerate the degree to which the sexes are mired in conflict. As Henry Kissinger once said, “Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.” We men want our wives and daughters to encounter opportunity in the workplace, not sexual harassment; women want their husbands and sons to be in the executive suite, not jail. Nearly all of us root for fairness, not for our own sex.

The truth is that we men have typically benefited as women have gained greater equality. Those men who have lost their jobs in the recession are now more likely to have a wife who still has a job and can keep up the mortgage payments. And women have been particularly prominent in the social sector, devising new programs for the mostly male ranks of the jobless or homeless.

So forget about gender war and zero-sum games. Odds are that we men will find a way to hold our own, with the help of women. And we’ll benefit as smart and talented women belatedly have the opportunity to deploy their skills on behalf of all of humanity — including those of us with Y chromosomes.

The notion that all people -- not just women -- benefit from women's equality deserves further consideration.  Some feminists are skeptical of shifting focus from "women's rights" to "gender justice," because women's historic experience of justice (unmodified) has not been one of equal treatment.  Some men are skeptical of feminists' claims, fearing -- perhaps -- that feminists want more rights than men have, not equal rights.  [Side note: "equality" and "equal rights" are contested and contestable feminist goals.]

Kristof's column invites us to rethink justice as expansive terrain instead of limited territory.  I like that.

-Bridget Crawford

From 1952. I find it interesting that the "sleeping beauty" who is awakens is a redhead, not the blonde who went to sleep.  And those eyebrows would be no minor feat. 

image source: Duke Library Digital Collections.

-Bridget Crawford

When I started teaching and was thinking about my first article, I had lunch with Harry to pick his brain, to ask whether he saw in other parts of the tax law what I thought I saw in one part.  I had lunch with Harry because I liked to watch him think. 

Here is the obituary from the New York Times:

Son of the late Verena Leisen and Judge Harry E. White. Received BSFS, Georgetown University and LL.B. from Columbia University Law School. Partner at the law firm of Milbank Tweed, Hadley and McCloy specializing in international taxation. Director and then President for 12 years on the Board of the "333 East 55th Street Owners Cooperative Association." Member of the Players' Club. Retired Major in MI-USAR, served in Vietnam. Recipient of the Bronze Star. Active member of the New York Sea Gypsies. Survived by his spouse, Dr. M. P. A. Sheaffer, his brother Thomas White, a stepsister, Lida Parrish, and a stepbrother, J. William Leisen. Contributions may be made either to Divers Alert Network or to the American Cancer Society.

I respected Harry White immensely and I will miss his counsel. Farewell, Harry.

-Bridget Crawford

Among the many important tools feminist legal theorists have given scholars is that of anti-essentialism: all women are not created equal, and privilege varies greatly by circumstances, particularly that of race and class. Yet at the same time, feminist legal theory tends to view men through an essentialist lens, in which men are created equal. The study of masculinities, inspired by feminist theory to explore the construction of manhood and masculinity, questions the real circumstances of men, not in order to deny men’s privilege but to explore in particular how privilege is constructed, and what price is paid for it.

In this groundbreaking work, feminist legal theorist Nancy E. Dowd exhorts readers to apply the anti-essentialist model—so dominant in feminist jurisprudence—to the study of masculinities. She demonstrates how men’s treatment by the law and society in general varies by race, economic position, sexuality, and other factors. She applies these insights to both boys and men, looking at men’s experience of fatherhood and sexual abuse and boys’ experience in the contexts of education and juvenile justice, to examine how masculinities analysis exposes both privilege and subordination. Ultimately, Dowd calls for a more inclusive feminist theory, which, by acknowledging the study of masculinities, can broaden our understanding of privilege and subordination. 

Looks like a worthwhile read!

-Bridget Crawford

Last night I read my friends' tweets about the Miss Universe Pageant. But I didn't watch it. I am an old fashioned feminist when it comes to pageants. They turn my stomach. I find them embarrassing and absurd. But I can't be preachy about my dislike.

After all, I love fashion magazines, the ones filled with fantasies of over-the-top consumption and impossible beauty and I won't apologize for that indulgence, so I have no judgment for pageant watchers. Pageants just aren't for me.

But out of curiosity this morning I looked at the Miss Universe contestants online, inspired by the internet chatter. And lo and behold I was shocked when I realized that Miss Ecuador, Miss Honduras and Miss Nicaragua, were all Latinas of African descent. Only recently have noticeably Indian and African looking women begun to be featured on Latin American television and film, and still in small numbers. * * *

As a Black woman, for centuries now, flesh like my flesh has carried the burden of presumed inferiority. Black women have been cast as hypersexual or desexualized, always available yet undesired, ridiculous and often ugly, the mules of the world. Notwithstanding a few beauty icons, public figures, and celebrities, these stereotypic representations are still common. And perhaps this is why the fantasy of a beauty culture that includes Black women has so much allure. Fantastic images of Black women who are desired yet untouchable, pristine, flawless, and admired, lie so contrary to how we have been cast throughout history. And that feels kind of good. * * *

My personal resolution on the beauty issue is this: When images of physical beauty serve to diminish the depth of a woman's personhood, we should reject them. And when they seem to restore an appreciation of that which has been devalued, or to be attached to an open sense of expressiveness, play, and fun, then we should feel free to enjoy them. But in either case, our eyes must always be focused on actual lives, not just screens and pages in a magazine.

Read Professor Perry's full article here.

-Bridget Crawford

images (from top): Lady Mina Lastra (Miss Ecuador 2010); Kenia Martinez (Miss Honduras 2010); Scharllette Allen Moses (Miss Nicaragua 2010)

Many critics of commercial surrogate motherhood argue that it violates the rights of children. In this paper, I respond to several versions of this objection. The most common version claims that surrogacy involves child-selling. I argue that while proponents of surrogacy have generally failed to provide an adequate response to this objection, it can be overcome. After showing that the two most prominent arguments for the child-selling objection fail, I explain how the commissioning couple can acquire parental rights by paying the surrogate only for her reproductive labor. My explanation appeals to the idea that parental rights are acquired by those who have claims over the reproductive labor that produces the child, not necessarily by those who actually perform the labor. This account clarifies how commercial surrogacy differs from commercial adoption. In the final section of the paper, I consider and reject three further child-based objections to commercial surrogacy: that it establishes a market in children's attributes, that it requires courts to stray from the best interests standard in determining custodial rights, and that it requires the surrogate to neglect her parental responsibilities. Since each of these objections fails, children's rights probably do not pose an obstacle to the acceptability of commercial surrogacy arrangements.

The full cite is 24 Bioethics 341-347 (2010).

H/T Naomi Cahn

-Bridget Crawford