A whole blog full! Some subtle, some not so much…
Archive for March, 2008
Toilet Signs
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Still More Misogyny
Monday, March 31st, 2008This time from spoiled rich kids at a private high school in NYC. In about five years, give or take, some of them will be enrolling in law schools, but hopefully not mine. Via Jezebel.
–Ann Bartow
Need a Daily Dose of Misogyny?
Monday, March 31st, 2008Nicole Black notes that Volokh Conspiracy readers have been dumping all over Dahlia Lithwick. She writes:
Volokh Conspiracy readers can’t help themselves. When a women lawyer is as successful at what she does as Dahlia Lithwick, they simply have to characterize her as: lacking objectivity, emotional, unqualified, unfit, laughable, illogical, snarky, bitter, mean-spirited, lacking common sense, dishonest, a useless hack, unimportant, unintelligent, “you’re out, honey”, ineffective, unpersuasive, screeching, squealing, giggling schoolgirl, clueless, “gossip columnist tool”, a bad lawyer, : Lithwick on Heller and Oh Those Hypocritical Conservative Justices.
“The Cumberland County Courthouse lawn in Crossville, Tennessee now features an enormous statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.”
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Surrogacy on the Cover of Newsweek
Monday, March 31st, 2008In yet another sign that there’s a resurgence of interest in this topic, surrogacy is the cover story in this week’s Newsweek magazine. Interestingly, the focus is on the women who are surrogates. I think this consistent with recent press coverage, but quite different from when the main news was the wonders of technology or ART more generally. It deepens my conviction that it is a good cultural moment to be thinking about these things.
There’s quite a bit to say about this article, but I wanted to offer a brief take on how it is set up. The authors describe surrogacy as “an act of love but also a financial transaction.” This suggests is an interesting way to categorize surrogacy transactions. At one end of the spectrum you might place the ones in India I’ve previously discussed. They fall pretty firmly into the “financial transaction” realm. (Remember that in some the parties never meet. And no one portrayed the Indian women as engaging in acts of love.)
By contrast, and at the other end of the spectrum, surrogacy in Britain is (at least formally) not a financial transaction at all. Surrogates cannot be paid for their services. It’s considered to be altruistic or compassionate. Clearly on the “labor of love” side of the balance?
As far as I can tell, all the cases discussed in Newsweek are commercial surrogacy–the surrogates are in fact paid. Indeed, there’s only fleeting recognition that someone might actually do this absent the money. (I think the listing of places where surrogacy is permitted is deceptive in this regard–it is really a list of where surrogacy contracts will be enforced and where surrogates can be paid.)
What may be most interesting is the initial insistence that, despite the payment, these are not purely commercial transactions–a sale of services or worse yet, goods. Perhaps given the prevalence of a highly romanticized notion of pregnancy these days, it’s impossible to reduce pregnancy to a service. But isn’t it a bit telling that there aren’t a lot of wealthy surrogates? (The article notes that an increasing number of surrogates are military wives, which speaks to the poor compensation provided to service members.) In any event, it seems to reflect some desire to place the US in the middle of the surrogacy spectrum.
I’m happy to agree that portraying surrogacy as a simple sale of services misses a great deal. This article is actually very rich in detail, in providing a more detailed and nuanced portrait of surrogates, considering a range of circumstances and experiences.
–Julie Shapiro (cross-posted to Related Topics)
“Harry Potter: Feminist Friend or Foe?”
Monday, March 31st, 2008It was only a matter of time until a book like Harry Potter: Feminist Friend or Foe? hit the presses. I have an affinity for feminist perspectives and a tolerance for “Law &” just about anything. I liked the Harry Potter series (although I think it jumped the shark in the Half-Blood Prince), too. But for some reason, this book doesn’t interest me at all. Maybe I’m too 21st-century (dare I say “third-wave”?) to think that “friend” vs. “foe” is so easy to distinguish.
Harry Potter, as a character or as a phenomenon, doesn’t concern me too much. He/it is just another springboard for interesting conversations, not an ideology that I have to adopt or even an “influence” to be avoided. Ditto for Deenie, Forever and all of the other books my school librarians never wanted kids to read.
-Bridget Crawford
Civil Unions and State Taxes
Monday, March 31st, 2008A story in the Hartford Courant last week highlights the burdens faced by same-sex couples in states that legally recognize same-sex relationships when they go to file their state tax returns.
But, first, a little background: Because many states use the federal income tax as a base for their own income taxes and the federal government does not recognize same-sex relationships, same-sex couples in legally recognized relationships cannot simply use their federal returns as a basis for their state filings (as different-sex married couples can). As a practical matter, then, this usually means that the same-sex couple has to prepare two separate “single” federal returns to file with the federal government and then a mock “joint” federal return to use as a basis for completing their joint state return. (For more on this problem and the even worse problem of what happens to couples when they move from one state to another, check out this note by one of my students: Catherine Martin Christopher, Note, Will Filing Status Be Portable? Tax Implications of Interstate Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage, 4 Pitt. Tax Rev. 137 (2007).)
Now, back to the story: A Connecticut couple that had entered into a civil union was completing their tax returns online using the H&R Block web site when the following message popped up: “We don’t support Connecticut Civil Union returns.” At the most immediate level, H&R Block could have put a bit more thought into how best to phrase the message that this was a software issue. After all, the story implies that the Connecticut couple initially took the statement to represent H&R Block’s position on the propriety of legally recognizing same-sex relationships in Connecticut). More troubling, however, is the fact that the couple was told by H&R Block that it was willing to prepare the return in one of its offices—but at a price of about $200, which is $155 more than the online price for preparing returns.
The ACLU has now stepped into the matter, asking H&R Block to cease discriminating against civil union couples—in violation of Connecticut’s prohibition against denying full and equal accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation or civil union status. (In the interest of full disclosure: I am on the Board of Directors of both the ACLU of Pennsylvania and its Pittsburgh Chapter—and my involvement in the organization is in large part motivated by the great work, just like this, that the organization does on behalf of LGBT individuals.) H&R Block is now studying how it can provide online support for civil union couples. Oddly enough, H&R Block has managed to accommodate Massachusetts couples that have entered into same-sex marriages, which should raise similar issues. But this just goes to underscore the point that civil unions are not the same as marriage, no matter what the law says. (For more on this, see this story in the New York Times and this report from the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission.) The story notes that TurboTax supports civil union returns and actually advises clients to buy its software rather than complete the return online using TurboTax, because it comes out cheaper for the client.
-Anthony C. Infanti
If You Live In South Carolina, Get A Passport And Carry It Whenever You Travel, Even Domestically.
Monday, March 31st, 2008Why? Because of this:
Gov. Mark Sanford said today that he will not comply with the federal Department of Homeland Security’s standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and IDs, meaning S.C. residents could be subjected to extra security screenings when boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings.
Using a passport rather than an SC Driver’s License will (hopefully) solve this problem.
Update: Sanford’s objections to compliance are articulated here.
–Ann Bartow
“Nipple Rings, Respect and the Undertreatment of Women’s Pain”
Monday, March 31st, 2008Really interesting post by this name by Jennifer Bard at the Women’s Bioethics Project blog.
Another Excuse for Non-Reciprocal Oral?
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
According to this Time article, oral sex can add to HPV-associated cancer risk in men.
Oral sex can get most men’s attention. The topic becomes considerably more relevant, however, when coupled with a new study linking the human papillomavirus (HPV) to an increased risk of a kind of oral cancer more often seen in men.
The study, which appears in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), shows that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of developing cancer of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue. Of the 300 study participants, those infected with HPV were also 32 times more likely to develop this type of oral cancer than those who did not have the virus. These findings dwarf the increased risk of developing this so-called oropharyngeal cancer associated with the two major risk factors: smoking (3 times greater) or drinking (2.5 times greater). HPV infection drives cancerous growth, as it is widely understood to do in the cervix. But unlike cervical cancer, this type of oral cancer is more prevalent in men.
I can hear the excuses already.
-Bridget Crawford
Strangelets on the Front Page
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
I can’t help but think of author Dan Brown when I hear the acronym “CERN.” The Swiss science institute has been sued in federal court in Hawaii:
[T]wo men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii . . . think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe. * * * Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
This was front page coverage (here) in the NY Times. We will be waiting a long time for front page coverage of why the law has not yet realized its promise of equality for women and men. And rigorous discourse about race and rights. These issues don’t make as good copy as a black hole gobbling the earth.
-Bridget Crawford
District Court Rules State “Right of Publicity” and “False Designation of Origin” claims are NOT barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
Sunday, March 30th, 2008This decision provides a mechanism for the victim of social networking bad actors to pursue a claim for damages against the site hosting the damaging material. A media account of the suit, captioned Jane Doe v. Friendfinder Network, Inc., explains:
A woman who lives somewhere near Dartmouth College is suing an online sex site, claiming it identified her in her area even though a nude photograph purporting to be her was not.
The woman, suing under the pseudonym “Jane Doe,” says her bogus profile had been on the site for more than a year when someone in her circle of friends told her they had believed it was her and had been discussing it.
The profile on [Adult Friend Finder dot com], which bills itself as the world’s largest community for sex and swingers, said she was seeking “men or women for erotic chat/e-mail/phone fantasies and discreet relationship.”
The profile was of a 40-year-old in the Upper Connecticut River Valley area who had recently separately from her husband, according to the U.S. District Court lawsuit against Friendfinder Network Inc. and Various Inc., an affiliated company.
The woman said all she knows about the creator of the bogus “petra03755″ profile – created in June 2005 – is he or she did it using the computer network at Dartmouth College in Hanover, whose zip code is 03755.
A federal judge this week threw out some of the woman’s claims, saying the companies are protected by a 12-year-old federal law that protects Internet service providers and interactive sites from liability for false postings by others. U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante’s refusal to dismiss all the claims under the Communications Decency Act was an unusual first-round victory for a plaintiff. …
The judge explicitly criticized and rejected the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Perfect 10 v. CC Bill (see also), writing:
Thus, even if it were free to disregard the plain language of § 230(e)(2), this court cannot accept the defendants’ claim at oral argument that allowing state-law intellectual property claims to survive the CDA would have a “devastating” impact on the internet. Despite the general consensus before the Perfect 10 decision that the CDA did not shield service providers from state intellectual property law, both the internet and so-called “e-commerce” remain alive and well, and show no signs of imminent collapse.
Via Anthony Falzone. When I find a direct link to the opinion I’ll post one.
–Ann Bartow
Update: Thanks to the Stanford Center for Internet & Society, the opinion is available here.
“The pop star also held the 3-month-old daughter of a 22-year-old woman who was sold by her father to a brothel and is now HIV-positive. The woman broke down in tears as she urged Martin to keep fighting against human trafficking.”
Saturday, March 29th, 2008That’s an excerpt from this article.
Knit Heart
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
Live Blog Report: Law, Culture and Humanities
Friday, March 28th, 2008I am at the Law, Culture, and the Humanities conference this weekend. The conference is being co-sponsored by UC-Berkeley and San Francisco State University, and it is being held at Boalt Hall (i.e., what is now being referred to as the “UC-Berkeley School of Law”).
This morning I attended a very interesting session titled “Social Justice Feminism: Words, Movements, Theory, and Practice.” Feminist Law Profs Verna Williams and Kristin Kalsem (both of the University of Cincinnati—notwithstanding SSRN’s insistence that Kristin is “unaffiliated”) presented a paper that they are working on together. The paper is titled “Social Justice Feminism: History and Principles”— an abstract and a copy of the paper can be viewed/downloaded from SSRN here. In their presentation, they described the principles of social justice feminism and its methodologies, using the U.S. Supreme Court’s generally overlooked decision in Long Island Care at Home v. Coke as an example. The presentation, which included video clips from the 1977 National Women’s Conference, was quite interesting, and the paper promises to be very interesting.
After this first session, I was on a panel with Bennett Capers (Hofstra), who presented a paper titled “Cross-Dressing and the Criminal” (available here). This presentation was fascinating because Bennett didn’t talk about the criminalization of cross-dressing, but about how cross-dressing can be used as a metaphor in criminal law. He suggested that judges, prosecutors, and jury members question the bases for their decisions by imagining whether they would come to the same decision were the defendant of a different race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. One of my other co-panelists, Anne Bloom (McGeorge) had a great paper titled “The Regulation of Sexual Identity in Tort Law,” which examines the role of tort law in enforcing and reproducing cultural/legal norms that determine sexual identity. In her talk, Anne had some quite interesting things to say about this issue in the area of products liability and, particularly, as it relates to breast implant litigation. My last co-panelist was Hadar Aviram (Hastings), who presented a paper with the catchy title “Geeks, Goddesses, Leather and Heinlein: Political Mobilization and the Cultural Locus of the Polyamorous Community in the San Francisco Bay Area.” She described the results of her interviews with members of that community and some of the conclusions that she drew from her research.
In the afternoon, I made it to the panel where Feminist Law Prof Darren Rosenblum (Pace) was presenting his paper titled “Unsexing CEDAW.” His paper, which argues that the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women should not focus on “women” as such and treat them as a discrete and insular minority, but should instead focus on gender and cover both men and women, generated quite a bit of discussion in the room.
I’ll try to blog from the conference again tomorrow.
-Anthony C. Infanti
Third Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution
Friday, March 28th, 2008“Equality Now welcomes the release of Mokarrameh Ebrahimi from prison in Iran following the suspension of her stoning sentence.”
Friday, March 28th, 2008From the FLP Mailbox:
“On 18 March 2008, the Judicial Commission for Amnesty in Iran ordered the release from prison of Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, a woman sentenced to death for adultery. Both Mokarrameh and her partner Jafar Kiani were originally scheduled to be stoned to death on 21 June 2007 for adultery. Equality Now issued an urgent appeal to stop the stonings. International advocacy appeared to have an effect as their sentences were suspended in the eleventh hour by a written order of the head of the judiciary in Tehran . Two weeks following the order, however, Iranian judiciary spokesperson Alireza Jamshidi announced in Tehran that Kiani’s sentence of stoning had been carried out on 5 July 2007. There were fears that the same fate would befall Mokarrameh. Until her recent amnesty she remained in prison on charges of adultery where she had spent a number of years along with her son who was born in prison.
“Equality Now would like to thank all of our Women’s Action Network members who took action on behalf of Mokarrameh. In spite of a moratorium on stoning issued in 2002 by Ayatollah Shahroudi, head of the Iranian judiciary, judges continue to hand down stoning sentences, in particular and disproportionately to women, for adultery. Equality Now continues to campaign for the commutation of all sentences of death by stoning and for the removal of all laws that discriminate against women, including those relating to fornication and adultery.
“We remain concerned for Zohreh and Azar Kabiri and Kobra Najjar, among others, who have been sentenced to stoning. Please contact Iran’s Head of Judiciary Ayatollah Shahroudi urging him to release Kobra Najjar with immediate effect (see this website). Please do the same for Zohreh and Azar Kabiri (see this website) and for all others sentenced to this cruel and inhuman punishment. Iran must comply with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and ban the practice of stoning, as well as recognize that adultery is a private act that should not incur criminal penalties.”
Moe at Jezebel asks: “How Many 8-Year-Olds Have To Get Bikini Waxes Before We All Agree The Terrorists Have Won?”
Friday, March 28th, 2008You might want to remove your nipple jewelry before you travel by air.
Friday, March 28th, 2008Michael J. Higdon, “Queer Teens and Legislative Bullies: The Cruel and Invidious Discrimination Behind Heterosexist Statutory Rape Laws”
Friday, March 28th, 2008Abstract:
Most states make an exception to their statutory rape laws for sexual acts involving an adolescent victim, who is below the age of consent, when the defendant is close in age to the victim (i.e., generally no older than three or four years). However, a few states explicitly limit such exceptions (commonly referred to as Romeo and Juliet exceptions) to only those situations involving teens who are of the opposite gender. Thus, adolescents in these states who have sex with someone below the age of consent, and who are also the same gender as the defendant, cannot avail themselves to the exception.As a result, these teens are faced with felony convictions, large fines and mandatory sex offender registration – penalties that would not attach had the victim been the opposite gender. My article argues that such disparate treatment is not only cruel, but is also invidious discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause given that these laws serve primarily to stigmatize LGBT adolescents, a class of individuals that is already one of the most stigmatized and at-risk groups in American society.
Downloadable here. Via the Sexual Orientation and the Law Blog.
There are seventeen different types of lawyers…
Friday, March 28th, 2008…at least according to the Legal Underground.
“Workplace bullies and the academy”
Friday, March 28th, 2008Historiann has an interesting post with this title here. She notes that “women victimizing women” surfaces as a problem. She also trenchantly observes that academics can work around bullies easier than people in other occupational environments, writing:
The only exception to this is if your bully happens to be someone of importance in your field–but this is probably unusual: by definition, people who are important in their field spend their time writing books, working with students, and hobnobbing at conferences with other people important in their field. In general, they don’t have the time, let alone the inclination, to try to mess with someone else’s career. In my experience, the bullies weren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, to put it charitably. They weren’t terribly productive scholars or successful teachers, which is probably why they felt so intimidated by smart young things who were clearly going places. So, they chose to make their post-tenure careers as hall monitors rather than as scholars. [Emphasis added.]
My own experiences with female bosses and “superiors” have been very positive. In my view most of the (small number of) women who entered law teaching in the 1970s did a fantastic job of bringing new women into the field, and mentoring them. That’s the main reason the number of women law professors increased as much as it did. Sure we have miles to go before we reach anything approaching parity in the profession, but it was primarily the efforts of women law professors that got a lot of us in the door, as well as through the tenure slog. To this day, when I need help or advice, the law profs I turn to and whom I most trust, as both friends and mentors, are mostly women. Law may be different than other fields in this regard. I’m glad it was for me, anyway.
Historiann’s conclusion that the worst bullies on a faculty tend to be the underachieving losers, however, sounds spot on to me.
–Ann Bartow
Another Travel Story, This One Involving a U.S. Attorney
Thursday, March 27th, 2008Traveling to and from Columbia, SC by air often requires two planes. So I’ve spent a lot of “layover” time in airports. Because Fort Jackson, “the largest and most active Initial Entry Training Center in the United States” is located in Columbia, and because the Army flies new recruits in via commercial airlines, I’m used to having nervous young people waiting with me in airline terminals ask me if I live in Columbia, and when I answer affirmatively, ask me about the city and about Fort Jackson. Yesterday I got the same questions from an older man who was flying to Columbia from Wyoming, where he worked on rigs as an oil driller, to Columbia to attend his daughter’s graduation from Basic Training at Fort Jackson. He interrupted this chat to meet his sister’s plane, as she was flying in from Arkansas to attend the graduation as well. He returned with her, and the three of us had a really pleasant conversation about many things. Neither of them had a computer or knew how to use one, so I pulled out my laptop and helped them research hotel reservations and car rental information. They were extremely nice people. They offered to buy me coffee, but I declined and they went off in search of it, and I began checking my e-mail. One of my messages contained a link to the webcast of a law conference I had recently attended. I began listening to it. I didn’t have any headphones with me, so I tried to keep the volume low. But I have been suffering from a head cold that has been making my ears stuffy, so maybe it was louder than I think it was. I don’t know.
After a couple of minutes I asked the people sitting in my row of chairs if the webcast was disturbing them. They said no. Maybe they were just being polite. It didn’t occur to me to ask the people sitting behind me if the webcast was disturbing them. I wish it had. My friends from Wyoming and Arkansas returned with their coffee and sat next to me. We started chatting again and I left the webcast droning on in the background, unthinkingly. Suddenly a woman sitting behind me stood up and thumped me on the shoulder, hard. “EXCUSE ME!” she shouted, “ARE YOU GOING TO THE NAC?” The NAC (pronounced “knack”) is the National Advocacy Center, located in Columbia. A lot of government lawyers travel to Columbia to attend training sessions at the NAC.
“No,” I said. “WELL I AM THE U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE ____ DISTRICT OF ______ AND THE LAW TAPES YOU ARE LISTENING TO ARE DISTURBING PEOPLE!” She did not leave blanks. She specified the district and the state. Loudly. Clearly I was supposed to be impressed and intimidated. I immediately shut off the webcast and apologized. This was not good enough.
“I WOULD NEVER ALLOW AN ATTORNEY WHO WORKED FOR ME TO LISTEN TO LAW TAPES IN A PUBLIC PLACE. I AM THE U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE ____ DISTRICT OF ______ AND I THINK YOUR BEHAVIOR IS HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE,” she continued. It dawned on me that she thought I had been listening to a deposition or some other confidential or at least quasi confidential legal proceeding. “The webcast was of a public lecture,” I explained, “given at a law school, to an audience of mostly academics and law students, but also open to the public. It didn’t contain anything confidential,” I said. I tried hard to sound polite, I really did.
“WELL IT WAS DISTURBING PEOPLE. TWO PEOPLE MOVED THEIR SEATS BECAUSE OF YOU, AND BECAUSE I AM THE U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE ____ DISTRICT OF ______, I THOUGHT I OUGHT TO INTERVENE,” she boomed.
I apologized again, and my friends from Wyoming and Arkansas rather effusively thanked me for all the kindness I had shown them, I think to get the U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE ____ DISTRICT OF ______ to back off, and it worked. Did I mention how nice those folks were? I couldn’t resist googling “U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE ____ DISTRICT OF ______” and there she was. The hairstyle had changed somewhat but the face was the same. And I had to wonder: What kind of person decides she has to announce her job title, loudly and repeatedly, before asking a complete stranger to turn down the sound on her computer? Answer: A person who abuses her power. And guess what? A little more googling revealed that the U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE ____ DISTRICT OF ______, a Bush appointee, has been accused of doing just that, in a political situation I was already aware of, and now will be following with even more interest.
–Ann Bartow
A Riff on Yale’s “Sex Week”
Thursday, March 27th, 2008Feminist Law Prof Beverly Moran Named ACE Fellow
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
Congratulations to Feminist Law Prof Beverly Moran (Vanderbilt), who has been named as a Fellow of the American Council on Education for the 2008-2009 academic year. The Fellows Program is “the nation’s premier higher education leadership development program in preparing senior leaders to serve American colleges and universities.” Vanderbilt’s press release is here.
Professor Moran’s article with William Whitford, A Black Critique of the Internal Revenue Code, 4 Wisconsin Law Review 751 (1996), rocked my world when I read it more than 10 years ago, and I see something new every time I read it again.
-Bridget Crawford
“Feminism … does appear to afford women a more inclusive perception of who is physically attractive.”
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Well of course they are scissors!
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Here. Via bobc.
New major study on gender and the pay gap between faculty women and men.
Wednesday, March 26th, 20085th Annual Symposium on IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections, in DC on April 4th
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008On April 4, 2008, American University Washington College of Law will host its 5th Annual symposium on IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections. The symposium will take place at the WCL campus, 4801 Massachusetts Ave NW , room 528, 10am-4pm. Lunch will be served to all registered participants.In the Spring of 2004, the WCL Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Women and the Law Program and Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law sponsored the initial effort to bring scholars together to focus interdisciplinary attention on the interplay between intellectual property and gender. In that first year, a group of scholars who study intellectual property law or feminist theory, most of whom had not previously analyzed the connections between their disciplines, began a process of mapping the contours of a path of exploration. The workshop primarily occurred behind closed doors and operated as an intense brainstorming session abut what future work in this area might become.
The following year, we built on the discussions from that first workshop by holding a public program highlighting the work of two scholars writing in this emerging area, Ann Bartow and Sonia Katyal. These two scholars published their work in the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the Law, which has remained a steady partner of the symposium in the years since. In 2006 and 2007, the symposium expanded into full-day workshops with multiple presentations by scholars applying feminist theory insights to the full range of intellectual property doctrines and policies. Scholars have used the forum to develop ideas on the impact on intellectual property on gender-related imbalances in wealth, cultural access, political power, and social control; to explore relations between creative production and gender; to analyze the effects of stereotyping and feminization and masculinization of intellectual property stakeholders; to uncover the gendered development of IP doctrines and doctrinal categories; and to apply feminist jurisprudential insights to the teaching and practicing of intellectual property law. This year, the IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections Symposium will be the grandest yet, featuring fifteen presenters or commenters from two continents, open to the public and webcast live here. The full schedule of panels, links to past articles and other information can be found here.
–Vicki Phillips
Gender and Surrogacy, 1
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008[I cross post from my blog, Related Topics, from time to time. I haven't done that in a while, but I'm working my way round to a topic that might be of interest. Here's the latest post.]
I’ve been skirting this topic for a time, in part because there is so much to say it is hard to know how to begin. Plus, so much excellent analysis is already out there. Nevertheless, here goes. This takes me back to my recent thread on surrogacy. (I know there have been a lot of “current events” type items recently–it’s just the way the world is.)
Some time ago I wrote about an obvious asymmetry. Women and men are differentially situated with regard to the process by which babies are born. Pregnancy, as a uniquely female experience (though not a universal one), must be accounted for even though it should not be over-emphasized. (Pregnancy does not make women uniquely qualified to be parents. Women are not better parents because (most) women can become pregnant.) So how does this matter in surrogacy? Several ways.
The seller (or vendor?) in surrogacy is always female. Obvious, right? And, as I’ve noted before, for commercial surrogacy to be viable, the woman who gives birth cannot be considered a parent. Thus, commercial surrogacy requires pregnancy (that uniquely female experience) to be disconnected from parenthood. I’ve made much the same point before, but it’s helpful sometimes to say the same thing in different ways and in different contexts. Commercial surrogacy ought to be of particular concern to women/feminists because it requires devaluing something that only women can do.
There’s a flip side to this, of course. Once you disconnect pregnancy from parenthood it becomes a service that can be bought and sold. Thus, women now are able to receive payment for this uniquely female ability. In other words, you could view commercial surrogacy as freeing women to make the most of their unique capabilities. Otherwise you leave women in a position where they can give their services away (as in altruistic or compassionate surrogacy) but cannot sell them.
This isn’t a new debate. It’s part of a larger debate over commodification–what can be bought and sold. Perhaps everything should be up for purchase. But it is hard to read the recent stories on outsourced surrogacy and not conclude that there is a dark side to the pro-commodification argument. There’s an inevitability to the race to the bottom–women who will bear your child for less, because they live in impoverished circumstances or in cultures where women’s employment options are restricted. While I might well understand the individual choices particular women in particular circumstances are making, it’s harder and harder to condone a system that creates those circumstances.
But my purpose here is not to resolve the broad debate about commodification. I just want to raise and frame the ways in which sex difference plays itself out in surrogacy.
You’ll notice I included “1″ in the title of this post. That’s because it is clear there is much more to say. Point 1 is that the seller/vendor is always female and she is always selling something that only women can offer.
–Julie Shapiro (cross posted to Related Topics)
Toward “a more systematic exercise regimen for the professoriat…”
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Check out the intellectual exercises listed in this post at The Little Professor.
Verna L. Williams and Kristin Kalsem, “Social Justice Feminism”
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Abstract:
For the past three years, women leaders from national groups, grassroots organizations, academia and beyond have gathered to address dissonance in the women’s movement, particularly dissatisfaction with the movement’s emphasis on women privileged on account of their race, class, or sexuality. At these meetings of the New Women’s Movement Initiative (NWMI), advocates who no longer want to do feminism have articulated a desire for social justice feminism. This article analyzes what such a shift might mean for feminist practice and legal theory.
Drawing on history, specifically the work of the women behind the Brandeis brief in the Muller v. Oregon workers’ hours’ restriction case and the National Women’s Conference of 1977, this article takes initial steps at broadly defining social justice feminism as that which is productive, constructive, and healing. Moving from practice to theory, it suggests a new way of articulating and understanding the feminist work that is being done in this current stage of feminist jurisprudence, after the path-breaking interventions of anti-essentialism and intersectionality. This article also sets forth certain methodological tools for doing social justice feminism and then uses them to examine the recent Supreme Court case, Long Island Care at Home v. Coke, a case upholding the lack of wage protections for certain domestic workers.
With this article, we hope to advance the conversation that has already begun, both in the world of practice as evidenced by the work of the NWMI, as well as the world of feminist legal theory. Social justice brings to feminism a particular emphasis on fairness and transformation; it is a modification that signals change. At this critical time, with efforts to exacerbate the divides of race and gender, social justice feminism provides a new paradigm for talking about and examining these and other issues that threaten movements dedicated to dismantling oppression and bettering people’s lives.
Let’s Hear About Feminist Law Profs Who Are Extraordinary Law Teachers
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008From Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz (Washburn), this notice and call for participation in his study of “extraordinary law teachers”:
Having signed a contract with Harvard University Press to publish What the Best Law Teachers Do in 2011, I have the extraordinary opportunity to conduct a law professor-focused, follow-up study to Ken Bain’s wonderful What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004).
I have three goals:
- to find the best law teachers in America,
- to synthesize the principles by which they teach as an ethic to which I (and my colleagues in legal education) can aspire, and
- to share these principles and stories of these brilliant teachers.
I hope what I produce inspires you as much as Bain’s work has inspired me. I have adopted Bain’s qualitative methodology. I will
- solicit nominations,
- gather evidence of nominees’ excellence,
- pare the list to the most extraordinary law teachers, and then
- visit law schools around the country, sitting in on classes, interviewing the nominees, and
- talking to focus groups of students and alumni.
I hope to complete my research over the next two and a half years, producing What the Best Law Teachers Do by January 2011.
On this web site, you will find
- a more detailed description of my project,
- an online form for submitting nominations,
- a list of nominees and what their nominators had to say about them,
- information about the teaching and learning resources that influenced this project,
- some information about my interest in teaching and learning, and
- additional information about this project.
Cat v. Door
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008I love how after the cat gets the door open she doesn’t actually want to go OUT. See also this, this, this and this. If those critters had opposable thumbs they would definitely be running the world.
The Cucumber Incident.
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Watch this and see what you think. Just so you know what you are in for before you click the link, the title of the post is
“Grandma Rapes Granddaughter’s Abuser With A Gourd”
In Defense of the Social-Networking Profs
Monday, March 24th, 2008Professors in cyberspace are receiving some unflattering attention (blogged here), but being a prof on Facebook and other social networking sites does not automatically put one in the Faculty Who Share Too Much Information category. I find Facebook an easy way to keep in touch with alumni, and I’ve discovered some interesting groups Like “Feminist Bloggers Unite!” (here) and the International Association for Feminist Economics (here).
-Bridget Crawford
Rebecca Walker on “Why Feminists Stink and I Hate Them”
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008Okay, that isn’t the exact title, but it might just as well be. Among many other things, I wonder what she means by “this generation.” I’m younger than Barack Obama and only five years older than Walker herself, but still no doubt too old for her “young people” preferences and should probably just die now, or something. And when she writes: “Perhaps a Feminism that has not responded to the needs of its constituents needs to die,” I wonder how and why it is that calling oneself a feminist burdens one with “constituents” whose “needs” she is supposed to “respond to.” What exactly is it she thinks Feminism owes her, and why?
–Ann Bartow
A Gender Comparison of Professors of Comparative Law vs. Human Rights Law vs. Immigration Law at New York City Law Schools
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
The Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers has many lists, including compilations of professors’ self-reported teaching fields. The AALS also issues a regular Statistical Report on Law Facultry (2006-2007 version here) that contains all sorts of interesting factoids, including the gender breakdown of teachers by subject matter. According to the Statistical Report 2006-2007 (here), men and women are 65.1% and 34.9% respectively of all full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty members.
I was browsing the AALS directory for another reason, and the list of Immigration Law teachers caught my eye. There were many more women listed than I expected. That inspired me to look for precise data on the gender breakdown of teachers of Immigration Law and (what I considered to be) the “related” fields of Comparative Law and Human Rights Law. Here is what I found out for those three fields:
- Of Comparative Law faculty members, 28 out of 30 (93.3%) are male; 2 out of 30 (6.7%) are female.
- Of Human Rights Law faculty members, 120 out of 192 (62.5%) are male; 72 out of 192 (37.5%) are female.
- Of Immigration Law faculty members, 91 out of 172 (53%) are male; 81 out of 172 (47%) are female.
I do not follow these areas closely; the data surprised me. I find it curious that the gender division of teachers of Human Rights Law – but not the other two fields – generally tracks the gender split in the overall profession.
I then looked at the gender breakdown in these fields at my home institution, and compared it to other area schools. Would the data for my school track or deviate from the national or local statistics? Here are the results:
| Comparative Law men/women |
Human Rights Law men/women |
Immigration Law men/women |
|
| Brooklyn | 1/1 |
0 |
0/1 |
| Columbia | 12/2 |
4/0 |
0 |
| Fordham | 3/1 |
2/1 |
0/3 |
| Hofstra | 4/1 |
0/1 |
0/1 |
| NYLS | 4/2 |
1/1 |
0/1 |
| NYU | 9/2 |
2/2 |
0/2 |
| Pace | 2/0 |
0/1 |
0/1 |
| St. John’s | 2/1 |
0 |
0/1 |
| Yeshiva | 1/1 |
0/1 |
0 |
Aggregate Data from NY-Area Law Schools:
| Comparative | Human Rights | Immigration | |
| Total men/women | 38/11 | 9/7 | 0/10 |
| Total number | 49 | 16 | 10 |
| Percent men/women | 77.6/22.4 | 56.3/43.7 | 0/100 |
The data would appear to be mostly, but not entirely, accurate. I know of one NY-area, full-time male professor who teaches Human Rights Law but does not appear in the AALS listing. And, of course, the sample is undoubtedly too small to be representative. The data may have other errors. That being said, wow! Women are 100% of the tenured or tenure-track facultry teaching Immigration Law in the NY area? This was not the result I expected.
Why the disproportionate number of male Comparative Law teachers? Why the disproportionate number of female Immigration Law teachers? Is Comparative Law considered a “difficult” subject (like Tax), but Immigration Law is a “soft” subject (like ?), so women are more likely to teach the “soft” subject? Is Immigration Law more commonly associated with clinicial work? Is Immigration Law seen as “helping” field and but Comparative Law is a “theoretical” field? How does Human Rights Law fit into this paradigm? I was under the anecdotal impression that Immigration Law was becoming more popular with students. But, did I hear that from female professors (and students)?
-Bridget Crawford
Difficult to read and comprehend: “Instead of scorn or silence, female students need to offer support to peers who are dealing with rape”
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008In this Letter to the Editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian, the anonymous author writes:
… During my junior year, I found myself suddenly thrust into a relationship with a reasonably attractive and yes, popular athlete from a neighboring high school. Obviously, it didn’t last (and neither did my virginity). But what should have ended neatly instead turned into weeks of mute suffering and months of extreme depression.
The facts were simple. He came over after the breakup, wanting gratification, which I was less inclined to provide. I was the weaker sex. He apologized. I forgave. Pause, rewind, play. Repeat for three months.
I told no one. The traditional aspects of my heritage dictated that dating without intention of marriage was tantamount to prostitution, and so I decided that any alternative was preferable to having my parents discover the truth.
As a result, word spread that I was a willing participant in these acts, that I was a straight-A whore. I did nothing to dispel the rumors; if anything, I condoned them.
I didn’t particularly care about my reputation among random folk; my friends were the jury that actually mattered. These girls were similar to me, each with a course-load stacked high with AP classes, each with ambitions of medical or law school. But with promiscuity frowned upon by the academic set, my odds of winning the case were clearly slim. A few weeks later, the verdict on me came out: guilty on all counts of sluttiness.
The combination of physical defilement and emotional abandonment pushed me into a deep state of depression. I hit rock bottom when I purchased a box of sleeping pills with the intent to consume them all.
In the end, however, hope won out. But the damage couldn’t be undone.
While my female friendships weren’t severed, they turned into mere facades of true loyalty. Curiously enough, I didn’t encounter the same type of cold condemnation from any of my male friends.
From then on, I became wary of my own gender, hesitant to place trust in the mercurial alliances of women. Even now, my roommates are male. …
I have to admit, I don’t understand what happened to the author. Is she saying that a former boyfriend raped her repeatedly over a three month period? And that in consequence, her female friends thought she was a slut because she “condoned” rumors that she was? I am struggling to comprehend what happened, and how things could have been made better. I don’t wonder idly. Students disclose bad sexual experiences on a depressingly regular basis. There are a variety of responses I can suggest, depending on the situation. Here I am at a loss.
She’s obviously feeling a lot of pain. I’m sorry she didn’t get the support she needed. I hope she receives it now.
–Ann Bartow
“JK Rowling admits having had ’suicidal thoughts’”
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008Props to Rowling for discussing this here. Below is an excerpt:
… Rowling and her first husband, Portuguese journalist Jorge Arantes, had their daughter Jessica in 1993 but split up several months later.
The author, now 42, said the end of the three-year marriage plunged her into despair.
“We’re talking suicidal thoughts here, we’re not talking ‘I’m a little bit miserable.’”
She said she sought treatment from her regular doctor, but he was away and the replacement doctor failed to take her problems seriously.
When her own doctor returned to work, she re-read the case notes and prescribed cognitive behavioural therapy, which typically involves sessions with a counsellor to help patients counter negative thoughts.
“She absolutely saved me because I don’t think I would have had the guts to go and do it twice,” Rowling said.
The author, whose seven books about the boy wizard have sold more than 350 million copies worldwide, said she was happy to talk about mental health problems to counter the stigma associated with depression.
“What’s to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that,” she said. …
Happy Birthday E.!
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
We were teenagers but the drinking age in New York at the time was 18, and though none of us had yet reached that benchmark, a few had drivers’ licenses and cars, so we were able to gain access and admission to a rural dive bar that needed our babysitting money fueled business. And so it came to pass that on this very date, in the late 1970s, a large group of proto-feminist female friends (I’m using “females” to punt the girls v. women question, some of us were but 15) presented our friend E. with a very special battery powered birthday present, but we wouldn’t allow her to open it until a few pitchers of beer had been consumed, and this song was playing on the jukebox.
–Ann Bartow
Victor Ricciardi, “The Financial Psychology of Worry and Women”
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Abstract:
This paper provides a review of significant academic studies and non-academic research endeavors in the realm of negative emotions (with an emphasis on worry), gender, and decision making. The author encourages behavioral finance researchers to place greater attention into the development of new research studies and academic papers in the area of negative affect (feelings, emotions, moods). The financial psychology literature on gender and worry documents the emerging hypothesis that researchers should explore is women reveal greater degrees of worry than their male counterparts for different categories of financial services and investment products.
Downloadable here. Far outside my area of expertise, but I found the descriptions of all the studies that have been done interesting.
–Ann Bartow
“Good Faith” – A NYT Review of Martha Nussbaum’s new book, “Liberty of Conscience” by Emily Bazelon
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Read Bazelon’s review here.
Learn more about the book at sites such as Amazon.com or Powell’s:
In this engrossing history of the religion clauses of the First Amendment, Nussbaum (Cultivating Humanity) makes a strong, thoroughgoing case for America as a haven of religious liberty for believers of all stripes. Beginning with an illuminating rehabilitation of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams as America’s earliest defender of religious equality, Nussbaum continues by examining how Williams’s ideals have been both upheld and abandoned throughout the nation’s history. After detailing the adoption of the establishment and free exercise clauses, Nussbaum comments at length on how these fairly general, vague clauses have been fleshed out by more than two centuries of case law. Refreshingly, Nussbaum does not add to the acrimonious cacophony around the idea of separation of church and state. Rather than pushing for strict separation, she argues for what philosopher John Rawls calls overlapping consensus, which echoes Williams’s belief that citizens who differ greatly on matters of ultimate meaning can still agree to respect each other’s liberty of conscience. Nussbaum writes engagingly and with generosity; her critiques, particularly those of opinions written by Justices Scalia and Thomas, are pointed but respectful, and she demonstrates warm regard for Supreme Court plaintiffs who have braved persecution as they have followed the dictates of conscience.
(NB: This blog DOES NOT have any sort of relationship with Amazon.com. Or with Powell’s. By all means buy it at your local independent bookseller!)
You can watch a YouTube clip of Nussbaum speaking on this subject and about her new book here – highly recommended!
Yet Another Squicky Bacon Post
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008You can read about bacon walnut toffee here, where there are even photos. I’ve been a vegetarian for about 22 years now, and for me the two hardest things to give up were pepperoni and bacon. There is no palatable substitute for pepperoni that I have found, (though thinly sliced dill sandwich pickles go nicely on pizza) but there are actually plenty of soy “bacon like” products that are quite delicious. Tonight, after I prepared a wonderful dessert of strawberry shortcake, I inexplicably decided (stop reading here if you are repulsed by unusual food combinations, I mean it) to lightly sprinkle some soy “baco” bits over the whipped topping, for which I blame the subliminal powers of the recent bacon fetish of this blog. It was delicious.
Recipe: Prefabricated “shortcake” shells (my grandmother would have used biscuits she had made from scratch, including eggs from her own chickens, and milk from her own cows, slathered with butter she had churned herself, however my neighborhood homeowner’s association does not currently allow residents to raise farm animals), sliced strawberries, and whipped topping, sprinkled with soy “bacon” bits. Use a light hand because the smoke flavor dominates quickly.
Sorry if that made anybody nauseous.
–Ann Bartow
12th Carnival of Radical Feminists
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Legal Ruralism Blog
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
Feminist Law Prof Lisa Pruitt (UC Davis) has a new blog, Legal Ruralism. Professor Pruitt’s article, Towards a Feminist Theory of the Rural (available here) was published in the Utah Law Review last year. Here is a portion of the abstract:
Feminists have often criticized law’s ignorance of women’s day-to-day, lived experiences, even as they have sought to reveal the variety among those experiences. This article builds on both critiques to argue for greater attentiveness to a neglected aspect of women’s situation: place. Specifically, Professor Pruitt asserts that the hardships and vulnerability that mark the lives of rural women and constrain their moral agency are overlooked or discounted by a contemporary cultural presumption of urbanism. This Article considers judicial responses to the realities of rural women’s lives in relation to three legal issues: intimate abuse, termination of parental rights, and abortion….Drawing on rural sociology and economics, as well as from judicial opinions, Pruitt argues that the combination of features that constitute rural America seriously disadvantages rural women. She further maintains that this disadvantage is aggravated when society’s prevailing urban perspective obscures legal recognition of the rural.
The article is thoughtful and thought-provoking. Until reading Pruitt’s work, I had not considered how geographically situated law can be. I recommend the article and the blog.-Bridget Crawford
Hillary, Ireland and Just Showing Up
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Writing here for the Women’s Media Center, Irish writer Nuala O’ Faolain rebuts the statement by David Trimble that Hillary Clinton’s participation in the Northern Ireland peace proces was “silly.” O’Faolin describes how Irish women were marginalized from both official and grass-roots peace efforts:
About 95 percent of all the women in Northern Ireland were outside every loop. No one took any notice of women’s attempts at activism.
What Hillary did to transform matters was turn up. She turned up. She turned up with hope and energy to a city which, when I moved there in 1998, was leaving one murdered Catholic a week just on my street, merely to keep the level of intimidation going. A city where women were almost all tribally opposed to each other….
It may sound small to people now that what she came for was a woman’s conference on one occasion and a lecture on another, that she knew people’s names and histories and took note of them—and was no doubt sometimes lied to and misled and laughed at by women as well as men (outsiders often strike skeptical locals as simpleminded).
But she kept turning up anyway.
It was not small what she did.
Not small at all….
Even today, when it is all over, I don’t know whether even Hillary Rodham Clinton knows how much someone like me thanks her—how aware I still am of what her bright, friendly, caring presence meant, when despair was very near.
In some academic circles, it’s chic to claim that gender does not matter in a brave, new, post-identitarian world. To the twenty-first century law student, that message translates to mean that a person need not resemble us in any particular way (least of all race, gender-identity, ethnicity, class, etc.) in order to be an effective role model. I generally agree with that notion, but I might qualify it a bit: gender doesn’t matter unless there is no gender diversity. In other words, I can and will identify with male Professor A as a role model, based on mutual interests and temperament, but that identification is facilitated by having many different role models to choose from.
This article about Senator Clinton in Northern Ireland reminded me that even if gender (sometimes) doesn’t matter, power always matters. Thinking from the perspective of my students, it matters to them that their professors show up to their events – whether the moot court finals, an admitted-students’ reception, a guest lecture or graduation. Because by showing up, we say, “We care about you. We are interested in what you are doing. We support you.”
Ok, so students are not like the embattled citizens of Northern Ireland, but bridging happened when Senator Clinton visited with women’s activist groups and it happens when we attend our students’ events. Just by showing up, those of us in (semi-) public positions of (semi-) power say a great deal, even when we don’t say much (or anything) at all. Admittedly, I do not attend all of the student events to which I am invited, and sometimes other responsibilities get in the way of my attending the events I really “should.” But I am reminded that just showing up can be a really big deal. It’s the fiftieth moot court I’ve been to, but it’s my students’ first.
-Bridget Crawford
What Women Lawyers Want Is For You To Stop Asking What We Want (and Do Your Own Laundry)
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008The New York State Bar Association has an on-line magazine called “The Complete Lawyer.” The most recent issue (available here) devotes plenty of megabytes to the question, “What Do Women Lawyers Really Want?” My first reaction to seeing the headline was, “Oh, no. Not this again.” Is what women want really such a mystery? I don’t think so.
Women want family leave and flexible schedules. We also want partners or family members who can help pick the kids up from school, do the laundry, pay the bills, plan the vacation, buy the birthday presents, get the car fixed, buy groceries, call the school back and find a nursing home for mom – all on the way to a meeting for which we are late.
We know what women want. The better article is about why we are not getting it. So I’d love to see the New York State Bar Association feature an article on, ”Why the Legal Profession Hasn’t Changed Much Yet (and May not be the Big Problem).”
The structure of the legal profession (especially the despised Big Law Firm) undoubtedly contributes to many women’s professional discontent. Until more women and men in positions of power avail themselves of the touted ”family-friendly” policies, they will remain policies, not practices. Also, law firms have a very simple profit structre: the more hours you work, the more money you make for the firm. What a young lawyer has to sell is her or his time, not expertise. And even in the case of the the senior lawyers who have extraordinary expertise, law firms aren’t that happy about footing the overhead and paying a big salary for the resident genius who doesn’t bill as much as the person sitting next to her or him.
But I doubt that the legal profession is the only factor, or even the main factor, in women lawyers’ professional discontent. The problem is not the job itself (although I’m all in favor of restructuring billing structures, compensation incentives, etc.). The problem is what women are expected to do when they are not engaged in paid labor. Women still work Arlie Hochschild’s second shift (and sometimes a third or fourth, too). Why are women not getting the help they want outside the paid labor force? Because in the overall scheme of things, men don’t gain much (in terms of economic or non-economic benefits) from helping them. Until it is desirable enough for men to engage in second- (and third- and fourth-) shift work, they won’t. Yoo-hoo, Aristophanes, how’d that Lysistrata thing go again?
-Bridget Crawford
Striking Back?
Friday, March 21st, 2008Today’s NYT has an article entitled “The Professor as Open Book” about the “Professors Strike Back” phenomenon, but only male professors are profiled. And nothing is mentioned about how or why “openness” might be different for a woman academic than it is for a male professor. Go to the actual site and there beneath a Hooters ad you will find clips about female entitled, “Good looking professor wants you to show pity for less attractive professors” and “Prof too smart to fall for student love slave” and Yo it’s “mou” not “meh”. Get your French insults right. She isn’t afraid to use peace signs and air hearts. Not really sure how this constitutes “striking back,” exactly.
Via Rebecca Tushnet.
“Turkey’s Political Tensions Weigh on Women’s Heads”
Friday, March 21st, 2008That’s the title of this essay by Yiga Schleifer about the headscarf issue in Turkey. Below is an excerpt:
… The issue has become especially contentious among Turkish women’s organizations. Some of the most vocal protests against the lifting of the headscarf ban have been led by women’s groups affiliated with Turkey’s secularist establishment. They are opposed by the country’s handful of Islamic women’s organizations. Stuck in the middle are Turkey’s unaffiliated women’s rights groups. So far, they have been only able to hold their own counsel.
“There is a lot of talk internally, but we have been silent on this issue,” said Pinar Ilkkaracan, founding president of the Istanbul-based Women for Women’s Human Rights, one of Turkey’s leading women’s advocacy groups. “We have not been able to come up with a clear position on the headscarf issue because we have not been able to come up with a common position with women activists in the Islamic movement.”
Over the last few years, organizations in Turkey’s women’s rights and Islamic movements have started developing closer relations. They worked together, for example, on pushing for expanded women’s rights in a new penal code passed by the Turkish parliament in 2004, which among other things imposes tougher sentences for the murder of women by their family members in “honor killings.”
But the polarizing effect of the head-scarf issue has been seen as a setback by female activists. …
