feminist blogs in english

New York Times

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: December 19, 2006

"Here in Poipet, I met a 27-year-old woman with AIDS, Tem Phok. She had been a prostitute in a brothel, so I assumed that that was how she contracted AIDS. "Oh, no" she said. "I got AIDS later, from my husband," who has already died.

"In the brothel, I always used condoms," she said. "But when I was married, I didn't use a condom. ... A woman with a husband is in much more danger than a girl in a brothel."

That's an exaggeration, but she has a point: It doesn't do much good for American officials to preach abstinence and fidelity in places where the big risk of contracting H.I.V. comes with marriage. In countries with a high prevalence of AIDS, just about the most dangerous thing a woman can do is to marry." [emphasis mine]

What is it going to take to get these Republicans and priests to understand that withholding information about condoms is tantamount to murder. Every policy they advocate regarding reproduction results in women's deaths. I'm sorry, but I don't think a teenager should pay for doing what teens are built to do with her life. 38% of girls and 46% of boys know nothing about birth control at the time of their first sexual encounter. That's appalling. And deadly.

A woman with an unplanned pregnancy doesn't deserve to risk death through birth or an illegal abortion. Married women don't deserve to die for the infidelities of their husbands. People have sexual contact for many reasons, and some of those reasons involve violence and oppression. This is a violent, misogynistic world full of women who don't have choices and risk being murdered for even the suspicion of "dishonor."

The United States should be leading the way in the fight against AIDS. We should be leading the campaign to stop violence against women, and forced birth, as well as withholding information and access to condoms is violence against women. A live human's rights comes before a theoretical human life every time.

Great post from Pandagon.

Click the link below.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson has written an intelligent piece on the Huffington Post about Black women in prison in the US.

I think that much of what is said in his article can be applied to Canada as well, with a particular emphasis on Aboriginal women instead.

Unfortunately, the tepid public debate over the consequence of locking up so many women is riddled with misconceptions. One is that women commit violent crimes for the same reasons that men do. They don't. Women are less likely than men to assault or murder strangers while committing crimes. Two-thirds of the women jailed assaulted or killed relatives or intimates. Their victims were often spouses, lovers, or boyfriends. In many cases they committed violence defending themselves against sexual or physical abuse.

I don't think that women are incapable of the same horrific acts of rape and murder that men are, but it's true that women are much less likely to do those things.

While in 2003‐2004, 41% of non‐Aboriginal prisoners are serving their sentences on conditional release in the community, only 31% of those on conditional release are Aboriginal.

Aboriginal women are over‐represented in the federal correctional system, representing only 2% of women in Canada and 29% of women in federal prisons in July, 2003. In July, 2003, 60% of Aboriginal women serving federal sentences were in prison.

Those facts from the Elizabeth Fry Society.