BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

If there was ever a good reason to get a plan together to get the U.S. out of Iraq in due time, the assault & rape of our women in uniform is a very good one. I am all for equality. I was born with a couple genetic problems that would have precluded me from joining the military. But my father, of blessed memory, was in the Army. My uncle, of blessed memory, was a Navy War Hero who was on a ship sunk by the Germans and spent some time in a military hospital after rescuing a number of men. My father in law, also of blessed memory, was in the Canadian Army and served in the U.K. during World War II, having done hand to hand combat with German soldier. There's a graveyard in Oxford, Mass. with gravestones with my last name on them - many of them fought as infantry and naval men during the Revolutionary War. I believe that while war is profane, defense is compulsory. And if you're an able bodied woman, who wants to serve their country via the military - I say - go for...

Lately, Obambi's really been into screwing - Israel, now women - again... This from the wonderful, insightful and must-read Uppity Woman: Hey NOW, NARAL, Ms. Magazine, Emily! Sorry, no free pen for you from this signing! I can’t find any publicity shots of the signing either, but I’ll bet Bart Stupak was there. If I find a photo of this sexist pig event, I’ll update. I’m sure it was a lovely occasion in honor of all those women who will die thanks to Barack Obama. Well, it’s done. Hey—! Maybe you could all write another scary press release or something. Ooooooooohhhhh, you are all sooooooooo powerful! The women who got their heads bashed in so you could throw away all of your rights bit by bit would be so proud. Go back to sleep now. Atta girlz! Hey Ms.! Maybe you could do a cover called This Is What A Coat Hanger Looks Like. There ya go! SOURCE

Using Sex for Political Messaging by Thia Lawson For me, this video reaches new heights in the creepy use of women’s sexuality. IF YOU ARE ON AN AGGREGATOR - CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS VIDEO Huh? Could this be any creepier? Does this remind anyone else of the recent creepy Reebok ad ? I know I keep using creepy as a descriptor, but until the hair on the back of my neck goes down, that’s the best I can do. CREEPY! This video is degrading to both women and men. The implication is that women are too stupid, lazy, or uninformed to argue issues and explain their position - better they just show their cleavage and threaten to withhold sex. In turn, Rock The Vote thinks men are so shallow and desperate for sex that they not only have no interest in what a woman has to say, but will change their most deeply held beliefs if you dazzle them with cleavage and the possibility of a little girl on girl action. Is there any place in the political debate where women aren’t either used as mindless sexua...

From THE NEW AGENDA by Amy Siskind An article posted yesterday in The Huffington Post proclaiming Obama Gets Gender Right in First 100 Days has many women seeing red. Here’s the author, C. Nicole Mason’s arguments: Obama lifted the global gag rule The first piece of legislation he signed into to law as President was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act Obama’s Cabinet is also chock full of extremely accomplished stateswomen and issue advocates. With two cabinet positions still open, Obama has appointed or nominated a total of eight women to his cabinet or to high-level positions. Less than a month shy of his 100 days, Obama created the White House Council for Women and Girls. I say this to Nicole - I’ll give you one of four. Yes, President Obama did appoint Valerie Jarrett to chair the newly created White House Council for Women and Girls. The New Agenda did speak out in The Daily Beast to cheer this action on. Of course, we’ve yet to hear a peep from this new Council. But, I ...

The bill passed by 61-36. We need to get a roll call to see which of our nation’s 36 senators voted against fair pay for women and to find out what their rationale was. They have a lot of explaining to do to their non-burqa wearing female constituents. Some of you ladies out there should expect to see a raise as your employers rush to head off any potential lawsuits. But there’s more to paycheck disparities than just discrimination: The Senate debate on Thursday reflected society’s debate. Civil and womens’ rights advocates hailed the new Ledbetter legislation, but others said it will leave companies vulnerable to potentially crippling lawsuits even though discrimination is only a small factor in the so-called “gender gap” between male and female earners. A 2007 report by the American Association of University Women found that when experience, training, education and other factors are weighed, discrimination accounts for only 5 percent of the earnings differential between male and fe...

by Ruth Eglash There has been a dramatic increase in the size and scope of Israel's feminist organizations over the past 18 years, with 69 different groups, including nine rape crisis centers and 14 battered women's shelters, currently operational. The information was revealed in the initial findings of a national report compiled by Dorit Abramovitz, director of projects and campaigns for the umbrella organization of feminist groups in Israel. The report, which was sponsored by the German-based Heinrich Boll Foundation, compares today's feminist landscape to that prior to 1990, when only 14 such organizations existed here. It also examines the wide range of feminist activism by Jewish and joint Jewish-Arab feminist organizations, and studies their effectiveness at improving the situation in general for women in Israel. Although the report will be published in full only next January, Abramovitz presented partial data on Thursday at the country's 16th National Confere...

Israel Intervenes to Capture PA Killer by Maayana Miskin Israeli forces entered territory policed by the Palestinian Authority this week in order to arrest a PA man accused of murdering his wife, an Israeli citizen. Israeli forces usually enter areas policed by the PA only to conduct counterterrorism operations, and leave fighting crime to the PA. The detainee, whose name has not been released, lived with his wife Nadra Samara Badran in the PA-controlled city of Shechem until two months ago, when Nadra fled from her husband to her hometown, the Israeli Arab city of Tira. Nadra, 29 years old and a mother to four, filed a complaint against her husband with Israeli police, accusing him of violently attacking her. Since the husband is not an Israeli citizen, police transferred the complaint to PA Police and asked them to restrain the husband. The complaint was ineffective: On October 29, just over a month after Nadra escaped her husband, he managed to infiltrate Tira, where he found his wi...

From the NY Times 7/19/08: A Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a “gratuitous, unnecessary insult” to women and faces tough opposition, Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Friday. Hillary Clinton: … joined family planning groups to condemn the proposal that defines abortion to include contraception such as birth control pills and intrauterine devices. It would cut off federal funds to hospitals and states where medical providers are obligated to offer legal abortion and contraception to women. “We will not put up with this radical, ideological agenda to turn the clock back on women’s rights, ” the New York senator told a joint news conference with New York Rep. Nita Lowey, also a Democrat, at Bellevue Hospital. “Women would watch their contraceptive coverage disappear overnight,” said Clinton. The planned rule is aimed at countering recent state laws enacted to ensure that women can get contraception when they want or need it. It...

Regulating Women What I see going on in the World today upsets me. Not as much for myself but for my children. It appears that battles fought and won need to be refought against those who are still having tantrums about losing their ability to control others - particularly - control women. I know men who would swear they aren't misogynists - but have some streaks of male domination in them that smell faint of eau de misogyny . I am including in that - those who think only men should be rabbis, those who think only men should run things, those who think only men should be in the military, men who prey on 'chicks' via pick-up lines - casual sex - use of prostitutes or multiple relationships at the same time, those who think only men can do certain jobs. I had an abortion. Two of them. One just before I left high school. I was barely 18 and was legal in my state at that time. I went alone because the guy had dumped me (no closure of course) after a long relationship and...

RELIGION OF (gag) PEACE - STRIKES A BLOW AT WOMEN'S RIGHTS... AGAIN (TEHRAN) Activists should not try to change Islamic laws relating to women's rights, Iran's supreme leader said on Wednesday, two days after one campaigner was reportedly sentenced to 34 months in jail and ten lashes. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also lambasted the West for using women as a tool to advertise products, make money and to satisfy "disorderly and unlawful sexual needs," state television said. He was addressing a group of women, most dressed conservatively in head-to-toe black chadors, in Tehran ahead of Thursday's anniversary of the birth of Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Fatima, when Iran honors mothers and women. Campaigners say Iranian women face difficulties in getting a divorce and criticize inheritance laws they say are unjust and the fact their court testimony is worth half that of a man's. The Islamic Republic rejects allegations it is discriminating against women, saying...

TWISTED ISLAMOFASCIST MISOGYNY “Women in some cultures are not averse to beatings, Allah permits it”. Well then, I think Allah needs feel some high heels in his privates. NOT AVERSE TO BEATINGS? Even animals don't like beatings and will turn on people who beat them. Women in Islamofascist-think are just supposed to churn out babies so these creeps can strap bombs to them and send them to kill Jews. If this is true, then Allah is a child-abuser, a woman-abuser and an IDIOT. The Quran, the Final Testament, said more than 1400 years ago, in verse 4:34. [ 4:34] The men are made responsible for the women, and GOD has endowed them with certain qualities, and made them the bread earners. The righteous women will cheerfully accept this arrangement, since it is GOD's commandment, and honor their husbands during their absence. If you experience rebellion from the women, you shall first talk to them, then (you may use negative incentives like) deserting them in bed, then you m...

The Talibanization of Iraq Under mounting repression, courageous women fight for their rights and their lives. Is this how the U.S. brought “freedom” to the country? by Bay Fang Yanar Mohammed returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime because she thought the veil of tyranny had finally been lifted from her native country. She and two other women started the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), with the goal of fighting for women’s rights. But since those days, her OWFI cofounders have fled the country, and Mohammed herself has received numerous death threats for her work. OWFI , one of the few remaining nongovernmental organizations left in Iraq, has been forced to operate in complete secrecy. “Because of the chaos on the streets and in the government, women have been forced to leave work and hide at home,” says Mohammed, 47. “ We live in a state of continuous fear—if our hair shows on the street, if we’re not veiled enough at work,” says Mohammed. “It’s...

Fade to Center We women in America deserve BETTER than this!! Birth Control Pills are often prescribed for reasons OTHER than contraceptive. Why do we keep revisiting this and the Roe v. Wade issue? As a sufferer of PCOS for 41 years, often doctors attempt to ameliorate symptoms with Birth Control Pills. If you can't dispense as prescribed? Don't be a pharmacist!! While the religious right broadens its campaign to undermine reproductive freedom, what's left of the left prefers to repeat history. By Kathryn Joyce Commercial: Cameras open on a young father (Caucasian or light-skinned Latino; attractive but not handsome: an Average Guy) sitting in the driver’s seat of a well-kept car parked in the lot of a suburban pharmacy. The father wears a work shirt (the Honest Working Poor) and seems tired but affable as he turns to smile at his baby, strapped in a car seat in the back. The father checks his watch, then turns to look at the pharmacy doors. Cut to inside the store, where...