“Vote with Your Face: The Canadian Voter Identity Conundrum”

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Read Feminist Law Prof Lolita Buckner Inniss’s post by this title at her blog:

Comparative Racism and the Law–Canada/U.S.

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Human Trafficking and Slavery

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Database that provides country-by-country ionformation here, via Black Looks, where Sokari writes:

I read a report yesterday that there are thousands of African and South Asian migrants amongst the displaced in Lebanon. Unlike other foreign nationals from the Middle East and the West, who have been evacuated by their respective governments, this group have largely been left to fend for themselves without money or papers. Many of them at the lowest strata of society and in a foreign land – part of the millions of Africans trafficked within the continent and beyond to Europe and the Middle East – are the most vulnerable group. It is estimated that there are some 20,000 Ethiopians as well as Nigerians, Ghanaians, Sudanese, Somalis, Sri Lankans and the largest group (90,000) Filipinos working in domestic servitude, as migrant or forced labour and the sex industry in Lebanon. The IOM has been asked to assist in helping some 10,000 migrants from these nations.

I took a closer look at trafficking across the world and discovered that every country is either a source, a transit or a destination and many are all three (only a few countries in the West are strictly destination countries serviced by the majority world).

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“On Shame”

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Ann Bartow

This post at Oh No a WoC PhD will really make you think.

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Upcoming Conference:”The New Face of Women’s Legal History”

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Renowned legal and history scholars from across the nation will gather at The University of Akron School of Law on Oct. 19 for a constitutional law symposium titled”The New Face of Women’s Legal History.”

The symposium’s broad theme will address a diverse array of topics that form the base of recent work in gender and legal scholarship, including racial and gender equality, as well as key figures in women’s history such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Reva Siegel, deputy dean and professor of law at Yale University, will be the keynote speaker. Siegel will deliver a lecture titled”Movement/Counter-Movement: Abortion and De Facto ERA.” The lecture recovers the silences and preoccupations with abortion present in the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment at the end of the 20th century from the early feminists to the New Right. Siegel draws on this history to illuminate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion in”Gonzales v. Carhart”situating abortion rights in women’s equality rather than in a generalized notion of privacy.

Panelists include:

The symposium is Friday, Oct. 19 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the The University of Akron School of Law. The keynote speaker and luncheon will be held at Greystone Hall in Akron. For more information, call 330-972-6456, e-mail misty@uakron.edu or visit the symposium’s website.

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Did you Know There Was A Women Philosphers Website?

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Ann Bartow

If not, now you do! Via the Knowledge and Experience blog.

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Opportunities to Educate about International Human Rights Norms on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Posted on September 10, 2007 by Ann Bartow

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”

– Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

If your university or organization is preparing an event to mark Human Rights Day this December 10th, the anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, consider adding education about the recently-adopted Yogyakarta Principles to the agenda.

The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity were adopted by a group of 29 distinguished experts in international law at a meeting in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, earlier this year. Participants in developing and adopting the Principles came from 25 countries and a range of backgrounds and included: former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson; Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn (co-chair of the meeting) (Thailand); Sonia Onufer Corrêa (co-chair of the meeting)(Brazil); UN Special Rapporteurs past and present, including Asma Jahangir (Pakistan) and Philip Alston (Australia); Judges Sanji Mmasenono Monageng (Botswana) and Edwin Cameron (South Africa); UN Human Rights Committee member Michael O’Flaherty (Ireland), and many others.

The Yogyakarta Principles were developed in response to patterns of abuse targeting people because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. Concerns addressed include extrajudicial executions, violence and torture, access to justice, privacy, non-discrimination, rights to freedom of expression and assembly, employment, health, education, immigration and refugee issues, public participation, and a range of other rights. As noted in the backgrounder prepared by the experts:

Key human rights mechanisms of the United Nations have affirmed States’ obligation to ensure effective protection of all persons from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. However, the international response has been fragmented and inconsistent, creating the need for a consistent understanding of the comprehensive regime of international human rights law and its application to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Yogyakarta Principles do this.

Each Principle is accompanied by detailed recommendations for states, the media, organizations, and others. In its Introduction, the document builds in room for the further development of international law in this area, stating:”The experts agree that the Yogyakarta Principles reflect the existing state of international human rights law in relation to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. They also recognise that States may incur additional obligations as human rights law continues to evolve.”

– Stephanie Farrior

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American Apparel’s Ad in New York

Posted on September 10, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

From wcbstv.com:

A viewer email to wcbstv.com brought us to one of the new “city sights” on the Lower East Side. An American Apparel billboard shows a topless woman in a provocative pose.

“I guess sex sells,” resident Peter Malade said.

It stands right above Joe Dvir’s Sugar cafe on Houston.

“I have two daughters and there’s no way I can explain to them what the meaning of this sign is because it’s really going over the line,” Dvir said.

Some just can’t bear to look at it.

“It’s just too provocative,” Krystyna Kapturowska said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for any neighborhood.”

Others want nothing more than to ogle the ad.

“There’s always going to be people that doesn’t like something so …,” said Kenny Johnson, who added he liked the ad.

A woman who lives in this neighborhood, contacted wcbstv.com to tell us she’s sent a petition to American Apparel with dozens of resident’s signatures asking them to take the billboard down. She tells us the company only told her they’d look into it.

Marketing expert Robert Passikoff says he believes gratuitous ads are a dying trend.

“The consumer has the power,” Passikoff said. “Enough letters written to a corporation regarding any kind of a campaign and you’ll see a campaign dropped entirely.”

American Apparel did not respond to our requests for comment.

-Ralph Michael Stein

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Kevin Noble Maillard and Janis L. McDonald, “The Anatomy of Grey: A Theory of Interracial Convergence”

Posted on September 10, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Here is the abstract:

This article offers a theory of racial identity divorced from biological considerations. Law fails to recognize the complexity of racial performance and identity, thus categorically simplifying a perceived polarity of black and white. Ground-breaking scholarship addressing racial boundaries, as written by Randall Kennedy, Elizabeth Bartholet, and Angela Onwauchi-Willig, generally focuses on the enduring legacy of race discrimination. We approach these boundaries from a different angle:whites who become”less white.”We bring together the challenges of passing and adoption to offer a theory of fluid racial boundaries.

Transracial adoption provides one viable channel to discuss the possibilities of white-to-black racial identity transformation. By confronting the meaning of white identity in relation to their black surroundings, adoptive parents may engage along a continuum of what we term”interracial convergence.”Parents who adopt transracially potentially face some of the pressures of being black in the United States. The Interethnic Placement Act forbids the consideration of race in adoption placements, but white adoptive parents nevertheless receive sharp criticism from black social workers for lacking the ability to teach”survival skills”necessary for the child’s racial identity development. We argue, alternatively, that it creates a grey space where racial convergers:adoptive parents and racial passers:can challenge the stability of racial boundaries.

Downloadable here.  

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Cahn and Carbone on “Red Families vs. Blue Families”

Posted on September 10, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professor Naomi Cahn (George Washington Law School) and June Carbone (University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law) has posted to ssrn her article Red Families v. Blue Families.   Here is a portion of the abstract:

This Article argues that two different family systems underlie the increasing political polarization in the United States. Each system has developed its own legal structure, moral imperatives, and expectations of the state. In blue states, what we term the”new middle class morality”seeks to realize the promise of the post-industrial economy through investment in the workforce participation of both women and men. The hallmark of the new system is marriage and childbearing at later ages, with greater autonomy, more egalitarian gender roles, and reduced fertility for those who postpone family formation into their late twenties and beyond.

By contrast, the red states, which correspond to the”moral value”vote in the 2004 Presidential election, affirm more traditional understandings that celebrate the unity of sex, marriage and procreation. Driven in part by religious teachings about sin and guilt, they emphasize abstinence, and see divorce and single parenthood as moral failings. While blue families have prospered, red families are in crisis on their own terms – red states have the nation’s highest teen pregnancy and divorce rates, and the growing separation between the beginning of sexual activity and marriage makes abstinence increasingly untenable.

* * * The Article first chronicles the emergence of the two different family systems, comprehensively developing their logic and legal attributes. Next, the article links the two systems to demographic differences throughout the country. In light of the new neuroscience findings that twenty-five is the age of physical and mental maturity, the Article shows that red versus blue political differences correspond to differences in the age of family formation. Political divergence becomes more intense as red families and blue families live different lives. Finally, the article connects political polarization to family law, and considers the implications for the role of the courts. Family courts, whether they wish to be or not, are on the front lines of the culture wars. The legitimacy of that role depends on judicial ability to guide, diffuse, and manage cultural conflict.

The full paper is available here.

-Bridget Crawford

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The Equality State

Posted on September 9, 2007 by Ann Bartow

The Wyoming Quarter is out. Via Is That Legal?

Wyoming was the first state to grant women the right to vote in 1869.

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Edwidge Danticat, “Brother, I’m Dying”

Posted on September 8, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Writing in the NYT, Jess Row gave Danticat’s new book a great review. You can preview the first chapter of “Brother, I’m Dying” here. I look forward to reading the work, as I thought Danticat’s “Krik, Krak,” was brilliant.

–Ann Bartow

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“Mujeres Making Movies”

Posted on September 8, 2007 by Ann Bartow

From Colorlines:

… Chica Luna’s signature program has become the F-Word, a multimedia justice project in New York City for 16-25-year-olds across the racial, sexual, economic, and linguistic spectrum. For five months, the young women learn about screenwriting, directing, producing, cinematography, editing, and working with actors, as well as media activism, including challenging one-dimensional depictions of their communities. They also write, direct, and edit their own short films, some of which are showcased at Chica Luna’s annual short film festival.

The”f-word,”of course, is feminism. Miranda, a 38-year-old Puerto Rican, recounts being told by a student:”I ain’t a feminist:feminists are white women.”Part of the F-Word’s purpose is to re-imagine feminism by boosting media literacy skills and sisterhood among the participants. For example, instructors point out the internalized sexism dramatized when women compete for a man in a film. They also urge students to pay attention to who gets the most camera time and why, and to watch for caricatures like”the hot tamale Latina”and”the angry Black woman.” …

Read the entire essay here.

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Five Books About Katrina

Posted on September 8, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Reviewed in an essay called “The Full Force of Black Pain” by Vijay Prashad, at Colorlines.

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Mitt Romney, Flip-Flopper?

Posted on September 8, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

That Mitt Romney has flip-flopped on social issues in his attempt to pander to the conservative Republican base in order to win the Republican nomination for President is old news. Nonetheless, a story in today’s New York Times provides a nice description of how Romney’s position has:and has not:changed on lesbian and gay rights. For me, the most interesting part of the story was a description of how Romney dissuaded one of his sons from becoming a Democrat in the early 1990s (unfortunately, as we will see below, the exact year in which this conversation occurred was not more precisely specified).

Romney took his son through the differences between Republicans and Democrats, and he explicitly warned his son that, even though it is wrong to discriminate,”where Democrats are going, they’ll eventually want to extend marriage to gays.”This warning raises some serious questions about Romney’s attitudes toward lesbians and gay men.

In the early 1990s, same-sex marriage was not the lightning rod issue that it is today because it did not even appear to be within the realm of possibility at that time. The first wave of litigation regarding same-sex marriage had occurred in the 1970s and had been entirely unsuccessful. As a result, the issue was largely dormant from then until 1993, when the Hawaii Supreme Court first raised the specter of legally-recognized same-sex relationships. This watershed was followed by the enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which, having been passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic President, was designed to ensure that any victory in Hawaii (which, in the end, was not to be) would be of limited effect. It was not until the end of the 1990s that we saw the first concrete step toward legally recognizing lesbian and gay relationships:when Vermont enacted its civil union regime in 1999.

This timeline raises an interesting question: Why was Romney so worried about same-sex marriage early in the 1990s when no one else was? Is this story merely self-serving revisionist history? Or, more troublingly, is it evidence that Romney’s dissembling actually occurred while he was governor of Massachusetts (as possibly evidenced in the New York Times story by the reference to a 1994 speech in which Romney allegedly called homosexuality”perverse”) and not now during the presidential campaign?

-Anthony C. Infanti

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“Runaway Bride” Inspires Albuquerque PD

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

From the  Albuquerque Official City Website (here):

The Albuquerque Police Department is using a new recruitment technique that features APD spokeswoman Trish Hoffman unveiling a woman wearing running shoes and a wedding gown.

“Running away from your current job? Call APD Recruiting at 343-5020,” the slogan reads.

The image is a spoof of Jennifer Wilbanks, the Georgia bride who on April 26, 2005, ran away from home right before her 600-guest wedding. The search for Wilbanks spanned several states and police jurisdictions and ended after she took a bus to Albuquerque.

“The runaway bride is one of those stories that people across the nation still talk about,” said Police Chief Ray Schultz. “We hope we can capitalize off of that.”

The department currently has fewer than 1,000 officers and is trying to build the force to 1,100 by this summer.

This is just plain funny!  

-Ralph Michael Stein

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Title IX Action Against University of Colorado May Proceed

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

Yesterday the 10th Circuit issued this opinion reversing and remanding the District Court’s grant of the University of Colorado, Boulder’s motion summary judgment in a Title IX case brought against the University by two women who claimed they were raped by athletes and football recruits of the University.  

Coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education is here.   Feminist Law Profs Sudha Setty and Erin Buzuvis have a great blog post about it here.

-Bridget Crawford

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Suicide and the Pressure on Teenage Girls

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

From the AP, this story about suicide among  girls:

The suicide rate among preteen and young teen girls spiked dramatically in a disturbing shift that federal health officials say they can’t fully explain.

For all young people between ages 10 to 24, the suicide rate rose 8 percent from 2003 to 2004 : the biggest single-year bump in 15 years : in what one official called “a dramatic and huge increase.”

The report, based on the latest numbers available, was released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and suggests a troubling reversal in recent trends. Suicide rates had fallen by 28.5 percent since 1990 among young people.

The biggest increase was in the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-old girls. There were 94 suicides in that age group in 2004, compared to 56 in 2003, a 67 percent increase. The rate is still low : fewer than one per 100,000 population.

Suicide rates among older teen girls, those aged 15-19 shot up 32 percent; rates for males in that age group rose 9 percent.

“In surveillance speak, this is a dramatic and huge increase,” Dr. Ileana Arias said of the overall picture. She is director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

More research is needed to determine whether this is a trend or just a blip, said one child psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas Cummins of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. “We all need to keep our eye on this over time to see if this is a continuing trend.”

Overall, there were 4,599 suicides among young people in 2004, making it the third-leading cause of death, surpassed only by car crashes and homicide, Arias said. Males committed suicide far more often than females, accounting for about three-quarters of suicides in this age group.

The study also documented a change in suicide method. In 1990, guns accounted for more than half of all suicides among young females. By 2004, though, death by hanging and suffocation became the most common suicide method. It accounted for about 71 percent of all suicides in girls aged 10-14; about half of those aged 15-19; and 34 percent between 20-24.

“While we can’t say (hanging) is a trend yet, we are confident that’s an unusually high number in 2004,” said Dr. Keri Lubell, a CDC behavioral scientist who was one of the study authors. * * *

The CDC is advising health officials to consider focusing suicide prevention programs on girls ages 10-19 and boys between 15-19 to reverse the trends. It also said the suicide methods suggest that prevention focused solely on restricting access to pills, weapons or other lethal means may be of limited success. * * *

“Suicide is a multidimensional and complex problem,” Arias said. “As much as we’d like to attribute suicide to a single source so we can fix it, unfortunately we can’t do that.”

This is a very disturbing report that, if accurate, highlights the continuing unequal pressure that teenage girls face as compared to males (whose suicide rate is troubling enough).   The full AP story is available here.   For information from the CDC on suicide, see here.

-Ralph Michael Stein

 

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Riverbend Blogs That She Is Now In Syria

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Read her post here. Her previous posts have been compiled into two books: this one and this one.

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Pro-Choice Senators Vote To Overturn Global Gag Rule

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Ann Bartow

NARAL account here. LA Times report here, which notes:

Defying a White House veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted Thursday to overturn a long-standing ban on U.S. funding for overseas family planning groups that support abortion.

The vote was 53-41, short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto on an issue that has been contentious on Capitol Hill since President Reagan instituted the ban.

Even so, the vote was a sign of determination by Democrats to press for substantial changes in federal policies, even though they have only a narrow majority in the Senate.

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Author Madeleine L’Engle Has Died

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Biographical information about L’Engle can be found here and here. Obituaries are online here and here. I loved her “Time Quintet” very much.

–Ann Bartow

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Conference Announcement: “Reconstructions: Historical Consciousness and Critical Transformation”

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Ann Bartow

The University of Cincinnati College of Law presents the Inaugural Symposium of the Freedom Center Journal:

Reconstructions: Historical Consciousness and Critical Transformation

Friday, October 26, 2007 at the University of Cincinnati and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. This inaugural symposium of the Freedom Center Journal will explore the uses of history to understand ongoing subordination and to craft strategies for social change.

Keynotes: Kimberle Crenshaw, Angela Harris

Panelists: Pamela Bridgewater, Alfred Brophy, Courtney Cahill, James Campbell, Adrienne Davis, Katherine Franke, Kevin Maillard, Margaret Montoya, Natsu Saito, and Christine Zuni Cruz.

Please visit:
http://www.law.uc.edu/academics/freedomjournal_events.shtml for registration information, or contact: Emily Houh at emily.houh@uc.edu, or Verna Williams at verna.williams@uc.edu. Hope to see you in Cincinnati in October!

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Call for Applications: Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar in Women’s Studies

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

From the FLP mailbox, this  call for applications  for the “Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar in Women’s Studies” (University of Ottawa Institute of Women’s Studies):

The Institute of Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa is inviting applications for its Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar in Women’s Studies for 2008-2009. The purpose of this fund is to attract highly qualified researchers working on women’s issues. The Visiting Scholar’s stay should be from three (3) to six (6) months within the university’s academic year, from September to April. The recipient will receive a maximum of $3,000 which may be used to supplement research and/or travel expenses. Scholars with alternative funding will be considered. The Visiting Scholar will be required to present her ongoing research project in conferences and/or seminars and to interact with the community of students and colleagues.

The Institute of Women’s Studies invites applications from Canadian and non-Canadian scholars, both tenured and untenured faculty, and from post-doctoral, independent scholars who are pursuing critical feminist research. Individuals must have a Ph.D. to be considered for this position.

The Visiting Scholar will have access to library services, a shared phone and computer facilities.

Applications should include a curriculum vitae, a detailed statement of the research project, copies of recent publications, the dates of the proposed stay at the University of Ottawa and the names of two referees.

Please send application materials to:

Selection Committee
Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar in Women’s Studies
Institute of Women’s Studies, University of Ottawa
143 Seraphin Marion, Ottawa, Ontario, KIN 6N5 Canada
Telephone : (613) 562-5791
Fax : (613) 562-5994
E-mail : mcharbo@uOttawa.ca

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Female Genital Mutilation in Sierra Leone

Posted on September 7, 2007 by David S. Cohen

This is far afield from any area of expertise that I may have, but I was moved by this story from Women’s eNews this morning about the continuing practice of female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone.   Roughly 90 percent of the women in that country have had the procedure, but there are many women who speak out against it, risking emotional and physical harassment as a result.   The article features two of them and tells the story of their struggles to get the practice outlawed in the country, as it has been in 15 other African nations.

– David S. Cohen

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“Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.”

Posted on September 7, 2007 by Ann Bartow

So says writer Ian McEwan in this Guardian article. The NPR website currently hosts an op-ed by Eric Wiener entitled “Why Women Read More Than Men” which reports:

Among avid readers surveyed by the AP, the typical woman read nine books in a year, compared with only five for men. Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography.

That data is apparently based on a survey, the results of which are for sale here. An AP account of the survey is accessible here. Weiner also asserts:

When it comes to fiction, the gender gap is at its widest. Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain.

Additionally, Weiner cites Lakshmi Chaudhry’s August 2006 In These Times piece, “Why Hemingway is Chick-Lit” in which Chaudhry says:

… Unlike the gods of the literary establishment who remain predominantly male:both as writers and critics:their humble readers are overwhelmingly female ….

… [P]ublishing industry research shows that if”chick-lit”were defined as what women read, the term would have to include most novels, including those considered macho territory. A 2000 survey found that women comprised a greater percentage of readers than men across all genres: Espionage/thriller (69 percent); General (88 percent); Mystery/Detective (86 percent); and even Science Fiction (52 percent). …

Both Chaudhry and Weiner consider “evo psych” explanations for the fiction reading gender gap, which is something Mark Liberman evaluates in a related post at The Language Log.

–Ann Bartow

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CFP: University of Baltimore School of Law’s Feminist Legal Theory and Feminisms Conference

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

From the FLP mailbox:

This call for papers seeks submissions for the University of Baltimore School of Law’s upcoming Feminist Legal Theory and Feminisms Conference.   The conference will begin with a keynote address by Gloria Steinem the evening of Thursday, March 6, 2008.     On Friday, March 7, 2008, the conference will continue with a day of presentations by legal academics, practitioners and activists regarding current scholarship and/or legal work that explore the evolution of feminism and feminist legal theory and its application to current legal theory and practice.  

This conference begins with three questions:   What wave of feminism currently exists, how is it affecting society and effectuating change, and how is it linked to the past waves?   This conference will attempt to address these questions from the perspectives of activists, practitioners and academics.   The conference will provide an opportunity for participants and audience members to exchange ideas about the current state of feminist legal theories and feminisms and how those theories are being actualized in practice.   From the conference, we hope that a new discourse about the future of feminist legal theories and feminisms will begin.   In addition, the conference is designed to provide presenters with the opportunity to gain extensive feedback on their papers.

Practitioners’ and activists’ papers need not follow a strictly academic format.   Papers should address the questions listed above and might consider some of the following issues as well:

How do we define feminism and feminist legal theory?   Is it even possible or desirable to do so?

What types of legislation are being proposed and/or enacted that reflect third wave feminism and feminist legal theory?

What activism on behalf of women is currently occurring?   Is such activism traceable to feminism and feminist legal theory?

What new feminist legal theories are being developed and how are they affecting lawyering, legislation and other advocacy?

How does feminist legal theory relate to other social justice movements and how is that relation reflected in practice?

How has popular culture’s adoption of the language of third wave feminism to justify certain events like”The Search for the New Pussycat Doll”impacted feminism and feminist legal theory?

How has feminist legal theory colored the scholarship and practice in a particular area of the law, such as domestic violence law, welfare law, employment law, corporate law, bank lending, reproductive justice law, international human rights law, criminal law, and family law?   How does third wave feminism affect the current understanding of that area?

Abstracts for the papers should be sent by 5 p.m. on October 15, 2007 to Professor Margaret E. Johnson (majohnson@ubalt.edu).   Abstracts should be no longer than one page.   We will notify presenters of selected papers no later than November 15, 2007.   Working drafts of papers, which can include works-in-progress, completed drafts, and papers already scheduled for publication elsewhere, are due no later than February 15, 2008.   All abstracts and working drafts will be posted on the conference website to be shared with other participants and attendees.     For those interested, the University of Baltimore’s Law Forum, which is a law journal with a circulation of 10,000, has agreed to offer publication to accepted papers.   The deadline for final drafts of papers to be published would be set by the author and the Law Forum. Finally, please note that a limited amount of money may be available to presenters for travel expenses.

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Consider Joining the Planned Parenthood Pill Patrol!

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Ann Bartow


From this site:

Every day in America, women are forced to play the lottery when they walk into their neighborhood pharmacies and ask for Plan B emergency contraception (EC). Planned Parenthood is launching a nationwide campaign to protect women’s health by ensuring that EC is available in every neighborhood in America. We need your help! Sign up to survey a store in your neighborhood now.

More information here. See also: “Stop Something!”

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Three Carnivals!

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Ann Bartow

The 44th Carnival of Feminists at the Reproductive Rights Blog.

The 5th Carnival of Radical Feminists at Women’s Space/The Margins.

The 30th Carnival Against Sexual Violence at Abyss2hope.

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“Enemies of Happiness”

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Ann Bartow

From the FLP mailbox:

I am writing to you from Women Make Movies—a non-profit media arts organization and the world’s leading distributor of independent films by and about women—to let you know about the highly anticipated national broadcast of A WOMAN AMONG WARLORDS on PBS this Sept 11th at 9pm. Based on WMM’s award-winning doc ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS, this extraordinary program follows outspoken Afghani women’s rights activist, Malalai Joya, during the final weeks of her riveting campaign for a seat in the newly formed democratic parliament of Afghanistan.

Women Make Movies is proud to be distributing ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS and we invite you to tune in on September 11th for the national broadcast premiere of A WOMAN AMONG WARLORDS on the acclaimed PBS series WIDE ANGLE!

As you know, documentary film can be an incredible tool for education and awareness, and this national broadcast offers an unprecedented opportunity to not only shed light on the state of politics in war-torn Afghanistan, but also to call attention to global issues of women’s human rights, democracy, and social justice. These are the very issues for which Malalai Joya has been an outspoken champion, and she continues to fight on behalf of her constituents despite repeated threats to her life and a recent illegal suspension from parliament.

Please help us spread the word about Malalai Joya’s remarkable story! Here’s how you can help:

Tune in to the broadcast premiere on PBS on Sept 11th at 9pm (check local listings); Forward the announcement below to your members, staff, colleagues and friends; Post a link to the announcement on your website or blog [Link to: http://www.wmm.com/enemiesofhappiness/]; Forward this to like-minded discussion groups or listservs. Learn more about the film and about Malalai Joya.

With the broadcast approaching so quickly, we’re doing all we can to solicit support from as many diverse constituencies as possible. Thank you so much in advance for your attention to this request!

— Sarah Reynolds, Educational Sales & Marketing Coordinator, WOMEN MAKE MOVIES

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Good News from Kansas

Posted on September 5, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

LGBT state employees received some good news at the end of last week.   The Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, signed an executive order on August 31 that bans harassment  and  discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity  in  state employment.   You can view the executive order here.

-Anthony C. Infanti  

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Larry Craig

Posted on September 5, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

I’ve been trying to resist posting on the whole Larry Craig affair because it seems that everyone else in the blogosphere has covered just about every conceivable angle of this story. But, after hearing that Craig is now determined to fight the ethics complaint that was filed against him and is reconsidering his decision to resign, I simply couldn’t resist the temptation. I have to say that I was delighted to hear that Craig seems to be doing his best not to allow discussion of this issue to die quietly.

Don’t get me wrong, I have little sympathy for Craig given his voting record on gay rights issues and his complete failure to apologize this past Saturday to the lesbian and gay community for”what [he has] caused”us. I would have thought that, gay or not, being on the receiving end of sexual orientation discrimination might have helped him to empathize with the difficulties faced by lesbians and gay men and might have moved him reconsider his past actions and maybe, just maybe, apologize. I guess that was just too much to hope for.

What I’m happy about is that the Republican party will be forced to deal with this issue and to face up to a situation that it helped to create. The Republican party has pandered to social conservatives for years in an effort to create an atmosphere of oppression and repression in which stories like Craig’s would be commonplace. They bear some of the blame here, and it is nice to see that they are not going to get off quite as easily as they had hoped.

-Anthony C. Infanti

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“Top Ten Hillary Clinton Campaign Promises”

Posted on September 5, 2007 by Ann Bartow

The Letterman version – read them at Unapologetically Female.

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Robert Jensen, “Getting Off: Pornography & the End of Masculinity”

Posted on September 5, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas, has written a new book, Getting Off: Pornography & the End of Masculinity. He describes it as a book “on gender and male privilege, rooted in the feminist critique of pornography.” This from the Amazon.com description:

In our culture, porn makes the man. So argues Robert Jensen in Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Jensen’s treatise begins with a simple demand: “Be a man.” It ends with a defiant response: “I chose to struggle to be a human being.” The journey from masculinity to humanity is found in the candid and intelligent exploration of porn’s devastating role in defining masculinity.

Getting Off seamlessly blends personal anecdotes from Jensen’s years as a feminist anti-pornography activist with scholarly research. In his trademark conversational style, he shows how mainstream pornography reinforces social definitions of manhood and influences men’s attitudes about women and how to treat them.

Pornography is a thriving multi-billion-dollar industry; it drives the direction of emerging media technology. Pornography also makes for complicated politics. These days, anti-porn arguments are assumed to be “anti-sex” and thus a critical debate is silenced. This book breaks that silence. Alarming and thought-provoking, Getting Off asks tough, but crucial, questions about pornography, sex, manhood, and the way toward genuine social justice.

Robert Jensen is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity.

You may remember Jensen from his controversial writings in the Houston Chronicle following 9/11. He has also has the distinction of being 1 of 12 professors on the 2004 “watch list” of the Young Conservatives of Texas at University of Texas-Austin.

–Tracy McGaugh

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This is Front Page News?

Posted on September 5, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

The New York Times reports today that police in Nassau County, New York (Long Island) have made “more than 70 arrests since it began focusing on Craigslist last year, one of numerous crackdowns by vice squads . . . ‘Craigslist has become the high-tech 42nd Street, where much of the solicitation takes place now,’ said Richard McGuire, Nassau’s assistant chief of detectives.”

Duh.   Had the police not visited craigslist.org before last year?   Or did they only wake up recently to the likelihood that “Hot SEXXXX.   Your place or mine.   $255555555,” was a sex-for-money proposition?

The NYT article focuses on the arrests of women for offering their bodies for sale.   How about some arrests of their male “customers?”

Same old, same old, from what I can tell, except that it is on the front page today.

-Bridget Crawford

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“Sweetener wars reinterpreted as feminist history”

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Via Rebecca Tushnet, who says: “From Overheard in New York (ignore the crass headline). Clever, and also up-to-date on the news…”

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Feminism and Fashion

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Ann Bartow

You may have seen this NYT article, “Before Models Can Turn Around, Knockoffs Fly.” It documents the push by elite members of the fashion industry to obtain copyright protection, or possibly formulate a new sui generis (stand alone) form of intellectual property protection for clothing. Counterfeiting, the direct copying of labels, company names and logos, is already illegal by virtue of trademark law. Selling knockoffs, however, which may appear very similar to high fashion items but do not bear false source indicators, are generally legal. As the NYT article puts it: “The cut or details of a garment cannot be copyrighted under existing law, although logos and original prints can be protected.”

Over at Counterfeit Chic, Feminist Law Prof Susan Scafidi gives her take on the issue. She finds knockoffs problematic, and is in favor of adding or reformulating intellectual property laws to offer broader legally enforceable monopolies over fashion designs. I disagree with her about this, but I admire the passion and intelligence she brings to her position, and I appreciate her view that one of the reasons intellectual property protection regimes have excluded clothing items and certain kinds of artistic creativity may be related to the close association between fashion and women.

I tend to be in agreement with many of the points raised by Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman, who published an article entitled “How Copyright Law Could Kill The Fashion Industry” in TRN, based on their lengthy law review article on the same topic. But, their focus is not on gender issues, let alone feminism. I understand that some of the beneficiaries of enhanced IP protections would be female designers. In my view, however, facilitating exclusionary acts by designers will be detrimental to far more women than it helps. Trademark law already allows elite designers to charge wealthy purchasers thousands of dollars for single items of clothing without legal competition from counterfeiters. Knockoffs allow less wealthy and/or less trademark conscious women to participate in acts of cultural fashionability based on their personal style preferences. Foreclosing avenues of fashion related self expression, conformist though it may sometimes seem, strikes me as contrary to egalitarian goals of feminism.

–Ann Bartow

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Depressing News to Start Your Day

Posted on September 4, 2007 by David S. Cohen

From Women’s eNews’ Cheers and Jeers of the Week:

– The maternal mortality rate in the United States has risen to its highest level in decades, the Associated Press reported Aug. 24, reaching 13 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2004. That was up from 12 deaths per 100,000 the year before, which was the first time deaths rose above 10 in 100,000 since 1977, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Race is a significant factor; African American women are three times more likely to die from maternal complications than white women. “The hardest thing to understand is how in this day and age, in a modern hospital with doctors and nurses, that somebody can just die like that,” said Tim Davis, whose wife Elizabeth died after giving birth in 2000.

– The feminization of poverty in the United States continues, according to 2006 Census data released this week. More than half of poor households are headed by women, and women comprise 56 percent of those living below the poverty line; children are about one-third of those living in poverty. Full-time working women saw their earnings drop 1.2 percent in 2006 from the year before. “We are being told we are in the fifth year of an economic recovery. I have trouble saying that with a straight face,” said Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of Chicago Foundation for Women. “These numbers show that women and children carry the burden of poverty in America.”

– An analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research has found that the 100 best companies selected by Working Mother magazine lag in parental benefits, with 52 percent offering six weeks or less of paid maternity leave and 24 percent providing four weeks or less of paid leave to new parents. Twenty-eight percent of the firms provide nine weeks or more paid leave to women.

– The Bush administration watered down a pro-breastfeeding advertising campaign two years ago in response to pressure from infant formula makers, the Washington Post reported Aug. 31. The ads initially included blunt messages linking breastfeeding to health benefits, but were replaced with “friendly” images of dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream cones. The resulting campaign had no discernible results in improving U.S. breastfeeding rates.

Now go do something that will make you smile. This news sure won’t.

– David S. Cohen

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Miami is looking for visitors, and it’s a very cool law school in pleasingly warm climate!

Posted on September 3, 2007 by Ann Bartow

The University of Miami School of Law is looking for several visitors for the 2008-09 school year. We are particularly interested in commercial law, civil procedure, family law, and T&E. If coming to Miami for a year of work and intellectual stimulation and is something that might appeal to you, please let me know of your tentative interest.

Prof. David Abraham
University of Miami School of Law
1311 Miller Dr.
Coral Gables, FL 33146
dabraham@law.miami.edu
My ssrn author page

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Betting the Bippy

Posted on September 3, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

My father is a man whose vocabulary  tends toward the mainstream.   If  he hits his thumb with a hammer, he may let out a “goddammit” or two, but he is rarely more profane than that.   He does, however, employ with regularity a few amusing phrases such as, “You bet your bippy.”   As a child, I once asked him, “Dad, if I stick my knife in the toaster, will I get electrocuted?”   “You bet your bippy,” he replied.   I never forgot that lesson in conductivity.

Last week in Federal Income Tax class, I channeled my father for emphasis.   I had begun the usual introductory chapter on the definition of income.   A few students had a hard time accepting that if a taxpayer receives compensation in the form of $50 cash and title to a $20,000 car, the taxpayer recognizes $20,050 in gross income.   The students tried to twist the hypo in every direction, until finally I said, “Whether the taxpayer receives compensation in the form of cash or property, you bet your bippy that the taxpayer has income equal to the fair market value of the property received.”  

Needless to say, the students had no idea what I meant.   After class, I realized I wasn’t sure what I meant.   I had no idea what a “bippy” was and why one would be betting it.   The Oxford English Dictionary came to the rescue:  

1968 N.Y. Times Mag. 6 Oct. 146/1 “[On Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in] we say things like, ‘You bet your bippy!’ or ‘You bet your nurdle!’ I’m sure some people attach a dirty connotation to those words. We don’t even know what they mean; they’re just funny.”

I  am sure my father  was in the “funny” intepretative camp, not the  “dirty” one.   In any case, I won’t be using that phrase in class again, if only because it shows my age.   You bet your bippy I’ve seen Laugh-In.  

-Bridget Crawford

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Depression on Campus: Who Has a Right to Know?

Posted on September 1, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

From an article in the LA Times entitled “Crisis on Campus,” this description of the tension between students’ privacy rights and what the author calls “families’ need to know”:

[A suicidal student]  was referred to a school psychiatrist who agreed not to hospitalize her or call her parents if she would see the doctor twice a week for counseling and submit to close supervision in her dorm.

“I told the psychiatrist that my parents couldn’t find out because I was worried about their health,” she says. Under a federal law called the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, college officials must protect a student’s request for privacy and are not compelled to report such things as academic or even health problems.

Christine began taking antidepressants and her outlook improved. Eventually, she exhausted her limited number of free therapy sessions with the college psychiatrist but arranged for off-campus counseling and antidepressant treatment.

Only her roommate, resident advisor, the campus housing administrator and her therapists knew of her ordeal.

“My parents never found out, which I think helped me preserve my relationship with them,” Christine says. “My professors never knew. You really want to limit who knows because once you get through the crisis you want to live a normal life. You want to include all the people you need in your treatment, but you don’t want the whole campus to know.”

Law students are prone to depression at rates that are triple to quadruple the national average (see here).   And clinicially depression occurs frequently in lawyers (see here).   Are we doing enough to help students and professors identify the warning signs of depression?    I teach in the week-long orientation program at my school, and mental health is mentioned only in passing.  

-Bridget Crawford

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Congratulations Timothy and Sean!

Posted on September 1, 2007 by David S. Cohen

Timothy McQuillan and Sean Fritz are the only legally married gay couple in the state of Iowa.   They managed to get a license, find someone to marry them, and have the ceremony in the short time between when an Iowa trial court declared the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage unconstitutional under the state constitution and when the same judge stayed his decision awaiting a ruling from the state supreme court on whether it would accept the appeal.   The window was only four hours long, but it was enough for Timothy and Sean to marry.

With same-sex marriage seemingly on the national political backburner these days, the Iowa case could change that.   But, what it also does that cases in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California don’t is show that there are gay and lesbian people in the middle of the country, not just on the coasts, who want to express their love for one another by publicly proclaiming it and binding themselves through the state.   Congratulations Timothy and Sean – may other Iowans join you soon!

– David S. Cohen

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University of Oklahoma Faculty Search

Posted on August 31, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

From the FLP mailbox:

I am chairing the Faculty Appointments Committee for the University of Oklahoma College of Law.   In case anyone on this list might be interested, I wanted to share that our curricular needs include Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, Conflicts, and Administrative Law, although other subject areas may be considered. We particularly encourage applications from women, members of minority groups, and others who would help to diversify our faculty.Cordially,

Joyce Palomar
Judge Haskell A. Holloman Professor of Law & Presidential Professor
University of Oklahoma College of Law
300 Timberdell Rd.
Norman, Oklahoma   73019
405 325-5536; fax- 405 325-0389

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These Are Your Lungs on Cigarettes

Posted on August 31, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

Years ago the Partnership for a Drug Free America ran a memorable TV ad with the tag lines, “This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”   Critics decried the advertisement’s “scare tactics,” but the ads definitely made an impression.

Cigarette packet warning on smokingThe British government intends to employ a much more graphic approach in its anti-smoking campaign.   By the end of 2009, all tobacco products sold in Britain will be required to have graphic warnings like the one at left.   Read more about it here  at the BBC.   The British ads make the fried egg commercials seem almost literary in comparison.

There is some evidence to suggest that smoking may have different impacts on men and women.   This study by the Copenhagen Center for Prospective Population Studies at the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Denmark suggests that the “relative risks suggest that women may be more sensitive than men to some of the deleterious effects of smoking.”  

-Bridget Crawford

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Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller, “I Love Female Orgasm”

Posted on August 31, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Related webpage here. Review by Courtney at Feministing here.

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NYC Teens and Unsafe Sex

Posted on August 30, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has issued a report on Teen Sexual Activity and Birth Control Use in New York City.   From the press release:

More than two thirds (69%) of sexually active New York City teens use condoms, compared to 63% nationwide, according to a new survey of public high school students.   But too few sexually active girls are using the pill and other hormonal contraceptives to prevent unplanned pregnancies. * * *

  • -Only 8% of sexually active teens or their partners use the pill, compared to 18% nationwide.
  • -Only 4% of sexually active teens use dual protection (condoms and another method), compared to 8% nationwide.
  • -19% of sexually active girls (versus 14% nationwide) used no birth control the last time they had sex.

Maybe the free “NYC Condoms” campaign (see here) is working.   Could the comparatively lower levels of pill usage result from young New Yorkers’ philosophical rejection of regular dosages of synthetic hormones?   I’d like to think so, but with only 19% using any form of birth control at all, the stats do not suggest reflective consideration.

-Bridget Crawford

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Not Particularly Subtle Carmera Advertisement From Decades Ago

Posted on August 30, 2007 by Ann Bartow

I think that’s Ally McGraw.

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“Sexual Harassment” at Ave Maria

Posted on August 30, 2007 by Ann Bartow

Ave Maria School of Law appears to be an institution on the verge of a serious meltdown. Certainly there is evidence that the Catholic religion treats women as second class citizens.   A new manifestation of the tensions at Ave Maria involve some confusing allegations that may or may not involve sexual harassment. Read more here and here.

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Props and News!

Posted on August 30, 2007 by Ann Bartow

I just saw the [below] post in which FeministLawProf David Cohen gave props to me and Christine Hurt for giving props to him in our Interactive Citation Workbook and Workstation exercise. I specifically chose David’s post as a citation example because it also sets a good *social* example for any number of reasons. I’m now at Touro Law Center (on Long Island, NY) and not South Texas College of Law, and I could go on and on (and on and on) about the differences between the North and the South from the perspective of a lifelong Southern Feminist. For now, let’s say that the feminist man is not as radical of a phenomenon for my new students.

–Tracy McGaugh

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A Model for Citation

Posted on August 30, 2007 by David S. Cohen

I taught Legal Methods last year, and one of the great ways I found to teach 1Ls how to cite is the Interactive Citation Workstation. Added plus is that both of the authors of the exercises are Feminist Law Profs: Tracy McGaugh at South Texas and Christine Hurt at Illinois.

Well, it turns out that this year they have used this blog as a teaching tool. The 2007 version of the exercises includes this post of mine from earlier this year in one of the exercises for internet citation. Frankly, I have no clue how to cite a blog post (as it seems that every edition of the Bluebook changes how to cite to the internet and I just can’t keep track of it), but students can now learn by being pointed to this site. Too bad they’re not directed to a post whose speculation came true, but that’s Justice Thomas’ fault for avoiding the obvious question, not Professors McGaugh or Hurt’s.

– David S. Cohen

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GenderPAC Releases New Report on Gender Discrimination in Schools

Posted on August 30, 2007 by Ann Bartow

The GENIUS (Gener Equality National Index for Universities and Schools) Report is available here. An overview from GenderPAC notes:

“This is the second year that GenderPAC has published the GENIUS Index. The 2007 Index reflects a tremendous increase in response rate: 496 students, administrators, and alumni, representing 278 colleges and universities, responded to the survey, as compared to the 2006 Index which received 124 responses (81 schools). GenderPAC also noted an increase in the number of universities specifically banning discrimination based on gender identity or expression: 147 colleges and universities currently have such policies, as compared to 131 in 2006. More than 100 public K-12 school districts, encompassing thousands of individual schools, have extended similar protections to nearly 3.5 million children in 23 states.

“Despite the fact that all eight Ivy League schools have inclusive non-discrimination policies, there were a few surprising omissions among”Top 25″schools: Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, and Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, all lack protections for gender nonconforming people.”

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Antiperspirant and the Sexiness Factor (Or Am I Just Shvitzing?)

Posted on August 29, 2007 by Bridget Crawford

Yesterday at a bus stop I saw the new ad for Secret ® Antiperspirant.   The classic label, shown  at left, is embellished with swirly flower designs  and the words “because you’re  hot” (online version here).  

From the company’s press release:

The campaign, created by Leo Burnett Chicago, celebrates the different definitions of what makes a woman uniquely “hot,” such as confidence, femininity and strength. The campaign plays with the literal and figurative definition of “hot” — connecting directly to the efficacy of Secret products, while reinforcing the idea that female confidence is hot.

The play on words seems clever for a nanosecond, but it doesn’t hold up beyond that, in my view.   There are so many ways to celebrate female confidence; why go for the  blatantly sexual?    But, should one feel inspired by the ad, one can visit the brand’s website  for entertainment, style and fashion  news.   Who knew an antiperspirant website could be so multifaceted?   Now that’s some creativity.

-Bridget Crawford

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