A different sort of female genital mutilation

I've a new post on GlobalComment


About thirty years ago, there was an informal secret society in the city of Cork. Perhaps a loose net of those with a shared interest might be more accurate. This group passed the names of certain professionals around – who could be trusted, previous experiences, and religious beliefs. The information was gathered from many sources. It was shared among women of childbearing age because none wanted a fervently Catholic gynecologist.

A fervently Catholic gynecologist might put his beliefs into practice on the delivery table. He might choose to save the life of the child over the mother, or regardless of consequences make sure the woman would conceive again, or choose to mutilate a woman’s body rather than allow the idea that the woman might choose contraception in the future.

In the grand tradition of submission to the catholic church, Irish doctors used the surgical technique of symphysiotomy, long after the rest of the developed world had discredited its practice. Symphysiotomy was developed in 1597 and was routinely used to widen the pelvis during childbirth. By dividing the cartilage of the symphysis pubis, the pelvis can be widened by up to two centimetres.

Known complications include haemorrhage, injury to the urethra or bladder, vesicovaginal or urethrovaginal fistula, stress incontinence, sepsis, and pelvic osteoarthropathy. In some cases women experienced difficulty in walking and an unstable pelvis.

The technique was largely abandoned in the late nineteenth century after improvements in the hygiene and clinical practice of Caesarean section. It is still practiced in developing countries when Caesarean section is too risky and it can save the life of the mother and/or that of the child.


However, in Ireland, women were subjected to symphysiotomy without consent for religious reasons, even though Caesarean sections were relatively safe. It was thought that women subjected to repeated Caesareans might be tempted to use contraception and that could not be allowed to happen.

[Dr] Alex Spain was the champion of symphysiotomy at the National Maternity Hospital. In 1944, he revived the technique because Caesarean sections might lead to “contraception, the mutilating operation of sterilisation, and marital difficulty.” At that time Caesarean sections were perfectly safe and symphysiotomy had fallen into disrepute. Spain admitted his decision went against the weight of the entire English-speaking obstetrical world’.

From 1944 to 1983, 1,500 women underwent this unnecessary and traumatic surgical procedure leaving many in pain for the rest of their lives because of the religious beliefs of a few men. Many survivors have spoken of feeling the saw cut through the public bone and seeing horrific injuries on their newborns. These are just two stories:

“I’ve been in pain ever since. I’ve still attending hospitals with back pain and kidney problems. I’d go to bed one night and would be ok but the next day I would not be able to get out of the bed, I wouldn’t be able to put my feet to the ground, all because of the operation, and I didn’t know at the time. I had x-rays taken of my legs to see what was wrong but they couldn’t find anything wrong.”

and

“They gave me hardly any information, whatsoever, until I got to the theatre. The only thing I remember is the nurses saying I had lovely red hair. They showed me the saw. It was an ordinary hand saw, they showed me where they were going to open the pelvic bone. They didn’t explain — they said: “You are going to have your baby now.” It was such agony, a terrible severe pain.”

Women were subject to this outdated practice because Catholic doctors believed that women would not choose to undergo multiple Caesarean sections. Such women might turn to contraception, the idea of which was unacceptable to those doctors at the time. These doctors saw themselves as upholding the laws of the Catholic church and those who are still alive show no remorse. They deny the damage they inflicted.

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For when your vaginal odour is just not sexy enough

h/t Panti

You can just use this organic vaginal scent - Vid and site not safe for work



This is a real thing in the world.

A young girl grows up with fashion mags, tv, movies, billboards and society all implying that she is too fat, thin, tall, small, hairy, small breasted, large breasted, prudish or slutty. That's been standard for a while now.

Now that same girl is being given a whole new set of "suggestions": remove all genital hair; how about some vajazzling; why not deodorize your vagina; how about perfuming your vulva; you can also get surgery to "rejuvenate your vagina". All these actions will give you "self esteem". They are "empowering".

FUCKING BULLSHIT

Listowel is a horrible place for women to live

A horrible story where a community sided with the rapist rather than the survivor. Anyone want to reiterate claims that we live in an equal society or that we don't have a rape culture?

Before sentencing dozens of people queued inside the courthouse to shake hands and sympathise with Foley.

He had been found guilty two weeks ago of sexually assaulting a woman who was discovered by a Garda patrol in a semi-conscious state and naked from the waist down alongside a skip in a car park early on June 15th, 2008.

Speaking today Fr Sheehy said he was one of the men who shook Foley’s hand because he wanted to “support him and let him know he was not alone”.

While placing the survivor in a vulnerable position and siding with a rapist. Anyway since when are priests arbitrators of morality. Not anymore. Not since they were involved in the rape of children and cover up of crimes.

He said: “My Christian responsibility was to this person that I knew and to the person who is the object of, what I call, this extremely harsh sentence.”

No five years is not an extremely harsh sentence for rape. Life in prison might approach a "harsh" sentence.

Yesterday the judge criticised the character statement made by Fr Sheehy. The priest had said Foley was always “respectful of women”, but Foley’s actions “gave the lie” to Fr Sheehy’s statement, the judge said.

How would a priest, a man, know how Foley treats women? How would he know any better than the women who endured contact with him.

Listowel is clearly not a place for women to live. I would like to write more at leisure but disgust is making my stomach turn.

I am not amused

I received this in my inbox today.

Four guys and a woman are stuck in an elevator. While they are stuck, they strike up a conversation.

The first guy says, 'I'm a Y.U.P.P.I.E., you know... Young, Urban, Professional, Peaceful, Intelligent, Ecologist.''

The second guy says, 'I'm a D.I.N.K.Y, you know....Double Income, No Kids Yet. '

The third guy says, 'I'm a R.U.B., you know...Rich, Urban, Biker

The fourth guy says, I am a D.I.L.D.O, you know... Double Income, Little Dog Owner.

They turn to the woman and ask her, What are you?

She replies: 'I'm a WIFE, you know...



FORWARD TO MEN WHO WILL SOOOOOO ENJOY IT AND WOMEN WHO HAVE A GOOD SENSE OF HUMOUR

I'm not laughing. I'm a humourless feminist when it comes to "jokes" that objectify women and posit the 50% of the world as labourers / whores for teh menz.

Those Cóir posters were so irritating that I made a vid

This word does not mean what you think it means

Today's Irish Times has a piece of the increase of Irish women turning to and returning to sex work in part because of poverty caused by the crash and subsequent mismanagement of the economy.

In the same article Gerardine Rowley, spokeswoman for Ruhama, talks about the increasing number of underage girls and young women that are being trafficked from the developing world into Ireland for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

It is great that this issue is getting some coverage in the press but I have very unimpressed with the title of the article.

"Increase in Irishwomen engaged in street vice"

It is classic victim-blaming in our little Irish morality play. "Vice"? Really? That's the best the Irish Times can come up with. I think the IT needs to consult a bloody dictionary.

Vice
Etymology: Middle English 14th century, from Anglo-French, from Latin vitium fault, vice

1. moral depravity or corruption, wickedness, a moral fault or failing, a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming
2. blemish, defect
3. a physical imperfection, deformity, or taint
4. a character representing one of the vices in an English morality play
5. buffoon, jester
6. an abnormal behavior pattern in a domestic animal detrimental to its health or usefulness
7. sexual immorality

So either the editor who inserted the headline needs a dictionary instead of a payrise or the IT is attempting to shame women who engage in sex work both voluntarily or not or someone on the IT staff is an old fashioned misogynist who is trying to enact a morality play.

The headline could have read something like this

"Increased demand for paid sex from Irishmen leads to sexual exploitation and trafficking in underage girls"

But we can't have a headline like that, can we. In the same way that women "get raped", sex workers "engage in sex work". The role of men is obscured.

Twas ever so in green old Erin's Isle. Blame the women and girls. Lock them up in the Magdalene Laundries, to labour without pay for the rest of their lives, while the men and boys went free.

I know the editors write the titles so I'm not slamming the journalist but I think that the paper of record needs to understand that disappearing men from an article on sex work is not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to moralise about how some people make ends meet.

Best. Flowchart. Ever.

By the wonderful Ms Lola Snow

No means no

Didja know that "no" means "no"?

"NO" means NO.

"Not Now" means NO.

"Maybe Later" means NO.

"I Have A Boy/Girlfriend" means NO.

"No Thanks" means NO.

"You're Not My Type" means NO.

"*#^+ Off!" means NO...

It's not a revolutionary concept any more but it does bear repeating since the message has no sunk in yet. There are men who ignore women yelling no at them. I've been that woman. I've yelled no. I've been ignored.

I'll eventually write a long post on what "no" means to me. It'll have to wait until I am back home and not sick and stressed out. Just thought this is appropriate for the day that it was.

Boy attempts rape eight times and gets off easy cos he's got a good background

From the Beeb

Robert Thomson, who was 15 at the time of the attacks in Glasgow, previously admitted eight charges, including intent to rape and indecent assault.

...

Sentencing Thomson to four years in detention, Lord Turnbull said: "I take account of the fact that you have no history of offending behaviour and come from a good and supportive background.

"I also recognise the concerns which you have for your future.

"However, violent sexual attacks on women cannot be tolerated and when they occur must be punished appropriately.

"Were it not for your young age and good background I would have imposed a greater sentence."

Right, yeah, that makes total sense. A slap on the wrist fro breaking the law at least eight times. Dude, eight attacks! I don't think that Thomson's good background is effective in curbing his criminal impulses. I also do not believe that you give a shit about "violent sexual attacks on women" by being lenient with this boy.

Digusting

remembering the dead

This year is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yes that's human rights which means rights for all humans. It does not mean rights for some.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Everyone has the right to security of person. Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Trans people are murdered because of other people's hate, other people's issues, other people's discrimination, other people's fear. This is a serious violation of trans peoples' human rights. Murderers are murderers. Hate crimes are hate crimes. Such violations of human rights should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

You should read these three posts in their entirety. I've just posted excerpts.

Queen Emily how to mourn

And yes, today we remember those of us still living--our fear, the fear that lives at the heart of every trans person, that someone will know that we are trans, and will kill us for it. Today we remember all the other times we murmured "oh fuck" as we read the news. Today we discover the deaths we missed, because we couldn't bear hearing about them anymore for awhile, even though we must. We must.

Sometimes we forget ourselves, you know. Sometimes we think that if we look like cissexuals, pass like them (are passed like them), that they must accept us. And we forget that it is only the fact that they have assumed we have the same gender history as them that keeps them from hating us.

We do not live fake lives. We do not live as nicknames, as aka. We live hard, we love hard--we have to. And we deserve to be mourned.

Little Light the quick and the dead

The Day of Remembrance is ours, and it is sacred. It is the one day we set aside to honor those in our community, overwhelmingly poor trans women of color, who were killed due to bigotry and hatred. It is a single day in the year where we make certain that the names of the murdered are heard and held up, so we can all remember that these people mattered, were real, were loved, and are missed. It's a day to gather the community together and call attention to the violence directed against us and the caring we have for each other. It came from us. It was built by us. It was never supposed to be flashy or glitzy. It is a solemn mourning for the dead, a place to hold hands, and a promise to those who violence took away from us that we who are still living will hold together, take care of each other, and push forward together into a world where that violence is only a painful memory.

We can do better than this, for our sacred dead. We can do better for ourselves. We need better than this.

Zan Remember

I think of the families of those who have been killed. I think of them and I cry, because how do you cope with the knowledge that the world thinks it's OK to kill someone you love? How do you live with the knowledge that your neighbors and co-workers and the people who sit beside you every day on the way to work think that your daughter deserved to die? How do you ever have faith in anything, anyone again? How does the world ever make sense again?

It's far too easy for those who are not intimately involved to forget. Because it's too horrible to remember. It's too horrible to let yourself realize that yes, human life is so very very cheap to so many people. It's too horrible to let yourself realize that maybe YOU contribute to that attitude. But we cannot forget. We let these killings go unchallenged, unpunished -- a slap on the wrist is not a punishment. Finding a killer not-guilty because they freaked out over finding out their girlfriend had a penis is not justice. It's not acceptable. Full stop.

The genesis of it all

I was rereading this article about how wearing trousers is immoral because doing so turns girls into slutty lesbians. Why is it that women-related articles are in the "Oddly Enough" section of Reuters? Why aren't the boys being slut-shamed for wearing trousers? Why the double standard? Why are the leaders of churches so scared of women?

We are human too. We walk. We talk. We think. We feel. We love. We hate. We are your mothers, sisters, daughters? Why are you so scared of us? Is it our vaginas or our opinions you fear? Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to control. Telling girls they are immoral to wear trousers makes a religious leader feel in control. Well that's what it seems like.

The cult of virginity is just another method of control. By embracing the idea of the sexual woman as impure, churches have maintained their power structures. With women unable to attain or be elected to high offices in a religious power structure, the only roles they play are madonna, whore or servant. No. I am no servant. I am no madonna. I am no whore.

There is a disconnect in the Bible. It is perhaps something that the editors missed. Woman was created twice. Once from the same clay as Adam on the fifth day in Genesis 1:27

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And then again here, in Genesis 2:22

22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

And there is the basis for religious misogyny. Subvert the woman-gives-birth paradigm with man is responsible for the birth of woman. It sound like appropriation to me.

The bible has been used to justify slavery, death and genocide. The rape of women, incest and murder are part of its pages. Why are some following archaic laws and slut-shaming over 2000 years later? Why do people think that half the world's population is inferior? Seriously, we need to move past this already.

Wearing trousers turns girls into slutty lesbians

Clerics in Malaysia have found a new cause of sluttishness in women - trousers. Apparently not only are women sluts because they wear trousers but they are lesbian sluts. Won't somebody please think of the men!

According to some, trousers many cause girls to become sexually active and turn them into tomboys. There is no recorded correlation between sexual activity and trousers, that I am aware of. From Reuters

Malaysia's police, who have recently cracked down on dissident bloggers and broken up anti-government demonstrations, say that protests over an edict against Muslim women wearing trousers are a security threat.

A security threat? How? In what possible scenario do women in trousers become a security threat?

Mainly Muslim Malaysia's National Fatwa Council recently issued a religious ruling that wearing trousers was un-Islamic.

It said that, by wearing trousers, young girls risked becoming "tomboys" who became sexually active.

...

"I'm warning them and will take stern action as it involves national security," Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan told reporters Thursday, according to the state-run Bernama news agency.

Malaysia frowns on oral and gay sex, describing them as against the order of nature. Under civil law, offenders -- male and female -- can be jailed for up to 20 years, caned or fined.

As well as women in trousers, the Fatwa Council is considering barring Muslims from practicing yoga.

Although it is not explicit in this article, here, it is explicit that tomboy means lesbian.

Last week the Fatwa Council decreed that tomboyish behaviour by girls, including wearing trousers, was immoral as it may lead to the practise of lesbian sex.

Gay sex is prohibited in this country of 27 million people where over half of the population is Muslim.

To drift slightly from the point... Is that a common interpretation? Tomboy for me means playing sports and wearing trousers. There is no sexual orientation implication inherent in the word. I was a proud tomboy as a kid.

Anyway back to the brain-shattering logic of wearing trousers makes one a tomboy and a slut. I've been in Malaysia and young people there dress conservatively compared to other countries in South East Asia. I find the article strange because Kuala Lumpur in a very cosmopolitan and diverse city.

Nevertheless, the tomboy as slut is classic woman-blaming and incitement to fear. The lesbian slut angle is interesting. While homophobia is great to manipulate fear, there is more "pity the boys" than "scary lesbians".

The interesting thing is that there is neither correlation or causation in this piece. It is barely journalism. Is this how a church thinks? I think I know the recipe...

1. Take two unrelated facts
2. Describe how they are destroying the purity of girls
3. Add a dash of fear (racism and homophobia are best for this)
4. Call Reuters
   

The article is full of double standards, heterosexist rhetoric, faulty logic and women bashing.

I think the obvious question here is whether trousers make boys slutty? Are trousers turning the boys into tomgirls? What about the boyz?