My latest, “Of Uncertain Times,” now up over at Recessionwire.com!
Ah, uncertainty…sigh.
This just in from the New York Observer:
Now, I’m psyched as all get go that The Observer is offering up some free PR for our Women, Girls, & Ladies panel tomorrow at the 92Y Tribeca! But could someone please tell me, what the [bleep] is a “man-bat”? Is that like a wombat? Or is it, like, dyslexic batman? Regardless of what it is, I’ll sure have to go dig deep in the feminist closet to find mine…
(Thanks to fellow WGL Miss Courtney for the humorous heads up.)
Another incredibly resource-rich guest post by domestic violence expert and friend of GWP Madeline Wheeler. You can read Madeline’s previous posts here and here. -Deborah
As we all know, by the end of National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Week, Rihanna and Chris Brown made national attention with their violent altercation that had media moguls drooling, dropping the ethical bar, and sensationalizing a human health crisis. Is she pregnant? Are they married? Whoopi tried to quell the hype on The View stating she doesn’t even know if it’s real—a girl may have hit Rihanna. Oprah warned on Friday that “He will hit you again!†No intro could keep up with this media carousel.
My go round? Chris Brown is still a teenager! You may recall Deborah’s call for research on Teen Dating Violence (TDV) in Quick Stats: Teen Dating Abuse at the year’s start.  People may be getting the message that 1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused, but what is not as widely known is that 1 in 5 teens in a relationship report being hit, slapped, or pushed by a partner.
TDV is a pattern of violent behavior that someone uses against a girlfriend or boyfriend. Abuse can cause injury or even death, but doesn’t have to be physical. In can include verbal and emotional abuse—constant insults, isolation from friends and family, name-calling, controlling what someone wears or with whom they socialize. For an in depth update on domestic violence check out GWPenners Gwen and Tonni’s post, Global Exchange: The Face of Violence. The early articles on the Huffington Post–before the photos, hype and hay–address the cyclical nature of abusive relationships, Kevin Powell’s remix on ending violence against women, and an open letter to Rihanna written by a former adult dating violence survivor.
Liz Claiborne’s 2008 Tweens and Teen Dating Abuse Survey reports that nearly half of girls in relationships have been victims of verbal, physical, or sexual abuse by their boyfriends. Alarmingly, the percentage increased to 69% in relationships where tweens had sex by age 14.
Did Chris Brown receive a “booty call†text leading to the altercation? My thoughts segued to teens, technology and abuse. As technology evolves forms of abuse follow. When is texting unhealthy? According to the Liz Claiborne Inc., Technology Relationship Abuse Survey cell calls and texts are keepings teens in relationships under constant control and surveillance. Stats update: From 10 pm to midnight: 30% teens communicate with their partner via cell or text 10 to 30 times hourly. Ouch!
Midnight to 5:00 a.m.: 24% communicated with their partner hourly. Teens need food for thought. No one’s brain waves can function properly under that type of sleep deprivation.
What often precedes physical abuse is control and jealously. This type of texting is certainly over the top control. In the Liz Claiborne Survey, 72% teens report being checked on 10 times hourly by email or text. A survey commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that 20% of teens report having sent/posted nude pictures or videos of themselves. And 39% of teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages. The obvious play on words: sending sexual or suggestive material via computer, Blackberry, cell phone etc., “sexting.â€Â This form of communication can be illegal if the images are of minors and don’t forget phone images can be downloaded and posted to the Internet, which is often monitored by employers and colleges. Recently in Falmouth, Massachusetts middle school students ages 12 to 14 were summoned to court after allegedly circulating a nude photo of a 13-year-old female classmate via cell.
In addition “textual harassment†is on the rise. Forty-six states have anti-stalking laws that refer to electronic forms of communication. In Palmer, MA–my back of the barnyard–a guidance counselor was recently fired for having a relationship with a 17-year old student sharing 1397 text messages in one month.
On the activism side, Ann and Chris Burke, parents of Lindsay Ann Burke, who was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend, combined forces with Redbook and Liz Claiborne to launch a national coalition in December 2008, Moms and Dads for Education to Stop Teen Dating Abuse (MADE). The group advocates for every high school and middle school to teach a curriculum about preventing dating relationship violence. This isn’t just something to chew on; education is the solution to long-term relationship violence prevention. Check the link to find out how to communicate with your legislators, get resources, and sign their petition.
–Madeline Wheeler
This review comes to GWP courtesy of Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage
My Little Red Book
Edited by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff
Twelve (Feb. 2009)
I wanted to like this book. I really did. I love the idea of it, women sharing stories about something that we’re not “supposed to” share stories about. The problem is that without stories from every corner of the globe, every generation, every rung of the socioeconomic ladder, and so on, what you end up with is redundancy.
And that is precisely the problem with Rachel Kauder Nalebuff’s My Little Red Book
I understand that that’s the glory of it all. This is a shared experience. But this is one case where a little more telling and a little less showing would have gone a long way. I kept thinking I had lost my page and was reading pieces I had already read. I get why people are buying and reading this book. It’s the only thing out there. It’s cute. It’s empowering to buy, to carry, to talk about. But as far as reading, it was a bore.
I know, I know, I’ve seen the Amazon rankings, the media coverage, and the reviews, but all of that speaks to the power of press more than the strength of the book. Lots of things that aren’t particularly good are terribly popular. And once one person signs on, well, you remember the naked Emperor of fairy tale fame…
I believe Nalebuff’s heart was very much in the right place in compiling this. And that is what she has done, compile. The intro doesn’t offer the meaty exploration I had hoped for. This is one of those projects that absolutely deserves to be done but that was simply a matter of who got there first.
I actually have a seventy-something colleague who has been collecting stories of first periods for years. She was waiting to go to a publisher until she had enough of what she called “representation.” She saw no point in publishing story after story that all read exactly the same. That point could be made in the introduction in a sentence or two with a quote or excerpt from a few stories she has collected.
She wanted instead to speak not just to the universality of women and their experiences, but also to the remarkable differences, the amazing triumphs, the devastating defeats, and the fact that so much of that can be translated through how we tell out period stories. And the “sprinkle in diversity and stir” method that Nalebuff employs simply does not do the trick.
I don’t remember getting my period. I don’t remember being happy or sad, early or late, celebrated or shunned. I remember my father chucking me on the shoulder and saying, “Way to go, kid.” My own daughter will be ten at the end of April. We talk all the time about when she will get her period and what that means and how it works. It’s a vital part of our lives as women. It’s an incredible shared experience. I understand that. But stories about it are only worthy of publication in a book when they have something to offer, something to say, something new, something universal. Something. I found this collection, in a word, frustrating.
I taught college composition for 10 years. I’ve read a zillion essays. Had Nalebuff come to me with this book, I would have asked her what I asked so many of them – So what? Why you? Why now? Where’s the universal? The big picture? The reason we should care? What does story one have to offer that story two does not? And so on.
Everyone lost the big game, dropped all their books in the hall, got stood up for the dance, lost someone they loved. All of those stories are incredibly important to the people to whom they belong and the people directly affected by the events. But in order to warrant sharing them outside of one’s journal or family Christmas letter, they have to speak to all of us about that which has not be spoken. Or it has to be spoken in a new way. Think David Sedaris, Anne Lamott, Susan Cheever.
The proceeds from this book are going to help young women in a number of ways, including providing private toilets and sanitary supplies to girls in Kenya so that they can still go to school even during the weeks when they have their periods. Because of that, I am delighted the book is doing well. But also because of that, I know people will be offended by this review. But a worthy topic and an equally worthy cause do not a worthy book make, from a literary point of view.
My Little Red Book
Our very own Shira Tarrant (curator of “The Man Files” here at GWP) is on the advisory committee for this one, as is Michael Kimmel, whose work I utterly admire. So I totally wanted to share:
Call for Presentations
THE 1st NATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR
CAMPUS-BASED MEN’S GENDER EQUALITY & ANTI-VIOLENCE GROUPS
November 6-7, 2009 / St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota
What it is: Across the country, groups of male students are making their voices heard! More and more men are finding the courage to say “no†to ideas of manhood and relations between the sexes that aren’t good for women and aren’t good for men as well. They’re speaking out against date rape and violence against women. They support gender equality. Some work through residence life or student activities offices, others through women’s centers and counseling programs. Some are campus branches of national organizations like MVP, White Ribbon, Men Can Stop Rape, 1 in 4, or V-Men.   These men face common problems: How to have an impact? How to find positive ways to get their message to other campus men? How to deal with backlash, to work in partnership with women’s groups, to recruit and sustain their groups? For the first time, campus-based pro-feminist men’s groups from across the country are meeting together. To share resources., trade their best ideas, discuss strategies, and simply find out what’s happening on other campuses.
For more details, including on costs and the members of the organizing & advisory committees, visit: www.michaelkaufman.com/campusmensconference
Intergenerational convo–my fave subject, as you know!–currently going on over at RH Reality Check:
And for more, join me on Weds at the 92Y Tribeca of course 🙂
(Thanks to Gloria Feldt for the heads up…)
There’s a reason I’ve been a little quiet around here this week (and have been sitting on a few posts by others that are ready to go): My beloved 13-year-old cat, Amelia Bedelia, saluted by Marco and famous on Open Salon, was put to rest last night. We will miss her very much.
Some words of wisdom, from a very wise cousin of mine, who also loved and took care of this wonderful little cat:
When they stop eating it is their sign that they want to move on and we must listen to them. Most cats only ever know of one care taker in their life who knows of all their little funny habits and warmth. Amelia, however, managed to be taken care of and loved by so many different people, and each learned to understand what a special cat she was. News of her passing will even go to Japan, to friends who took care of her for three months one summer and continue to ask about her all the time. Truly a unique little creature. A friend once told me that when you die, all those cats you took care of in your life will come to meet you and escort you into the next world. I imagine the same is true among the cats themselves and Sammy is already there preparing to welcome his sister. I can imagine that they will once again be up to the antics they were always up to in life, with Sammy chasing Amelia behind some furniture and then Amelia reaching out with that long grey paw from behind her cover to tap Sammy’s nose. And then Sammy will insist on cleaning Amelia’s head, to which Amelia will respond with a few licks of his head as well. Amelia had a good life. Always with a warm lap to snuggle up on and a loving hand to feed her. l imagine that she move on then, content, purring and happy.
Be at peace, Melie, be at peace. Â Â ×–×™×›×¨×•× ×” לברכה
My latest post at Recessionwire.com is a preview, of sorts, of the WGLs’ 92nd Street Y event this coming Wednesday. It’s now live, here: Learning from the Ladies.
This just in from my friends over at the WMC: Obama To Create White House Women’s Council!
Turns out White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett will be chairing a White House Council on Women and Girls, created by Obama TODAY. Tina Tchen, director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, will serve as executive director of the group. Read all about it here.
HAPPY WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH! AND HERE’S TO MAKING MORE! (Women’s history, that is.)
According to Kimberly Palmer in this week’s US News & World Report, research from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that once you control for divorce and the proportion of young marriages, then an increase in the unemployment rate increases fertility, suggesting that recessions can lead to mini-baby booms. Hmm…
(Thanks to CCF for the heads up)
