Arizona launches an RPG into the immigration debate

On my way to work this morning, I heard a lengthy discussion on NPR's "The Diane Rehm Show" about Arizona's stringent new immigration law. The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, signed last week by Gov. Jan Brewer, requires that "for any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person." Such a determination presumably means the suspect must produce evidence (read: documentation) of legal immigration status or U.S. citizenship.

Predictably, the bill has sparked outrage in some quarters and hosannahs in others; it's also drawn comparisons to everything from Nazism to apartheid. The main point of contention is the "where reasonable suspicion exists" part. How does an officer of the law arrive at that reasonable suspicion? There are no specific criteria or guidelines, leading many to conclude that the only "reasonable suspicion" needed is the appearance of being an illegal alien ... which in the American Southwest translates to "Hispanic."

Rehm's usual complement of analysts and reporters batted around the implications of the bill, with Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies voicing support and Angela Kelley of the Center of American Progress taking the opposite view. What struck me most about the debate was that Krikorian kept painting scenarios in which a suspect would have been stopped by a peace officer for committing some sort of infraction — say, making an illegal left turn, or making too much noise in public. Thing is, there's nothing in the language of the bill that stipulates any such scenario. There's a provision stating that if an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States is convicted of violating state or local law, that person can be deported. Another provision says that a law enforcement officer doesn't need a warrant to arrest a person who the officer has probable cause to believe has "committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States." But nowhere does it say that probable cause is required for an officer to question someone about his or her legal status. And nowhere does it detail the grounds for reasonable suspicion.

That's a mighty big omission. In essence, it means that a police officer can walk up to anyone who has brown skin and ask to see proof of legal immigration. And since most of us don't carry around our birth certificates, it also means that someone born in this country could ostensibly be detained until such proof is given — someone like me, or my father, or any of my relatives of Puerto Rican descent who happen to find themselves in Arizona. That last observation is born of a certain wry cynicism: I've learned over the years that few non-Latinos make a distinction between Puerto Rican and Guatemalan, or Colombian and Chilean, or any other flavor of Hispanic. Among less-than-observant Americans, we're all lumped into a much-disdained pile called "Mexicans."

Of course, the failure of the federal government to pass legislation that deals with our porous southern border is a contributing factor here. And as long as there's furious resistance to any bill that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, I don't see the situation changing. Even so, Arizona's approach is fatally flawed (and quite possibly unconstitutional) because it makes racial profiling practically a given.

Gov. Brewer has said she'll work to ensure that the police have the proper training to carry out the law. But when asked what other factors might be used to single out an unlawful resident, she answered, "We have to trust our law enforcement."

Sorry, but that's simply not enough. Law enforcement officers are by and large dedicated to their jobs and to protecting the people in their jurisdictions. But they're also subject to the same biases and human failings that plague the rest of mankind; they don't suddenly become immune to those biases and failings when they get their badges.

Just ask any African American who's been pulled over for "driving while black."

She was only *mostly* dead

Today marks my return to the blogosphere (under a new moniker!) after a five-year hiatus. I wish I could say that those five years were a whirlwind of exciting events and experiences ... but a demanding job and near-terminal exhaustion don't really meet the criteria.

It's been fascinating, though, to look back and consider how much has happened since last I blogged. For instance:

1. The U.S. and global economies collapsed in a messy heap, with consequences that are still unfolding.
2. America elected a Democrat to the presidency. Did I mention that he's African American?
3. Congress passed healthcare reform, and President Obama signed the bill into law. Unfortunately, Ted Kennedy didn't live to see the cause to which he dedicated himself come to fruition. Also unfortunately, the bill didn't include a public option.
4. Several states and the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage. Sadly, California voters overturned the state's approval of marriage rights for gays and lesbians by passing Proposition 8.
5. The political mood of the nation became even more rancorous - something I wouldn't have believed was possible. In fact, it's gotten downright menacing.
6. The far-right wing of the GOP took permanent leave of its senses.
7. Apple's iPhone rewrote the "smartphone" rules.
8. Facebook and Twitter ate the Internet.
9. Mother Nature went on a rampage.
10. The New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles went from bad to "hide all the sharp objects in the house" awful. 
11. And apparently scantily clad and promiscuous women are to blame for earthquakes. Glad we got that cleared up.

There's an ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." If these times get any more "interesting," I may have to make a downpayment on a padded cell. I wonder if they make them with Wi-Fi?

Hell Kat

I haven't blogged yet about Katrina - partly because I've been glued to the television, partly because I don't really know what I can add to the discussion. Am I aggrieved by what's happened? Lord, yes. I never dreamed I would see images of hungry, homeless people lined up on sidewalks waiting for (belated) aid to come, while dead bodies lie where they've fallen in the streets, right here in my own country. I'm by turns heartbroken, appalled, depressed and infuriated by our descent into what sometimes looks like a parody of Third World squalor.

But what can I say about these horrors that hasn't been said? Sure, I could excoriate the federal government for its feeble, much-too-little-much-too-late response ... but plenty of people have done that (here, here, and here), and with an eloquence that eludes me at the moment. I could call for FEMA director Michael Brown's head on a pike ... but my hard-charging senator, Barbara Mikulski, has already beaten me to the punch. And I suppose I could add my own observations about how Katrina ripped through the thin veneer of this nation's tolerance for people who are poor, black or both, thus exposing our innate racism and classism ... but there's not much room left on that particular bandwagon, populated as it is by everyone from Ted Kennedy to Kanye West.

Truth is, nothing I say here can ease the crushing losses suffered by the citizens of New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, Slidell, and the now nonexistent Waveland, Miss.

So, like most everyone else, I make my donation to the Red Cross. I listen to the calls for assistance and for investigations into FEMA mismanagement as I box up clothes and household items to send to people who've lost - it defies imagining - everything. I thank whatever higher power may be lurking out there for the abundant good fortune in my life, and I stop kvetching about the comparatively minor annoyances. And I rededicate myself to campaigning and voting for candidates at every level who put justice and compassion ahead of profits.

It doesn't seem like much ... but right now, it's the best I've got.

Screwballs in short skirts

Time, which has evidently run out of important things to write about, features Ann Coulter on the cover of this week's issue. Well, more precisely, Ann Coulter's very long, very thin legs, which take up most of the cover and look alarmingly like tentacles. The perspective of the photo gives her the appearance of being a circus freak. Which, come to think of it, sums her up pretty well.

The cover story itself, oh-so-cleverly titled "Ms. Right," seeks to position Coulter as a symbol of the partisan divisiveness that currently plagues America:

...no one on the right is so iconic, such a totem of this particular moment. Coulter epitomizes the way politics is now discussed on the airwaves, where opinions must come violently fast and cause as much friction as possible. No one, right or left, delivers the required apothegmatic commentary on the world with as much glee or effectiveness as Coulter. It is almost impossible to watch her and not be sluiced into rage or elation, depending on your views. As a congressional staff member 10 years ago, Coulter used to help write the nation's laws. Now she is far more powerful: she helps set the nation's tone.

At the same time, it portrays her as a white burgundy-drinking, Nicorette-scarfing cutie pie who blushes when overheard excoriating liberals in a restaurant and is horribly, horribly misunderstood. Moreover, the article implies that part of the reason people at both ends of the political spectrum are so het up about her is that no one expects to hear such rancorous bilge spewing from the mouth of a pretty blue-eyed blonde who's thin as a drinking straw.

...one is astounded to hear from Coulter something like, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity," as she famously wrote of Muslims who were cheering after the Sept. 11 attacks, not least because Coulter might be shrink-wrapped in a black-leather mini as she says it. The combination of hard-charging righteousness and willowy, sex-kitten pulchritude is vertiginous and—for her many young male fans—intoxicating.

Oh, please.

Coulter is no more appalling than any other conservative blowhard simply because she's female - in truth, she's preceded by any number of viperous women, among them Phyllis Schlafly, Laura Schlessinger, Mary G. Kilbreth, and (as noted in the Time article) Claire Booth Luce.

Nor should her physical attractiveness make her statements more shocking. Why should we be somehow more aggrieved by the deranged rantings of a nutter who looks like Ann Coulter than one who looks like John McLaughlin? A crackpot is a crackpot, no matter what package it comes in. And Coulter is most certainly a crackpot. What else do you call someone who lobs grenades like "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building"? Bertrand Russell, she ain't.

But Coulter's true agenda emerges about halfway through the Time article:

"Most of what I say, I say to amuse myself and amuse my friends. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about anything beyond that."

So will someone please explain to me why we still spend so much time thinking about what she says?

Her continued fame (or, more accurately, infamy) must surely constitute the longest 15 minutes in recorded history.

Rambling thoughts on recent news

Because It Just Doesn't Make Sense, That's Why

To the great joy of all who believe in basic human rights, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled on Monday that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians violates California's Constitution.

Quoth Judge Kramer - who is not only a Republican but also Catholic - "It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners." Amen, Yer Honor.

No rational purpose has ever existed for any form of discrimination against the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community ... but it's certainly nice to hear it from a relatively conservative judge.

The ruling will be appealed. We know that. The issue will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court, where the issue will have to be decided on the merits of the law - not on religion or tradition or whether half the country freaks out at the thought of gay people having the same rights as their own selves.

Until that day comes, however, we celebrate victories wherever we find 'em.

A Case for Living Wills

The tragedy of Terry Schiavo continued, with the Florida legislature and both chambers of Congress rushing last-minute measures to a vote, all in an effort to keep Schiavo's husband from having her feeding tube removed against the wishes of her parents. In a breathtaking example of Congress's penchant for theater of the absurd, House Republicans issued a subpoena for Schiavo to appear before a congressional hearing - a blatant attempt to subvert a court order allowing her feeding tube to be removed.

The Florida judge presiding over the case finally told Congress where to stick their subpoena, and the feeding tube was removed at 1:45 EST this afternoon.

There is no happy ending to this story. None. But it serves as a potent reminder that every adult should make out a living will.

No Guts. No Glory. No Wonder.

My seamhead husband and I spent a couple of hours last night watching C-SPAN's rerun of the congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball. My beloved had never actually sat down to watch C-SPAN - and probably never will again - but for a while there, it was more entertaining than an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

After listening to a pack of obsequious congressmen lob softballs that Mario Mendoza could have jacked, and hearing Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Curt Schilling make statements that ranged from pugnacious to pathetic, we came to a few conclusions:

• Jose Canseco is a clown.
  
• Sammy Sosa looked like he got lost on the way to Camden Yards and somehow wound up in the Rayburn building.
• Sammy also managed to conveniently forget he knows how to speak English.
• Jose Canseco is a clown.
• Raffy Palmeiro is one heck of a handsome man.
  
• Curt Schilling needs to make up his mind whether steroid use in baseball is or isn't a problem, because he contradicted himself half a dozen times.
  
• Jose Canseco is a clown.

But what saddened me most was Mark McGwire's non-testimony. The man who kept us glued to the screen in 1998 as he and Sosa chased Roger Maris was a mere shadow of his former self - and I'm not just talking about the considerable change in his physical appearance (which could be explained by the fact that retired ballplayers don't need to retain all that muscle, couldn't it?).

My respect for McGwire came not only from his talent at the plate, but from the way he conducted himself during that remarkable season - with dignity, humility, and a refusal to feed the rivalry the press kept trying to cook up between him and Sammy. Most of all, I gave him huge props for speaking openly about going through therapy - an admission that most athletes wouldn't make if you held a .45 to their heads. He had integrity, and we loved him for it.

The Mark McGwire I saw at yesterday's hearing was not the Mark McGwire of 1998. This Mark McGwire stammered and stalled, feebly refusing to answer questions about whether he or any player he knew had used steroids. Over and over again, he bleated, "I'm not here to talk about the past." "I'm a retired player." "I can't answer that." "It's not for me to determine." "My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions."

After a couple of hours of that, how can anyone not think that Big Mac was ducking the questions because he was, in fact, juiced while he was playing? That those 70 runs, and the entire magical season, were the result of - let's say the word - cheating. By choosing to all but plead the Fifth, McGwire forever tarnished his legacy as both a great player and a man of integrity. Moreover, as today's Washington Post noted, McGwire's crowning achievement will now be tagged with an "unwritten asterisk."

It's enough to make me wonder whether the notion of the baseball hero has gone the way of the dodo bird. And to thank the gods for Cal Ripken.

Et tu, ESPN?

I know, I know ... I've been a real slacker. But today I actually have time for a drive-by.

My subject of choice, however, is not politics - well, not in the strictest sense, anyway. It's sports. Or, to be more exact, the infuriating preponderance of sports-related websites and magazines that wallow in sexism.

I'm a woman. I'm also a sports fan. Baseball is my passion, but I also enjoy football and basketball. I'm crazy about the Winter Olympics, too. I'll even watch golf on TV. (OK, soccer I'll never get. As my husband says, soccer was no doubt invented by someone whose kid couldn't catch a ball.) And my reaction to today's cancellation of the NHL season was, "Didn't they cancel it months ago?" But for the most part, I love sports.

What I do NOT love is sports websites and magazines that feature swimsuit issues - can anyone explain to me what half-naked models rolling around in the surf have to do with sports? - or slobber all over pulchritudinous female athletes (most notably the young, blonde, utterly-incapable-of-winning-a-tournament Anna Kournikova). I quit on Sports Illustrated's website years ago, out of protest over their swimsuit issues. ESPN.com became my sports site of choice ... until I saw this.

The most maddening part of all is that there really are no other viable alternatives. What kind of business model do you suppose these sites have that encourages overt sexism? Are they trying to alienate female consumers?

My queendom for a sports site that doesn't assume all male fans are horndogs - and that's savvy enough to realize that there are an awful a lot of female fans out here, wallets in hand, waiting for the ESPNs of the world to stop treating us like objects.

A little touch-up and a little paint

Fabulous post today from Annalee Newitz at AlterNet (via blackfeminism.org), about a real jaw-dropper of a ruling from the ostensibly liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The gist of the ruling? It's OK for an employer to fire a female employee for refusing to wear makeup on the job.

As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up. Read the ruling for yourself, here.

Then, as a gesture of solidarity, vow to never again wear makeup to work unless you bloody well feel like it.

What's the life of a woman worth?

In Fort Worth, Texas, apparently, it's 14 years and 6 months less than the life of a man.

Y'know, it's a good thing I've lined my skull with chicken wire so there's less mess when my brain explodes.

And you just know Scott Peterson is thinking, "Drat ... I should've offed Laci in Fort Worth."

The late, great Shirley Chisholm

It occurs to me that in my post-holiday stupor, I (unforgivably) neglected to note the passing of Shirley Chisholm. Anything that can be said about this brave, awe-inspiring, and entirely splendid woman has most likely been said already... but I'll add my two cents.

Ms. Chisholm was a force of nature - spirited, unyielding, groundbreaking. She was outspoken when women and blacks were openly reviled for being so, and she neither suffered fools gladly nor meekly acceded to the limitations others tried to foist upon her. Those limitations came not only from her political enemies, but sometimes from her own adherents:

During her failed presidential bid, Chisholm went to the hospital to visit George Wallace, her rival candidate and ideological opposite, after he had been shot -- an act that appalled her followers.

"He said, 'What are your people going to say?' I said: 'I know what they're going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone.'"

Her Congressional campaign was inspired by her belief that "Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men."

What's shocking is that 36 years later, her description is still accurate.

Shirley Chisholm fought for the underdog - the poor, the underprivileged, women, African Americans. An activist, a rabblerouser, and - as the title of her book aptly noted - "unbought and unbossed," she was, in the words of Shakespeare, an "unruly woman." He didn't mean it as a compliment - but I do.

Once, when asked about her legacy, she said, "I'd like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That's how I'd like to be remembered."

Consider it done.

The Name Game

I went a couple of rounds with my aunt the other day over her insistence on addressing mail to me and my husband as "Mr. and Mrs. HisName." After she sent us a Christmas card thus addressed, I politely asked her to please not do that anymore - and was shocked when she protested. Vociferously.

"No, no, no!" she said. "Why?"

"Because that's not my name, that's why."

"Well, that's just silly. If you're going to be that way, I won't send you any more mail."

I laughed, but wasn't much inclined to back down. "That's fine with me - if you're going to address it that way, I'd just as soon not get it. And anything I do get from you that's addressed to Mr. and Mrs. HisName, I'm sending back!"

Much exasperated huffing. "So what am I supposed to call you?"

"The same thing you've always called me," I replied. "You were at my wedding - you know I didn't change my name."

After some more tussling she finally agreed to honor my request, then said, "But on Christmas cards, you'll still be Mr. and Mrs. HisName." When I loudly objected, she grumbled, "All right, all right!" I think it's entirely likely she was just saying that to shut me up.

I have to admit, I was pretty floored by her reaction. I knew she was somewhat old-fashioned, but this I hadn't expected. For one thing, we've always been very close; it hadn't occurred to me that she would be so dismissive about something that's so important to me. For another, it's not like I asked her to call me Princess Swapneshwari or some out-of-left-field moniker. It's the same name I've had since I was born.

But convenience really isn't the issue. This is about society's enduring expectation that a woman is duty-bound to surrender her name when she marries. I've had variations on this conversation many times over the years, and I'm constantly amazed at the disrespect I'm shown simply because I don't want to be known as an accessory to my husband. The fact that I want to be called by my own name doesn't mean I adore him any less. And for the record, I deeply resent being told I'm "silly" about this subject. There's nothing silly about asking to be treated as an equal, even if it's on the front of an envelope.

I don't know, maybe I'm the proverbial salmon swimming upstream here. But it's maddening to find that, more than 30 years after the women's movement crashed through barriers, the decision to get hitched still relegates us to a bizarre sort of anonymity. It's as though we cease to exist as individuals the day we take our marriage vows - and so, stripped of our names and identities, we're ultimately reduced to one word:

"Mrs."

I just can't wrap my brain around it

More than 150,000 dead in South Asia, with disease expected to claim thousands more. Children torn from their families ... sisters in search of missing brothers ... lives shattered, entire towns flattened...

And here I sit, in a comfortable chair in a comfortable house, in a nice, comfortable neighborhood.

Am I crazy to feel guilty?

Crawling out of the muck and mire of crass commercialism

OK, so I've been a terrible slacker these last few weeks. The annual holiday morass of shopping, wrapping, and eating (not to mention weeks of crushing boredom at work) has left me so utterly drained of energy and wit that I haven't been able to string together more than a sentence or two at a time. Blar.

But there's nothing like an international disaster to shake me free of my lethargy. The death toll continues to rise in the wake of the horrific devastation wrought by tsunamis in the coastal areas of south Asia - official counts have reached 52,000 and are still climbing. And that doesn't even include the casualities that are sure to follow from disease and starvation.

Meanwhile, our good friend Sheelzebub observed earlier today that the U.S. has pledged a paltry $15 million in aid to the battered region.

Interestingly, the Washington Post now reports that USAID is preparing to increase its aid efforts by another $20 million. Guilt is a wonderful thing, eh? Still, it's a drop in the bucket coming from the wealthiest country on the planet. Then again, what else should we expect from an administration whose raison d'etre is to line the pockets of the uber-rich? As Sheelzebub points out, "Between the invasion of Iraq, the "war" on terror, and tax cuts for the super-wealthy, we're just strapped."

For those who'd rather not wait for the government to get off the proverbial dime and pony up more funds, there are plenty of organizations lining up to offer assistance; check out this list. All of them are eminently worthy, but I'll put in my own personal plug for Oxfam.

I can't help reflecting on the irony that at the very moment so many of us were wallowing in wretched excess, tens of thousands were being stripped of their homes, their livelihoods, and even their lives. If God exists, s/he has a viciously perverse sense of humor.

So what if the country's going to Hell in a handcart? At least my hair looks good!

Coming back from lunch today, I got in the elevator with two older men. One asked the other, "Are you over the election yet?"

"Not really," came the reply. "It's been rough."

"Well," said the first, as he exited the elevator, "the holidays will help. Have a good Christmas."

The doors closed and the second man, who looked to be in his late sixties, asked, "How are you today?"

I smiled and said, "I haven't gotten over the election, either."

To which he replied - and I swear I am not making this up - "Well, you look great. I love the way you've done your hair."

Now why didn't someone tell me this before? Here we liberals have been lying awake nights, grappling with the aftermath of the election and its implications for our future - but hey, it's all right, kids, because I have great hair!

I realize that this man was making banal elevator conversation for two floors. And I realize, too, that he's of a different generation. But what does it say when a woman offers a political opinion, and the response she gets is, "Well, you look great"?

It says that, reflexively, her mind is valued far less than her appearance. It says, "No one cares what you think, little girl - just shut up and look pretty."

It says that in 2004, in the United States of America - land of the free and home of the brave, or so they tell me - women still don't get taken seriously.

Abstaining from good sense

Thinking people have long understood that abstinence-only sex education (and I use the term "education" lightly here) is a farce. Telling teenagers to abstain from sex has never worked. God's own self could come down from the stratosphere and threaten teens with eternal hellfire unless they keep their paws off each other - and huge numbers of them would still do the horizontal mambo. Call it nature, call it the urge to merge, call it whatever you like... but thus has it e'er been, and thus shall it e'er remain. Meanwhile, scientific analysis has found no conclusive evidence that abstinence-only education is effective.

This reality, of course, hasn't deterred the "moralists" in the White House, who could never be accused of letting the facts get in their way. They and their upright, uptight cronies have stormed our schools with their "just say no to sex" blitzkrieg, and have nearly $170 million earmarked in next year's budget for abstinence programs.

A new congressional staff analysis gives a boost to sex-ed programs that offer comprehensive info about everything from abstinence to zygotes. Out of 13 abstinence-only curricula examined, the report concludes that 11 give teenagers misleading or downright false information - including these howlers:

• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
• Women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and as many as 10 percent of them become sterile.

So not only aren't kids getting the full range of information about sex, the information they are getting is ... hmm, what's the word? Oh, yeah: wrong.

The White House says it's trying to prevent abortions and HIV infection. But if that's what it really wanted, it would make sure kids have every available piece of scientific information about safe sex at their disposal. And it also might pay some attention to issues like poverty, self-esteem, and abuse - factors that contribute enormously to unwanted pregnancies and HIV infection.

But to this administration, information is the enemy. And the next generation is going to pay dearly for that willful ignorance.

The boys and the banned

This is old news, but I'm still steamed about it.

U.S. "ally" Saudi Arabia is preparing to hold its first nationwide elections early next year in a vote for municipal councils. In a country that was heretofore unencumbered by anything resembling democratic rule, these elections are considered a huge step forward.

Unless, that is, you were born with ovaries.

The Saudi government has hung a "men only" sign on the ballot boxes. Not only can women not run for office, they can't vote, either. And just to pour salt in the wound, prisoners (unlike in the U.S.) will be allowed to vote in the Saudi elections - provided, of course, that they're male. In other words, Saudi women have less of a voice in their government than criminals.

Which shouldn't amaze us, I suppose. Heck, I still marvel that these theocracies haven't made it illegal to have breasts.

Amnesty International points out that this discrimination is not explicit in Saudi Arabian law:

Saudi Arabia's electoral law is clear about women's participation. The law uses the word "citizen" -- in Arabic, this refers to both men and women in indicating those eligible to vote. Despite this, Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz announced last month that women would not be allowed to take part in the elections, saying "I don't think that women's participation is possible."

Nonsense; of course it's "possible." It would take some work, but it's possible.

Unfortunately, it would also require your country to view women as people and not property.

Especially depressing is the way Saudi women seem to aid and abet their oppressors. For instance, one of the reasons cited for the "impossibility" of allowing women to vote is that many of them don't have the photo ID cards required of all voters. And the reason they don't have them, according to CNN, is that many women "have balked at getting the ID cards -- introduced three years ago -- because the photographs would show their faces unveiled."

Democratic reform comes slowly to the oppressed ... but it always seems to come more slowly to women than to anyone else - and even more slowly to those who oppress themselves.

Oh, one more thing: foreign observers will not be permitted.

But hey, what are a few human rights violations between friends, right?

Feminist bloggers jailed in Iran

Via Pinko Feminist Hellcat, news of an Iranian government purge of human rights activists and progressive bloggers - including a pair of feminist bloggers:

Ampersand has a heads up about Iranian feminist and human rights bloggers being jailed. (He got it from Oxblog). The World Movement for Democracy put out the word, and I will print their post here below. Please write a polite letter of protest and concern to the officials listed below to support human rights, women's rights, and your fellow bloggers.

I'm also including the post from The World Movement for Democracy below, and encourage anyone who reads this to write a polite letter to the officials listed. "Polite" is the key here - this is one of those instances where venting your spleen might make you feel better, but it won't help the people who've been imprisoned. Years of writing letters as a member of Amnesty International taught me that however much you want to throw a grenade into their foxhole, polite is the only thing that has a positive effect on repressive governments.

Please, write. For American bloggers sitting comfortably at home in our bathrobes and fuzzy slippers, getting thrown in jail for posting our opinions on the "Internets" is unthinkable. But in countries where free speech is neither a right nor a privilege, expressing your opinion in a public forum is an act of real courage. The blogosphere is a truly global community, and these women are an important part of it. Let's support them.

The World Movement for Democracy would like to express its concern for the safety of two Iranian women leaders, Fereshteh Ghazi, an online journalist, and Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, editor of a women's rights journal "Farzaneh." According to the Women's Learning Partnership, Abbasgholizadeh has contributed to the strengthening of Iranian civil society by conducting capacity building programs as Director of the NGO Training Center in Tehran, and was arrested at her home on November 2, 2004. Ghazi has used her skills to create an increased awareness of the status of women in Iran using the Internet, and was arrested in her office on October 28, 2004. Both women have been denied the right to legal counsel. Over the past two months, a string of Internet writers and civil society activists have been arrested for "propaganda against the regime, endangering national security, inciting public unrest, and insulting sacred belief," according to Jamal Karimi Rad, the judiciary's spokesman.

Amnesty International reports that Ghazi and Abbasgholizadeh are among 25 internet journalists and civil society activists that have been arbitrarily arrested in recent weeks. The Women's Learning Partnership, a World Movement participating organization, has been contacted by colleagues in Iran asking them to help bring attention to the plight of civil society activists in Iran.

Suggested Action: To demand the immediate release of Fereshteh Ghazi and Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh and express your concern for the rise in human rights violations in Iran, please write to President Hojjatoleslam Sayed Mohammad Khatemi, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the President of the European Parliament, and the Iranian embassy in your country:

His Excellency Hojjatoleslam Sayed Mohammad Khatemi
The Presidency Office
Pasteur Avenue
Tehran 13167-43311, Islamic Republic of Iran
E-mail: Khatami@president.ir

Her Excellency Louise Arbour
High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: + 41 22 917 9022
E-mail: tb-petitions@ohchr.org

His Excellency Josep Borrell Fontelles
President of the European Parliament
Division for Correspondence with Citizens

Iranian Embassies

Additional Information:

Women's Learning Partnership: "Alert: Condemn the Iranian Government's Crackdown on Civil Society and Women's Rights Organizations"

Human Rights Watch: "Iran: Web Writers Purge Underway"

Amnesty International:"Iran: Civil society activists and human rights defenders under attack"

Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML): "Iran: Call for the unconditional release of Mahboobeh Abbasgholizadeh"

She-blog

There's a perception out there in the blogosphere that women aren't blogging - or that they're only blogging about family and personal stuff.

Typical.

What, you think we don't have anything political to say? Or that we're too shy/modest/afraid/busy getting our nails done to say it?

Check out Feminist Blogs, which syndicates - take a guess - feminist blogs (yours truly included) and several that are feminist-friendly. (If you have a blog that fits those criteria, join up - it's free). There's a wealth of smart, incisive, and often funny must-read stuff to be found there.

Mad props to Rad Geek for starting it, and a big shout-out to the hell-raisers who populate it.

More proof feminism hasn't outlived its usefulness

I have two smart, talented, wonderful stepdaughters, one of whom is a first-year medical student (the other is finishing her master's in voice pedagogy - and they both impress the heck out of me). It seems there have been some problems between the first-year (M1) and the second-year (M2) women this semester; according to the M2s, the M1s dress and behave "like sluts" and - get this - are a distraction to the M2 men, who've been acting like drunken frat boys around them. The M2 men support this assessment by blaming their behavior on the M1 women's style of dress.

So how does the school respond to this fracas? By calling a meeting of the M1 and M2 women, wherein one of the female instructors tells them they all need to behave more professionally - at which point one of the M1 women asks why the men aren't having this meeting, too. The answer: Because the women are held to a "higher standard." Because they won't be respected in the "real world" unless they behave more professionally than the men, so they're going to have to straighten up and fly right or risk career consequences down the line.

(My stepdaughter relayed this info to me over a family breakfast at Cracker Barrel. When she got to the "higher standard" part, my husband started snatching sharp objects off the table and placing them out of my reach.)

Aside from the patronizing aspect of the entire exercise, the thing that made my brain spontaneously combust is the way the school is propping up the male-centric paradigm. Heaven forbid we show the male med students and doctors that we have a zero tolerance policy for sexist behavior! Instead, let's tell the women to button up - wear oversized clothes if you have to! - so the guys won't be distracted.

Seriously?

And this came on the heels of an article in BusinessWeek about a report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) - a report that shows the gender gap is still as wide as the Grand Canyon:

Given current rates of change, it will be 50 years before women achieve equal pay with men and nearly 100 years before they gain equal representation in Congress, estimates the think tank on issues affecting women. Currently, females earn 76 cents for every dollar males earn (up from 73 cents in 2002) and have only 79 representatives in Congress out of a total of 535 seats, despite representing slightly more than half of the U.S. population. [Emphasis added.]

If you're wondering why things don't seem to have improved for women all that much, allow me to direct you to Exhibit A: the aforementioned med school meeting. On the surface, it might seem that those M1 and M2 women were being offered practical advice on how to succeed in a male-dominated field - advice from women who've been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Seems reasonable, right?

Um, no. It's twaddle.

It's also feminism's version of Uncle Tommery - "go along to get along" and similar flavors of tripe. The truth is that as long as women buy into the notion that their behavior needs to be modified in order to keep men in line, things will never improve. As long as they believe that their professional success hinges on making themselves less enticing to men - read: less female - they will never be considered equal to men, and the paradigm will never shift.

Of course, some will argue that women aren't considered equals anyway, whether they behave like men or not. After all, hasn't the problem always been that when women behave like, well, women, they're not taken seriously? Indeed, that's been true in many respects. But what's also true is that we've spent years defeminizing ourselves in order to move up the business ladder, and what has it gotten us? What good does it do to redesign our femaleness so we can fit into the male business mold? What do we gain by unsexing ourselves?

Enough already. Time to stop accepting the way things are as the way they're always going to be. And it's way past time to stop ceding the business field to the guys. They don't get a free pass just for having a penis and a Y chromosome - and if they can't keep their inner horndogs in check, that's their problem. Once and for all, it's not our responsibility, no matter how much they try to tell us it is.

Because this isn't about sex; it's about power. It's about who dictates the rules of engagement. And the minute we agree to play by men's rules, we've lost.

Yasser Arafat is dead. Now what?

Yasser Arafat, who died on Thursday, was buried this morning in the ruined Ramallah compound to which he was confined for the last three years. Palestinians are in mourning; the rest of the world is wondering what happens now.

Steven Erlanger has an excellent analysis in today's New York Times about Arafat's passing, in which he observes:

His death early Thursday morning presents an enormous set of challenges to his own people, to the Israelis, to a re-elected American president and to the world at large.

It is a test, first of all, for the Palestinians themselves, to move from a revolutionary ethos of victimhood and military confrontation with Israel to a more responsible and legitimate government, able to care for its people and to negotiate for them.

It is a test for Israel and its prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to move beyond the dismissive response that there is "no negotiating partner" and to work to help the emerging Palestinian leadership consolidate and maintain authority and control.

All of that is true. But let's also remember that Arafat didn't dictate Palestinian ideology so much as reflect it. Although new PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas had issues with Arafat's refusal to loosen his grip on power, causing Abbas to resign as the Palestinian Authority's prime minister after only four months, there's still no guarantee that Sharon will find Abbas any more compliant a "negotiating partner" than Arafat was. And Sharon has internal battles to fight, which puts his own negotiating partner status in question.

No wisdom to offer here, I'm afraid. Just a fervent wish that Arafat's death might be a step toward renewed peace negotiations, and not another step further back into the abyss of violence and horror these last few years have wrought.

Smile - or else

Sheelzebub, on her excellent blog, links to a fascinating discussion on Hugo Schwyzer's blog about how some men perceive themselves as being judged guilty by women before having a chance to prove themselves otherwise. As Sheelzebub notes, the conversation turns to how women respond to being told to smile by men.

This comment from Moontyger in the original discussion is spot on:

I think what most bothered me about the original post (and being told to smile by strangers) is the whole idea that it is all about *them*. Why am I obligated to notice and react to strangers? Why should they take my not noticing them as a personal insult? It just seems really self-centered to me to assume that 1) a woman not smiling at you has something to do with her perception of you and 2) to assume you have the right to tell her to smile because somehow women owe it to men to be pleasant.

Exactly. Sheelzebub also sums it up nicely:

Women are not obligated to date you, smile at you, or talk to you. Only creeps believe otherwise.

I share both Moontyger's and Sheelzebub's attitude on this. I've often had perfect strangers bark at me, "Smile!" (usually followed by claptrap like "You're too pretty not to smile") - to which my response has generally been, "Sod off."

And that attitude comes from my irritation with the assumption that I owe some strange man anything whatsoever. It's astonishing to me what some men assume they have a right to do. When I was in college in Manhattan, I was walking back to my dormitory early one evening when I saw two men on the sidewalk, about the same age as me or a little older. As I passed them, one reached out - lightning fast - and grabbed between my legs, then laughed and continued on his way.

I was so shocked, so stunned, I stood speechless for a moment, before recovering my wits and hurling curses at the back of his retreating head. In retrospect, I wish I'd hurled a heavy object instead.

In what perverse, screwed up universe does a man think that kind of violation is his right?